Agent Carter (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rightfootforward) wrote2015-02-02 12:06 am
rightfootforward) wrote2015-02-02 12:06 am
Entry tags:
[OOC] Entranceway Application
Name: Kaze
DW username:nihongoing
E-Mail: souster [at] gmail [dot] com
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wagashi
Other Characters: n/a
Character Name: Margaret "Peggy" Carter
Series: Marvel's Cinematic Universe - Captain America: The First Avenger, Marvel's Agents of SHIELD (flashbacks), Marvel's Agent Carter
Timeline: Marvel's Agent Carter, Episode 4: The Blitzkrieg Button (end)
Canon Resource Link: MCU Wikia
Character History:
Born in 1919 in London, England, Margaret "Peggy" Carter led a relatively normal life up until the outbreak of World War II. She was educated at an all-girls school, and enlisted in the British Armed Forces (specifically the Air Force) as a nurse, one of the roles open to women during the war. Desiring to do more than simply tend to the wounded, she moved to the Special Air Service and from there was given the role of liaison to the Allied forces' deep science division, the Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR). Here, she was finally able to shine as an agent and was tasked with retrieving Abraham Erskine, the scientist who developed the Super Soldier serum, from HYDRA. Our first canon glimpse of Peggy then, is not as herself, but as a young German maid, Eva.
As Eva, Peggy infiltrated Johann Schmidt's castle as a maid. She's able to pass by the guards undetected and, judging by people's reactions to her, it can be assumed that she was under deep cover as they didn't think anything of her. She's able to interact with Zola and Schmidt without raising their suspicion, and then successfully breaks Erskine out of the castle after drugging the guards' meal. When a few who had skipped the dinner appeared, taking Peggy and Erskine by surprise, she fights fiercely and leads Erskine up to the rooftop where they are extracted via helicopter. During their escape, Erskine repeatedly asked after his family. He explained that he had been coerced into working for HYDRA because Schmidt had taken his family hostage, and was desperate to find them. Despite their immediate danger, Peggy took a moment to tell him that his family had already been killed and offer condolences, telling him then to take the serum he was developing and use it against HYDRA and the Nazis by giving it to the Allies. She successfully recruits Erskine and returns to the SSR.
The next time we see Peggy is after Erskine has chosen Steve Rogers, a scrawny kid from Brooklyn, as his candidate for Project Rebirth. At Camp Lehigh, she is tasked with the training of all Project Rebirth candidates, and we get our first real look at Agent Peggy Carter. Lining all of the recruits up, she begins a fairly normal spiel for a drill instructor when a young man named Hodge gives her lip. Not only is she a woman, but she's British, and what follows is telling of Peggy's attitude toward sexism, condensation, and men who underestimate her.
She knocks him on his back in one punch, dropping a man nearly a head taller than her, and never has to listen to lip from any of the men thereafter. Her training under the SAS and the SSR gives her an arsenal of hand-to-hand and weapons expertise, which she uses to effectively quell any further jabs at her sex, position, or country. She resumes control of the group following the incident and leads them through training exercises, assessing their skills and personalities to aid Colonel Chester Phillips and Abraham Erskine with choosing their ideal candidate. Once Steve Rogers is chosen, Peggy is charged with being his handler.
During their ride from Camp Lehigh to the Project Rebirth site (a secret SSR lab under a pawn shop), Peggy has a moment to connect with Rogers. He fumbles over what to say to her and she returns his attempts at conversation with blunt observations of his awkwardness around women. He'd caught her eye during training, but this was their first time to actually speak privately. Despite his initial stumbling, he manages to make an impression on her by admitting how often he was beaten up because he hated to run from bullies, and by mimicking her own ideas about difficult it is to find the "right" person. Peggy, surrounded by sexism that constantly forces her to go above and beyond to even be considered halfway decent compared to men in her field, finds Steve's genuine nature refreshing and takes a liking to him then and there.
She's present at Steve Rogers' transformation into a Super Soldier, but tries to stop the process when the Vita-Rays cause Steve so much pain he screams. Concerned more for his safety than the success of the project, she yells for Howard Stark to shut it down to which Erskine agrees. Steve convinces them to continue, and when he comes out of the chamber, Peggy is one of the first to run down from the observation area to check on his well-being.
That's when Heinz Kruger sets off the bomb and destroys the recently vacated observation area. He steals the last vial of serum, kills Abraham Erskine, and tries to flee. Amid the chaos in the room - agents, scientists, politicians, and military personnel all ducking for cover, trying to recover from the blast - Peggy is the first to stand and shoot back. As Kruger runs up the stairs, she draws her gun and fires on him repeatedly, managing to hit him once despite the percussive disorientation. While Steve attends to a dying Erskine, Peggy pursues Kruger as she knows he can't be allowed to escape with the last of the serum. Without hesitation, she puts herself in danger as she fires on Kruger as he flees in a vehicle and kills the driver from hundreds of paces away with a single shot. Kruger tries to run her down head-on and she continues to shoot at him, immovable in the street. She fires several shots off before Steve tackles her out of the way of the speeding car, but rather than express gratitude for saving her life, she's annoyed that he interfered with her work and cost her a kill shot. Steve takes off after Kruger and Peggy returns to the facility to assess the damage.
With the secrets of the serum locked in Steve's blood, the SSR takes samples and then relegates him to a glorified choir boy. Peggy is disappointed, but she has obey her orders and follows Phillips back to the German front lines. We meet her again when Steve flies over to give a (poorly received) performance as Captain America for the soldiers. Peggy finds him doodling in his sketchbook and they have a heart-to-heart about his role in the war, and how he doesn't have to simply accept the one given to him. This speaks volumes of how she's survived in the male-dominated military so far. While she keeps her head down and does what she's told, she's always looking for a way to do more. Seeing that Steve has forced himself into Senator Brandt's box, she's compelled to help him out of it.
After informing Steve that his audience was what was left of the 107th, she follows him to Phillips' tent where he asks after Bucky. Phillips reprimands Peggy for going out of her way to speak to Steve and then begrudgingly informs Steve of Bucky's presumed fate. Steve is told he can't help the captured soldiers and to return to his song and dance routine, but he rebels and goes to rescue Bucky's unit. Peggy tries to get him to wait, but when she sees he's finally ready to fulfil Erskine's purpose, she supports him. Without Phillips' knowledge, she acquires gear and weapons for Steve, then convinces Howard Stark to pilot them into enemy territory to get Steve closer to the HYDRA base. During the flight in, Howard tries to hit on Peggy and she brushes it off when she notices how Steve reacts - it's our first overt sign that she's developing feelings for him aside from their work. When they begin taking fire, Steve jumps out of the plane against Peggy's orders and they're forced to return.
Back at the base, Peggy is under heavy scrutiny and faces major punitive actions because she aided in Captain America's "suicide" mission. While Phillips berates her, she states that she has no regrets and did what she thought was right. Phillips accuses her of having a crush and she insists she merely had faith in him, and wanted to help him become what Erskine envisioned. When Steve suddenly returns with the captured 107th soldiers, she rushes out to greet him, relieved that he's safe and impressed that he accomplished his mission. In front of the other soldiers, she remains businesslike, although her relief and admiration is barely concealed.
