Title: The Guard Dog of All Your Fever Dreams
Author: clarahow // blankspaceslayerbabe // charleybradburies (will be posted after challenge)
Fandom: Agent Carter
Characters: Jack Thompson, Peggy Carter, Daniel Sousa (POV), & Agent Ramirez; momentary references to Steve Rogers, Howard Stark, & Edwin Jarvis
Pairing: Daniel/Peggy
Length: ~1100w
Rating: T+
Summary: Jack may be observant, but Daniel still knows something that his colleagues - thankfully - don't.
Notes: Also written for gameofcards Challenge #54: Secrets.
Title from "Immortals" by Fall Out Boy.


“What does he do? Is he still military?” Thompson is asking as Daniel enters the office; he’s leaning - propping himself up by a single leg, the opposite foot pressed to the side of the desk and keeping him from falling - on the edge of Peggy’s desk, looking down at her curiously. Indeed, the rest of the room seems to be gravitating in that direction, and Peggy’s expression - one of annoyance that’s nearing desperation - evinces her thanks as some of the attention turns to Daniel and his crutch instead.

As though they didn’t know he had to use it, of course, but he knew better than to think he ever escaped their pitying eyes; although, even Thompson’s current, expectant look is more welcome than that.

(And then there was Peggy, who had at some point begun to look at his as so much more than anything anyone else did. Peggy, who he’d really rather not have to look at right now, not with everyone looking at them, certainly not before he knows what she’s said of Friday’s investigation.) He knows, generally, what she hasn't said, and he knows that his jaw is set harshly even just by the time he’s sitting down, but since the decision he has is between catching Peggy’s smile with his own - recalling what their smiles felt like when the lips forming them met, and more - and scowling at their co-workers, he can’t really help it.

They probably should have talked about this.

They probably should have talked more about the jacket.

To be fair, they didn’t talk much at any point of the night subsequent to when he’d given it to her.

“Carter has a boyfriend,” Thompson swivels towards Daniel to declare.

“I most certainly did not say that,” Peggy grumbles in a voice as sing-song as he’s ever heard, rolling her eyes.

“Well, you certainly didn’t say you didn’t,” interjects Agent Ramirez.

“Because she can’t,” Thompson answers him matter-of-factly, clearly having little intention of letting Peggy speak for herself, then turns back to Daniel. “Because she does.”

Daniel considers and then decides against rolling his own eyes, but puts on something of a smirk, as though he's laughing at the theory.

“And you would know that how exactly?”

Thompson’s more offended than he expects, but he continues regardless.

“I mean, it’s not like she let you take her out.”

“The jacket, obviously.”

Daniel raises his eyebrows.

Clever bastard. More clever than I’d like to give him credit for.

“Definitely military issue,” Thompson adds, almost as though he wouldn’t have expected Daniel to know.

“Carter happens to have been a soldier. Ever consider it might be hers?”

She looks thankful, but she and Daniel both know it doesn’t answer the question.

“Besides, you’ve spent enough energy making yourself aware of her romantic history that you should know that she has in the past dated soldiers.”

Daniel leans back in his seat, trying to seem more confident in his reply than he feels. Thompson scoffs.

“Well, if it were hers or Rogers’, she’d have been wearing it before, wouldn’t she? This one is new, at least to her.”

“It concerns me that you’ve noticed,” Daniel says as flatly as he can.

“I’m an investigator. It’s my job.”

“Not your job to investigate me anymore,” Peggy sneers.

“Should it be?”

“Even if it were, you wouldn’t know. I happen to be a spy, if you weren’t aware. I can be or be with whomever I please regardless of your knowledge or lack thereof.”

“Is it Stark?”

Peggy’s countenance stiffens even further, and she’s definitely considering punching him. (Somewhat) unfortunately, she doesn’t.

“Jarvis?”

“You really do think lowly of me, Jack.”

“I’m gonna tell ‘im you said that.”

“Tell a good friend of mine that I’d rather not sleep with married men, him included? I doubt he’ll find offense in the manner you seem to expect he might.”

Daniel laughs at that, and Thompson glares over at him.

“It’s amusing how badly you want to know,” Daniel explains, and Peggy juts in after him again.

“He just thinks there’s a chance he’ll be rid of me if I suddenly have yet another man in my life. In which there are already too many men, mind you.”

“You say that like we’re the bad guys, Carter,” Ramirez objects, and it pains Daniel that he looks legitimately confused - as does Thompson. Peggy sighs, and Daniel is sure to brace himself.

“Perhaps you are not, but I do not have ample evidence to the conclusion that you are markedly good men. Half this office is married, and you all find yourselves offended that I’m not - what? on my knees? out the door? I can name the men with whom I trust my life on two hands. Those in America, one hand. In this agency? On the best of days, two. I, and other Allied women, played a strong hand in our victory, and I don’t even get the respect of the title that I hold - tell me now that it’s so obvious that you all are good men.”

He was more than right to brace himself - no one else has, and the silence is harsh, albeit full of shame. Peggy’s breath is heavier than before, and when she speaks again, her voice is much softer.

“And if it matters so much to you, you should know that it takes a good deal more than simply being a good man to be entitled to my affections.”

She grabs one of the files she’s been thumbing at from her desk and holds it up.

“Now, am I the only agent who came in today with the intent to do work? Or would you all rather gossip?”

Daniel supplies her the affirmation that he, too, plans to work, and everyone seems to have enough sense to redirect their attention far away from their colleague, soon allowing the possibility of their actually meeting eyes. He’s glad that they’d known well enough to wait; as much as he relishes the smile - and, Heaven help him, the blush - that comes to her effortlessly following her small ‘thank you,’ it would have made the presence of the jacket harder to explain.

Or rather, to avoid explaining.

Someday, hopefully, they’d have to. But today was just the first day back to work after an undercover mission that had gone a bit awry but also terribly, terribly right, and the exhilarating first, real, date that had followed.

For now, Daniel gets that - and the identity of Peggy’s mystery boyfriend - all to himself.

And God, does she look spectacular in his jacket.