The Witch of Staten Island

Peggy investigates a suspected murderer by attending a séance the suspect is hosting.

Pairing: Peggy/Steve (past)
Rating: mature
Warnings: Horror, Character Death (see end for specific warning), Disabled Character, Described Violence, Vulgar Language
Tropes: AU – Supernatural/magical
Words: 2,466
Original Release Date: 28 Dec 2018
Prompt: MCU Almost-No-Rules Bingo Card #12: B1 Ma'am, I2 Decade, N3 Free Space, G4 Far Away, O5 Violin, with bonus squares: B2 Witch, B3 Purse, B4 Document, I3 Sleep Tight, I4 Mother, N1 Free, N2 Ghost, G2 Future, G3 Fearless, G5 Two Dollars, O2 Eight, O3 Line, O4 Tarp

Peggy was standing in front of a large Queen Anne style home on Staten Island. She checked the advert in her purse again to confirm the address—The Witch of Staten Island monthly séance—and then shoved the document into her purse and straightened her jacket. She was being ridiculous. She didn't believe in witchcraft or magic of any sort. This was for a case. The woman who called herself the Witch of Staten Island was suspected of murder. Peggy was just going to go in with the group for the séance to scope her out. Nothing creepy was going to happen. She pressed her lips together, feeling the sticky pull of her drying lipstick and then headed into the old Victorian manse.

The parlor of the house was all wood and antiques. The upholstery was faded but it didn't smell like dust and the wooden parts of the furniture gleamed with polish. The floor made a hollow sound under Peggy's shoes as she walked into the room. The walls were a faded red damask that accented the dark wood frames of the paintings and old photographs hanging from the picture rail. Hung over the large fireplace was a young woman's portrait. In the painting, she was wearing a black mourning dress in a style that was popular forty years before Peggy was born. Her hair was the color of straw and piled up on her head under an understated hat.

"Welcome," a soft voice said from Peggy's left. She turned and the woman, the medium, in question stood before her. She was shorter than Peggy, by several inches, and her face was lightly lined with wrinkles. She looked like she'd stepped directly out of the painting but aged twenty years. The only thing missing was the hat. "I see you were admiring my mother's portrait," she said. She looked up at the painting and smiled wistfully. "She would have celebrated her one-hundredth birthday this year." After another pause, the woman looked back at her. "I'm Gertie. And you are Agent Carter. Here for the séance. I know a few boys who miss you terribly and are happy you're here to talk with them." Peggy did not let on that Gertie should not have known her name or that she was an SSR agent. She'd signed up for the thing under the name Margaret Rogers. Gertie smiled again and gestured towards a door. "You can join the others at the table. We're still missing one guest but we'll get started soon. Sit wherever you like."

Peggy kept her spine straight as she entered the next room. It was a dining room with a round table and eight chairs. The only thing on top was a set of three lit taper candles of differing heights. There wasn't even a tablecloth covering the antique wood but it was polished to a pleasing shine. The smell of incense lingered in the air. The other guests were already seated at the table.

Peggy took the chair on the right so she could see the door, though that put the servant's entrance she spotted on the other side of the buffet behind her. She furtively glanced at the five other guests, categorizing them quickly. Two older women, probably with sons dead in the war. An older man who kept spinning his wedding ring on his finger, likely a widower. And a young couple who kept giving each other badly hidden grins.

There were footsteps from the front room and the last guest entered. If his footsteps hadn't announced his presence, Gertie's "you can check under the table if you like. I understand you're skeptical. You're not the only one here tonight who is."

Daniel Sousa preceded Gertie into the room.

Well, that explained why her cover had been blown.

He did indeed bend to look under the table before he took the seat furthest from Peggy, so the medium would be between them. He glanced in Peggy's direction but beyond the eye contact didn't act like he knew her. At least he had a view of the servant's entrance.

"We're all happy you've joined us tonight," Gertie said, shutting the door behind her. She turned off the electric lamp in the corner. The action doused the room in shadow except for the three tall flames on the candles. They did not flicker as she moved towards the table and sat down.

"We?" Daniel asked.

