Archive of Our Own ^beta

May 1946, New York SSR Bullpen (1.8 Valediction)

Daniel took a deep breath and set down his crutch before turning back to Peggy’s desk. He was going to ask her something, and it almost didn’t matter how she answered. He was ready for someone to see him again--for Peggy to really see him. It’s not uncommon for agents to avoid soulgazes with everyone, despite the potential benefits. A window into another person’s soul could be invaluable insight during an investigation. You got to see what kind of person they really are, what has marked or motivated or molded them into their current selves. It could tell you a lot about a perp, but it’s usually something you don’t really want to know. It could also tell the perp a lot about you, and probably something you didn’t want them to know.

In a gaze, neither person can hide. The last thing a spy wanted was to share their weaknesses with anyone, but it’s particularly undesirable when dealing with an enemy. Besides, with no way to record them, soulgazes weren’t admissible in court. They were impossible to fake or alter, but they could be misinterpreted, and people can always lie. At best, they gave you the advantage of more knowledge, but you still had to be willing and able to use it. On the balance, they were seldom worth using professionally.

Daniel himself had avoided gazing anyone since he returned from the front. He felt so ragged and torn, he knew his injury must have marked him. He’s just not sure how much. If his soul was as crippled as his body, there’s no one he trusted not to use it against him. Or there wasn’t. Giving Peggy a glimpse of himself would also help repair some of the damage done when he interrogated her. He’s confident the very act will show how much he trusted her.

He spoke, and didn’t manage to actually meet her eyes until she replied.

“Right at this moment? It’s nine o’clock in the morning.” He watched her eyes widen a bit when she realized what he was offering, but she didn’t take her opportunity to look away.

It takes him a moment to realize it’s started, because Peggy is still in the bullpen. Then he notices she’s not wearing her purple dress with the long overcoat anymore. She’s wearing men’s fatigues, and they’re oversized, baggy on her frame, but belted and tucked out of her way. They are dirty--not filthy or smeared with terrible things, just good honest dirt--and a bit torn. She’s not moving relative to the vision’s surroundings, but she is marching, striding forward with clear purpose. Peggy is clearly a soldier coming out of a long, bloody fight.

She’s covered in wounds, tears and stains on the fatigues revealing both old and new. Some are healing over, some are stitched closed and only starting to heal. Some have almost faded away. A few bleed only sluggishly, but the one over her heart is still dripping from the middle.

“No,” he heard himself say as reality reasserted itself. He was smiling, maybe out of relief more than humor. “Later. Would you like to join me?”

When she replied that she had plans, he knew it was the truth. Before, he might have suspected she was just trying to protect his feelings. Now he’s seen--Peggy doesn’t do that. Her vague suggestion of ‘some other time’ has more to do with that wound that’s still bleeding. He doesn’t know what she saw in his eyes, but her smile was warm and surprisingly--reassuringly--free of pity.

He turned away, wondering how long he’d be willing to wait for her to heal. A wound like that may never truly close, and he desperately needed to keep moving forward.

July 1947, New York SSR Interrogation Room (2.1 The Lady in the Lake)

“This needs to be an exchange,” Underwood said. “Peggy would have known that.”

Jack gritted his teeth. Threats weren’t getting him anywhere, but he was loathe to offer her anything. She had no apparent weakness to exploit either. Dottie was not a bum to be plied with free booze. She must have some weakness--everyone does--but he’ll be damned if he knows what it is.

None of his usual tactics had worked, but gazing her remained an option, if a dangerous one. She already found him contemptible, and that was the problem. Her disdain stole any leverage he had as an officer of the law. If a soulgaze revealed his shame to her--a big if, not that he could control it--she’d be able to manipulate him that much more effectively. Not that she wasn’t already driving him to the edge, constantly comparing him to Carter.

Peggy was the only person Jack had gazed since his homecoming. Anyone can start a soulgaze with anyone else, but they were easy enough to avoid. The truly paranoid wore special glasses; most people just carefully avoided eye contact. There’s usually a little pressure too, just enough warning to let you look away. He chose to catch her eye on the flight home from Russia, hoping to temper his confession with a glimpse of his soul. Jack believed he could still atone for his actions, but he’s regretted the gaze ever since. In her, he saw that she always did what she believed was right, regardless of the consequences. It made his actions seem even more shameful than they already did. If he gazed Dottie, Jack would have to make sure she never escaped her cuffs to give him more regrets.

In the end, admitting defeat was worse than any potential downfall. Dottie didn’t shy away from meeting his eyes, apparently unconcerned with anything he might see.

