Title: Someday
Author: AoN (bellalinguista)
Word Count: 1,200
Genre: Angst
Summary: Peggy finally tells Angie everything.
It was an explanation – a conversation – long overdue, one they should have had ages ago, and Peggy realized that now. Fingers tugging at the hem of her blouse, Peggy struggled to find the words. She did not know where to begin, how to untangle the web of lies she had been spinning since she first met Angie. Peggy should have begun to unravel them the night at the Griffith when she had unintentionally given Angie the brush off, when Angie sulked away looking like an unwanted kicked puppy.
Or perhaps Peggy could have said something that day she had been on the run from the SSR. The agents who had been searching for her did not have a reason to double back to Angie's room – they had cleared it. As Angie had exclaimed that she knew all along that Peggy did not work for the phone company, Peggy could have easily confirmed that, yes, she had not been a phone operator, but an undercover spy – a double agent who had tangled herself in a bit of espionage.
Such a confession would had left Angie wanting more information and, with a getaway car on the way, Peggy would not have been able to satisfy her curious nature, but Peggy could have believed that Angie possibly would have understood the danger Peggy had been putting her through just by association since the day they first met at the automat.
Instead, Peggy had settled on 'someday.'
Someday, she would tell Angie everything.
Someday, there would be no more secrets.
Someday, Angie would know the real Margaret Carter.
Someday, Angie would know her real English.
And Peggy had decided that someday was today.
She looked up from fiddling around with the hem of her blouse, still not entirely sure where to begin and overwhelmed by the story she was about to tell. Had their roles been reversed, Peggy would have found it a bit hard to swallow – it sounded like something you would see in the pictures, not experience in real life.
Secret government agencies. Spies. Espionage.
It was all difficult to comprehend.
"Forgive me if any of this begins to sound preposterous, and it absolutely will," Peggy prefaced. "But before all that truly begins, I guess I could start while I was still in England. Before the war, I was a member of the British Royal Military – an officer of the British Armed Force Special Air Service."
Peggy was met with silence. She assumed Angie was listening.
"By the start of the war, I became an advisor – and an agent – to the SSR. The Strategic Scientific Reserve," she explained. "It was our mission to fight against HYDRA – the Nazi super weapons division. In order to do so, the SSR started Project Rebirth in an attempt to create an army of super soldiers, but they only managed to create one before the project was terminated. That soldier was Captain Steve Rogers. Captain America."
There should have been a squeal. There should have been a noise, or some sort of interjection to Peggy's story. There should have been something to indicate Peggy's lie back at the automat, when Angie had read the headline of Peggy's newspaper over Peggy's shoulder. Peggy had not only heard that Captain America was something else, Peggy had known first hand.
But there was only the ongoing silence.
"We… we went on missions together in Europe," Peggy tried to go on, but this was growing steadily more and more difficult.
This was not how Peggy imagined this conversation. No, her mind always wandered to a private room of sorts, where she and Angie would not be interrupted and where no one would overhear. And as Peggy would try to get through the truth she had been hiding all along, Angie would constantly interrupt to either comment or inform Peggy how that reminded her of a family member who had committed some random, questionable action.
That was the conversation Peggy wanted to have. She wanted to talk to Angie face-to-face. She wanted to be able to look Angie in the eye, but Peggy would never have that opportunity again.
So, instead, as Peggy spoke, she was forced to stare at the engraving of the tombstone of which she sat in front. She owed her dear friend that much.
'Here lies Angela Maria Martinelli che sarà nel nostro cuore per sempre.'
With a heavy sigh, Peggy cast her gaze up towards the cloudless, clear blue sky and she blinked furiously in an attempt to keep a hold of her composure. How was she supposed to continue on talking about Steve when she was also trying to ignore the final images of Angie she had seen upon returning to the Griffith to further investigate their neighbor, Dottie Underwood?
Peggy could still see Angie so vividly, lying on the floor of her bedroom. Her eyes, which Peggy had fallen in love with, had once been so full of life, but they had been frozen, wide open, and frightful as they had stared at the ceiling. Her lips had been parted, echoing either a final scream or a gasp of surprise as she had come face-to-face with Dottie who had aimed her gun at Angie's forehead. It had all been to get a reaction out of Peggy.
Ultimately, Peggy had returned the gesture, but it had not brought back her Angie.
Inhaling and exhaling deeply, Peggy returned her gaze to the tombstone. She had to go on – this was their someday, whether she liked it or not.
Needless to say, she did not.
"Umm, after the war," Peggy said, clearing her throat as she hoped Angie would not mind that Peggy was skipping ahead. Everyone knew of Captain America's fate – Angie was no different. "I moved here, to New York, and I continued to work at the SSR, under the guise of the phone company. And I met you at the automat."
Peggy could not help but smile at the sweet memory. This waitress had been so taken by her and, well, her accent that had earned her an endearing nickname, and Peggy had been smitten by this hardworking actress.
"My role in the SSR changed, however, after the war as well," Peggy pointed out. "All those complaints about my coworkers – those were all true, but through their belief of my incompetence, let's say, it allowed me to be a double agent for my friend, Howard Stark, with the help of Edwin Jarvis. He's the man who'd meet me in the automat every so often. Howard had been framed and he needed my help to clear his name."
Glancing off to the side, Peggy shook her head. "And through all this," she continued. "We discovered the Russians were training female assassins – among them, Dottie."
For a moment, Peggy sat on the cool grass in complete silence, struggling to keep her emotions at bay. Her eyes were stinging and her vision grew fuzzy due to tears that threatened to pool over. Just as Peggy began to believe that she had cried enough, that she was just physically unable to cry anymore, the tears always returned.
"You didn't deserve any of this, Angie," Peggy mumbled. "You deserved to see your name in lights, on a Broadway marque – to grace an audience with your presence on stage," she pointed out before laughing to herself bitterly. "You did nothing wrong, except meet me."
Peggy forced herself to go on, "It's a trend, one I believed I could break – the people I care about end up hurt, or gone. I put them in danger and, Angie, I'm so sorry for loving you."
End