With the rescue of the 107th, Captain America is called to active duty. He begins building his team, the Howling Commandos, from people he rescued from the 107th, starting with Bucky Barnes. While they're all at a pub celebrating their escape, Peggy drops by to tell Steve that he's wanted at the SSR the next day to test out new gear specifically for him. This is the first time we see her out of uniform and it's notable that she chooses to wear a bombshell of a red dress just to deliver a message. She ignores Bucky's attempts at flirtation and speaks exclusively to Steve. They banter about the noise in the bar and Steve asks if she doesn't like music, to which she replies that she actually enjoys music and dancing and might want to go after the war is over - if she has the right partner. She leaves the bar after delivering her message, despite wearing such a fancy dress.
The next day, Steve shows up for equipment testing and ends up kissing the front desk secretary when she comes onto him. Peggy, of course, sees this, and her demeanor takes a quick 180 from the previous night. Now she'll barely look at him and when she does, her gaze is cold and angry. She rebukes him and when he infers that she has a thing with Stark and ushers him into the testing room to try out shields. When he picks what would eventually become his symbolic round shield, he shows it to her for her approval and Peggy lets him have it - her anger and disappointment in him - by landing three shots him with a nearby handgun. The shield catches and repels all three shots and she replies, "Yes. I think it works," as she stalks by him, giving him a pointed glare before leaving the room.
When the Howling Commandos take to the field, Peggy helps the team by providing intelligence garnered from Steve's initial report on HYDRA base locations. She's on support while the Commandos destroy Schmidt's bases, but takes time with Phillips to watch news reels where she can see that Steve has a photograph of her in his compass. While she won't openly admit anything, it's clear she's pleased with how Steve still thinks of her, and is warming up to him more and more. However, we don't see her meet with Steve again until after Bucky falls to his death while capturing Zola from a train.
Peggy finds Steve in an old bar as he's grieving the loss of his friend and trying to drink the pain away. She tries to console him, but when it doesn't work, she uses reality and lets him know that Bucky made his choice and that Steve should respect his decision. It wasn't Steve who got Bucky killed, it was Bucky who chose to follow Steve to the end, he trusted and respected Steve, so Steve should respect him, too. Her pragmatic view doesn't do much to alleviate Steve's pain, but it does seem to help with a fraction of his guilt. When he declares that he's on the warpath after Schmidt, Peggy is eager to join with him and the SSR begins moving toward a full assault on Schmidt's base.
While Steve gets himself taken hostage to distract Schmidt, Peggy, Phillips, and the rest of the Howling Commandos surround the base with Phillips' military force and storm it. Peggy fights alongside the rest of the men, using a submachine gun to blow up a HYDRA soldier who had Steve pinned down. After fighting their way through the base, she and Colonel Phillips help Steve reach the HYDRA war plane using Schmidt's super-powered car. Just before Steve jumps to the plane, however, she stops him and kisses him which is the first outright acknowledgement of her feelings for him. It was a split-second decision, one fueled by emotions as Steve was about to embark on a dangerous mission, and she wasn't certain when she'd see him again. Given that Bucky had just been lost, it isn't surprising that she'd take that moment to confess to him in the most direct way possible in case things went wrong. Peggy spent most of the war at his side in silence, but with the war about to end, she thought they possibly had a chance together and wanted him to know. She tells him to go get Schmidt and then watches as the plane flies off.
Unfortunately, they never see each other again. Captain America is forced to down the plane in the Arctic circle to keep it from reaching New York. Peggy can only talk to him via radio at the HYDRA base as he chooses to sacrifice himself. Finally having come to terms with her feelings, she begs him not to give up hope and tries to convince him that they can find another way out. When he says it's his choice, she recognizes her words to him just a day earlier and relents, tears in her eyes. Their final conversation is a promise to meet up at the Stork Club the following Saturday at 8PM so she could teach him how to dance. When she hears static cut him off, she knows he's gone and, alone, she cries for him.
Following the loss of Captain America and the end of Schmidt, Peggy takes over the Howling Commandos and leads them on assaults of the last of HYDRA's bases. In a way, this is how she fulfils Steve's mission to completely defeat Schmidt and HYDRA to avenge Bucky. Now she merely adds her desire to avenge Steve to the mix. She runs into Werner Reinhardt, a general in Schmidt's army and one of the main antagonists of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and takes him prisoner. At his base, Peggy and the others recover several extraterrestrial artifacts and has them sent to the SSR for safekeeping. She and Dum Dum Dugan talked about how the world would needs a peacekeeping organization that could continue to protect people by keeping dangerous objects (and people) from the rest of the population. This was the seed that would later become SHIELD when she, Stark, and Dugan get together again.
Under SSR authority, Peggy imprisons and interrogates Reinhardt about the tech he had, but can't get more than cryptic messages out of him. Reinhardt, desiring a deal with the US Government says he will explain the extraterrestrial tech if she recruits him. Disgusted by Reinhardt's war crimes and his fanatical devotion to Schmidt's ideals, she refuses and has him imprisoned for life in the Rat, a secret SSR detainment facility. Even her curiosity over the Obelisk, one of the items they recovered, isn't enough to get her to allow even one HYDRA agent to survive outside of prison. She couldn't do that to Steve and she couldn't do that to her own conscience.
When the war ends, Peggy returns to the United States to continue working for the SSR, but finds her role significantly reduced. She is relegated to demeaning desk work - code breaking, analysis, answering phones, filing, taking memos, and getting the lunch order. With all the men back from war, women lose their hard-won gains in social standing, and Peggy has a hard time dealing with it. She puts up with the benign abuse because she refuses to leave the SSR, but feels her love for her job being slowly sucked out of her. She's become harder, and bites back faster against men than previously shown, and she was never one to let anyone take even an inch from her if she could help it. She rooms with a woman named Colleen, and strikes up a friendship with her over the course of a few months as she goes to work at the "phone company."
Through the news, she learns that Howard Stark has been accused of being a traitor and selling weapons on the black market. At the SSR, they receive a red warning and go into a briefing about Howard Stark. Her boss tells her to man the phones and, to spite him, she calls the front and tells them to forward all calls to the meeting room so she can also attend. In the meeting, the SSR puts out a bulletin on Howard Stark as a fugitive as he's run from the federal hearings. Due to her past dealings with Howard, Peggy respects him and calls him a friend, so she stands up for him. The other agents (all male) mock her and demean her, saying she's only there because she was Captain America's "liaison." A fellow agent, Daniel Sousa, tries to defend her after Ray Krzeminksi makes a remark about Peggy's assumed promiscuity, but Peggy rebuffs him saying she doesn't need his help to counter what the other agents throw at her. Sousa tries to be nice and Peggy acknowledges that, but she still doesn't want help from others. To prove her points, when another agent, Jack Thompson, tries to force her into filing, she snaps back at him even though she takes the job.
Later, at her usual diner hangout where she's befriended a waitress named Angie, she talks about how she misses being in charge and being able to make decisions as she did in the war. Angie mirrors her experiences as a struggling actress to Peggy's since they're both trying to make it, but she gets called away by a rude male customer.
Peggy receives a message telling her to meet out back in 5 minutes. When she goes, she's approached by a strange man who demands she go with him - and punches him out as she did with Hodge back in basic training. A car comes at her and she runs only to realize she's trapped, so she pulls a gun and shoots out the tire. Ready for a fight, she waits with gun drawn until Howard Stark opens the door and reveals he's here for her help and that the "stranger" is his butler, Edwin Jarvis. Howard explains that his tech was stolen and he's being setup. He enlists Peggy's help to prove his innocence and disappears, leaving Jarvis to help Peggy in any way she needs. Finally with a worthy role again and having met with an old friend, Peggy embarks on a new quest to help Howard clear his name - meaning she's now a double agent against the SSR.
