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amarriageoftrueminds · 2 months

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How long did Steve actually know Peggy?

(with pictures!)

[ post with just the images here ]

Short Answer:

626 days total / 20 months, 15 days, and only spoke on 8 separate days.

Long Answer:

Steve got his last 4F / first 1A on 14th of June, 1943.

When Steve arrived at Camp Lehigh, Peggy introduced herself and the SSR.

Directly afterwards, Col. Phillips introduced himself and explained that they would be there for a week only before choosing someone to be given serum:

If they had any common sense, they would’ve said Steve was at Basic Training for a while before being drafted into Project Rebirth.

This being Marvel, however...

[ full 7K meta under cut ]

What If...?, Marvel’s Instagram, and Marvel Studios' The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline book gave the ‘official’ date of Steve’s serum as June 22, 1943.

This means:

Steve was enlisted June 14th 1943,

shipped out to Camp Lehigh June 15th 1943,

was there for just a week (til June 21st 1943),

Had a conversation with Erskine about why he was chosen on evening of June 21st.

and was back in Brooklyn and receiving serum on June 22nd 1943.

Poor lad barely had any time to pack and unpack! 😲

Sidenote:

The first date shown in the movie is March 1942:

When Red Skull acquired the Tesseract.

This implies (but does not conclusively prove) that Dr Erskine must have been captured by the Allies before March 1942, because:

when he has his conversation with Steve, he merely said Red Skull believed “that there is a great power hidden in the earth, left here by the gods.” IE. he wasn’t aware that Red Skull had successfully seized that power (the Tesseract).

Stark is flummoxed by Tesseract-related tech when he sees it, which he surely wouldn’t be if Erskine had known about Red Skull having the Tesseract because Erskine could’ve just told him.

Anyway, back to the present and Steve was already in the local newspapers by Wednesday, 23rd June 1943:

Anyway, he and Peggy only spoke for 1-2 days during that time: June 22nd, the day he received serum, and (what was probably) June 23rd, the day after.

IMO it seems like it’s just the day after because:

everyone who was at the blown-up Brooklyn base is there 👆 (wherever ‘there’ is) as if no time has passed at all...

...but we know that time must have passed, because Senator Brandt shows Steve a paper dated the 23rd [see above.] 👆 So enough time has passed for the newspapers to hear about Steve, for a journalist to write about it, print it, and for the Senator to get a hold of a copy.

Enough time has passed for the SSR to get the saboteur’s Hydra sub out of the water at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in order for Howard Stark to be flummoxed by it, as he is in this scene. (And he is still in the pit with it; he hasn’t had long enough to look at it already. Ergo, not much time has passed.)

You could say that it’s a later date, and Brandt just happens to have a newspaper from the 23rd. Except...

...Phillips mentions having talked to the president that morning... which makes more sense as something he would do immediately after the whole Hydra-saboteur bomb kerfuffle, not later. That’s not a phone call he could put off for days. That’s a call you make straight away.

Although that doesn’t automatically mean that that-morning’s phone call is the first or only phone call Phillips has made to the President, since the Hydra-saboteur-kerfuffle, meaning this could be a date later than June 23rd.

But the fact that:

everyone who was at the bomb site is still there,

Howard is still in the pit looking at the Hydra sub and admitting he’s clueless about it, as if that is new information he’s announcing,

they’re taking Steve’s blood, also not something to delay on,

and Brandt is asking basic questions about Hydra. If more than a day had passed, he would already know the answers to these questions, even if he had been distracted by the Press.

Suggesting it is very soon after.

The lack of delay in Phillips’s actions also supports this idea. Earlier on in the movie he moaned to Erskine about having had to talk to senators multiple times before he could get the ball rolling on Project Rebirth. But now he’s cheerful and decisive. Which to me suggests he’s had one decisive phone call with the President, where they exchanged all the information they needed, and that’s it. (He doesn’t say “I spoke to the President again this morning,” for example.)

Brandt asks Phillips what he’s going to do about Hydra. Phillips smirks and answers that the SSR is being re-tasked to go after them. As if he anticipated the question and got the President to sign off on that just prior; close enough to this moment that Phillips is only acting on those orders just now.

