Cap/Agent Carter vignette: Cloud Cover
Cloud Cover [also at ao3 | tumblr ]
1100 words | PG-ish | Peggy Carter, Angie Martinelli (Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes)
Peggy Carter's history with New York City's first television weather presenter, an animated sheep.
[Botany Wrinkle-Proof Ties' Wooly Lamb was a real thing, appearing on TV in New York City between 1941-49 with the song "It's hot, it's cold. It's rain. It's fair. It's all mixed up together. But I, as Botany's Wooly Lamb, predict tomorrow's weather."]
Peggy followed her nose into the kitchen, the smell of coffee and bacon making her stomach grumble. She could hear voices, upbeat and carefully modulated, and knew that Angie had the television on. Howard's apartment had three of them, one in the kitchen, and Angie would have it on whenever she was in there.
The news was playing, including a sanitized report of what had happened in the Rockaways a few hours ago. (The fireball had been seen from miles away, let alone at Fort Tilden, the would-be target of the bombers.) But then came the smiling face of a cartoon lamb bleating out a jingle about the weather forecast to come.
And that's when Peggy, startled by a memory, began to cry.
"What happened?" Angie asked, sharp with concern as she looked up from where she was frying eggs in bacon grease. "Did something happen?"
Peggy had returned to the apartment in the early hours of the morning from the office, exhausted after hours of surveillance in anticipation of a raid, the raid itself, the explosion, and then the hours of paperwork than came in the wake of the successful recovery of a HYDRA device, at least the one that hadn’t detonated.
"Nothing happened," Peggy assured, wiping tears from her eyes. "I'm just still very tired."
The raid had gone well enough, although she'd nearly shot Klein before it had all kicked off because she could apparently only spend so many hours in close quarters with a man who'd consumed beans at lunch. (It hadn't been hazing or even Thompson's passive maliciousness; Klein was a fair man and a good agent. Just one with a digestive sensitivity hitherto unknown within the office.) But it had been a long day and night and she'd stumbled into bed only to be woken up by the alarm three hours later because someone had to be in the office to finish the paperwork and send it down to DC. (That, on the other hand, had been Thompson's maliciousness. Peggy was neither the office secretary nor the most junior agent anymore.)
"You may be very tired," Angie agreed slowly and from her expression as she looked Peggy over, Peggy could guess that she might possibly look as dreadful as she felt. "but if nothing happened, it's either it's Botany's Wooly Lamb or my cooking that's making you mist up. And one is impossible and the other... no, that's not true. Both are impossible. So we're back to 'what happened?'"
Peggy laughed despite herself and it came out halfway to an ugly snort, which in turn made Angie laugh.
"Would you believe it's the sheep?" Peggy asked, a burst of grief and fondness, past and present, making her honest.
"Only if there's a story there," Angie replied skeptically, turning back to the stove to plate the eggs and reach for the bread slices to replace them in the pan. "Because that sheep's been on television since before the War and it's never made you cry before."
She made a sharp gesture with her chin for Peggy to go to the table and she did. The breakfast might have started out intended for Angie, but Peggy knew better than to argue. Angie had dreams of Hollywood stardom, but she was quick to admit that she had plenty of future Italian grandmother in her waiting to burst out and smother someone with kindness in the form of marinara sauce.
As Angie went to the fridge for more butter and bacon and eggs, Peggy told her tale between bites.
"Steve used to draw a lamb on his notes during meetings," she began. "The lamb would say things like 'It's hot, it's cold. It's rain, it's Nazis in the Ardennes, it's Monty not ready to go in Belgium. It's all mixed up together...'
"The details would change depending on what the Commandos' task would be, but Sergeant Barnes, who would actually be taking proper notes, would always look over at it and smile. And for one moment, I could see them as the childhood mischief-makers they'd once been together."
She paused, using the opportunity to sip at her coffee to keep her emotions from sliding away from her again. She could still see it so clearly, matching expressions of boyish glee quickly schooled to seriousness before they could be caught. She'd known the heart and measure of Steve well enough by that point. And Barnes, too, for all that he'd protected it far better under a gloss of charm and an enlisted man's deference. But seeing them like that had always reminded her that she'd only ever known the men that war had created and, in love with Steve as she'd been -- as she would always be -- it had always made her wish for more. But there hadn't been and wouldn't be and seeing that blasted sheep had reminded her of that.
"I eventually found out the reason why it was always a sheep, that it was from some television creation back in New York," she went on as Angie wiped the pan clean of bacon grease with the bread, head tilted to show that she was still listening closely and expected more. "I'd lived in New York for a time, so I suppose I could have seen it, but I never had."
There'd been a television in the Insight project headquarters; a room full of scientific and engineering geniuses could hardly have done otherwise. But she'd had her mind and her eyes on other things at the time.
"Until this morning," Angie said as she sat down with her own breakfast. "I'm sorry."
Peggy, mouth full, shook her head no. "You have nothing to apologize for. You didn't know and, to be truthful, it's not entirely a bad thing."
She'd said goodbye to Steve on the bridge and she'd meant it, but putting that part of her life in the past did not mean she had to -- or could -- pretend that it had never happened. Here in New York, she would never be able to hide from Captain America or from Steve Rogers and, until she stopped trying to, she'd never be able to find the place in her heart where he would spend the rest of her days -- not the whole of it, not anymore, but a treasured piece of it nonetheless.
"I'd believe that a lot more if it didn't come with the sniffles," Angie replied dubiously, but Peggy must have sounded sincere enough because she smiled. "Any other cartoon animals you need to be protected from?"
