#peggy brandt | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

amarriageoftrueminds · 2 months

Text

How long did Steve actually know Peggy?

(with pictures!)

[ post with just the images here ]

Short Answer:

626 days total / 20 months, 15 days, and only spoke on 8 separate days.

Long Answer:

Steve got his last 4F / first 1A on 14th of June, 1943.

When Steve arrived at Camp Lehigh, Peggy introduced herself and the SSR.

Directly afterwards, Col. Phillips introduced himself and explained that they would be there for a week only before choosing someone to be given serum:

If they had any common sense, they would’ve said Steve was at Basic Training for a while before being drafted into Project Rebirth.

This being Marvel, however...

[ full 7K meta under cut ]

What If...?, Marvel’s Instagram, and Marvel Studios' The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline book gave the ‘official’ date of Steve’s serum as June 22, 1943.

This means:

Steve was enlisted June 14th 1943,

shipped out to Camp Lehigh June 15th 1943,

was there for just a week (til June 21st 1943),

Had a conversation with Erskine about why he was chosen on evening of June 21st.

and was back in Brooklyn and receiving serum on June 22nd 1943.

Poor lad barely had any time to pack and unpack! 😲

Sidenote:

The first date shown in the movie is March 1942:

When Red Skull acquired the Tesseract.

This implies (but does not conclusively prove) that Dr Erskine must have been captured by the Allies before March 1942, because:

when he has his conversation with Steve, he merely said Red Skull believed “that there is a great power hidden in the earth, left here by the gods.” IE. he wasn’t aware that Red Skull had successfully seized that power (the Tesseract).

Stark is flummoxed by Tesseract-related tech when he sees it, which he surely wouldn’t be if Erskine had known about Red Skull having the Tesseract because Erskine could’ve just told him.

Anyway, back to the present and Steve was already in the local newspapers by Wednesday, 23rd June 1943:

Anyway, he and Peggy only spoke for 1-2 days during that time: June 22nd, the day he received serum, and (what was probably) June 23rd, the day after.

IMO it seems like it’s just the day after because:

everyone who was at the blown-up Brooklyn base is there 👆 (wherever ‘there’ is) as if no time has passed at all...

...but we know that time must have passed, because Senator Brandt shows Steve a paper dated the 23rd [see above.] 👆 So enough time has passed for the newspapers to hear about Steve, for a journalist to write about it, print it, and for the Senator to get a hold of a copy.

Enough time has passed for the SSR to get the saboteur’s Hydra sub out of the water at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in order for Howard Stark to be flummoxed by it, as he is in this scene. (And he is still in the pit with it; he hasn’t had long enough to look at it already. Ergo, not much time has passed.)

You could say that it’s a later date, and Brandt just happens to have a newspaper from the 23rd. Except...

...Phillips mentions having talked to the president that morning... which makes more sense as something he would do immediately after the whole Hydra-saboteur bomb kerfuffle, not later. That’s not a phone call he could put off for days. That’s a call you make straight away.

Although that doesn’t automatically mean that that-morning’s phone call is the first or only phone call Phillips has made to the President, since the Hydra-saboteur-kerfuffle, meaning this could be a date later than June 23rd.

But the fact that:

everyone who was at the bomb site is still there,

Howard is still in the pit looking at the Hydra sub and admitting he’s clueless about it, as if that is new information he’s announcing,

they’re taking Steve’s blood, also not something to delay on,

and Brandt is asking basic questions about Hydra. If more than a day had passed, he would already know the answers to these questions, even if he had been distracted by the Press.

Suggesting it is very soon after.

The lack of delay in Phillips’s actions also supports this idea. Earlier on in the movie he moaned to Erskine about having had to talk to senators multiple times before he could get the ball rolling on Project Rebirth. But now he’s cheerful and decisive. Which to me suggests he’s had one decisive phone call with the President, where they exchanged all the information they needed, and that’s it. (He doesn’t say “I spoke to the President again this morning,” for example.)

Brandt asks Phillips what he’s going to do about Hydra. Phillips smirks and answers that the SSR is being re-tasked to go after them. As if he anticipated the question and got the President to sign off on that just prior; close enough to this moment that Phillips is only acting on those orders just now.

"This morning" implies that this scene is taking place later on in the day of June 23rd 1943; after the morning, so that Phillips isn’t saying he called the president just now, for example.

There’s strong sunlight coming in from the window behind Steve 👆, so I’d say we can place this scene at afternoon, June 23rd.

And we can infer that it isn’t evening yet, because Phillips refers to flying out “tonight,” as if if the night of June 23rd has not yet arrived.

(Another maddening possibility: it’s all happening on the same day, a day that Phillips just happened to have spoken to the President on the phone in the morning already, but either the prop makers got the date wrong on the newspaper or the official Marvel instagram got the date of Steve’s serum wrong. 🤦‍♀️)

So, timeline:

June 22nd, 1943: serum, bomb/saboteur, Erskine’s death.

(possibly but not definitively) June 23rd, 1943: morning, newspapers reporting on Steve are printed (Senator Brandt sees them), the Hydra sub is shipped to dry dock for Howard to look at, and the President tells Phillips via the phone that the SSR is being retasked “as of today.”

afternoon, Steve has his blood drawn, Phillips relays the President’s orders to him, Brandt, Peggy and Stark. Steve objects. Brandt recruits Steve for the USO.

night, Phillips, Peggy and Howard fly out.

Unless it’s all the same day, in which case the events go:

June 22nd or 23rd:

morning, Phillips talks to the President who officially re-tasks the SSR, Steve gets serum, blown up, Erskine killed.

afternoon, the Hydra sub put in dry dock for Howard to examine, newspapers rushed out an edition about Steve, Brandt recruited Steve for the USO using said paper.

night, Peggy, Phillips and Howard flew out to London.

So Peggy was flown out to London that night, being (probably but not conclusively) the night of either June 22nd or June 23rd, 1943.

And then Steve was on tour with the USO for 4 months (from July 1943).

Probably starting mid/late July / early August, to give them enough time to find 20+ chorus girls, create and fit costumes, build sets, book venues, choreograph and plan a show, and do some rehearsals... though apparently not enough for Steve to have learned his lines. 🤦‍♀️

During this period, as the USO shows grow ever more elaborate (up to 40 showgirls, bigger sets, a fake Hitler, a military band, and harley davidson motorcycles) Steve also films multiple propaganda reels, signs autographs, takes photos with the public (and Senator Brandt), appears in his own comics, sneaks into the cinema to watch himself on screen, and travels to Buffalo, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York! 😵

Senator Brandt’s smooth patter in recruiting Steve for the USO, how he acts during it, and the fact that there was a cameraman there to take photos of Steve just before he got serum, to me suggests that Brandt was planning to do this USO show with whoever the serum worked on.

So it’s possible a lot of the show logistics and planning were already underway before Steve was even chosen for serum. That would mean the USO show kicked off much sooner after Steve got serum (which might account for why he’s so nervous on stage...)

And it would explain how they were able to cram so much activity into four short months.

Meanwhile, in October 1943, in Azzano, Italy...

And then Steve goes to Italy, five miles from the front

on the 3rd of November, 1943:

We can see that Steve and Peggy were not in contact in between these times / while he was on USO Tour, because:

no reference to any such contact is ever shown or implied (and Kevin Feige said Steve was sleeping with someone else while on tour).

Steve looks surprised to see her when she shows up. He hasn’t invited her to come -- which he could, by letter -- and asks her what she’s doing there.

She’s cagey about why she’s there/what she’s been up to; so she’s not someone who even can carry on a correspondence, given the classified nature of her work.

If they had somehow been corresponding anyway, she would already have told Steve by now that she can’t talk about her being there/why. So he wouldn’t need to ask.

As well as Steve not knowing basic things about her, she also still doesn’t know basic things about Steve, that a casual correspondent of four months would know by now [see below].

We know the rescue of the 107 was on the night of November 3rd, 1943.

Because Phillips cites that date when he’s typing up Steve’s official KIA letter:

The sequence before Steve’s rescue of the 107 also implies that Bucky et al were only captured very recently at Azzano, because:

the rest of the 107 are still there (haven’t been deployed elsewhere),

wounded are still being brought in,

Col. Phillips is still engaged in writing up condolence letters about the lost soldiers when Steve barges into his tent.

(Why is the head of the SSR in Italy, writing condolence letters about the 107 when he specifically said he and his agents were flying out to London, where his HQ is? Here’s a clue from wikipedia: “Alsos personnel followed close behind the front lines in Italy, France, and Germany, occasionally crossing into enemy-held territory to secure valuable resources before they could be destroyed or scientists escape or fall into rival hands.”

However, those personnel would not include the head honcho (Phillips), the entire Army’s number one weapons contractor (Stark), or a desk jockey whose opinion is neither sought nor valued (Peggy).

And the rest of the movie shows them back in London (and therefore not featuring in field footage of the Commandos), while Steve & Co. destroy Hydra weapons factories (not sweep them for intell.)

And they stay in London, until the entire army hits a very important base at the very end of the movie. And even then, Stark isn’t shown attending!

So maybe he was just in Italy for the chorus girls...? 🤷‍♀️

Steve and the Howlies had to have to covered 35 miles as the crow flies (30 miles behind enemy lines + 5 miles to the Army base), with wounded soldiers, and through what Phillips describes as “some of the most heavily fortified territory in Europe” which was also mountainous. They would’ve had to seek a flat route to get the jeeps through. And this with no resources -- like food, medicine, specialised clothing, etc.

Covering 5 miles a day under those extremely difficult and dangerous circumstances, it takes them a week to get back to Camp.

(Sidenote, I looked up a modern estimate of hikers on the Swiss Alps, and it said they’d traverse a 105 mile trail over 7-10 days. Viz. potentially 10.5 miles a day!)

Making the day of Steve’s return 👆 at least, November 10th, 1943.

Marvel Studios' The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline confirms this:

Afterwards, it seems they went straight to London.

(No contact with Peggy in transit is shown or implied).

Sidenote: although no other locations and no other interaction is shown in November, between the 107 returning and Steve being in London, it seems as if some time has passed.

And once again, we can tell that because of Senator Brandt and newspapers.

There has been enough time for more than one newspaper (The Daily Mail, and Stars and Stripes), to publish stories about Steve. 👆

For Senator Brandt to announce that he’ll be giving Steve a medal for valour, and for that news to have travelled back to the UK.

And, at the very least, enough time has elapsed since the 10th of November for the Senator to believe that Steve could feasibly travel back to America in time to receive his medal in person.

(Which he declines to do. LOLOL.)

So, say:

11th: newspapers report (Steve & Co travelling back to London).

12th: news reaches America / Brandt decides / announces the medal.

13th: Brandt expecting Steve to fly from Europe to America (which would’ve taken over 17 hours, then.) Doesn’t necessarily have to be the very next day, but based on past behaviour Brandt expects action to be taken the very same day as the press reporting on Steve! So...

14th: for the actual medal ceremony? (so that Steve isn’t travelling for 17 hours and then immediately appearing in public) Which seems like it’s happening simultaneously with Steve being in London; I don’t think he’d delay on relating his intell about Hydra.

(And that last day would also account for how the news has travelled back to the UK from the US in order to appear in The Daily Mail.)

We know that this day Steve is in London is supposed to be the day he’s receiving his medal, in person, because of this CATFA deleted scene:

So IMO we’re looking at this date being 14th November, 1943 at a very strict minimum.

NB: All this pre-supposes that it takes 4 days to move the Howlies from the Continent back to London, which it feasibly might if they had Stark and his plane, still in Italy. Stark’s deleted-scene surprise at seeing Steve in London suggests either he was not the pilot / his was not the plane responsible for flying Steve to London, or that he was / his was the plane but he expected Steve to move straight on back to the US. We know the SSR had at least one plane in the US Army base in Italy, because someone was flying multiple reconnaissance flights, trying to spot the 107 -- the last of which returned Nov 10th.

In London, Steve and Peggy are shown talking on 2 separate days, total:

1) In the London HQ, relaying the intell about Hydra weapons-parts factories, gathered from the Krausberg weapons-parts factory and from Bucky, when Steve tells Phillips he has got his own team together.

And in the pub, on the evening of that same night, when Steve goes to Assemble the Howling Commandos for the first time.

(No time passing between these conversations is implied or stated, not via montage or any other means. It’s a straight cut. And assembling his team is not something Steve could delay on, after telling his CO he already had one. In fact it’s kinda nuts Steve didn’t think to do this before telling Phillips he had a team already. What would he have done if they’d just said no?? 😂)

2) in the London HQ, the morning of the day after (8am) when Peggy shoots at him.

(Won’t dignify either of those scenes with triggery screencaps!)

So Steve and the Howlies are officially a team from let’s say 14th November, 1943.

(We know there must’ve been a bit of a time delay before the Howlies were deployed, to give Stark time to build Steve the version of the Cap suit he requested -- since Bucky was the one who suggested him keeping it, I’ll bet Bucky had some input on that -- as well as supplying him with those Harley Davidsons WLA ‘Liberators.’

Could be the Howlies weren’t out on the Continent, kickin’ Nazi ass, ‘til December ‘43 or January '44.)

For the next 15.5 months there is no direct contact shown between Steve and Peggy, while Steve is on the continent and she is in London.

At first glance it looks like we can deduce roughly the dates of when Bucky died and Steve returned to London.

Because after capturing him Phillips tells Zola he sent a telegram about him*

*a prop which is not shown directly on screen

...on the morning of February 3rd, 1945:

Soon followed by a tight 24-hour turnaround for them to go and attack the Valkyrie base in Austria, which we know from this 👇 piece of dialogue between Col. Phillips and Gabe Jones:

But.

We don’t know:

1) that the date on the telegram is accurate. This prop is not directly shown in the movie. And, in the scene, Phillips hints at this telegram being intercepted by Hydra and this being bad news for Zola (because it says he is working for SSR. The Foreshadowing is INSANE). So Phillips might have lied on that telegram -- back-dated it to make it look to Schmidt like Zola had betrayed him and been working for the SSR since before the Howlies ‘captured’ him. Making the day of his interrogation... later than the Feb 3rd on the telegram.

2) that Zola Therefore told Phillips ‘you have 24 hours’ on February 3rd. The telegram date could be false. Even if it wasn’t, Zola could’ve said this to Phillips on a subsequent day. He could’ve just told him when the date Red Skull was planning to do something was, and not necessarily 24 hours before that date.

Meaning we can’t tell by the telegram what date the HQ briefing about the Valkyrie mission, and therefore what date the Valkyrie mission (and Steve’s ‘death’) is, for certain. You could interpret it either way.

Steve might have ‘died’ on February 4th, 1945 or on some other date in February / early March, so long as it was 24 hours after Zola told Phillips he only had 24 hours to act, whenever that was. 😵

However, together, Agents of Shield 2.01: Shadows, and Marvel Studios' The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline tie in book, put Steve’s only possible death date as:

Thursday, the 1st of March, 1945.

(Since Morita and Dum-dum capture Werner Reinhardt on 2nd of March, 1945, and Reinhardt remarks that Red Skull is dead. That leaves the 1st as physically the only date in March, before this point, that the Valkyrie mission could possibly have been.)

And we know (from CATWS canon) that Steve’s death was only reported (as a disappearance) on

Monday, 5th March, 1945:

So I think we can definitively say that MCU intends for Steve to have ‘died’ on Thursday, 1st March, 1945. 😥

And the KGB opened a file on Bucky on Friday the 23rd of March, 1945.

It is not categorically stated that the mission where Bucky ‘died’ happened immediately before these late-February scenes in London.👆

He could, theoretically, have died in late 1944, as his exhibit in the Smithsonian in CATWS claims:

However, that exhibit makes multiple other errors...

(Such as: listing two different dates of birth on the same display, saying Bucky enlisted shortly after Pearl Harbour (when nothing in CATFA shows this), and his dog-tag number suggests he was instead drafted; saying he shipped out to Italy and was captured ‘that fall’ of 1942, when that year was definitely shown as 1943, and the Marvel Timeline tie-in book also shows Azzano as happening in October ‘43, etc.)

...So I think we can safely rule this out 👆 as a prop-maker’s mistake!

Plus, Steve’s grief in the pub feels very raw, very immediate, which to me suggest a very-recent bereavement, not something he’s had a couple weeks or months to weep over already. Steve’s a pretty stoic guy.

The only canon suggestion of time passing between Bucky’s ‘death’ and the pub scene is Steve having already had a chance to get back to London and write a report about it, in order to mention said report to Peggy and feasibly expect her to have read it.

As a soldier with a CO to answer to, that report is not something Steve could not delay on delivering. If Steve drinking in the pub is afternoon/evening, say this was the day he delivered his report (probably in the morning, this being the military).

That’s enough time to reasonably expect Peggy to have read the report, and for Steve to be drinking after delivering it, but still neatly groomed in his immaculate uniform, having just gone off-duty (not, eg. dressed down as if this is another, later day, a day off).

On the surface of it, it looks like we can’t say for certain that Steve’s drinking day is the day before Phillips interrogates Zola. Because it’s framed as if the stoicism he exhibits at the end of that sequence is the signal that he is now galvanised to act ASAP, ie. the very next day. One scene leading to / causing another.

Bucky’s ‘death’ date might have been any number of days before.

Except for one thing: Zola is a hugely valuable acquisition.

I don’t think Steve et al would’ve captured and brought Zola back to London, at extraordinary personal cost, only for Phillips to waste days before interrogating him. I think Phillips would’ve been in to interrogate Zola immediately.

That to me is the closest to ‘proof’ that Steve is back in London, delivering his report and then drinking in the pub, either on or as close to the day of Zola’s interrogation as physically possible.

(IMO this can’t all be happening on the same day. I don’t think Steve is the kind of guy to deliver a report in the morning, go off and try to get shit-faced while still on duty / in uniform, and then go back to HQ for mission-briefing, with a risk of still being inebriated. Not under normal circumstances, let alone when the mission is so important! Steve appears to know already that he can’t get drunk... but that doesn’t stop him from trying. I don’t think he’d do that if he knew he was expected back to plan the very-personally-important Bucky avenging mission on the same day. CATFA writers may disagree and say this all happened on the same day, but that idea’s kinda wild to me!)

So when was that interrogation date?

I think we can deduce that it also must’ve been as-close-as-possible to the Valkyrie mission briefing date.

The fact that Gabe is asking how long they have means that that intell was fresh information to the Howlies on the HQ mission briefing date (which was 28th of February = 24 hours before 1st March.)

Now, if Phillips knew about 1st March being significant in advance of 28th February:

it would be incredibly stupid of him to not tell anyone until only 24 hours before.

he would’ve told the Howlies already / Gabe wouldn’t need to ask.

But if Zola only revealed the date of the Valkyrie Mission Day very close to the mission briefing date... that would explain why Phillips didn’t mention it sooner. Another point: A lot of what Phillips says in the mission briefing sounds like a summary and continuation of what we see Zola telling him in the interrogation scene. As if there has been no further interrogation / no more intell to relate since that interrogation, a point in favour of it being the only time he has interrogated Zola (meaning it must be happening on 27th of February).

This scene comes before Steve is shown drinking, alone. (Implying Steve is drinking in the later pm, since it’s dinner time for Zola, just before.)

Assuming Phillips’ telegram about Zola is false (which is neater, and it being a lie is mentioned in the scene, and although we have the prop the prop is not directly shown on-screen in the movie).

Sunday, 25th February. Bucky probably 'died?’

Monday, 26th February. Howlies flying back to London, with Zola?? And since Phillips wouldn’t wait days to deal with Zola:

Tuesday, 27th of February. Morning, Steve delivers his report. Phillips reads the report, and sends a falsely-dated telegram about Zola to Washington via SHAEF HQ. Evening, Phillips interrogates Zola, tells him about the telegram, and Zola tells him about 1st March / Valkyrie Day. (This is during ‘dinner’ time.) Steve goes drinking, alone.

Wednesday, 28th February 1945, Valkyrie Mission briefing.

Thursday, 1st March 1945, Valkyrie Mission day.

