#come on steggies it is our time

[florida3exclamationpoints]

Steggy + textposts pt. 15/?

[littlereyofsunlight]

I'm late!

Sorry, @doctorhelena for the belated Steggy Secret Santa gift! I'm still working on the rest, but I've got the beginning polished up and ready to share ...

I loved receiving your letter to @steggyfanevents/Santa: "here are some general ideas of things I particularly like (applicable to either fanfic or fanart!): - stories (or fanart) set during the war - AUs with Steve present during the Agent Carter timeframe - AUs in general - friendship and found family - secret relationships, but also Peggy and Steve getting teased about each other - shared adventure, working together to achieve a goal - banter - Peggy being badass and Steve loving it - hijinks and terrible ideas - the Howling Commandos, Howard, Phillips, the Jarvises, Angie, Rose, Natasha, Bucky, Sam, Tony, Pepper, Thor - Bernard Stark, Howard's flamingo"

I had a lot of fun pulling a few of these elements together to come up with this story. Hope you enjoy!

Peggy bit the inside of her cheek as they arrived at Howard’s Beverly Hills home. He'd assured them of their privacy when he’d offered this house as a place to lay low while the news of Steve’s return blew over. It was their best option—she just hoped this really was the place to wait it out.

The driver handed over their bags to Steve, who took them with a warm smile, despite his obvious exhaustion. Peggy noted the way weariness seemed to have settled into the laugh lines at his eyes, the crease on his forehead that never quite went away now, the perpetual, if slight, downturn his mouth had. She shook herself from her reverie, reminding her wandering, maudlin thoughts that she’d never thought she’d get to see his face again, let alone watch him age. 

She rubbed at the simple band on her left ring finger. While Steve’s miraculous return had certainly caused a stir, it was the news of the wedding that had turned the press rabid.

Peggy looked at Steve. Steve looked at Peggy. There was, not for the first time since he’d returned, the feeling of uncomfortable tension between them. “Well,” Steve said, his voice congenial, “I’m fifty-percent convinced he’s not going to out us.”

Peggy nodded. “I might go as high as seventy-five percent, just knowing how well Howard pays.” 

“He sure is doing us some favor.” Peggy found his tone inscrutable. This was a new development, since his return. The small lines on his face and, sometimes, the wrong-footed feeling that Steve was referencing something from where—when—he came from.

She shifted her purse strap higher on her shoulder. The California sun was hot, and Steve’s suit hadn't fared well on the transcontinental flight. She didn’t feel particularly fresh, herself. “Shall we go in?”

He inclined his head. “I take it you know the way.”

Biting back the sharp retort that flew into her head—this wasn’t the same callow Steve who’d suggested fondue was some kind of lewd act, after all—Peggy was acutely aware of Steve behind her as she strode up the front walk to Howard’s ridiculous mansion. The lawn was just as green and well-manicured as when she’d last been, two years ago. Peggy supposed Howard thought stuccoed walls and wrought iron details made the place stately, but she’d always found it cozy, despite its size. And of course, the pool made it especially appealing. She looked back at Steve—at her new husband—and thought idly of just how secluded the pool really was. She felt a flush come over her that she couldn’t blame entirely on the heat.

“Howard played host when I was here working a case with …” She fumbled for words as she reached the front door and dug into her purse for the key Jarvis had arranged to have messengered to her back in D.C. “Ahem, well … there was a scientist, I’m not sure I’ve had the chance to tell you about this one.” 

Peggy’s mind raced. What exactly was she going to tell him in this moment about the escapade with Whitney Frost? Her flirtation with Jason Wilkes? Her dalliance with Daniel? Not exactly honeymoon talk. “Well, another time,” she finished inadequately, feeling suddenly quite tired. Opening the door, she stepped inside. The heat of the day hadn’t touched the cool tile entryway, and she sighed in relief. Peggy ushered Steve in after her and, with a final look back at the expanse of lawn and the eight-foot wall beyond it that encircled the property, she firmly shut the door and locked it.

“Alone at last,” she said, with a genuine smile for her new husband.

***

Steve took in the immaculate Spanish Colonial Revival details of Howard’s house. He’d visited Tony’s home in Malibu, once, before he rebuilt it. The setting had been spectacular, and the house had certainly gone out of its way to provide unobstructed views of the ocean, but all that glass and space had left it feeling empty. 

Now, Steve wondered if it had been a reaction to this place and to Howard’s preferred style. There was dark, ornate woodwork, plush, heavy furniture and warm colors everywhere Steve’s eye landed. Light spilled into the vestibule from arched windows stretching above the front door. The tiles were an inviting orange, with a Moroccan motif bordering the floor. A staircase of dark risers and wrought iron lead, Steve presumed, to the bedrooms on the second floor. Beyond the stairs was a hallway into the back of the house, and to the left of the foyer Steve saw a study filled with bookcases and leather club chairs. 

He suddenly became aware of Peggy’s eyes on him, her expression expectant. “Nice place,” he observed blandly. She raised an eyebrow, and he noticed, not for the first time today, how impeccably turned out she was. Her honeymoon suit crisply pressed, hat set just so, red, red lipstick looking freshly applied even with the transcontinental flight they’d boarded that morning. Steve knew his jacket was creased to hell and his collar had lost its starch—he was out of practice keeping his clothes up to this time’s standards, that was very clear. 

And, he realized through his musings, there was a frown beginning on his wife’s incredibly beautiful face.

Steve reached out a hand, pulled her in close. “Did you say something about being alone?”

He was relieved when she melted against him immediately, her hand coming up to cup his cheek. “One hears that’s how newlyweds are supposed to spend their time, alone together,” she teased, her eyes soft as she looked at him. He’d been flagging on the drive from the airport, looking forward to a nap when they arrived. But now he couldn’t resist kissing her, pressing her fully against him, reveling in how her lush curves fit against his body. 

“Good thing I cleared my schedule,” he murmured as they broke apart. She removed her hat and set it down on a table just to the side of the door. He let his hand roam down her shapely backside, knowing there were layers of nylon slip and girdle beneath the lightweight wool of her skirt. Maybe a nap could wait. Would she let him peel her out of each layer slowly this time? 

Peggy rewarded him with a laugh before she leaned up to kiss him again. “I have a few items to add to your itinerary, darling.”  

He wasn’t sure how long they spent, pressed against the door. Long enough for the shadows to change, lengthening over the stairs. Peggy’s stomach rumbled and Steve laughed. “Some things never change,” he said, a smirk on his face. 

“Do people in the future not require nourishment at regular intervals?” Peggy quipped, smoothing her skirt back down. “If I’m hungry, I know you’re famished,” she said.

Steve dragged her hem back up a few inches. “I could eat.”

Peggy arched an eyebrow at him, her hand around his wrist. “Focus, darling.”

“I would be very focused.” He saw how her eyes darkened and her breath came just a bit quicker. He brushed the tips of his fingers against her thigh, keeping his touch light. 

Her grip tightened and she exhaled. “Steve.”

He angled his head and let his lips graze the shell of her ear. “Peg.”

She sighed again, turning her head to kiss him firmly. “Lunch first.” She punctuated the imperative with a quick nip at his bottom lip. 

“Is that an order?” he teased, chasing her lips as she pulled away.

Her eyes sparked at him as she put both hands on his chest. “It is indeed, Captain.” She stepped back out of his arms. “But if you find us provisions, you have leave to resume your mission after your wife’s been satisfied.”

Heat spread through his chest at that word. His wife. He couldn’t keep the goofy smile from taking over his face, even as he sassed back at her, “I’ve been trying to satisfy my wife this whole time, Mrs. Rogers.”

Peggy laughed as she took up her small suitcase, shaking her head with a smile that echoed his. “I’ll go freshen up. The kitchen’s back through there, and I expect Ana Jarvis will have left plenty in the larder.” 

“Ma’am, yes ma’am.” He resisted the urge to pinch himself as he watched her walk up the stairs. All the ways he’d struggled with the decision to find her, after everything that had happened to him—he’d nearly talked himself out of even trying to have this a dozen times. But somehow, Steve was here, with Peggy, and everything felt so right. 

Even if they were technically on the run from the press.

Steve ventured to the back of the house, where the well-appointed kitchen was indeed stocked with food. Steve couldn’t remember if he’d ever learned when frozen french fries had been invented, but apparently it was before 1949. There was a box of those plus a few cans of Minute Maid concentrate in the freezer, along with a wealth of tupperware, all labeled in neat Palmer script with the contents and instructions for thawing and reheating. Steve whistled at the display and selected a stew to thaw for dinner later that evening. 

There was a note taped to the fridge, and Steve scanned it quickly.

Peggy, my dear—

I’m desolate that I cannot offer you my heartfelt congratulations in person, and that my inspection of your illustrious gentleman will have to wait until Edwin and I return from our visit. Please help yourself to anything; I have arranged for more groceries to be delivered on Tuesday. 

E says I must warn you that Bernard is suffering from some tropical malaise. But as sardines seem to cheer him up, I admit to being skeptical of my husband’s theory.

Affectionately yours,

Ana

Steve couldn’t remember who Bernard was supposed to be. But Howard had assured them both that his staff would give them their privacy while they stayed at his home, so Steve assumed the fellow would have to get his sardines elsewhere. 

In the fridge, Steve found basic sandwich supplies. For his part, he was still a tiny bit sad that sriracha wasn’t yet a staple in American cupboards. Thinking of sriracha made him think of being on the run with Sam and Nat. Instead of shoving the memory aside, he let it wash over him. Two years of running that grief group had been good for many things, of course. But certainly, an unintended benefit was how it had prepared him to leave it all behind and return to Peggy. 

Steve took the stairs two at a time, balancing the sandwiches, two glasses of water and a package of Oreos in his hands. He found Peggy down the wide hall, in a spacious bedroom with a private attached bathroom and a Juliet balcony overlooking Howard’s tree-filled side yard. She was still occupied in the bathroom, so Steve set down the food on one of the nightstands and pulled the inner lace curtains closed over the inset windows in the balcony doors, leaving the heavy velvet drapes open. The diffuse afternoon light that filtered through turned the room a cozy orange. By the time Peggy was done, he’d unpacked their suitcases into the closet and dresser provided, and stowed the bags underneath the giant four-poster bed. 

She’d changed out of her suit entirely and had on her robe, her hair unpinned and falling softly to her shoulders in mahogany waves. “Sandwiches!” she said, and clambered up onto the bed beside him. 

“Oreos, too,” he pointed out, delighted at her excitement over his extremely basic offering. “You were right about Mrs. Jarvis keeping the kitchen stocked. Which reminds me,” he fished the note out of his trousers pocket, “she left this for you.”

***

Peggy read the note quickly, mouth full of roast beef, and then tucked it under the water on the nightstand. Ana must have dictated it, as it wasn’t in her handwriting and she and Jarvis were on a trip to Europe, visiting cousins of Ana’s who had settled in the Netherlands after the war. 

Steve had eaten a sandwich of his own, as well as several chocolate biscuits, and then he’d gotten up to hang his own suit and change into pajama pants as Peggy finished her own meal. Though it was three hours later by her internal clock, Peggy felt a bit of a thrill to be in her nightclothes in the daylight. She watched as the muscles beneath his white undershirt flexed with his movements, his physique somehow even more impressive now than when he’d first gone through the transformation of Project Rebirth. Peggy was grateful for all that had transpired to bring Steve back to her. She was grateful that the man he was now was with her in this time. She felt suddenly such a swell of overpowering love for him, she was happy to be sitting down as it hit. “Steve,” she managed, hearing the emotion thick in her voice.

