80.
Brooklyn, New York City
June 24th, 1946
As it turns out, Peggy never makes it to Washington. The day she was set to leave, Howard was charged with the selling of illegal weapons and carted off to court, leaving the idea of Shield hanging in the wind. Their meetings had been cancelled, and Peggy was told to sit tight and wait it out working for the SSR. She was disappointed, of course, but worry for her friend has overtaken any other concern.
Peggy stands by the window to her room as the kettle boils on the stove out in the kitchen. It whistles when it's ready and she walks out to it, pouring herself a cup of tea and sitting at the kitchen table. She picks up the morning's paper. A photograph of Howard Stark is plastered on the front below the caption, "Captain America Ally Yet to Explain Weapons Sale. Stark fails to Convince. Third day of testimony expected."
The issue with Howard has been the exact case that kept the SSR's doors open. The information regarding Howard's apparent sale of weapons to the enemy had postponed any talk of Shield until the issue could be resolved. After all, Shield could not open if one of its founding members was up on Capitol Hill with some serious explaining to do. Howard's misuse of his weapons has also jeopardized Peggy's future career.
Peggy began working for Division Four about a week ago, and the SSR agents there, mainly Agent Thompson, have been charged with leading the hunt for Howard and for answers. Peggy hasn't heard anything from the billionaire himself, not since he ordered Agent Flynn to inform her of her new position. And, to add salt to the wound, she hasn't been delegated any tasks in the case. Nothing has changed since her promotion to Shield director (though yet to be fulfilled) or since she infiltrated the Zodiac and ranked up to Division Four – the men still treat her as nothing more than a secretary, and it infuriates her.
Peggy sighs and puts the paper down, getting up without drinking her tea and taking it with her. She gets out the ironing board from behind the bathroom door and irons out her blouse she'll be wearing for the day before proceeding to get ready. She rolls her stockings up her legs and puts hot rollers in her hair, pinning up her fringe in a victory roll, and applying her usual layer of lipstick to her lips.
Just as she's preparing to put away the bread and butter from breakfast, Isabel walks in the front door. She's wearing her nurses' uniform, white dress with a small cap pinned to her hair, and she looks exhausted.
"Oh, don't bother," Isabel says, coming up to the counter and attempting to take the fresh bread from her. "I haven't eaten in twelve hours and I'm starving."
"Let me," Peggy offers, putting the bread under the griller to toast it and motioning for Isabel to sit.
Isabel sits at the kitchen table with a sigh, "I can't feel my feet," she mutters, taking her small heels off, leaving her in her stockings. "I was reading the newspaper on my break earlier. There was a story about Howard. Is it true?" Isabel asks, looking concerned.
"Yes, it's true," Peggy confirms, passing the same newspaper to Isabel. On the front is a picture of Steve, and Peggy sees Isabel's eyes land on his face, softening slightly. Stark Manhunt in 3 States. Captain America ally in hot water, the newspaper says, and Isabel's chewing slows as she notices it, her eyes flicking to Peggy, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
"What has he done?" She asks quietly, her voice barely a whisper.
Peggy sighs. "If I tell you, do you swear to secrecy?"
"Of course," Isabel promises quickly.
"Stark is in hot water, has been for the last few weeks, which is why the organisation of Shield has been momentarily postponed. We can't very well go forward without him, and it wouldn't be good for the name to have a founding member up on charges on Capitol Hill."
"No, it wouldn't," Isabel agrees.
"He has been accused of selling his weapons to enemies of the United States," Peggy says simply. "In the meeting with the SSR today, I tried to defend his honor based on the relationship we developed during the war, but I was rebuffed, which is nothing new. They say that six pieces of Stark's technology have turned up on the black market or in the arsenals of enemy states. He's been taken to Capitol Hill, but he hasn't taken it seriously. Yesterday was the final day of hearings and he didn't show. The SSR has searched his houses and offices and they haven't been able to track him down. That makes him a fugitive from justice. The SSR is looking for him with the intent on arresting him."
