Rhapsody in Blue (Captain America/Avengers) (4/12)
Rhapsody in Blue (4/12)
A Captain America/Avengers story
by mhalachaiswords
At AO3
Summary: Steve Rogers died in the War. For Peggy Carter, the War was just the beginning.
Rating: Mature
Characters: Peggy Carter, Howard Stark, Maria Stark, Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Original Characters
Pairings: Peggy/Howard, Peggy/Steve, Peggy/Natasha, Peggy/Howard/Maria...
Warnings: The usual. Angst.
Words: 1,750 this part
Disclaimer: This is fanfic, I own nothing of the characters/worlds/franchises etc. All recognizable characters belong to their creators etc.
Note: In which we meet a young SHIELD agent names Nick. A brief necessary interlude before the events of the early 90s.
Peggy was on assignment in West Germany when the call came in. She was to report to SHIELD headquarters in Washington immediately.
It was clear that refusal was not an option.
The hours-long plane ride did nothing to quell Peggy's fury. By the time the plane landed at the private airstrip, she had decided that she was going to rip the Director into pieces, consequences be damned.
Agent Lewis met Peggy outside SHIELD's headquarters. "Ma'am," he said. "If you'll come with me-"
"Where is Director Jefferson?" Peggy demanded, stalking past her junior agent. "Does he have any idea exactly how much of my cover I had to burn to get out of Germany so fast?"
"Mr. Jefferson is no longer the Director," Lewis said. "Ma'am."
Peggy swung around, certain she had misheard. "What did you just say?"
Lewis had the good sense to look worried for his own safety. "It's just, ma'am..."
Peggy made a chopping motion with her hand, and Lewis fell silent. "What happened to Director Jefferson?" she asked.
Lewis took a breath. "Well, ma'am, there's been a bit of a coup in the upper echelons."
"A coup?" Peggy repeated in disbelief. "This is SHIELD, Agent Lewis, not South America! What is going on?"
Lewis opened his mouth, but Peggy didn't believe that he knew what was going on. She stalked off toward the Director's office. Honestly, she left the country for less than a year and SHIELD fell apart. Why wasn't she surprised?
The Director's assistant saw Peggy coming and tried to get in her way, but Peggy sidestepped the woman and threw open the Director's door.
The man sitting behind the Director's desk was not a surprise. The young agent standing by the window? Was.
"Agent Stoner," Peggy said to the man behind the desk. "What the hell do you think you're playing at?"
"That's Director Stoner," the man corrected her. "Senior Agent Margaret Carter, do you remember Junior Agent Nick Fury?"
Peggy narrowed her eyes at the new Director. "If you called me back to the States for introductions, I am going to shoot you and make it look like an accident," she promised icily. In the corner, Agent Fury smirked. "Do you have any idea what you interrupted?"
"Agent Carter, your field service has been valuable to SHIELD, but given the length of your tenure with the agency, you are being reassigned to training detail."
If she was angry before, that was nothing compared to the cold rage that swept through Peggy's veins now. "Am I given to understand, Director," Peggy said in her coldest British accent, "that SHIELD considers me too old to be in the field?"
"That's sure what it sounded like," Agent Fury said from the corner. "Ma'am."
Peggy leveled a finger at him. "I have a name, Mr. Fury, and it is not ‘Agent'." She turned her attention back to the man behind the desk. "Mr. Stoner, I'm not sure what actions you've taken here at SHIELD, and quite frankly I don't care. But if you think that you can waltz in here and pull me out of the field, you are sorely mistaken."
"This isn't up for discussion, Agent Carter."
Silence settled. Then Peggy smiled, wide enough to show her teeth, and was pleased to see Stoner go pale. "Mr. Stoner, given all that you know about me, you know I'd rather resign my commission with SHIELD than to take a desk job. Now, tell me." Peggy crossed the floor to put her hands on the desk and leaned toward Stoner. "Do you really want me operating in the European theatre as a free agent?"
Stoner swallowed hard, his adam's apple bobbing. "SHIELD considers your level of skill and knowledge too valuable not to be passed on to a new generation of agents-" he started to say.
But Peggy didn't care what the man thought. "If you wanted me to mentor agents, Stoner, all you had to do was ask." She raised an eyebrow at Fury. "What are you doing with this one?"
Stoner pressed his lips together. "Implementing disciplinary proceedings, Agent Carter. He's a loose canon and not fit for SHIELD."
"Hrm." Peggy gave Fury the once-over. The man was young, no doubt hot-headed. From his bearing, Peggy deduced he probably had a military background. He certainly had to be skilled in order to make it as far as Junior Agent under the old regime. "You want me to mentor junior agents, Stoner? I'll start with this one. Fury, with me."
With that, Peggy turned on her heel and stalked out of the room. She didn't need to look behind her to know that Fury was on her heels.