He turned back to her, concern clear on his face. “Peg?”

She shook her head, smiling through the rush of feeling. She aimed for sultry when she spoke and tossed her hair behind her shoulders. “You have leave to resume your mission at your leisure.” She toyed with the tie on her robe. 

Immediately, his eyes darkened and the concerned dip of his brows smoothed over. A hint of a smile played at the corner of his mouth. “Is that so?” Peggy nodded, unknotting her robe so she could let the neckline fall open. As Steve realized she had nothing on underneath, she watched his breath deepen and his hands clench at the suit he still held. “Remind me where we were?” he teased.

Peggy licked her lips eagerly. “I seem to recall you promised satisfaction.”

Steve tossed the suit behind him, ensuring it would truly need a thorough pressing before he could wear it again. He prowled back towards the bed. “Did you have anything particular in mind?—”

Before Steve had even finished the question, there was a loud crash on the balcony, accompanied by a sound Peggy could only describe as a goose attacking a chalkboard. Steve immediately closed the distance between them, pulling Peggy off the bed and positioning her behind him. The sound came again, this time accompanied by some shuffling and … flapping? 

Peggy slapped a hand to her forehead. “Bernard!”

[musette22]

Seriously, being a Stucky and Bucky fan is the most painful thing ever. Nothing good ever happens here. Marvel constantly erases and minimizes Bucky and Steve's relationship. Bucky and Steve are either written out of character or made the butt of a joke. They always talk bad about Bucky and act like he's scum. The constant victim blaming ,constantly showing him in a bad light. And they treat Bucky, Stucky, and their fans like trash, something unwanted and delusional, but at the same time they plagiarize Stucky's story for Peggy's "What if?" episode. And when it is Steggy, those scenes are shown as romantic. Nothing is changing, and it keeps getting worse. It's tiring

I completely understand your frustration and the fact that you're disheartened, lovely. It does suck, a lot. But can I offer a different perspective, maybe? I don't know if it's helpful for you, but just in case it might be.

How about saying, being a Stucky and Bucky fan is the most painful thing ever if you continue to let Marvel determine your fandom experience? Because it's true that nothing good ever happens in the MCU when it comes to Bucky or Stucky anymore, and it's true that it keeps getting worse in the MCU (for people who feel the way you and I do, that is), but it's not true that nothing good every happens in the Stucky fandom anymore. It would be a disservice to the fandom, and to all the beautiful stories and art created every single day, to say that it just keeps getting worse. In my opinion, the trick is to just go like this as much as possible whenever Marvel tries to say anything new and awful about our boys:

And to continue cheerfully ignoring them, and enjoying/creating beautiful fan works created by people who actually understand these characters and relationships and are creating out of love instead of greed.

I know you might be thinking 'okay, but you've just been talking about the new rumours and how much you hate them yourself,' which is true, but if I hadn't received asks about it, I wouldn't have addressed it (and I still prefer to keep discussion of these topics to a minimum). Turning my back on Marvel and deciding to not watch new content, and that said content (pretty much anything after IW) was no longer canon for me anyway definitely eased the pain a lot, and made it easier to shrug off the new, bad things Marvel keeps piling on. It's not 100% effective (I still get mad sometimes), but definitely helps a good 75% I'd say. Overall, I'm just like 'let these Marvel weirdos misinterpret these characters, I'm never going to accept their headcanons anyway (bc that's all they are, in the end), so I might as well just ignore them for the most part'.

Give it a try honey, it might work for you too! ❤️

[captainjimothycarter]

The Two Times You Said Yes

There are two times in Steve's life when he's asked Peggy Carter to marry him with his late mother's ring.

It was rare that the two got to be together out of combat, much less go on missions together. The world seemed to want to split them apart, sending Steve North while sending Peggy South. It felt like a blessing when Phillips called them both into his office to be sent across enemy lines to retrieve some important package that only Carter was to know about. That was fine. The less he knew the better. He could focus on getting them through this dense forest without triggering some kind of trap or mine. It was the end of a long two-day hike, and the idea of going back to a warm bed tomorrow seemed almost like a dream come true. The mission through all its turmoil had been successful and the package was now secure in Peggy’s bundle. They both were utterly exhausted, Steve for the most part having to stay awake for two weeks straight, depending on the serum to survive. This is what it was built for, at any rate. Too bad they couldn’t light a fire, given the cold settling in their bones. It made Steve adjust the thin blanket around his shoulders, looking up from where he sat on the stump to Peggy across from him. She was bending over a clipboard in her lap, a pencil in her teeth as she flipped through some papers. There was a smudge of lead under her eye from where she’d been rubbing it, no doubt fighting off the exhaustion. “You know,” Steve sighed, putting down his own sketchbook and pencil, “One of us should be semi-decent tomorrow and get some sleep. I think it should be you.” Peggy smirked around the pencil, remembering to take it out of her mouth this time. “Do you now? Have you seen your reflection in that shield of yours lately, Steve? You have bags under your eyes nearly as dark as Phillips’ coffee.” Steve laughed, not bothering to point out how Peggy almost mirrored him. Yet she somehow found a way to make it work. She always did. He was sure she could wear a potato sack and look damn beautiful in it. “Why don’t I take the first watch?” Peggy mused, setting the clipboard down on their bags. “You can catch a few hours of sleep and I can get through his bloody paperwork.” The tone alone told Steve that there would be no arguing. He was going to sleep, or Peggy would knock him aside the head with his own shield to ensure he slept. That alone made his lips twitch into a smile as he laid out his sleeping bag and dropped down on it. “Are you going to tell me what you’re smiling at, Rogers?”

Another repost - a series from my first steggy week <3

[brooklynbred-c]

'cause we've all made mistakes , if you've lost your way . . .

#BROOKLYNBRED , is a private , selective , ORIGINAL TAKE W / ORIGINAL LORE steven grant rogers. blog is loosely based on marvel comics but only for the basic story for his marvel verse. the rest of the blog is original lore and backstory.

heavily affiliate with . . . @vintertsarn , @marvelmyriad , @ofgunsxroses & @agentxromanoffx.

𝚀𝚄𝙴𝚄𝙴 𝚂𝚃𝙰𝚃𝚄𝚂 . . . ( filling ) 𝚃𝙷𝚁𝙴𝙰𝙳 𝚃𝚁𝙰𝙲𝙺𝙴𝚁 . . . ( coming soon )

exploring themes such as . . . standing up for the little guy , anarchy , truth , love , loyalty , patriotism , betrayal , found family , heroism , doing the right thing when everyone says you're wrong , homophobia , ableism , and more.

THIS BLOG DOES NOT SHIP STEGGY.

MAIN BLOG. TRACKER. RULES. AESTHETIC. MEMES. VERSES.

BLOG ROLL: tsarnvoiny ( anya barnes ) , nursetosoldier ( becca / bucky barnes ) , stonerbitchsupremacy ( fandomless oc ) , crearefuturum ( james stark ) , gobubyourself ( logan howlett )

must be 21+ to follow. personal blogs dni. mun is 31+. loved by jj.

CANON DIVERGENCE NOTES & RULES BELOW THE CUT:

RULES:

NO DRAMA. this blog has a strict no drama rule. i do not have a lot of energy and so writing is my only hobby i can really do anymore. i deal with chronic pain daily , so i do not have any time or patience for drama. do not bring it to me. i don't want to be involved. i will block people who break this rule.

RATING / CONTENT. do to the nature of this blog , this blog is a mature blog , and you must be 21+ to interact. this is for my own comfort and there will be no exceptions. this blog will feature very triggering content. i will be tagging any triggering content with the following format ' tw trigger here. ' so you can block any triggers accordingly to protect yourself. i also will not be offended if you don't follow back. we are all in charge of keeping our spaces safe for us. ( any threads dealing with HYDRA muses will be tagged ' tw hydra muse. ' as i know some make people uncomfortable. smut may also find it's way onto this blog as well , and will not be placed under a cut , but tagged with ' usfw. '

FORMATTING. i will be formatting my posts , and will be using custom spacing , bold , italic text as well as page breaks and icons. you are by no means required to use any of this to write with me. this is for my own amusement. i judge if i want to write with you based on if i think our muses will mesh well.

SHIPPING. i love shipping with people. it's also very easy for me to ship something , as i am a shipping whore. that being said , please approach me before assuming a ship. i promise i am a very nice person and would be happy to discuss it. this is just how comfortable i am with shipping. just a quick im will do. i also prefer to plot out ships so the asking helps with that too.

NOTES:

STEVE ROGERS IS BI / MALE LEANING: i've tried writing him straight , bi , pan and gay , and i've just found it to be the easiest to write him bisexual , and leaning toward men over women. there are some women who he is attracted to , but it usually takes time for him to get to know women before he'll develop feelings for them. (this blog does not ship steggy.)

STEVE WAS FOUND IN THE ICE IN 1982: howard stark never gave up his efforts , and would eventually find steve in the ice where he crashed the plane in 1982. he was brought out and heated up but there were some complications with thawing him , leaving him with joint pain that doesn't go away completely. after coming out of the ice , and recovering , he was kept in a cabin away from society on nick fury's orders until he was ready to join society. that lasted two years. in 1984 , he began working for SHIELD , working closely with agent romanoff.

SAKOVIA ACCORDS DID NOT HAPPEN: plain and simple , i do not partake in any of the plot for CW , and have no intentions in doing so. i am happy to rp non MCU CW plots , but i just don't vibe with the way they portrayed steve rogers from that point forward. i'm also more than happy to rp trials of muses and stuff like that. but just won't be engaging in any MCU CW plots. (that does not mean i won't rp with muses from that movie like zemo)

STEVE DOES NOT GO BACK TO PEGGT AFTER EG: seeing as i don't ship steggy , it doesn't make sense for my steve to go back in time to live the rest of his life with her. instead , steve stayed in the current timeline , helping bucky with settling into his life outside of HYDRA , he spends some time as director of SHIELD and training new avengers , and mostly just enjoys his time being retired. he is no longer captain america , and still passes the mantle to sam , and continues his her work as NOMAD if he steps into the hero game. (he says he's retired but we know it doesn't stay that way)

more will be added as i think them up. i will make posts to let people know this has been updated.

[theawkwardterrier]

Broadway AU

Steggy Week 2k23, day 2 Prompt: WIPs and updates

Summary: Having known each other as teenagers, Steve and Peggy are suddenly reunited with the spotlight on them the whole time.

I've posted part of this before, but here's everything I have from this WIP (or semi WIP, since I'm not actively working on it) so far 🤷‍♀️

Thanks to @steggyfanevents​​ for organizing!

Although she didn’t believe in curses, Peggy considered making an amendment to the policy.

Heathrow had been a zoo, and they’d taken off late. She knew that she needed to try for a nap during the flight, but every time she managed to drop off, she would be either shaken awake by turbulence, or bumped by someone walking the aisles with a child or on their way to the restroom. At JFK there was an entirely new set of issues: waiting for a runway and a gate took ages, the agent took so long clearing her at passport control that she wondered if she might have missed the luggage only to find that it had been delayed in arriving at baggage claim and then everyone had to wait an additional ten minutes anyway.

All of this added up to the gradual elimination of the cushion she’d planned for popping over to her new place for a shower and change of clothes. She had a toothbrush, a comb, and some makeup in her carry-on, and took a few moments in the taxi to fix herself up, but she wasn’t a miracle worker and the grimy annoyance of travel couldn’t be completely erased.

