AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story will incorporate elements from Marvel's Agent Carter, such as characters not featured in The First Avenger, but is canon divergent from the television show due to the timeline and nature of the story. All things considered, Steve not being frozen after the Valkyrie crash changed a lot of things for the SSR. Enjoy!
July 10th 1947
It was both dreary and stiflingly hot on that particular day in New York – the type of weather that called for windows to be shut but left residents desperate to leave them open. The Strategic Scientific Reserve's offices were no different; inside, agents and secretaries and chiefs alike had begun using their pressing paperwork as makeshift fans while they sat, sweltering, behind their desks. For the most part, it seemed to be just another average hot, damp, rainy day. They had no idea that their world was about to become everything but average – and perhaps there's something blissful about being utterly unaware.
It all started when Agent Margaret "Peggy" Carter and Captain Steven Rogers returned from their latest field assignment in San Diego. There had been underground chatter that some of Schmidt's weaponry survived the SSR's Hydra base raids of late 1945 and was being sold on the black market to those with the deepest pockets. Billionaire CEOs and beachfront resort owners were vanishing as quickly as the items were being sold, leading to the speculation – and subsequent discovery – that the buyers were using Schmidt's formidable technology to quite literally wipe out the competition.
It took them weeks of undercover work at various luxury resorts to trace the purchasers' true identities, and just over a month to apprehend them and get all of the technology stowed away for SSR transport. They had their fair share of close calls in the process: two of the buyers, as it would turn out, had planned to kill each other with the weapons they obtained via auction, which got rather messy; Peggy nearly got blasted with a rogue incinerator rifle that ended up leaving an unfixable hole in her favourite jacket; and Steve, forced to go undercover as a swim instructor, got the worst sunburn of his entire life. She's still not sure how people fell so easily for his patented, "No, I just look like Captain America. I get that a lot," line.
"You're back!"
Turning around in her seat at the switchboard entrance to the SSR's New York offices, Rose Roberts beamed when the elevator doors slid open to reveal a significantly tanner Agent Carter and an immensely relieved Captain Rogers.
"How was the Sunshine State?"
"Sunny. Too sunny. I never thought I'd be so happy to wake up to a rainy Brooklyn morning," Steve remarked in response, recalling all too well the days when he used to hate the rain; damp days had always made his asthma worse. Now, on the other hand, he'd like to see it rain for a month straight – maybe more.
At Rose's perplexed expression, Peggy quipped, "He's just cranky because he got a rather nasty sunburn on his-"
"-nose. On my nose," Steve quickly interjected, his cheeks taking on a pink tinge for reasons aside from being sun-kissed, and the smirk on Peggy's red lips could only be described as devilish. "You don't get sunburns that fast in Brooklyn, Peg – how was I supposed to know?"
"We're happy to be home," Peggy finally said to Rose, to which the other woman offered her a bright smile, her eyes twinkling behind her glasses.
"We're happy to have you back. Well… most of us are," Rose added as an afterthought, pursing her lips as she started unplugging and plugging connections into the switchboard in order to open the concealed elevator doors to the SSR. "Word has it that Thompson's been pacing the bullpen all morning like he's about to pop; something about Colonel Phillips personally delivering a case file to your desk a few days ago."
"Phillips was here?" Peggy asked, perplexed; the colonel rarely showed his face in their New York offices. He generally kept to the London headquarters under the guise that it was quieter there; if the leader of the SSR was relatively inaccessible to the American government, then they couldn't pester him every waking moment about the work that the Strategic Scientific Reserve was doing and - among their favourite topics - why Captain America had been absorbed into the SSR rather than becoming an official active member of the American military after V-E Day.
Peggy had been suspicious since the end of the war that Phillips had something else up his sleeve, and that was why he preferred to work from out of the country, but her suspicions had neither been confirmed nor denied as of yet.