"This morning" implies that this scene is taking place later on in the day of June 23rd 1943; after the morning, so that Phillips isn’t saying he called the president just now, for example.

There’s strong sunlight coming in from the window behind Steve 👆, so I’d say we can place this scene at afternoon, June 23rd.

And we can infer that it isn’t evening yet, because Phillips refers to flying out “tonight,” as if if the night of June 23rd has not yet arrived.

(Another maddening possibility: it’s all happening on the same day, a day that Phillips just happened to have spoken to the President on the phone in the morning already, but either the prop makers got the date wrong on the newspaper or the official Marvel instagram got the date of Steve’s serum wrong. 🤦‍♀️)

So, timeline:

June 22nd, 1943: serum, bomb/saboteur, Erskine’s death.

(possibly but not definitively) June 23rd, 1943: morning, newspapers reporting on Steve are printed (Senator Brandt sees them), the Hydra sub is shipped to dry dock for Howard to look at, and the President tells Phillips via the phone that the SSR is being retasked “as of today.”

afternoon, Steve has his blood drawn, Phillips relays the President’s orders to him, Brandt, Peggy and Stark. Steve objects. Brandt recruits Steve for the USO.

night, Phillips, Peggy and Howard fly out.

Unless it’s all the same day, in which case the events go:

June 22nd or 23rd:

morning, Phillips talks to the President who officially re-tasks the SSR, Steve gets serum, blown up, Erskine killed.

afternoon, the Hydra sub put in dry dock for Howard to examine, newspapers rushed out an edition about Steve, Brandt recruited Steve for the USO using said paper.

night, Peggy, Phillips and Howard flew out to London.

So Peggy was flown out to London that night, being (probably but not conclusively) the night of either June 22nd or June 23rd, 1943.

And then Steve was on tour with the USO for 4 months (from July 1943).

Probably starting mid/late July / early August, to give them enough time to find 20+ chorus girls, create and fit costumes, build sets, book venues, choreograph and plan a show, and do some rehearsals... though apparently not enough for Steve to have learned his lines. 🤦‍♀️

During this period, as the USO shows grow ever more elaborate (up to 40 showgirls, bigger sets, a fake Hitler, a military band, and harley davidson motorcycles) Steve also films multiple propaganda reels, signs autographs, takes photos with the public (and Senator Brandt), appears in his own comics, sneaks into the cinema to watch himself on screen, and travels to Buffalo, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York! 😵

Senator Brandt’s smooth patter in recruiting Steve for the USO, how he acts during it, and the fact that there was a cameraman there to take photos of Steve just before he got serum, to me suggests that Brandt was planning to do this USO show with whoever the serum worked on.

So it’s possible a lot of the show logistics and planning were already underway before Steve was even chosen for serum. That would mean the USO show kicked off much sooner after Steve got serum (which might account for why he’s so nervous on stage...)

And it would explain how they were able to cram so much activity into four short months.

Meanwhile, in October 1943, in Azzano, Italy...

And then Steve goes to Italy, five miles from the front

on the 3rd of November, 1943:

We can see that Steve and Peggy were not in contact in between these times / while he was on USO Tour, because:

no reference to any such contact is ever shown or implied (and Kevin Feige said Steve was sleeping with someone else while on tour).

Steve looks surprised to see her when she shows up. He hasn’t invited her to come -- which he could, by letter -- and asks her what she’s doing there.

She’s cagey about why she’s there/what she’s been up to; so she’s not someone who even can carry on a correspondence, given the classified nature of her work.

If they had somehow been corresponding anyway, she would already have told Steve by now that she can’t talk about her being there/why. So he wouldn’t need to ask.

As well as Steve not knowing basic things about her, she also still doesn’t know basic things about Steve, that a casual correspondent of four months would know by now [see below].

We know the rescue of the 107 was on the night of November 3rd, 1943.

Because Phillips cites that date when he’s typing up Steve’s official KIA letter:

The sequence before Steve’s rescue of the 107 also implies that Bucky et al were only captured very recently at Azzano, because:

the rest of the 107 are still there (haven’t been deployed elsewhere),

wounded are still being brought in,

Col. Phillips is still engaged in writing up condolence letters about the lost soldiers when Steve barges into his tent.