As she climbed the stairs up to the rehearsal space (they wouldn’t be in the theater for a while yet) her spine seemed to be straightening itself, steely armor. She knew that there was a group of people, however small, muttering that she’d only come to New York because she didn’t have it in her to play anyone but Edwina. They’d meant it as a bad thing, that she didn’t have the talent for anything else, had simply lucked into the one role she could pull off, and was now too scared to reveal her own inadequacy. For all she knows, the rest of the cast could be whispering such things right now.

She knows her own talent and doesn’t need the hardware to prove it, although she does have that too, lined up on a bookshelf in the London flat which Michael is taking over between tours. But right now, the critics aren’t exactly wrong either. She doesn’t want to slip into anyone’s skin but Edwina’s, not until she has to. And today she has an opportunity to come back to it, and she opens the door ready and eager.

Everything is in disarray inside, people striding around and looking harried in a way they shouldn’t until tech rehearsal at least. Peggy recognizes the director, a man named Phillips who looks as if he’d be more suited to coaching a sports team (or perhaps not even that, just a spectator chewing them out from the stands) but is actually something of a legend. His jaw is clenched so tightly as he shouts at someone that Peggy isn’t entirely certain how the words are getting out.

“What exactly is happening?” she asks a woman around her own age who is hanging back and watching the scene avidly.

“Well, we’re all waiting for the new lead actress to get here - they’re bringing her in from England, and she’s supposed to be the best - and Mr. Erskine - the playwright, Mr. Erskine? - he arrived and found out that Mr. Phillips cast Gilmore Hodge as Kirby even though he - Mr. Erskine, that is - said that he liked someone else during auditions and told Mr. Phillips to cast him. And there was a big argument, because Mr. Phillips is the director, but in the end Mr. Erskine won, and he went to try to get back whoever it was that he liked. So now we’re waiting for both of our leads, and Mr. Erskine too.” She looks away from the action in front of her and finally takes Peggy in. “Well, one of our leads and Mr. Erskine, I guess.”

Peggy grins, somewhat charmed despite herself by the rapid-fire recap. “Peggy Carter. I’ll be playing Edwina. Lovely to meet you.” She extends a hand.

“Angie Martinelli, Delilah. It’s great to have you here.” They shake. Edwina and Delilah don’t have any scenes together, but Delilah’s a strong supporting role and Peggy is glad that it went to someone she instinctively likes.

“Any idea when we’ll be getting started?” Peggy asks. She certainly could go up and introduce herself to the director and ask him, but there’s no reason to place herself into the line of fire quite yet.

Angie shrugs. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see. I don’t know where Mr. Erskine was planning on finding this first choice actor of his, or if he’d even be available. What if he booked something else after Phillips rejected him?”

“And no one has any idea who he is?”

“Some people are speculating it’s Jack Thompson,” Angie offers. Peggy hopes to hell not - she  knows he’s gotten quite a lot of notice, and she’s only ever seen filmed performances of his but she’s always hated the smug, smirking way he’d seemed to approach every role. She doesn’t want to imagine Kirby in his hands - and has to assume that her evaluation of Erskine is such that he would feel the same.

Then Angie turns as the door opens again. “I guess we’ll see,” she says, seeming just short of clasping her hands together in anticipation. 

Erskine walks in first and Peggy smiles at the familiar sight, his unhurried, knowing carriage. But then he beckons a second figure into the room, and Peggy has to catch her smile and paste it tightly on.

Because following Erskine in, apparently here to play the male lead opposite her, is Steve Rogers.

They had both been unlikely candidates for the Yale summer drama program. Neither would be attending Yale in the fall: she was slated for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he for a year’s deferment to work and then, as long as his financial aid package came through again, to Tisch. Her parents had only agreed to allow her to travel to the States after heavy argument on her part. His mother would have gladly let him go, but only a last minute freeing up of scholarship funding had allowed him to attend.

But there they had both been, two talented kids in a sea of talent. They had been paired up for a simple mirror exercise on the first day, then for a two person scene on the second. Later, he would tell her that if he hadn’t known that she would be a success just from her confidence, he would have seen it in the way she took a single line and ran through a half-dozen interpretations, each of them excellent, before saying one over again, nodding to herself, and proceeding. She would tell him that she had thought him adorably committed from the start, but it wasn’t until he had begun to cry during a scene and she had reached out automatically to comfort him that she realized how good he actually was.

Their group ended up doing Anne of Green Gables as their final showcase. She was Anne, he was Gilbert. They would stay late running lines together, taking turns going to fetch hot drinks or vending machine snacks. Soon it turned into sitting out in the warm darkness, telling each other things they had rarely said to anyone before: not only about their families and school and the things they loved, but about the foolishness, the hubris, of trying to make a career of acting, and the conviction that they would do it anyway. He would ask for rehearsal breaks when he saw the line forming between her eyes that meant that her heavy red wig was giving her a headache she was too stubbornly professional to mention. The day she accidentally hit Steve with one of the real prop slates instead of the pre-broken one, she told the director that Matthew and Marilla could rehearse their scene instead and took Steve for ice and an apology milkshake.

They kissed after the evening performance, the night before they were each scheduled to go home. He wasn’t Peggy’s first kiss, but as she pressed herself against him, close and solid and eager, she found herself realizing that she hadn’t really been kissed at all before now, not like this.

At first, they would email every few days, but soon it began to feel painfully unfair to tell Steve about her classes, her professors and the parts she was being allowed to take on, when he wasn’t getting to do any of that. There was a tone from his progressively shorter messages, as if he knew it too, as if he wanted to cling to something that did him no good.

And so she had pulled back, even as it hurt, even as she came home at the end of a long day and wanted to hear his voice or at least find his words on her computer screen, sharing one of his firm opinions or telling her about his day, urging her on the way she believed best from him. They had wished each other a happy new year perhaps six years previous and that had been the last time she had spoken with Steve Rogers.

Until, apparently, today.

When they are finally ready to begin, a scowling Phillips, who has clearly lost the argument he had in undertones with Erskine, orders them to the circle of chairs in the center of the room and tells them to introduce themselves. No overly adorable icebreakers here, listing favorite productions or describing yourself with an adjective beginning with your first initial, only names and roles and, for the brave, brief good wishes for the production.

“Peggy Carter, Edwina. I’m excited to be here,” Peggy says when they come to her, pulling calm over herself. Steve is seated half the circle away.

But it is his turn soon. “Steve Rogers. Um, Lee Kirby, I guess.” He glances at Erskine and then, just before the person beside him begins, he adds, “I appreciate getting a chance at this.”

They skip any improv games - perhaps Phillips goes in for them other times, but certainly not today, with time and temper already short - and move right to the table read. She watches Steve  from the corner of her eye, hair drifting forward as she bends over her script, a fresh copy she has already highlighted and vaguely annotated. (She can climb into Edwina’s skin at will, but it’s strategic not to appear too arrogant and would be foolhardy to ignore the shifts and possibilities of a new production.) Erskine places a script in Steve’s hands, patting his shoulder before taking his seat beside Phillips. Steve flips the book open, paging through with just-solid fingers.

He is, she can see, looking at her over the top, more obviously than she is doing to him.

She’d been barely out of school when she auditioned for Abe Erskine. She knew his name, of course, had even played Miss Susan in a student production of A Lonely Prospect, one of his early works.

His new play, Midnight Hour, was the first he had written in fifteen years and the theater scene was buzzing with the prospect of it, batting around words like “awards material” and “instant classic” as they phoned their agents.

The story took place during the Cold War, and it started out as a simple spy story: a young man, Tom Wright, was using the cover of a trip to Stockholm with his sister and best friend to keep tabs on a suspected agent in the city. The sister, Edwina, and the best friend, Lee Kirby, were lightly characterized during the first several scenes, seeming simple and oblivious, uninterested in politics and unknowing of the sort of vital mission which was taking place beneath their noses.

But then, partway through Act 1, Tom was killed, and it was Edwina and Lee who drew into sharp focus as they worked to discover his killer and complete his mission.

Peggy had come in on the last day of auditions. She’d had the scene for a week by that point, and the dialogue flowed smoothly. There was a line she had never quite gotten the right tone on when she was working it through on her own, but in the audition she had the exact iciness she wanted with just the faintest hint of a question mark at the end: a girl who was very good at dress-up but still a girl beneath it.

Three days later, she got the call that the part was hers and she knew, even before her agent gleefully crowed the words, that this was going to change everything for her.

She had forgotten how good Steve is. He knows the script but clearly not very well, stumbling over words, and still there’s already a sense of character there, even as they just run lines in this empty space.

And she knows, just as everyone does, that there’s an obvious reason Phillips wanted shark-faced, good-looking Jack Thompson instead. James Falsworth, who had originated the role opposite Peggy in London, had been handsome though not particularly imposing, and that had been the trick of it, watching him transform, his face hardening, a toughness brewing as the story went on. But Steve is more than not imposing: he’s slim in the shoulders, delicately-featured, small. It’s perhaps hard to picture him having the power necessary to punch into Kirby’s monologue toward the end of the first act, hard to imagine watching him move believably through both cool confidence and flickering self-doubt, hard to anticipate his face twisting into the anger necessary to support the character into life.

But Erskine must have seen what Peggy was once able to: that Steve has talent enough to do it, that when you walk away from seeing his Kirby you haven’t forgotten your initial doubts, you remember them strongly enough to realize how he’s surpassed them.

It’s so perfect for Kirby’s character that it makes Peggy’s head spin a bit.

[pentaghastx]

Their House on Cedar Street

Peggy portrayal by myself ( @pentaghastx) Steve portrayal by Artemis ( @thesongofthegreens) For @steggyfanevents Steggy Week 2023 Day 1: Headcanons and Meta

Headcanon: Their house on Cedar Street and their neighbors

Summary: WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD

In 1949, Steve Rogers goes back in time for Peggy Carter, building the "small life" that had always been talked about with his fellow Avengers. Their small life includes a house on Cedar Street, one with a cherry blossom, and a lot of work that needs to be done. After a long, year and a half of work, it's completed, allowing them to move in later that same year after they're married. But along with the house comes neighbors, and you get to meet'em all! Welcome to Cedar Street and the beginning of the American Dream for the Rogers family. ——— ✴︎ ———

Below is our google doc we put together for this extremely detailed headcanon of ours. You will read about the lore of the street, the neighbors, their house, and all the furniture within the house! You will also find a Pinterest board dedicated to this headcanon as well! GOOGLE DOC PINTEREST BOARD This is our first time participating in such an event so we thank you for reading our work! ♡ P.s. This doc and Pinterest board will be constantly updated, so please comeback any time and poke around! We hope you enjoyed your stay at the Rogers residence!

[cafecitowriter]

Death Is Only the Beginning - Chapter 6: Sam

Summary: Agent Peggy Carter disappeared near the end of World War II, during the climactic battle with the leader of Hydra: The Red Skull. While the Valkyrie never landed and millions of lives were saved, no one ever found Agent Carter - or even what had truly happened to her.

Nearly 80 years later, Steve Rogers discovers a compass with a picture of a beautiful woman inside the lid. For a reason he can’t quite place, he decides to keep it.

A/N: Another chapter update this soon can only mean that this update was also written for Steggy Week 2023! Although this time it's for Day 7: Free ChoiceThank you all for sticking with me!

Many thanks to @steggyfanevents for an awesome Steggy Week this year!

Read Chapter on AO3

Read from the Beginning

Chapter Preview:

Sam ushered Steve inside, both of them taking another look to make sure there was no one else outside. Once the door was closed, Steve spoke in a soft murmur.

“Nat and Bucky are on their way, so expect them next. It should just be the four of us so if anyone else comes knocking - even any other SHIELD agents, regard them as suspicious.”

“Four of you?”

“I - yeah. Four.”

