Honeymoon
Peggy knew she’d been drugged almost right away. What they’d given her and how she didn’t know, but she felt the fog envelop her like a cloud. Things seemed distant, as if they weren’t happening to her, but rather like she was watching herself in a movie. There’d been a gynecological exam to make sure she could bear children, and to make sure she didn’t have anything like a cap in place to prevent pregnancy. She was then stripped and washed with rose water. Her hair was styled with a hot iron, so it curled about her face. They’d put make-up on her. There was lingerie.
If her limbs hadn’t been reduced to Jello, she would have fought back. As it was, all she could do was passively tolerate the preparations for her “wedding night.” She needed to save her strength and what little focus she had left for Rogers.
At some point, a paper was shoved in Peggy’s face. It was a marriage certificate with her name, rank and serial number written on it. It was all the information they had on her. Rogers’ name was on it too. She was told it was legally binding. Before she could spit back that it certainly was not, she felt something cold being locked around her ankle. It looked like a silver bracelet with two rubies adorning it. The orderly told her it was a tracking device. He said that if she didn’t want to get one hell of a shock, she either had to keep within the range of the camp or within 500 feet of her husband.
And with that, Peggy was escorted to Rogers’ quarters.
“You can go,” he told the orderly, rising from the small sofa he’d been seated on as they entered. Peggy may have been a bit spacy, but she noticed he was shirtless and shoeless. He was impressive as hell and Peggy hated every traitorous muscle on his body that he didn’t deserve. She wanted, and planned to, beat his perfection to a pulp.
“But, sir, I’m supposed to tie her to….”
“You can go,” Rogers repeated more firmly. The man obeyed without another word.
As soon as the door shut behind him, Peggy picked up the nearest dangerous object she could find—a stapler that had been sitting on the desk by the door—and tried to smash Rogers in the head with it. She was so loose-limbed from whatever they’d drugged her with though, her movements with slow and stilted.
Rogers stepped back from her with ease and made no effort to try to restrain her. His face was blurry. In fact, everything in Peggy’s field of vision was fuzzy. Whatever they’d given her had dulled her senses. She thought Rogers’ mouth was moving, but she heard no sound come out.
Peggy tried again. This time grabbing a vase, she smashed it over his shoulder. It shattered, not because of the force she’d used, but because Rogers was built like a God damn brick house.
Rogers remained where he was after the blow. He made some kind of gesture with his arm that Peggy could barely see, let alone understand. She knew she was fading fast. Thinking this might be her last shot, Peggy grabbed a lamp, but when she stepped forward to hit him with it, she lost her balance and fell into Rogers.
The room was spinning and her head was reeling. She knew she should be fighting—clawing, screaming, raging. But instead, she found herself as pliant as a doll, as she felt Rogers lift her into his arms.
###
Peggy woke to the sound of a door. Or maybe it was the weight and warmth that was suddenly crushing her. She realized immediately that she was in a bed. It was dark. The sheets were drawn up around her. And Rogers was on tops of her, rocking against her body.
Peggy screamed and started thrashing about.
“Sorry, sir,” she heard a voice say from somewhere in the room.
“Out!” Roger bellowed over Peggy’s head. “Out.”
As soon as Peggy heard the door shut and retreating footsteps, Rogers stilled. It was then that Peggy realized that her knees were against each other, and to the side of his body.
He moved off her, but stayed somewhat close. “Being watched,” he whispered to her.
Peggy nodded, but truly didn’t comprehend what that could mean. Mainly, she was just glad that he hadn’t been raping her. Wanting to keep it that way, she’d tried to sit up and escape the bed.
“Stay,” he said in his husky, low voice, as he sat up and got out of the bed himself. His form retreated into the shadows of the darkened room. Whatever they’d given her was strong enough to have Peggy asleep again within seconds, despite her confusion, fear, and great relief that he’d not violated her.
###
Waking the next morning, Peggy felt like she’d had the worst bender of her life the night before. Rogers was barely a consideration as she had to put her head between her legs to keep the room from spinning. She felt more than saw him moving behind her, getting dressed she could only presume.
“Someone will come to take you to class.”
“Class?” Peggy questioned, looking up to find Rogers standing in front of her. Peggy had never seen a picture of him pre-serum for a comparison, but he was an imposing figure to be sure. Everything about him spoke of strength and youth. Between his chiseled jaw and his clear blue eyes with their long and lush lashes, he truly was physical perfection. Peggy hated that Erskine’s legacy had been wasted on him.
“To teach you how to behave as a proper wife, and to inform you of all the wonders that Hydra will bring into your life now that you are a citizen.”
If Peggy hadn’t felt like throwing up before, that had done it. She leaning forward and puked all over Rogers’ feet. It made her feel better two-fold.
###
Peggy wasn’t taken to the class with the women she’d been lined up with the night before. As Rogers’ bride, she was considered special in some way. So, she was shown into to a classroom full of what she gathered were Hydra sympathizers being officially brought into the fold. Peggy wished she could have paid better attention to the propaganda that was being thrown at her, in case it was useful in some way later, but she pretty much spent the entire morning trying not to cry.
It was only when she’d been brought in and told to sit that she realized the necklace with her family crest on it had been taken from her sometime the night before. It was her last gift from Michael. Losing it felt like more of a violation than anything else that had been done to her.
