POV: Agent Margaret 'Peggy' Carter

4.24pm; August 19, 1987; Glasgow Royal Maternity Hospital, Glasgow, Scotland;

Peggy happened to be one of the more realistic people on this planet. She knew what most people thought of her. She just couldn't give a rat's arse most of the time. In fact, she'd made a living out of it. She exploited what people thought of her and used it to her advantage. It's how she got from codebreaking to the SSR, how she became the boss and co-founder of the largest spy agency in the world during a time where the world feared women being side by side with men, and it's how she knew that her son was annoyed at her very presence at the hospital. Not that she cared much, she wasn't here for him after all.

Alistair was always a rough child. Very aggressive, but he loved his family and would never hurt a hair on their head. He was always protecting his little sister Margaret (how Daniel had convinced her to name her only daughter after herself, she didn't know.), keeping her from hurting herself, and always trying to toughen her up. And then Peggy had slipped up.

(Flashback)

They came all at once and in droves, killing the guards silently and disabling the security system. Daniel was still an excellent shot but had never fully recovered from the leg injury he gained all those years ago, and though he killed two, they were still able to subdue him.

Peggy was in the back garden with Alistair when she heard gunfire and screams. Knowing she had to get Alistair to safety, she took out her handy pistol that she always had on her and told Alistair to wait in their shed and not to come out until she or their father came.

Peggy ran as fast as she could, almost tripping over one of those plastic tricycles she had gotten Margaret in her haste to get to the house. But she was able to keep her balance and stay upright. When she got to the house, she tried to stay quiet, but her heart was pounding, and her head was pounding, and everything was swaying from side to side, and the last time she had felt like this was when a plane went down, and she had lost Steve, and now she was going to lose Daniel, and Alistair, and Margaret, and she couldn't let that happen, she had to save them, she had to...

BANG!

"..."

She looked at the dead body in front of the door.

She looked at the gun in her in her slightly raised hands.

And she slapped herself.

"Dammit Peggy.", she muttered, "Acting like some wet around the ears, new recruit who's never even seen a gun before."

She heard a shout in a foreign language (was that Hungarian?) and a rush of boots on the hardwood floor. 'Three men', she thought, 'probably all armed'. And that wasn't counting any in the living room or anywhere else.

Peggy sighed and pursed her lips. It had been a long time since she had been this outnumbered. Nowadays, she was the one behind the desk, making the decisions and putting other people's lives at risk, not her own.

The men only slowed down slightly before coming out with their guns ('Automatics', she realises) raised. As the first man took a step out, she ran towards him, pushed the gun outwards, away from her, and shoulder barged him backwards into the man behind him. All the while, she kept low, making sure the man furthest away couldn't get a clear shot at her. The man in front easily got his bearings back and threw a slightly shaky right hook. She leaned back and used her left hand to glance it past her and keep her steady as she kicked him in the chest into the second man who was just starting to get up.

The man at the very back obviously didn't expect that as he had a look of shock on his face. As the man raised his gun, Peggy ran, used one of the men on the floor to push her up diagonally right towards the wall, and used the wall to push herself towards the last man, who had raised his gun towards her. Before he could shoot, she landed on him. Her feet pushed the gun down, and the weight of her plus the momentum of her push off the wall made him topple over.

Peggy quickly grabbed the man's head with both hands and bashed it against the floor twice before letting go. She got up swiftly and went to move but her left leg screamed in agonising pain. She glanced down and realised that before she had rattled the man's skull, he had grazed her leg, probably when she jumped off the wall like she was some assassin. She grimaced. It wasn't a soldier-like move and apparently being with S.H.I.E.L.D had changed more than just her work schedule.

She noticed Thing 1 and Thing 2 finally getting up. Thug #1 was on one knee. He raised his gun and started shooting at her. She took a right step towards him, put her left foot forwards, and volleyed the gun out of his hands. As she goes to punch Thug #1, two bullets rip through her right thigh. She collapses and rolls in front of Thug #1 with a primal roar that resonates right through her body. Peggy grabs her left leg on instinct and tries to stem the bleeding by putting pressure on the wound.