It’s bad form to talk about what specifics a gaze reveals, but people often discuss their type of vision. From these conversations, Jack has gathered that most people don’t always know when a soulgaze has started right away. He always knew when he’s experiencing one, because they always start the same. He feels himself seated, in the dark, vaguely anticipating the show about to start. Then a movie starts to flicker across the screen of his vision. The confusing part is trying to identify the movie with different people playing the roles.

He watches as Dottie Underwood confronts a robed John D. Rockefeller over a game of chess. She attempts to manipulate him into confessing some crime as they play in a stark and cold Deco-style mansion.

Jack realizes he is watching a horror movie named The Black Cat, and Dottie is playing Bela Lugosi to Rockefeller’s Boris Karloff. That is spectacularly unhelpful, he thinks as the scene ends. He could have guessed that a Russian operative like Underwood saw herself as a rightful avenger against the evils of capitalism. Hell, some Westerner probably did her wrong for real.

In the movie, Lugosi’s protagonist was terrified of cats and the evil they represented. Jack has no idea how to apply that here, as it’s not like Underwood would be terrified into cooperation by the mere presence of money. Rockefeller is long dead and she was smirking at him now, as if all her assumptions have been verified.

There was probably something there. There’s no reason to break into a bank vault unless you’re working against someone rich and powerful, after all. He just didn’t see how he could use it.

As he asked what she wanted, he was left with the same vague and unsettling feeling the movie always gave him. The word “deportation” had barely left her lips when two men he didn’t know stormed into his interrogation room.

July 1947, Howard Stark’s living room in the Hollywood Hills (2.4 Smoke and Mirrors)

“Well, I’ll sleep better if you stop pushing me away, and let me help you.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Daniel wished he hadn’t said them, or at least not the way he did. The following silence was awkward. Just days ago he was lecturing Peggy about letting her feelings control her, because Wilkes’ apparent death had been affecting her work. He didn’t want or need his feelings to affect their ability to work as a team.

“I’m sorry, Daniel.” Her apology caught him off guard, just as he’s about to change the subject back to the man she kidnapped. Peggy never apologized for doing what she thought was right, so maybe she had heard him. “All I do is muck things up for the people in my life. They get hurt, killed--Jason is immaterial, for heaven’s sake! After what I’ve seen of you, that’s the last thing I want for you.”

He knew she’s referring to when they gazed each other last year, and couldn’t hold back his scoff. “Because I’m messed up enough already--but that’s my problem to deal with. Not yours.”

“No!” Her tone was fierce, adamant. “That’s not what I gazed. Nothing of the sort. It told me only that you were loyal, brave, and that you have the will to make a difference.”

“What exactly did you see?” He couldn’t help but ask. It’s a little rude if someone hadn’t volunteered it, but then she brought it up.

“My gazes are stories: passages of books, sometimes poetry. I usually hear them as if my father were reading me a lesson or a bedtime story. This time it was a French lesson, and he was reading Yvain, the Knight of the Lion. Do you know the story?”

Peggy could be a very literal person, so maybe a literary soulgaze was fitting. They were soulgazes because they required looking at each other--really looking--not because the reveal was always visual. “A tale of knightly chivalry,” Daniel answered. His sisters had a phase where they read every Arthurian legend they could find. He remembered that one, because as a boy he'd very badly wanted a brave lion to follow him around. Yvain had earned his fighting a dragon, but those were even harder to find than lions. “He broke a promise, didn’t he? Not exactly loyal or complimentary.” Yvain had also abandoned his lady love. Days before they'd gazed each other, Daniel was arresting and interrogating Peggy.

“No, Daniel.” Peggy said quietly. “You were the lion.”

He wanted to ask her what broken promise sent her off on her knightly quest. Then Jarvis said something absurd in his drugged sleep again, and Daniel took the opportunity to turn back to the problem at hand.

“So, what have you planned for Rufus Hunt?”

July 1947, LA SSR Laboratory (2.5 The Atomic Job)

“But you picked me! And I picked you, because I thought I’d be doing more than tinkering around this lab while other agents went on missions…” Samberly whined. They didn’t have time to listen to him complain. Daniel needed to know if they can trust him, right then.

“Fine!” he snapped. Samberly stared at him in surprise, giving Daniel the opening to press the gaze.

They are still standing in the lab, but everything is tucked neatly away, empty except for them. Then agents start to pour in the door, moving much more quickly than in real life. They open things, take stuff without asking. Messes get made. Equipment gets broken, and things are back in the wrong places. Daniel sees Samberly exhort them to be careful, begging them to put things back, only to be ignored. Eventually the agents depart and the lab is in shambles and Samberly stands alone. He starts putting it all back to rights, because he can’t help it. It takes a long time to tuck everything back into it’s proper place, to fix what he can, to remake what he can’t. Finally, the lab looks exactly like it did at the start.