After they broke for lunch and she ate, Peggy was able to force her feelings down and pay attention to what was being said when the class resumed. She had to sit through a combination of movies and lectures about childbearing and rearing, and the honor a woman had in bringing Hydra progeny into the world. She also learned that she had three months to fall pregnant. They didn’t fill in the blanks of what would happen if she didn’t, but she could venture a guess.
Peggy made a point of paying attention to the whispers of her classmates as well. She was clearly a point of jealousy. Some of the women seemed to have hoped that Rogers would have selected one of them to be his consort. Peggy too found it odd that Rogers would choose an outsider, let alone her so specifically. But another more interesting rumor caught her full attention.
It seemed, a good number of her classmates were shocked that Rogers had taken a bride at all. There was apparently a good deal of talk that Rogers’ relationship with that friend he’d gone AWOL to save was much more than comradery. Peggy logged that bit of gossip away for future use.
When Peggy was finally escorted back to Rogers’ room in the early evening, she was relieved to find him absent. What was there though was a dinner the likes of which Peggy hadn’t seen in a very long time. The dinner table was covered in steak, fresh vegetables, and dishes covered in cheese. There was also a whole and beautiful chocolate cake that had Peggy’s mouth watering.
So, Peggy sat down and did the prudent thing: she ate. Rogers came in just when she was finished the piece of filet minion that was clearly meant to be his. He looked from her to table, which Peggy had decimated, with a dark expression. She looked up at him defiantly, wiping at her mouth delicately with a napkin.
He walked over to her, stood very close, and mouthed, “drugged.”
She looked down at the empty plates then back up at him.
He nodded. Then pointed up at the ceiling. “Bugged.”
It was Peggy’s turn to nod in acknowledgment. Swallowing hard, she had to admit she did feel her senses beginning to dull. The onset of the fog that had enveloped her last night was definitely starting.
“Play along,” He uttered quietly, before saying out loud, “on the bed and take off your clothing.”
When Rogers gestured for her to move over to it Peggy did, but she remained standing. Rogers sat down on the edge, then looked up at her for a long moment before he started to bounce. Up and down, and then up and down he went, making the bed creak and moan under his weight.
Peggy nearly brust out laughing at the sight of him. Hydra’s pride and joy faking it in such a comical way. It wasn’t so funny anymore though when Rogers gestured that she needed to join in. He pointed at the ceiling, reminding her that they were being listened to, even as he had yet to tell her by whom.
Peggy sobered and gave her best impression of someone being raped, screaming and moaning and begging him to stop. She felt a lot of guilt over the fact that all of the women she’d been lined up with the previous evening probably weren’t play acting their violation.
Rogers gestured for her to stop when he seemed to think it had gone on long enough. Feeling the full effect of the drugs, Peggy found herself laying down on the bed after they’d put on their show. She was queasy again. Rogers moved closer to her, mouthing something, but the only thing she could make out was “Don’t eat…away…..tomorrow.”
Peggy was out cold.
###
The next morning when Peggy woke, Rogers was gone. Two ration bars were laid out for her on the bed. Rogers must have left them so she’d have something to eat that wasn’t drugged. She scarfed them down. They were bland as rice, but they were filling and they seemed to help with the nausea of her drug hang-over.
The guards came for her at about the same time as they had the day before and took her back to the classroom. Peggy sat through the morning of propaganda, wondering just who would be listening in on Rogers. Hydra? Why would his own be monitoring him so closely? Because of the rumors she’d heard yesterday? Is that why she’d been spared from being raped? Because Rogers preferred the company of men? Then why did he so purposely select her as a bride? The more Peggy turned everything in her head, the more questions she was left with.
She was wondering how she was going to avoid eating what could be drug-laced food at lunch when Rogers showed up just as they were about to go on break. He pulled her from the classroom, leading her outside by her wrist to his waiting motorbike.
“Climb on and put your arms around me,” he ordered.
Peggy did as she was told, even as she was as mystified as the Hydra soldiers watching them were. They left the camp and drove off into the woods. It was cold. The wind was cutting and Peggy found herself having to bury her face in Rogers’ warm back to keep her nose from freezing. She hated having to touch him. Her skin crawled, but there was no help for it.
They must have ridden 40 minutes before Rogers’ finally pulled over on a dirt road deep in the forest. He dismounted and took a bag off the bike. Peggy was just able to make out transmission equipment inside it.
“Please just stay here for a few minutes, and I promise I’ll explain everything,” he told her before walking off the road towards a steep gully in the woods. Reaching the bottom, Rogers placed the bag on a tree stump at the center of a clearing. He bent over it, his back to Peggy.
Done with just about all of this, Peggy started doing the calculations in her head. Rogers was maybe 70 or 80 meters from her. The embankment he’d walked down was at least a 40-degree angle. His motorbike had to weigh over 300 kilos. Even with his enhancements, that was a lot of force and weight.
Without another thought, she pulled the tool bag off Rogers’ bike and set it aside. Then, she kicked up the stand and pushed the bike over the embankment right onto Rogers. She watched with some pleasure as it rolled right onto him, crushing him to the ground.
But Peggy knew that she didn’t have time to truly relish in his predicament. She bent down to start cutting the tracker off her ankle with a pair of pliers. Then she sensed motion in the clearing. She looked up to see Rogers walking back up the embankment towards her with barely a scratch on him.
Looking at her sheepishly, he said, “I’m sorry, but even that’s not enough to really hurt me.”
“Bloody fucking hell!”