Sam gave him a curious look, heading to the closed curtains and peeking out briefly. When he was seemingly satisfied, he turned back to Steve.

“Alright, what’s the threat, and what’s our plan?”

“The threat are moles within SHIELD. We don’t know how many but it goes deep, and now they know that we’re onto them which means we need to act quickly. The current plan is to come up with a plan when Nat and Buck get here.”

“Great, real solid stuff we have to work from here.”

Steve sighed as Sam took a pointed sip of his orange juice. At least Sam was only teasing him. Mostly.

“We were in the middle of discussing our next steps but then they found us.”

“Who’s they?”

“The organization that’s infiltrated SHIELD. They’re a specific scientific subdivision of Nazis that started in World War II called Hydra.”

“Of course it had to be goddamn Nazis,” Sam swore. “You need me to bring the wings?”

“Yes. Seeing as we’ve already lost the element of surprise, we need every other advantage we can get.”

“Done, anything else I should know before our backup arrives?”

“Yes.”

When he didn’t continue, Sam raised his eyebrow and placed his glass of orange juice down on the counter.

“You have my full attention. Now are you gonna tell me what I need to know or are you gonna make me guess?”

“I…” Steve sighed. “Look there’s no easy way to do this so you just have to promise not to freak out.”

[doctorhelena]

Steggy Fic: Until Then (We'll Have to Muddle Through, Somehow) - Chapter 6/6

This story is complete, and is now completely posted!

Story summary: Five times Peggy and Steve carved out small moments of happiness, and one time they didn’t have to.

Chapter 6 summary: In which Peggy and Steve throw a party.

Rating: R

Read this chapter on A03

Read it from the beginning on A03

Excerpt:

December 1949

“Come on, put your back into it, Rogers,” called Peggy from her seat on the couch.

Her frank ogling very suddenly reminded Steve of a story Natasha had told him about a tipsy Pepper at a bachelorette party, and he grinned at his similarly riveted wife. “Do you want me to take off my shirt so you can get a better view?”

Peggy took another sip of her hot toddy. “Oh well, if you're feeling overheated from all that stirring you've been doing, I suppose you should. In fact, just to be safe, maybe you should take off the rest as well.”

“Mmm, you know, I'm not sure our guests would be thrilled if they found out I was baking in the nude.” Peggy laughed, conceding the point, and Steve turned back to the gingerbread dough he’d been mixing. “Peg, I’m really not sure about this recipe.” He squinted at Jarvis’s handwriting on the index card again, then peered back into the bowl. “I’ve never seen cookie dough get so - so stiff before.” 

There was a suspicious cough from Peggy’s direction, and Steve turned back to her, one eyebrow raised. “I know you’re on the first day of a very well-deserved vacation, but how many of those have you had? ”

Peggy shot him an impish smile, turning on the full, flirtatious charm that still made his heart do a little swoop every time - the one affliction that even his serum-enhanced perfect cardiac rhythm didn't even try to withstand. “This is only my second,” she told him, “but I have unquestionably been spending far too much time around Howard lately.” She got up and came through the open kitchen door, setting her drink down on the counter before running one hand up Steve’s back to rest on his shoulder. “I do love the way you squint at things when you’re perplexed, as if you might actually need those glasses.” 

“Maybe I’m just a better spy than you think I am,” Steve said, and Peggy laughed, peering over his sleeve into the bowl.

Read the rest of the chapter on A03

[3pirouette]

Fic: In the Bleak Midwinter (1/1)

Title: In the Bleak Midwinter By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette Spoilers: takes place during CA: TFA, but can be considered AU. Disclaimer: They're not mine. Distribution: AO3 Anyone else please ask first :)

Read it on AO3

Story Summary: @steggyfanevents Secret Santa gift for thesokovianaccords. A quiet moment in the snow with Steve and Peggy. Set mid- CA: TFA.

A/N: For the Amazing @thesokovianaccords! I hope this meets your expectations. I got the compass, some dramatics, some mid-mission events, and some good old Steggy snuggling in there… I’m not really sure why it turned so bittersweet, but I hope there’s enough sweet that it makes you feel good. I had hoped to come up with a good Rom Com idea, but I’m just not a Rom Com writer sometimes…

Title is from the poem “In the Bleak Midwinter” by Christina Rossetti.

Please forgive any typos- I'll go back and re-edit, but for now I've looked over it obsessively and can't look at it any more!

~*~

“You should have let them take you in the transport.”

Peggy snuggled closer to Steve. Normally he gave off quite a bit more body heat, but considering the small shed they’d managed to find had little the way in insulation and even less in the way of glass in the windows, he had little to share at the moment. “What, and miss this?”

He clicked his teeth, and she felt more than heard his groan as a rumble in his chest. “Peggy—”

She leaned back, brushing the stray hairs that escaped her chignon out of her face. “I was not, under any circumstances, going to endure a two-hour, bumpy as hell ride sitting on laps.” She shook her head and snuggled back down into him. “And you know as well as I do that the back of that jeep would have been as cold, if not colder, than our current accommodations.”

Steve gently pushed her to the side, standing. “We’re lucky we found these accommodations and you know it.” He started wandering around the small shed that held only the remnants of farm equipment, ticking off a mental list of their current supplies. “You should have—”

“Say that one more time and you know I’ll start walking back on my own,” Peggy threatened, sitting tall against the small divider wall they’d huddled themselves against. The remnants of a bale of hay behind it had made it the least chilled structure in the small shack and more than inviting for a rest compared to the howling winds outside as the sun set low.

Steve looked over his shoulder at her, scowling, but went right back to his search. “Oh, don’t I know.” He shook his head as he dug through a pile in the corner. “You know those guys wouldn’t have tried anything and they—”

“That’s not what I was thinking and you know it!” Peggy stood, righteous in her anger. “It would have been cold and uncomfortable, to start.” She stepped up next to him and started helping sort through the pile of odds and ends. “Of course, Bucky and Dugan and Morita would have been pure gentlemen.” She grimaced, pulling out a mess of what looked like animal leads and leashes. “It was the Hydra men tied up next to them that would have been making lewd comments the whole way back that I wasn’t looking forward to.” Steve opened his mouth to rebut, but closed it quickly when he saw her eyes. “Those German soldiers do have the filthiest of mouths,” she muttered, sliding a shovel out of the way.

“I understand,” Steve said quietly, sorting through a bucket of screws and nails.

She sighed at the tension she’d unwittingly created, but knew it was more the adrenaline of the mission and the firefight and the anxiety about making it back to base in the morning more than anything else. She looked over at him from under her lashes, voice carefully even, “You could have sat on laps, you know.”

He laughed, a single bark of lightness in the dark and cold shed. “Yeah, Buck and Dugan would have loved that.” He shifted the bucket back against the wall and finally unstrapped his helmet, his hair standing on edge, sweaty and dry in patches, as he pulled it off. “What? And leave you to have all the fun here?”

She chuckled lightly, pulling her fingers deftly away from something she was sure had once been a pile of manure. “We both passed the same outdoor survival training and you know it.” She pivoted in her squat, turning towards him. She ran her fingers through his hair, settling it to something that was almost tame. “It also didn’t escape my mind that I haven’t seen you for more than five minutes in the last month and after this mission debrief it is quite possible it will stay that way for the next few months, as well.”

He gently pulled her hand from his hair, holding it in his, eyes darkening. “Yeah, there is that.”

“Oh, don’t go all sappy now.” She took her hand back and turned to the pile. “We can have dramatic declarations of love once we get a fire going.” She carefully set what looked to be a broken saw blade aside. “A cold and bumpy ride in a jeep followed by a cold and lonely night on base worrying about you is much less desirable than our current situation.”

Steve shrugged, turning back to the task at hand with just a hint of a smile enough to let her know that he saw their situation in the same light. “I think there’s enough cracks in the ceiling and broken windows that the smoke won’t be a problem…”

“But?” she asked when he trailed off.

He shrugged. “Even if I can get a fire pit dug through that,” he tipped his head to the crumbling concrete that made up the floor of the shed, “I don’t know that we’ll have enough kindling to keep it lit through the night.”

Peggy stood, kicking the dust on the floor. She took a few steps, humming as she looked at the hay remnants in the corner. She looked at him, but his only reply to her unspoken question was a raised eyebrow. She smiled back suggestively, licking her lips. “If it were colder…” She let the sentence fall away.

“It’s worth it to keep to sleep in,” he supplied quickly, ignoring her innuendo. “It’ll keep us insulated from the floor, at least.”

“A roll in the hay?” She chuckled at his eye roll, kicking through the bottom edge of the hay. “Could you be slightly less than stoic for a moment?”

He lifted the shovel and took a few quick steps over to her, dropping a quick kiss on her cheek. “Sorry,” he moved back to the center of the small room and started kicking debris away from the center of the floor, “I still feel like we’re not alone.”

“We’re never alone,” she grumbled, watching as he sized up the hole. “You get started on the pit,” she pushed off the small wall and moved to the door, “I’ll see what I can find in the way of kindling outside.”

Peggy slipped out of the shack into the chilled night to the sounds of Steve setting the shovel against the concrete. He could have used his shield, and she figured if it didn’t start crumbling under the shovel quickly, he would, but she wasn’t going to make a fuss. He was still on edge, as was she, about how the night had gone. A slim win was still a win, but the casualties still stung. She just wanted to spend the few hours they had together, however they’d managed them, in relative peace. The sun had completely set and the moon was rising high in the sky, making it was easy for her to start picking small twigs and long blades of dry grass from around the abandoned shed.

She stopped for a moment, looking up, and wondered if she should take her chances in the bombed out remains of the house just a few hundred yards away. She’d made a good argument for it, but Steve had looked at her with such a haunted look she knew there was a reason he told her no. She set back to picking up small sticks, her arms soon filled. She knew he saw things. They both had. The longer the war went on, the more desperate each day got, the more gruesome the scenes, the more violent and angry the men, the more desensitized the got to the losses and death. She prayed for an end to it every day, and knew Steve did, too.

She wasn’t sure what would happen to them when there wasn’t a war on, but they never quite looked to that tomorrow too closely when one wrong bullet or bomb could change all of their plans.

She slipped back into the shed, arms laden. “How’s it going?”

He didn’t look up from his work, on his hands and knees, forming a bowl in the dirt of the ditch he’d dug. “Fell apart pretty easily. How’d you do?”

“Should be enough for a bit, and there’s plenty more out there.” She set her small pile down next to him and went to her pack, digging around for her waterproof matches as he started arranging the sticks. “I can go—”

“No,” he was quiet and firm, and didn’t even look up from where he was precariously balancing some of the larger sticks into a cone. “I’ll go out if we need more, but we should be okay for a while.”

Peggy squatted down next to him, holding out her tin of matches. “Care to share why you are melancholy at turns?” The words were sharp, but her tone soft. “I’m getting a bit of whiplash here.”

He held her hand for just a second as he took the tin of matches, then went back to getting the fire going.

His silence was more than enough for Peggy. “It’s been a bad month, hasn’t it?” He paused at her words, but didn’t say anything as he resumed settling the kindling against the small flame as the match caught the twigs around it. “I suppose I could read the reports,” she started gently, settling down cross-legged next to him, “but you very well know I’ve seen the same things you have.” She waited for some kind of reaction, and finally reached out and stopped his hands from playing with the fire that was no longer in need of such tending. “Stop being dramatic and talk.”

He slumped back, keeping her hand in his. “it’s just…” He took a slow deep breath. “It’s just starting to get to me. The death, the destruction, the innocent people…”

“Not what you signed up for?” she asked gently, sliding closer so she could meet his eyes.

