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Oh Martinelli, for once in your life, why didn’t you just keep your mouth shut? Angie couldn’t keep the grimace off her face as she flexed her bloodied hands and sore jaw.
Just a nice evening out on the town, Gloria said, no worries just a girls night. The blue eyed woman scoffed as she recalled her friend’s earlier pleads to get her to join their usual group of hellions as they bar hopped across the New York bar scene.
Of course though, Angie knew her luck was never good enough to keep her outta trouble, so when Marlene, a notoriously handsy patron of The Griffith bar, wouldn’t stop hitting on her, she said a few choice words that got her a lovely smack in the face.
Angie knew that she’d snapped, so sue her. The waitress had an awful day at work, with more people than usual thinking that slapping her on the ass as she walked by was appropriate or that they pennies were appropriate tips.
The slaps that Angie received and then delivered would have been the end of things had Dottie not have walked in just as Marlene hauled off and made Angie see stars (in the bad kinda way). While Iowa appeared to be just a blonde, blue eyed ingenue from the corn states, the girl could pack a mean punch.
Angie would know, she’d been the only one dumb enough to agree to be partnered up with Dot when they’d first met at their gym’s free self defense class.
To make a long story short, Dottie kicked her ass and she never let her live it down.
The aspiring actress would admit freely that this was not the first bar fight she’d gotten into, but she honestly hoped that it was the last. She didn’t know how it was possible, but her entire body hurt. From the tip of her toes to the top of her head that currently had a gash on it from the edge of the table one of Marlene’s cronies had pushed her into.
The only saving grace to this entire experience was the woman sitting in the waiting room with her.
Gorgeous, mussed up brown hair that fell in waves across her shoulders. Brown eyes that scanned the room quickly as if just waiting for something to jump out at her. But it was the way she held herself intrigued Angie.
Like a statue (because damn that woman’s jaw line looked like it was sculpted) or a soldier, just watching and waiting to be called upon.
Reel in the gay, Ang, reel it in.
Chin up, eyes impassive, back ramrod straight in position that looked so uncomfortable to Angie that she purposefully slouched a little more to compensate for the other woman’s posture. The brunette was out of place in dingy emergency room with the crappy lighting in a relatively rough part of New York.
Casual business attire, complete with nice slacks that Angie bet would look even better on her bedroom floor, a loose white button up that would have been pristine if it wasn’t for the drops of blood that littered the front, and a pair of heels that the waitress honestly believed could probably kill somebody.
For a few minutes Angie kept up her people watching, dutifully not staring too long lest she be caught, but as her eyes wandered to the other woman’s face, sea blue eyes met caramel brown.
Oh shit.
Alright Martinelli, you can do this. Just smile and act like you haven’t been checking her out for the last half hour. If she asks say that it’s the head wound! It’s making you see double and focusing on her stops the spinning - oh god she’s waving at me!
The younger woman gulped then plastered on her signature smile and returned the wave. She could deal with the casual, somewhat awkward silence, what she could not deal with was:
“Darling, I do hope you know that the cut on your head is still bleeding quite profusely.”
So, Angie wide eyed, almost went catatonic at the brunette’s voice, thinking as she processed the other woman’s words. This is how I die. From a pretty English lady calling me darling.
She snapped back to reality as she met the brunette’s concerned gaze while using the edge of Carol’s jacket sleeve (a jacket which her friend easily parted with to cover Angie’s bare shoulders like a champ fighter after a match), to wipe the blood off the cut, only slightly wincing at the pain.
The other woman’s bruised and split lip, which seemed to be the only imperfection on her body, turned downwards as she followed Angie’s movements with a hawk like eye.
“Thanks English. Tables really hurt when you fall into ‘em or in my case get push into ‘em.”
Angie watched as the slight frown on the other woman’s face deepened as she processed the younger woman’s words.
“You were... pushed into a table?”
Nervous laughter bubbled up inside the Brooklyn native as she managed a relatively peppy and oddly proud,“Yes i was!”
As Angie continued to dab at the cut, she completely missed the dark look that overcame the other woman’s face. The brunette stood up with all the grace that she could muster and walked with a very slight limp over to the beaten up blue eyed girl.
She took the seat across from Angie, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees to get a better look at Angie’s face, reaching out hesitantly to grasp the blonde’s hand lightly in her own.
“Miss, you see I’m a detective of sorts and if you need any help at all please-”
“Oh geez English no!” Angie shook her head rapidly trying to dissipate the Englishwoman’s previous thoughts and thus effectively began to ramble. “It was just a bar fight. Some bottle blonde smacked me when I turned her down and asked her to stop being so handsy. Then her friends stepped in and then my friends stepped in and one thing led to another and I may have accidentally started a bar fight.”
