Thompson received his medal of honor at a ceremony in Central Park on a beautiful June day. He looked the part of a hero, with the sun brightening his dark blond hair and glinting off the brass buttons on his Navy dress whites.
The brilliant sunshine and playful breeze made it all the more galling for Peggy, who watched from one of the back rows of folding chairs with as pleasant an expression as she could muster pasted on her face. She could just about stomach Senator Cooper's speech praising him—they were a team, he'd done his part—and when he hung the medal on Jack's neck, it was at least blessedly silent. But when Thompson approached the microphone to speak, she decided that while she didn't care whether or not she got a medal for preventing an attack on ten thousand people in Times Square, watching him accept all the credit for it was hardly necessary.
She quietly excused herself to the agents around her and melted back into the street, heading straight back to the office she'd recently decided to come back to as an agent of the SSR. Daniel, who had probably proved himself the smartest of all of them by refusing to attend the ceremony at all, waved to her from his desk, the only one occupied in the entire bullpen. "How was it?" he asked.
"About what you'd expect." She sat on the edge of his desk and fanned herself lightly. Even with the open window behind them, the room was much too warm.
"Thompson pretending to be solemn, but really preening at all the accolades he didn't earn?"
"I didn't stay for that part. The senator's speech was quite enough." Her mouth twisted in a surprisingly bitter imitation of a smile. "The medal was very shiny. I'm sure Thompson will appreciate it."
Daniel grinned back at her. Feeling a little better, she stood and walked back to her desk to get started on some paperwork from their last mission.
Half an hour later, agents began trickling into the office. Most were chattering like schoolboys, buoyant from the morning outside. Peggy ignored them all, pressing her pen harder into the forms she was filling out. The only thing that would improve this day would be to finish her paperwork, leave early, and turn on the extremely expensive and quite wonderful air conditioning unit in Howard's penthouse.
"Carter!" Thompson called.
She looked up with wide eyes, rather surprised he was even in the office rather than out toasting himself with the senator. She could feel every eye in the room on them as he walked to her desk, solemn as a funeral march. Wondering what he could possibly be doing, she stood up to meet him.
"I've got something that belongs to you," he said, stepping well into her personal space. Before she could ask what on earth that could be, he pulled something out of his pocket. A moment later, she saw it was the medal, swinging gently as it hung from his first two fingers.
Her face must have revealed her utter astonishment. Thompson's lips quirked up ever so briefly at it before returning to the straight, serious line they'd been in since he arrived. In a low whisper that none of the other agents could hear, he said, "I couldn't take the weight of another medal I didn't deserve."
If she'd been astonished before, now she was gobsmacked. Her mouth fell open, but no words emerged. Her silence gave Jack the opening he needed to slip the medal over her head.
It was a heavy thing, the engraved gold star drooping just under the hollow of her throat. Of course, the ribbon hadn't been sized for a woman's neck. The metal was solid and cool against the skin of her chest left bare by the button she'd undone in deference to the stuffy bullpen; the grosgrain ribbon scratched lightly at the delicate skin of her neck.
His crutch echoing on the floor, Daniel arrived beside her, pulling himself as tall as possible. His lower lip jutted slightly as he stared at Thompson, whom he seemed about to accuse of putting a snake instead of a medal around her neck.
"Sousa," Jack said before Daniel could speak, in a voice that carried around the bullpen. "You should get one of these too. But they only gave me one." He cut his eyes back to Peggy. "And I think we all know who deserves it the most."
Swallowing hard against a sudden lump in her throat, she put her hand to the medal and fingered the rounded points of the star.
"Why?" Daniel asked, more curious than anything now, but a little defiance still making the word sharp. Peggy said nothing, because she was rather curious herself. If he'd really felt this way, he could've simply refused the medal, or given it to her in private.
Jack pursed his lips. "It's the right thing to do," he finally said, almost muttering.
"The right thing to do would've been to tell the senator exactly who was responsible for stopping that attack," Daniel spat.
"Daniel!" Peggy snapped, just as Jack, his eyes narrowing in a glare, said, "What do you think would've happened if I did? Congress isn't going to give a medal of honor to a woman. Congress would be wondering what the hell we're doing here, leaving a woman to stop that kind of attack."
"It's sad, but that doesn't make it any less true," Peggy said quietly, meeting Jack's eyes as she repeated what he'd told her so many weeks ago.
Although if she had anything to say about it, it wasn't going to be true forever.
"Not to mention I don't need my best secret agent's face in every paper from here to Siberia. You're not too bad at disguise, Carter, but no need to make it harder on yourself."
Peggy's heart thumped somewhat painfully at that, and her whole body startled. Jack was only interim chief until a new one could be appointed by the President, but...his best agent.
"Speaking of which," Jack continued, as if he hadn't just delivered a bombshell, "both of you, my office. I've got an assignment for you."
He turned and strode toward Dooley's old office. For just a second, Peggy paused, savoring the moment. Every eye in the office was on her, many of the men's expressions ranging from impressed to envious. She didn't need anyone else's approval to know her own worth, but that didn't mean it couldn't feel damn good when she got it.
Catching Daniel staring at her, half in shock, she gave him the first genuine smile she'd worn the entire day.