"You mean to tell me there's 2 people who can outrun me now?" Sam sounded less than pleased at the news.

"Sam, there are way more than two." Natasha smirked.

Peggy didn't really expect that the group of Avengers would disapprove of her, but it had been long enough she was worried the secret would offend them. The next few days everything would be different since she was coming out to the public. First as just a person and then the reformation of SHIELD.

"Have you told Pepper?" Tony was leaning his head against his fist, "The whole public relations thing should know eventually. Especially when you go out in the field with the Avengers - you'll need a code name, and a suit."

"Don't go design crazy." Peggy leaned back in her chair, "We have time."

Maria walked through the doors opened in the conference room, "I hate to interrupt but Peggy and I have some business to take care of before your interviews tomorrow."

"Calling that business is hardly fair." Peggy was trying to avoid it, "I already did my time at Finishing school." she stood up from the table, "More than 60 years ago might I add.

"That's the problem. I think you're fine but just go with it."

"Just put her in a tight dress, focus groups will open right up to that." Tony waved them off.

Steve narrowed his eyes, "Hey!"

"Down boys." Natasha pointed, "Now we have business of our own to take care of."

Maria walked down the hall with Peggy, "They aren't having you do anything too terrible today. Pepper would say luxurious."

"Why doesn't that make me feel better?" Pepper smoothed out her blouse.

Maria shrugged, "Because you're smart."

They walked down to the elevator and went up to the main living area. Pepper was standing around racks of clothes, "There you are."

"Oh bloody nora." Peggy looked around.

"You'll do fine." Pepper pulled her out of the elevator, "This is the easy part. Easier than interview training." Peggy couldn't argue with that, "I made some calls for you and I think I've pulled together some good options for interviews and appearances." she shifted through the clothes, "Before I was CEO I was Tony's assistant, I has to coordinate his wardrobe and his dates."

"Interesting specialization." Peggy noticed a combination of colors and fabrics she'd never seen. Until then, she'd been wearing clothes very similar to what she was used to, with the addition of gym clothes and Pajamas. "What's wrong with what I was wearing?"

"Nothing technically but if you want people to take you seriously you have to dress the part."

"I see the double standard hasn't vanished." Peggy said under her breath. It was astounding how things have advanced so dramatically yet stagnated. She walked forward and examined some of the things on racks.

"Not really. It's getting better, you'll help that if all goes well."

replayed in her mind. "Looking back at pictures fortunately for you the styles coming back some. The post war vintage thing."

"Back in the day I rather liked shopping. Before fabric rationing I had quite the closet.." Peggy pulled out a dark purple dress with a keyhole front. "I had one just like this, it had sleeves though. I'm not sure I'll miss them though." She pulled it against herself noticing the shorter than usual length and soft material. "May I request red lipstick?"

Pepper laughed, "And Natasha said I'd have a hard time with this."

Peggy paced in the living room of Stark tower. After an entire day of press junkets-as Pepper called them (Peggy had less curious things to say about them)-she wished she could hide away and go to bed, wait for the paper to come out in the morning. But things were a little more instant these days. Her face was on every news channel, "I hate this."

"You'll get used to it." Tony flipped through the channels. "Being picked apart word by word."

Pepper read from her phone, "Here's from Time, 'The world received yet another surprise today in the shape of an idealistic Margaret Carter, the assumed dead founder of S.H.I.E.L.D who vows to resurrect the organization to it's former glory. Nazi's not included.' I think we can work with that."

"Social media looks good." Natasha reported, "You should probably get some of those while we're at it."

Peggy nodded, "That's the thing Agent Johnson is always on. Someone can explain that to me later."

"Should we dabble in the tabloid news stations?" Tony suggested.

"No!" Pepper whined but it was too late. Some celebrity news station was already picking apart what Peggy was wearing as well as her figure.

She crossed her arms at a comment saying something about how her hair should have stayed in 1951, "That's quite rude."

Steve came in from the kitchen handing Peggy a cup of tea, "It's a lot better than what they said about me."

Tony laughed at some of the comments, "They're talking about you Steve,"

"Please change it to something that's not talking about my bosom!" Peggy insisted. She hated the way she was reduced to a mannequin for their gossip, "Are they like that about everyone?"