Isabel sighs. The bags under her eyes are still dark, and she's got this exhaustion on her features that Peggy knows a good sleep can't fix. "Howard isn't a traitor."
"That's exactly what I said, darling, but it's going to take a little more than my opinion to fix it." Peggy pats her hand. "Try not to worry about it. If anything changes, I'll let you know. Until then, I'm off to work."
"At the phone company?" Isabel jokes, emphasizing her words to show that she knows Peggy's cover for her SSR work is a lie. "Oh, and don't forget, we said we'd go to the talkies on Saturday. I have the night off."
"I'll try," Peggy says carefully. "You know how busy the job keeps me."
"Peg, you work at the phone company," Isabel says cheekily. "It ain't life and death."
"Darling, you have no idea," Peggy replies with a smirk. She goes to her suitcase and checks inside, ensuring the pistol is loaded. It clicks as she snaps the magazine back into place. "Eat that, clock out, close the curtains and sleep, Peggy's orders," Peggy tells Isabel as she moves out the door, closing it behind her.
Isabel sleeps most of the day before meeting Peggy for dinner at the L&L Automat around the block. It's a cozy establishment with a row of green booths, small dining chairs, and along the far wall, a self-serve set up where patrons can grab sandwiches, pastries and beverages for themselves on a tray before paying at the cashier at the end. Peggy and Isabel grab their chosen meals, pay, and then take a seat opposite one another in one of the booths.
Peggy's still got the newspaper, reading it at the table, the photo of Steve staring up at both of them.
"Any news on Howard?" Isabel asks quietly.
"No, none other than this morning. The SSR are still searching for him."
"I just don't understand, he was so torn up about Midnight Oil. He wouldn't–"
Isabel pauses and looks up with slightly wild eyes as the waitress at the diner approaches. "Angie", her name tag reads. She's petite with curled ringlets, wearing the pale blue diner dress and a hat pinned to her hair.
She looks down at the newspaper in Peggy's hand, smirking at the photo of Steve on the cover. "Oh, I saw him at the USO Show in Passaic," she says sultrily, putting her notepad down and chewing on the end of her pen cheekily. "You could eat him with a spoon."
Peggy looks up subtly at Isabel, who's gone a little stiff but looks away without saying anything, her hand in front of her mouth covering a smile, by the way her eyes are crinkling with mirth.
"Yes, I understand he was quite something," Peggy says carefully.
Angie looks at Peggy carefully, her eyes flicking to Isabel. Both brunettes have come to the Automat often the last few months since Peggy arrived in Brooklyn, and Peggy has always been much more talkative and welcoming. Isabel seems very quiet and introverted, barely saying a word unless it's to Peggy.
"You alright, English?" Angie asks, eyeing the downward dejected slope of Peggy's shoulders.
"Fine, Angie, if you don't count work," Peggy says, fiddling with her fingernails.
"Boys at the phone company giving you a hard time?"
"No more than usual," Peggy says, sounding strained. Isabel looks up at that, curiously as Peggy fumbles and searches for her words. "It's just, during the war, I had a sense of purpose, of responsibility. But now I connect the calls, but I never get the chance to make them. Do you know what I mean?"
Angie looks around for a moment before sitting down beside Isabel, who doesn't seem to really mind, shuffling over to accommodate her and looking at her curiously.
"I had an audition today, uptown. Took three trains, got two bars into "Is You Is or Is You Ain't" and they gave me the hook. I guess I ain't," Angie laughs, a small sadness to her smile. "We all got to pay our dues, even if it takes a while. You got talent," Angie promises. "It's only a matter of time before Broadway calls."
"Well, I'm afraid I can't carry a tune," Peggy retorts, a small smile on her lips.
"Doesn't matter when you've got legs like yours," Angie promises, and Isabel chuckles, and it's possibly the first time the waitress has ever heard boo from the girl.