NB: This pre-supposes that it only takes a day to move from the Continent back to London, which it would if they had a plane like Stark’s ready to pick them up any time -- which they well might, given how important it is to get Zola back to London, and get the Howlies out to take down the Valkyrie base.

If they didn’t have such a plane, of course, it would take them longer. However, nothing in the movie (such as, eg. a travel-montage) does show it taking longer. It seems to imply a very short timeline.

Sidenote:

Steve never does anything Peggy says or does, always does the exact opposite -- which is the moral, heroic, selfless thing -- and also never asks what she thinks he should do.

This is partly a symptom of poor / misogynist writing, whereby Token ‘Strong Female Character’ Love Interest is relegated to a Sexy Lamp with post-it note stuck to it + behaving like a generic male bully in a female skin + idiot hetero-norms that make any straight couple automatic foils, who must bicker miserably and be on the opposite sides of every argument in order to generate ‘Chemistry.’ 🙄

Ergo, Steve never does what Peggy says, because as his foil what she says it always the opposite of what he says.

Making it, defacto, the [unethical, cowardly, self-serving, tactically unsound] thing to Steve’s [moral, heroic, selfless, also tactically correct] thing.

. (disclaimer: any other aspects of Peggy being unpleasant must be put down to Atwell’s performance choices.) .

Her show erroneously claims that Steve relied heavily upon her for “courage, strategy, and moral guidance."

Passing over the outrageous, insulting, and demonstrably-untrue suggestion that Steve needed external courage, or ethical guidance, from a moral roomba...

(Metas on why this is untrue, and would actually make the plot impossible if it were true!

HERE, HERE, and HERE .👈)

...This would mean Steve is -- somehow -- relying upon a person whom he doesn’t even speak to for 467 of the 473 days when strategic input was even relevant to his life. 🤦‍♀️

The numbers don’t lie.

Steve cannot have been relying upon Peggy for anything when they weren’t even in contact. That’s not physically possible. 🤷‍♀️

This simultaneously puts the lie to the idea of Peggy following the Howlies around Europe to collate intell in the places they hit.

A) because the Howlies aren’t shown sweeping these factories for information. They’re shown reducing them to fiery rubble, which you don’t do if you’re looking for documents. They’re not looking for documents; they’re looking for Zola.

B) even if the Howlies weren’t destroying the factories and were sweeping them for ABC (atomic, biological, chemical) intell, Peggy isn’t the kind of specialist who would even know what to look for. She’s an intelligence liaison, not a scientist. Not even a linguist. That’s not her area of expertise at all. Whereas the Howlies themselves are... surprisingly well qualified? They’ve worked in a Hydra weapons factory, so they know what’s important. Monty’s a Major. Gabe is a fluent German-speaker. Frenchie handles explosives. Dum-dum can drive tanks. Morita looks like a radio expert; shown operating captured Hydra radios more than once. Bucky’s a sniper. Steve’s a tank with a perfect photographic memory. They really don’t need an eighth wheel telling them how to blow up Hydra factories (how would she know?) That’s already their forte.

C) even if Peggy was a technical expert, her opinion is repeatedly denigrated by Phillips who says she was a chancey (ie. ill-qualified) hire. He wouldn’t send someone to judge important documents who is ill-qualified to do so and whose opinion therefore doesn’t carry any weight with him.

D) The only time she’s shown taking part in a mission, it’s actually more of a full blown Army Operation, where even the old man Phillips goes along in person. This is an unusual occurrence, i.e. not something she normally does. Just like I can’t claim that Col. Phillips fought alongside the Howlies, in person, throughout the war, because that is not what is shown, I cannot claim that Peggy did, either. Because that is also not what is shown. (And also why she didn’t join Steve on the mission to rescue the 107. That’s just not her job!)

So when Peggy asks Steve if he was about to... (do something important) mid-Valkyrie mission, and he goes ‘right!’ and carries on.

That’s the closest Steve ever comes to agreeing with her or doing what she says. (Another nonsense claim from her show.)

It’s OOC for Steve, who has proven mostly indifferent to her increasingly unsubtle advances thus far (until she turned violent, whereupon he (or someone else) put her photo in his compass... which is just sad, tbh. 😥)

Whereas, her interrupting the mission at a crucial point to make it about herself (to make Steve kiss her the same way Lorraine also sexually assaulted him) is consistent with her characterisation elsewhere in CATFA (eg. interrupting Steve’s 107 rescue to make him include her in it, when she was irrelevant.)

Even then, it’s something Steve was going to do anyway, regardless of whether she told him to or not. So her input is not a deciding factor in the plot (still a Sexy Lamp). Her net moral/strategic impact on Steve is still zero.

(Another point in the ‘they didn’t spend any time together’ column.)

Conclusion...

Steve and Peggy knew OF each other for 626 days

or 20 months, 15 days / 20.5 months.

(From mid-June 1943 to the beginning of March, 1945.)

They spoke on 2 days max in June, 1943 (the 22nd and probably 23rd, the day of his serum and day after) despite being in the same place for a week prior and sharing a prior car ride!

They spoke on 4 days in November 1943.

Nov 3rd, in Italy, pre-107 rescue,

Nov 10th, in Italy, post-107 rescue,

Nov 14th(?) In London, the day Steve relayed Hydra intell and told Col. Phillips he was assembling his own team, while Brandt was expecting him to be in America receiving his medal for valour; probably the same day the Howlies were founded.

Nov 15th(?) 8am, in London, when Peggy shot him.

They spoke on 2 days in February & March, 1945:

in the pub in London (Tuesday, 27th February?)

the day of the Valkyrie raid (Thursday, 1st March.)

(While they are shown in the same place on another intervening day, at London HQ during mission planning, and it’s possible or even plausible that they did interact, they’re not actually shown speaking to each other on that day.)

Totalling: a maximum of 8 days.

(could be as low as 6.)

And 6 months later, Peggy, Stark and Phillips founded SHIELD and had already recruited Zola into it in order for it to be front page news by

Tuesday, 14th August, 1945:

(Thus putting the lie to the ridiculous idea that they didn’t know they’d recruited Nazis or what they were up to, btw. 👆)

So of the 20.5 total months they knew each other, Steve and Peggy were only shown being in the same place and in contact during (but not for the entirety of) 4 months -- Jun and Nov ‘43, and Feb and March ‘45.

For 19.5 of the 20.5 months they knew of each other they were not even in the same place:

4 months while Steve was on one side of the Atlantic, during the late June-October USO Tour, she was in Europe.

And 15.5 months / 473 days when he was on the continent doing Hydra weapons-parts factory raids (from mid-Nov 1943 - Mar 1945) and she was in London.

And this is deliberate by the film-makers, to depict theirs as a thwarted relationship-that-never-was, a Casablanca style ‘we never dated’ situation.

Not a romance, but what could’ve been a romance, had circumstances been different.

Them not being together is literally the point.

They show zero direct or indirect contact between the two during those 15.5 months, and multiple things imply that there was none.

For example:

She doesn’t know that Steve has a friend in the 107 (a correspondent would).

Steve is surprised to see her.

Steve tells her about what he’s been up to, as if it’ll be new information to her.

(Sidenote: as per She Hulk, Bruce Banner is under the impression Steve slept with some woman during this time. SIGH.)

Despite Agent Carter show’s attempts to retcon her history (stolen valour) with Bucky’s war record (nonsensically, since he is a soldier and she’s supposed to be a spy), the film and script are clear that she isn’t in Europe with the Howlies.

(She complains about having every door shut in her face, professionally, and Phillips says she was only at a desk job because he “took a chance with” hiring her. So she’s complaining about not being in the field.)

Steve wouldn’t be carrying a photo of someone he sees for work all the time. The compass is physical evidence that she wasn’t there.

(Sidenote: He wouldn’t be dating anyone Period, since he specifically said he didn’t want to do that. And Peggy also said she wouldn’t date until after the war is over. But anyway! And, logically, if she's supposed to be a spy she also wouldn’t have her face broadcast in cinemas, making any cover useless, as Steve would know. But anyway! It just highlights how they’re not really doing their jobs of writing her as a spy properly.)

Steve wouldn’t need to take a photo out of an SSR personnel file (which is what it looks like) if he saw her regularly in person for work or if they had been corresponding by letter.

(This simultaneously rules out the possibility that she went out with the Howlies and then went back to London.)

Likewise, Peggy wouldn’t need to steal a photo of Steve out of a personnel file if they had been in regular contact, either in person or by letter.

Steve and the Howlies are shown in direct contact with each other, easily implying a long-standing relationship without having to go to a lot of film-making effort, via montage... but she is not.

Whereas she is shown in the montage, but not being in direct contact. If the film-makers had wanted to show direct contact between them during this montage, they very easily could have. But they didn’t. If she had been there with the Howlies, and it was the film-makers intention to imply that, she would be in the footage with the Howlies, not sitting in a cinema in London watching footage of a mere photo of herself in the newsreels.

By February 1945 she still isn’t on first-name terms with Bucky, Steve’s second in command.

Steve’s time in London was so minimal that when he goes drinking to grieve Bucky, Peggy is able to find him in the Whip & Fiddle, even though it’s in ruins. So either they were in London for such a short period that the pool of places he could potentially be is only one (1), AND/OR that pub is emotionally significant because of Bucky, the person he’s grieving (not her).

We are never shown the Howlies returning to that pub at all until after Steve is also ‘dead’ (ie. no proof they’ve been in London long enough that it’s a place they’ve gone multiple times.) They treat it as a special, 'one-off Solemn Event’ sort of a place to go. Not a regular haunt.

And Steve is still surprised to see her there, meaning he didn’t tell her he was going there; so the reason she finds him can’t be because Steve told her where he was going. (Could be that one of the Howlies told her.)

She still has to ask Steve whether he respected “your friend” Bucky (when even Col. Phillips knows to refer to Bucky as Steve’s oldest friend, by this point).

Steve tells her he can’t get drunk and has to ask whether she knows that already or not. Yet another example of something a close confidante or correspondent of 15+ months would know, that Steve would assume she already knew, if they had been in continuing contact.

(It’s unlikely that Steve himself didn’t know, before this moment. Soldiers who founded their unit in a pub haven’t done any drinking for 15.5 months? Not likely!)

His clever acting choice lends an air of despair and futility to the scene, too -- Steve trying to drink away his sorrows, even though he knows it won’t work. He can’t undo the past, he can’t bring Bucky back. (Had CEvans’s tone been different, it would’ve connoted something else.)

If he was in contact with Peggy, and this is canonically the very kind of thing he would complain about to her (and canonically also the very kind of thing she would tell him more about), then he would’ve complained about it, eg. via letter, too. But he didn’t, because he doesn’t know whether or not she knows. So they weren’t in contact.

It is shown that the updated intelligence of what Steve and the Howlies are accomplishing in Europe during 1944 is being relayed back to HQ in London, because Peggy and other personnel are shown taking Hydra base flags off their maps, as Steve and the Howlies take them out.

(As a consequence of Steve et al taking them out, it’s implied.)

However... it is not shown that Steve directly relayed that information to Peggy.

Peggy herself says that Phillips is in charge of devising strategy, not herself, and Steve soon disregards any strategy suggestions she makes -- in fact, he gives her orders, not the other way around, because he’s a captain.

So if Steve was telling anyone what the Howlies are up to in Europe, it would be his superior officer Phillips. Not an agent like Peggy, of no military rank.

(This is supported by the scene where Steve, having returned from rescuing the 107, goes straight to Phillips to report his successful mission. Not to Peggy, despite her being right there.)

Plus, the Howlie shown handling communications isn’t Steve...

...it’s Morita. 👆 (And guess who interrupts and shoves him out of his seat?)

So if the Howlies were in contact at all during the 15.5 months of Howling Commando Hydra weapons-factory raids:

1) it would’ve been very difficult / limited, and all shop talk. 2) it must’ve so unimportant that no trace of it shows in the film. 3) it probably wouldn’t have been Steve on the radio, anyway. 4) there were only six prospective Hydra weapons factories mentioned as targets for Steve and the Howlies, so only six more occasions when they even might’ve officially interacted:

Roughly:

And while there are more Hydra bases indicated as existing on the maps/via flags removed from the maps...

...None of these 👆 are explicitly linked to Steve and the Howlies, there’s no indication that the existence of these was discovered or relayed (or that they specifically were destroyed) by Steve and Co.

And it’s made out to be a Big Deal that they find out where the Seventh base is, (the base Bucky told Steve they were shipping weapons parts to). Because that’s where Red Skull is.

T I M E L I N E :

1943

JUNE: Mon 14th, Bucky gets his orders, Steve gets a 4F, visits the Stark Expo, meets Erskine, enlists and gets a 1A. Tues 15th, Bucky ships out, Steve arrives at Camp Lehigh. Mon 21st, Steve is chosen for serum. He and Erskine discuss it in the evening. Tues 22nd, Steve receives serum, Erskine is killed, Steve stops the Hydra saboteur, and is photographed by a NYE journalist. Wed 23rd morning, Phillips speaks to the President and the SSR is immediately re-tasked, Steve appears on the front page of The New York Examiner, the Hydra sub is moved to dry dock. afternoon, Steve has his blood drawn, Stark examines the Hydra sub, Phillips relays the President’s orders, Brandt recruits Steve into the USO when he objects to Phillips's orders. night, Phillips, Stark, and Peggy, fly out to London.

JULY-OCT: Steve in the USO, travelling across America.

OCT/NOV: Bucky and the Howlies are captured by Hydra at Azzano.

NOVEMBER: 3rd, afternoon, Steve does USO show in Italy, 5 miles behind enemy lines. evening, Steve rescues 107.

10th, Steve returns to base with 400 soldiers of the 107, having safely travelled 35 miles including 30 miles of mountainous heavily fortified enemy terrain, with wounded in tow.

? 11th-14th, Steve's rescue is reported in Stars and Stripes, Senator Brandt decides to give him a medal for valour, news gets back to UK and appears in The Daily Mail. Brandt expects Steve to come back to the US to receive his medal in person. Steve declines.

? 14th, London, HQ, Steve relays Hydra intell to Phillips and Peggy, night, Steve recruits Bucky & the Howlies, takes Bucky's input on the suit.

? 15th, London, HQ, 8am, Steve gets sexually assaulted, Steve gets physically assaulted (Peggy shoots at him), Steve picks the shield, Steve relays Cap uniform ideas to Stark. .

1944

Howlies deployed in Europe, taking out 6 Hydra weapons factories shown in Italy, Greece, France, Czech Rep. and Poland. (Avengers 1 deleted scene also shows Steve taking part in the planning of D-Day, which would’ve put him and the Howlies in France from 6 June 1944 - August, if they took part. And I thought there was a reference to Steve taking part in the Battle of the Bulge too, somewhere, so that would be Dec-Jan ‘44-45.) .

1945

FEBRUARY: (possible) Sun 25th, Bucky ‘KIA.’ (possible) Mon 26th, Howlies & Zola travelling back to London.

(possible) Tues 27th, London am, Steve writes/delivers a report about Bucky, goes drinking to grieve. Phillips (reads Steve’s report? knows about Bucky) sends a misleading telegram about Zola, back-dated February 3rd, to Washington via SHAEF. pm, Phillips interrogates Zola and finds out 1st March is Valkyrie Day.

Wed 28th, London, HQ, Valkyrie Mission briefing.

MARCH: Thurs 1st, Atlantic. Steve and Red Skull 'KIA.' Last contact with Peggy. Fri 2nd, Moria and Dum-dum capture Werner Reinhardt. Mon 5th, Steve reported "disappeared" in newspaper. Fri 23rd, KGB opens file on Bucky.

APRIL: Surviving Howlies are mopping up remaining Hydra personnel in Europe? MAY. Tues 8th, V-E Day. London. The Howlies reunite at the Whip & Fiddle, for the first time since they were founded there, to drink a toast in remembrance of Steve.

AUGUST: Tues 14th, Stark, Phillips and Carter have founded SHIELD and recruited Zola and more, which is reported on front page news.

TL;DR: They knew of each other for 626 days total, (from 15th June 1943 - 1st March 1945), 20.5 months; 19.5 of which they weren’t in the same place, and only spoke on 8 separate days.

82 notes · View notes

captainjimothycarter · 3 months

Text

Ch 2: To Outlast Even Death (Following In Your Steps)

For @3pirouette - the proper chapter I wanted to post for Steggymas. & thank you @sosoane1 for beta reading <3

All it took to make her question everything was a 5'4, 94-pound blonde...

All it took was a 5'4 blonde to make her question if Micheal was right.

A curiosity drew her to the man who was smaller than his peers, wearing a uniform that had to be rolled up three times just to free his limbs. With just one glance in his direction, she saw the fire in his eyes that said he had much to prove to himself and the world.

She would need to keep an eye on him.

The first time she felt the tug on her soul was during the flagpole incident.

She repressed a smirk as Steve came half-jogging up to the men rapidly scrambling and failing to climb the pole. He ignored the orders barked at him and pulled the pin from the pole, stunned silence around them as he simply handed the flag over and climbed into the jeep.

Well - Peggy admired his tactics.

Steve had a unique way of thinking, seeing the problem from a different point of view and applying an out-of-the-box solution. While he couldn't keep up with his mates in terms of strength and endurance, he could find solutions that no one had.

It was his little smirk as he breathlessly climbed into the jeep that caused time to stand still for her. She understood the strings of fate and the initial pull, the red string of fate was wrapped around her heart and was starting to suffocate her.

She had fought this very feeling all her life and here it was, in the midst of war, it was pulling her in the direction of him. It was such an exhilarating feeling that she felt terrified. She had to stamp this down, to ignore it.

Steve had to feel this, correct? This couldn't just all be on her, right? She couldn't be going insane, he had to feel this pull that was consuming her very soul.

In the back of her mind, she wondered if he felt the same terror that crept into the edges of her mind. Did he feel the pure terror that came with the idea of belonging to someone?

Characters: Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter, Senator Brandt Relationships: Steve Rogers/Peggy Carter Bingos: Mutual Pining - @cabottombingo, Free Use - @fandom-free-bingo, Steggy - @marvel-smash-bingo, Project Rebirth - @steverogersbingo

#Steggy #StevePeggy #Steve x Peggy #Steve Rogers #Peggy Carter

13 notes · View notes

zep-writings · 5 months

Text

You Feel Like Home

CHAPTER FIVE.

Warnings: Bad words, mention of war and military, fluff, a little heartbreak and Steve being sweet.

Pairings: Steve Rogers x OFC Ellie Barnes.

Notes: I do not own any of the characters present in this story, except for Ellie Barnes, an original character. This is pure fiction.

This has not been beta and English is not my first language so be nice haha.

Please give me some feedback, even just a small comment is really appreciated!

I've been working on this one for a while, so please let me know what you think!

You Feel Like Home Masterlist || Main Masterlist.

Chapter four, part two

October 1943.

For the few months following his serum injection, instead of being stuck in a lab, Steve decided to make his part and go on tour to promote the war effort. Every night he was on stage selling bullets, pushing people staying in the United States of America to give money for the war effort and promoting war bonds for the Treasury Department. He went from city to city, sleeping in hotel rooms, far from the real action in the war and missing the comfort of his home in New York City, of Ellie. Truth was, he didn’t like his job very much, it wasn’t what he had imagined when he signed up for the serum. Sure, it was better than being stuck in a lab having scientist poking him and draining his blood, but he wished he could do more, he always wanted to do more.

Now he was sitting on the side of the stage he had been standing on a few moments earlier, in front of a crowd of soldiers, five miles away from the front in Italy. They had laughed at him, booed him and after dodging a few tomatoes he had simply walked out of stages as the chorus girls walked back on it. He had always wanted to be there, on the front but that was definitely not how he had imagined doing it.

“Hello, Steve.” A voice raised from behind him. He looked up, turned around and recognised Peggy.

“Hi.” Steve replied in surprise, she was the last person he was expecting to see here.

“Hi.”

“What are you doing here?” Steve wondered, while he stopped drawing.

“Officially, I’m not here at all.” Peggy sat on a box near him. “That was quite a performance.”