"That he was. Not sure why; he just said to make sure Agent Carter and Captain Rogers get the case file on her desk when they get back. So, this is me making sure," Rose stated, switching one last connection line so that the doors swung open, and the smile that she offered them held a hint of sympathy within it. Nobody wanted to deal with Agent Thompson when he was annoyed, and he'd had days, evidently, for that irritation to build.
"Good luck."
"I'm sure that won't be necessary," Peggy breezed in response, walking into the elevator with purpose, leaving Steve, ever the obedient six-foot-tall puppy, to hurry after her.
"Why wouldn't he contact us if he had a case? We had an emergency line setup for that purpose," Steve muttered, perplexed, and Peggy shook her head, stepping out of the elevator when the doors opened on the opposite side that they had entered through.
"Who knows? It's Phillips. Lord knows he's a beacon of secrecy these days," she stated, making her way to the bullpen in brisk strides which Steve mimicked. Her voice reverberated through the noisy room full of agents as they strode inside, catching sight of Agent Thompson standing by the row of windows at the back of the room, looking out through the slats in the blinds. She couldn't see his face, but from his tense stance, Peggy already knew that he was glaring.
"Agent Thompson! I take it you'd like to have a word with me?"
The noise in the room dulled at her comment, for all attention was quickly turned from paperwork, phone calls, and making makeshift fans to the scene about to unfold. Thompson turned around, his eyes briefly conveying surprise at seeing the SSR's golden duo standing before him before his expression reverted back into one of express irritation.
"You're damn right I would!" he conceded, stalking across the bullpen and glaring all the while, jabbing his finger in the direction of the double doors leading into the lobby. "Just because you and Spangles took down Schmidt and brought back a few Hydra trinkets does not mean you get a monopoly over every case that comes through that door!"
"Of course it doesn't," Peggy stated, walking around Thompson to get to her desk, picking up the manila envelope sat atop it. The seal didn't appear to be tampered with, so at least Thompson's frustration hadn't led him to commit any kind of punishable offenses – yet. "But there's a difference between every case that comes through that door and a case personally delivered to my desk by Colonel Phillips. Wouldn't you agree?"
"That's… That's not the point!" Thompson interjected, prompting Steve to raise an eyebrow from where he still stood in front of the disgruntled agent. His patience, as it usually did with Thompson, was wearing thin. He'd never had much patience for him to begin with; anyone with the gall to ask Peggy Carter to make him a pot of coffee, as if she were merely a secretary rather than an esteemed agent, was inclined to grate on his nerves.
"Then what is the point, Jack? Please, enlighten us," Steve remarked, prompting the agent to look between him and Peggy, pursing his lips before responding. Thompson was aware that he'd already lost Agent Carter's attention; she was too busy examining the stamped logo on the envelope with a perplexed expression.
"The point is that Phillips was here three days ago! That case file has been sitting, unopened, on Carter's desk for three days. What if it was urgent? I was the field agent on duty when he brought it in, while the two of you were off getting suntans in Florida! But he said it was for her eyes only. As the field agent on duty, it should have been my-"
"Enough," Peggy snapped, having opened the envelope and examined the topmost page enough to know that it ought to be read in private. "It wasn't your case to claim because it came from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who appear to have requested Captain Rogers and myself personally. Now, if you'll excuse us, we've got more pressing matters to attend to than your jealousy and your fragile ego. Steve?"
Gesturing for Steve to follow her, Peggy made her way toward Chief Dooley's office, knocking before entering, leaving Thompson spluttering in the bullpen.
"I'm… I'm not jealous."
"Sure you're not, pal," Steve remarked, shaking his head and shutting the door behind them, a small smirk lingering on his face from how Peggy had shut Thompson's attitude down. However, upon seeing how serious her own expression was, he schooled his as they stood before the chief's desk.
"You're back. Have you filed your report on the black market operation?" Dooley asked, arching an eyebrow from behind his desk, and Peggy nodded, clasping the envelope in her hands.