Her first mission is to find Stark's chemical formula for Nitramene, a volatile and explosive compound. After getting a lead about a fence named Spider Raymond, Peggy goes in disguise (blond wig, evening dress, and even goes so far as to change her accent) to see him. She puts her old skills to use and applies a knockout drug in lipstick form, using it to put Spider under as she knows he's a playboy who loves blondes. After knocking him out by getting him to kiss her, she breaks into the safe and finds he has a working sample of weaponized Nitramene. She steals it and takes it home to defuse it after fighting with a guard who walks in on her (she uses a stapler and puts him down). At home, Peggy manages to concoct a solution out of common household items and neutralizes the Nitramene bomb in the her bathroom. Upon entering the bedroom, she realizes her roommate, Colleen, has been murdered - and the murderer is still in the apartment. She fights with the man, using everything in the apartment's kitchen to fend off her would-be assassin until she burns his hand and sends him flying out the apartment's window. When she looks out after him, he's gone and Peggy sits down by Colleen's side and weeps for yet another person in her life who she wasn't able to keep safe.
Later, Peggy and Jarvis are taking at the diner again and Peggy talks about how Colleen was one of her first friends when she came back from the war. Peggy needed a room and Colleen let her stay with her, keeping Peggy's name off the lease. While they only knew each other a few months, she is obviously heavily effected by Colleen's death, and she says, "I have a habit of losing people closest to me. Or rather I get them killed." She talks about her feelings regarding the job and its consequences, how she leapt at the chance to be back in the saddle, to have a chance at being Agent Peggy Carter again, but that she's botched the job - and gotten a good woman killed as a result. She has doubts about whether getting back to being who she was is worth it if it puts the people close to her in danger.
The job isn't finished though, so she and Jarvis visit Anton Vanko to discover more about the Nitramene bomb. They learn that it can be tracked via Vita-Rays and knowing there's a Vita-Ray detector at the SSR, Peggy returns to get it. In the file with the detector, she sees a picture of Steve and is lost in her memories of him until Daniel Sousa walks in. They talk a bit about his injured leg and Peggy tells him despite his injury, he's lucky to have returned at all. He leaves and she takes the detector, using it to locate the Nitramene hidden at a Roxxon Oil factory. Despite a close fight, the man who has a truckload of Nitramene bombs - Leet Brannis - gets away after setting one off. He warns them that "Leviathan" in coming and then escapes as the factory implodes.
That morning, Jarvis and Peggy debrief and she sees the rude customer again antagonize Angie, and goes up to him after Angie leaves. Unable to stand seeing a man being so disrespectful to a new friend, Peggy takes a fork and jabs it up against his chest. She tells him to stop being such a dick to Angie and tells him to never come back once he's finished his meal today. Despite the man being a POW and a veteran, he's clearly terrified and agrees. He leaves later and is never seen at the diner again.
After what happened to Colleen, Peggy starts searching for a new apartment. Angie leans on Peggy to move in at her apartment complex, but Peggy turns down every offer, fearing that she might put Angie in danger as she did Colleen. Howard Stark, via Jarvis, also offers her an apartment, but she refuses it based on the fact that if she were discovered to be living at one of Stark's residences, she'd be in trouble. She agrees to spend one night, however, upon seeing the master bedroom and its plush, luxuriant bed. She also discovers a doctor's outfit in the closet and takes it to use in a disguise later as she continues to track the Nitramene. She follows up on the truck Leet Brannis used to escape and ends up at the Daisy Clover Milk Factory. Disguised as a health inspector and armed with a brash personality, Peggy inspects all of the trucks for Vita-Rays and learns that Sheldon McFee still has his truck and is out "sick." With her new lead, she returns to the SSR and finds that Chief Dooley and the others are now looking for Howard's car, the one that she and Jarvis used to escape the Roxxon explosion.
She calls Jarvis to warn him to dispose of the vehicle and he asks her if he can do anything else to help. Still fearing that people close to her will get killed, she refuses his help repeatedly and then is pulled into helping Dooley and Jack Thompson search for Vita-Rays at Roxxon headquarters. Meanwhile, Sousa is investigating the "blonde" last seen with Spider Raymond and Peggy unsuccessfully tries to get her hands on photographs he has that claim to show her. Leading a double life when surrounded by secret agents is a hard life, and she's sent to Roxxon before she can get to the photos. At Roxxon, she sees a man she met at the explosion site when fighting Leet Brannis, and manages to call him out without raising suspicion. The man runs and while Dooley and Thompson rush after him, Peggy calmly asks the Roxxon CEO where the hallway led and if there was an alternate route. She heads down the stairs, borrows a briefcase, and apprehends Van Ert by slamming the briefcase into his legs and toppling him to the ground. Thompson gets the collar though, and she's turned away from the interrogation, leaving her to search out Sheldon McFee.
Reluctantly, Peggy calls Jarvis and has him drive her to Cedar Grove. Once there, however, she tells him to leave despite his protests that he was sent to help her, and apprehends first McFee and later Brannis as he tries to escape again. Disobeying her orders, Jarvis had remained behind to disable the dairy truck and Peggy reprimands him for not listening. While he's repairing the truck, she learns Brannis has double-crossed Leviathan and decides to take him in. However, as they're all driving back in the Nitramene laden truck, the man in the green suit (Sasha) appears and tries to kill them. In the struggle, the truck is driven into a lake and explodes, Brannis is killed, and Peggy is injured. He leaves a clue of a heart with a line through it as he dies and Peggy and Jarvis retreat to Howard's apartment where Jarvis stitches up her leg and reprimands her for being so reckless. They talk about how everyone needs someone to support them, and how Peggy is trying to shut out the world even while she's trying to save it in an attempt to emulate Steve Rogers, who was not only the love of her life, but her hero. Jarvis points out that Steve relied heavily on Peggy, and Peggy eventually relents as she realizes she can't keep shoving everyone away. She takes Angie up on her offer of an apartment and agrees to continue working with Jarvis.
Throughout, we catch glimpses of the "Captain America Adventure Hour," a radio show staring "Captain America" and his helpless damsel girlfriend, "Betty Carver." Whenever the show comes on, Peggy is annoyed or angered by what she hears as Betty Carver is continuously captured by Nazis and begging rescue. It's a sad parody of what people expect from Peggy, and she knows it, which is why she loathes the show.
Following up on Brannis' lead, Peggy starts looking into Howard's vault, but before she can investigate, Jarvis is seized by the SSR for questioning. They try to threaten him for information with the possibility of deportation for him and his wife due to a past treason charge, holding him because they "can't find" the stolen car report for Howard's car (which Jarvis dumped after the Roxxon incident). Dooley has the file on hand, but presses Thompson to keep after Jarvis. To free Jarvis, Peggy steals the file and then fakes incompetence - ruining what little reputation she had at the SSR in doing so - by handing the "missing" car report to Dooley in front of Jarvis. After being chewed out behind closed doors where everyone can hear, Peggy and Jarvis go to find the stolen tech. Unable to deal with secrets between her and Jarvis, Peggy presses until she finally outright tells Jarvis to explain the treason charge. When she learns what it's about, she lets it go, and learns a bit about Jarvis and Howard's relationship.
They manage to find the stolen technology on a boat called the Heartbreak and Peggy tries to turn it in herself, but Jarvis stops her. He reminds her that even if she turns it in, her colleagues will only use the discovery to tear her down as she discovered it as a double agent for Howard Stark. She wants to use the find as a way to restore her reputation, to make them respect her for the agent she truly is, but she realizes that in this day and age, there's no way they'd ever do that for her. Instead, she lets Jarvis call in an anonymous tip, fights off a guard who shows up, and then disappears.