“No,” he nearly laughed out. “No, I don’t think this was what any of us signed up for, do you?”

She let their beaths sync, let the quiet crackling of the growing fire calm their anxious minds. It was always too much: there was always another mission, another communique, another secret to uncover, another battle to be fought. They were living in harrowing times, in a constant state of kill or be killed, and neither one of them often got to express just how tiresome, how stressful, it could be: there were too many people counting on them, too many people looking towards their leadership, to show signs of fatigue.

She had two choices: she could push and try to get him to open up, or she could move past it, let it get buried, and maybe one day they’d talk about it or maybe they wouldn’t. He was usually good about opening up on his own, and when she’d pushed in the past, he had clammed up further. It was an easy decision to make.

She smiled, standing. “Well, I know none of us signed up for K-Rations.” His chuckle, somewhere between surprised and amused, was enough sign to her that she’d made the right choice. She dug through her pack and held up the two cans. “Can I interest you in ham and cheese or ham and cheese?” She held them both out, posing like she was presenting them on the USO show stage with a smile.

A tiny glint lit up his eyes as he pretended to weigh his options. “I think I’ll take…the ham and cheese.”

She gave a brief curtsey as she handed him the tin he’d pointed towards. “Excellent choice, sir!” She turned back, rooting in her bag for the two tiny spoons she kept in there, and grabbed the little box of crackers. She handed hers over to him to open as she sat next to him, the fire finally something big enough to start radiating warmth towards them.

Steve popped the top off her can quickly and handed it back. “Bucky’s mom makes the best ham,” he mused, opening his own can and staring at the contents, “Christmas Eve we would all sit and watch as dish after dish came out of that kitchen. There wasn’t enough room on your plate for all of it.” He paused; cracker stopped in mid-air on its way to the tin. “Is it… what day is it?”

Peggy laughed around her spoon, swallowing before speaking. “You’re not that far out of touch, darling. Christmas isn’t until next week yet.”

He shook his head with a self-deprecating smile and resumed dipping his cracker into his tin of meat and cheese. “Sometimes days feel like years…”

“And sometimes they feel like minutes,” Peggy finished. She scraped at the edges of her tin. “Did you always do Christmas with the Barnes family?”

“Mostly,” he shrugged, chewing thoughtfully. “Buck and I have been friends since we were little.” He looked down at his tin and scooped another mouthful with a cracker. “She was the kind of person who cooked for the whole neighborhood, everyone was always invited in.” He smiled. “The house was crazy, kids all over, running and playing and if it was snowing out—” he laughed at the memory, “there would be snowballs outside and inside. Pure pandemonium in the best way. We got there in the early afternoon and didn’t leave until it was time for midnight mass. Ma and I always went home with big plates of leftovers and cookies and cake.” He bumped her shoulder, warmed by the memory. “How about you?”

Peggy set down her emptied can and picked up a cracker, running her nail along the jagged edge, eyes wandering into the past as she spoke. “Oh, Christmas was always quite the formal affair. We’d get dressed in our Sunday best, then we were paraded in front of grandparents and Aunts and Uncles. Michael and I were expected to be quiet and dutiful during formal dinners.”

Steve smirked, raising his eyebrows. “How’d that go?”

She rolled her eyes and nudged him with her elbow. “About as well as you’d expect.” Peggy was searching for a story to tell when Steve’s voice surprised her.

“When we get home,” his voice was soft, using a phrase she’d never heard him use before, “I’m sure Mama B is gonna have the biggest Christmas dinner ever.”

Peggy stilled, watching his eyes glaze over as he spoke. She reached out, covering his hand with hers as he talked.

“Bucky will insist you come, you know. And she’ll have invited half the neighborhood, like usual. There will be at least two hams, and whole tables of gravy and mashed potatoes and the greens and sweet potatoes…” He closed his eyes, a soft smile taking over his lips. “I can almost smell it. And the pies!” His shoulders sagged. “Rebecca, his sister, makes the best pecan pie.”

“Tell me more,” Peggy whispered quietly.

His eyes opened, almost like he’d forgotten where he was, and he smiled. He slipped the two empty tins to the side and slid himself around Peggy, wrapping her in his arms and resting his chin on her shoulder. “Well, to start with, their house is small: a little brownstone around the corner from my apartment. But inside? You can’t imagine how many people they fit in there.” He chuckled as she melted back into him. “She starts cooking the day before, Bucky’s Aunts and cousins all come over, and they try like hell to keep all those kids out of the kitchen. I remember each year running these little… missions… I guess you could call ‘em, with Bucky and Rebecca and all of us just trying to steal little morsels out from under her nose and she never got mad just chased us back out while we laughed until our stomachs hurt, you know?”

“Sounds delightful,” she whispered, watching as the lightness of the memory melted the heaviness of the war and years away from his face.

“So, I’m sure there will be kids running around, and everywhere you look there’s just chairs shoved here and there so people can sit and eat and laugh. And it’s hot… it’s always hot no matter how cold it is outside.”

“From the ovens or the people?” She asked, running her hand through his hair.

“Both,” he chuckled, taking her hand and holding it in his. He snuggled closer to her, wrapping her in a tight hug. “By the time we were older Buck and I always had jobs- setting up extra tables, making sure the decorations were just-so, running errands for last minute ingredients.” He laughed, a memory bright in his tone. “Didn’t mean we stopped trying to steal bites, or that she ran us out of the kitchen any less.” He buried his nose in her neck, dropping a soft kiss there before turning serious. “The Barnes’ are the only family I have left. I can’t wait for you to meet Mama B.”

“I would be honored to meet her,” She replied gently, tucking her head under his chin. It was almost cozy now, by the fire in their small shed, the cracks in the roof pulling the smoke up and away while they were still able to take advantage of the warmth of the fire. She wasn’t exactly sure what to say next: they didn’t often talk about the future, so instead, she said nothing and threaded her fingers through his, holding his hand tight.

“You were right,” he said softly before he kissed her hair, “We needed this. I needed this.”

“Can’t ever be alone on a base.”

“It’s never quiet on base.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been this comfortable on base.”

He looked down at he, teasing, “Well, I’d hope not.”

She laughed, pulling from his arms and reaching over past him, setting a few more sticks into their fire. “You think it’ll make it through the night?” She settled on her knees, looking over their dwindling pile and the small flickering flames.

He sat up, scratching his head. “Probably not. I can—”

“You keep it going,” she kissed him quickly before he could stop her. “I know exactly where I’ve picked over and where there will be more kindling. I’ll be back in half a mo.” She stood and was out the door before he could object.

She wasn’t sure what it was about the way they were bouncing through emotions, about the heaviness that seemed to settle over them tonight, but she needed a break from it. It was suffocating in both the best and the worst ways. The idea that there was going to be a Christmas where she was laughing with the mysterious Mama B and Bucky and his houseful of friends and family… it seemed like a promise and a curse. She didn’t make plans, not during this war. It seemed as soon as anyone she knew made plans, there wasn’t any life left for them to live them. She bundled the sticks in her arms, hurrying around until she couldn’t balance another on her pile, before struggling her way back into the shed.

“Goodness,” she shivered, shuffling over to the fire. “It’s quite biting out there. This fire’s doing its job.” She settled her pile carefully before crouching down and rubbing her hands together, holding them out to the flames. “We did get very lucky.”

Steve’s reply took just a second longer than she was expecting, and it had a hint of honey in it that made her turn to him. “Very lucky.”

He was sitting against the wall, elbows on his knees, rolling his compass over and over in one hand, eyes warm and drowsy. She sat into one hip, smiling. “What are you on about?” She chuckled, standing and closing the distance to sit next to him, “Because I know it’s not this shack.”

“We got lucky,” he repeated softly, taking her hand in his and draping them over his knee. He squeezed it gently for a second before flipping his compass open.

Peggy shook her head, looking away. “You still have my picture in there?”

“Take it everywhere I go,” he replied proudly. He smiled and tipped his head on hers just for a second at her blush. “What? It embarrasses you?”

“I just,” she twittered lightly, looking for the words, cheeks still a bit red, “I just never imagined myself the kind of woman a man would keep a photograph of… I’m nothing special, Steve.”

He leaned back, surprised. “Nothing special?”

“I’m not a pinup,” she rebutted, slightly incensed she had to explain, not wanting to say how her former fiancé had never carried her picture around and she’d been prepared to spend the rest of her life with him.

“No,” he carefully trod, “You’re ten times any of those girls. Beautiful. Smart. Sharp. Way more than just a pretty face, Peg.” He let go of her hand and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her tight to him. “You know why I keep you in my compass?”

“Because you haven’t a pocket for a billfold in those pants?”

He laughed at her surprising joke. “Uh, no, I guess I don’t. But, that’s not the reason.”

She snuggled down against him, turning her body into his side. “Well, then?”

“My dad left me this compass.” He turned it in his hand, showing her the well-worn age. “I never met him, he died in the war before I was born. When I was a kid, I was so mystified by how it would point North no matter where I went. When I was a boy scout, I learned how to use it to find out where I was going, how to chart places…” He sighed with the memory, his words falling away.

“Useful, that,” Peggy encouraged.

“I made a few… wrong decisions,” he started cautiously.

“You? Never!”

He leaned into her playfully. “Not just impulsive like I tend to be now, but downright wrong. I was letting other kids influence me. I wanted to be seen, wanted to be bigger than I was.”

“We all do,” she whispered gently, laying her hand on his arm.

“So, my Ma, she sat me down and made me put the compass on the table. She knew how much it meant to me.” He set it on the floor and gently spun it. “She told me… she told me that a compass will always tell you which way is North,” he paused, watching the compass spin in the dim firelight, “but it cannot tell you what is right.”

She watched as he set the compass back to him, her picture staring up at them. “That’s pretty profound.”

“Yeah,” he smirked, lifting the compass back into his hand. “She took it from me for the night and made me think about what she’d said. The next morning, I had to apologize and she gave it back.”

“That explains why you have it on you all the time, but not why my picture is in there.”

Steve shifted, tucking the compass in his belt before he reached for her hips, setting her straddle over his knees. He pushed back a few stray hairs, eyes thin blue rings in the dark light. “Doesn’t it, thought?”

She shook her head, a small smile on her lips as she leaned forward, kissing him gently.

He nudged his nose against hers, wrapping his arms softly around her waist. “Sure, it does. My compass tells me what’s North. You tell me what’s right.”

She pulled back, surprised. Her chin quivered with the tightness that suddenly took over her chest. “Steve—” she barely whispered out.

His voice was soft as he met her eyes. “You know I love you, Peggy.”

“And I love you,” she replied quickly, still trying to find a way out of her shock at his words. “You’ve always been a good man,” she whispered, running her hand down his cheek. “You don’t need me to tell you your course.”

“Yes, I do,” he replied firmly. “Every day it gets harder to do what’s right, to remember what’s right. Every day out here there’s another thing that I don’t want to see, another horrific reminder of the darkest pieces of humanity,” he closed his eyes tight together, shaking his head before looking back up at her. “I need something to look at every once in a while, to remind me that there are things worth fighting for, that the easy thing to do isn’t always the right thing, that…” He took a deep breath, softening. “To remind me that there are family Christmas Eves back home still happening that I’m going to take you to after all this is over.”

Peggy stopped his rant with her finger pressed gently to his lips. “I’m honored that I can do that for you,” she whispered, “but you mustn’t put me on a pedestal quite that high. I’m liable to fall.”

He moved forward, kissing her gently. “Never,” he whispered against her lips.

