a few folks had asked for a Peggy chapter...this one's for you.

one important thing I should note - this Peggy is the one from the main timeline (i.e. not the one Steve went back to be with).

(I also just posted another one-shot called The Ribbon that started out as a chapter for this story but grew into something else altogether. it, coincidentally, also involves Peggy. if you're interested, check it out.)

enjoy.

"What can I get you today, Peg?"

Peggy looks up and smiles. "Just a tea to start. Thank you, Malcolm."

"You got it, hang tight."

Peggy smiles at his now familiar instruction. She had been a touch confused by the phrase the first time he'd said it, never having heard it before, but now she found herself continually amused by it. "I always do," she murmurs wryly as he disappears to fetch her cup of tea.

Her eyes sweep over the café, more out of habit than anything. She finds the usual patrons for the most part, but there are a few that she clocks as unfamiliar. The most notable among them is a woman that Peggy easily identifies as Natasha Romanoff from her distinctive red-hair.

While she had never properly met Natasha, Peggy had heard about her long before her noble sacrifice to ensure the Avengers could go on to bring back half the universe. In fact, she'd heard about her long before her time with the Avengers, and even before she became a SHIELD agent. Nick Fury had come to her with a story of how one of his agents had returned from abroad with a Russian teenager in tow, who turned out to be the woman the intelligence world called the Black Widow. He'd asked Peggy if she thought a graduate of the Red Room could really be convinced to defect, or if he should be taking more drastic actions to cut down an in-process infiltration mission.

Peggy had been skeptical, knowing that the agents from there were renowned for their skills in manipulation and intelligence gathering. Not to mention the idea of her being a sleeper agent was not at all outside the realm of possibility. But Peggy had reviewed the initial interview tapes and statements given by Agent Barton and something had tugged at her. Even now decades later, she still couldn't put a name to what it was she'd felt, but whatever it was, she'd felt it strongly enough to vouch for the young woman. So she'd looked Nick Fury in the eye and told him that if the girl had managed to break enough of her conditioning to engineer a situation to allow herself to be killed, then it was worth trying. But she'd also warned him that it would take effort and that he would need to be patient.

Peggy's thoughts shift to the facility they'd found all those years ago. What they found there had haunted her for decades, and she wonders now how many of their methods had changed for Natasha's training. Did she too bear the scars on her wrists from the handcuffs? Had she watched those films with the subliminal messaging?

She knows they had barely scratched the surface of what those monsters did to those girls as they raised them to be assassins and spies. But she knew enough to be certain it would take immense character, strength, and integrity on Natasha's part to have been able to break the conditioning in any way. So when Fury returned later to tell her the Black Widow had not only defected but was now working for SHIELD fully, not to mention quickly becoming one of its top agents, Peggy hadn't really been surprised.

"Here's your tea, Peg. You havin' anything to eat today?" Malcolm says, interrupting her thoughts.

"Just some toast, Malcolm," she answers with a nod. She's slightly embarrassed to have been caught so unaware and smiles to cover it up, even though she's certain he didn't even notice.

"You got it. I'll bring some of that jam you like too," he promises with a smile that she returns easily. Frequenting the same café did have its perks.

"That would be great. Thank you."

"No problem. Hang-"

"Tight," she finishes for him. "Yes, I know," she adds, flashing a quick smile that he returns widely before disappearing to get her order.

Her gaze tips down to her tea, finding it steeped to perfection. Adding a touch of sugar and some milk, she picks it up to take a sip and finds her eyes closing, if only briefly, to truly savour the moment.

Her eyes open again and are drawn once more to Natasha. Peggy had heard more about her over the years, even as her mind began to wither away. Steve had been fond of bringing her up to date on his new team and colleagues, and that, of course, included Natasha. He'd talked a lot about how impressed by her fearlessness and her skills he was, and how he was certain she wasn't a fan of his thanks to his so-called 'boy scout' attitude. Later he'd told Peggy how appreciative he was of Natasha taking the time to get him acclimated to new things like technology, weapons, and helping him get up to speed on standard tactical procedures. Years later still, he'd told her how good a friend Natasha had become to him, and how frustrated he was that he couldn't seem to repay her kindness in any real way.

Of course, these were all things she remembered after she died, so it was only then that she took the time to notice the redhead at his side when she checked in on Steve. She always found her at his side, steadfastly providing that stability that Steve would never admit to needing. What struck Peggy the most about her though was that Natasha Romanoff was incredibly loyal. Loyalty wasn't generally something people associated with spies, but as Peggy watched her throw away her own freedom to let Steve and Bucky go, and then later stand by her friends in the face of a vast alien army and seemingly insurmountable odds, she knew this woman was cut from a different cloth than most people believed.