Before she can do that though she gets hit with a punch that stuns her. She looks up and sees Thug #1 raising his fist, readying up another punch. She was Agent Peggy Carter though, and she'd dealt with worse than a bullet wound to the thigh. She raises her left hand and grabs his head, using her elbow to stop the punch, and quickly jabs him a couple of times.

As his head springs back from the punch, she notices Thug #2 has his gun raised and realises that the only reason she's not dead is that Thug #1 was covering her. Using this, she lowers her hands and grabs Thug #1 by his jacket. He goes around her elbow and tries to hit her with a right hook. Thinking on her feet (Not literally; right now, she was on her knees), she headers him right on his big, fat beak. His fist skims her hair, and in anger, she headers him again. His nose is obviously broken and the thug is hardly conscious.

Using what strength she has left in her legs, Peggy lifts him up and runs him towards Thug #2. Apparently, Thug #2 panicked because suddenly gunfire starts, and Peggy is having to use Thug #1 as a human shield. She hurriedly threw her human shield at the only mercenary left. Immediately she drops to the ground as her leg gives out on her, making her slightly dizzy in the process.

Making the best of a bad situation, she reaches behind her and grasps the gun of a dead mercenary. She lifts her gun and shoots at the last man, killing him instantly. She sighs in relief and rests her head on the wall for a few seconds. Afterwards, she uses the wall to get up and limps towards the men and checks for any identification.

At first, she can't find anything. There's not a wallet, or a driver's license, or even a library card in sight. Peggy's just about to stop when she notices an almost imperceptible mark on the left shoulder of the man's jacket. Rolling him over, Peggy looks at the symbol and gasps. It's a six-tentacled octopus with a skull for a head.

"HYDRA", she whispers breathlessly, realising the full extent of her predicament. Just as she says this, she hears foot steps behind her. She whips around with her gun raised, ready to shoot, and she sees a man there, aiming his guns at her.

"Én nem", The man smirks at her.

Peggy doesn't really understand him but she get's the meaning, 'Drop it or you're dead'. So, she does. She knows when not to push it. He pushes her forward into a room that she had become so intimately familiar with. The living room.

She had so many good memories of this room. She remembers that Margaret's first steps happened in this room. That Alistair had said his first words in here. That Daniel, for all his sweetness and kindness, had first shouted at her in here (which doesn't sound like a happy memory, but it was their first fight as husband and wife, and probably the night of conception for Alistair).

But the place was a horror show now. Daniel was leaning on the wall to her right. He's taking ragged breaths that make him sound like he's just swallowed glass and his jaw is just starting to colour a puce green. There's bullet holes on every piece of furniture, and there's blood splattered all over the wooden table in the middle of the room. The owner of the blood is laying next to one of his comrades on her white carpet. She thinks at first that he's dead, but he blinks at her and she realises he's just in shock from the pain.

The next thing she sees makes her take a sharp breath in. It's Margaret, only she's being held by a man in an unassuming ensemble of dress. He's balding to the base of the skull, but it's clear to see that in his prime he had a full set of bright blonde hair. She doesn't recognise him, and he must notice this as he laughs derisively at her.

"You do not recognise me, do you?", he asks in a thick Germanic accent. It left a sour taste in her mouth. Everything German did. Germans had done so much wrong to the world. She knew she couldn't blame a whole nation on a few bad men, but she had lost much in the war, too much to let go of it so easily.

"No matter.", he drawled, a flip knife dancing merrily through his fingers of his right hand as he holds up Margaret's head back, so her throat is exposed, "It's all goi- "

Suddenly he was interrupted by a shuddering groan from her right.

It was Daniel.

He was on his knees coughing up a mixture of blood and mucus. Peggy tries to run to him, but her guard grabs her shoulder before she can.

She wrenched out of his grasp and stared hatefully at him with as much malevolence as she could muster.

He didn't look impressed. Instead he just nudged the gun against her arm and nodded towards where she was previously standing. Sneering and locking her jaw in anger, she does what she's told, looking helplessly at Daniel as he tries to get up.