When she goes to work the next day, she learns that Ray Krzeminski was killed trying to bring the guard in after Jarvis called in the tip. The entire office mourns his death, even Peggy, who later confesses to Angie that she didn't even particularly like Krzeminski. He was, however, a fellow agent and she feels his loss keenly. Krzeminski had been trying to get out of night duty to see a show with his mistress and Peggy had refused to take his shift when he tried to give it to her as if it were a favor. She feels somewhat responsible for his death, even if she couldn't have predicted that it would happen, and it's yet another death she attributes to being her fault.
Howard appears in town again, and Peggy smuggles him into her apartment despite it having a strict "No Men" policy. Exasperated by his constant womanizing with the other inhabitants of her floor, Peggy has to put up with him since the SSR is watching all of Stark's residences in an effort to catch him and exact revenge for Krzeminski's death. After convincing Peggy to take photographs of all of the inventions they'd recovered, Howard asks her to retrieve a certain one: the Blitzkrieg Button. He explains that it would cause a catastrophic blackout in New York and asks that she get it so he can disarm it. When Jarvis is driving Peggy to SSR headquarters, however, she notices that he's nervous and whenever she asks about the Button, he touches his ear. After grabbing the Button from the labs and switching it out for a decoy, Peggy opens it despite Howard's warnings not to touch it.
Inside, she discovers a vial of blood, not a massive EMP device. She has an inkling of what it is, but before she can take the "Button" and the vial home, she runs into Thompson. He asks her bluntly why she works at the SSR when she's not being useful for anything. He tells her that no man will ever consider her as an equal due to her gender, and she leaves trying to hide how much the words cut her.
Back at the apartment, she confronts Stark about the vial and forces him to tell her that it's Steve Roger's blood before she punches him. Angered that he lied to her after she trusted in him, they have a huge fight and she accuses him of wanting Steve's blood to make money off the possibilities of cures and vaccines. She kicks him out, reminded of how much Steve sacrificed and how much she wanted to emulate him - and how far she's fallen in acting as Howard's "corporate spy." She rebuffs Howard's later attempts at reconciliation via Jarvis, acting as cold as she had when she wanted to keep everyone at a distance. She tells Jarvis that she's disappointed that she is left to "trust the actions of men who don't respect (her), more than the ones who do." She values honesty, which was one reason why she had been so drawn to Steve, and once her trust is lost, it's hard to win it back. She finishes her day at work and takes the vial home again, breaking through the wall in her apartment to hide the container in the brick behind a painting. If she can't let the SSR have it to try and recreate the serum and she can't let Howard have it so he can possibly exploit its strengths, she'd rather hide it away forever where she can keep an eye on it.
Abilities/Special Powers: No superhuman abilities, but as listed on the Wikia, she's a master spy and marksman with several types of guns. She can disguise her appearance and demeanor, including her accents, in order to infiltrate locations or procure information.
Third-Person Sample:
He'd lied to her. Howard Stark, one of the few friends (or perhaps no longer a friend at all) she had remaining from her days in the war, had lied to her. He'd used her. He'd- He'd treated her like all the men at work. A man she'd once considered a colleague had broken what little trust she still had in people, and now? Now what? She was back to being a glorified secretary as Thompson put it. She had no extracurricular mission anymore, not if it meant helping Stark on his possibly greed fueled march to get his extremely dangerous technology back. And that left her here, standing in line at the deli with a list of stupid lunch orders while the rest of the SSR prattled on in their single-minded pursuit of the aforementioned Howard Stark.
Peggy glanced at the list in her hands and at the purse hanging from her shoulder. The "button" was still in there. She hadn't been able to leave it at home, not knowing what was inside, not with Howard still lurking about. He'd seemed upset by her accusation, but he also hadn't denied it and Peggy knew better than to trust in "man's" better nature. She had an entire office behind her that was proof of that. And yet right at her side was even more compelling evidence that there was a better nature. He had proven to her that not all men were pig-headed, chauvinistic creatures convinced only of their own superiority over the "gentler" gender. He had shown her what it meant to be a hero, to make the big sacrifice and lay down your life for something greater than you.
And he was dead.
"Next! If you ain't gonna order, get outta line, lady!"
Peggy jumped as she realized the vitriol was pointed at her. The other patrons behind her were giving her cold looks, hands clenched around dollar bills meant to be buying a carton of this or that for their very short lunch hour. Each accusing look drilled through her as she stood in front of the counter dazed and melancholy, slowly ebbing away what little time they had left. For a moment, she wondered if any of them knew who she was. It didn't take long for her to realize that none of them would care.
"Well?" spat the angry, red-faced man, one thin hand pressed against the somewhat smudged countertop. "You got an order or what?"
Lifting her chin, Peggy set the list next to his hand and motioned to the kitchens. If there was one thing she'd learned, it was best not to aggravate the ones who made your food - even if everything on here was for other people. "Yes, pardon me, just distracted by your lovely decor. The usuals, please."
She set the money on the counter and moved away before he could counter that they had no decor here other than a few old posters and hanging meat. Taking station in the receiving line, she closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. Even if she couldn't trust Stark, even if the men in her office wanted her to quit, even if she felt like she was mired in the swamps of her own gender, she knew she had to keep moving. She had to keep pushing. She couldn't let them break her. As the orders were called out, she stepped forward, eyes distant as she listened to the static in her head.
First-Person Sample:
[When she starts the log, her voice is relaxed as she starts on a list of questions she has.]
Would anyone happen to know where the library is today? I'd prefer not to walk up and down the stairs until it decides to show itself, and I have quite a few books to return.
[More than a few, actually. She was curious about several of the "worlds" that appeared here and had taken time to find and read several histories. History books, however, were ungodly heavy when there were more than three of them together. She'd prefer no one knew what books she took as most people would be uncomfortable with her poking into their pasts. She just can't help but try to learn about the people she's stuck with.]
Similarly, if anyone has a new suggestion for a mystery novel, I'd be glad to hear it. I'm afraid I'm running out of Agatha Christie, and I've already gone through Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Perhaps there are writers that some of you from a time after mine might know?
[She's about to hang up when the nagging feeling at the back of her mind starts up again. She's been wanting to extend an olive branch, to reach out to people from home, but she just doesn't know how to go about it when things are so different now. Seventy years and an alien invasion are a lot to put between two (three? or is it four) people. She hesitates a moment, then draws a quiet breath.]
And should anyone know where I could locate a new sketchbook, I've been thinking of taking up a new hobby. Someone very dear to me used to draw and I think it might be good to... try it out.
[Ugh, that was awful. Her voice is clipped as she signs out with a short:]
Thank you.
DW username:
nihongoingE-Mail: souster [at] gmail [dot] com
IM: n/a
Plurk:
Other Characters: n/a
Character Name: Margaret "Peggy" Carter
Series: Marvel's Cinematic Universe - Captain America: The First Avenger, Marvel's Agents of SHIELD (flashbacks), Marvel's Agent Carter
Timeline: Marvel's Agent Carter, Episode 4: The Blitzkrieg Button (end)
Canon Resource Link: MCU Wikia
Character History:
Born in 1919 in London, England, Margaret "Peggy" Carter led a relatively normal life up until the outbreak of World War II. She was educated at an all-girls school, and enlisted in the British Armed Forces (specifically the Air Force) as a nurse, one of the roles open to women during the war. Desiring to do more than simply tend to the wounded, she moved to the Special Air Service and from there was given the role of liaison to the Allied forces' deep science division, the Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR). Here, she was finally able to shine as an agent and was tasked with retrieving Abraham Erskine, the scientist who developed the Super Soldier serum, from HYDRA. Our first canon glimpse of Peggy then, is not as herself, but as a young German maid, Eva.