From behind them, a large man at a table all alone calls out, "This is supposed to be a BLT? Where's the girl?" He turns, seeing Angie sitting at the table, and his face frowns further. "Oh, I'm sorry. Do you not work here anymore?" He asks sarcastically.
Angie raises a brow as she turns back around, giving Peggy a look. "Looks like I gotta go."
"Is he a regular?" Isabel asks quietly, still frowning at the rude man.
"Yeah, but a regular what, I'm not allowed to say that on the clock."
"Sounds like a right prick if you ask me," Isabel says quietly, making Angie laugh.
"You know, I like you," she tells Isabel as she slides out of the booth and stands. "See you two later."
Eventually, Isabel and Peggy finish their dinner and go to the pastry wall to grab something for dessert. Peggy takes a slice of lemon meringue pie from the small fridges on the wall, walking back to Isabel who's beaten her back to the table. Peggy sits, getting comfortable, before she notices writing on her napkin. "Meet in the alley in five minutes", it reads in a messy scrawl. Peggy lifts the napkin, looking around the room for anyone who could've written it, but no one seems out of the ordinary.
"Did you write this?" Peggy asks Isabel, who's just taken a large bite of her vanilla cake slice.
Isabel frowns at the napkin, shaking her head no. She does a double take. "I know that handwriting," she says, taking the napkin from Peggy. "That's Howard's. I saw a lot of it in the files we read over and over for near two years."
Peggy folds the napkin up and puts it in her purse, standing to go out into the alley.
"Wait, I'm coming with you," Isabel says, shoving the last of her cake in her mouth and leaving enough cash on the table to cover both of their desserts.
"No, you are not," Peggy hisses.
"Like I'm going to let you go out there all on your own. I love Brooklyn, but the alleys aren't exactly safe."
Peggy thinks it over. "Fine, but you'll do whatever I say."
"Agreed," Isabel says, following Peggy to the back exit of the shop. They sneak through the kitchen and then through the back doors, emerging into the dimly lit, wet alleyway.
Peggy looks around for the sight of someone, Isabel standing slightly behind her, looking upward at the towering buildings and the fire escapes above them. The alleyway seems deserted, and Peggy carefully slips her hand into her purse where her pistol sits.
"Miss Carter?" A male voice calls out to their right, and Peggy's head snaps toward it.
"Do I know you?" Peggy replies into the empty air, still unable to see anyone.
A well-dressed man slowly emerges from the shadows, wearing a green suit with a red tie and an olive fedora. "Oh, we haven't had the pleasure. But we may yet. You're coming with me," the man says, looking up to reveal his face to the two women.
Suddenly, a car starts up in the entrance to the alley, its headlights flooding the alley with light. Peggy lashes out, punching the mystery man in the face and sending him down to the damp ground below with a yelp. The car still speeds toward them, unfazed. Isabel grabs at the door handle that they'd exited from, but it's locked behind them. With no choice and the car approaching, Peggy grabs Isabel's hand and drags her, the two women running down the alleyway further between the buildings. There's only one more door at the end, but it's locked as well, leaving them trapped in the damp and dark corner of the alley.
"This was a bad idea, a really bad idea," Isabel mutters to herself, looking frightened.
Peggy turns and raises her pistol, shooting at the front tire of the car as it gets frighteningly closer. The wheel doesn't explode but the car does swerve to avoid the shot, sending the vehicle careening off into a stack of wooden boxes positioned in the corner of the alley from a food shipment to the diner.
Peggy aims at the driver's window, about to shoot, when the door opens and Howard Stark himself leans out the door, hands raised in surrender.
"I know, I should have called first," Howard says, shrugging at them. Peggy lowers her gun, looking shocked. Isabel's mouth has dropped open. "Did you miss me?" Howard asks, his mouth stretching into a cocky grin.
Peggy looks around quickly before pushing on Isabel's back. "Get in."