“Yeah. Huh.” Steve whipped his nose, bowing down a little to look at his shoes. “I had to improvise a little bit. The crowds I’m used to are usually more…” He looked up, searching for his words. “Twelve.”

“I understand you’re ‘America’s New Hope’.”

“Bonds sales take a 10% bump in every state I visit.” Steve announced, still not looking at Peggy.

“Is that Senator Brandt I hear?”

Steve licked his lips and glanced quickly at Agent Carter. “At least he’s got me doing this. Phillips would have had me stuck in a lab.”

“And these are your only two options? A lab rat or a dancing Monkey?” Peggy asked, looking at the drawing Steve had been working on a few minutes earlier. The drawing of a Monkey wearing his Captain America’s outfit, holding a shield and an umbrella and riding a unicycle. “You were meant for more than this, you know.”

Steve looked at her before he turned back to look in front of him, his mind wondering and getting lost. He hated that he couldn’t do more.

“What?” Peggy asked him, her eyes still on him.

“You know, for the longest time, I dreamt about coming overseas and being on the front lines, serving my country. I finally got everything I wanted and I’m wearing tights.” Steve explained before the horn of an ambulance van could be heard behind him and Peggy.

Steve turned around to watch the vehicle come to a stop in front of the big medical tent while the rain kept on falling heavily. A medic opened the back doors and two others walked out of it, holding a litter with a wounded man laying on it.

“They look like they’ve been through hell.” Steve observed, sadness in his voice.

“These men more than most.” Peggy hesitated for a moment, as Steve glanced at her. “Schmidt sent out a force to Azzano. Two hundred men went up against him, and less than 50 returned. Your audience contained what was left of the 107th. The rest were killed or captured.”

Steve’s face jerked up to look at the Agent as his heart seemed to stop in his chest. “The 107th?” He asked hoping he had miss heard.

“What?”

Without any hesitation, Steve stood up and started running to Colonel Phillips’s tent. “Come on!” He said to Peggy as he followed him, lifting her coat on top of her head to shield herself from the rain.

Bucky. It was the only thing on Steve’s mind at the moment. He needed to know if his best friend was still alive, he needed to find out he was okay. Then, his head went to Ellie who was probably back home missing him and his heart sank even lower. Steve walked into the tent, not even taking a look around him and walked straight to Colonel Phillips who was signing condolences letters at his desk.

“Colonel Phillips.”

“Well, if it isn’t the Star-Sprangled Man with a Plan. What is your plan today?”

“I need the casualty list from Azzano.” Steve explained.

“You don’t get to give me orders, son.” Colonel Phillips shook his head, but Steve was barely listening to him.

“I just need one name, Sergeant James Barnes from the 107th.” Steve replied, looking down at the desk.

The Colonel turned to Peggy who was standing by Steve’s side and pointed the pen he was holding in his hand towards her. “You and I are gonna have a conversation later that you won’t enjoy.”

“Please tell me if he’s alive, sir. B-A-R…” Steve insisted.

“I can spell.” The colonel cut off Steve and for a second, they glanced at each other. Phillips stood from his chair and turned around, looking at the letters in his hands. “I have signed more of these condolence letters today than I would care to count. But the name does sound familiar. I’m sorry.”

Steve heart dropped in his chest. His best friend was gone, probably dead and he had never felt more alone than at that moment.

“Colonel Phillips, we need…” A feminine voice raised as a familiar silhouette appeared in the tent. “Steve…”

Ellie was there, standing there, her hair pulled into a bun on top of her head, wearing a nurse uniform and her hands covered with dried blood.

“Ellie, what are you doing here?” Steve inquired, frowning and wondering what she was doing here.

“My job.” Ellie simply stated, offering him a shy smile.

Her eyes were red and a little puffy and it didn’t take more for Steve to realize that she knew Bucky was gone. He wanted to do was walk up to her and pull her into a hug, but this was neither the place nor the time. Instead, a plan started to form in his head, he wasn’t going to give up.

“What about the others? Are you planning a rescue mission?”

“Yes, it’s called winning the war.”

Steve tear his eyes off Ellie and turned back to the Colonel. “But if you know where they are, why not at least…”

“They’re 30 miles behind the lines through some of the most heavily fortified territory in Europe.” Colonel Phillips cut off Steve, walking to the map and showing an area on it. “We’d lose more men than we’d save. But I don’t except you to understand that because you’re a chorus girl.”

Steve jaw and shoulders clenched. “I think I understand it just fine.”

“Well, then understand it somewhere else. If I read the posters correctly, you got someplace to be in 30 minutes.”

Ellie looked at Steve, his eyes still staring at the map of the area. She knew him well enough to know what he was thinking, he was a stubborn man, and he wasn’t going to go give up that easily. But a part of her felt very uneasy about what he was about to do.

“Yes, sir. I do.” Steve simply replied as he started to walk out of the tent.

Ellie looked at the map, shook her head slightly and exchanged a glance with Peggy before she started following him to another tent containing the stage uniforms.

“Steve. Steve stop.” Ellie said loudly over the sound of the rain falling on the tent.

“Look Ellie, I’ve got to do something. And you. You shouldn’t be here. You should be home in New York, safe.” Steve said softly turning towards her. “You’re not even supposed to have graduated yet. Why are you here?” He asked, a point of worry in his voice.

“I graduated early. And I have every right to be here, just like you do.” Ellie replied, a little bit on the defensive. “I can help.”

“That’s not…” Steve sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “That’s not what I meant, Ellie. You know that.” He took her hand in his. “But I got to do something. I got to try at least.”

Ellie looked up at him, eyes filling up with tears as she spoke, her voice shaking slightly. “I can’t lose you. Not you too, Steve.”

“You won’t lose me.” The soldier said, stroking her cheek gently before he pressed a kiss to her forehead.

Steve pulled her into a hug and for a moment, they stayed like this simply appreciating being with each other. Ellie was scared, terrified to lose Steve just as she had lost Bucky. She wasn’t ready to lose the only person she had left in her life, but she also knew he wouldn’t change his mind. Steve finally pulled away from her, grabbed a bag and a helmet as Peggy walked into the tent.

“What do you plan to do, walk to Austria?” The Agent asked him, taking of her coat and putting it down on a chair.

“If that’s what it takes.”

“You heard the Colonel. Your friend is most likely dead.” Peggy said calmly.

“You don’t know that.” Steve kept on packing his bag as Peggy exchanged a glance with Ellie who shook her head. She had tried to change his mind.

“Even so, he’s devising a strategy. If he detects…” Peggy tried to explain.

“By the time he’s done that, it could be too late.” Steve interrupted her loudly, anger coming through his voice. He put his leather brown jacket on, grabbed his bag and his shield and started to walk away.

“Steve!” Peggy exclaimed, following him outside of the tent as he headed toward the jeep parked in front of it.

Ellie followed them, feeling completely useless as she watched Steve throw his stuff in the back of a jeep. He stopped for a moment, looked at Ellie before he turned to Peggy.

“You told me you thought I was meant for more than this. Did you mean that?”

“Every word.” Peggy assured him.

“Then you got to let me go.” Steve admitted, stepping into the driver seat of the jeep and for a second Ellie contemplated the idea of going with him, maybe she could help somehow.

Peggy looked at her for a second, and both knew he would never change his mind, she stepped out near him. “I can do more than that.”

Steve looked at Peggy and turned to Ellie who unwillingly nodded. If he wasn’t going to change his mind, at least they could try to help him, make things easier for him. Steve was trained, he had the serum running through his vein, but none of them really knew what if fully did.

“Move.” Peggy told Steve, making him slid to the passenger seat as Ellie climbed into the back of the jeep. There was no chance she would leave them now, not until she knew exactly what Steve was going to do.

Peggy drove in silence. She took a road out of the camp and after about five minutes she turned left, taking a road Ellie hadn’t been on before. After a good twenty minutes, she came to a stop on a small airport tarmac and immediately recognized the silhouette standing a few meters away from them. Howard Stark. Ellie stepped out of jeep as Steve grabbed his stuff in the back and followed Peggy.

“Stark, we need your help.” Peggy announced, glancing back at Steve and Ellie.

“Well, hello there. I don’t believe we have met.” Howard pushed his sunglasses on top of his head, looking at Ellie. “Howard Stark.”

Howard offered Ellie his hand but before she could shake it Steve spoke loudly. “Stark. Now is not the time!”

“Right, right.” Howard winked at Ellie who blushed and Steve rolled his eyes, feeling slightly jealous. “What do you need?” The scientist asked, not even questioning Peggy or Steve’s intention.

Howard Stark was a genius, sure he was stubborn, hot headed and a womanizer but when it came to Peggy or Steve, he would do anything to help them and for that, they were both grateful. Peggy explained her plan to Stark, asking him to be their pilot and without even a second thought, he agreed. Peggy and Howard stepped away to prepare the plane as Ellie stayed back a little, sat on a large box in the air-shed, anxiety and fear running through her brain.

The soldier quickly glanced at the Agent and the Scientist who were both too busy to pay them attention and he stepped closer to her squatting down in front of her. He gently grabbed her hands to stop her from twisting nervously her fingers as she always did.

“Hey… Ellie, look at me.” Steve knew what was going through her brain, he could read her like an open book, always had. She looked up at him, her blue eyes meeting his. “I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t know that.” Ellie whispered, squeezing Steve’s hands as the man stayed silent. “Promise me…” She sniffled. “Promise me, you’ll be careful.”

“I promise you.” Steve gently whipped a tear from her cheek. “And I promise if I find Bucky, I’ll bring him back.”

Ellie nodded slightly and she pushed a piece of hair away from his forehead. She was so terrified to lose him too, and for a second, she wanted to tell him what he meant to her, she wanted to tell him how much she loved him, but she couldn’t find the words. Truth was, Steve was scared too. He didn’t know if he would make it out alive, he didn’t even know exactly what he was walking into, but he had to try to save those men, he would never forgive himself if he didn’t. He looked at Ellie, memorising her face, every single part of those features he loved so much.

“Please come back to me…” Ellie whispered.

Without realising, he brought his face closer to hers, but she was the one who made the first move. She shyly pressed her lips to his, closing her eyes. The kiss was tender, so full of emotions and fears on both ends.

“Hey Cap, we need to go.” Stark’s voice raised from behind, interrupting them and Steve pulled away.

The soldier stood up and gave a last look to Ellie before he walked to the plane. Ellie wrapped her arms around herself as she watched the plane take off, an unease feeling twisting her guts. She didn’t like this; she didn’t like this at all and yet there was absolutely nothing she could do. She wasn’t a soldier; she couldn’t go help Steve even when it was all she wanted to do. Instead, she had to stay back, she had to stay at the base, and she already knew she would be losing herself in her job. There were so many people injured, so many soldiers she had to help that maybe she would be to busy to think about Steve behind enemy lines, alone.

It was almost an hour later, when Peggy’s voice raised from the radio she had in her hand. “Steve’s been dropped behind the line. We’re making our way back.”

“I’m waiting for you at the hangar.” Ellie stated on the radio.

They landed back an hour later; it was completely dark out by then and Ellie couldn’t help but notice the graze of bullets on the Stark’s industries plane. She looked at Stark and Carter walking out of the engine and made their way towards her.

“I guess I’ll see you ladies later.” Stark shot a wink to Agent Carter and walked away.

Ellie followed Peggy back to the jeep. She knew they would both be in trouble as soon as they would be back to the camp, but honestly, they didn’t really care. It was Steve’s decision, and if he managed to save soldiers, then it was a risk he was willing to take and both women were ready to do anything to help him.

“So, you and Steve.” Peggy said quietly, starting the jeep’s engine and driving away.

“What about it?”

“How long have been in love with him?” Peggy kept her eyes on the road.

“I’m no…” Ellie sighed and closed her eyes for a second, there was no point of denying it. “A long time.”

“But you never told him.”

“No. He’s my brother’s best friend. If Bucky knew how I felt about Steve…” Ellie shook her head.

Steve probably didn’t even feel the same way, he had never seen her that way and he never will. Even when he was still a little guy, Steve had never had eyes for her, she had always only been Bucky’s little sister. Sure they had kissed, twice now, but they never talked about it and she knew it wouldn’t change anything.

“Wait. Barnes. Your last name is Barnes.” Peggy said, glancing at Ellie. “Sergeant James Barnes is your brother.” She had never made the connexion before.

“Yes. And it doesn’t matter how I feel about Steve because he will never feel the same way, especially not now, not with the serum.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I see the way Steve looks at you.” Peggy parked the car and turned the ignition off. “And I think it’s been a while for him too. He already talked about you all the time, way before the serum.”

Ellie shrugged. “It doesn’t matter Peggy. We…” She hesitated for a second, stepping out of the car before she looked at the Agent. “We’re in a middle of a war. It doesn’t matter how I feel about him.”

“It does. Love in the time of war is something beautiful, Ellie. Don’t wait too long to let it come into your life, because I think it’s actually the best time to do it.”

With those words Peggy offered her a smile and walked away, leaving Ellie with her thoughts. Was she right? Was Steve really looking at her differently? She didn’t want to think about it, not now, not when she wasn’t even sure he would make it back alive.

****

Chapter six

#marvel fanfiction #mcufanfic #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers x original female character #chris evans fanfiction #steve rogers #steve rogers x ofc #bucky barnes #chris evans fanfic #ellie barnes #you feel like home #captain america fanfiction #captain america x female reader

14 notes · View notes

bedlamsbard · 1 year

Note

Talk about Peggy backstory and such?

Sure! So some of this is extrapolation based on details from CATFA and Agent Carter; some of it is entirely made up. I privilege CATFA over AC when they contradict each other and try to go for historical accuracy (or historical adequacy, as I prefer to call it) when possible, which does occasionally contradict canon. Some of this has already been in Home but not all of it has. Also a lot of this is not the most flattering thing in the world.

This also turned out to be really, really long -- it also has the backstory and timeline for the SSR -- so it's behind a cut.

I give Peggy a birth year of 1916, making her two years older than Steve (born in 1918). This is an earlier birth year than the year given in canon (the Avengers deleted scene gives a 1919 birth year) for a couple of reasons: I wanted her to have already gone to university, to have given her time at both Bletchley Park and the Special Operations Executive during WWII, and most importantly, because in CATFA she's in a command position in the SSR ("I supervise all operations in this division") and I don't think she would have been in that position if she was significantly younger. A 1916 birth year puts her at 27 at the beginning of CATFA and 29 at the end and makes her 23 when WWII began in 1939.

In AC 1.02 she says that her father and Senator Palmer were "dear friends." I've found a couple of congressmen (not senators) named Palmer, one who served as a Missouri rep from 1929-1931 and one who served as Pennsylvania rep from 1927-1929. This could be the New York state senator Harry Palmer, who served 1929-1934; a New York state senator would be most relevant in the context of a personal reference, and Palmer was still alive in 1946 when the show takes place. More realistically, the name was just made up for the show, like Senator Brandt's in CATFA, and Senator Palmer is supposed to be a U.S. senator, not a state senator. The important part is not "who is this specific person supposed to represent," it's "what does this say about Peggy's family background?" which is that her father was a personal friend of a U.S. senator.

There are any number of ways that could have happened; I personally go with her father being either the British ambassador to the United States, being one of the consuls-general (probably in New York, which could explain Peggy's familiarity with the city), or being a member of the embassy staff. I have also assumed, based on her early Bletchley Park service, the house we see in the AC S2 flashbacks, and that mention of her father being the personal friend of a U.S. senator, that her father is or was a baronet. So not a member of the peerage, but someone with a hereditary honor. I think with this background Peggy would have been a debutante and presented at court, but I don't know enough about debutantes in the UK during this period to say for sure.

I have Peggy as having gone to an all girls public school (or private school, if you're an American, since these mean exactly opposite things in the U.S. and the UK) and then to a Swiss finishing school in the early 1930s. That is partially for class reasons and partially for giving her a reason to be very fluent in French and to pick up German. I then have her going to university at Oxford and graduate with a degree in French literature. I went back and forth between having her go to Oxford (which granted degrees to women) and Cambridge (which did not), trying to work out which worked better in terms of her "having every door shut in her face," but I do think Peggy would have gone to the school that would have granted her a degree, so: Oxford. French literature, again, to give her that fluency in French that SOE would have wanted during the war. I thought about other fields, but I think this was also a period when Peggy was trying to be, quote-unquote, "normal" for a well-bred young woman and French literature is pretty normal and useful for her later life.

This is something that's not come up in Horizon, but is part of my backstory/worldbuilding: when Peggy was in university she had an affair with her tutor, who was an older married man. That was her first real romantic and sexual experience, it went on for a while, and Peggy expected him to leave his wife and marry her after she graduated. This did not end up happening and the fact that it did not really shook her. I see Peggy, especially pre-CATFA but throughout her life (and I think we see this in AC), going back and forth between wanting to be really rebellious and wanting to be really ~normal and living up to expectations about her sex, her social class, all of that. She fluctuates wildly between the two and whenever one of those backfires on her, she overcompensates by going in the opposite direction very aggressively. So the affair was her being very rebellious and after it ended she was being very cautious with her romantic entanglements, which is how she later ends up with that fiancé who's in the AC flashbacks.

In summer of 1939, prior to the invasion of Poland that started WWII, the Government Code and Cypher School (today it's GCHQ) moved to Bletchley Park. A lot of the early women at Bletchley were from very well-to-do families that got their jobs via word of mouth and family connections, and later Bletchley was recruiting college women. The vast majority of them were not codebreakers, but having French or German or Italian was very, very useful. As war became more and more likely, there was an uptick in people (men and women) wanting to get involved, which is what seems very likely for Peggy just out of university. I have Peggy as being one of the early Bletchley girls that started in 1939, getting there via one of her parents calling up the commander and going "have you got a job for Peggy?"

(This is a real anecdote from one of the early 1939 Bletchley women: "My mother simply rang up Commander [Alastair] Denniston [head of GC&CS], whom we called Liza because we'd known him all our lives, and asked him: 'Have you got a job for Diana?' He said, 'Yes. Send her along.'" The Debs of Bletchley Park, Michael Smith.)

So Peggy goes to Bletchley Park and is there from summer 1939 to fall 1940; she meets Fred Wells in London, where the Bletchley girls are all going to socialize in their off-time. (This is the AC fiancé, for those going "...who?") He is very, very normal, Peggy is still in her "overcompensating from previous romantic mess" phase and he is the opposite of that, which is very reassuring to her at this point.

At this point I just follow Agent Carter, even though the Special Operations Executive was not that obvious in their recruiting and I don't think the show thought overly hard about the dates. (also Peggy saying the words "did I tell you I was recruited to be a spy?" out loud in public should have been instant disqualification right there...this show consistently proves that Peggy doesn't think the Official Secrets Act applies to her. which is interesting characterization, tbh, and goes with what she does in CATFA.) SOE was established in late July 1940 as an espionage and irregular warfare: it did put women in the field very early on, although the bulk of SOE operatives were not women. They initially recruited through personal contacts (as Michael Carter does with Peggy in the show), but were very much specifically looking for people with language skills and later on were recruiting for fluent speakers in French, German, Italian, etc. -- which is why I gave Peggy French and German. Peggy is recruited, initially turns it down, and then later ends her engagement and takes the SOE position after her brother is believed killed.

Peggy was probably a civilian at Bletchley (especially starting in 1939, that changed later on), but would have joined the military when she was in SOE, either the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) or the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY). I have her as a WAAF, though I probably should have had her as a FANY because most of her documents from AC and CATFA say that she was a nurse; I just missed that initially. The WAAFs didn't fly (that was the Air Transport Auxiliary); most of the FANYs weren't nurses. The reason that SOE women agents were in the military was in the hopes that if they were captured, the fact that they were commissioned officers would give them the protection offered to prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention. Unfortunately, they were obviously not going to be in uniform if captured in Nazi-occupied territory and spies did not have that protection. (Also the Nazis were not exactly believers in the Geneva Convention.)

We are now into late 1940 and early 1941, which is when the timeline starts getting tighter, because in June 1943 we know that she was with the SSR, and presumably given her position as director of operations for the SSR had not just joined prior to Rebirth. So let's detour for a second to lay out the SSR's timeline.