"I finished drafting it last night. I was going to file it as soon as we came in today, but a little birdy informed me that a case file has been sitting on my desk for the past three days."
"An obnoxious little birdy," Steve muttered, glancing toward the door, and Thompson could be heard shouting "My ego is not fragile!" back out in the bullpen, but Peggy pressed on with no indication as to whether or not she had heard either of them.
"Are you aware that this is an FBI case file?"
"I have no idea what it is. All I know is that it's been a pain in my ass since Phillips dropped it off. Thompson hasn't shut up for three days," the chief grumbled, glaring at the envelope in Peggy's hands, prompting her to turn it around so that he could see the peculiar stamp across the front.
"It was pulled from a section marked Security Matter – X. To the best of my knowledge, no such section exists. Unless you know something that I don't?" Peggy questioned, but Dooley's expression was still a blank slate. From the way he was looking at the envelope, it seemed as if he'd like to see it spontaneously combust.
"I told you, Carter – I have no idea what that thing is. Phillips brought it for you and Rogers and nobody else – he was very adamant about that. So, what did you come in here to tell me?"
Beneath his gruff exterior, it was clear that Dooley was just as disgruntled as Thompson for not being given access to the contents of the envelope. He was the chief, for crying out loud! He had a right to know just as much as his agents – especially when those agents were Carter and her oversized showgirl of a boyfriend.
Standing a bit straighter, Peggy got to the point quickly; there was no sense beating around the bush. She'd skimmed the first few lines of the letter attached to the case file inside the envelope while Thompson was complaining; she knew where they were needed. She just hadn't read far enough to understand why they were needed.
"Captain Rogers and I are to report to New Mexico straight away, for a length of time which, at the moment, is unspecified. We're to be taken off of the mission roster until we return - evidently, given Phillips hand delivered the file, it's meant to take precedence over all other SSR matters."
"And if the Red Skull decides to make an appearance while you're running around for the FBI? What then?" Dooley asked, openly frowning at this point, in response to which Peggy pursed her lips.
"He's quite dead," she stated with a hint of ice in her tone. She should know; she'd nearly lost Steve to that mission. It was due to nothing short of a miracle that he was still alive when they found the wreckage.
Frowning further, but his expression wavering slightly at the look in Peggy's eyes, Dooley sighed, gesturing vaguely at Steve and herself.
"Fine. Go. If you're in New Mexico, that just means I don't have to put up with the two of you for a while. But if Thompson drives me crazy enough that I jump out of a window while you're gone, you're paying for my funeral – and the damages."
"Done," Peggy agreed, because the idea of Thompson driving a person to do such a thing merely to escape his complaining and chauvinism wasn't that far-fetched. With another gesture, they were dismissed, and Thompson looked ready to pounce as soon as they exited the office – but Peggy simply walked right past him and back to her desk, retrieving her mission report to be filed before crossing the bullpen to do precisely that.
Steve, noticing that she kept the case file with her when she entered the filing room, followed – and only when he was sure they were alone, the door shut and locked behind him, did he dare ask what the hell they were about to embark upon.
"Care to share why, exactly, we're going to New Mexico?" he asked, unable to help feeling disappointed. They'd just gotten home from a mission that lasted a month and a half, had only spent one night in their own bed, and now they were being asked to go to a part of the country where he was even more likely to get a sunburn? And it was the FBI asking them to go?
Her heels clicking on the tile floor as she weaved her way between the shelves, Peggy ensured that they were alone before placing her mission report in its correct box and emerging. Making her way back over to Steve, she opened the envelope and began to read through the first sheet of paper in the file more thoroughly than she had in the bullpen – one that was written on SSR stationary rather than an FBI document. Finally, after reading and rereading it to ensure that she wasn't misunderstanding anything, she spoke.
"There's a crash site in Roswell that we're being asked to look into."