Isabel doesn't hesitate to get into the back of the car with Peggy. Stark reverses and drives back down the alley into the entrance before moving over into the passenger seat. The man Peggy had punched before gets behind the wheel and despite rubbing at his jaw, looks otherwise unfazed.
"What the hell is going on?" Isabel asks Howard, frowning at him.
"They're calling you a traitor, Stark," Peggy says immediately as they begin driving, her eyes warily flicking toward the driver.
"And I'm calling it a set up," Howard retorts, turning to look at both of the ladies in his backseat, one who looks much more unsettled than the other. "I have a vault for the weapons they're saying I sold onto the black market, or had, I should say," he explains. "Sub-basement of my office. Triple-thick, lead-lined. Impenetrable without the security code. It was where I kept my bad babies."
"Bad babies?" Peggy asks, a little disbelieving.
"Inventions too dangerous for anyone. Even my friends. Even the Captain and Commandos."
"Which begs the question of why invent them at all?" Isabel asks bluntly, eyeing Howard. "You remember what happened during the war with Midnight Oil. Do you want a repeat?"
"I can't help what I think of, but I can damn control what I sell," Howard tells them.
The car veers off the main road. Isabel looks out the window, recognizing that they're in the industrial areas of Brooklyn near Red Hook, most likely. Near the Navy Yard and the docks.
"At least, I could until last month," Howard continues, sounding contemplative.
"What happened last month?"
"I was in Monaco with a lovely tax advisor. When I got back, I found a hole under my vault, all the way to the sewer. Somebody cleaned me out. A couple of weeks later, my bad babies, they start turning up on the black market."
"You seem to have a problem with keeping your inventions in your possession," Isabel notes.
"Why run?" Peggy asks. "Why not tell the Senate the truth, ask for their help?"
"Apparently, it's not too big a jump to see me cutting a hole in my own vault and making some money on the sly," Howard says sourly. Isabel and Peggy share a look. Isabel shrugs, Peggy's eyebrows rise in agreement. "Really?" Howard breathes, frustrated.
"We're just considering all the angles. It seems you have a lot of them," Peggy promises innocently.
A smile grows on Howard's face, part grateful and part plotting. "Now that is the Peggy Carter I need."
"For what?"
"To clear my name."
Peggy's mouth drops a millisecond before she collects herself. "What, you can't be serious?"
"I try not to be, but sometimes it just slips out anyway," Howard jokes. At Isabel and Peggy's looks of astonishment and disbelief, he sighs. "Oh, come on, Peg. You know darn well I didn't do this, which means the SSR is looking for the wrong guy. I want to find the right guy. And I'm gonna need someone on the inside, someone I can trust. And, Peg, there's no one I trust more than you."
"I have no doubt Peggy would be the right person for the job," Isabel says. "But Howard, you're asking her to become a traitor in order to prove you are not one. Surely you see the irony in that?"
"I know, Barnes, I do. But come on, Peg. I know they're not using you right over there at the SSR. You want a mission that matters? This is it. My technology in the hands of some nut that wants to be the next Red Skull… You have no idea how bad that could be."
"I think we have a vague idea," Isabel mutters.
Howard's eyes flick to Isabel, giving her a look for her to cooperate with him, before turning back to Peggy. "Right now, Peg, you're the only one that can stop it."
The car they're riding in turns and drives alongside the river, a few metres above the churning, dark water.
"Here's good, kill the lights," Howard eventually says to the driver, who kills the engines and the headlights, stopping them near the edge of the water.
The four of them clamber out of the car, the driver going to the boot and opening it, handing a briefcase to Howard. Stark walks to the edge of the concrete landing where a small wooden ramp leads down to the water, where there's a loading platform and a small speed boat waiting in the water. Howard stomps down the boardwalk, Peggy behind him and Isabel following, looking around warily at the very dimly lit waterfront, the unknown driver behind her. In front of them across the water, the lit up skyline of Manhattan is on full show, reflected perfectly in the black water.