For the SSR, I looked at the background of the Manhattan Project, because they probably began parallel to each other, and the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services (precursor to the CIA and the American equivalent to SOE). This ignores any backstory that is not onscreen in the films. This is a mix of real history and extrapolation about the SSR based on the foundation of similar projects and agencies.

October 1939: Advisory Committee on Uranium meets for the first time to discuss using nuclear fission as a weapon with the fear that Nazi Germany is also working on it. Howard Stark might have been invited to join the committee, but does not attend.

June 1940: National Defense Research Committee formed by FDR, absorbs the Uranium Committee. The NDRC's mission was "to coordinate, supervise, and conduct scientific research on the problems underlying the development, production, and use of mechanisms and devices of warfare." They worked on hundreds of experimental projects; Howard Stark is a member of this organization, but not an executive member of the committee.

June 1941: The NDRC becomes the Office of Scientific Research and Development.

December 7, 1941: Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; the United States enters WWII (against Japan on Dec 7, against Germany and Italy on Dec 11)

December 18, 1941: The S-1 Section meets to begin work on nuclear weapons. Howard is initially involved here.

January 1942: FDR authorized the atomic bomb project.

January 1942: The OSRD deep science section is set up in response to Hydra; Howard transfers to the deep science section from S-1.

March 1942: The Strategic Scientific Reserve is founded as a separate inter-service agency, Colonel Chester Phillips is put in command of the overall project, with Howard in charge of the science side. Peggy Carter is transferred from SOE to the SSR and becomes the SSR's director of operations.

June 1942: Office of Strategic Services founded.

August-September 1942: Manhattan Engineering District (from which the Manhattan Project got its name) founded; Colonel Leslie Groves is put in command of the project.

1942, dates unknown: Abraham Erskine escapes to the United States and becomes involved with the SSR.

1942-1943: The SSR works on a number of projects and eventually focuses on Project Rebirth. (The SSR, headquartered in Brooklyn, and the Manhattan Project, initially headquartered in Manhattan, have a friendly rivalry over who's going to finish their top-secret project first. The SSR has at least one separate science facility at what at the time was Alamogordo Army Air Field; I've also posited that they had a Pacific division.)

June 1943: Steve Rogers is recruited for Project Rebirth, but following Erskine's murder and the attack on the SSR, the SSR pivots to active combat on the European front, while Steve Rogers leaves the SSR and joins the USO. Colonel Phillips takes command of the 107th Infantry Regiment.

November 1943: Steve Rogers rejoins the SSR and the Howling Commandos are founded as one of several special operations units.

December 1943-February 1945: the European division of the SSR focuses on Hydra, with Captain America and the Howling Commandos active and with the 107th directly under the command of Colonel Phillips.

June 6, 1944: D-Day, Allied invasion of Normandy

February 1945: Bucky Barnes is (believed) killed, Arnim Zola is captured, Johann Schmidt is killed, Steve Rogers is believed killed in action. (I put this in February because the ROGERS DISAPPEARS headline from the newspaper in CATWS is March 5, figure there are at least a couple weeks before the SSR releases the news.)

March-May 1945: The SSR mops up the remains of Hydra, with Peggy Carter taking command of the Howling Commandos.

May 8, 1945: Victory in Europe Day (following Adolf Hitler's suicide on April 30)

September 2, 1945: formal ending of WWII (following the dropping of the atomic bombs and surrender of Japan in August)

This gives Peggy a period of about a year and a half at most with SOE. Most of that would have been spent in England, but I have her undercover in France for an extended period of time. I made the decision early on that Peggy actually screwed up her field operation very, very badly, in the kind of way where she did achieve her objective, but in such a way that a lot of people killed on both sides and it made SOE extremely hesitant to put her in the field again. (Peggy touches on it in Home 5, but she doesn't think of it that way.) It's not that Peggy doesn't have the skillset, but she doesn't have the temperament; she is not a good covert operative, which is fine in most circumstances, not in these. I also had to give her a reason to actually be transferred from SOE, which really needed people, to the SSR, which arguably did not need someone with Peggy's specific skillset, and to be honest, I think it's interesting if she's sent over with that background rather than being perfect. And also if she was perfect, they wouldn't transfer her; they needed the people to badly.

1940-1941 Peggy gets trained for her operation in France -- most women SOE agents were couriers or wireless operators. In 1941 Peggy would have been one of the earlier woman agents; there were women with SOE from the beginning, but a lot of those who got dropped into France were doing so in 1943 or 1944. (Not all!) She has her op, it doesn't go well, and when she comes back to England, she spends a lot of time at various SOE stations before she's transferred to the SSR and because she has all this SOE experience, she becomes the director of operations for the SSR -- CATFA treats her like she is the second in command of the SSR's European division. (AC does not for various narrative reasons, but it doesn't actually line up with how she's presented in CATFA.) She does specifically say in CATFA "I supervise all operations for this division," which could mean numerous things; when we meet her in June 1943 the SSR is not a combat division, but later on it doesn't seem like her duties change at all.

Peggy is an adrenaline junkie, she can do undercover work for short periods of time, but isn't good at it for longer periods; she's a loner who doesn't like to trust other people when she knows she can do something herself, even if they're better at it than she is. She only goes for other people when they have a skillset she doesn't. She is very, very straightforward and has a tendency to see things in black and white; her shades of gray are variable and based on her priorities, which are not always what other people prioritize. She wants to be a knight in shining armor, which is not necessarily compatible with covert ops. She was a front-line operator at various points during the war and if you asked her, she would not say that she looks down on people who were not shooters, but post-war she does definitely have the attitude of being a little scornful of people (particularly men) who were not in the war with a gun. (Look at the way she treats Howard in AC, and she knows that Howard Stark was flying behind enemy lines while being actively shot at, because Peggy was there when it happened.) (But the way AC treats Howard is another discussion entirely.)

I think that one thing that becomes very clear in AC is that she doesn't necessarily understand why the men in the SSR don't treat her as someone who was a shooter, because she expects them to know it. She also acts in AC as if her grief is more legitimate than anyone else's -- she tries to pull it on Dum-Dum Dugan and he calls her out on it ("I miss him too") and she listens to him about that when she doesn't listen to Howard, maybe because he's a shooter too and she believes that he has that right, which Howard, as a civilian, does not. (Obviously there is other stuff going on at the time.) And these are not unique problems, especially for a veteran; they happen all the time IRL, both today and post-war. Peggy treats her post-war problems (and to some extent her problems during the war) as Uniquely Bad (which everyone does! we all do this!) and they really were not; they're shared by a lot of woman veterans and honestly, losing her brother and her sweetheart in the war is very, very normal in WWII.

Sources -- I've looked at a lot of things, I do a lot of googling; the two main books I'm pulling from for Peggy are The Debs of Bletchley Park by Michael Smith and The Women Who Lived For Danger by Marcus Binney. In terms of fiction that deals with these types of characters, Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein is The One (and the other books in the Code Name Verity cycle), and there's a lot of Julie in how I write Peggy. (Including the fact that she has one very bad, very fatal screw-up.)

#thelurkinglark #bedlam replies #bedlam watches the mcu #home behind the scenes

29 notes · View notes

behindthelabels · 9 months

Text

Reconnaissance

For @steggyfanevents Steggy Week Day Five: Missing Scenes

How Peggy came to see the Star Spangled Show and Steve, despite officially being elsewhere.

Peggy keeps tabs on Steve after the procedure.

At first she told herself it was for the project, but that reasoning became so flimsy it was comical, and she can admit to herself it's for entirely different reasons.

For a while, there's nothing really to report. Steve went on tour selling war bonds, after being taken advantage of by Senator Brandt, and it's largely uneventful.

Peggy's fairly busy as is, searching out any and all possible leads on Dr. Erskine's work, while also trying to gather information on Hydra's whereabouts.

It's exhausting and she's rarely in a place where she can get messages, but when she does, hearing that the brawler is safe and a little about what he's doing always makes her smile.

Continue on AO3

#steggyweek23 #steggy #steggy fic #steve x peggy #my fic

11 notes · View notes

cable-knit-sweater · 2 years

Text

I had no plans, no plans at all, to write something for @steverogersweek day 2. I thought I would come up with something else. But I looked at the prompts again and Steve + clothes… I just couldn’t help myself. I’ve had a bunch of thoughts about this before, (here and here for example) and I probably will again. Sooo here it is. A timeline, of sorts.

5+1: 5 times Steve wore a suit/uniform, and one time…

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Bucky Barnes

Word count: 1.3k

Notes: for @steverogersweek, day 2, Prompt: Clothes

Read on Ao3 or below:

1. Brooklyn, 1936

“Stevie, almost ready to go?”, Bucky’s voice sounds through the bedroom door, and Steve can tell he’s trying to not put too much pressure on him, is careful to keep his voice soft, just checking in rather than trying to rush him. He responds with a frustrated grunt. Steve continues to pull on the hem of his heavily starched collared shirt, but there’s nothing at this point that will get the creases out. Can’t even get this right, he thinks, but there’s not much to be done about it now. He takes one last look in the mirror, combing his bangs away from his face with his fingers. It’s a decent enough suit. The best they could get, at least. It cost them a fortune and still, it’s not good enough, not what his ma deserves. But there’s no way they could’ve afforded something better - he’ll be struggling to afford anything more than the bare minimum for a while as is. It almost makes him want to laugh. Because he knows, this he knows for sure. He’s never, ever, putting this suit on again.

2. Brooklyn, 1943

When Senator Brandt told him there was still a way to serve his country, this was not what he had imagined. At all. But he’ll do what’s necessary, if there’s a chance he can do anything that counts for something. The suit though…the suit is a problem. Obviously it’s a little ridiculous, in an over the top, patriotic way. That’s not it, necessarily. It’s that no one told him. He guesses there was no one to tell him, Erskine probably having been the only one that would have known or could have guessed. Could have guessed that all his sense are dialed up to 11 now, that any fabric on his skin feels like so much more, for good or for bad. The cowl, the gloves, the really tight bodysuit, they’re all made of pretty durable fabrics. But on his skin, to his senses? It might as well have been made out of sandpaper. It’s hard to put those feelings aside, feelings of fabric scraping over his skin, the discomfort bordering on pain. But he’ll have to. He signed up for this, and if Steve is anything, anything at all, he’s not a quitter.

3. London, 1943

When he’s laying down in bed that night, he knows he talked with the Howlies, knows he talked to Peggy. About something or other. But the only thing, the only thought running through his mind… the only thing in his head, keeping him up, is that one question Bucky asked him. “But you’re keeping the outfit right?”, he’d asked, a grin on his face. He’s known Bucky for so long. Thinks he can read any expression, understand every tone of voice, just instinctively know what Bucky is getting at. But this time? This time he’s thrown for a loop. What did he mean? Was it meant as a joke? Which would be fair, given the tight fit and the whole red, white and blue of it. And those god damn boots. Or did he mean something more by it? Did he maybe even like the outfit? Or rather… Steve in the outfit? He stares up at the ceiling for hours, trying to figure it out. He knows what he wants the answer to that question to be. He’s just not sure that he could ever be that lucky. He never really is.

4. Washington DC, 2014

He know the words that just left his mouth sound a little… he doesn’t actually know what it sounded like to Sam. “If you’re gonna fight a war, you got to wear a uniform” . He thinks, he hopes, that Sam thought he was talking about the symbol of it. That the Captain America suit, being recognizable as a symbol for honor and good , used to inspire people to fight in the past, could maybe be used to inspire some people within Shield to take their side, give them the extra push. Don’t get him wrong, he hopes it does. That’s not why he’s wearing it though. But he doesn’t think he can tell Sam about his, frankly, desperate move to wear something Bucky might recognize. He’ll do almost anything necessary to stop project Insight from fulfilling its goals. But he can’t… he can’t hurt Bucky. It’s a last-ditch effort, maybe a hopeless idea. But if there’s a chance, even the smallest chance, that seeing something so familiar to him triggers anything? Steve will take it. He’ll do anything, anything to get him back.

5. Wakanda, 2016

Steve’s a little nervous. He worked on the sketch for his new uniform for hours, thought about it for days. After Siberia and dropping the shield he knew for sure. He’d taken the Avengers patches off the suit already, but after that last confrontation with Tony…it only confirmed what he already knew. He could no longer be that symbol, not in the way people wanted him to, that was demanded of him. He’s seen and experienced too many times what the power of institutions can do, how they’re corrupted every single time. But he’s not going to just sit down and give up the fight. People still need help. And he believes in people, trusts them more than he’s ever believed in any government or institution. That’s what was on his mind when he designed this new suit. The person he trusts most in this world is - and always will be - Bucky. His strength, his kindness, his resilience, the way he can still see good in others even with all he’s been through. He’s always been like that and no one could really take it away. Steve had been looking through old pictures of him and the Howlies with Bucky one day, because Bucky had asked. And Steve had seen those photos, seen Bucky’s uniform back then, how beautiful he’d looked in it and what it had represented to him - Bucky’s strength, Bucky’s trust in him - and he’d just known. Known what he wanted to wear, if he was going to continue the fight. It fits like a glove, the fabric Shuri used feeling like silk on his skin. He breathes in deep before he opens the door to their living room, ready to show Bucky. He hopes he gets it. He knows he will.

+1, Upstate New York, now

He’s pushed against the wall next to the bedroom door of the cottage they’re renting. Hard. For a second he thinks he’s glad Bucky isn’t using his full strength. Yet. Because he’d hate to explain a super-soldier sized dent in the wall. It’s only for a second though, because Bucky is pressing into him, biting his neck and running his tongue over it to sooth the sting. Steve gets with the program quickly enough, reaching out to pull Bucky’s face up, close to his, kissing him with all he’s got. He’s almost desperate for it, but luckily, Bucky is on the same page, returning the kiss just as fiercely, moaning a little when Steve bites his lower lip. “Off. It’s gotta come off”, he demands, growls. Steve is about to try take off his suit jacket, unbutton his shirt, but Bucky doesn’t seem to have that kind of patience. Before Steve can even move, he hears a tearing sound, feels the jacket and shirt being torn right off his body, falling to the ground. They spent a fortune on this suit. And it was perfect. A perfect suit to marry the love of his life in, on a perfect day. But he doesn’t mind so much. Forget suits, forget uniforms. The only important thing he’s ever gonna wear again? The band on his finger, a perfect match to Bucky’s.

#steverogersweek2022 #stucky #bucky barnes #steve rogers #fic #maya tries to write

62 notes · View notes

lasenbyphoenix · 3 months

Text

Shipper tag game

Tagged by @sunriseverse thank you!💜

What ship were you completely obsessed with when you were a teenager, but now you don’t care about anymore?

I didn't know the concept of shipping was a thing until I was 29 and stumbled onto fandom on tumblr, (didn't know about fandom either until then), so I'm trying to think of any couples I would have considered cute in anything I watched/read growing up... and I really dont know?? Joshua Jackson was a fave actor from back then and I can't even remember if I had an opinion on the Dawson/Joey vs Pacey/Joey debate on Dawson's Creek. I was always more interested in the story than the ships! (Can you tell I'm on the aroace side of life? Lol)

Which ship would you consider your first one?

Captain America is what lead me to finding fandom in the first place so Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes is the first that comes to mind. But before that I was very into Dr Who, so I'd probably consider The Doctor/Rose Tyler the first fictional couple I had any emotional investment in.

Your first fanfic was about which couple?

My first shippy fanfic (written before I knew what "fanfic" was) was James Bond/William Brandt Skyfall/Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol crossover.

You know the scene in Skyfall when Silva has Bond tied to a chair and starts toying with his chest and teases him about this not being in his training and Bond replies "What makes you think this is my first time?"? And then in Ghost Protocol when Jeremy Renner's character pulls himself out of the vent at the last second and gripes "Next time I get to seduce the rich guy."? I joked to my best friend that "Now we know what James Bond's first time was." And that's how that idea was born.

I started writing it as a joke for my friend but never finished it, and if I find the notebook it was written into I might just revisit it because I still quite like the idea!

Do you remember the first couple you saw fanart of?

Not for certain, but possibly either Dean/Cas or Rose/Ten.

Have you ever gotten into ship discourse?

Like ship wars or 'problematic' kind of discourse? If I did it would have been in my Captain America days (Stucky vs Stony and Peggy vs Sharon being heated topics of memory), and even then I don't remember specific incidents - as a newbie to fandom I tended to lurk and watch instead of engaging. Now I'm very much Ship And Let Ship (and only bitch in private to your mates, not in public!)

Did you use to have any NOTP or have one currently?

There have been plenty of ships I've come across that weren't my thing, Stony for example, but I'm not going to invest enough energy into recalling any others. I'm not here to spread hate on something other people like.

Who were the couple in the last fanfic you read?

On tumblr? Li Lianhua/Di Feisheng (Mysterious Lotus Casebook)

On Ao3? Ming Lou/Ming Cheng (The Disguiser)

Currently, do you have any OTPs?

So many. Zhang Rishan/Ba Ye, Hei Xiazi/Xiao Hua, Steve/Bucky, Steve/Peggy, Data/Geordi, Stiles/Derek, Jiang Cheng/Nie Huaisang, Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan, and likely more that havent come to mind yet

Is there any couple that, to this day, you are extremely mad about not getting together?

Haha no. I think I've always just accepted canon couples as "the thing that happened in the story", and now when I have my own ship preferences, then I accept that it's *my* headcanon and not necessarily anyone else's (especially not the writer's headcanon).

When Captain America Civil War came out I realised I'd gotten WAY over invested in what was or wasn't included in the movie (although I knew realistically they weren't going to make Stucky canon ) that I took a big step back afterwards and very much made a mental separation between "this is the story those writers want to tell" and "this is the story I like to imagine".

Is there any ship you used to dislike but now you think they are kind of interesting?

Dean/Cas maybe? It wasn't so much that I disliked them but that I didn't read them as a romantic relationship for most of the time I've known the ship existed (I'd always read Cas as ace). It's only been since the show ended that I think my idea of what makes a ship had widened to more than just "stereotypically romantic" which recalibrated how I saw them.

Do you have any ship that, in the past, would’ve been considered normal but now you would be cancelled over?

Incestuous (Thor/Loki, et al,)? Teacher/Student(I blame ABBA)? Torturer/Torture subject (Hydra Trash Party)?

What is your favorite crack ship?

I will certainly have come across crack ships that appealed to me, but honestly if the writer/artist sells it well enough then I stop thinking of them as crack ships and instead think of them as rare pairs.

What is the couple you read the most fanfics about?

Currently? HeiHua. Overall? Stucky.

What do most of your ships usually have in common?

Someone to be vulnerable around, someone who understands you better than anyone else, "you're not alone anymore"

What do you absolutely hate in a ship?

If I don't like a ship it's probably more to do with a singular character I don't like than the couple itself.

Tagging @gaiahenshin @fangdoubing @epicwalrus @tazzy-ace and anyone else who wants to!