As Eva, Peggy infiltrated Johann Schmidt's castle as a maid. She's able to pass by the guards undetected and, judging by people's reactions to her, it can be assumed that she was under deep cover as they didn't think anything of her. She's able to interact with Zola and Schmidt without raising their suspicion, and then successfully breaks Erskine out of the castle after drugging the guards' meal. When a few who had skipped the dinner appeared, taking Peggy and Erskine by surprise, she fights fiercely and leads Erskine up to the rooftop where they are extracted via helicopter. During their escape, Erskine repeatedly asked after his family. He explained that he had been coerced into working for HYDRA because Schmidt had taken his family hostage, and was desperate to find them. Despite their immediate danger, Peggy took a moment to tell him that his family had already been killed and offer condolences, telling him then to take the serum he was developing and use it against HYDRA and the Nazis by giving it to the Allies. She successfully recruits Erskine and returns to the SSR.
The next time we see Peggy is after Erskine has chosen Steve Rogers, a scrawny kid from Brooklyn, as his candidate for Project Rebirth. At Camp Lehigh, she is tasked with the training of all Project Rebirth candidates, and we get our first real look at Agent Peggy Carter. Lining all of the recruits up, she begins a fairly normal spiel for a drill instructor when a young man named Hodge gives her lip. Not only is she a woman, but she's British, and what follows is telling of Peggy's attitude toward sexism, condensation, and men who underestimate her.
Peggy: Gentlemen, I'm Agent Carter. I supervise all operations of this division.
Hodge: What's with the accent, Queen Victoria? Thought I was signing up for the U.S. Army.
Peggy: What's your name, soldier?
Hodge: Gilmore Hodge, your Majesty.
Peggy: Step forward, Hodge.
[Hodge steps forward with a smile]
Peggy: Put your right foot forward.
Hodge: Are we dancing? Cause I got a few moves I know you'll like.
[Peggy punches him hard in the face]
She knocks him on his back in one punch, dropping a man nearly a head taller than her, and never has to listen to lip from any of the men thereafter. Her training under the SAS and the SSR gives her an arsenal of hand-to-hand and weapons expertise, which she uses to effectively quell any further jabs at her sex, position, or country. She resumes control of the group following the incident and leads them through training exercises, assessing their skills and personalities to aid Colonel Chester Phillips and Abraham Erskine with choosing their ideal candidate. Once Steve Rogers is chosen, Peggy is charged with being his handler.
During their ride from Camp Lehigh to the Project Rebirth site (a secret SSR lab under a pawn shop), Peggy has a moment to connect with Rogers. He fumbles over what to say to her and she returns his attempts at conversation with blunt observations of his awkwardness around women. He'd caught her eye during training, but this was their first time to actually speak privately. Despite his initial stumbling, he manages to make an impression on her by admitting how often he was beaten up because he hated to run from bullies, and by mimicking her own ideas about difficult it is to find the "right" person. Peggy, surrounded by sexism that constantly forces her to go above and beyond to even be considered halfway decent compared to men in her field, finds Steve's genuine nature refreshing and takes a liking to him then and there.
She's present at Steve Rogers' transformation into a Super Soldier, but tries to stop the process when the Vita-Rays cause Steve so much pain he screams. Concerned more for his safety than the success of the project, she yells for Howard Stark to shut it down to which Erskine agrees. Steve convinces them to continue, and when he comes out of the chamber, Peggy is one of the first to run down from the observation area to check on his well-being.
That's when Heinz Kruger sets off the bomb and destroys the recently vacated observation area. He steals the last vial of serum, kills Abraham Erskine, and tries to flee. Amid the chaos in the room - agents, scientists, politicians, and military personnel all ducking for cover, trying to recover from the blast - Peggy is the first to stand and shoot back. As Kruger runs up the stairs, she draws her gun and fires on him repeatedly, managing to hit him once despite the percussive disorientation. While Steve attends to a dying Erskine, Peggy pursues Kruger as she knows he can't be allowed to escape with the last of the serum. Without hesitation, she puts herself in danger as she fires on Kruger as he flees in a vehicle and kills the driver from hundreds of paces away with a single shot. Kruger tries to run her down head-on and she continues to shoot at him, immovable in the street. She fires several shots off before Steve tackles her out of the way of the speeding car, but rather than express gratitude for saving her life, she's annoyed that he interfered with her work and cost her a kill shot. Steve takes off after Kruger and Peggy returns to the facility to assess the damage.
With the secrets of the serum locked in Steve's blood, the SSR takes samples and then relegates him to a glorified choir boy. Peggy is disappointed, but she has obey her orders and follows Phillips back to the German front lines. We meet her again when Steve flies over to give a (poorly received) performance as Captain America for the soldiers. Peggy finds him doodling in his sketchbook and they have a heart-to-heart about his role in the war, and how he doesn't have to simply accept the one given to him. This speaks volumes of how she's survived in the male-dominated military so far. While she keeps her head down and does what she's told, she's always looking for a way to do more. Seeing that Steve has forced himself into Senator Brandt's box, she's compelled to help him out of it.
Peggy: And these are your only two options? A lab rat or a dancing monkey? You were meant for more than this, you know?
After informing Steve that his audience was what was left of the 107th, she follows him to Phillips' tent where he asks after Bucky. Phillips reprimands Peggy for going out of her way to speak to Steve and then begrudgingly informs Steve of Bucky's presumed fate. Steve is told he can't help the captured soldiers and to return to his song and dance routine, but he rebels and goes to rescue Bucky's unit. Peggy tries to get him to wait, but when she sees he's finally ready to fulfil Erskine's purpose, she supports him. Without Phillips' knowledge, she acquires gear and weapons for Steve, then convinces Howard Stark to pilot them into enemy territory to get Steve closer to the HYDRA base. During the flight in, Howard tries to hit on Peggy and she brushes it off when she notices how Steve reacts - it's our first overt sign that she's developing feelings for him aside from their work. When they begin taking fire, Steve jumps out of the plane against Peggy's orders and they're forced to return.
Back at the base, Peggy is under heavy scrutiny and faces major punitive actions because she aided in Captain America's "suicide" mission. While Phillips berates her, she states that she has no regrets and did what she thought was right. Phillips accuses her of having a crush and she insists she merely had faith in him, and wanted to help him become what Erskine envisioned. When Steve suddenly returns with the captured 107th soldiers, she rushes out to greet him, relieved that he's safe and impressed that he accomplished his mission. In front of the other soldiers, she remains businesslike, although her relief and admiration is barely concealed.
Peggy: You're late.
[he shows the broken radio transmitter and Peggy smiles faintly]
Steve: Couldn't call my ride.
With the rescue of the 107th, Captain America is called to active duty. He begins building his team, the Howling Commandos, from people he rescued from the 107th, starting with Bucky Barnes. While they're all at a pub celebrating their escape, Peggy drops by to tell Steve that he's wanted at the SSR the next day to test out new gear specifically for him. This is the first time we see her out of uniform and it's notable that she chooses to wear a bombshell of a red dress just to deliver a message. She ignores Bucky's attempts at flirtation and speaks exclusively to Steve. They banter about the noise in the bar and Steve asks if she doesn't like music, to which she replies that she actually enjoys music and dancing and might want to go after the war is over - if she has the right partner. She leaves the bar after delivering her message, despite wearing such a fancy dress.