(Why is the head of the SSR in Italy, writing condolence letters about the 107 when he specifically said he and his agents were flying out to London, where his HQ is? Here’s a clue from wikipedia: “Alsos personnel followed close behind the front lines in Italy, France, and Germany, occasionally crossing into enemy-held territory to secure valuable resources before they could be destroyed or scientists escape or fall into rival hands.”

However, those personnel would not include the head honcho (Phillips), the entire Army’s number one weapons contractor (Stark), or a desk jockey whose opinion is neither sought nor valued (Peggy).

And the rest of the movie shows them back in London (and therefore not featuring in field footage of the Commandos), while Steve & Co. destroy Hydra weapons factories (not sweep them for intell.)

And they stay in London, until the entire army hits a very important base at the very end of the movie. And even then, Stark isn’t shown attending!

So maybe he was just in Italy for the chorus girls...? 🤷‍♀️

Steve and the Howlies had to have to covered 35 miles as the crow flies (30 miles behind enemy lines + 5 miles to the Army base), with wounded soldiers, and through what Phillips describes as “some of the most heavily fortified territory in Europe” which was also mountainous. They would’ve had to seek a flat route to get the jeeps through. And this with no resources -- like food, medicine, specialised clothing, etc.

Covering 5 miles a day under those extremely difficult and dangerous circumstances, it takes them a week to get back to Camp.

(Sidenote, I looked up a modern estimate of hikers on the Swiss Alps, and it said they’d traverse a 105 mile trail over 7-10 days. Viz. potentially 10.5 miles a day!)

Making the day of Steve’s return 👆 at least, November 10th, 1943.

Marvel Studios' The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline confirms this:

Afterwards, it seems they went straight to London.

(No contact with Peggy in transit is shown or implied).

Sidenote: although no other locations and no other interaction is shown in November, between the 107 returning and Steve being in London, it seems as if some time has passed.

And once again, we can tell that because of Senator Brandt and newspapers.

There has been enough time for more than one newspaper (The Daily Mail, and Stars and Stripes), to publish stories about Steve. 👆

For Senator Brandt to announce that he’ll be giving Steve a medal for valour, and for that news to have travelled back to the UK.

And, at the very least, enough time has elapsed since the 10th of November for the Senator to believe that Steve could feasibly travel back to America in time to receive his medal in person.

(Which he declines to do. LOLOL.)

So, say:

11th: newspapers report (Steve & Co travelling back to London).

12th: news reaches America / Brandt decides / announces the medal.

13th: Brandt expecting Steve to fly from Europe to America (which would’ve taken over 17 hours, then.) Doesn’t necessarily have to be the very next day, but based on past behaviour Brandt expects action to be taken the very same day as the press reporting on Steve! So...

14th: for the actual medal ceremony? (so that Steve isn’t travelling for 17 hours and then immediately appearing in public) Which seems like it’s happening simultaneously with Steve being in London; I don’t think he’d delay on relating his intell about Hydra.

(And that last day would also account for how the news has travelled back to the UK from the US in order to appear in The Daily Mail.)

We know that this day Steve is in London is supposed to be the day he’s receiving his medal, in person, because of this CATFA deleted scene:

So IMO we’re looking at this date being 14th November, 1943 at a very strict minimum.

NB: All this pre-supposes that it takes 4 days to move the Howlies from the Continent back to London, which it feasibly might if they had Stark and his plane, still in Italy. Stark’s deleted-scene surprise at seeing Steve in London suggests either he was not the pilot / his was not the plane responsible for flying Steve to London, or that he was / his was the plane but he expected Steve to move straight on back to the US. We know the SSR had at least one plane in the US Army base in Italy, because someone was flying multiple reconnaissance flights, trying to spot the 107 -- the last of which returned Nov 10th.

In London, Steve and Peggy are shown talking on 2 separate days, total:

1) In the London HQ, relaying the intell about Hydra weapons-parts factories, gathered from the Krausberg weapons-parts factory and from Bucky, when Steve tells Phillips he has got his own team together.