Peggy chewed and swallowed. "Only Dumbo."
Also posted at DW.
1100 words | PG-ish | Peggy Carter, Angie Martinelli (Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes)
Peggy Carter's history with New York City's first television weather presenter, an animated sheep.
[Botany Wrinkle-Proof Ties' Wooly Lamb was a real thing, appearing on TV in New York City between 1941-49 with the song "It's hot, it's cold. It's rain. It's fair. It's all mixed up together. But I, as Botany's Wooly Lamb, predict tomorrow's weather."]
Peggy followed her nose into the kitchen, the smell of coffee and bacon making her stomach grumble. She could hear voices, upbeat and carefully modulated, and knew that Angie had the television on. Howard's apartment had three of them, one in the kitchen, and Angie would have it on whenever she was in there.
The news was playing, including a sanitized report of what had happened in the Rockaways a few hours ago. (The fireball had been seen from miles away, let alone at Fort Tilden, the would-be target of the bombers.) But then came the smiling face of a cartoon lamb bleating out a jingle about the weather forecast to come.
And that's when Peggy, startled by a memory, began to cry.
"What happened?" Angie asked, sharp with concern as she looked up from where she was frying eggs in bacon grease. "Did something happen?"
Peggy had returned to the apartment in the early hours of the morning from the office, exhausted after hours of surveillance in anticipation of a raid, the raid itself, the explosion, and then the hours of paperwork than came in the wake of the successful recovery of a HYDRA device, at least the one that hadn’t detonated.
"Nothing happened," Peggy assured, wiping tears from her eyes. "I'm just still very tired."
The raid had gone well enough, although she'd nearly shot Klein before it had all kicked off because she could apparently only spend so many hours in close quarters with a man who'd consumed beans at lunch. (It hadn't been hazing or even Thompson's passive maliciousness; Klein was a fair man and a good agent. Just one with a digestive sensitivity hitherto unknown within the office.) But it had been a long day and night and she'd stumbled into bed only to be woken up by the alarm three hours later because someone had to be in the office to finish the paperwork and send it down to DC. (That, on the other hand, had been Thompson's maliciousness. Peggy was neither the office secretary nor the most junior agent anymore.)
"You may be very tired," Angie agreed slowly and from her expression as she looked Peggy over, Peggy could guess that she might possibly look as dreadful as she felt. "but if nothing happened, it's either it's Botany's Wooly Lamb or my cooking that's making you mist up. And one is impossible and the other... no, that's not true. Both are impossible. So we're back to 'what happened?'"
Peggy laughed despite herself and it came out halfway to an ugly snort, which in turn made Angie laugh.
"Would you believe it's the sheep?" Peggy asked, a burst of grief and fondness, past and present, making her honest.
"Only if there's a story there," Angie replied skeptically, turning back to the stove to plate the eggs and reach for the bread slices to replace them in the pan. "Because that sheep's been on television since before the War and it's never made you cry before."
She made a sharp gesture with her chin for Peggy to go to the table and she did. The breakfast might have started out intended for Angie, but Peggy knew better than to argue. Angie had dreams of Hollywood stardom, but she was quick to admit that she had plenty of future Italian grandmother in her waiting to burst out and smother someone with kindness in the form of marinara sauce.
As Angie went to the fridge for more butter and bacon and eggs, Peggy told her tale between bites.
"Steve used to draw a lamb on his notes during meetings," she began. "The lamb would say things like 'It's hot, it's cold. It's rain, it's Nazis in the Ardennes, it's Monty not ready to go in Belgium. It's all mixed up together...'
"The details would change depending on what the Commandos' task would be, but Sergeant Barnes, who would actually be taking proper notes, would always look over at it and smile. And for one moment, I could see them as the childhood mischief-makers they'd once been together."
She paused, using the opportunity to sip at her coffee to keep her emotions from sliding away from her again. She could still see it so clearly, matching expressions of boyish glee quickly schooled to seriousness before they could be caught. She'd known the heart and measure of Steve well enough by that point. And Barnes, too, for all that he'd protected it far better under a gloss of charm and an enlisted man's deference. But seeing them like that had always reminded her that she'd only ever known the men that war had created and, in love with Steve as she'd been -- as she would always be -- it had always made her wish for more. But there hadn't been and wouldn't be and seeing that blasted sheep had reminded her of that.
"I eventually found out the reason why it was always a sheep, that it was from some television creation back in New York," she went on as Angie wiped the pan clean of bacon grease with the bread, head tilted to show that she was still listening closely and expected more. "I'd lived in New York for a time, so I suppose I could have seen it, but I never had."
There'd been a television in the Insight project headquarters; a room full of scientific and engineering geniuses could hardly have done otherwise. But she'd had her mind and her eyes on other things at the time.
"Until this morning," Angie said as she sat down with her own breakfast. "I'm sorry."
Peggy, mouth full, shook her head no. "You have nothing to apologize for. You didn't know and, to be truthful, it's not entirely a bad thing."
She'd said goodbye to Steve on the bridge and she'd meant it, but putting that part of her life in the past did not mean she had to -- or could -- pretend that it had never happened. Here in New York, she would never be able to hide from Captain America or from Steve Rogers and, until she stopped trying to, she'd never be able to find the place in her heart where he would spend the rest of her days -- not the whole of it, not anymore, but a treasured piece of it nonetheless.
"I'd believe that a lot more if it didn't come with the sniffles," Angie replied dubiously, but Peggy must have sounded sincere enough because she smiled. "Any other cartoon animals you need to be protected from?"
Peggy chewed and swallowed. "Only Dumbo."
Also posted at DW.