Moments


A/N: Because I apparently have an obsession with Peggy's Sweet Dreams lipstick, I bring you...


The Goodnight Kiss


"When I first met Peggy Carter, my first thought was this random piece of advice that my old gunny used to give my buddies and I before we went on any kind of leave: 'Never let them kiss you on the lips, boys'.

"It was advice I never really took to heart, but I should have – especially under certain circumstances with Peggy Carter."

~A~

"Goddammit, Jack!" Peggy found herself exclaiming in frustration as she stared at his unconscious body on her doorstep.

One moment, she was thanking him for his 'gracious' offer of a ride home (to 'save her a cab fare' only of course), and the next, he was swooning like a Southern belle in the pictures.

Yes, it was rather unreasonable of her to be blaming him. She was the one, after all, who forgot to wipe off her special brand of lipstick once her sting operation was over – or at any point in the car ride over to her flat.

But then again, he was not awake to argue the point. And if he had just followed the advice of his very wise Sergeant Cobb, or at least checked with her before attempting to steal a good night kiss, then she would not be in the predicament that she was in of needing to lug his woozy arse up the stairs to her flat.

'Whining about it is not going to get the onerous task done any faster, Peggy'.

She sighed and then leaned down to sling his prone form over her shoulder fireman-style, praying all the while that her nosy landlady was not around to comment.

~A~

A few weeks later...

Jack woke with an extreme case of cotton mouth, a pounding headache, and a terribly disoriented feeling, while he stared up at a strange ceiling from a plush leather couch.

Normally, he would have chalked this up to a really bad hangover, but for one, he had cut back on his drinking, and for another, the last thing he recalled, he had been on the job.

"Wh-what happened?" he croaked.

From the other side of the room, the soft contralto voice of Peggy Carter drifted over to him, as she dryly instructed, "Just give it a moment. It will come back to you."

He blinked a few times, but the soft light that Peggy was using hurt his eyes too much, so he closed them as he struggled to remember. Slowly it came to him.

...Connors reporting that a few of the suspected Hydra suppliers were going to be at an underground poker game…

...Jorgensen ordering Peggy to go with him undercover as "those bastards know all of your team's faces" and "they won't suspect a woman"…

...Peggy in a killer wine-colored dress that hugged her form in all the right places…Peggy's curvaceous and tempting form sitting in his lap…Peggy's warm breath tickling his ear as she giggled while whispering instructions in his ear…

...Him turning his head to tell her how distracting that was…Peggy turning her head at the same time, her lips accidentally brushing his…

"Shit. Your blasted lipstick."

"Uh-huh," she unapologetically acknowledged, and then with an amused huff, she instructed, "Don't worry though. It worked out well in the end."

He raised his head just enough to shoot her a questioning glare.

She paused in her perusal of the desk's drawers to smirk as she explained, "Yeah, your 'low blood sugar' allowed for us to be temporarily left alone in these offices while you recuperate. I've got bugs all over the place."

"Glad I could be of some use," he slurred, as the world began spinning again.

~A~

And a month or so after that...

"I know it is part of the plan, but I do not like it, not one little bit."

"Excuse me? Did you say something, Carter?"

At Jorgensen's question, Peggy stopped muttering under her breath, and said, "No, nothing, sir."

Her chief eyed her questioningly and then returned to his scanning of the streets below so he could coordinate the positioning of his men.

It was her job to keep her eyes on the bait, which happened to be Jack.

Her man had been receiving 'gifts' the past several weeks – flowers, chocolates, and bottles of wine – at both his apartment and messengered to the Auerbach Talent Agency. All were signed with a scarlet lip print, much like the box of exploding cigars at Christmas. Instead of being booby-trapped with pyrotechnics, Samberly reported that each tested positive for poison.

Officially, Jack chalked up Dottie Underwood's fascination with him due to his take down of her at the Arena Club, but they both knew it had to do with his current close relationship with the real object of her obsession – Peggy.

Whatever the reason, Jack wanted to use this to their advantage, so he and Jorgensen had cooked up a plan. Jack left a note attached to a scarlet rose in his mailbox, which stated that she had 'caught his attention' and 'would she like to chat with him over a cup of coffee?'

She had replied with a date, time, and location of the coffee shop that Jack now stood out in front of - The Coffee Lounge. She had also added: 'Bring your revolver' and signed it 'Miss Scarlet'. Apparently, Dottie was a fan of the new Parker Brothers' board game.

Peggy did not find this amusing at all and had only agreed not to hit him over the head and shanghai him to a safe house, if he wore one of Howard's bulletproof vests and stood in a spot that prevented Dottie from getting a clear sniper head shot. But there were so many other ways to kill a man. And she had no doubt that Dottie could name them all and then some.

As they waited for the Russian agent's arrival, the lookouts occasionally called out suspicious individuals:

"Check out the woman at two o'clock with the baby carriage."