The next day, Steve shows up for equipment testing and ends up kissing the front desk secretary when she comes onto him. Peggy, of course, sees this, and her demeanor takes a quick 180 from the previous night. Now she'll barely look at him and when she does, her gaze is cold and angry. She rebukes him and when he infers that she has a thing with Stark and ushers him into the testing room to try out shields. When he picks what would eventually become his symbolic round shield, he shows it to her for her approval and Peggy lets him have it - her anger and disappointment in him - by landing three shots him with a nearby handgun. The shield catches and repels all three shots and she replies, "Yes. I think it works," as she stalks by him, giving him a pointed glare before leaving the room.
When the Howling Commandos take to the field, Peggy helps the team by providing intelligence garnered from Steve's initial report on HYDRA base locations. She's on support while the Commandos destroy Schmidt's bases, but takes time with Phillips to watch news reels where she can see that Steve has a photograph of her in his compass. While she won't openly admit anything, it's clear she's pleased with how Steve still thinks of her, and is warming up to him more and more. However, we don't see her meet with Steve again until after Bucky falls to his death while capturing Zola from a train.
Peggy finds Steve in an old bar as he's grieving the loss of his friend and trying to drink the pain away. She tries to console him, but when it doesn't work, she uses reality and lets him know that Bucky made his choice and that Steve should respect his decision. It wasn't Steve who got Bucky killed, it was Bucky who chose to follow Steve to the end, he trusted and respected Steve, so Steve should respect him, too. Her pragmatic view doesn't do much to alleviate Steve's pain, but it does seem to help with a fraction of his guilt. When he declares that he's on the warpath after Schmidt, Peggy is eager to join with him and the SSR begins moving toward a full assault on Schmidt's base.
While Steve gets himself taken hostage to distract Schmidt, Peggy, Phillips, and the rest of the Howling Commandos surround the base with Phillips' military force and storm it. Peggy fights alongside the rest of the men, using a submachine gun to blow up a HYDRA soldier who had Steve pinned down. After fighting their way through the base, she and Colonel Phillips help Steve reach the HYDRA war plane using Schmidt's super-powered car. Just before Steve jumps to the plane, however, she stops him and kisses him which is the first outright acknowledgement of her feelings for him. It was a split-second decision, one fueled by emotions as Steve was about to embark on a dangerous mission, and she wasn't certain when she'd see him again. Given that Bucky had just been lost, it isn't surprising that she'd take that moment to confess to him in the most direct way possible in case things went wrong. Peggy spent most of the war at his side in silence, but with the war about to end, she thought they possibly had a chance together and wanted him to know. She tells him to go get Schmidt and then watches as the plane flies off.
Unfortunately, they never see each other again. Captain America is forced to down the plane in the Arctic circle to keep it from reaching New York. Peggy can only talk to him via radio at the HYDRA base as he chooses to sacrifice himself. Finally having come to terms with her feelings, she begs him not to give up hope and tries to convince him that they can find another way out. When he says it's his choice, she recognizes her words to him just a day earlier and relents, tears in her eyes. Their final conversation is a promise to meet up at the Stork Club the following Saturday at 8PM so she could teach him how to dance. When she hears static cut him off, she knows he's gone and, alone, she cries for him.
Following the loss of Captain America and the end of Schmidt, Peggy takes over the Howling Commandos and leads them on assaults of the last of HYDRA's bases. In a way, this is how she fulfils Steve's mission to completely defeat Schmidt and HYDRA to avenge Bucky. Now she merely adds her desire to avenge Steve to the mix. She runs into Werner Reinhardt, a general in Schmidt's army and one of the main antagonists of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and takes him prisoner. At his base, Peggy and the others recover several extraterrestrial artifacts and has them sent to the SSR for safekeeping. She and Dum Dum Dugan talked about how the world would needs a peacekeeping organization that could continue to protect people by keeping dangerous objects (and people) from the rest of the population. This was the seed that would later become SHIELD when she, Stark, and Dugan get together again.
Under SSR authority, Peggy imprisons and interrogates Reinhardt about the tech he had, but can't get more than cryptic messages out of him. Reinhardt, desiring a deal with the US Government says he will explain the extraterrestrial tech if she recruits him. Disgusted by Reinhardt's war crimes and his fanatical devotion to Schmidt's ideals, she refuses and has him imprisoned for life in the Rat, a secret SSR detainment facility. Even her curiosity over the Obelisk, one of the items they recovered, isn't enough to get her to allow even one HYDRA agent to survive outside of prison. She couldn't do that to Steve and she couldn't do that to her own conscience.
When the war ends, Peggy returns to the United States to continue working for the SSR, but finds her role significantly reduced. She is relegated to demeaning desk work - code breaking, analysis, answering phones, filing, taking memos, and getting the lunch order. With all the men back from war, women lose their hard-won gains in social standing, and Peggy has a hard time dealing with it. She puts up with the benign abuse because she refuses to leave the SSR, but feels her love for her job being slowly sucked out of her. She's become harder, and bites back faster against men than previously shown, and she was never one to let anyone take even an inch from her if she could help it. She rooms with a woman named Colleen, and strikes up a friendship with her over the course of a few months as she goes to work at the "phone company."
Through the news, she learns that Howard Stark has been accused of being a traitor and selling weapons on the black market. At the SSR, they receive a red warning and go into a briefing about Howard Stark. Her boss tells her to man the phones and, to spite him, she calls the front and tells them to forward all calls to the meeting room so she can also attend. In the meeting, the SSR puts out a bulletin on Howard Stark as a fugitive as he's run from the federal hearings. Due to her past dealings with Howard, Peggy respects him and calls him a friend, so she stands up for him. The other agents (all male) mock her and demean her, saying she's only there because she was Captain America's "liaison." A fellow agent, Daniel Sousa, tries to defend her after Ray Krzeminksi makes a remark about Peggy's assumed promiscuity, but Peggy rebuffs him saying she doesn't need his help to counter what the other agents throw at her. Sousa tries to be nice and Peggy acknowledges that, but she still doesn't want help from others. To prove her points, when another agent, Jack Thompson, tries to force her into filing, she snaps back at him even though she takes the job.
Sousa: You're an agent. They treat you like a secretary. I just wanted to--
Peggy: And I'm grateful. I'm also capable of handling whatever these adolescents throw at me.
Sousa: [after a pause] Yes, ma'am. Doesn't mean I have to like it.
Peggy: Well, that's another thing we have in common.
[Later]
Thompson: Carter, we're going to be busy with your friend Stark and if you don't mind, these surveillance reports need to be filed. And you're really so much better at that kind of thing.
Peggy: And what thing is that, Agent Thompson? The alphabet? I can teach you. Let's start with words beginning with A.
Later, at her usual diner hangout where she's befriended a waitress named Angie, she talks about how she misses being in charge and being able to make decisions as she did in the war. Angie mirrors her experiences as a struggling actress to Peggy's since they're both trying to make it, but she gets called away by a rude male customer.
Peggy receives a message telling her to meet out back in 5 minutes. When she goes, she's approached by a strange man who demands she go with him - and punches him out as she did with Hodge back in basic training. A car comes at her and she runs only to realize she's trapped, so she pulls a gun and shoots out the tire. Ready for a fight, she waits with gun drawn until Howard Stark opens the door and reveals he's here for her help and that the "stranger" is his butler, Edwin Jarvis. Howard explains that his tech was stolen and he's being setup. He enlists Peggy's help to prove his innocence and disappears, leaving Jarvis to help Peggy in any way she needs. Finally with a worthy role again and having met with an old friend, Peggy embarks on a new quest to help Howard clear his name - meaning she's now a double agent against the SSR.