2 notes · View notes

catch57 · 3 months

Text

random notes on the Irishman having watched it and read i heard you paint houses in a somewhat timely fashion-

-remarkable at capturing sheeran's voice without quoting him. would love further analysis but a lot of lines were almost quotes, yet written slightly diff for the movie. -liked that Scorsese used 'tuxedo junction' which sheeran references in the book. wonder where 'in the still of the night' came from tho! -slight shifts for the narrative, like that russel and frank were randomly again on the same road they first met. nope, that was in NY! - allegedly 'I heard you paint houses' were the first words hoffa said to sheeran, so funny the movie adds some small talk lol -loved that it centered peggy, but she didn't say "i don't even want to know a person like you"! which was so loud in the book! instead it was like she deduced it? -i was surprised to look back and see there was discussion of fish in the pre-murder car, reddit thought it was a joke about how it was 'fishy'. however caught that book sheeran actually sat in the passenger seat, not in the back which reddit said was bc sheeran thought sally might strangle him (like he had another). i had thought bc he wanted to be closer to hoffa lool. but who knows! -movie says sally buggs was killed on false info but book does not suggest that? -scorsese and brandt both suggest sheeran started drinking heavily after killing hoffa, but sheeran had said/denied that. scorsese leaned in more and had him stuttering too -i can't control f so i don't remember if hoffa mentioned ice cream in the book or if sheeran said 'youse' or when exactly the nixon $500 mill happened bc i thought it was just re-election, bc movie hoffa mentions it much earlier and that confused me - green casket was maybe a little stupid lol. -exclusion of charles brandt from story is interesting but prolly good choice!

overall very cool the way it made the timeline kinda just like the book, weaving in and out of his memory. googles gonna tell u that none of the book or movie really happened but hey it is a great story

#parle #the irishman #would love real analysis but every google link is like ai generated or saying he lied 🙄

2 notes · View notes

queen-of-the-avengers · 5 months

Text

CATFA: Part Seven

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~2.4k

Warnings: canon violence, language, and angst

Author’s Note: any and all comments are appreciated <3

They're using Steve as a face for their brand, and he's doing shows in front of soldiers and civilians to sell bullets. They're not even using the two best weapons they have, and you hate seeing Steve dress up and go on stage every weekend. Steve's been doing this for months, and you can't believe he hasn't stood up for himself. This act has taken you across Europe and into Italy.

"I don't know if I can do this," Steve sighs.

Soldiers are watching the girls perform songs right before Steve is supposed to go out there. You refuse to put on one of those tiny outfits and strut on stage. So, they stuck you backstage to watch.

What a fucking joke.

"They're fucking stupid if this is the best they can come up with," you groan.

"There is nothing to it," the Senator's assistant says. "When you sell a few bonds, those bonds buy bullets, and bullets kill Nazis. You're an American hero."

"It's just not how I pictured getting there."

"You and me both," you sigh.

"The senator's got a lot of pull up on the hill. If you play ball with us, you'll be leading your own platoon in no time. Take the shield," the assistant says as Steve puts on his head mask.

"Seriously? This is the best they can do?" you ask the assistant.

"I don't make the rules, doll."

"Don't call me that."

Steve walks on stage and every soldier is silent. He's used to performing for kids and families who cheer him on and clap. These soldiers give him nothing.

"How many of you ready to help me sock old Adolf on the jaw?" He gets nothing but silence. "Okay. Uh... I need a volunteer."

"I already volunteered! How do you think I got here?" one of the men shouts, and an echo of laughter follows. "Bring back the girls!"

"I think they only know one song, but let me... I'll... I'll see what I can do," Steve stutters.

"You do that, sweetheart."

"Nice boots, Tinker Bell!" another man shouts.

Steve awkwardly walks off stage and the girls who performed come on stage again. That gets the attention of every soldier who whistles and cheers for them. Typical men.

"Don't worry, pal. They'll warm up to you," the Senator's assistant says.

This is a nightmare. You're living in a real-life nightmare that you can't seem to escape. After the show and right before dusk, you find Steve sitting by himself. The clouds rolled in early afternoon and are giving you a light drizzle, but Steve doesn't care if he gets wet. He's depressed because he wants to fight and help others.

"Hey," you say and sit next to him. "I can stop the rain if you want."

"I don't care," he sighs.

"There you two are." You turn to find Peggy approaching you two. "I've looked everywhere for you."

"What are you doing here?" Steve asks.

"Officially, I'm not here at all. That was quite a performance."

"Yeah. I had to improvise a little bit. The crowds I'm used to are usually a lot younger."

"I understand you're 'America's New Hope'?"

"Bond sales take a ten percent bump in every place I visit."

"Is that Senator Brandt I hear?"

"At least he's got me doing this. Phillips would have had to be stuck in the lab."

"I don't get it. He knows what we can do. Why doesn't he just use us?" you sigh.

"You think these are your only two options? A lab rat or a dancing monkey? You were meant for more than this."

"For the longest time, I dreamed about coming overseas, being on the front lines, and serving my country. I finally get everything I wanted, and I'm wearing tights."

Sirens can be heard in the distance that gets louder the closer they get to base camp. You look over your shoulder and see wounded men on stretchers inside a few cars. If only you could heal others like you can heal yourself.

"They look like they've been through hell," you comment.

"These men more than most," Peggy explains. "Schmidt sent out a force to Azzano. Two hundred men went up against him, and less than fifty returned. Your audience contained what was left of the one-oh-seventh. The rest were killed or captured."

The second she says the 107th, your heart drops into your stomach. You didn't see your boyfriend in the audience, which means he's on the enemy's territory.

"No, the 107th?" you asked in horror.

"What?"

"Bucky," you say and look at Steve.

You both get up and rush over to the Colonel's tent who is busy with stuffing papers into envelopes.

"Colonel Phillips."

"Well, if it isn't the Star-Spangled Man-With-A-Plan and his secretary. What is your plan today?"

"I need the casualty list from Azzano," Steve orders.

"You do not give me orders, son."

"We need one name. Sergeant James Barnes from the 107th," you urge.

"You and I are gonna have a conversation later that you won't enjoy," the Colonel points to Peggy.

"Please tell me if he's alive, sir. B-A-R—"

"I can spell!" The Colonel cuts you off. "I have signed more of these condolence letters today than I would care to count, but the name does sound familiar. I'm sorry."

No, you refuse to believe the love of your life is dead. You shake your head and back up slowly to keep yourself from strangling the Colonel.

"No, he's not dead."

"What about the others? Are you planning a rescue mission?" Steve asks.

"Yeah! It's called winning the war."

"If you know where they are, why not at least--"

"They're thirty miles behind the lines through the most heavily fortified territory in Europe. We'd lose more men than we'd save, but I don't expect you to understand that because you're a chorus girl."

"I think we understand just fine," you growl.

"Then understand it somewhere else. If I read the posters correctly, you got someplace to be in thirty minutes," the Colonel says before leaving his desk.

There is a map of the location of the rest of the 107th team. They're not that far from here, and you know you can save them all if you can just get over there. Based on the look Steve gives you, he sees it too. You two leave the tent and head over to yours to pack a bag. You're going to go over there and save everyone, including your boyfriend.

"What do you plan to do?" Peggy asks, following you inside your tent. "Walk to Germany?"

"He won't be walking," you smirk.

If you had to, you'd change into an animal to carry Steve all the way over to Germany.

"You heard the Colonel, your friend is most likely dead."

"No!" you shout and turn to her with an angry look in your eyes. "He's not my friend, he's my boyfriend. He's the love of my life. Until I see a body, I refuse to believe he is dead."

"The Colonel is devising a strategy. If he detects--"

"By the time he's done that, it could be too late!" Steve shouts and finished packing up. "You told me you thought I was meant for more than this. Did you mean that?"

"Every word."

"Then you gotta let us go."

It doesn't take a lot to convince Peggy to help you cross the border into Germany. She and Howard Stark can offer you a plane ride into Germany, and get you as close as they possibly can. The Colonel knows nothing of this, and even if he did, you don't care. Once you heard Bucky is in danger, nothing is stopping you from going over there and saving him.

"The Hydra camp is in Krausberg," Peggy says once you four are in the air, "tucked between two mountain ranges. It's a factory of some kind."

"We should be able to drop you right on the doorstep," Howard says from the cockpit.

"Just get us as close as you can," you say. "You two are gonna be in a hell of a lot of trouble at the lab."

"You two won't?" Peggy asks.

"Where we're going, if anybody yells at us we can just shoot them," Steve smiles.

"They will undoubtedly shoot back."

"Well, let's hope it's good for something."

Steve stole the shield, helmet, and uniform he used in his shows to protect himself as well as show everyone just who is going to save them.

"Agent Carter, if we're not in too much of a hurry I thought we could stop off in Lucerne for a late-night fondue," Howard shouts over the loud noises.

You look at Steve to see what his reaction is to Howard's words. He and Peggy have a thing for each other but you're not going to interfere with their relationship. Steve gets up and puts his parachute on but you remain seated.

"Stark is the best civilian pilot I've ever seen. He's mad enough to brave this airspace. We're lucky to have him."

"So, are you two...? Do you...? Fondue?" Steve asks awkwardly.

"This is your transponder." Peggy avoids his question and hands over two communicators to you and Steve. "Activate it when you're ready, and the signal will lead us straight to you."

"Are you sure this thing works?"

"It's been tested more than you, ma'am," Howard grins.

Suddenly, the plane is being attacked by bullets from people on the ground. They sensed a foreign aircraft in the air, and with this being a war, they decide to shoot first and ask questions later.

"That's our cue!" you yell.

Steve walks over to the door and opens it, and a rush of wind gets sucked in. You use your aerokinesis to divert the air away from you so you can see what you're doing.

"Get back here! We're taking you all the way in!" Peggy yells.

"As soon as I'm free, you turn this thing around and get the hell outta here!"

"You can't give me orders!"

"The hell I can't! I'm a Captain!" Steve grins and jumps out of the plane.

You're about to follow after him when Peggy stops you.

"Wait, your parachute!"

"I don't need one!" you yell and dive out of the plane.

The wind is nice against your face. Flying is and has always been your favorite thing to do. You can control how fast you go, and you can go as high as the atmosphere will allow you to. Since there is no air in space, you can't fly up there without your space suit on.

This will never not get old.

You catch up to Steve who looks at you like you're crazy for not having a parachute on. You wave at him and continue flying faster to get to the ground quicker. You get to the ground before Steve does, and you land as gently as a feather. Steve's landing is a bit rockier but he manages not to alert anyone. He clips off his parachute just as you join his side.

"Damn, I can't see a thing. We are close?" Steve whispers.

"Stay here. Let me check."

You transform yourself into a bird and fly high, making sure not to be seen by German soldiers. About three yards from where you were is a road where trucks are being driven into the base. The cars have thick and dark covers on the back of the trucks that could easily hide you and Steve if you were to hijack one. You fly back to Steve and transform back into yourself.

"There's a road with trucks. We can hide in one of them and it'll take us into the base. Come on."

You and Steve run over to the street just as the last truck passed you by. You run towards the back of it and jump inside only to be greeted by two soldiers.

"Fellas," Steve pants.

They go to attack you, but you grab their shoulders and head-butt them as hard as you can. You punch one and fling him out the back of the truck while Steve does the same. No one saw a thing, and you're now inside the facility. The truck backs up to a dock of some sort to get unloaded, but Steve is prepared for this. He hits the soldier who moves the curtain away with his shield, and the soldier goes flying backward.

You two escape the truck and run further into the facility while remaining unseen. There is a bis ass factory where the 107th is being held, no doubt, and in order to get there without being made, Steve jumps on top of the sea containers. You two make your way to one of the back doors and slip inside.

You thought the outside was crawling with soldiers, but the inside has three times as many. There are large machines in lines throughout the factory, so you use those to hide yourselves from Hydra soldiers.

There is a small area where weapons are laid out on top of boxes, but these aren't normal weapons. Each weapon is glowing with blue energy, the same kind the Tesseract emits. You feel a sudden pull to it like you're a moth and they are the flame. Steve grabs a small weapon to see what it is and decides to pocket it.

"What are you doing?" he whispers.

"I'm sorry, but there's something about this light... I can't explain it."

"Come on."

Steve has to physically pull you away to get you to focus, and you two rush into another part of the factory. This part has a bunch of cages with men stuck inside of them. They're from the 107th, and that means Bucky might be here somewhere. A guard is patrolling on top of the cages, and you use your powers without touching him. You heat his body temperature quickly but not enough to kill him. He gets so hot that he passes out right on top of one of the cages, alerting the soldiers in them.

You and Steve run over and grab the keys off the Hydra nut.

"Who are you two supposed to be?" one of them asks.

"I'm... Captain America."

"Lieutenant Y/N."

Steve unlocks all the cages, allowing the soldiers to escape them. You look at every soldier who Steve frees, but Bucky isn't anywhere here. If he's not here, then he has to be somewhere in this factory.

"Is there anybody else? I'm looking for a Sergeant James Barnes," you ask as you make your way through the crowd.

"There's an isolation ward in the factory, but no one's ever come back from it," a soldier informs you.

"Alright," Steve says, capturing the attention of the men. "The tree line is northwest about eighty yards past the gate. Get out fast and give 'em hell. We'll meet you guys in the clearing with anybody else we find."

"Wait! You know what you're doing?"

"Yeah. I've knocked out Adolf Hitler over two hundred times."

Follow my library blog @aqueenslibrary where I reblog all my stories, so you can put notifications on there without the extra stuff :)

5 notes · View notes

theawkwardterrier · 2 years

Text

A Surprise Delivery

Steggy Week 2k22, day 7 Prompt: Free choice

Summary: Steve has an unexpected situation while touring with the Star Spangled Show. Peggy comes to lend a hand.

AO3 link here. Thanks to @steggyfanevents for organizing!

Steve had suspected that the SSR would be sending someone to help…manage the situation. Of course it would end up being Agent Carter, and of course it would end up being just now.

“Sorry,” Steve says, raising his voice a bit to be heard over the wailing. “The sirens went off at the fire station just now and that always seems to get to him, not to mention that he’s usually a little fussy around this time. Well, all the time, really.” Trying to remember what his ma used to do, sitting on the stoop as she talked to the neighbors, he turns the baby over to rest against his shoulder, shushing and patting and bouncing a little. For a moment, there’s silence. Then the baby gives a burp, and Steve feels something trickling down the back of his neck as the crying starts up again, if at a very slightly lower register. He clenches his jaw and stares straight ahead.

“Why don’t I take him for a moment so you can get cleaned up?” To his surprise, Agent Carter doesn’t sound disgusted or annoyed or amused; her voice is mostly neutral, just a touch of…sympathy, he thinks. After days of being chewed out or teased, it is more of a relief than he would have thought such a simple thing could be.

His shoulders relax, just slightly, and he says, “Here, come on in.”

She accepts the baby with only a slight awkwardness, although considering her usual poker face and cool demeanor, he suspects that means that she’s barely more familiar with infant care than he is. It makes him even more grateful that she’d offered. He’ll have to tell her more thoroughly when he gets back, but just now the idea of a shower holds such strong appeal that he can only manage a heartfelt, “Thanks,” as he starts to head toward the bathroom, already unbuttoning his shirt.

“Steve.”

It’s only his name, but he turns, half-panicked that he’s somehow managed to do something wrong within the first five minutes - and more than half-panicked that she’ll take back her offer. But she only says, with a bit of a smile, “Don’t expect me to do this with very much frequency. Child-minding isn’t exactly within my usual purview.”

The growth of his own slight smile surprises him, although perhaps it shouldn’t have; regardless of the unusual situation, he’s enjoyed each of the few conversations he’s had with Agent Carter. “I wouldn’t have expected any different,” he promises, and goes to start the water.

When he comes out, Agent Carter is sitting in the armchair by the window, meeting the baby’s unblinking gaze solemnly as she speaks to him in a quiet, sensible sort of voice. Steve finishes toweling his hair, clean for the first time in what feels like weeks but has actually only been a couple of days, returning the towel to the bathroom counter before he sits on the edge of the bed to join them.

“Well,” says Agent Carter, handing the baby back to Steve. He’s somewhat impressed that she doesn’t allow herself to be pushed by politeness or the conventions of gender to do something she isn’t interested in, although he wishes a bit that she’d been willing to hold on a bit longer - it feels as if the whining becomes louder as soon as he takes the baby in his arms, and he suspects that he and the little guy are on the same page regarding who in the room they’d rather be around. Raising her voice just slightly, she continues: “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

He’s recounted the story more than once - to the head of the USO tour over the sound of his groans at the hassle (not to mention his sideways, suggestive remarks), to the shocked, giggling girls, to a narrow-eyed visiting Senator Brandt, to a nearly apoplectic Colonel Phillips over the phone. This is the first time someone has responded with a decisive nod and an “Alright, I assumed it must be something of the sort.”

“You believe me, then?” He sits up straighter, trying without success to avoid sounding too shocked or too eager. It is such a tremendous relief to get a different reaction.

She merely shrugs. “Of course. Firstly, I can do basic arithmetic, and even if this child’s birth certificate can’t truly be believed, his size doesn’t lie. I’m not an expert, but I would guess that he was conceived at least fifteen months ago, at which point the woman who was under contract with the Star Spangled Entertainment Company as Lucinda Greathouse was living as Lucy Garvey in Gardner, Wisconsin - I’d say that sort of liaison would be a bit far for a man who had practically never been out of Brooklyn until about six weeks ago. Secondly, the Life photographer who was covering your tour stop in Philadelphia happened to capture a snapshot of you signing an autograph for Miss Garvey, and when enhanced, that signature looks suspiciously close to the one on the alleged custody papers which she left. And third—” She blinks, and if Steve didn’t know better, he’d say that for a second she looked almost…flustered. “Well, I’d like to think that I know something about you, and illicit trysting doesn’t seem very much like something you would do. Although facing up to your responsibilities, or at least the ones that you’re taking on yourself unnecessarily, certainly does.”

“Someone I met a month ago suddenly leaving her kid in a basket outside my hotel room door with just a note saying that he’s mine and a legal agreement that I supposedly signed is more likely to you than that I got a girl in trouble and ran off?”

“Oh, yes. And the idea of you having actually gotten yourself into a sticky spot now based on your own principles is even more likely. So—” She stands, brushing her hands briskly together. “Let’s find somewhere for lunch, shall we? We can work out a plan, and perhaps our companion will settle a bit once he gets some food in him. I find that it always works for me.”

“I liked Cindy,” Steve says as they sit in a diner booth a half hour later. He blows cool air across a forkful of the filling from his chicken pot pie, the softest thing he could think of on the menu, touching it gently to his lip to test the temperature before positioning it in front of the baby in his lap. The offering is scrutinized closely and suspiciously before one pudgy hand comes up and takes the food (although only about half actually ends up in his mouth, the other half smearing across his face). Steve looks up again, watching Agent Carter shake vinegar over her fries. Even such a casual, everyday movement is performed so precisely that he cannot help but pause to watch. Only when she shifts her gaze directly toward him is he able to shake himself out of it.

“I liked Cindy,” he repeats stupidly. She cocks an unimpressed eyebrow at him. “I wouldn’t have expected her to be the type to just leave a kid on his own, or even with a half-stranger. Most people…Most people’d have to be in real trouble to do something like that.” He looks down, then reaches for a napkin to smudge across that scrunched little face. “I’d have helped her with whatever it is if she’d asked.”

“Mmm.” Agent…Peggy picks up one of her fries, but is contemplating him more than it, which makes him blush slightly and hastily shovel in a forkful from his own plate. “Well, hopefully you’ll have a chance soon enough. There are SSR operatives working to track her down right now, although I must say that the colonel wasn’t best pleased that he had to remove some of the staff from war work to focus on this.”

Steve sighs. “Didn’t think he would be. I don’t think he’s best pleased by much, and this certainly doesn’t qualify.” Peggy actually laughs a bit at that, biting into her fry.

“Indeed. But regardless, there aren’t exactly many ideal options presenting themselves in the meantime. We could, of course, present the evidence I’d mentioned to prove that you are not the father of this child and that the documentation indicating that you agreed to take custody was forged, but that would only mean that you had no legal standing to act as his guardian, or to recommend anything regarding his care. And in absence of his mother or another guardian presenting themselves, that would mean—”

“An orphan home, or a foster service,” Steve says grimly. He knows that there are people who take those jobs seriously, but there are too many who don’t concern themselves for a moment over the well-being of those who they’re supposed to be caring for. “That isn’t an option.”

She only nods, as if she’d been expecting him to say that. “Well, if you maintain guardianship, at least for now, at least until we’ve found Miss Garvey, then you would be able to designate others to mind him. Someone trustworthy, who you can feel he’s safe with as you get back to your tour.”

The last word is said with such purposeful blandness that Steve peers at her more closely, as if that might help him understand her meaning further. But she only sits waiting for his answer, head tilted slightly, and so he tries to think about what she’s actually asked.

