(you are a wondrous being, dear nonny)

—

It was the accent that first caught Peggy’s attention. Adrift in the halls of the newly-built, not-yet-named agency— no, wait, that’s not right. Not adrift.

Even stuck amidst all these boys, with their posturing, and flirting, and dismissive stares, Agent Carter had both feet firmly on the ground. She clacked down the halls, chin high.

But the accent caught her attention— a London lilt, not too posh, rounded a bit by some time in the country. And, more than that: a woman’s voice.

Peggy was not adrift in this old boy’s club full of young soldiers, not lost, not intimidated— but she was lonely.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” she called and the woman turned around. She had a single run in her nylons and a smirk of perfect lipstick. Her badge read “Pevensie.”

“I have a spare pair if you want to change,” said Peggy.

“Does this place even have bathrooms for women?” A curved eyebrow rose as Pevensie asked. Peggy liked her immediately.

“Not in this wing,” said Peggy. “Come on, we’ll kick the boys out of theirs.”
 
—

The woman was Agent Pevensie, but “call me Susan.” She worked steadily and hard. They had tea in each other’s apartments, good, proper, correctly brewed tea, and talked about leadership and comfortable heels and combat with a lower center of gravity.

Susan’s clearance was so high that Peggy had to wonder what exactly she had done in the war. She couldn’t’ve been much out of her teens then, if that. Susan wasn’t much out of her teens now, honestly, but Peggy kept forgetting. They’d shared too many exasperated “these young bucks” glances at each other over conference tables at this point.

Susan flirted with the Howling Commandos and she and Peggy tormented Howard together. The poor inventor needed it, honestly. Peggy found herself telling Susan about the war, including more and more of the more absurd bits as she went on and Su continued not to bat an eyelash.

“What were you up to in the war?” asked Peggy. “That this doesn’t startle you. Mad experiments gone wrong. Most people gawk a little.”

Su laughed. “Oh, I lost my ability to startle long before the war.”

Peggy shook her head and topped off each of their tea cups.

“There was this blue energy cube,” Peggy went on. “I’m not sure what it quite did, but Howard mutters now and then about interdimensional travel, wormholes, other universes…”

Her guest had gone very precisely still. Peggy wondered again what sort of combat experience this woman had. “Do you have access to it?” Susan said. Her mouth shaped the words oddly, as though she was considering taking them back even as she said them.

“It went down with St— Captain Rogers.”

Peggy could see Susan abruptly switch gears from whatever that hungry light had been in her eyes to comforting a friend in need. In a snap Susan went from looking like her own heart was breaking to reaching out to comfort Peggy’s.

It looked so instinctive that Peggy wondered if Susan was used to being the one who did the comforting, and if she was, what was she doing here in this empty apartment? It looked so instinctive, that warmth, that hand reaching out to comfort, that Peggy wondered if Su had a little sister somewhere.