"Where are you headed?" Peggy asks.
"Some of my babies have already been sold overseas. I'm gonna pay them a visit. The rest of them are here somewhere, which is where you come in," Howard explains, stepping onto the waiting boat. It looks expensive, the seats a polished brown leather, the rest of it painted stark white. "Word is, one of the nasty ones is hitting the market in the next day or two."
"What is it?" Peggy asks, watching Howard hide his suitcase under the steering wheel of the boat.
"Just a piece of paper, my formula for molecular nitramene. Technically we're not even sure if it works, but, well, let's face it, I invented it, so it works." Howard jumps back out of the boat, walking back to Isabel and Peggy. "If that stuff were ever fabricated–"
"Boom?" Peggy guesses sarcastically.
"This much would level a city block," he says, taking Peggy's closed fist in his hand as a size reference. "And I'm not talking the short ones. Avenues."
Isabel sighs. "I still don't know why you invent this stuff."
Peggy hesitates. "I'm going to regret this, aren't I?"
"Absolutely," Stark agrees. "But when you're not humiliating him, that fellow up there is my butler, Edwin Jarvis," Stark explains, motioning up to the man standing on the main platform, the driver from the car. "He'll help you, either of you, in any way you want and any way he can. You just say the word. And I'm not just talking about with this current situation."
Isabel feels like that was directed at her, and she smiles lightly at Howard, who gives her a tight hug. "I'm sorry I couldn't stay longer and actually see you, but I'll be back soon, hopefully."
"Be safe, please," Isabel asks of him.
"And you, try not to get involved. I know I just dragged you out here and told you everything but try to leave it to Peggy. You've… seen and done enough."
"I'll try," Isabel promises. She knows she won't be able to really do anything, anyway, considering.
He then turns to Peggy. "I owe you one, pal," he says, giving Peggy another tight hug that she returns after a millisecond.
Howard jumps back into the boat, taking a seat behind the wheel. "There are only a dozen fences that can handle something this hot. You've just got to learn which one. And I figured you'd never have any trouble finding a man," Howard says, untying the boat from the dock and starting the engine that rumbles beneath him.
"The trick is finding the right one," Peggy agrees.
Howard blows them a kiss into the air before steering away from the dock, ruffling up the water wildly beneath the boat. He speeds off down the river toward the open ocean, disappearing into the darkness of the night.
"Nice to see you too, Howard," Peggy says into the silence.
"Well that was eventful," Isabel notes, looking at Peggy with a slightly stunned expression. "Why does Howard always bring some form of drama with him?"
"He's a Stark, love, it comes with the name. Come on."
Peggy leads Isabel back up the ramp toward the car and it's waiting driver, who watches them curiously with his hands in the pockets of his jacket.
"The next time you approach a woman in a dark alley, you might introduce yourself," Peggy suggests to Jarvis as she passes him.
"Well, I shall endeavor to remember that, provided my concussion isn't too severe," Jarvis responds in an English accent that could rival Peggy's for poshness. Jarvis reaches into the inner pocket of his coat, pulling out two business cards and handing them to each of the women. "Should you need me. Call any time before nine," he offers.
"What happens at nine?" Isabel asks, reading the business card, which has only Jarvis' name and phone number.
"My wife and I go to bed. Seven o'clock, sherry. Eight o'clock, Benny Goodman. Nine o'clock, bed," Jarvis recites as though it were the simplest thing in the world.
Peggy suppresses a laugh. "You're new to espionage, aren't you?"
"Far from it. Last summer, I caught the cook pocketing the good spoons," Jarvis says, raising his eyebrows to emphasise the event, before opening the back door for the women. "What now, Miss Carter?" Jarvis asks politely.
"Now, I go to work," Peggy says, pushing past and opening the passenger door, letting herself inside.
Jarvis looks surprised. Isabel steps into the car where he's opened it for her, not opposed to a gentleman as Peggy is, the door closing behind her.