Peggy shakes her head gently to refocus her attention on the present, taking another sip of her tea to ground herself again. Natasha's expression is almost contemplative as she focuses on the book on the table in front of her, drinking from her cup occasionally. For all intents and purposes she is completely relaxed, and given their circumstances Peggy is inclined to believe that she actually is relaxed. After all, what did they have to be on the lookout for in the afterlife?

She shakes her head again, closing her eyes as she sips at her tea, enjoying the warmth as it spreads through her. Even though it's been years since she'd been an active agent, she's not sure she'll ever tire of the novelty of not having to be vigilant all the time.

"You know, it's not polite to stare, Agent Carter."

It wasn't often people got the drop on her, but Peggy can't help herself from jumping a bit in surprise. She looks up to find Natasha Romanoff looking down at her with an expression that's a cross between amusement and curiosity. The book she'd been reading is tucked under her arm and her cup is held in her hand, though it appears to be nearly empty

"I haven't been an agent in a long time," she reminds her, having recovered relatively quickly despite the shock. "And it's not polite to sneak up on people. Especially whilst they're drinking their morning tea," she scolds lightly as she dabs up some spilled tea on her hand and the table.

"I wasn't sneaking," she replies, the corner of her mouth tipping up slightly in amusement, "you just happened to close your eyes as I approached."

Peggy eyes her for a moment before she relents and offers a rueful smile. "Forgive an old woman. Old habits and all that."

There's a soft sound that Peggy thinks might be an amused snort. "I might, if there were one here. You're as much an old woman as I'm alive."

Peggy's smile widens because it's exactly the sort of thing she might've said. Not to mention Steve hadn't been kidding about her sense of humour, she adds to herself. "Fair enough," she admits. "Then forgive my curiosity. You're the talk of the town around here these days."

Natasha tilts her head and arches an eyebrow. "Am I?"

"Yes. Saving the universe will do that," she answers drily. "Though to be fair, you're sharing that particular spotlight with my godson."

Her lips curl into a genuine smile. "Yes, it's doing wonders for his already inflated ego."

Peggy smiles, liking this woman more and more by the minute. "Would you care to join me? I suspect you and I have a lot in common. Not least that we've both had to put up with Stark men."

Natasha laughs. "Well when you put it like that, how can I refuse?"

Peggy gestures for her to sit before taking another sip of her tea. Natasha slides into the booth across from her, putting her book and cup down before holding out a hand across the table. "Natasha Romanoff."

Peggy reaches out and clasps it firmly, giving it a single shake. "Peggy Carter. I've heard a lot about you."

"I could say the same about you."

"Steve, I assume?" Peggy guesses, remembering how much he'd told her over the years about Natasha and supposing that that went both ways.

Natasha shakes her head. "Actually, Fury for the most part. Steve told me a few things, but he kept most of it to himself."

Peggy's a little surprised by that, given how much he'd shared with her about Natasha. Then again, her mind was far from a steel trap when he'd told her those things. Perhaps there was a comfort and safety for him in knowing whatever he told her was safe from being found out by the wrong people.

Before either of them can say anything else, Malcolm appears with Peggy's food.

"Here you go, Peg," Malcolm says, sliding the plate with the toast toward her and then putting down the small pot of jam. "I'm sorry," he apologizes as he realizes Peggy is no longer alone at the table. "I didn't realize you were waitin' on someone. I woulda held off taking your order."

"My fault," Natasha explains. "I dropped in on her unexpectedly."

Peggy's eyes twinkle with amusement at the former spy's description of getting the drop on her.

"Well, can I get you anything? Looks like that tea you were working on is done. You want another one?"

Natasha nods, pushing her empty mug toward him. "Please."

"Anything to eat?"

"The fresh fruit crêpe, please."

"You got it. Hang tight, it'll be out soon," he promises as he disappears into the kitchen to put in the order.

Peggy watches as Natasha folds her hands together on the table neatly. "So who spilled the tea on me?"

She smiles at the expression she's sure Natasha chose specifically. "Two guilty parties on that one, I'm afraid."

Natasha's lips curl into another smile. "Not as selective with my friends as I should've been, it seems," she quips wryly.

"On the contrary," Peggy retorts. "They both sang your praises."

Her eyebrows rise in an expression of surprise and then quickly crease into a gentle frown in a prompt to explain. Malcolm walks past the table, only slowing slightly to slide the tea in his hand over to Natasha wordlessly, as though he understands they don't want to be disturbed. Yes, frequenting the same café did indeed have its perks.