And in the pub, on the evening of that same night, when Steve goes to Assemble the Howling Commandos for the first time.

(No time passing between these conversations is implied or stated, not via montage or any other means. It’s a straight cut. And assembling his team is not something Steve could delay on, after telling his CO he already had one. In fact it’s kinda nuts Steve didn’t think to do this before telling Phillips he had a team already. What would he have done if they’d just said no?? 😂)

2) in the London HQ, the morning of the day after (8am) when Peggy shoots at him.

(Won’t dignify either of those scenes with triggery screencaps!)

So Steve and the Howlies are officially a team from let’s say 14th November, 1943.

(We know there must’ve been a bit of a time delay before the Howlies were deployed, to give Stark time to build Steve the version of the Cap suit he requested -- since Bucky was the one who suggested him keeping it, I’ll bet Bucky had some input on that -- as well as supplying him with those Harley Davidsons WLA ‘Liberators.’

Could be the Howlies weren’t out on the Continent, kickin’ Nazi ass, ‘til December ‘43 or January '44.)

For the next 15.5 months there is no direct contact shown between Steve and Peggy, while Steve is on the continent and she is in London.

At first glance it looks like we can deduce roughly the dates of when Bucky died and Steve returned to London.

Because after capturing him Phillips tells Zola he sent a telegram about him*

*a prop which is not shown directly on screen

...on the morning of February 3rd, 1945:

Soon followed by a tight 24-hour turnaround for them to go and attack the Valkyrie base in Austria, which we know from this 👇 piece of dialogue between Col. Phillips and Gabe Jones:

But.

We don’t know:

1) that the date on the telegram is accurate. This prop is not directly shown in the movie. And, in the scene, Phillips hints at this telegram being intercepted by Hydra and this being bad news for Zola (because it says he is working for SSR. The Foreshadowing is INSANE). So Phillips might have lied on that telegram -- back-dated it to make it look to Schmidt like Zola had betrayed him and been working for the SSR since before the Howlies ‘captured’ him. Making the day of his interrogation... later than the Feb 3rd on the telegram.

2) that Zola Therefore told Phillips ‘you have 24 hours’ on February 3rd. The telegram date could be false. Even if it wasn’t, Zola could’ve said this to Phillips on a subsequent day. He could’ve just told him when the date Red Skull was planning to do something was, and not necessarily 24 hours before that date.

Meaning we can’t tell by the telegram what date the HQ briefing about the Valkyrie mission, and therefore what date the Valkyrie mission (and Steve’s ‘death’) is, for certain. You could interpret it either way.

Steve might have ‘died’ on February 4th, 1945 or on some other date in February / early March, so long as it was 24 hours after Zola told Phillips he only had 24 hours to act, whenever that was. 😵

However, together, Agents of Shield 2.01: Shadows, and Marvel Studios' The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline tie in book, put Steve’s only possible death date as:

Thursday, the 1st of March, 1945.

(Since Morita and Dum-dum capture Werner Reinhardt on 2nd of March, 1945, and Reinhardt remarks that Red Skull is dead. That leaves the 1st as physically the only date in March, before this point, that the Valkyrie mission could possibly have been.)

And we know (from CATWS canon) that Steve’s death was only reported (as a disappearance) on

Monday, 5th March, 1945:

So I think we can definitively say that MCU intends for Steve to have ‘died’ on Thursday, 1st March, 1945. 😥

And the KGB opened a file on Bucky on Friday the 23rd of March, 1945.

It is not categorically stated that the mission where Bucky ‘died’ happened immediately before these late-February scenes in London.👆

He could, theoretically, have died in late 1944, as his exhibit in the Smithsonian in CATWS claims:

However, that exhibit makes multiple other errors...

(Such as: listing two different dates of birth on the same display, saying Bucky enlisted shortly after Pearl Harbour (when nothing in CATFA shows this), and his dog-tag number suggests he was instead drafted; saying he shipped out to Italy and was captured ‘that fall’ of 1942, when that year was definitely shown as 1943, and the Marvel Timeline tie-in book also shows Azzano as happening in October ‘43, etc.)

