Not You

Daniel hurried back to his desk from the locker room incident. His heart pounded in his ears, not from lust or want, but from fear. Peggy's bare shoulder, milky white first and foremost in his mind with those two shadowy marks where steel had pierced her flesh.

The heat from his embarrassment cooled rapidly to be replaced with rage and condemnation. Dammit Carter, not you. Not you! It can't be you, he thought angrily. You are—were- my friend. What are you now? The enemy?

Hobbling as fast as he could past the team assembling for the Russian mission, sorry looks followed him down the hallway. Ignoring them, he threw himself down into his wood chair, his crutch tumbling to the floor with a clatter and pulled out the file with the lady in the gold dress that he colored in the hair to dark graphite.

There they were. Two scars, right shoulder.

No Carter. Not you.

The office was closed and quiet. His single desk lamp illuminated a square of papers piled high. The open file was Carter's service record he had requisitioned. The doctors' report of her physical condition lay open to him, two neat dots with notes " Gun shot scars, right shoulder, above scapula" written in neat blue ink. The black and white photo of her, no lipstick or smile, stared at him as if accusing him of treason instead of the other way around.

Pillowing his cheek on his knuckles, a great hollowness threatened to swallow him. Sousa, what have you done? What unholy hell have you unleashed? He thought deeply with a great sigh looking at the picture and asking it and himself, " Who are you?"

Coming home from the war, he jumped at the job with the SSR because who would possibly give meaningful employment to a cripple even if he was "one of the boys" come home hobbling instead of in a box. The voices tinged with fake sympathy from every job he tried to get echoed in his ears. Cold looks or ones overwrought with false emotion rejecting him time and time again replayed like bullies picking on a weaker child on the playground, beating his resolve down again and again.

If he heard "Son, I'm sorry." one more time he was going to scream. He didn't ask for a handout, he was asking for a job. His number was up four years ago when he turned twenty-two. Terrified, he went into battle ready to defend his country from the evils of Hitler feeling a purpose to his drafting. Boys he met along the way had lied on their forms to get in on the action. Wanted to 'see the world' they said, or 'shoot some krauts' or some other nonsense. A few of them didn't get to come home with their stories of triumph. He never knew why they were so eager; he understood the agonies of war after listening to his Papa tell it at his bedtime stories after the family had emigrated from Europe after World War I. War was hell and he didn't need first hand proof of that.

Papa was so proud that he was able to start his family in the United States. It was that patriotic pride that colored Sousa's draft day notice. Daniel remembered that day like it was this morning; Sousa's Grocery in the Bronx was Papa's shining joy and that day the post came, the mail carrier looked so unhappy delivering the mail.

Daniel stopped sweeping the sidewalk in front of their storefront; his green apron neatly tied around his waist, ebony hair combed back smoothly. There in crisp black lettering was Daniel's name from the Department of Defense. Papa beamed with quiet satisfaction, mamma cried and his sisters looked confused as he held the letter in one hand, a broom in his other. Soon, he traded his broom for a rifle, his apron for fatigues and became one more GI on the newsreels in the movie theaters.

Here he was. Took a piece of lead for his country and where had that left him? Twenty-six, he was a cripple; a part of a man. His Papa made that very clear when he came home. Bitterness twisted in him, didn't matter how many medals he had won for valor or heroism. He was only part of a man.

At least here at the SSR he was known as a fighter even if he wore his wounds home on the outside. Perhaps he reminded the men he worked with of the wounds they carried inside and never told anyone. The holes not made by bullets but by losses and regrets that could tear a man into shreds just as easily as shrapnel from a bomb. Sometimes he'd hear a guy in the restroom sniffling or choking down a sob. Sometimes their eyes were red rimmed from tears cried before they came to work. Sometimes they wore their 'therapy' as alcohol vapor on their breath.

Sometimes, that man would be him.

Then he met her.

She was the cool salve to a burn. Both marginalized because of first impressions in this 'man's world'. Daniel was just not man enough for them and apparently neither was Peggy. When he looked at her, at first, he dismissed her as just a pretty face too like Jack or Dooley had. But then he watched her work.

Like him, she had to use unconventional means to get information. No one was going to share with her, so she had to work harder to get it from them. Her strength was admirable as was her tenacity. Sousa respected her very quickly from that point on that she was a force to be reckoned with. He decided she would be a great ally and a … friend.

When Peggy wasn't around, the guys would joke what it would have been like to be Captain America's best gal. The words got ugly just like when they'd call him a cripple to his face or make stupid peg-leg comments just behind his back. The fierceness of his defense of Carter made them turn on him. "Gotta soft spot for the dame?" they'd chide, "Probably because you're half girl yourself!"

"How much of that leg they take off? Go any higher by accident?"

"Maybe it wasn't an accident!"

"You might wear trousers, Sousa, but do you fill them? She might be disappointed since her guy was Steve Rogers."

"Yeah, that serum must have done wonders!" The room filled with laughter.

"Daniel. You know they don't really mean that." she had soothed after he gave her the lighter sanitized version of the story.

"Then what do they mean, Peggy?" he had seethed at her one night after a rough shift. The people in the automat looked at him. The coffee cups at their table rattled from his anger.

Carter gave him a sympathetic but not patronizing look to calm him down, resting her hand gracefully on his clenched fist, "We all have our baggage. Some people carry it worse than others. The SSR is full of broken people, literally and figuratively. We are only trying to do the right thing with the resources and skills we have available."

His breathing quieting at her touch and gentle words, he looked down at the formica speckled table in shame, "Well, more than a few have no 'resources' at all."

Peggy chuckled at his assessment, "Then it's our duty not only to do good, but to help them see the error of their ways by not falling into their poor behaviour." She did not let go of his hand. The wrath within him was still unresolved but for now, the storm was calmed.

Sousa felt his temperature spike like a blowtorch ignited in his chest. His vision tinged red. With a yell of rage and sweep of his arm, he cleared the desk of all the papers. They fell with a gentle side to side flutter of ticker tape. Just like 5th avenue on VE day.

Panting with frustration and clenching his fists, he stared at the mess he created, ashamed that he had let those memories get to him. White-hot fury ate at him that he was about to betray the only real friend he had at the SSR. What a Judas he was! A scalding boulder of conflict rested in his guts. The back of his head began to pound as he ground the heels of his hands into his eye sockets trying to expunge the thought of what he was going to do. Suddenly, he wanted to be very drunk and anywhere but here.

Instead, he got down on one knee, leaning the prosthetic leg out straight since the knee was not fully functional. Slowly, balancing himself on two arms and one good leg, he picked up each piece of paper carefully, one by one. The pile of papers began form up when he saw the last piece a few feet over. Crawling like a wounded dog, he reached and picked up her picture. In perfect black and white, she looked back at him neutrally as tears sprung to his eyes. Falling to the floor on his good hip he sobbed out, "Not you. Anyone but you. Why Peggy? Why did it have to be you?" Tears ran across his cheeks as he ignored his running nose, "You are my friend."