Mrs. Barnes would take the baby if he asked - probably even if he didn’t ask and she just somehow heard that he’d gotten his hands on one who was in need of a good home. She was always rocking the child of some niece or neighbor, raising the issue of grandchildren with an eager little smile as Bucky and his sisters groaned. But when he thinks about the kid in his lap being sent along on a train or put in a car to some other place, even if it’s to someone who would love the chance to care for him, someone who might be better equipped than Steve is, he finds himself balking at the idea.

“No,” he says finally. “He’s already been taken from wherever he was staying while Cindy was on the road. Leaving him with me might not have been the best choice, but it’s where he is now. I’m not going to just ship him off, uproot him again so that he thinks that no one wants him. They’ve already canceled our next few bookings so things can get sorted, and it’s Labor Day next week - we didn’t have anything on the calendar then anyway. That’ll give a good bit of time for someone to figure out where Cindy’s gone and get her back. In the meantime, he can stay right here with me.”

He feels a little defiant as he finishes, waiting for her to tell him that he’s being foolish, that the kid is too small to remember any of this and he’ll be perfectly happy to be in a nice house with someone nice to take care of him instead of in a hotel room with an unqualified guy who he doesn’t even seem to like much. Instead, a little smile comes over her lips, as if she expected him to say just that.

“Well, that’s settled then.”

“Sorry you had to come all this way just to talk me through that,” he apologizes, and he is - he knows that she’s Agent Carter, and she probably has plenty of other, more important things to be taking care of than this. But he also…He can’t truly bring himself to be entirely sorry that she came all this way, considering that he isn’t likely to have another chance to see her, at least for a long while.

“It wasn’t only that, I’m afraid,” she says, picking up another one of her fries. The kid makes a whiny sound and reaches out a hand, opening and closing his fist like he wants to grab it. Steve hastily starts cooling another bite of pot pie.

“What do you mean?” he asks between breaths, picking up the pace when he glances down at the little body beginning to wriggle in his lap and finds a stormy face to match.

Peggy appears to hide a smile, covered by her usual professionalism so quickly that he isn’t even certain that it had been there at all. “It seems that there have been some concerns mentioned regarding the situation. A few of those in SSR administration have wondered what precisely a child of yours might have inherited.” She makes a very tiny grimace as she adds with a remarkably straight face, “The idea of a baby with superpowers was discussed.”

“Wha—But he—” Steve leans forward a bit, lowering his voice and offering another bite of pot pie as a distraction. “We both know that he isn’t even mine. I couldn’t pass on anything to him any more than I could to Betty Grable or President Roosevelt. And besides, I don’t think that’s even how it works.”

“Well, to be frank, we don’t really know how it would work, exactly.” She says this with perfect equanimity, as if she spends all her dinners out talking about the potential heredity of serum augmentation. “With Dr. Erskine gone, Howard is at least nominally the expert on his research, but despite his bluster - and admittedly a fairly good mind - he doesn’t have a bloody clue what sort of effect it might have on your potential children.”

“Potential future children,” Steve reminds her firmly before he can think better of getting pushy with a woman like Peggy Carter. It’s only that now that he’s found someone who actually believes him, he isn’t at all eager to let her forget the truth for even a moment. Luckily, she just laughs, although it fades quickly into something more thoughtful. She looks at him for a moment over the rim of her coffee cup before she continues.

“Regardless, there is another concern that I actually believe has merit. Despite all the efforts to keep this quiet, the news, or at least the allegations, will undoubtedly get out.”

Steve sighs, then sighs again as he realizes that the latest bite of pot pie has fallen onto his pants - where it is already being gleefully rubbed in. As he takes a few fruitless napkins from the dispenser, he glances down in half-disbelieving exhaustion at the unrepentant perpetrator before he looks back up and tells Peggy, “Yeah, I already listened to about ten rounds from Senator Brandt about public relations and ruining my all-American image, so—”

His hand suddenly stops its wiping, and not because he realizes that he’s only making the mess worse. “Wait, do they think that someone might try to use the kid as leverage?”

The idea is at once utterly pointless - they could have used any kid off the street if they wanted to try to get him to do something, not to mention that he doesn’t know a damn thing approaching classified information there isn’t much they’d be able to leverage out of him - and so monstrous that it jostles his stomach, and also, considering who they’re dealing with, completely plausible.

Peggy smiles at him again, but it is thinner this time. He notices the way her eyes brush over the child in his lap before she meets Steve’s gaze again.

“We haven’t intercepted any sign that someone is planning to try, but It would be foolish to leave the two of you unprotected, just in case.” She takes a sip of her coffee and says casually, “When Miss Garvey is eventually found, we’ll have things cleared up publicly so there won’t be further increased danger to the two of you, but until then, I’ve been assigned to watch over things, and to act as backup if needed.”

Steve stares. He knows that his mouth is open a little, and he knows that it isn’t exactly showing him to best advantage, but it feels like the only response to discovering that for the foreseeable future, he is going to be sharing his life not only with a small child he is extremely ill-equipped to care for, but with Agent Carter as well.

Finally he manages to clear his throat and get out a plausibly put together, “Uh, sounds good to me.”

“Excellent,” she says, not quite as businesslike as he’s seen her, but still definitely controlled. She holds up a finger to request the check. Steve trades looks with the child in his lap and quickly divides the remainder of the meal between the two of them. With the last bite, the kid actually looks calm and satisfied, placing a pudgy hand into his mouth as he slumps back a little against Steve.

He tries to insist on paying, but she insists with equal firmness that it is an SSR expense. Once he’s finally agreed, they edge out of the booth, the kid drooling peacefully against Steve’s shoulder.

“I won’t set many rules, because I have the feeling that would only encourage you to break them,” Peggy remarks as they come out onto the street, the breeze managing to find a bit of spare fabric in her uniform pencil skirt and swaying it back and forth. “So I’ll simply ask that you take me with you when you do things, even if you think they’re meant to be brief or mundane.”

Steve nods. “I can live with that.” As if having Agent Carter with him would be much of a hardship - besides her sharp mind and conversation skills, he likes the idea of having more and more opportunities to learn her facial expressions, what sorts of things she likes, what makes her laugh, the whole spun story of her.

“Where are we off to, then?” she asks, and Steve focuses once more, casting around quickly for a direction.

“Montgomery Ward,” he says as they begin to walk. “I need to pick up some baby things - I begged a crib from the front desk, but in general my room didn’t exactly come equipped.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed so.” She falls into easy step beside him. “And I’ve the feeling that having some better amenities will win you the favor of…Do you know, I didn’t even think to ask what you’ve been calling him.”

Steve blushes, trying to ignore the contented hand sucking going on in his ear. “I haven’t exactly…If it had been any other name…I know it’s what was on the birth certificate, but it’s just a strange prospect, calling him Steve Jr. Especially since I don’t even think that’s his real name.”

“It’s certainly likely that that detail was simply another part of Miss Garvey’s ruse,” Peggy agrees. “Nevertheless, you can’t simply avoid using any sort of name.”

Steve sighs. “If he’d been a girl, I’d just call him Sarah after my mom. Even though…” He manages to shut himself up before he finishes the thought: that, once or twice, he’s imagined using his mother’s name for his own daughter someday. “Anyway, I guess I could call him Gary or Humphrey or Spencer - Cindy was always going to the pictures, so it’s pretty likely that she called him after some star or other.”

“Hmm,” Peggy says, but she doesn’t seem particularly convinced. She looks at the baby, sleeping fairly heavily now against Steve’s shoulder. He’s been rubbing the little guy’s back without realizing it, but even as her eyes linger there, he doesn’t stop.

“What about Michael?” she says slowly. “It’s—It’s a good, simple name, and it once belonged to someone who means quite a lot to me.”

She meets Steve’s eyes then, and he isn’t certain whether he is getting better at reading her or if she is beginning to allow herself to be more easily read, at least by him - the pain there is very clear before she blinks it away.

As strange as it is to not only be walking around with a baby who isn’t his, but one named for the likely-dead sweetheart of the woman he’s…well, ‘developing feelings for’ likely isn’t accurate, considering how developed the feelings seem to be already, nevertheless, he swallows and nods.

“Michael’s a nice name,” he agrees, and when she smiles, he’s glad that he did.

Steve always knew that, regardless of how hard his ma worked, his childhood was spent at least on the brink of poverty if not over it entirely. It doesn’t quite sink in just how much until the saleswoman has informed him for the fifteenth time that he “really does need at least one or two” of some additional new item if he’s going to have Michael outfitted properly. There’s a pitying edge to her toothy smile which actually does make him believe that no child should be deprived of any one of these things, and he’s starting to panic a little, more convinced than ever that he in his ignorance, he is going to somehow manage to ruin the rest of Michael’s life.

His arms are filled with various items and supplies, and he is trying to keep Michael from grabbing and/or drooling on everything, and he is having a minor internal breakdown when Peggy returns from her brief sweep around the area. One of her eyebrows twitches up, amused, at the sight of him; in any other circumstance he’d take credit for managing to charm her at least a bit, but right now he only meets her eyes with something close to desperation. She nods to him, already walking over to join him.

“How are we getting on, then, darling? A bit overwhelmed, I think.” She turns to the saleswoman and says, perfectly calm and firm, “I don’t think we need quite this much. A basic layette will do nicely.”

If Steve hadn’t heard directly from her that childcare wasn’t her milieu, he wouldn’t have guessed that she didn’t know what she was talking about. Still, he glances over without really meaning to, just trying to be sure that this is the right decision.

“That’s exactly the sort of thing that I grew up with, and I didn’t turn out too badly,” she says aloud in reassurance. “I would even have been happy enough for my mother to have avoided the more elaborate confections, if I’m being honest.”

Steve can feel his shoulders relax at that, and the saleswoman sizes her up quickly and gives in, retrieving several of the suits from the top of Steve’s pile.

“Mother knows best, after all,” she said with a little laugh, even as her smile took on a more fixed quality. Steve and Peggy glance at each other, and Steve knows that at least for his part, he isn’t doing a very good job of covering up his startlement at the mistake. Peggy, however, merely tips her head and turns back and doesn’t say anything, and he figures that she must think it’s too much trouble to explain. The woman probably wouldn’t believe them, anyway.

After a few more minutes and a consultation between the two of them, Steve and Peggy walk out with bags containing several daysuits in various colors, a jacket for the cooler evenings (improbably small, although it somehow fits Michael perfectly), a few bottles for milk, and probably several dozen diapers and sets of pins. At the last minute, Steve added in a stuffed lion toy - it had been on a discount because the mouth had been sewn on crookedly, but Michael kept reaching for it on the shelf, and now contents himself with hugging it, one ear stuck in his mouth.

“I have a good amount of yarn back in my room,” Steve says. “I can probably make a few little boots for him - help protect his feet and all.” Mind half on remembering how much yarn he actually has, he adds, “Might be able to put together a blanket for him, too. The hotel ones are nice enough, but I think that it feels good to have something made just for you.”

“I certainly agree.” There is a certain gentleness to her tone, however, which makes him think she has something else to say. And indeed: “But I wonder if you might be thinking in quite the long term. Blankets do seem as if they would take a decent bit of time, after all, and once his mother is found…”

It’s strange that he would forget for even a moment that he and Michael should both be hoping that Cindy is found soon. It’ll make it better for both of them, easier. He adjusts the baby where he is held against him.

“Right, of course. Well, I can mail it to him, anyway.” A bit lighter and wry, he adds, “I spend a lot of time on a bus these days, and there isn’t much else to do during those long hours on the road.”

“You do travel with a full entourage. Surely there’s plenty of opportunity for socializing and companionship, at least.”

She has that bland voice again. He’s becoming increasingly familiar with her various tones by now, and he’s starting to suspect that she adopts this one on purpose. Slowly he says, “I guess, but after this long, everyone’s already sick of each other. Honestly, I think they got sick of me first - the girls are the real talent, after all,, and I don’t even have stories to tell of all my big adventures.”

“Well, I know that certainly isn’t true.” The corners of her crimson mouth begin to turn upwards. “Why not lead them all on an imaginary tour of Brooklyn via the sites of your youthful escapades?”

He laughs softly; the movement almost seems to wake Michael but he settles again. “I was told by someone that it wasn’t exactly a good move.”

“On the contrary, I think it would be quite charming.”

They stop at the corner to check the traffic and he catches her eye just then. He wonders if he sees something in them, a continuation - I think it would be quite charming for the right person - or if he’s only imagining it.

He finds himself holding his breath until they’ve crossed.

“When exactly did you learn to knit?”

Steve swallows his spoonful of his peach ice cream - just as creamy and flavorful as the ad in the window had promised - before answering.

“I spent a lot of time sick in bed when I was a kid, and any time I was laid up, my ma used to bring me as many books as she could borrow from the public library. One day, she brought home a how-to guide on knitting. And I just—After all that time, it was something I could do. It’s hard to play chess without someone else there, and we couldn’t afford paints and pastels and canvases and all of that too often, and half the time I could barely sit up, but that next Christmas, I had a pair of needles all wrapped up with my name on them. I got the book out again and taught myself, unraveled old sweaters and things when I needed to so I could make something new.”

Turning to watch Michael crawl around in the grass of the park where they’ve brought their ice cream he asks, “Did you ever learn?”

“No, I was busy enough playing knights and dragons alongside my brother, and generally eschewing anything my mother considered an acceptable activity for a young lady.” He snorts softly, able to picture that easily, hoping that he’s buried the sound sufficiently in his dish of ice cream. By her quirking smile, he hasn’t exactly managed it, but she doesn’t seem to mind. “Now I do find myself wishing I’d picked it up - it’s quite the useful skill to have, after all, especially when you do find yourself a bit at loose ends during long-distance travel.”

“Yeah, I—” The ice cream turns slightly bitter in his mouth. He sets down his spoon. “Like I said, I’ve been doing a lot of it these days. Knitting my bit and all.”

“Something I’m certain that the Red Cross appreciates,” she says. She casually lifts a spoonful of her own peppermint to her lips, but there is once again that added perceptiveness to her gaze.

He finds that he cannot quite meet her eyes at the moment. His own gaze goes long, looking past where Michael is patting his hands energetically against the tufts of grass, past the border of trees and the city buildings, trying to reach something far beyond here and now.

“I thought,” he begins slowly, “that after the serum, I’d be able to actually do something. Instead I—Sometimes it’s easy to forget, day to day, but I’m still not doing what I should be anymore now than I was back when I was a foot shorter.”

“And to your mind, the only thing you should be doing, the only thing that counts, would be getting yourself to the front lines?”

“No.” He says it without thinking, and only after it is done does he realize that it is true, not only something he said to appease her and the undercurrent that he sensed in her words. It is a subtle thing, and when he plays back her words, he finds it difficult to say what calls his attention back to her so fully. Her tone had not been harsh or disapproving or affronted - it was, if anything, mild. But perhaps he has begun to know her better than he had thought, at least well enough to pick up this small thing.

“No,” he repeats, standing and going to sit beside Michael, taking the fist that had been heading toward the baby’s mouth and peeling it open as he speaks, freeing the handful of grass which was clutched there. He takes the baby in his lap and offers him the toy lion, jiggling it in front of him until he finally accepts with a screech.

Facing Peggy again, he continues. “Of course there’s all kinds of ways to help, and I don’t think anything folks choose to do is less important than anything else. But the choice I was given, to be locked up somewhere being tested, having samples taken, or to be here…I could be of use over there. Here all I’m good for is a way to spend an afternoon when you’ve already seen everything that’s playing at the theater, and a ten-percent bump in bond sales in every state I visit.”

“I hadn’t realized that I’d invited Senator Brandt on this outing,” Peggy says, a neat arch to her brow, and he looks down toward the whorl in the top of Michael’s hair, although he breathes out a softly amused sound even as he does. When he looks up again, she is taking him in with a new sort of seriousness.

“You seem to feel that you have only two options,” she tells him. “So make yourself another. You need to find a way to show that there are other places where you can be of use, and I believe that you already have some advantages in that sense. First, your mind. You’re sharp, Steve, and you’ve spent your life facing obstacles - this is simply another. And, of course, you have the truth on your side.”

A held-breath feeling in his chest, he asks, “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that there are things you could be doing other than this - things which are different, which are more. You believe that, and so do I. So you find a way to get it.”

She makes it sound terribly simple, even though he knows that it won’t be. He was already rejected once, despite his efforts to push back, and he knows that it won’t have gotten easier with time, and especially not now that he’s established himself as a golden goose here. She is familiar with all of that; her sense of simplicity comes, he thinks, from having done it herself, made a door where there wasn’t one. She knows that the actual path, the details of it, will not be easy, but she trusts that he can do it anyway. She knows that it is the only way to make something of himself, to stand up in a way he can be proud of.

“You give good advice,” he says softly, not because he is afraid of any of their fellow park-goers hearing, just because the air between them feels too tender for volume. “Mine isn’t half as good, but let me know if there’s a way I can help you out in return.”

She breaks into one of her smiles, a smooth, pretty one that touches the corners of her eyes. “Give me your word that you’ll teach me to knit sometime, and I suppose we can call it even.”

“Alright. When you’re done slaying those dragons,” he promises, and smiles back.

After such a full and busy day with only a small nap between errands, Michael actually falls asleep with a minimum of fuss.

“One small mercy,” Peggy comments.

“I think he’s on his best behavior for you,” Steve says, sliding the door to the pocket-sized balcony partially closed behind him. They have a good view of the room from outside and can get back quickly if there’s any sign of a problem, but it’s nice to have the sweet play of air across the backs of their necks.

Hooking a foot around the leg of his chair to sit down, Steve continues, “He took to you right away. You must be good with kids.”

Even before she has raised that inquiring eyebrow, he knows that it was a mistake. “Not because you’re a—You don’t need to be good with kids, I only thought because you’ve been—”

Finally she waves a hand and puts him out of his stammering misery. “I understand what you meant, although I wouldn’t say I have very much experience at all with children. I had only the one older brother, you see, not much in the way of cousins or nieces and nephews. There weren’t even many young neighbors about. I suppose it’s just Michael. For all the ways that he seems difficult, he can be very sweet as well.”

Steve snorts softly. “Maybe you just bring it out in him. Or maybe…” He goes silent for a moment. When she looks over, he has his head tilted. Slowly he says, still not sure if letting the words out is the right thing, “Or maybe you bring something out in me. I’m sure it can’t be a picnic for him to have been left with someone who’s panicking because he doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing and you—Well, I’ve felt better since you’ve been here.”

Peggy can, it seems, still be quite opaque when she wants to be. Even in the dim light, he can see her face, but cannot guess her reaction from her smooth expression. She keeps her eyes on Michael, but she does not make excuses or rush away.

Finally he clears his throat and says, “Was it lonely? Growing up with just you and your brother?”

“I seem to recall that you haven’t any siblings either,” she points out, her tone just a bit dry, and he feels a surprising pull in his chest - she isn’t a cruel person at all, and he knows that it’s only from his own mind, but for a moment he almost thought that she was going to say you haven’t any family.

“Well, Bucky - Bucky Barnes, my best friend - he was nearly like my brother, and his sisters were half mine too. And there was a whole neighborhood of kids to spend time with too - going to school, playing stickball, errands for our parents that were more fun to do together.” He’s glad that the words come out evenly, a reminder for him too, a comfort.

“Wonderful to know that there were people around who you hadn’t managed to inspire to attempt to beat the cheek out of you,” she says, but there is a fondness there, weighty enough that even he cannot mistake it. He laughs.

“One or two, I guess.”

The breeze rustles once again along the back of his neck, a welcome relief. Hoping that it’s managed to brush beneath those perfect curls and cool Peggy too, even though she hasn’t shown any real outward sign of discomfort, he tips his head back against his chair and breathes in, listening to the crickets and the small sounds of Peggy existing beside him.

“I suppose it could be a bit lonely.”

He opens his eyes, turns to look at her just barely. Her change of subject was neatly done, but he had noticed anyway; he hadn’t expected to hear any more from her.

“I wouldn’t say that my current line of work encourages personal connections either. But one day, perhaps…When the war is over, I can imagine myself finding some good friends, settling someplace where everyone will recognize me and I’ll be familiar with them in return.”

“That sounds nice,” he says into the soft night, the quiet which she has been careful not to break. He does not ask, although he wants to, whether she imagines anyone else beside her in this future.