Daniel stares up at her, the pain clear in his eyes, before looking away. At first, she thinks that he can't look her in the eyes after letting the HYDRA wannabe take Margaret. But then she realises that his eyes are locked in place.

Oh.

He's looking at the piano.

More specifically he's looking at the bottom of where the keys are and she bets that if any of the others noticed this, they would just think he was trying to keep tears in. But she knew better.

They were spies and as such, they had a gun in almost every room including the stairs. She had assumed that Daniel had taken the gun when he had taken down the two guards, but he must have been in another room at the time.

This meant that she now had a very slight chance of saving Margaret and making it out alive.

First though she had to plan an escape. Now what could she do...?

"You've got a scheming look on your face.", the German smirked.

Her widened without her permission, but before she could say anything the German started laughing.

"It doesn't matter. Whatever your plan is, it won't work. I have thought of countless situations over the years in how you would stop me. I've run the numbers. You have no weapon, a bullet through your leg, and your loved ones...", he trailed a knife against Margaret's throat, and almost involuntarily Peggy started to growl. "...Are held at gunpoint. You have a less than five percent chance of getting out of this alive without one of you dying."

He twirls his knife, and then point it at her blade first, "So what are you going to do that's going to change your certain death? What can you do to change science? What are you, Peggy Carter...", and he spits out her name like a curse word, "...going to do, to change the world?"

He was breathing as heavily as would be if he ran a marathon. And his starry-eyed fanatical open-mouthed look turned into a smug grin that she wanted to wipe off with a swift right hook.

She didn't though. Instead, realising it's time for the hero's quip, she drawled at him, "Well...you certainly don't look like the usual HYDRA agent sent to kill me...", her mouth twists into a mocking smirk, "...But at least you have the monologuing part on point."

There was a big green vein that seemed to throb on the man’s balding head. He released Margaret’s head and brought his hand to roughly grab her shoulder so that he could take a step forward 'threateningly' and point his knife blade first at her, "You would dare...!"

Peggy didn't waste any time. She sent a backwards kick to the stomach of the man behind her, sending flying back. She quickly grabbed the gun under the piano and ducked into a roll in one combined movement. She came up with her gun lowered, ready to be aimed and fired at her enemy.

Everything seemed to slow down. She saw everything around her with startling clarity.

To her left was Margaret. The leader had dived backwards to get to her, his knife aimed right at her throat.

To her right was Daniel. The goon had thrown him to the ground where Peggy could see the pain he was going through in a way she wished she never would again.

It was as if there was some sick choice to make. It was like God had wanted her to play one of his sick games to see if her mind would twist in on itself. But there was no real choice to make. After all, she had been with Daniel for years, had dealt with all the nuances that came with it. She had dealt with the fact that Daniel sometimes felt so much pain in the mornings that he could hardly walk. She had dealt with the way he would over the tiniest things, babbling incessantly about what could go wrong. She had even dealt with the painful jokes he made every now and then, which were 'oh so funny' as if he were some Howard Stark wannabe.

She had loved him. Knew him inside out. Had even had children with him.

She didn't hesitate.

She shot the leader. She saved Margaret. But more importantly, she left Daniel to die. After all, she loved Daniel, knew him, and knew what he would want her to do in this situation

The other two goons were dead before they even thought about raising their guns. She ran over to Margaret, only glancing over at Daniel's dead body. It elicited may emotions from her. Pain and anger and sorrow and grief. But these emotions were shrouded, almost as if she were putting them on the back-burner until she could deal with them properly.

She couldn't see his face and she didn't know if she was grateful for that or not because she had a feeling that if she were to turn him over she would see every part of his face covered in the pain he felt before his death. She didn't think she was ready for that just yet.

She saw and felt all of this in just one glance, and she feared what would happen when she had to look again. She continued running to Margaret, kicking the leader of this atrocity away from her. She got to her and turned her around and those emotions she had kept so tightly bottled up threatened to overflow. There was blood everywhere.

This wasn't unexpected. There were five dead bodies in the room after all, but it wasn't the blood that shocked her. No, it was where he blood was. It was all over Margaret's face and it just kept spurting out, bubbling around those rosy, red cheeks that grandmothers just loved to pinch.

