February 5, 1990
"I swear on my Cadillacs –"
"Your entire fleet of Cadillacs?" specified Peggy, carefully eyeing Howard.
"Yes," he assured her, "I swear on my entire fleet of Cadillacs."
"Even the red ones?"
"Especially the red ones."
"All right," she said firmly, her English accent as crisp as ever, "you swear on your fleet of Cadillacs, including the red ones, that this isn't some elaborate ruse to cover an extramarital affair."
"Hey!"Howard barked, deeply offended. "I would never do that to Maria."
Peggy Carter deflated, apologetic. "I know." Despite the shock that Howard Stark's fidelity would have caused in decades past, she had meant what she said. "But …" She didn't elaborate verbally, instead motioning to the alleged – now, sworn by S.H.I.E.L.D.'s esteemed Executive Director Stark – spaceship. Spaceship. She had flown in from Washington, D.C. to stand inside a cramped, nigh empty and understandably chilly concrete room underneath the S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters in New York City with Howard and a spaceship.
"I'll swear to you on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s legacy if I have to," he said seriously, his body language open and honest for her benefit. "This is real."
Peggy pursed her dusty pink lips, though there wasn't a hint of deceit on his person.
"I promise," added Howard solemnly.
She nodded in acceptance and he grinned wryly.
"You have to admit," Peggy said leadingly, "it does appear awfully suspect."
His wry grin grew. "Oh, we're counting on it."
"You're counting on …?" She shook her head, her impeccably curled and set, fading brown hair swaying above her shoulders. "Do I want to know?"
"Probably not, but you'll definitely find out."
Howard's expression gave away his dark amusement. Peggy tutted disapprovingly and crossed her arms. This was a difficult situation. A difficult situation that had been made a personally delicate difficult situation because of him.
"I assume this has something to do with the ill-advised involvement of Mr and Mrs Jarvis."
Because he was impulsive.
"I'm not going to apologise for that, Peg."
Because he was arrogant.
"You never do, Howard."
Because he was a good friend.
"I regret nothing."
Because he cared.
"And you never will," she sighed, partly exasperated, partly exhausted, partly fond. She couldn't punish Howard for the decision that he had made in Smallville the previous year. From every angle of the story she was told, from multiple sources – Howard loved to tell a tall tale, but Maria was (arguably) saner than he, and Peggy held the utmost trust in the Jarvises – she had to admit to herself that she would have made similar, if not the same, choices.
"So," began Howard eagerly, cutting to the reason they were sharing an awfully confined concrete box with a massive, metallic egg, "the 0-8-4 –"
"The 0-8-4?"
"Yes, the 0-8-4."
"What's the 0-8-4?" asked Peggy, unfolding her arms. She didn't know whether that was supposed to be a new code she'd not yet been updated on or hip teenage slang that Howard had picked up from his nineteen-year-old son.
Howard grandly gestured towards their Unidentified Flying Object: an egg-shaped pod encased in a diamond-like pentagonal structure, all of it made from an unusual dark metal. "This is an 0-8-4."
"An 0-8-4?"
"Yes."
Peggy squinted at Howard suspiciously. "There's more than one?"
It was like Howard enjoyed skating on thin ice. If there was a second UFO and he hadn't told her about it …
"Well, the other 0-8-4 is currently in our med lab," he explained poorly, "but seeing as he arrived in this 0-8-4, they could be classified as one and the same if you really wanted to –"
Peggy blinked. What?
She held up a hand to halt his nonsensical spiel. "Howard." She needed a second to regain her bearings while she tread the tangled string that she imagined made up the parts of Howard Stark's mind which were humanly comprehensible. At the moment, she was attempting to wade through the madness and tripping on invisible loose ends.
Howard mimicked her air of seriousness, which was nullified by the juvenile twinkle in his shrinking brown eyes and the undercurrent of good-natured mocking in his tone. "Peggy."
Good heavens, they were getting old, and yet Howard Stark was still as capable of indecorous childishness as the day she met him. Although, those days had gotten fewer and farther between with each passing year – both a relief and, oddly, a disappointment.
"What exactly is an '0-8-4' and why are you designating this –" Peggy paused and took a deep breath. She was having a hard time grasping that this was real. "– spaceship as such? Is it some sort of scientific terminology I'm too far removed from your fields of expertise to know about?"she hazarded a guess.
"Nope," said Howard, popping the 'p'. "Just a date."
And knowing what they were talking about would have been such a nice change of pace.
Peggy pinched the bridge of her nose. "Are you being difficult on purpose?" There was going to be another tension headache that she'd be naming after this ridiculous man.
"April eighth," he declared.
"The Smallville meteor shower happened in October."
"It did."
"Howard!"
"The boy's birthday," he deigned to elaborate. "The eighth of April. That's the date the Jarvises picked to put on the adoption papers."
"Which you fast-tracked through your wife's foundation without consulting me."
"I thought it was fitting," Howard wilfully steamrolled over her disapproval.
Peggy shot him a sharp look.
"I meant the date."
Backwards. He had steamrolled backwards over her disapproval. A slightly more forgivable offence. Slight. A person had to learn to appreciate the slightest of nuances if they sought to retain their sanity around Howard's enduring ridiculousness.
"I think '0-8-4' has a nice ring to it," said Howard, sounding pleased with himself – sounding normal, then. "'Object of Unknown Origin' is kind of a mouthful, don't you think?"
"Yes, because you've never been especially fond of cramming as many words into as many run-on sentences as physically possible," she said sarcastically.
"Who, out of the two of us, was it that came up with 'Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division', again?" rebutted Howard, chuckling.
Her face could not have been less impressed. "You wanted to christen our agency HOWARD." Her tone could not have been flatter.
"Well, STARK was already taken."
"By your company."
Howard shrugged instead of puffing his chest out proudly – indicative of a sad but, nevertheless, marked improvement on his humility over the years. "Even in my rambunctious youth, I had great taste."
This was not the first time they'd had this conversation.
Suddenly, Howard pivoted on the heels of his polished black shoes and jaunted over to the door. "I'm gonna go check on our other 0-8-4." With a growing sense of purpose, he threw over his shoulder, "You coming, Peg?"
Peggy followed him, huffing. "Ridiculous, ridiculous man."
Recs: Marvel One-Shot: Agent Carter (2013); Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S01E02 "0-8-4"