"Watch out for the lady with the walker…I know she's got grey hair and wrinkles, but isn't Underwood good with disguises?"

"Thompson, female bicycler headed your way from the south."

But none of them proved to be their target.

And then a bus load of nuns unloaded in front of the café.

"How the hell are we to spot her?! They are all wearing those damned habits!" were the politest of complaints.

Everyone was in such a tizzy that no one noticed the redheaded, slightly plump waitress who had been buzzing about between tables stumble into Jack from behind.

No one but Peggy.

And she saw it all. Even as she was pelting out the window and down the fire escape, she saw Jack turn around to assess the threat and then his instinctual reaction to lean down and offer the 'poor damsel' a hand up, which the woman used to leverage herself up just enough to grasp the back of his neck to pull his face down to hers.

And even as Peggy dashed across the street like a mad woman, she saw Dottie Underwood plant a kiss on her Jack's lips.

Rage filled her. 'How bloody dare she?'

And how the soon-to-be bloody woman dared. She didn't remove her lips until Jack had collapsed beside her, and then she was tossing Peggy a smirk even as she was up and bolting down the street into the crowd.

Peggy gave chase, and when she caught her, she never bitch-slapped someone so hard in her life, but Dottie wore her red handprint for hours after her booking and interrogation.

Later, while Jack was nursing a cup of coffee to counter the effects of Dottie's drugged kiss, he asked, "So what did she finally say was the reason for her risking it all? The pleasure and honor of the touch of my wondrous lips?"

"Hardly," she snorted, and then because they were in her flat (yes, she had bought coffee just for him), she sat next to him and nestled into his side. He was here. He was safe. He was well. (Thanks to Samberly having an antidote for Dottie's brand of poison on hand).

"She told Jorgensen that it was 'because she could', and to me, so no one else could hear, 'because, Peggy, you can't have everything, especially not a happily ever after'."

She must have done a very poor job of hiding her shiver of fear at how close she came to that being true, because Jack wrapped his arm around her tightly and gave the top of her head a brief comforting caress, even as he jokingly leered, "Well, that's where she's wrong. If I have to say anything about it, I'll always give you a happy ending."

Peggy elbowed him in the side for his lewd comment, before twisting around to face him. "No, she's wrong for another reason."

"Oh?"

"I may not have everything, but," she swore with earnest solemnity, "You will always be mine."

~A~

And a few weeks after that...

"Shit. Oh, shit. I am late. I am so sorry!"

She had thought she had timed the end of her mission well so that she could make it here in time, but she had not accounted for the fact that everyone and their brother would be trying to get out of town at this hour on a Friday. Not only were these Californian drivers abundant, but they were 'more abundantly irresponsible' than usual.

Jack rocked back on his heels as he mock-frowned at her from the front stoop, "Well, you should be sorry. This is a very important date."

She relaxed some at his teasing tone and quoting of Lewis Carroll, but she could still see some anxiety in the tenseness of his shoulders and the fact that his hands were in his pockets.

When she got up to his level, she stood up on tiptoe and breathed huskily, "No time to say 'hello'?"

"Now I didn't say that," Jack growled before he pulled her to him for a welcoming kiss.

It was the kind of kiss that was toe-curling, anxiety-ridding, and just plain bliss-inducing.

At least until he was no longer holding her possessively to him, but was weakly grasping at her as he slid down her front and collapsed into a heap at her feet.

"And here, I thought True Love's kiss was supposed to wake Sleeping Beauty, not the other way around," Jack's Gam-Gam dryly commented from the open doorway.

Peggy looked at the Thompson matriarch and Jack's parents who stood behind her and heard the hubbub of all his extended family who didn't have their faces pressed against the front windows, and she let out a curse:

"Oh bloody bugger."

~A~

When they were able to grab a quiet moment together, much later that weekend, Peggy attempted to reassure, "Well, the good news is that I think after officially meeting your family by myself while you were unconscious, it will be impossible for me to forget again to remove my brand."

Jack snorted derisively, "The bad news is that my family now thinks I am a narcoleptic. You owe me big for taking the fall, both literally and figuratively, Marge."

Not liking the sound of that, because he had taken a lot of ribbing after he had confirmed her cover story, she nervously asked, "When do you plan on collecting?"

He shrugged before shooting her a wry grin, "Oh probably, sometime when I step in it with your family."

She could feel the blood drain from her face at his words. Not at the idea of him meeting her family, but at the inevitability of Jack sticking his foot in it when he did.

Her family is far scarier than his.

~A~

"And that's the story behind those," Peggy concluded, nodding down at the items that had been accusingly thrust before them at the beginning of this little chat.

"And how we caught Underwood," Jack smugly added, choosing to ignore the items in question.

Their interrogator glanced down and gleefully read again the inscription on the carefully preserved and formerly thought to be well-hidden napkins:

"I vow to only kiss you & even then only when you are S.D.102 free."

"I vow to never kiss any man, but you, Sweet Dreams free."