"Steve, of course. He had a lot of very complimentary things to say about you," Peggy explains, watching as Natasha smiles warmly at the information. Based on the reaction, she thinks that maybe the opinion of Steve Rogers mattered quite a bit to the former spy. "But you already knew he would've told me about you. And I'm guessing you've worked out the other one as well."

Natasha is quiet with another contemplative expression and Peggy resists the urge to frown at that reaction. Did she really not believe people thought highly of her? "Fury?" she guesses finally.

Peggy nods and then explains. "After Agent Barton came back with you in tow, Nick came to visit me to ask for some advice. He wasn't so sure a graduate of the Red Room would even be able to defect given the level of conditioning we'd seen in those that SHIELD had come across."

To anyone else she would seem the picture of calm, but Peggy can see the ever so brief flare of anger in Natasha's eyes and the clenching of her jaw that lasts just a fraction of a moment.

"He explained the details that Agent Barton had relayed about the circumstances of your defection, and asked me if I thought it was possible that you could successfully break the conditioning."

"What did you tell him?" she asks, tone painfully even and neutral as she sips at her new cup of tea.

Peggy takes a sip of her own tea before setting it down and meeting Natasha's gaze again. "I told him that any girl who could make it out of that place with a shred of humanity deserved to have the full force of SHIELD behind her."

Again, the change in expression on Natasha's face is near invisible, but Peggy sees the slight widening of the eyes in surprise and the awed gratitude that settles there.

"I don't know everything they did," she continues, her voice softening in both volume and tone as she leans forward slightly, "but I saw enough to know that you survived nothing short of hell. That you could do that…" she trails off as she shakes her head and exhales heavily. "That you could break through at least some of the conditioning they put in place, and then engineer a situation to be killed rather than keep killing for them...that speaks more to your character than any words ever could."

Natasha's only reaction is picking up her cup of tea and taking another long drink. Peggy takes her silence as a sign to continue.

"Years later, Nick came to tell me just how right I was. He told me that you'd shattered the expectations and dismissed every question ever asked of your loyalties and abilities." She pauses for a moment, letting her words hang in the space between them. "He told me that he trusted you. And you know as well as I do that Nick Fury gave his trust to seldom few people."

Natasha smiles. "Tony was fond of saying that his secrets had secrets."

Peggy huffs out a laugh as she leans back against the booth and crosses her arms. "That's about as apt a description as I've heard," she admits.

Malcolm appears again ever so briefly to deliver Natasha's crêpe, again opting to slide it over with nothing more than a nod. For all his quirks, Peggy had to admit the man could read a situation well.

"Fury said you were good," Natasha says casually as she begins to cut a piece of her crêpe.

"He said you were better," Peggy retorts as she leans forward and begins to spread some jam over the now mostly cold toast.

"He told me a little about you in my early days, when they were still spending most of the time digging around my brain trying to find triggers."

Peggy is struck by her openness and her honesty. Steve had told her many times how private a person she was, and how close to the vest she played things. Her behaviour today seemed to fly in the face of all that. But Peggy knew that this place had a tendency to change people. She'd experienced it herself, having opened up more and relaxed quite a bit. She didn't doubt that it had happened to Natasha too, even if her stay in the afterlife had only just begun.

"He was probing for a reaction, to see what I knew about SHIELD. I knew that. But looking back now, I think he was also trying to give me hope. He told me you'd crossed paths with the Red Room decades before and had spent substantial time and resources trying to dismantle them."

It had been one of the biggest regrets of Peggy's life that she'd been unable to stop the Red Room Academy. Every time she made advances, they popped up somewhere else. She'd never been able to successfully put a stop to their cruelty and evil. If she'd been able to do that, Natasha and so many other girls might've had a real chance at a life.

Peggy stops spreading the jam and looks up to meet Natasha's gaze. It's an empty apology, but she feels the need to verbalize it anyway. "I'm just sorry I didn't succeed."

Natasha dismisses the half-apology with a shake of her head. "It's not your apology to give. You did what you could with what you had. The Red Room was meticulous in their preparation and their planning. They were not easy to take down even with all the inside knowledge I had."

"But you did take them down?"

Natasha nods with a reluctant and slightly shameful expression that confuses Peggy. "Not my finest moment."

Peggy frowns before the realization sets in. Natasha had likely reverted back to her ruthless killing ways to wipe out those responsible for her suffering. Still...they had done such unspeakable things… "I think we'll have to agree to disagree on that."

"What I did to them… Maybe some would say they were deserving of it, but…" Natasha trails off before taking another sip of her tea. "It wasn't necessary. I didn't have to do it that way."