His eyes narrowing, Steve took a step closer to Peggy, trying to gauge from her expression just how serious this situation was. She looked shocked, and it wasn't very often that an assignment could pull such a reaction from her. She was highly professional. But Steve wasn't entirely oblivious; if the FBI were the ones conducting the primary investigation, then surely there could only be one explanation:
"A Russian spy plane?"
Peggy shook her head, prompting Steve to furrow his brow and ask, "Hydra?"
When she shook her head again, he didn't attempt another guess, and she had to take a deep breath before attempting to explain why, precisely, the FBI had requested them and not just any SSR agent.
"According to the file, it's… an unidentified flying object."
Steve, in response to her claim, seemed relatively underwhelmed.
"Isn't that what caused all the fuss back in '42? They thought it might have been Japanese fighter pilots and started shooting at it, but it was just a weather balloon."
"This isn't a weather balloon, Steve," Peggy countered, trying her best to explain, but she was having trouble understanding – and believing – the contents of the file herself. It all seemed utterly impossible, like something out of a radio play or an H.G. Wells novel. She'd almost wager that somebody was pulling a prank on them if it hadn't been for the letter, tucked into the envelope with all of the documents, written in Colonel Phillips' heavy handwriting that read:
July 7th 1947
Agent Carter,
Do not share this with ANYONE, and I do mean ANYONE: not Dooley, not the Commandos, not even that girl with the glasses who works the switchboard. DEFINITELY do not mention it to Stark. The contents of this file are for you and Rogers only – the government will have my head if word gets out.
On July 6th, a rancher in Roswell, New Mexico, found debris that led to a crash site. It wasn't a fighter jet, or a spy plane, or anything that the military assumed unidentified flying objects were during the war. The Roswell Army Air Field is holding a press conference on the 8th, claiming that they recovered a "flying disc" – and that's as close to the truth as the public is going to get.
It's gone, Carter. They boxed up what they found and replaced it with some kind of weather balloon decoy to throw sniffers off of the scent. But this was no air balloon – not this time.
What the FBI found was some kind of extraterrestrial ship and – (this is all in the file) – it isn't the first one that's been found in the country. They found a crash site like this once before, in Missouri, back in '41; the case file calls it the Cape Girardeau Incident. It was a flying disc, just like Roswell, and there were bodies found at the scene – all dead. All dead, and none of them human.
They found one body this time. That's the problem – there's only one body. There's trace evidence among the wreckage that there were at least three of these things on board. What that evidence is, I can't say – like I said, it's all gone. Probably holed up in a bunker somewhere.
The military doesn't know how to deal with the live ones. They think they're wandering around in the woods because nobody's spotted them yet, but that could change. There's no way of knowing if they're dangerous – and, if they are, how dangerous.
Rogers stopped the Red Skull – that's why the FBI seems to think he can stop these things, too. They're in over their heads and want this out of their hands – for now. Go there, investigate the case, keep an eye on Rogers, and trust no one. This shit's been covered up for years; they're going to try to cover it up again if you succeed. Success will make you loose ends. You're already loose ends just by having this file.
It's from a top-secret sector that the FBI is calling the Security Matter – X Files. They use it to classify UFO incidents and other 'unexplained phenomenon' – whatever the hell that means. They'd probably have tossed Schmidt in there if they got their hands on him and his tech before we did.
Everything you'll need is in here. Reports of the Roswell Incident, unredacted witness accounts from Missouri back in '41 – those should help you spot the things if they send you looking for them. There aren't any photographs in the file; evidence that concrete would be too hard to deny if you two were to split with it. But it's more than just the two crashes, Carter; something bigger is going on here. There are dozens of pages of eyewitness accounts; people have been seeing things in the sky over Washington since June, and two nut cases are claiming that donuts in the sky tried to sink their boat. Injured a kid and killed their dog.
Whatever these things are, they're watching us - getting ready for something - and you and Rogers are about to be pulled into the thick of it. Nothing I could say would sway them – not his recklessness, not your pain-in-the-ass attitude. They want Captain America, and the two of you are sort of a package deal.