But, as if she has heard his thought, she says, “I never considered having children before, you know. I know it’s a bit foolish - I was nearly married once before, after all, you would think that we might have discussed it - but I suppose at the time I thought it a settled matter whether I actually wanted it or not.”

“And now?”

His mind catches on the idea of who she might have been preparing to marry - was that her Michael? he wonders. Soldier or pilot or seaman, lost to her before they had their chance to be happy, to build a life together? - and his words come out so low that they are nearly swallowed by the breeze; she answers nevertheless.

Very slowly, her voice resting on each considered pause: “After today, with you and Michael, I could perhaps see myself with a child, and with a partner. Someday. If they’re the right one.”

Steve’s chest fills with something very warm and potent and fragile. “How will you know when the right one comes along?” he manages, not out of hesitancy or confusion, but to try to see if her instincts are anything like his own.

“I’ll know,” says Peggy simply. She turns only her head, so her eyes meet his. “And when the moment comes for us, he and I, we’ll have our chance to know together.”

Their gazes hold for another moment before, standing, she offers her hand. “Now, it’s likely best that we get some sleep so we can be fresh for another day of it tomorrow. I’ve been given the room next door, so simply alert me if you think anything is amiss.”

“Alright,” he says, still feeling a bit overwhelmed - by getting to be with her all of today, by the thought of her sleeping just next door, by the words that, in the small and secure rooms of his heart, he doesn’t think he’s mistaken at all. He takes her hand. It feels as if he is accepting much more than that, all with gladness and with hope.

It becomes clear over the next few days that, although museums and indoor attractions are largely off the table while they still have to contend with Michael’s temperament and penchant for getting into things, there is still plenty for them to do in St. Louis. They visit the zoo, where Steve and Peggy discuss the ethics of such places and Michael nearly has a tantrum before they figure out that his insistent whining means that he wants to visit the monkeys again. They take in the plants at both the botanical gardens and the Jewel Box, each developing an automatic instinct for removing leaves and branches from Michael’s grasping hands. They even take in a production of Rosalie at the outdoor theater. Steve had seen the film version back at the picture house in Brooklyn, but it had a Cole Porter soundtrack instead of the Gershwin and he finds himself humming the new songs all the way back, Michael dozing heavily in his arms and Peggy teasing him for his tunelessness all the way.

But truly, it doesn’t matter what they do. What makes him wake up smiling isn’t the thought of sightseeing or tourist attractions. It is debating with Peggy as they walk around the city, hearing her opinions as they find somewhere for lunch, sharing stories back and forth as they sit around together in the evening, having her raise an unimpressed eyebrow at him for thinking a fedora and a pair of clear lenses are a good enough disguise, pushing exhaustion aside longer and longer each night. It is getting to watch her easy, confident movement throughout the day, and listening to her brook no condescension from anyone, and getting to tell her how good she is at what she does - not because she needs the confirmation but because he thinks it might be nice for her to have.

It is the times - once a day, sometimes more - when people tell them that they look like such a lovely family, and neither he nor Peggy corrects them. Better for their cover is what they tell each other aloud, but Steve thinks each time about the possibility, of Peggy’s someday, of what might be a future for them. He thinks of how much he wants it, and asks himself over and over whether he is completely out of line for considering that she might be thinking the same.

Afterward, he can break down precisely how it happened and still can’t manage to stop it. One moment they are walking back to a bench where they can watch Michael splash alongside a group of kids playing in the spray of a fire hydrant, and the next…Somehow there’s a crowd separating him from Peggy, an old woman walking beside him having her cane slip out from under her, but when he bends closer to help her, he sees that she isn’t particularly old at all, her makeup already sweating off, and he drops her arm, feeling too slow even as he turns, knowing what he will see before he does.

Peggy is at his elbow again, and they both look at the place where Michael had been. Where he isn’t anymore.

“When I’m through with them,” Peggy says as they walk through the dusky streets back to the hotel, “there won’t be anything left.”

She sounds grim and truthful, and he knows that it isn’t about a point of pride with her, nothing about someone having managed to get the drop on her and damaged her professional reputation, but because it’s Michael and they lost him. He can feel the ache of it through his own core, the thought of the little boy who makes eager noises when they feed him something he likes and loves animals and hates sirens and has fallen asleep so many times tucked beneath Steve’s chin, trusting him as safety…that boy is in Hydra hands. He scrubs his hands over his face and forces himself to follow Peggy despite the sickness in his gut.

It only gets worse when they pass the front desk, and the concierge calls them over to deliver two messages. The first is from an SSR agent whose name Peggy acknowledges with a tightening of her mouth and who reports that Cindy had been traced to Los Angeles, but that she’d apparently already started back for St. Louis herself; she should be arriving on the next train. Based on the time the message was sent, she will likely be back in the city early the next morning.

The message underneath is simpler: Will trade for Rogers. 10 tonight, main stage of the Fox. No higher ups, no tricks. They don’t need more than that to threaten.

“I’ll do it,” Steve says, voice low as they take the stairs two at a time to get to their rooms. “Me for him, it’s an easy trade. I’ll do it.”

“Of course you will,” Peggy says, something steely but affectionate to her words as she unlocks her door. Every motion is purposeful, as if she knows exactly how many steps it will take to find her weaponry. “I never doubted that. Now the question is how we make certain that we get both of you back.”

“It doesn’t matter about me,” he says immediately, but she only glares at him. “Honest, Peg, I’m not the important one here.”

“If you can’t consider that I—that perhaps some of us aren’t so eager for you to put yourself in danger by giving yourself over,” she snaps, “then at least recall that they aren’t simply demanding you in trade in order to strike a blow to Allied morale; their hope is that experimenting on you sufficiently will reveal some sort of secret to the serum, and if they’re successful, the tide of the war will turn decidedly against us.”

“Right.” Steve shakes his head, trying to clear the questions about Michael’s safety which crowd through each thought. “Right.” And he closes his eyes briefly, picturing the layout of the Fox Theater in his mind from the one matinee and one evening performance they’d managed before everything went south. Peggy by his side, they begin to plan.

They don’t bother contacting anyone from the SSR. Peggy speculates that it will only mean too much dithering and blame-laying and debating, too much time wasted. She doesn’t say aloud that they might decide that the life of one little boy wasn’t worth the potential threat to Steve and not even attempt the trade, but Steve knows that it’s all too possible. It’s easier this way - he has Peggy here, backup he trusts, and doesn’t have to sneak around to be able to do the right thing, the only thing.

He remembers where the stage door is, goes right there; when he sees a man leaning against the wall, having a casual cigarette, he knows that Peggy’s instincts were right. Shaking out his shoulders, he approaches.

“No funny business, now,” says the man, dropping the cigarette and pulling a pistol from the inside of his jacket. “I’m a good shot, and they tell me that even you would have a hard time coming back from a point blank bullet.”

He holds the gun without the care and weight that Peggy gives to her own weapon, and Steve narrows his eyes at that. His accent is unexceptional to Steve’s ears, his face in the streetlight like that of anyone Steve might have passed a dozen times in his life. A hot and sweeping anger licks through his body, thinking of someone who he could easily have been neighbors with or worked beside in any office or factory standing for this evil.

He forces himself still, however, when a second man comes through the cracked open door at the sound of their voices and begins to pat Steve down. He’d dressed simply knowing that they would probably do that, and so after only a minute, he’s being nodded inside and led through the back passages he’d walked last week under very different circumstances.

The stage looks different without the set and the lights, or at least the bustle of the crew and the girls. A third man stands in the center, shadowed, but Steve can see the unmoving bundle in his arms. Every one of his muscles goes wire-tense, and it is a desperate, close-edged thing that he doesn’t go running forward.

“Came alone, then?” calls the man. “We saw the argument you had with the woman.”

“Agent Carter didn’t approve of my coming.” Steve stops at the edge of the wing, only moving forward when the gun at his back insists on it. “She didn’t think it was worth it. I couldn’t take that chance.”

The man laughs, casual and genuine and awful, but at least Steve can breathe out, seeing Michael stirring a bit at the noise. “Calculating. A woman after my own heart. Too bad you’re too soft to have held out. Of course, we didn’t expect anything else from…What is it they call you? Ah, yes, Captain America.”

The men behind Steve laugh as well at that. Steve ignores them.

“Let me see that the boy is safe,” he says, the desperation in his voice not feigned or exaggerated or part of any plan. Michael is nothing to them; they could easily and remorselessly have done something to him, determined only to lure Steve here.

“Of course he’s safe.” The man clicks his tongue, shifting the bundle in his arms and pulling back the blanket which had been over his face. Even in the minimal light, Steve recognizes Michael easily, watching sharp-eyed for the steady rise of his chest, familiar after all these nights. He rubs a palm over his chest, near his heart.

“He cried himself to sleep, I’m afraid,” says the man, and the way he is looking down at Michael’s face forces Steve to swallow the urge to tear him until there is nothing left but pieces. “But I’m sure he will be glad to be home again when he wakes - even if he won’t exactly remember what you did for him. But the question is, if the woman is not with you, how to make the trade. We could—”

But whatever falsely helpful suggestion he was about to offer falls by the wayside, because several things happen at once. The fire alarm system goes off, blaring through the theater, startling them all - but especially Michael, who wakes and begins to cry nearly louder than the noise itself. Both disruptions offer a decent enough distraction, but not quite enough that the leader doesn’t notice that Steve has turned on the goons who were guarding him and, taking advantage of their surprise, punched one into the other so they go flying past the curtain and deeper into the wing.

“I’ll—” he starts shouting, although the threat doesn’t go much farther than that: Steve can hear the moment he feels Peggy’s pistol buried in his back.

The words choke off and instead there is Peggy’s cool voice saying, “Hand over the child, and don’t even consider trying to bite into the capsule in your tooth. I have a kit here that Howard Stark himself assures me will act as an antidote, and if I have to revive you on top of everything else, I won’t take to it kindly and you won’t like the results.”

Steve grins a little to himself, but he is caught up in keeping the other two down. Sometimes his body moves so easily now that he doesn’t immediately remember all the time that it did not; right now, he notices it all the more. Even without any training, his punches simply have more power, his eyes are sharp enough to have him aiming where it can hurt every time, and if they get a hit in, this new frame simply absorbs it.

“I think this might help,” comes a new voice when Steve finally has the two moaning on the ground. Steve reaches out to grab the rope from Annalee, thanking her without taking his eyes off the pair he’s tying up. He learned his knots from a library book, practiced on a piece of string in his bed through a long winter, and they hold just as they always have.

When he turns to signal to Peggy, he finds that she’s just finished tying up her target and is standing, holding out her arms so Wilma will pass Michael over to her. Behind her, Patty and Leona are joining too, but Steve barely notices them.

For the first time all night, his shoulders relax. He meets Peggy’s eyes, watches her rock Michael lightly to start trying to calm him back to silence, and smiles.

They briefly considered simply dropping the Hydra agents at the local precinct, but in the end knew that they needed to contact the SSR to have them picked up and interrogated. When the higher-ups arrive, Steve and Peggy are alone with Michael. The few girls from the Star Spangled Show who were still in town instead of taking advantage of the break had been willing to lend a hand - “You’re one of us, Rogers, and Cindy was too, even if she ran off right after I’d altered her costume my own damn self,” Stella had said when they explained the situation, ashing her cigarette and getting to her feet - showing Peggy the back entrance to the hotel that they found to avoid the chaperones, and taking her in through the tunnels below the theater that the stagehands had used, and flirting with and/or high kicking the extra Hydra muscle roaming around as needed. Nevertheless, they didn’t need to get mixed up in the official after-action.

Corporal Whiting, the head of the detail, seems simultaneously disdainful and impressed regarding the whole situation. When he begins to take Peggy to task over her failure to prevent Hydra getting their hands on Michael and nearly on Steve himself after she’d insisted on taking leave to attend to the matter, Steve has barely let out a confused “hey!” of protest before Peggy is saying coolly, “My regrets over any mistakes I might have made will remain mine, but I’ll remind you that if this was such a high SSR priority, then perhaps you should have actually sent along staff and resources and…prioritized it,” raising an eyebrow with such crispness that Whiting gapes speechlessly for a moment.

“Well,” he finally blusters, “I suppose we won’t write you up. But we’ll be expecting your report before you leave for London tomorrow night. And you—” He looks at Steve, seeming a little annoyed at the definite way he has to tilt his chin upward to look him in the eyes. “We’ll certainly be reporting your part in this to Colonel Phillips himself.” Whether he means it as a threat or a promise, that doesn’t actually sound too bad to Steve - after weeks on the road, it would be nice to know that Phillips even remembers that he’s there, a possible asset to be used rather than being invisible or some nuisance - but he just keeps his face blank and nods. He thinks he actually sees a little relief in the corporal’s expression as one of the others calls him over and he can stop blowing hot air at them.

“I didn’t realize that you were going to London,” Steve says, turning to Peggy. He keeps his voice low, Michael once again asleep against his shoulder. The poor little guy still has tear tracks on his face, and he moves his head restlessly back and forth in his sleep, but Steve pats his back in the way he likes and tries to settle him a bit.

“I wasn’t aware either,” Peggy says wryly. “But I suppose that’s only to be expected these days. I go where I’m needed, after all.”

“About that—” Steve starts, but before he can continue, there’s a shriek from behind him. He turns just in time to see Cindy’s familiar blonde curls fluttering as she shoves her train case at one of the agents accompanying her and dashes down the aisle toward where Steve and Peggy stand.

“Cindy, you’re—”

“I’m sorry,” she blurts, and bursts into tears. Around her sobs, she continues, “I’m sorry I left you with him. I’m sorry I lied. I’m sorry I just left him. I only thought—You’re Captain America, you know, and you’re so nice and so good-looking and you’re touring the country and, well, even if you sent him to stay with your sweetheart of something, that would still get him so much more in life than being my kid and growing up in a nothing dot of a town in Wisconsin. My sister said that I should have left him with her and maybe he’d like growing up never seeing anywhere new and just milking cows his whole life, but…they’re cows.”

She tries to fall against his chest, a few stray tears wetting his pale blue shirtfront, but Steve’s startled enough and the noise is loud enough to have Michael awake and wailing too. Steve trades a somewhat desperate glance with Peggy, who raises an amused I’d love to see you manage this one yourself eyebrow at him before sighing and shaking her head and guiding Cindy over to one of the red upholstered seats.

“I really am sorry,” she says again. “I didn’t realize I’d get Steve in so much trouble, or that there’d be danger and—Mac!”

Steve looks around at first, trying to figure out who she’s talking to. But when he turns back, Cindy is holding out her arms to take the baby Steve is still trying to soothe.

“His name is actually Michael,” he nearly tells her, but she’s already on her feet, reaching, saying, “Oh, Malcolm, come to Mommy.”

Peggy steps forward again, and Steve can see that she has the same instinct as he does, the one that says that just because Cindy knows the baby’s actual name, it doesn’t mean that she should get a chance to have him. But Michael—Malcolm, Steve corrects, with a painful little clench of his stomach—Malcolm catches a glimpse of her and flails a hand in her direction. Taking in a breath, Steve makes himself place the baby gently in her arms.

“I’m so sorry,” Cindy whispers into her son’s hair, rocking him slightly back and forth. The flaky bits of her, the wide-eyed platinum blonde showgirl who wants to make it big in the city, seem to drop away for a moment as they watch. “I’m sorry I left.”

“You did,” Peggy says, crossing her arms. But as they watch, the little boy nuzzles into her, seeming calmed by the scent and feeling of his mother, she relents a bit. “You left,” she continues, “but you also came back.”

They walk back to the hotel together in quiet; their bodies are perhaps closer than Peggy realizes, although Steve can’t stop thinking about the moments that her skin nearly brushes against his, about the way he recognizes the scent of her, Evening in Paris and gun oil and a bit of clean sweat.

In the hallway before their side-by-side doors, they stop. Steve doesn’t want to leave her, doesn’t want to let her go, doesn’t want to walk into the room and see the empty crib he’s going to need to call the concierge to have taken away.

“Do you think Mich—” Steve stops, mouth going tight for a moment before he forces himself to correct, “Do you think Malcolm’s going to be alright?”

Peggy tilts her head, considering. He can see her tiredness in her shoulders and around her eyes, but she bears it as well as ever. “I don’t think Miss Garvey is going to try to leave him like that again. She did seem remorseful, after all. But I’ll be reaching out to this sister of hers before I go - it sounds like she has something of a more sensible head on her shoulders, and I’m certain that she’ll do whatever she can to prevent any similar sorts of antics from happening again. And between the two of them, I think he should be fairly well-loved, whether he’d like to come make it in the city or would prefer to enjoy his small town life alongside his cows.”

Steve snorts, and grins, his head tipping back, and then he’s laughing, quiet but full. When he looks at Peggy again, she’s shaking with equal mirth, such that it takes a few moments for them to contain themselves; each time they catch each other’s eyes, they start up again.

Finally Peggy gets her breath back and says, “This certainly wasn’t any situation that I’d have expected to end up in, but I think the first Michael would have been proud.”

“Do you want to…” Steve swallows. He doesn’t ever want her to feel as if there are things she cannot tell him, feelings that she must keep secret or memories that must be hidden, but something twinges through him at the thought of asking the question. He pushes it away, continues: “You could tell me about him, if you wanted. The first Michael, your Michael, your…”

She studies him for a moment, and he isn’t certain what he expects her to say. But of the options that leap to mind - her finishing the sentence with “my husband” or “my fiance,” her politely turning him down and saying good night, her furiously informing him that she doesn’t need his nose in her business - what actually happens surprises him.

“My brother,” she tells him simply, and lowers herself gracefully onto the floor, legs angled primly beneath her skirt. She looks back up at him. “If you’re willing, I do have a few stories to share.”

She has more than a few, something which surprises Steve when she reveals that they both went away to school as children and so spent most of the time that they were growing up apart from each other. Still, every story that she tells, the ones which make Steve laugh and the ones which sober him, each makes him grateful to know that Michael Carter had been here once.

“You were right,” he finally says, leaning his head back against the wood of his door. “I think he would have appreciated everything that’s been happening around here lately.”

“Yes, he was quite the troublemaker but he was charming beneath that, and sweet too, deep down.” She pauses thoughtfully. “It’s why I suggested that name - because I could see that in Mich—in Malcolm too.”

They’re quiet for another moment, then Steve says simply, “I’m going to miss him.”

“Perhaps not when there’s a siren about,” Peggy suggests, one corner of her mouth ticking up, but only slightly. He can tell she understands even before she nods and says, “As surprising as it is, I believe I’ll miss him too.”

“I’m going to keep an eye on things around here, even once we’re back on the road - see that Cindy’s doing right by him, make sure he’s taken care of.”

He’s determined to follow through on that, even if he’ll have to figure out the details in the morning. Peggy seems to believe him, though. She smiles.

“I don’t know how effective I might be from across an ocean,” she says, “but I’ll try my level best to do the same.”

“You’re pretty effective wherever you are, and your best is better than anyone’s I know” he tells her, turning his head to smile at her in the golden light of the hallway fixtures, and she leans in and kisses him gently.

She had given him time to pull away - by now she knows the speed of his new reflexes - but he hadn’t wanted to, hadn’t thought of doing it for a moment. There is only the light, coaxing pressure of her mouth, the knowledge of how her curls feel between his fingers, how her skin and solidness feels beneath his hands.

Someone closes a door down the hall, and it’s enough to make them pull apart, reminded of the realities of the situation - that she is leaving and he is staying, that there’s a war on, that there are ways they are meant to present themselves outside of this little bubble they’ve made.

“I know that they need you over there, and that you’ll do a lot of good,” Steve says softly. One of his hands is still resting on her back. “But I wish you didn’t have to go.”

Her smile is a very true one - full, and a bit sad, and just for him. “I wish I didn’t have to. But…” She winds her fingers between his. “I’ll see what I can do to convince Colonel Phillips that you’d be useful to have with us. After all, when we heard about the situation here, I managed to convince him once that I was the only woman for the job, so I do know a bit about getting into his head. And I’ve heard that you were instrumental in apprehending several Hydra agents with minimal support.”