"Oh yeah." Tony nodded, "They usually pick on pop celebrities-movie stars, singers- but every once and awhile the squeeze in Pepper or I. They're afraid to pick on Natasha."

Pepper looked up at Peggy trying to reassure her, "Everything is going according to plan, you don't need to worry. Gossip is gossip.'

"You should get some sleep," Steve put his hand on Peggy's back, "We have to play along tomorrow."

"You're flying to D.C for a photo shoot." Pepper was enjoying helping Pepper adjust into the media. It's what she was good at- besides running the company.

"Wait-" Peggy perked up, "You're not coming with me?"

Natasha looked over, "Agent Morse is going to watch you and make sure everything is okay."

Peggy groaned, "I'm going to need rest if I have to go worry about the entire world pointing cameras at my face."

Steve kissed her, "Be there soon." he looked at Natasha surprised she didn't say something, "You didn't say anything that time!"

Natasha looked up, "What? Sorry, there's a vine of two cats dressed up like you and Peggy that's just too spot on."

Peggy looked out the window as they started their decent down to Washington D.C. "You okay?" Steve asked. He was sitting across from her in the SHIELD director private jet.

She sighed, "It's just a lot. The world finally knows I'm awake and it still feels surreal."

"Maybe that's the private Jet," he looked around, "Pretty nifty."

"Indeed." She took a deep breath, "How do you feel about this? About being so public."

Steve shrugged, "It was my idea, and like I said, I think it's what the world needs. The world needs the Peggy Carter they missed out on 60 years ago."

Peggy tried to figure out his body language, "Something's wrong isn't it?"

He ran scratched the back of his neck, searching for words, "Not really, I just haven't been back to DC since SHIELD fell, and everything with Buck."

"I hear you've made quite a splash in the Potomac." She deadpanned.

He chuckled, "Stop that."

"What?"

"Stop making everything better, I'm trying to brood." He teased.

"Then I shall leave you to your brooding." She looked out the window, "Get it out of your system now, I'm fairly certain we're meeting the President in a hour."

The plane touched down and soon the two were being escorted out to a black car by their pilot, Bobbi. "Thank you for doing the flying." Peggy said to Bobbi once they were in the car.

"Don't mention it, I'm just glad to be out of the lab." She looked down at her knee, "I guess Co-Director Coulson doesn't expect too much trouble on the trip."

"Don't be too hard on yourself." Peggy stopped her, "I've read your file, you've been quite useful to the team.

Bobbi smiled and looked out the window as they left the runway, "Thanks Director."

"May I ask?" Steve asked, looking down at her knee that had a brace on.

She inhaled at the memory, "A run in with the new leader of Hydra a while back. He used to be on our team. I guess he never was really."

"Grant Ward." Peggy said with equal distaste, "He's the new leader of Hydra."

"Persistent guys aren't they?" Steve felt bad for asking, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

"They keep growing heads." Peggy said quietly.

Bobbi reached back pulling her blonde hair into a ponytail before they arrived at their destination, "Then we'll cut them off. Starting with Ward."

Peggy and Steve walked out of their meeting in the Oval office, finally done with all their hand shaking and smiling for the day, "I'm starving." She looked up at Steve.

"Me too." He looked around, "You don't think it would be impossible-"

"To ditch our chaperone?" Peggy finished his thought. "Never." She pulled him down a side hallway, "It's not the first time I've snuck out of this building."

They stopped a few blocks away, once they were sure a certain blonde SHIELD agent wasn't chasing after them. "We need to blend in somehow." She looked at a newsstand that had her face plastered over every piece of paper. "I'm everywhere."

Steve nodded, "Right," He looked over to a pop up tourist T shirt stand, "stay here." A few minutes and 20 dollars later he came back with a bag full of merchandise. "Have a hat… and a hoodie"

"You seem to know what you're doing. I thought espionage was my field." She took her blazer off to put the sweatshirt on over her white blouse.

"Lets just say this isn't my first time hiding from SHIELD in DC." he put his hoodie on and reached back in the bag, "And here," Steve unfolded a pair of black sunglasses and slid them onto her frame, then did the same.