This could spell the end for all of us; the good guys and the Hydra bastards alike. It needs to be your top priority. If Dooley gives you a hard time, kick his ass. I know you can, so don't hesitate.
And I mean it, Carter - TRUST. NO. ONE.
- Col. Chester Phillips
"If it's not a weather balloon, and it's not the Russians or Hydra, what the hell could it be?" Steve asked, about to cross his arms over his chest when Peggy held the letter out toward him. He recognized the handwriting right away, but he hadn't even had a chance to read an entire sentence before Peggy answered his question.
"According to Phillips, the FBI says that we're dealing with extraterrestrials. Things not of this world."
When Steve simply stared at her, she sighed, emphasizing, "Aliens, Steve. They're asking us to aid in a manhunt for aliens."
"I know what an extraterrestrial is, Peg," he chimed in, taking the letter from here, and Peggy arched an eyebrow when she realized that he looked amused. "Come on – you don't believe in that stuff, do you? Little men living on Mars? It's crazy!"
"I would have said the same thing less than an hour ago," she agreed, taking a seat on a stack of boxes piled against a nearby shelf, pulling the field report from the agent at the scene of the Roswell crash site a few nights ago from the file to skim through it. "But Colonel Phillips has never been one to lie, and he's certainly never been one to believe foolish stories without evidence. He seems thoroughly convinced."
"But it's insane," Steve protested as he read through the letter, actually laughing as he quoted, "Donuts in the sky? These people can't be serious."
"The donuts in the sky aren't what we're being asked to investigate. They want us at the crash site-"
"-where, according to this, all of the 'evidence' has been taken and replaced with a weather balloon. Why all the secrecy?"
"To avoid mass panic?" Peggy suggested, flipping through more of the report before setting the file on her lap. "I don't know, Steve. What I do know is that this is where Phillips wants us to be."
"He also says not to trust the FBI," Steve added, brandishing the letter for effect, crossing the room to take a seat on the floor by her feet, taking the file from her lap to flip through it. "How can we agree to an assignment, with no concrete end date, working for people that we can't trust? All that Phillips has talked about for the past year and a half is how much the military annoys him with their constant attempts to get me under their jurisdiction. What if this is just an elaborate hoax to get me to work for them instead of the SSR?"
"It seems like a lot of trouble to go to just for the sake of employing one man," Peggy countered, looking down at Steve with a coy smirk, adding, "Even if that man is Captain America."
"So, what then?" Steve sighed, tucking the documents back into the file, leaning his head back against the shelf as he peered up at her. "Do you believe it's really aliens? That Martians have finally come to destroy us all?"
He was still clearly amused by the prospect, prompting Peggy to school her expression, crossing her arms over her chest. They wouldn't get very far if he wasn't willing to take this at all seriously – so, even if she was equally skeptical, she had to give Phillips and his claims some credence.
"I don't believe in Martians," she stated plainly, taking the case file back from Steve and rising to her feet, "but I do believe that it's naïve to assume we're entirely alone in the universe. I'm sure that Howard would agree."
"Too bad we can't tell him," Steve attempted to joke, holding up Phillips' cautionary note again before sighing, pushing himself up, as well, and handing the piece of stationary back to Peggy.
"Are we really doing this? We're going to New Mexico to search for aliens for the FBI?"
"It certainly looks that way," Peggy confirmed, tucking the letter from the colonel into the case file before pulling open the filing room's door, tossing him a wicked smirk. "You'd better bring sunscreen this time. I'd hate to see you burn again."
Rolling his eyes, Steve trailed after her back into the bullpen, muttering close to her ear, "I still think this is ridiculous."
"Well," Peggy hummed, grabbing her umbrella from where she'd left it near her desk, starting back in the direction of the elevator while he followed close behind, "We'll just have to see if the truth is out there, now, won't we?"