"Yes, of course," Gertie answered. "I have as many spiritual guests tonight as I have corporeal. Don't worry, they don't need chairs," she said. The young couple giggled at her joke. "Not all of you have guests though. One of you is particularly popular is all. Are you ready to get started?"

The young man asked, "Do we need to hold hands and chant or anything?" He looked around at the others like he was making a joke.

Gertie shook her head. "Only if you want to. Your mother would like to have a word with you though."

His face blanched and the smile fell away. "My mother?"

And then something odd happened. Gertie's face contorted into a sneer and her softly spoken English switched to a heavy Irish accent that was loud in the quiet, dark room. "Aye, I'd like a word. What do you mean to be leaving the city? You love this city. Just because some cunny has you wrapped around her finger and is saying life is better somewhere else. I didn't raise you to follow your cock around and not use your brain!"

The woman beside him gasped and her eyes went wide. She looked over at the man with something like shock and betrayal on her face. He shook his head and opened his mouth but didn't seem to have anything to say. He looked back at Gertie.

Gertie's face had softened from the sneer and she looked down at the tabletop.

Across the table, Daniel made eye contact with Peggy again before looking back at the medium.

"Marion," Gertie said looking up at one of the older women across the table. Her face didn't twist up into a sneer but her pitch deepened. "I'm okay now, Mom. Me and Johnny both. He's here too. You know we love you. Funny how we both kicked it on the same day. Well, maybe not funny for you but it sure did seem kinda funny to us. We always did have to do everything the same, huh?"

Marion burst into a sob and reached up to dab her eyes with a handkerchief. "My boys, my boys. I love you. Don't go."

Gertie smiled and swallowed. She took a deep breath and looked around the table. Peggy took the moment to do the same. Daniel still looked skeptical. His brow was furrowed as he watched Gertie and every so often he would glance around like he was expecting practical jokes. The candle flames hadn't even flickered. The other woman looked worried and on the verge of tears herself like she hoped she would hear the voice of her lost loved one next. The elderly man on Peggy's right was still spinning his wedding ring but he also looked hopeful. His gaze was unfocused as he stared at the bottom of the silver candlesticks.

Peggy herself was also still skeptical. She kept waiting for the miraculous and strange things she'd heard about séances to happen. Candle flames to flicker, voices from somewhere else, strange smells or sounds. Yet nothing had happened except Gertie had done two seemingly genuine impressions.

Then the candle flames did flicker. Just the once. Beyond the flames, Peggy could see Daniel's eyes watching them as well. "Joshua," Gertie said in another accent. The older man raised his eyes to look at her. Then as if from far away, Peggy thought she heard a violin playing. It was soft, muffled almost, like it was coming from another room. Peggy looked at the door she could see. Still shut. Maybe there was someone else in the house? She looked at Daniel but he wasn't looking at her or the servant's entrance, he was watching Gertie with disbelieving eyes.

The sound was coming from Gertie. From her open mouth. Her eyes were also opened wide and her head was tipped back and to the side at an unnatural looking angle.

Joshua's bottom lip was trembling in the dancing candlelight. The sound of the violin faded as Gertie shut her mouth a minute later. Her neck made a horrible crunching sound as she seemed to resettle it on her shoulders. Joshua looked over at her and nodded. He sniffed like his sinuses had clogged with tears and said, "Sleep tight, Josephine."

Peggy did not believe in ghosts. She felt there was a logical, rational explanation for everything. Science could do everything with the right people doing the sciencing. She'd seen Steve Rogers become Captain America after all. But when Gertie turned her face to look at her, she had no explanation for what came out of the witch's mouth.

"Ma'am," she said. With that same smirk and inflection, she remembered from over a decade ago. "What are we waiting for? You know I didn't expect you to fall for that line, right? Well, good. Now that you're really listening—" and Barnes's accent dropped away, replaced with an accent just like her own. Michael. "Look at you, fearless as always. Could you imagine what the future would be? You should call mother, she misses you," he said. The British accent disappeared. "You're free, Peg," Steve's voice came out of Gertie's mouth and Peggy couldn't stop the shiver that ran up her spine. He'd only called her that in the few private moments they'd carved out for themselves. She'd closed her eyes when she'd heard Michael's voice but what she heard next had her opening them. "You don't have to wait for me. I'll be a while still." The candles were flickering as if there were a great wind. Peggy sucked in a breath to steady herself and the flames went low and then out completely.

