I OWN NOTHING! I was rewatching the Agent Carter one shot today and this popped into my head. I was debating whether I should put it here or with the movie, but it does center around Peggy so I figured this would be appropriate.
Margaret Carter had never before needed someone to rescue her. She had grown up in one of the rougher neighborhoods of London, learning to throw a punch by the time she was five. In the army, there was no room for anyone who needed to be saved, especially a woman, so; she honed the basic skills she had learned on the streets to fine points. She had learned to break codes and survey land and speak languages so that her mind would not betray her either. But here, she was trapped. Her mental talents allowed her to zip through the menial work she was given with ease and her physical skills were ignored. That was why, receiving the call last night, she had rushed out of the office, protocol be damned. Peggy was aching to do something useful with her talents and hell if she was going to mire herself in a phone conversation and waste precious time.
Now, however, she was getting chewed out by her boss when he should have been singing her praises. It wasn't like Peggy didn't know everyone thought she was here on the US governments sympathy, but hearing him say it like that...it hurt. She kept her head high, but somewhere in the back of her mind, she was screaming, yelling, begging for rescue from this torment, worse than anything that HYDRA could have thrown her way. When the buzzer went off, she remained standing, as if she had any hope of being assigned whatever the job was, and assumed that her silent plea had been answered through the temporary reprieve of a new mission for the office to bustle over. He seemed displeased about whatever the person was saying though, so maybe his frustration would be taken out on her somehow after all.
Peggy kept her breathing steady as her boss fixed his tie, fidgeted a little, and walked stiffly down the aisle. He stopped in front of her and delivered the news about running SHIELD. She smirked a little when he mentioned helping her with her belongings, because though Howard would have wanted to make the man uncomfortable, as evidenced by the honor remark, he would never dare suggest that Peggy needed a man's help. His sucking up now that she was in a position to move him up the food chain where he had been chewing her out not five minutes before was truly pathetic, Peggy mused.
She made sure that her ex-boss saw that she was taking the picture of Steve with her as she delivered her parting shot about not needing him to help her, and glanced at it for a moment before heading down the stairs and out of the bullpen, head held high. They would need someone to connect SHIELD to the military so Colonel Phillips would probably be around, along with Dum-Dum Dugan who she knew was finally stateside again. Jarvis, Stark's butler would probably still be serving tea, and his lovely wife Anna would be another woman to talk to. Peggy smiled at the thought. She had never been a fan of men rescuing her like a damsel in distress, but just this once, she was glad that Howard had.