She ran to the kitchen with all haste grabbed all a couple of cloths and remember to disinfect her hands. She remembered how many soldiers were saved from a wound in the war, only to die to infection weeks later. Just before she left she sent out an S.O.S signal to S.H.I.E.L.D, hoping that they or someone else would be able to get here quick enough.

She ran past the dead bodies of the goons and the leader (and Daniel, but she didn't think about the dead body only feet away from her right now). She ran over to Margaret and without touching her eye wiped away what blood she could.

She growled ferally. Apparently, she hadn't been fast enough to stop the Mr. HYDRA from hurting Margaret completely. As she went to turn around and hit the dead body f the leader to put her anger out on him, she hears a sob.

And with that all the sounds she hadn't been hearing came to the forefront. There was the moans from the only alive HYDRA goon and her own heavy breathing was louder than she first thought, but even was the little sobs and mewls coming from Margaret.

She was only 4 and Peggy wasn't sure if she had sent that S.O.S call quick enough. And God, she doesn't know if she can deal with losing them both.

She started to put pressure on the wound, trying to at least slow down the bleeding, when Margaret screaming in pain and fear.

Feeling like the worst mother ever, she started to comfort and soothe her, "Oh, shhh, Darling, shhh, it will all be alright, you'll see."

She stopped screaming and started to blink as if she were waking up from a bad dream. "Mommy?", she asked in an American accent that reminded Peggy so much of her father that she had to physically restrain herself from letting out a whimper.

Wiping out the tears from her eyes and clearing her throat, Peggy replies, "It's me, Darling. I'm here with you, I'll always be here with you.", Peggy clutches her closer to her.

"It hurts mommy, it hurts so bad", Peggy hears after a moment of silence. Laying a kiss on her brow, Peggy earnestly replies, "I know, Darling, I know."

(End of Flashback)

That was how they found them. Peggy curled around Margaret, shielding her from the world. When Chester spoke finally spoke of it years later, he said it was like a horror movie. There were bodies everywhere and when they found Peggy and Margaret, they had thought them dead too. Â

She found out later that the leader who had scarred Margaret was name Alaric Schroeder and she cursed that name every time she wakes up. He was a German scientist who had been picked up after WW2 during project paperclip. He had saved time until he had enough influence to locate and strike the Carter residence.

Everybody was shaken after the incident. Peggy had drowned herself in work. She had given up being the director of S.H.I.E.L.D to be chief operations manager of the UK. When she was at work, Margaret and Alistair would stay at her brother's widow, Sharon's house. She had a son roughly the same age as them, so it wasn't too bad for them.

Margaret took it better than expected. She grew up with a massive scar on her face and partial blindness in one eye, but she never let it get it down. Sure, there were incidents when she was younger about how none of the kids would play with her and when she was older no one had asked her to the prom, but she got over it and was now happily in a relationship and working as a nurse in Balmoral.

Alistair though, he blamed Peggy for everything that happened. He had said that she was weak and that a woman should never have been made director of S.H.I.E.L.D. He had laughed when he had tried to argue saying that she couldn't even save Margaret properly. He had even taken on Daniel's mother's maiden name when came of age. Maybe she should have been harsher on him, but at the time, she had sometimes agreed with him.

Before she could continue with her line of thought, a nurse came in to the waiting room. Alistair shot up like a bullet. "She's ready to see you now", the nurse said.

Alistair walked swiftly to the door, only turning around to narrow his eyes at her. The message was clear, he wanted a few minutes alone with his wife. She could agree to that. After all, she wasn't even meant to be here. She wasn't at Sharon's birth a few years ago, but with all that happened with Janet Van Dyne last month, she felt she had to stick close to her family.

After a few moments, she went in. Alistair's smile immediately dimmed when he saw her, but even he couldn't stop smiling around the two babies in either arm. They had bright blonde hair already and they broke Peggy's heart just seeing them.

Politely she asked for their names and Alistair responded quickly, he raised one, "Ferdinand Alexander Fitz...", he raised the other, "...And Leopold James Fitz. The brave and the bold.", He smiled lovingly at his wife, "And named after true Scottish kings."