She kissed him for long minutes, finding solace in the warmth of him, of the feeling of being so close they were almost the same being. His lips soothed the raw edges his words had left. He always managed to surprise her in how he saw her, and while she knew her value, so rarely did she ever think she was worth that kind of praise or worship. Tonight, she wasn’t going to argue with him.

She pulled back, swinging one leg over so she could sit across his lap, settling against him better. At his look, she shrugged. “Cement was hurting my knees.” She stopped him before the apology in his throat could leave his lips with just a look.

“You know,” she started lightly, playing with the strap across his chest, “I’ve often thought about keeping your picture with me.”

“Have you?”

She smiled at the way he tried to keep the interest out of his voice. “But it wouldn’t do for a spy to be caught with her boyfriend’s picture in her pocket.” She felt his disappointment when he hummed in agreement under her. “But the thing is, I don’t need to.”

“’Cause you remember my face?” Steve asked, only half joking.

“Because I see it everywhere,” Peggy replied, sincere. “Captain America is a bastion for all that is good in the War. I see you on posters and in newspapers.” She took a deep breath, readying her confession. “My last assignment, I was so lonely, I kept a paper for weeks and weeks just so I could look at your picture at night. If anyone noticed it, I was going to say I kept it to help start the stove in the little flat I was in.” She shrugged. “You’re right. It’s hard to remember some days.”

He held her tighter, tucking her under his chin. “Every day we get closer to an end.”

“Do you really believe that?” She asked, eyes focusing on the flickering of the fire beyond them.

“I have to,” he whispered, “I have to.”

She was comfortable in his arms, as comfortable as she’d been in months watching their small fire flicker away. The fire was keeping the chill at bay, enough for her to forget they had a long slog on foot in the cold back to base as soon as the sun came up. She could almost imagine they were in a little house, on the floor of the living room, a couch at their backs and a hardwood floor underneath them, fire flicking away in their fireplace. She didn’t often fantasize about the future, found it too painful to hope for things she couldn’t control, but her eyes started to droop as she indulged in imagining that scene. A yawn escaped her lips, and before she could hide it, he cradled her closer.

“Tired?”

“I suppose,” she deflected, “But I’ll manage a watch.”

“Sleep,” he whispered, brushing his hand over her head before kissing her temple.

Her words were still heavy with fatigue. “I can—”

“I know you can,” he gently stopped her, his voice calm and warm like honey. “I know you can.” He rubbed his hand up and down over her shoulder, soothing her closer and closer to sleep. “You’re comfortable, and I won’t sleep either way.”

“I should fight you on this,” she mumbled, cuddling closer to his chest.

“Shure you should,” his voice seemed so far away now. “But you won’t.”

The fire light faded to black as her eyes closed, the chill of the shack fading away in the comfort of Steve’s arms.

~*~

“Peg?”

She hummed at the sound of his voice, trying to turn away from his hand that was smoothing her hair down, the other rubbing over her leg, wishing desperately she could stay like this for just a few moments longer.

“Peggy?”

“I didn’t mean to sleep all night,” she croaked out, slipping from his arms and sliding to the cold floor next to him. The sky was lighter outside of the windows, and the fire was dwindling to almost nothing.

“I wanted you to.” He smiled softly, stealing a quick kiss. “I know how much trouble you have sleeping at base.”

“And off base, and on missions.” Peggy stood up, brushing the dirt off her pants and reaching out for him. “If there’s one fault of mine, it’s surely that while I can manage nearly any condition you can throw at me, I much prefer a warm soft bed and the peace of the indoors any day.”

He smiled, pushing off the ground to stand next to her, watching as she leaned back with her thumbs against her spine until he heard a satisfying pop. “Wanting comfort isn’t a fault, Peggy. Especially after all we’ve slept on.” He moved over to the fire, fanning it and adding a few more sticks to attempt to make some coffee. “I thought you were a tomboy?”

She smiled, bringing over an armful of supplies to sit next to him. “I was. I could rough and tumble with my brother and the boys without a problem. Didn’t mind playing in the dirt or climbing trees or getting messy- much to my mother’s chagrin, mind you.” She set out the two tin cups and starting pouring the water from their canteens in. “But no matter how much I begged, she never let me go camping or stay out to sleep under the stars. There was a routine every night, and there were some things my mother suffered, but me not having a lady’s toilette every night was not one of them.”

Steve laughed, “I can only imagine.”

“Oh, very often there was kicking and screaming involved, at least when I was little.” Peggy smiled, poring the instant coffee powder in and stirring. “But it’s ingrained that so fully now, it feels wrong to go without it.” She met his downturned lips with a bright shake of her head. “Last night was much better, I assure you.”

Steve took the two cups and set them next to the fire, as close as he could manage. “I’m sure I’m not nearly as comfortable as a bed would be.”

She waggled her eyebrows, sitting cross-legged next to him. “I was more than comfortable,” she was interrupted by a yawn, but continued, “and you are much more enticing than any old bed.”

He shrugged shyly, and just like so many other times, she could see that skinny man he once was, the man whose confidence bloomed just as much as his muscles did when he stepped in that machine. “I still find that hard to believe sometimes,” he muttered, sticking his pinky in one of the cups to test the temperature of the water.

“You shouldn’t,” she replied, sliding over a fruit bar ration. “You’ll be tired of hearing it from me eventually, I suspect.”

Instead of the ration, he took her hand and slipped her into is arms. “Never,” he whispered, kissing her fervently.

It was easy to melt into his arms, to fall into the kiss and wrap herself around him. They didn’t do it often enough. It was still a novelty, still something that was new and exciting and somewhat taboo because if they were every found out by the wrong person, well… she wasn’t sure what the repercussions would be. They were in Allied territory, they were warm, they were safe and they were alone. She wrapped her arms tight around him, trying to eliminate any space she could.

It was the snap and pop of the fire, their coffee sputtering over as it boiled that separated them. Steve heard it first, his sensitive ears tuned to the fact that something was wrong. He pulled away, grabbing what was left of their coffee from the fire, sputtering and cursing at the searing hot cups.

Peggy wiped at her lips as she sat back, expecting there to be lipstick on her fingers before she remembered she’d last applied it over a day ago. They were tingling and swollen, something she hadn’t felt in so long.

It made her want more, but there wasn’t time for that now.

She wasn’t sure how long they’d been lost in one another, but it was long enough for the sun to be creating rays through the cracks of the boards in the walls. She was sure they’d be granted some grace period, but neither wanted to push Phillips’ temper, or gamble with the thought that neither one was needed somewhere.

Seemed they were always needed somewhere for something.

Steve passed her a cup, somewhat cooled, and dug into his fruit bar. Peggy could imagine he was thinking the same things she was. It seemed almost wrong, forbidden, like they were teenagers afraid of getting caught snogging in the movies.

“You think it’ll ever feel alright?” She asked, eyes set on the boiled remains of her coffee.

He smiled up at her, a silly joke on his lips, before he stopped and turned serious. “I hope it will. One day.”

She looked over, nodding. “Yes. One day.” Without preamble, she drank her coffee like a shot and grabbed her still-wrapped fruit bar. “Come along, soldier.” Peggy stood, moving over to her pack. “Best get it over with, yes?”

He threw the rest of the bar in his mouth and crumbled the wrapper in his fist as he stood. Without a word he set about shoving the pile of dirt he’d pulled out of the hole right back in, smothering the fire. He was at her side, picking up his shield and handing her the other tin cup to stow by the time she’d repacked her things.

She stood, shouldering her pack as he set his shield on his back. With a soft smile she reached up on her toes and let her lips meet his. It was soft and swift, but it was enough. “Ready?” She asked, a brave smile pasted on her face to belay the emotions swirling in her stomach.

He nodded, his own mask of emotions something she was far too familiar with. “Ready.”

Without a look back, they left the small shed, Peggy following as Steve pulled out his compass and set them on course back to the base.

~*~ End Notes: Steve’s line is inspired by this post: https://at.tumblr.com/suallenparker/the-compass-will-also-not-tell-you-to-buy-my-book/vfai6twhq7tp

[pleasantpandemonium]

steggy’s grand but AI is stealing art :(

I know the introduction of AI into the artworld has been divisive, and fair enough. Art has long been considered one of the things only humans can create. Human artists have a soul, they create with feeling and purpose, as an outlet and as a way of self-expression. AI, on the other hand, lacks a soul and any form of connection to the art it creates. But does the lack of human interference lessen the effect the art can have on the audience? If a piece of art truly moves someone and makes them feel something, hasn’t the artwork then fulfilled it’s purpose? No matter if it was made by human or AI.

Is your claim that Ai art is stealing based on the fact that Bots, like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, draw inspiration from previously published art? Then I would argue that all art can be seen as a form of stealing. Artists draw inspiration from other artists all the time, just like AI. We see something we like and give it our own spin. I think it is Pablo Picasso who is credited with the quote “good artists borrow, great artists steal”. Artists stealing from other artists has been going on since time immemorial. Shakespeare stole loads of his scenes and plots from other writers, old songs are constantly used as foundations for new songs and Amy Schumer always makes sure she steals all her jokes from other comedians. Unlike Amy Schuner, AI at least tries to make something original XD.

I get what you are saying, and I understand the hesitation lots of artists have with AI, but I don’t think we can just label AI art as “fake art” and “theft” and be done with it. AI art won’t go away, and I think it could be a great tool for all kinds of artists. Why not use AI’s unlimited vault of inspiration as a tool to enhance our creativity? Embrace it and use it, instead of pushing it away. I could go on and on about the ways AI in the creative fields could either be a great thing or the demise of all creative work. I have pretty much written my Bachelors about it. But in the end, all I want to say it that AI will be more of a thing in the future, and those who learn to use if will be much better off than those who refuse to adapt.

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk 😉

[sosoane1]

2022 Fic  Masterlist

Series: 100Wednesday  | Fictober | The Em and Will Univers | Mulder is Trans

Doctor Who

Jim The Fish - The Doctor and River are out on a date, the two meet a fish named Jim.

Nobody warned you about me? - Fictober day 3: Nobody Warned You About Me? Everyone knows that you don’t threaten The Doctor in front of River Song.

Steggy

He chose me - Fictober 2022 day 1: I chose you. But its He chose me instead. Basicly just Peg telling Steve about how Michael is the reason she joined the army

White Christmas - The war is cold but dancing together at Christmas is so much better.

The X Files

I Feel Good - Scully and Mulder are cleaning the dishes, or Scully is cleaning the dishes and Mulder is singing and generally looking like an idiot. He is adorable.

Your smile fades in the summer - It's senior year for Fox Mulder and there are two new students at his school. Melissa and Dana Scully. Will their paths cross? How awkward is it when your newly assigned partner is your high school crush?

Mulder's birthday gift - Fictober day 13 prompt: Mulder's birthday. Mulder gets a special birthday gift from Emily and Scully what could it be?

The complication of getting a prescription refill - You know that awkward moment when your best friend offers to be your doctor but you haven't told her you're trans and you really need a doctor to fill your hormone prescription?

Take me as you found me or leave me to die - Mulder and Scully are sick of the mundane work they do in their new assignment. They decide to splurge on a slightly better hotel for the night but oh no! it has one bed.

When doubt rolls over our shoulders, camps in our heads  - Prompt: Scully goes out with Pendrell for his birthday (which in this case doesn't end tragically) and when Mulder calls about a case Scully invites him to come along with them. Basically Mulder is thridwheeling and not liking it.

A Well-Devised Plan - Prompt: Scully, Mulder and Skinner get snowed in together and have a makeshift Christmas celebration (making paper snowflake decorations, giving gifts, making cookies, etc etc)

Rocking Chair - Mulder dreams of getting to rock William.