His smile blooms in return, unable to be contained as she acknowledges what he’d only hoped for: that she’d thought of him, that she wanted to see him the way he wanted to see her. ��Don’t sell yourself short - and definitely don’t do it to the girls, or I’ll never hear the end of it.” Not knowing the next time he will hear her laugh, he treasures this one all the more, takes it in and lets the quiet afterward rest for a moment before he says, “If I get the okay, I’ll be across the ocean as soon as I can. But in the meantime, if I could, I might…” He can feel the flush in his face, but it feels too important to pull back now. “I’d like to write you letters, if I can.”

“I’d like that too,” she says, and although she sounds a bit more dignified than he does, there’s an eagerness to her tone that warms through his chest.

“And even if I don’t my orders don’t come through, the show’s scheduled to head to Europe soon, and if we could…”

“If I can, I’ll meet you there,” she says, and holds out her hand, as good as a promise.

So far he’s been in camp for several hours and one disastrous show, but hasn’t seen a sign of her and no one he's talked to has either. He tells himself it’s alright: he has one of her letters in his pocket, the rest of them in his kit bag, and Cindy just sent a photo of Malcolm that he can share with her in the next one. He knows that their side’s better for her being able to get her job done, and that there are folks far worse off than the two of them. His mouth still twists with slight regret as he ducks his head from the rain, bending over the new monkey he's sketching in the corner of his notebook; he’ll include it in the letter he’s planning to send to Wisconsin.

“Hello, Steve.”

He recognizes her voice, her scent, before he turns, his face already opening into a smile, warmth sliding through his limbs despite the weather and unrelated to his new baseline temperature.

“Hi,” he says, and means everything and more.

#SteggyWeek22 #Steggy fic #Steggy #Steve Rogers #Peggy Carter #technically about 4 hours too late where I am - not to mention very weird and messy! - but here ya go ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

46 notes · View notes

doctorhelena · 2 years

Note

Anything that seems USO show related always has me going 👀👀👀, so Spies and Showgirls?

(For this WIP game)

It is indeed USO show related! This is a story in which Peggy is sent undercover on Steve's USO tour, after the SSR receives intel that someone on the tour is a Hydra mole trying to get access to the serum.

Peggy is not undercover as a showgirl - she's in the role of Senator Brandt's representative/liaison on the tour (complete with an American accent that impresses Steve) - but she is posing as Steve's girlfriend in order to explain why they're spending so much time together.

I posted the first chapter for Steggy Week 2019, and then decided that I need to finish the whole thing before I post any more chapters, because there is a mystery plot regarding the Hydra mole and I don't want to accidentally write myself into a corner.

Anyway, I have been working on it on and off, and have most of four chapters written. (And I was recently re-inspired to get back to it, since it has a sudden new relevance after a certain recent scene in She Hulk! 😂)

Here's a snippet from Chapter 4, in which Steve meets his costume:

Steve frowned, but Kitty had disappeared into the general bustle as everyone found their belongings, chatted, made plans for the evening. George had disappeared, and Peggy, clipboard in hand, was still across the room speaking with the stage manager. Betty pushed herself up from where she was leaning on the motorcycle. “If you want to run your lines tonight, I’m sure you’ll have plenty of volunteers,” she said, stretching her shoulders. “Not me, though. I’m going to have a nice hot soak in the tub.” “I’m so sorry,” said Steve, wincing at the dark bruises already visible on both legs and one arm. Betty shrugged. “Well, it wasn’t all your fault.” She smiled at him. “Anyway, they’re only bruises. We dancers are tougher than we look. Check out a ballerina’s toes some time.” “I can help you with your lines,” offered Dot, tucking a red-blonde curl behind her ear and regarding him through her eyelashes. “Gosh, I know exactly you you feel. It took me ages to memorize the ‘Star-Spangled Man with a Plan’ song.” Steve took a cautious step back. Roma snorted. “Dot, his girl is right over there.” She stretched her back like a cat, and Steve could hear the joints in her spine crack. “Yes, and she’s perfectly capable of helping him run his lines,” said Peggy, giving Dot a dirty look as she joined them. She took Steve’s arm. “Now, the particularly handy thing about your costume,” she said, “is that it comes with a shield big enough for you to simply paste your lines on the inside. Problem solved. Now you can take me to dinner.” Dot looked impressed. “Huh. I never would have thought of that.” Peggy shrugged. “Necessity is the mother of invention, and I’m starving.” She kept her arm linked with Steve’s as they left the stage and strolled down the hall towards Wardrobe. “So, do you feel ready for the big time?” she asked. “I have to admit, the motorcycle trick is rather impressive.” “Aside from the part where I nearly killed Betty?” he asked, wryly, and she squeezed his forearm and glanced around the nearly-empty hallway. “She’ll be fine. And you’re doing quite well, all things considered. I don’t think you’ve bumped into a single thing today.” She was right, he realized, which cheered him up considerably until he saw the costume. It was even worse than he’d been imagining. There were indeed tights, worn under very short shorts that did nothing to provide even the illusion of modesty. The top half featured a red and white striped waist panel that looked like it might have been cut from a circus tent, and unfortunately Roma hadn’t been kidding about the little stuffed wings protruding from either side of the head. “Oh, it’s not that bad,” said Peggy, when he emerged from behind the dressing screen. “You’re showing far less skin than the showgirls are.” He noticed, though, that her eyes kept straying to his backside, which, he told himself firmly, was just an example of her attention to detail in maintaining her cover.

#wip game #my fic #steggy #theawkwardterrier #thanks for the ask!

11 notes · View notes

3pirouette · 2 years

Text

Fic: The Prices We're Willing to Pay (2/?)

Title: The Prices We’re Willing to Pay

By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Distribution: AO3 Anyone else please ask first :)

Story Summary: Inspired by Multiverse of Madness. What if it had all gone differently?

READ PROLOGUE/CH 1 HERE

Chapter 2: The First Avengers

AN: Pivotal moments from Captain America: The First Avenger. These are all meant to just be small scenes, showing where major changes happened. You can fill in with your own head cannons things you think happened that I missed.

I was a little worried that I wrote a check I wouldn’t be able to cash- that set up- I just love this idea so much but I really was concerned I wouldn’t be able to pull it off.

I can’t tell you how excited I am now, because this chapter told me that not only can I pull this off, but I’m going to love every minute writing it. Chapters will get longer and detailed the more we start to deviate from the existing canon.

~*~

She bemoaned that her hair was wet and that she wasn’t exactly stepping forward with her best foot, but it was a war and she had looked somewhat presentable when she’d left her tent. If he’d changed somehow since she’d last seen him, if his only desire was the thin chorus girls in the short skirts and tight vests as opposed to her now broader shoulders and muscled calves in the SSR uniforms, well then, he wasn’t what she wanted, anyway. “Hello, Steve.”

He turned, and she wasn’t sure if it was surprise or shock that was written on his face, but she hoped she wasn’t imagining what she thought was excitement, too. “Hi…” he stammered, turning to her. His eyes were just as blue as she remembered them being all those months ago when she last saw him. “What are you doing here?”

“Officially, I’m not here at all,” she sighed, folding her trench coat and sitting on it, “but Stark has to be here, so…” She looked away at the pounding rain then back at him, trying to fill the silence. “That was quite a performance.”

“Yeah,” he turned, feathers ruffled. “I had to improv a little bit. The crowds I’m used to are usually more…” he shook his head and she saw embarrassment and frustration behind his bright eyes, “twelve.”

“Come on,” she tried to smile, he hadn’t turned away from her yet. “Aren’t you America’s new hope?” she asked, parroting back the ridiculous tag line she’d seen on posters.

He hung his head. “Bond sales take a ten percent bump in every state I visit.”

“Is that senator Brandt I hear?” She shook her head, looking far off into the rain. “At least he has you doing something.”

She could feel Steve’s eyes on her as he spoke. “You know just as well as I do that Stark taking you with him was the best outcome.”

She couldn’t look at him, didn’t want him to see the tear that spilled from the eye turned away from his gaze. “I’d done so much more as a spy, though, before this. I could do so much more.”

His voice dropped, soft. “There was no safe place for you in Alamogordo. We all know that.”

Her head turned, sharp. She knew well the rumors of what happened to women in places like that, she knew it didn’t matter how strong or how fast she was if they had collars and cuffs and chains and sedatives, and she knew that going with Howard and keeping her new abilities a secret had been the best choice. It didn’t make it hurt any less. “At least you’re doing something.” She laughed mirthlessly, wiping at her face. “Even if you do feel like a dancing monkey.” If he’d seen the tears, he didn’t mention it. “At least you’re not just getting coffee and typing and filing all day.”

“I’ll have you know that the heavy lifting you do more than makes up for the fact that your coffee should be considered a war crime.” Howard Stark’s voice surprised them both. He laughed, stepping under the tent and pushing his hood back. “So deep in your pity party you didn’t hear me coming, huh?”

Steve hemmed and hawed, looking away and closing the book on his sketches. “We were…”

“Misery loves company,” Peggy bit out, smiling harshly.

“Yeah,” Howard blew out a heavy sigh, sitting on an overturned crate, “you’ve made me very aware of how you feel.” He shrugged, pulling the book from Steve’s hands and flipping back to his drawing. “So those are your only choices? Lab Rat, secretary, or dancing monkey?”

Steve pulled the book back, flipping it closed, and Howard stood, pacing. “You were meant for more than this, you know.” He sighed, leaning down to get in Steve’s face. “He believed in you, and I do, too.”

“And me?” Peggy asked, tired of being overlooked. Howard laughed, and she reared back, jaw set tight. “I don’t see what’s so—”

“You already were!” Howard laughed out. “To have you, one of the greatest spies of this war, getting me terrible coffee and filing my paperwork with the pentagon, is a damn waste. And you!” He leaned back down at Steve, “You might be untested, but Erskine hasn’t steered me wrong, yet.” Howard stood, shaking his head. “They don’t trust you, but we do. I do.” He poked himself in the chest, fervent and almost ranting. “If you can run and jump and punch half as hard as she can, the two of you put together would be unstoppable. You win this war.”

They were all brought up short by shouts and horns, the sound of a medic truck pulling though and the sounds of wounded men reminding them of just where they were.

Steve kept his eyes on the medics as they unloaded man after man. “You know, for the longest time I dreamed about coming overseas, fighting on the front line, serving my country… I finally got everything I wanted, and I’m wearing tights.” He sighed, turning back to Howard. “They’ve been through hell. The two of us, there’s no way…”

Peggy shook her head, agreeing. “When you’ve managed to convince Brant to let us out into the field, let me know. I think it’ll be years before he’s willing to let us move around unchaperoned, if at all.”

Howard’s smile was more than enough to clue Peggy into the fact that he was up to no good. “That’s the genius part of my plan, Carter.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked back and forth on his toes. “Brandt ain’t here, and I have a private plane.” He turned, flipping his hood over his head and stopped, looking back when they didn’t move. “Well? Come on. The 107th isn’t going to save itself.”

Steve jumped, running after him. “The 107th?”

She barely had time to throw her coat over her head as she ran to follow them. Peggy’s heart was beating fast, and she wasn’t sure if it was with fear or excitement, but she liked it.

~*~

Peggy stared at the empty plane as Steve took a seat at the controls. She was well familiar with what she could do as Lady Britain (a title she very much did not enjoy) and hadn’t been exactly surprised when she and Steve managed to make a successful grab for the plane’s wheels before it took off. She wasn’t exactly surprised at how the fight had gone, either, though the tesseract’s energy blast still left her feeling off-kilter and anxious.

“Peg,” Steve’s voice trembled more than she’d ever heard it, and she was by his side immediately.

His eyes said all she needed to know, but she asked, anyway. “What’s wrong?”

“We’ll…” He took a deep breath, looking across the broken controls, “We’ll have to put her down in the water.”

“We’ll get Howard on the line- he’ll—” She was stopped short by the crack and fizz of electronics dying short deaths under his hands, the German instruments they could read making no sense and other displays broken so badly they couldn’t tell where they were if they wanted to. “There has to be…”

He took one hand from the wheel and took hers, lacing their fingers together. “You saw those bombs, Peg.” He swallowed, hard. “Even if we don’t hit New York, wherever we land…”

“Just…” her heart was pounding, she didn’t know what to say. Of all the crazy things they’d done, of all the times they’d stared down death, it had never felt as close and as real as it did in this moment. “Phillips saw us take off. There will be planes any moment.”

His face crumpled tight, and she could see the tears gather in the corners of his eyes. “I wish you hadn’t jumped after me,” he whispered, taking both hands off the wheel and hugging her tight, burying his face against her stomach. “I don’t know how long we can wait.”

She ran her fingers through his hair, and could feel his anguish in the way he held her. She didn’t know how it was possible- either they’d been on the plane far longer than it felt, or the plane was far faster than any of them dreamed- but the clouds cleared and she could see just the tiniest outline of a coast. She wasn’t equipped to know if it was England or Iceland or America, but the truth was, it didn’t matter and they both knew it. “I know, my darling,” she whispered, holding him to her. “I wish neither of us had, now.”

“We can wait,” he whispered against her. “We can wait just a little while longer.”

Peggy thought of all the times one of them had uttered that sentence: behind the mess after their first kiss, behind his tent after their second, sitting quietly just far enough away from each other on quiet nights while the Commandos slept soundly in tents under their watch, when things had gotten just a little too intense one night after a mission and they found themselves half drunk on adrenaline and half naked in each other’s arms behind a little bar in Poland… There had been too many times where they’d pushed each other away, where they’d put their happiness on hold, where they assumed there’d be a tomorrow to explore the pull that existed between them.

And now, there really was the chance that there was no tomorrow.

They’d missed their opportunity to know one another, to love one another, as more than just partners and soldiers and friends.

They’d been so caught up in their duty, in being Captain America and Lady Britain, that they never got the chance to just be Steve and Peggy.

But she knew him well enough, they’d stolen enough moments and kisses and conversations, that she knew that under his broad shoulders and bright white smile was a kind and sweet soul that felt every loss, and was being crushed by the decision he thought he had to make in this moment.

With one hand, Peggy reached out and pushed the wheel forward, sending them into a nosedive and taking the decision from him.

He looked up, fear and surprise in his eyes. “Peg…”

“I’ll love you forever, my Captain,” she whispered, knowing he’d hear it even though the wind whipping through the cockpit.

He pulled away and stood, feet shifting to get a better stance as he wrapped one arm around her and set his hand next to hers on the wheel, pushing just a little harder, accelerating them. He turned, looking just barely down into her eyes. “I’ll love you forever and a day, my Lady,” he replied, voice thick.

She barked a laugh as she held back tears. “Always have to one up me, don’t you?”

“I never could,” he replied nosing at her cheek, serious. His lips pressed against hers for just a moment before the plane jolted, knocking them against one another. He held her tight, looking around. “We could, you know, try to survive.”

She laughed again with actual mirth this time, stepping back and pulling him with her towards their shields as the ground made a fast approach. “So practical, you.”

“It’s why you keep me around,” he pointed at his head as she tossed him his shield and pulled him back into the corridor, “good, old, strategic mind.”

“Actually,” she handed him her shield and slid against one of the ship’s central I-beams, Steve nodding at her choice of crevice as it seemed most likely to hold them tight without crumpling against them, “I rather just keep you around because I like your arse in those tights.”

He shook his head, sliding in with her. “You know very well I don’t wear the tights anymore.” He pulled their shields tight against the gap, further protecting them. “Peg, can you move a little? I don’t want to step on your—”

He never finished the sentence, didn’t get a chance to as the earth stopped the ship, the metal bouncing off the ice like a stone skipping across a lake, the sharp sound of the metal rending itself apart against the ice slowly halting until there wasn’t a sound but the hiss of the hot plane melting the ice around it, sinking further and further into the unforgiving elements.

~*~

Ever since that day in the pod, when Steve declared he could smell her, Peggy paid attention to scents. Their heightened senses could detect the faintest hint of things, and she often wondered which of the things they smelt on a daily basis in the field, the acrid odor of mud and shit of the latrines, the fresh dewy scent of winter pine, the floral notes of her perfume, Steve was smelling for the first time.

Strong smells always made an impression, and nothing smelled stronger than a hospital. There were always the cleaning agents, the sanitizers, the alcohol and the iodine. A hospital was the sharp taste of metal on her tongue and the underlying stench of putrid gangrene and bedsores.

Every hospital and every medic tent she stepped into during the war smelled the exact same, which was why she knew the room she was in was not in a hospital like the young woman at the foot of her bed touted.

It smelled too warm, too soft, and not sharp enough.

And the sounds…

She couldn’t hear the clang of instruments through the walls or the mumbles of doctors or the wails of the sick.

She heard mechanical noises.

Noises she’d never heard before.

She jumped from the bed and held the woman against the wall. “Where am I?”

“Agent Carter—”

Peggy jumped back, the woman crumpling to the floor. Only a handful of people knew her true identity, and this woman certainly shouldn’t have known, Axis or Ally. “Where is Steve?”

She reached for a button on the side table, and Peggy wasn’t quite fast enough, didn’t quite have her legs under her enough to get to it before she pressed it. Peggy used the momentum from her miss to push past the girl and straight through the wall. It was flimsy, no more than thin boards, and she ran. She barely looked at the room, at the people as she moved, bemoaning her bare feet and the flimsy hospital gown she wore with what she was sure was little or nothing under it- she hadn’t really stopped to look.

“Agent Carter!”

She stopped in her tracks, the booming voice demanding her attention. Peggy turned slowly, coiled to strike at the dark man in leather with a patch over one eye. “How do you know my name.”

“I know a lot more than that,” he offered, clearly but gently. He waved a hand and the row of men in suits behind him with guns raised lowered them. “But I think there’s someone you might want to see first.”

She tried to keep her interest from showing on her face. “Where are we?”

“New York,” he supplied, “but the where isn’t exactly as interesting as the when part.”

Her heart pounded in her chest, hands shaking with the adrenaline. “The when?”

“What do you remember, Agent Carter?”

“Why should I tell you?”

“Because I’ll take you to Steve,” he responded, cautiously but firmly stepping closer. “I’m going to do that anyway, by the way.” He held out his hand. “Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD, formerly known as the SSR.”

She looked him up and down, stepping closer but not taking his hand. “So, the when is important.”

“Stark, Erskine, and Phillips starting looking for you the moment your ship went off the radar. Finding you and Captain Rogers was SHIELDs first mission.” He dropped his hand and clasped them behind his back. “I’m sorry to say that your rescue mission was about seventy years too late.”

Her eyes widened, her mouth moving but little more than a hiss came out as she tried to quantify what was a lifetime come and gone. Her eyes seemed to focus the moment before her brain did, and she finally saw the metal and glass of the building, the architecture she’d never imagined before, the screens that showed brightly colored moving pictures, the tiny boxes the men were talking into… somehow, though shocking, it was easier to accept than she thought.

“Seventy,” he confirmed, snapping his hand behind him. “Coulson, get this woman some clothes, please.”

The young agent nodded, moving out of the formation, mumbling to himself. “I told them she’d never go for it.”

“He’s a fan,” Fury nearly smiled. “Been heading up the continued search for years now.”

“You said you could--” she took a shaky breath, eyes closed as the images came flooding back to her: the way the land rushed up to them, finding the tiny space to hide in, his scraped up face when she found him on the floor, his eye swollen shut, the way the snow drifted onto his eyelashes as the plane rocked gently in the water, the way she suddenly felt warm, even though she couldn’t really feel anything at all. She popped her eyes open, pushing her shoulders back and willing the memories away. “You said you could take me to him. Is he—” She found she couldn’t finish the sentence, didn’t want to think about what it might mean to have it answered.

“Captain Rogers is alive,” he did smile this time, and Peggy felt her entire body relax. “He’s still coming to. Maybe a regular room might be a better idea?” She nodded, and he swept his hand out, showing her the way back from where she’d come. “I’ll get them to bring in a chair for you.”

#Steggy Fic #3p's fic

6 notes · View notes