Down the hallways they walked, towards the armory. "So, Agent Fury," Peggy said conversationally. "Are you in the middle of any ongoing operations?"
"No, Agent Carter."
"Any hot spots? Places you ought to avoid?"
"Well, Brazil's a bit warm for me right now," Fury admitted.
"Excellent," Peggy said, taking the stairs two at a time. "Frankfurt is lovely these days. You'll be on holiday. People will be so busy being scandalized by us that they won't notice the sorts of questions we'll inevitably end up asking."
"And what exactly will we end up asking?" Fury asked, catching up with Peggy at the bottom of the stairs.
"I'll fill you in on the plane," Peggy told him. "Now, Agent Fury, one question. From the sounds of things, you have a bit of a problem with obeying orders, is this true?"
"Nope," Fury said. His eyes sparkled with the slightest hint of mischief. "Not the ones I agree with."
"As expected," Peggy said, raising her eyebrow at the man. "Stoner always did have a problem with independent initiative. Just be sure that said initiative doesn't get you shot, Agent."
"By the enemy or by friendly fire?" Fury inquired.
Peggy shrugged. "I guess we'll find out, won't we?"
Fury frowned slightly. "Do I have time to update my life insurance policy before we go?"
Peggy smiled. "First lesson," she said as she keyed her way into the armory. "Don't go out into the field with someone who you don't trust to have your back." She reached for a handgun on the wall, before grabbing a box of ammunition. "Don't put too much weight on an untested bond."
"Exactly how are you going to go about testing?" Fury asked warily.
Peggy tossed him the handgun. "Show me what you can do with that, then we'll talk."
Well, it was a start.
Peggy saw Howard from time to time. Sometimes, it was in New York with Maria, and things were almost like old times with the three of them. Other times, Peggy met Howard while the man was travelling for business. She knew what it looked like to outsiders; an older man having an affair with a much younger woman while far from home. She didn't care.
"Are you ever going to get tired of this?" Howard asked one night in Vienna in the mid-eighties. The hotel room was dark; the light from the moon and the city streets below streaming in through the open windows.
"Probably not," Peggy said. "After all this time, you're... familiar."
"Familiar," he repeated.
"Mmm-hmm. Like an old pair of socks."
"Is that a fact?" Howard pulled Peggy on top of him. "Old socks?"
Peggy couldn't keep from smiling down at Howard. "The kind you keep telling yourself you're going to throw away, or leave in the drawer, but you keep pulling them out because they just feel so good." She kissed the tip of his nose, then his lips, while his hands slid down to rest on her waist.
Things then proceeded along a familiar path for some time.
After, Howard stared up at the ceiling and said, "I'm old, Peggs."He let out a sigh. "Most days, it doesn't bother me, but recently... I feel it."
"You're seventy, Howard, not ninety," Peggy pointed out. "You still look like you're in your fifties, and if tonight is any indication, you have the libido of a thirty-year-old. So don't start with me about being old."
Howard caught her hand and kissed her wrist gently. "I used to think that the Tesseract didn't affect me at all, but maybe it did. Just a bit. Like it did you."
Peggy pressed her face against his neck, burrowing into his warmth. "You were exposed for a few seconds," she pointed out. "Anything is possible."
"I guess." Howard was quiet for a while. "Tony's in college now."
"Maria told me."
"He told me he doesn't want anything to do with Stark Industries when he graduates."
"That I doubt very much," Peggy said. "He's like a junior you, only far smarter."
"Hey."
"He's in MIT at fifteen, and even that is barely holding his interest," Peggy told him. She sat up and turned on the bedside lamp. "But he's still that little boy who loves to build robots and blow things up. That sounds right up the alley of Stark Industries, doesn't it?"
Howard frowned at her. "How do you know that?"
Peggy shrugged, pulling the sheet over her knees. "Turns out that Tony and Sarah are pen pals. She told me last month."
"Jesus," Howard muttered.
"Take heart, darling," Peggy said. "At least he's talking to someone."
"I've never understood him," Howard said. "No one does. He's never had any friends, either. I just hope college doesn't screw him up any more than he already is."
"He'll be fine," Peggy told Howard. "Just let him be."
Howard reached past Peggy to turn off the light, and pulled her back down onto the bed. "Do me a favor, Peggs?"
"Wasn't twice tonight enough?"
"Not that." Howard took a deep breath. "If anything were to happen to me and Maria-"
"No, we are not having this conversation-"
"Peggy, please." When she subsided, Howard went on. "You know that Obadiah is Tony's godfather, but you... you're practical. About things. I need you to keep an eye out for Tony."
Peggy sighed. "You know I will, you idiot."
"Thank you." Howard kissed the top of Peggy's head.
"Now can we go to sleep?"
"Anything you want, Peggy."
tbc...