You Fell Asleep In My - You fell asleep in my, car I drove the whole time, but that's okay I'll just avoid the holes so you sleep fine. I'm driving here I sit, cursing my government, for not using my taxes to fill holes with more cement. -Tear in my heart by Twenty One Pilots 

Grocery shopping and Hand holding  - Scully just wants to hold hands with her partner in public :( 

I want Fox to be my dad  - Emily wants a father.

Opposite Attract - Fictober day 5: Opposite Attract. A mutual friend presents Scully to Mulder.

What's the opposite of a nightmare?

Will you be my doner? - What happen's when Scully askes her partner to be her sperm doner, but he actualy trans

back to masterlist

[captainjimothycarter]

Only Forever

Steve reflects on how much his life has changed in the seven months since he's come home to 1945.

We’ll have the band play something slow. I’d hate to step on -” March 17, 1945 A week from next Saturday. That’s what Peggy had told him, the date of what could’ve been forever burned into his mind. Each anniversary that had passed in the fourteen or so years he was in the future, Steve could feel his heart growing heavier and heavier knowing that he never gave the love of his life the dance she deserved. They both knew that he wouldn’t make that date. That there should’ve been no way in heaven or hell that he would survive that crash, but finally here he was. A much older version of himself, one who had seen and done too much. One who was simply so tired. Tired of losing. Tired of hurting. Tired of denying himself that happiness. However, time had never been in Steve’s favor. Born too early. Too late for the start of the war. Too late to save Bucky before he is captured the first time. Too late to save him before he fell. Too late for a date that should’ve never come in the first place. Today, however, time was slightly on his side if only he could get control of his nerves. The watch on his wrist read just past 8:34 pm. So he wasn’t that late. The night air was cool, a promise of spring lingering with the breeze whipping around him. Steve took in a deep breath in an attempt to calm his nerves, listening to the sound of muffled talk and laughter wafting from the side, employee entrance of the club. A milk crate propped the door open, letting the sound and music from the band waft into the dead-end alley. The side entrance was provided to make it easier to slip inside without being seen by too many people. Steve avoided those staggering drunk in the hall, listening to their celebration of the war believing it started to come to a close. If only they knew what would have to be done to end this war. His eyes scanned the crowd, spotting Howard Stark charming it with some lady dressed in black at the bar. He could see Tony in him, the thought of his late friend making his stomach clench. He was going to make this right. The Howling Commandos were in a booth in the corner, several shots sitting on the table, a show of their mourning of both him and Bucky. If only they knew. They would soon. Was he too late? Had Peggy decided to leave for the night? She had told him at one point while in the nursing home, that she’d gone to the Stork Club and felt ridiculous standing there. Denying person after person for a dance. They knew she was waiting for a man who would never come, but having that foolish amount of hope that one must cling to, to survive. “You just never learn, do you, soldier?”

Another post for Steggy Month. Full credit for the background photo goes to @dirtydoctorwho and their amazing skills :)

[luna-rainbow]

I think we’re all playing in the mud here about canon, and that is fine — because that’s the nature of fandom, canon events are open to interpretation from multiple angles. A Steggy can read as much support for their ship as a Stucky as a Sambucky. I don’t think you’re on as much of a media analysis high horse as you think. You seem to be just as willing to apply genre conventions and assume certain off screen things happened to substantiate Peggy's skills and importance? While insisting realism be applied to Steve's story otherwise it’s all genre-mandated protagonist good luck?

A demonstration of “bravery and ingenuity” (using your words here) is as much earning it as a demonstration of training and experience. The latter comes with time, the former often doesn’t…to pull a real life example, a big part of many medical school interviews is discerning certain attitudes and a level of integrity suitable for physician roles. Did none of these people earn their place, then, because they haven’t been demonstrated training and experience? As for the rescue, Steve specifically went off to search for Bucky — we can say he “got lucky”, or maybe he’s sussed out the facility and questioned guards, then went down the tunnels because he suspected something important was being kept off-limits there, then saw Zola and knew his chamber would be important to search — again this is all hypothetical, but just as your idea that the gun Peggy picked randomly off the table would be loaded entirely with blanks by Howard just so…he can use it as a prop to scare people in a pinch, I guess? I mean, sure, any himbo could have found Bucky, but by that logic is anything in real life search and rescue competence, then? Or is it all getting lucky to be at the right place at the right time to hear someone needing help holler?

My issue with the shooting scene is more around the fact she did it in an enclosed room around other non-enhanced scientists literally minding their own business. That’s a vibranium shield and as far as we the audience know it’s untested and it’s Steve’s first time handling it. The bullets could have ricocheted anywhere and hit anyone — especially when you consider in CATWS Steve was using the shield to bounce the bullets directly back at people shooting at him. She has no way of knowing where the bullets could go and who she might injure. Steve had to lift that shield to cover himself. And Steve isn’t invincible, he’s just tougher than the average human. He bleeds and hurts when shot by bullets, as CATWS demonstrated, to the point he could barely stand up to finish his mission. I really don’t see that action as harmless.

I’m not really sure what you mean by the references to communist Russia — as someone who grew up in a communist dictatorship, I’m far too aware that communist powers are just as capable of being cruel authoritarian regimes as fascists, but I’m not sure why you think Steve can’t tell the difference or won’t condemn them even if his comics origin is left-leaning?

As I said, I think canon is open to many types of interpretations because it’s full of blanks, but I don’t think one interpretation is better than another in terms of “media literacy”, because both of ours have been based on multiple hypotheticals.

As an aside, and genuinely, I’m curious whether your “why can’t we get more platonic relationships in fiction” apply to Steve and Peggy, or does it only apply to Steve and Bucky?

Allow me to present the defense case for Peggy Carter.

I don't mean the PC who is in What If BTW. I don't know who she is, but she's not Peggy. I mean the original version from 2011-2014, especially from recently re-watching The First Avenger.

Peggy comes off as being very aloof, detached and rather condascending at times. I argue that's because she had to be. Its very hard for women in the armed forces even today- but back in the 1940s it would have been even more difficult for a woman to hold her own in a male dominated context like the army. She'd have had to worked many times harder to prove herself and to gain the respect which her male counterparts took for granted purely by virtue of their gender and rank. If she showed any kind of emotional vulnerability or it seemed like she didn't know what she was doing, the men would have pounced on it and taken it as "evidence" she was just a weak and feeble woman who didn't belong in "thier" world. Even then... we still see people being insubordinate and talking down to her. When she punched that soldier who was making lewd remarks (can't remember his name) I don't see her being a bully.I see a woman having to deal with the type of casual sexism she probably experienced on a daily basis. When men who were far below her in rank treated her with contempt or just saw her as a sex object. No way that soldier would *ever* have spoken to a senior ranking male like that...She was also dealing with it in a very masculine way. Like another soldier would. In regards to Steve: again I don't think Peggy is ever intentionally mean or cruel to him. Yes, she's sassy and snarky, but I think she had to learn to be like that to hold her own among men. Her interactions with him in the movie are actually quite positive overall: she smiles when he uses his ingenuity and jumps on a dummy grenade, she doesn't talk about how weak he was she views him as a proper soldier when a lot of others don't: including Colonel Phillips. Even after the Serum Philips just sees him as some glorified performer whereas she trusts his judgement: reluctantly at first but willingly afterwards.

For his own part, Steve never talks down to her or views her as inferior. He was probably one of first men who did that only after Howard Stark perhaps.

When she said that Bucky was probably dead: again I don't think she was being uncaring. That line came after just after saying the 107th had been through "more than most" upon seeing an ambulance bringing an injured soldier back from the front. It seems to me she didn't want to see *another* man die in what she had every reason to think was a suicide mission. I mean, its very likely she'd lost friends before, maybe even had family members killed. Besides of which, she ended up helping Steve go on that rescue mission by persauding Howard to drop him near the HYDRA facility on his plane. Then didn't apologize for her actions afterwards even though Colonel Philipps basically threatened to basically demote her.

Finally, that scene where she fires her gun at Steve's shield: again I don't see that as bullying. When he kissed that other woman (*who did it very deliberately in front of Peggy*) it was quite obviously an attempt to make her jealous. (Not on Steve's part, but the other woman). I think in that moment she felt betrayed, because she believed Steve was different to the other men she encountered. Men who just saw her as a conquest or an airhead. She thought he was behaving "just like the other soldiers"- i.e treating women as objects, and she had an emotional reaction. She was actually wrong, but that proves she's flawed. She's human after all!

So yeah, Peggy in The First Avenger is great. She's sassy and snarky but she does seem to genuinely care for Steve as well. I see them as having a lot in common: both people who struggle to be accepted by others but find their place eventually.

Okay, before I start, I want to say that I did like her mannerisms when I first saw CATFA, because I like no-nonsense female characters. However, movies!Peggy was not a fully formed character — just as movies!Bucky wasn’t. One was the token love interest, the other was the token best friend. Hence, there are specific traits embedded in Peggy’s characterisation, or rather her story roles, that are factors of a male author writing a female love interest for a genre about macho superhero men. Which in itself is a product of the misogynistic nature of 2010 MCU.

Firstly, she’s never actually had her rank or her professional role specified. She introduced herself as an “agent supervising all operations of this division”, but all she does is hover around Howard and Philips in their offices. She’s not on the battlefield with Steve (no matter how her own series tried to rewrite it). She’s not in the field acting as a spy/agent. We are told she’s important, because somehow as an agent she’s giving orders to military trainees — a weird role but we can give her that suspension of disbelief — but we are never shown her doing anything important to contribute to war efforts. More than this being Peggy is a useless person, it’s a symptom of the writer not knowing how to handle a female professional in WW2, to the point of calling her an agent but having her both being in the science division and giving military trainee orders but hanging around looking like a secretary. And why exactly could Philips threaten to demote her? Who does she even work for? He could demote her if she’s military but she’s not. So it’s never clear that those soldiers are her subordinates, because they’re not. She’s not in the chain of command! And so why should they respect someone who’s not in their chain of command telling them that she’s going to give orders? She does have to earn it.

You and I remember that kissing scene very differently. Firstly, Lorraine pulled him into a kiss, Steve didn’t kiss her. We need to get the instigator clear here. We can debate how much of a willing participant Steve was, because that scene can be read anywhere from “Steve was unsure at first but then started to enjoy it” to “Steve was in shock the whole time and his hands came up to push her away”. Secondly, there’s no suggestion that either Lorraine or Steve knew Peggy was within watching distance, so I don’t agree with the interpretation that anyone did it to make Peggy jealous. Thirdly, Peggy and Steve were not an item at that stage, so it’s rather presumptuous of her to “feel betrayed”. What did he betray? He said he was waiting for the right partner, he didn’t say the right partner was her. She’s the one who’s taken it upon herself to demand his faithfulness. He never indicated he was happy to enter into that social contract. Fourthly, you’ve acknowledged that her emotional response to another woman kissing Steve was “flawed”, but object to that violent retaliation being called “bullying”. So let’s call it for what it is: unprofessional, unethical, unromantic, and bloody unhinged.

I’m sorry, there is no possible justification for discharging a gun at a man (and specifically in this case a man who is not in a relationship with you) over a kiss in an enclosed space at work where other bystanders could get injured.

But you know what? That scene is another symptom of male writers not knowing how to write a strong female love interest. In 2010 everyone knew it would be bad form if a man hit a woman for being kissed by another man, but violent anger from a woman directed at a man? That was seen as cute and funny and sweet. And that view exists because of the infantilisation of women. Female anger is seen as “not that hurtful” and “not that important”, dismissed as a momentary “emotional outburst” because women are prone to emotional outbursts, it’s a womanly thing to suddenly lose grip on logic over a jilted love. Where in a man that emotional volatility and violence would be a major character flaw that would turn him into a villain, in a woman that’s…cute and harmless.