Her first mission is to find Stark's chemical formula for Nitramene, a volatile and explosive compound. After getting a lead about a fence named Spider Raymond, Peggy goes in disguise (blond wig, evening dress, and even goes so far as to change her accent) to see him. She puts her old skills to use and applies a knockout drug in lipstick form, using it to put Spider under as she knows he's a playboy who loves blondes. After knocking him out by getting him to kiss her, she breaks into the safe and finds he has a working sample of weaponized Nitramene. She steals it and takes it home to defuse it after fighting with a guard who walks in on her (she uses a stapler and puts him down). At home, Peggy manages to concoct a solution out of common household items and neutralizes the Nitramene bomb in the her bathroom. Upon entering the bedroom, she realizes her roommate, Colleen, has been murdered - and the murderer is still in the apartment. She fights with the man, using everything in the apartment's kitchen to fend off her would-be assassin until she burns his hand and sends him flying out the apartment's window. When she looks out after him, he's gone and Peggy sits down by Colleen's side and weeps for yet another person in her life who she wasn't able to keep safe.
Later, Peggy and Jarvis are taking at the diner again and Peggy talks about how Colleen was one of her first friends when she came back from the war. Peggy needed a room and Colleen let her stay with her, keeping Peggy's name off the lease. While they only knew each other a few months, she is obviously heavily effected by Colleen's death, and she says, "I have a habit of losing people closest to me. Or rather I get them killed." She talks about her feelings regarding the job and its consequences, how she leapt at the chance to be back in the saddle, to have a chance at being Agent Peggy Carter again, but that she's botched the job - and gotten a good woman killed as a result. She has doubts about whether getting back to being who she was is worth it if it puts the people close to her in danger.
The job isn't finished though, so she and Jarvis visit Anton Vanko to discover more about the Nitramene bomb. They learn that it can be tracked via Vita-Rays and knowing there's a Vita-Ray detector at the SSR, Peggy returns to get it. In the file with the detector, she sees a picture of Steve and is lost in her memories of him until Daniel Sousa walks in. They talk a bit about his injured leg and Peggy tells him despite his injury, he's lucky to have returned at all. He leaves and she takes the detector, using it to locate the Nitramene hidden at a Roxxon Oil factory. Despite a close fight, the man who has a truckload of Nitramene bombs - Leet Brannis - gets away after setting one off. He warns them that "Leviathan" in coming and then escapes as the factory implodes.
That morning, Jarvis and Peggy debrief and she sees the rude customer again antagonize Angie, and goes up to him after Angie leaves. Unable to stand seeing a man being so disrespectful to a new friend, Peggy takes a fork and jabs it up against his chest. She tells him to stop being such a dick to Angie and tells him to never come back once he's finished his meal today. Despite the man being a POW and a veteran, he's clearly terrified and agrees. He leaves later and is never seen at the diner again.
Peggy: Just so we're clear, this is pressed into your brachial artery. It may be dull, but I'm determined. Keep smiling. Once you start to bleed, you'll lose consciousness in fifteen seconds. You'll die in ninety unless someone comes to your aid. Now, given your recent behavior, how likely do you think that is to happen? To prevent this not entirely unfortunate event from occurring, I suggest you find a new place to eat. Do we understand each other?
After what happened to Colleen, Peggy starts searching for a new apartment. Angie leans on Peggy to move in at her apartment complex, but Peggy turns down every offer, fearing that she might put Angie in danger as she did Colleen. Howard Stark, via Jarvis, also offers her an apartment, but she refuses it based on the fact that if she were discovered to be living at one of Stark's residences, she'd be in trouble. She agrees to spend one night, however, upon seeing the master bedroom and its plush, luxuriant bed. She also discovers a doctor's outfit in the closet and takes it to use in a disguise later as she continues to track the Nitramene. She follows up on the truck Leet Brannis used to escape and ends up at the Daisy Clover Milk Factory. Disguised as a health inspector and armed with a brash personality, Peggy inspects all of the trucks for Vita-Rays and learns that Sheldon McFee still has his truck and is out "sick." With her new lead, she returns to the SSR and finds that Chief Dooley and the others are now looking for Howard's car, the one that she and Jarvis used to escape the Roxxon explosion.
She calls Jarvis to warn him to dispose of the vehicle and he asks her if he can do anything else to help. Still fearing that people close to her will get killed, she refuses his help repeatedly and then is pulled into helping Dooley and Jack Thompson search for Vita-Rays at Roxxon headquarters. Meanwhile, Sousa is investigating the "blonde" last seen with Spider Raymond and Peggy unsuccessfully tries to get her hands on photographs he has that claim to show her. Leading a double life when surrounded by secret agents is a hard life, and she's sent to Roxxon before she can get to the photos. At Roxxon, she sees a man she met at the explosion site when fighting Leet Brannis, and manages to call him out without raising suspicion. The man runs and while Dooley and Thompson rush after him, Peggy calmly asks the Roxxon CEO where the hallway led and if there was an alternate route. She heads down the stairs, borrows a briefcase, and apprehends Van Ert by slamming the briefcase into his legs and toppling him to the ground. Thompson gets the collar though, and she's turned away from the interrogation, leaving her to search out Sheldon McFee.
Reluctantly, Peggy calls Jarvis and has him drive her to Cedar Grove. Once there, however, she tells him to leave despite his protests that he was sent to help her, and apprehends first McFee and later Brannis as he tries to escape again. Disobeying her orders, Jarvis had remained behind to disable the dairy truck and Peggy reprimands him for not listening. While he's repairing the truck, she learns Brannis has double-crossed Leviathan and decides to take him in. However, as they're all driving back in the Nitramene laden truck, the man in the green suit (Sasha) appears and tries to kill them. In the struggle, the truck is driven into a lake and explodes, Brannis is killed, and Peggy is injured. He leaves a clue of a heart with a line through it as he dies and Peggy and Jarvis retreat to Howard's apartment where Jarvis stitches up her leg and reprimands her for being so reckless. They talk about how everyone needs someone to support them, and how Peggy is trying to shut out the world even while she's trying to save it in an attempt to emulate Steve Rogers, who was not only the love of her life, but her hero. Jarvis points out that Steve relied heavily on Peggy, and Peggy eventually relents as she realizes she can't keep shoving everyone away. She takes Angie up on her offer of an apartment and agrees to continue working with Jarvis.
Throughout, we catch glimpses of the "Captain America Adventure Hour," a radio show staring "Captain America" and his helpless damsel girlfriend, "Betty Carver." Whenever the show comes on, Peggy is annoyed or angered by what she hears as Betty Carver is continuously captured by Nazis and begging rescue. It's a sad parody of what people expect from Peggy, and she knows it, which is why she loathes the show.
Following up on Brannis' lead, Peggy starts looking into Howard's vault, but before she can investigate, Jarvis is seized by the SSR for questioning. They try to threaten him for information with the possibility of deportation for him and his wife due to a past treason charge, holding him because they "can't find" the stolen car report for Howard's car (which Jarvis dumped after the Roxxon incident). Dooley has the file on hand, but presses Thompson to keep after Jarvis. To free Jarvis, Peggy steals the file and then fakes incompetence - ruining what little reputation she had at the SSR in doing so - by handing the "missing" car report to Dooley in front of Jarvis. After being chewed out behind closed doors where everyone can hear, Peggy and Jarvis go to find the stolen tech. Unable to deal with secrets between her and Jarvis, Peggy presses until she finally outright tells Jarvis to explain the treason charge. When she learns what it's about, she lets it go, and learns a bit about Jarvis and Howard's relationship.