"Right." She started walked again throwing her blazer into a trash can, "There's plenty more where that came from… now... where to? I'm sure there's a lot I need to see."

Steve followed and walked with her, "Do you feel adventurous or nostalgic?"

Peggy thought for a moment, "Nostalgic." She looked over, "If that's alright."

He nodded, "I know the perfect place."

"This is… very nostalgic." Peggy tossed the fast food cup from lunch into a bin as they walked into the Smithsonian History museum.

"If you don't want to-" He watched her face to make sure it wasn't upsetting her, as well as the sunglasses would allow.

Peggy shook her head, "No I'd like to see what came of my friends."

He pointed down a hallway, "It's this way."

"Been here before?"

Steve's ears when red, "Well.. yes. I was just looking about stuff on the war, not much of SSR history… besides you."

"Well of course." She snarked, "Can't forget me."

They walked through a small dividing hallway, to the hub of the exhibit. The display of the Howling commando's and their uniforms. "They had to recreate mine.. I stole it." Steve grinned, too proud of himself.

"What a handsome group." Peggy took her sunglasses off to get a good look at everything, "They're missing an important part of Dugan's uniform."

"The bottle of bourbon?" they both laughed and kept walking through the exhibit. They passed a small theater playing old war reels, "We can just skip over these."

Peggy peaked her head in, seeing Steve running through a fake battle. She walked out almost immediately, "At least it's not the Captain America radio hour."

"The what?" Steve laughed.

"A post war attempt of glorifying you." She rolled her eyes. In her best announcer voice, "And now it's time for the Captain America hour, where we left our favorite soldiers lovely lady Betty Carver in the hand of Nazi's." she put her hand to her forehead in a dramatic american accent, "You good are going to be sorry once...Captain America gets here." Peggy went back to her normal stance and voice, "It was insufferable."

"You're too good at that." Steve enjoyed her performance.

"At what? Recreating my damsel in distress fictionalized self?" Peggy stopped looking at a display about the one man rescue mission behind enemy lines, "Howard and Angie were always quite fond of my impressions."

Steve looked away from a picture of him and Bucky, "Who's Angie?"

Peggy sighed and looked at Steve, "We lived together and we were very… close friends." She said simply, "… and I-."The memory of Angie affected her differently than she expected, "I hate keeping things from you Steve but I don't think right now-"

'Steve stopped them, "We don't have to talk about that now… Alright?" He cupped her face with his hands so she looked up at him, "We're just looking, storytime can be later… if we ever have it. If there's something you don't want to explain just say so,"

She nodded, "I'd like to not discuss Angie right now."

"Yes Ma'am."

They walked through the cases of important SSR agents. "These are the guys that gave you a hard time?" He looked at uniforms and artifacts behind the glass.

"Some." Peggy stopped in front of Daniel Sousa's tribute. The old metal crutch was pinned up on the wall, "Daniel made the SSR bearable for me. Until Howard and Phillips included me on forming SHIELD… you would have liked him. Jack Thompson however.." she looked around for his case, and noticed it finally. "He was the biggest ass… but good at his job. Constantly stealing credit, my credit usually."

"And to put that in perspective, you were friends with Howard." Steve laughed and took a scan around the museum. He caught a glimpse of a rather angry SHIELD agent walking their way, "We've been caught."

Bobbi walked to them and crossed her arms, "I'm afraid your date is over." She looked around, "And a bit gloomy don't you think?"

Steve shrugged, "I've never been good with lovey stuff."

"They changed stuff since the last time I was here." Bobbi looked around. "I mean they had to… you're not dead anymore. I guess they'll probably be adding to it again."

"I suppose I'll have to make history first." Peggy took a final look around, "We should probably go back before people figure out we're here."

Steve nodded, "Back to Stark Tower… the temporary home sweet home."

"Someone tweeted a picture of them walking down this street over an hour ago." One Hydra agent said to another.

"Thank god for technology. I don't know how people did this before." the second Hydra agent looked around.

"It looks like they were wearing different clothes than the pictures with the President one of the sleeper agents sent." The first one was examining the picture.

As he talked the second Hydra agent went to the trash can seeing a black blazer. She unfolded the blazer and picked off a hair on the collar, "Found something."