Ok. so I’ve been stuck on this for 2 years now. I am 99.99% sure the original plan for Peggy’s husband was to make him Jack. He had a redemption arc and everything, he looked her type too (Blonde hair blue eyes, just like Fred & Cap)
Anyways so, I was rewatching Agent Carter Season 2 for the gazillionth time and considering the overanalysis i have done of this show this might be a stretch…
Sorry can’t build a coherent thought cuz… well im too excited while typing this.
Ok, so we know how Peggy called Manfredi an idiot for causing the death of like 6 guys cuz Whitney dumped him right? And then Daniel freaking sympathized with Manfredi calling him “a man in love”?
Yea well, I think they were foreshadowing.
Here’s my reasoning (stay with me here):
Peggy: “Mr Manfredi, we know you have a relationship with Whitney Frost”
Manfredi: “Yea everyone in town knows that. Everybody also knows that she dumped me for a crooked politician”
…
Ok. So here’s where i draw my comparisons. Literally everyone feels the tension between Daniel and Peggy. Everyone knows they want to be together. So obvious. Just like Manfredi and Whitney’s relationship.
But Whitney dumped Manfredi for her “crooked politician”.
We know Daniel ends up single despite the make out session they had in his office at the end of season 2.
Also, we all know Jack is… well he can be a bit crooked.
So my theory basically is that in the original planning, Peggy dumps Daniel for Jack for god knows what reason and that’s that.
Thank you for sitting through my brain finally unraveling, I hope this made some sense 😂
Peggy shifted impatiently. They could at least have the decency to question and threaten her in a timely manner.
The room Peggy was being held in was not entirely soundproof. Outside, she could hear Jack Thompson and Vernon Masters arguing. She couldn’t quite pick out any words, but could safely assume that she was the topic.
She shifted in her seat, impatient. Her wrists were cuffed behind her and her ankles tied to the legs of the metal chair she sat on. It had been hours.
They could at least have the decency to question and threaten her in a timely manner.
At last, the door opened and Jack stepped inside, closely followed by Vernon. Jack pulled up a chair to sit across from Peggy, while Vernon stood at the far wall, behind him.
She looked at Jack expectantly. He seemed more focused on the space above her head.
“Well, this feels familiar,” she said, finally.
“You’re going to tell us what we want to know.” Jack’s voice sounded empty.
“Am I now?”
He sighed. “Peggy—” he started.
“No. Only my friends call me that.”
“Marge—”
“Only my friend Jack called me that.”
“Carter.” His jaw worked. “We don’t have time for this.”
“No, we don’t. Yet I’ve been sitting here for hours while you and Vernon had a length-measuring contest outside the door.” Peggy looked over at Vernon. “Couldn’t agree on who would talk to me first?” She turned back to Jack, voice softening slightly. “I know that you don’t believe me. That is a pattern for us, I suppose. But if you don’t either let me go, or go deal with Whitney Frost yourselves, many people could be killed and injured.”
Vernon cleared his throat. Jack gripped the arms of his chair tightly for a moment before leaning forward, elbows on his knees.
“Carter,” he said. “I’m going to get the information out of you whether you like it or not.”
Carrot. Stick. Peggy knew his game. His role in interrogations.
“You’re going to tell us what you and Sousa have been planning and where he, Stark, and all your little friends are.”
“If you want to hit me…” She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t have to. She knew he was also thinking about the last time they had been in this position. And how he had been wrong that time as well.
Again, Vernon cleared his throat. Peggy was no fool. He was signaling Jack to do something—likely, to intensify their interrogation.
Despite all of that, the first punch took her by surprise. Her head snapped to the side and she gasped at the pain in her jaw. But she looked right back at Jack, locking eyes for a second before he hit her again.
And again, this time in the nose. Peggy felt blood drip down over her lips and chin.
Jack looked down, away from her.
“Again, Jack, damn it.” Vernon’s voice was sharp and cut through Jack’s hesitation.
When he looked up at her again, his eyes were empty, like he had locked a part of him away.
So, Peggy locked down as well. She had training, she had been tortured before. All she had to do was trust that Jack would come back to himself, which she knew he would. Deep down, he was a good man who cared about her, just as she did him.
She forced herself out of her body, watching the scene like a ghost. She watched Jack’s eyes, the tension in his jaw, until she saw the cracks.
Then she was herself again, aching and bleeding and bruised. She did not have to inject any false emotion into her voice when she gasped, “Jack!”
He stopped immediately. “Ready to talk?” he sounded a little desperate.
She looked up at him, hair falling into her eyes. She knew that if she spoke, Vernon would shut it down. So, she tried to put everything into her eyes.
Believe me! Trust me! You know me!
“Again!” Vernon barked.
Jack hesitated.
“If you can’t put your personal feelings aside, I’ll do—”
Jack had been pulling his punches, Peggy realized, when he turned and knocked Vernon to the ground with one hit.
This is a bit of a long shot, but does anyone remember a fic published some time after AOS S7, where after Daniel supposedly 'dies', Jack and Peggy...how do I put it, hook up out of grief?
like there was some sort of 'clearly we are both thinking of the same man but we need to deal with this in arguably the most unhealthy way' kind of dynamic going on
my favorite niche ship trope is when the somewhat-sexist guy falls for the smart, driven, badass career woman, but only does so after learning to see her as a true equal which leads him to change because of her influence and then when they eventually get together they’re perfectly matched in the way she never really was with the “nice guy” she was originally with
One thing I also keep track of as I reblog, subconsciously, is which ships were a thing and which came first.
There were a few surprises, of course. I was a little surprised by how early on Cartinelli became a thing. By going through the AO3 tag, I was also surprised by how early on the viewers started shipping Peggysous.
Cartson is also a surprise early-doors ship. The metas and theories for the ship started very early on, and to an extent...it’s a testament to the viewers and CMM’s acting choices? Because I rememebr reading that he said at some point, that he plays Jack as someone who is secretly infatuated with Peggy. And to therefore have Cartson being such an early ship—something that seems entirely unintended by the showrunners, at that—is a testament to both the acting choices, and how well the viewers were able to pick up on those cues.