They manage to find the stolen technology on a boat called the Heartbreak and Peggy tries to turn it in herself, but Jarvis stops her. He reminds her that even if she turns it in, her colleagues will only use the discovery to tear her down as she discovered it as a double agent for Howard Stark. She wants to use the find as a way to restore her reputation, to make them respect her for the agent she truly is, but she realizes that in this day and age, there's no way they'd ever do that for her. Instead, she lets Jarvis call in an anonymous tip, fights off a guard who shows up, and then disappears.
When she goes to work the next day, she learns that Ray Krzeminski was killed trying to bring the guard in after Jarvis called in the tip. The entire office mourns his death, even Peggy, who later confesses to Angie that she didn't even particularly like Krzeminski. He was, however, a fellow agent and she feels his loss keenly. Krzeminski had been trying to get out of night duty to see a show with his mistress and Peggy had refused to take his shift when he tried to give it to her as if it were a favor. She feels somewhat responsible for his death, even if she couldn't have predicted that it would happen, and it's yet another death she attributes to being her fault.
Howard appears in town again, and Peggy smuggles him into her apartment despite it having a strict "No Men" policy. Exasperated by his constant womanizing with the other inhabitants of her floor, Peggy has to put up with him since the SSR is watching all of Stark's residences in an effort to catch him and exact revenge for Krzeminski's death. After convincing Peggy to take photographs of all of the inventions they'd recovered, Howard asks her to retrieve a certain one: the Blitzkrieg Button. He explains that it would cause a catastrophic blackout in New York and asks that she get it so he can disarm it. When Jarvis is driving Peggy to SSR headquarters, however, she notices that he's nervous and whenever she asks about the Button, he touches his ear. After grabbing the Button from the labs and switching it out for a decoy, Peggy opens it despite Howard's warnings not to touch it.
Inside, she discovers a vial of blood, not a massive EMP device. She has an inkling of what it is, but before she can take the "Button" and the vial home, she runs into Thompson. He asks her bluntly why she works at the SSR when she's not being useful for anything. He tells her that no man will ever consider her as an equal due to her gender, and she leaves trying to hide how much the words cut her.
Back at the apartment, she confronts Stark about the vial and forces him to tell her that it's Steve Roger's blood before she punches him. Angered that he lied to her after she trusted in him, they have a huge fight and she accuses him of wanting Steve's blood to make money off the possibilities of cures and vaccines. She kicks him out, reminded of how much Steve sacrificed and how much she wanted to emulate him - and how far she's fallen in acting as Howard's "corporate spy." She rebuffs Howard's later attempts at reconciliation via Jarvis, acting as cold as she had when she wanted to keep everyone at a distance. She tells Jarvis that she's disappointed that she is left to "trust the actions of men who don't respect (her), more than the ones who do." She values honesty, which was one reason why she had been so drawn to Steve, and once her trust is lost, it's hard to win it back. She finishes her day at work and takes the vial home again, breaking through the wall in her apartment to hide the container in the brick behind a painting. If she can't let the SSR have it to try and recreate the serum and she can't let Howard have it so he can possibly exploit its strengths, she'd rather hide it away forever where she can keep an eye on it.
Abilities/Special Powers: No superhuman abilities, but as listed on the Wikia, she's a master spy and marksman with several types of guns. She can disguise her appearance and demeanor, including her accents, in order to infiltrate locations or procure information.
Third-Person Sample:
He'd lied to her. Howard Stark, one of the few friends (or perhaps no longer a friend at all) she had remaining from her days in the war, had lied to her. He'd used her. He'd- He'd treated her like all the men at work. A man she'd once considered a colleague had broken what little trust she still had in people, and now? Now what? She was back to being a glorified secretary as Thompson put it. She had no extracurricular mission anymore, not if it meant helping Stark on his possibly greed fueled march to get his extremely dangerous technology back. And that left her here, standing in line at the deli with a list of stupid lunch orders while the rest of the SSR prattled on in their single-minded pursuit of the aforementioned Howard Stark.
Peggy glanced at the list in her hands and at the purse hanging from her shoulder. The "button" was still in there. She hadn't been able to leave it at home, not knowing what was inside, not with Howard still lurking about. He'd seemed upset by her accusation, but he also hadn't denied it and Peggy knew better than to trust in "man's" better nature. She had an entire office behind her that was proof of that. And yet right at her side was even more compelling evidence that there was a better nature. He had proven to her that not all men were pig-headed, chauvinistic creatures convinced only of their own superiority over the "gentler" gender. He had shown her what it meant to be a hero, to make the big sacrifice and lay down your life for something greater than you.
And he was dead.
"Next! If you ain't gonna order, get outta line, lady!"
Peggy jumped as she realized the vitriol was pointed at her. The other patrons behind her were giving her cold looks, hands clenched around dollar bills meant to be buying a carton of this or that for their very short lunch hour. Each accusing look drilled through her as she stood in front of the counter dazed and melancholy, slowly ebbing away what little time they had left. For a moment, she wondered if any of them knew who she was. It didn't take long for her to realize that none of them would care.
"Well?" spat the angry, red-faced man, one thin hand pressed against the somewhat smudged countertop. "You got an order or what?"
Lifting her chin, Peggy set the list next to his hand and motioned to the kitchens. If there was one thing she'd learned, it was best not to aggravate the ones who made your food - even if everything on here was for other people. "Yes, pardon me, just distracted by your lovely decor. The usuals, please."
She set the money on the counter and moved away before he could counter that they had no decor here other than a few old posters and hanging meat. Taking station in the receiving line, she closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. Even if she couldn't trust Stark, even if the men in her office wanted her to quit, even if she felt like she was mired in the swamps of her own gender, she knew she had to keep moving. She had to keep pushing. She couldn't let them break her. As the orders were called out, she stepped forward, eyes distant as she listened to the static in her head.
First-Person Sample:
[When she starts the log, her voice is relaxed as she starts on a list of questions she has.]
Would anyone happen to know where the library is today? I'd prefer not to walk up and down the stairs until it decides to show itself, and I have quite a few books to return.
[More than a few, actually. She was curious about several of the "worlds" that appeared here and had taken time to find and read several histories. History books, however, were ungodly heavy when there were more than three of them together. She'd prefer no one knew what books she took as most people would be uncomfortable with her poking into their pasts. She just can't help but try to learn about the people she's stuck with.]
Similarly, if anyone has a new suggestion for a mystery novel, I'd be glad to hear it. I'm afraid I'm running out of Agatha Christie, and I've already gone through Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Perhaps there are writers that some of you from a time after mine might know?
[She's about to hang up when the nagging feeling at the back of her mind starts up again. She's been wanting to extend an olive branch, to reach out to people from home, but she just doesn't know how to go about it when things are so different now. Seventy years and an alien invasion are a lot to put between two (three? or is it four) people. She hesitates a moment, then draws a quiet breath.]
And should anyone know where I could locate a new sketchbook, I've been thinking of taking up a new hobby. Someone very dear to me used to draw and I think it might be good to... try it out.
[Ugh, that was awful. Her voice is clipped as she signs out with a short:]
Thank you.