Gertie's soft voice spoke in the darkness. "Those boys were strong. They'd been waiting on you for a long time, Agent Carter. I'm glad you finally decided to come speak to them."

Then there was a blow to the side of Peggy's head.

She came to in what looked like a dirt-floored basement lit by an oil lamp in the corner. Her hands and feet were bound and she was laying on a tarp. Next to her was Daniel.

"What happened?" she muttered, pressing her bound hands against her temple.

"We got duped. Did you really fall for it?" he asked. "That violin trick was weird. I wonder how she did that."

"Daniel?"

"What?"

"Hush for a second," she demanded. She could just make out voices. There was a woman's voice, soft like the medium, but there was also a man's that sounded angry. She crawled as best she could across the floor towards the sound. Daniel seemed inclined to follow but his thighs had been bound and his prosthetic and crutch had been taken.

Through the wooden ceiling, Peggy heard footsteps—harsh and retreating—and then a second pair following. "Don't you walk away from me!" the man said.

"Why do you insist we do this? I have a gift; I want to help people!"

"You have to pay for the gifts you've been given, Gertrude, and the price for them is high."

"Let the agents live, at least, please!" she beseeched him.

The man did not answer. All was quiet for a long time before a single set of footsteps echoed across the ceiling in the direction of the stairs. Peggy stood as best she could and hopped towards the wall to hide in the shadows near the base of the steps. The door at the top opened and heeled shoes sounded on the stairs. Peggy counted in her head, listening and waiting. She saw the brush of black skirts first and used both hands to punch at the woman's head the next second.

Gertie fell to the side and looked back in shock at Peggy. She pulled a knife from her skirt pocket as she stood and said, "I'm sorry," before coming at Peggy with the knife.

Peggy fought dirty.

She pulled hair, used the woman's heavy skirts to trip her up and deflect her stabs of the knife, and she even twisted and shoved until she heard the crack of the woman's arm as it broke. The knife fell to the ground but Gertie didn't seem to notice the broken arm, only the fact that she couldn't move her hand properly. She looked back up at Peggy, frowned but shrugged. "Immortality has its perks, I suppose," she said before grabbing the dropped knife with her other hand and throwing herself at Peggy to fight some more.

Peggy was breathless and pinned against the dirt wall, holding Gertie's hand and the knife in it away from her throat as best she could. "He said we had to do this, it's the price of admission," Gertie mumbled. "Much steeper price than the two dollars I used to charge, isn't it?" Her eyes went wide and her nostrils flared as she whispered, "No!"

There was a bright flash of light and the sound of broken glass and suddenly Gertie wasn't pinning Peggy to the wall, she was spinning madly and screaming as fire from the oil lamp spread up her skirts. Daniel was standing as well as he could next to the stairs and he'd managed to break free of the rope binding him. He helped Peggy with hers and they both stood watching with wide, terrified eyes. Gertie shrieked and it wasn't just a single woman's voice that came out of her mouth. A deep masculine pitch with the same timbre as the angry man's voice upstairs was present there as well. She fell to the ground and rolled, shuffling the tarp to the side to reveal a long wooden box, reminiscent of a coffin. She yelled again and pounded on the lid once before falling still. Her clothing still smoldered and burned in places and what skin they could see of her hands and face in the firelight looked charred and black. Her eyes were wide from pain.

"Jesus Christ," Daniel said.

After a long time of watching the woman's body and as the fire on her clothes burned itself out, Peggy asked, "Did you tell her my name?"

"What? No, I didn't even know you were investigating this case."

Peggy didn't say anything but as she climbed the stairs she wondered how Gertie had learned her name. She deliberately did not think about the voices she'd heard during the séance.

*Steve and Bucky actually died in the war. Also, the suspect Peggy is investigating is set on fire and the other people in the room don't do anything to stop it (as she had just been attempting to kill them.)