Then the agents come back in and start making a new mess.

Daniel knew then that Samberly would never betray them. It’s not orderly. He’s left with a perfect understanding of Samberly's frustration at the ongoing destruction as the soulgaze ends.

“You’re in,” Daniel continued, not giving the man a moment to comment on anything he may have seen. “What else have you got?” Samberly blinked, disoriented, and then started bustling around the lab.

“How can you be sure he’s not in the Council’s pocket as well?” Peggy asked. Soulgazes can feel very long--and Aloysius’ felt way longer than most--but from the outside they only take a second. Apparently she didn’t even notice.

As the man’s commanding officer, Daniel couldn’t--wouldn’t--reveal what he saw anyway. He deflected. “I’m sure,” he said. “Everybody hates Samberly.”

July 1947, Somewhere in the blasted California desert (2.9 A Little Song and Dance)

“You can go on knowing nothing of loss. Lucky you.” Miss Carter’s words made Edwin feel even worse than he already did for what he said. Then she punctuated it with a glare, her intention plain. He’s already distraught he’s pushed her so far, he didn’t even try to look away when the soulgaze comes up.

Aural soulgazes were rare and one of the many things he and Miss Carter share in common. Hers, at least, came with words. Edwin heard nothing but a musical theme for each person he gazed. It was practically useless even as these things went, most of the time leaving him with nothing more than a vague emotional impression.

At least he recognized Miss Carter’s. If they weren’t frozen in the gaze he might have laughed in spite of himself. Ride of the Valkyries is almost too perfect for her, the bombastic brass filling his ears with all the drama opera can muster, which is no small amount. After a moment, he realizes that there are no strings. He can pick out the trumpets and the horns, and the wind section is doing its best to fill in between.

Wagner’s theme just doesn’t soar the same without the strings of violin and cello to pull it aloft.

Edwin felt even worse now, which he hardly knew was possible. Everyone needed support, even her. He’d told Miss Carter that all along, in word and hopefully in deed. Then Ana was hurt, and he quite forgot himself.

It’s even true of him. There’s no apology he can offer for neglecting his duty to her to pursue his revenge, other than to ask for what he really needed.

Whatever Miss Carter got from him, she seemed too furious at the moment to think about what it might mean. “I would move, instead of sulking, Mr. Jarvis.” She turned away from him. “The moment we escape this desert, we can escape each other forever.”

So he told her, “She can’t have children.”

Miss Carter bore his confession more gracefully than he deserved, but then she would. If there’s one thing a valkyrie knows, it’s sorrow.

July 1947, LA SSR, Chief Sousa’s Office (2.8 The Edge of Mystery)

“If I were helping them, I’d be on my way there. But I’m with you,” Jack said. He was almost frantic, but it still took Daniel off guard when Jack met his eyes. As far as he knew, Jack avoided soulgazes even more than most.

Daniel’s even more surprised after the soulgaze starts. In the gaze, Daniel sees Jack in a bathroom. He is looking in a mirror, brushing his teeth and adjusting his tie like he’s getting ready for work, or maybe a date. Jack looks very sharp indeed, shaved and tidy. He starts to comb and tonic his hair, working it smooth.

Then the perspective shifts and Daniel knows he’s looking through Jack’s own eyes. The Thompson in the mirror isn’t the same perfectly groomed specimen visible on the outside. In the mirror, Jack sees himself as thinner, paler, and with deep undereye circles. A sound from outside the room makes his reflection stop and cringe, out of sync with his physical self still combing his hair. Jack is a man who believes he wears a mask. He sees himself as haunted and unable to live up to the illusion. Jack doesn’t notice when his weaker reflection juts his chin out and keeps going anyway, but Daniel does.

That doesn’t forgive all of his behavior, Daniel thought. Not by a long shot. It does mean they can trust him to do the right thing.

Meanwhile, on Jack’s side…

“If I were helping them, I’d be on my way there. But I’m with you,” Jack said. They weren’t listening to him. Vernon was getting away. Vernon erased his memory, and he was getting away, and it’s partially Jack’s fault. Jack already gazed Peggy before, so he couldn’t look there for help. Instead he met Sousa’s eyes, hoping to show that he meant business when it came to getting Vernon. He hoped to God that Sousa would see enough to sway Peggy in turn.

The movie starts, and it’s worse than Jack even imagined. It’s not even a real movie. It’s an old newsreel from during the war. Sousa is playing the part of Captain America himself, leading troops into battle with the flag waving behind him. Jack knows the man is an upright citizen and everything, but that’s taking it a little far.

This better be worth it.