Peggy eyes her carefully, trying to understand the nuances of what she had done. But she dismisses the notion quickly because it wasn't her story to know. "In any case, the world is better off without them spreading their cruelty and torture onto more young girls. We can at least agree on that, I think."

Natasha nods.

"And I think that's quite enough serious talk. Time for more important matters," Peggy says, directing them back onto lighter topics.

Natasha's eyes twinkle knowingly. "Like Steve Rogers?"

Peggy tuts and shoots her a look of disapproval. "I'd settle for some stories about my godson. Lord knows he's a fool, and I've seen and heard some stories, but I suspect you are a treasure trove of a source for these things."

"Looking for blackmail material? I'm afraid he's unashamed about most of it."

"That implies there are some things he is ashamed of."

Natasha laughs. "Few and far between, but yes. You'll have to wait until his wife gets here for the really good stuff though."

"They always did say patience was a virtue," Peggy replies with an impatient sigh. "Alright, so if not my godson, then yes, Steve. You must have some stories about him."

Natasha smiles warmly. "The first time I showed him my cell phone I genuinely thought I'd sent him into a complete tailspin. The man caught up on military tactics, fighting techniques, and weapons technology with no problem. But I show him a mobile phone and I really thought his head was going to explode," she says with a laugh. "Of course, the phone Tony gave him to use was top of the line, decked out with more features than he knew what to do with, so that didn't help either."

Peggy shakes her head in amusement, doing her best to stifle a laugh.

"It took him a little while to ask, but he came to me eventually and asked if I could show him how to use it. I think he was more concerned with not offending Tony than he was about actually learning to use it."

Peggy smiles again before her expression sobers. "I can't imagine what it was like to wake up and have the world be so different."

Natasha is quiet as she takes another bite of her food, but her expression is slightly contemplative again. Peggy wonders if maybe Natasha knew more than most about acclimating to a new world given her own experience after defecting.

"He did okay," Natasha says. "Of course he was overwhelmed by a lot, but he adapted quickly."

"With the help of his friends," Peggy adds knowingly. "And from what he told me, you helped him quite a bit."

"It was refreshing," she admits. "He knew my name and that I was a SHIELD agent, but he didn't know anything about my past. When he looked at me, I was just another person. I know Fury gave him files on all of us, so he would have had at least some access to my background, but he either didn't care or didn't read it."

Peggy absorbs her words, realizing the honest look at their friendship that Natasha is granting her. "He's a good man."

Natasha nods. "Some of that is thanks to you, I think."

Peggy shakes her head. "No, he was a good man long before he met me. I just pointed him in a direction where that goodness could be more of use."

Natasha hums her agreement but opts not to say anything.

"Thank you," Peggy says, straightening up in her seat.

Natasha looks up with a silent frown.

"For being there for him when I couldn't. And for helping him find the direction he was supposed to be going to put that goodness to good use."

"It was my pleasure," Natasha says. "I was lucky to have him as a friend. I know how corny this sounds, but he made me want to be a better person."

"He has that effect on people," Peggy agrees with a nod.

"Was he always so…"

"Earnestly good?" Peggy offers, familiar with the question after many years.

"Yeah," Natasha breathes out with a chuckle.

"Most of the time, yes. He was a stubborn idiot and really only became the Captain America war hero that everyone fell in love with because he went directly against orders."

"They don't put that in the exhibit in the museum," she says wryly.

Peggy laughs. "No, they don't. But Steve was going after his friend no matter what."

"Some things never change."

"Indeed. But yes, he's always had that strong moral compass."

"I hated him for that," Natasha admits with a chuckle. "I was a spy. I operated in that specific grey area that everyone else liked to avoid. And then here comes Captain America operating purely in the white. It was nauseating."

Peggy laughs again, knowing exactly what she means. "You managed to bring him over to the grey eventually though."

"Only a little," she says. "But I do count that as a personal victory."

Peggy laughs and can't help but think that Natasha seemed, more and more, to be a person that she wanted to get to know. From what she could tell, Natasha seemed to be relaxing and was becoming comfortable sharing some things with her, so maybe them becoming friends wasn't such a preposterous idea.

And lord knows it will pay off to be able to team up against Steve when he arrives, she thinks to herself as she smiles again.

much to my surprise this entire thing grew from the 'fury said you were good' and 'he said you were better' lines of dialogue that popped into my head one night. as a couple of you quite rightly pointed out - these two have a lot to talk about what with their Stark interactions, friendships with Steve, not to mention their obvious overlap in professions, so it makes sense that they'd meet up and chat in the afterlife.

anyway - thoughts? comments? ideas? do let me know - even if it's just a few short words, it means a lot to me.

hope you're all staying safe!