So you know, Peggy was at the same level of neglect that Bucky-with-two-birthdates was. She was not a character they cared enough about to even give her a proper professional role in the army. She’s there because the movie needed a love interest. She’s there to show how unwanted Steve was before the serum, and how desirable he became after the serum. She appears, every now and then, to remind the audience she exists, but never in a way that directly affects the plot. @amarriageoftrueminds has multiple excellent metas explaining why the story could have proceeded without Peggy being present. She’s a character we are continuously told is important, but the narrative gives her only counselling type dialogues, and while those conversations are placed at narratively important milestones, none of her suggestions make any sway on Steve’s original plans before he started talking to her, making her someone who has minimal impact on Steve’s arc and on the story as a whole.

[steggyfanevents]

#steggyweek22 is July 24 - 30, 2022!

What is Steggy Week?

Steggy Week is a celebration of the Steve Rogers/Peggy Carter ship.

How to join the fun

pick a theme (as many as you like!)

make a fanwork based on that theme

post it on the theme day

tag it with #steggyweek22 and @steggyfanevents

Fanworks can be anything: fic, art, graphics, gifs, videos, playlists, moodboards, headcanons, meta, and more. If it’s pro-Steggy, we’re happy to see it and share it!

Don’t feel like making anything? Try compiling a rec list, or sending a few prompts. Comments and shares are always appreciated too.

Themes and prompts

Day 1 (Sunday): Inspired by A popular write-in theme! Some suggestions you sent us:

Make art/gifs/edits about a fic

Write a fic based on art/gifsets/edits

Use song lyrics or quotes in your creation

Show us an AU based on a book, TV show, or film from outside the MCU

Day 2 (Monday): Favourite era Are you a wartime slow-burn fan? Do you love seeing Steve and Peggy living happily-ever-after-Endgame? Send out a little love note to your favourite Steggy era!

Day 3 (Tuesday): Headcanons and meta What offscreen details have you cooked up? Share them with the rest of us!

Day 4 (Wednesday): Trope or genre Looking for inspiration? Check out this fanfic trope generator or this genre picker wheel.

Day 5 (Thursday): Domestic bliss Cohabitation, marriage, kids, babies - found families also welcome.

Day 6 (Friday): Multiverse / What If…? This year’s most popular write-in theme! Interpret it however you like. The possibilities are literally infinite.

Day 7 (Saturday): Free choice Come as you are, make what you like! Some suggestions from our poll under the cut:

Favourite war moment

Favourite nervous moments

Favourite side character

Favourite fan videos

Ship theme songs

Outfits

Date night

Outsider POV

Why we ship Steggy

Reunion

Love declaration

Signs of love

Parallels

Time travel

Crossover

5 times + 1 time

Regency Era

We can’t wait to see what you all make!

[theawkwardterrier]

The Real Heroes

Steggy Week 2k22, day 4 Prompt: Trope or genre

Summary: Cass has a favorite comic book hero. A companion to my fic Out of the Frying Pan from Steggy Week 2018.

AO3 link here. Thanks to @steggyfanevents for organizing!

Cass watches Dad’s hands very carefully, holding out her own finger and closing one eye, trying to make sure he is matching the top of the poster to the straight line of the ceiling.

“Okay,” she finally says. “Right there.”

He steps back after he’s taped it and comes to rest a hand on her shoulder. “Does it look like you wanted?”

Cass beams. “It looks perfect. Everyone at the meeting is going to be very jealous.”

“That’s—Wait, the meeting?”

“Yes.” She lifts her chin. “The meeting of the Girl Fridays. We’re going to schedule one every other week after school: first when the new issue comes out so we can read it together and give our reactions, and then another two weeks after, when it’ll have had time to sink in so we can have a better discussion. I had the idea first, so I am the president.”

Her father looks down at her. He puts his hands in his pockets and pretends not to smile, but Cass can see. “And this is a…fan club?”

Cass pushes up her glasses. She crosses her arms. “Dad,” she says, very seriously, “this is a lifestyle.”

She saw other kids reading comics long before she tried them out herself. There was always a group that went to the newsstand together for the latest issue of Mr. Mysterious or Captain America, taking them out at recess or sitting with them on the street corners, even hiding them under the desk during class. (She’d had to keep herself from clearing her throat loudly to remind them that they were meant to be listening to the teacher.)

It wasn’t that she thought it was a thing only boys were allowed. She knows that there aren’t rules about what she’s supposed to like or do or be and what she isn’t; if she hadn't already realized that for herself, she’d be reminded by the memory of Mom raising her eyebrow mildly when Cassie had mentioned that her teacher only ever chose boys to be the line leader or to present when they did group work and when Cass asked why, the answer she got was that that there were certain students who were “better suited” to those jobs, and how that had changed after Mom was the one to bring her to her classroom the next day. Comics just never seemed that interesting to her - they all went to the library with Dad whenever they wanted so she always had as many books as she could read, and there wasn’t anything much special about the flimsy, brightly colored pamphlets with their silly storylines and dramatically written-out sound effects.

But then Karen Carlton came over to babysit while Mom and Dad had a date night, and when she was wrestling Annie and Ben into bed - well, wrestling Annie; Ben usually just got himself into his PJs, brushed his teeth, and read for fifteen minutes before turning out his light - Cass might have done a very tiny little bit of snooping. And in her bag, behind two kind of school-looking notebooks, there was Girl Friday issue #14.

She only got a chance to read the first few pages, where it goes from a normal day at school for average teenager Francie Day to Francie having to put on her mystical disguising deerstalker so she could investigate the latest mysterious happenings in Springville as Girl Friday. By the time Karen got down the stairs and exhaustedly told her that her extra half hour was up and it was bedtime for her too, Cass was sitting innocently on the other side of the room with a copy of Five Children and It - carefully turned right side up, of course, because Cass knows how not to get caught - and issue #14 was back just where it had been before.

The next day, she’d started searching through the newsstands and drugstores in the neighborhood until she had every issue. She never missed another one.

“—And that's how Francie realizes that her new neighbor, the friendly Dr. Crayshur, is actually the Creature Catcher, who's been luring all the animals in town into her basement to do experiments on them!"

Mom looks down at Cass and raises a soft eyebrow as they cross the street. It had been a little surprise when she turned up at the door instead of Dad when it was time to come home from playing with Nancy Freeman, but a nice surprise. She'd been able to tell Mom all about how the teacher hadn't done anything when Harry Grady was pulling on Nancy's braids, so Cass had checked out a library book under his name and then made sure not to return it on time; everyone know that Miss Weathers in the library was the nicest person in the school until you didn't treat her books right. Even after debating with Mom about whether that had been the right choice for how to do things - Mom would probably call it a lecture, but Cass is actually an expert on Mom's real lectures - there was still plenty of time to fill her in on the plot of issue #20, which had just been released two days ago.

"Well," Mom says thoughtfully, "I suppose one can't fault her investigative skills. But I do wonder, darling, if you might turn your devotion to someone else - someone real, perhaps?"

The idea almost stops Cass's feet. "Like who?" she demands.

"Oh, there's Mrs. Roosevelt, for example, or the poet Gwendolyn Brooks, or Lucille Ball, or Althea Gibson, or even your aunt Angie - it's taken quite a lot of hard work for her to get to the place that she is today."

While she's thinking, Cass squints at Mom's hand where it's wrapped around hers, her deep pink polish shiny, her grip firm enough to hold on tight and safe without hurting. Then she says slowly, "Well, I guess I can be interested in them too. But it isn't as if they have comic books written about them, you know."

"True enough, although I'm certain your father could draw some for you if you wanted. But then how about Captain America? After all, he was a real hero during the war, and there are certainly enough comic books about him.

This time, Cassie doesn't even need to think. "Mom. Captain America is boring. And everyone knows that none of his best stuff could ever be real."

There was never a day when Mom's office building was really empty, but Saturday was probably the closest it came. They'd gone over and had dinner at their usual table in the kitchen because Mom couldn't get home, Cass mostly talking about what might happen in issue #23 coming out soon, and then Mom wanted Dad's help with some work, so Cass and Ben and Annie got to have some fun, running around in the downstairs gym and coloring on a million sheets of paper while Mom's secretary Maria watched them.

Even when it got late and Annie and Ben started falling asleep, Cass had been sure she could stay awake, reading by herself until it was time to go home. She was sure she was awake - really! - except that she did get a little startled and made a "huh?!" sound when Dad lifted her out of the chair. Her head dropped back against his neck as he carried her in one arm, Annie in the other, out of the office while Mom, holding Ben, said good night to Maria and locked up.

No one talks most of the way back to the car, and Cass would probably have actually fallen asleep, except that suddenly Mom says, so quiet that Cass almost doesn’t hear it through her drowsy, muffled brain, "Do you ever regret that none of the children know who you were and what you did, and that perhaps they never will?"

"What I did which time?" Cass can feel the even rise and fall of Dad's breathing, the rumble of his voice in her own body.

"Oh, either, I suppose. But certainly your slightly more believable - or at least verifiable - exploits to begin with.”

“I guess I hadn’t really thought about it,” Dad says after a minute. “Maybe I will talk about it someday, but I didn’t do any of it to be recognized or admired, even by them. Did you?”

Slowly Mom replies, “No, there was a need and I had the skills, and that’s been the story ever since. But it’s…I appreciate, sometimes, the way that the things I’ve done show them what they can do, that they see my work and even if they don’t understand it now, they get some sense of what it could mean for them, how open the possibilities of their own futures can be. It isn't the reason, precisely, but my life and choices have cleared a path for them, or at least let them see that the path is there. ”

Dad makes an understanding sort of sound. His footsteps pause for a moment, and Cass knows that he’s letting Mom go first through the door. “For my part, I guess I think about how I’ve made the world better for them. And maybe they won't know exactly how or that I was the one doing it, maybe they won't realize for a second that things might have been different otherwise, but it’s enough for me to have that, just to remember that for myself.”

“Even if they never know about any of it - Azzano, or New York, or, of course, your most daring starring role?” Cass can hear the smile in Mom’s voice now, just before she begins to hum that song she sometimes sings when she’s teasing Dad - Cass remembers that the words are something about “strong and brave” and “carry the flag shore to shore,” but mostly she remembers that it makes Dad roll his eyes and smile too.

“Not sure you exactly have a place to talk with that, Betty,” Dad says, and the matching smile is in his voice already. Cass must be sleepier than she thought if her ears aren't working - Betty isn’t Mom’s name, after all.

“I neither participated in that, nor authorized it, as you well know,” Mom says in her boss voice, nudging Dad with her elbow. He laughs, readjusts Cass so she’s held tighter. Cass can hear Mom doing the same for Ben so she can find the keys which means that they must be getting close to the car. She’s glad. The car is new, and nice as these things go, but she just wants it to bring them home soon. She wants to be in her bed now, snuggled underneath her favorite blanket, with the door closed but the hall light on, feeling so cozy and safe…

“I suppose it’s a good thing that it doesn’t bother you,” Mom says from somewhere in the front seat. “Because I don’t know that even the truth would allow you to unseat a certain comic book detective in Cassandra’s mind.”

Dad laughs again. Even his voice seems to make a sort of shrug. “If I was going to be shown up by someone, Girl Friday is at least one I don’t mind losing to.”

In the back, her cheek against the window and Ben warm beside her, Cassie smiles. Finally starting to understand, she thinks. I’ll work on them more tomorrow.

She’ll figure out the exact details of that plan when she wakes up.