Nodding along, brown eyes wide as they tried to comprehend how a person could fit so many words into one breath, the other woman eventually let out a small sigh of relief.
“Oh well, I’m terribly sorry for intruding then, but this blonde. Has she bothered you before? If you have a name then I could speak with her about it?” The older woman rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly as her face blushed a wonderful shade of pink.
“That’s awful nice of you honey, but I can fight my own battles. Marlene won’t be bothering me no more if she doesn’t want to get her pretty face messed up.” Peggy looked impressed as Angie leaned back, a smirk gracing her face. So she was a little smug, happens to everyone right?
They both sat there in comfortable silence, hands still clasped.
“Oh god, where are my manners? I’m Angie by the way, Angie Martinelli.” The blue-eyed woman playfully shook the hand she already held causing the other woman to chuckle.
“Pleasure to meet you Angie. My name is Peggy Carter and I truly am sorry that your night has ended you in the emergency room.”
“Oh it’s not your fault English, if anything you being here has made it ten times better, but,” Angie eyed Peggy’s slip lip, bruised jaw and the now visible tear in her pant leg that was coated in blood. “what the hell happened to you?”
“Um, it was also an accident of sorts.” Peggy wouldn’t meet Angie’s eyes as she looked down at their intertwined hands, fingertips lightly playing with the rings on Angie’s fingers. Mindful of the scraps and cuts that littered the honey blonde’s knuckles she trailed carefully. The sweetness of the stranger’s gesture made Angie’s heart rate sky rocket.
“An accident? You said you were a “detective of sort” right?” Angie’s playful air quotes made Peggy laugh. “So were ya chasing a bad guy and he accidentally got the drop on ya?”
Peggy scoffed in indignation, haughtily raising her chin and scowling at the woman across from her. “No one ‘gets the drop’ on me. It was not really work related, well, I guess it was considering my coworkers were involved.”
Angie motioned for her to continue and Peggy watched as the blue eyes light up with the mystery of her story.
“Well, I sort of - kind of… hit my co-worker with a stapler multiple times because it was dark and I thought he was the man I had been trailing for the last week. Which in turn started a brawl in the bar we were in.”
The more Peggy thought about the event the less she felt sorry for what had transpired. “Not that I’ve never thought about giving Thompson the old one-two, but now I must answer to my employer about why his senior Detective now needs stitches for his well...staples.”
“How’d you end up here?"
“Oh well, my partner Mr. Jarvis, the only one in the business I seem to be able to deal with on a regular basis, insisted that I visit the emergency room.” Peggy eyed Angie once again before reaching over to the table beside their chairs, plucking a tissue from the box, and lightly dabbing at the blood trickling down the waitress’s face. “What about you? Did your friends leave you here?”
The protective note in Peggy’s tone made Angie swell with emotion. Even she knew that the smile on her face was dopey looking. “Nah, I sent them all packin’. Easier that way, since all they were doing was fussing over me. I live just up the street so it's no big deal.”
Angie stopped talking for a moment and scrunched up her nose . “Wait, so are you tellin’ me that we’re both here because we started bar fights?”
For a moment Peggy looked as if she was about to argue before she barked out a laugh that sent the pair spiraling into hysterics.
By the time the pair had almost completely recovered, a nurse was out in the waiting room calling Angie’s name. “Well that’s me. It was really nice talking to ya English. M-maybe we should, um, do it again. Not in an ER though!”
Smooth Ang, real smooth.
Peggy looked up at her through long eyelashes and bit her smiling lip while nodding along. She pulled out a small cream colored business card and handed it over to Angie as the pair stood. She leaned close enough that Angie could feel the hot breaths that Peggy released against her jaw.
"Lovely speaking with you darling. Call me and we can set up a non-Emergency room meeting, perhaps something a tad bit more, personal." Angie felt her knees go weak as Peggy purred the last word in her ear before placing a quick kiss to her cheek and confidently sauntering out of the room.
***
After she was finally done filling out forms, getting her hands wrapped and head examined, Angie was exhausted. Passing the front desk, she was just about to wish the woman seated there a good night when she handed Angie a folded up note.
"That lovely British woman left this here for you. Take care dear, have a good rest of the night." Angie quickly thanked her and walked out of the building. Immediately she tore open the note which read:
Angie,
Please let me know how you are doing after your check-up and if you ever need any one to handle that Marlene woman, just call.
Yours truly,
Peggy
Angie stopped to lean against the wall outside the clinic as she admired Peggy's message. Damn, that woman was smoother than a hot knife going through butter.
Well, two can play at that game. Angie pulled out her phone as she started down the street to her apartment. Two rings and a rather formal greeting later:
"Hey there English, this is a woman with a minor head injury who is wandering the streets of New York City and was just wondering if you'd like to go get coffee. When? Oh, how about right now?"