"Well, the house – that I realize now none of you really got the full tour of – is set up as three apartments for three couples… considering as Mr. Stark assumed that we'd like to keep up some sort of a ruse rather than publicly admit to our rather unusual… situation with one another."

"So he what?" Jack asked. "Wants us to get married or something?"

"That's what he indicated earlier today," Anna confessed.

"Like…" Angie looked over her shoulder at Daniel. "Me and Daniel get married, and English and Jack?"

Daniel smiled at her, admitting, "I think I could handle that."

Jack's arm around Peggy's waist stiffened and the Englishwoman knew he was far too aware of where they were and what she'd just done to even attempt that conversation with her at the moment. So she's have to do it herself.

"Me too," she muttered, turning from the skyline to stare up into Jack's worried eyes instead. "I mean it; I – we – have to accept that this moment right here may be the only closure we get concerning Steve and Bucky… and I honestly do want to marry you. If you'll have me?"

An unusually gentle smile blossomed on his face as he replied, "Of course I will," and leaned down to kiss her.

They were married by years' end – Daniel to Angie and Peggy to Jack – in a very small ceremony with only Anna, Edwin, and Howard as witnesses. It was a nice way to start a good life – a life where three couples each rented a level of the same house from Howard Stark… and of course those couples became good friends.

It was a ruse that they perfected to the outside world – they didn't even tell Howard and Maria's son the real truth – but in the privacy of that home they were different. They were closer. It wasn't as though it was anyone else's business who shared a bed or a kiss with who, or just how close one person sat to another, or if the six of them ate together at every opportunity and spent a little time in one living room or another every possible evening before bed.

They loved one another – just how much and in what way was anyone's guess – and that was their own business… and it was a fact that never changed.

December 31, 1946

"I swear to you, Agent Sousa, I will be there as soon as humanly possible; right now, I have to finish these god-awful reports before I miss my deadline," Jack groused, eyeing Daniel and Peggy from across his desk.

"Anna has a deadline for when we can be home, too, you know, and she'll kill you if you're not back to see the ball drop," Peggy pointed out.

Jack had to fight putting his head in his hands because he knew full-well that Anna had a very good reason for wanting him home – New Year's Eve was still a hard day for Peggy – but he also trusted that their other four soulmates could take care of her if it was necessary. "I know, and I'll be there," he hissed. "So long as I'm left alone long enough to finish these. Angie's got her car waiting for you two outside; I'll drive home in the one we drove here in – after I'm done with these reports."

"Fine," Peggy agreed as Daniel just sighed and turned towards the door. "It's your head Anna will have, not mine."

"What can I say?" Jack asked. "Being head of the SSR is hard."

"You're the face of the SSR," his wife corrected. "Daniel and I run this operation as much as you do."

"I know, but it just so happens that these reports need my name on them, so I will apologize to Anna appropriately when I get back to the house – which is where you and Susan need to be."

"I can here you!" Daniel called from the doorway.

"That's because it's quiet right now – because all the sane people have already gone home," Peggy sassed Jack.

"Uh-huh," he pulled her down for a quick kiss, declaring, "I love you both and I will see you soon; goodbye."

Peggy frowned at him one more time, but went to Daniel and allowed him to lead her out to the car. Jack stood from his desk and looked down at the street below as they climbed into Angie's car. His periphery caught a metallic flash on the sidewalk near them – or at least he thought so – because when he paid closer attention, he didn't see anything. So he rubbed his eyes with a sigh, chalked it up to still being at work at 10 p.m., and went back to work. It was probably going to be near impossible for him to get home in time to keep Anna happy with him, but maybe the sooner he managed it, the less wrath he would have to endure.

As he sat back down, he thought that maybe, maybe he heard the ding of the elevator opening… but it was more likely that he was imagining things he reminded himself, even while his hand tightened on the gun at his hip. He was being paranoid; if there was any noise, it was coming from the crowded streets below, not inside this room.

Then something immerged from the shadows in the farthest corner of his office. Jack's heart hammered as he registered a man – pointing some sort of advanced gun at him.

"Hey now, let's not be hasty here!" Jack pleaded, jerking his own gun out to point it between the man's eyes. "I'll have too many people mad at me today if I'm in the hospital instead of at home with my family for the ball drop."

Something shifted in the eyes that Jack could barely see as the man took a tentative step from the shadows. Shaggy hair, full-body armor… and a metal arm.

What the heck are you? Jack wondered in between mental prayers that the man not kill him. What he said was, "Trust me, buddy, you don't want my Peggy or Anna Jarvis mad at you. Please, come on, put your gun down and don't shoot me. I run this whole operation, and that makes me kind of important."

The words that the man hissed were the last ones Jack had expected: "You know Peggy Carter, don't you?"