...So I think we can safely rule this out 👆 as a prop-maker’s mistake!

Plus, Steve’s grief in the pub feels very raw, very immediate, which to me suggest a very-recent bereavement, not something he’s had a couple weeks or months to weep over already. Steve’s a pretty stoic guy.

The only canon suggestion of time passing between Bucky’s ‘death’ and the pub scene is Steve having already had a chance to get back to London and write a report about it, in order to mention said report to Peggy and feasibly expect her to have read it.

As a soldier with a CO to answer to, that report is not something Steve could not delay on delivering. If Steve drinking in the pub is afternoon/evening, say this was the day he delivered his report (probably in the morning, this being the military).

That’s enough time to reasonably expect Peggy to have read the report, and for Steve to be drinking after delivering it, but still neatly groomed in his immaculate uniform, having just gone off-duty (not, eg. dressed down as if this is another, later day, a day off).

On the surface of it, it looks like we can’t say for certain that Steve’s drinking day is the day before Phillips interrogates Zola. Because it’s framed as if the stoicism he exhibits at the end of that sequence is the signal that he is now galvanised to act ASAP, ie. the very next day. One scene leading to / causing another.

Bucky’s ‘death’ date might have been any number of days before.

Except for one thing: Zola is a hugely valuable acquisition.

I don’t think Steve et al would’ve captured and brought Zola back to London, at extraordinary personal cost, only for Phillips to waste days before interrogating him. I think Phillips would’ve been in to interrogate Zola immediately.

That to me is the closest to ‘proof’ that Steve is back in London, delivering his report and then drinking in the pub, either on or as close to the day of Zola’s interrogation as physically possible.

(IMO this can’t all be happening on the same day. I don’t think Steve is the kind of guy to deliver a report in the morning, go off and try to get shit-faced while still on duty / in uniform, and then go back to HQ for mission-briefing, with a risk of still being inebriated. Not under normal circumstances, let alone when the mission is so important! Steve appears to know already that he can’t get drunk... but that doesn’t stop him from trying. I don’t think he’d do that if he knew he was expected back to plan the very-personally-important Bucky avenging mission on the same day. CATFA writers may disagree and say this all happened on the same day, but that idea’s kinda wild to me!)

So when was that interrogation date?

I think we can deduce that it also must’ve been as-close-as-possible to the Valkyrie mission briefing date.

The fact that Gabe is asking how long they have means that that intell was fresh information to the Howlies on the HQ mission briefing date (which was 28th of February = 24 hours before 1st March.)

Now, if Phillips knew about 1st March being significant in advance of 28th February:

it would be incredibly stupid of him to not tell anyone until only 24 hours before.

he would’ve told the Howlies already / Gabe wouldn’t need to ask.

But if Zola only revealed the date of the Valkyrie Mission Day very close to the mission briefing date... that would explain why Phillips didn’t mention it sooner. Another point: A lot of what Phillips says in the mission briefing sounds like a summary and continuation of what we see Zola telling him in the interrogation scene. As if there has been no further interrogation / no more intell to relate since that interrogation, a point in favour of it being the only time he has interrogated Zola (meaning it must be happening on 27th of February).

This scene comes before Steve is shown drinking, alone. (Implying Steve is drinking in the later pm, since it’s dinner time for Zola, just before.)

Assuming Phillips’ telegram about Zola is false (which is neater, and it being a lie is mentioned in the scene, and although we have the prop the prop is not directly shown on-screen in the movie).

Sunday, 25th February. Bucky probably 'died?’

Monday, 26th February. Howlies flying back to London, with Zola?? And since Phillips wouldn’t wait days to deal with Zola:

Tuesday, 27th of February. Morning, Steve delivers his report. Phillips reads the report, and sends a falsely-dated telegram about Zola to Washington via SHAEF HQ. Evening, Phillips interrogates Zola, tells him about the telegram, and Zola tells him about 1st March / Valkyrie Day. (This is during ‘dinner’ time.) Steve goes drinking, alone.

Wednesday, 28th February 1945, Valkyrie Mission briefing.

Thursday, 1st March 1945, Valkyrie Mission day.

NB: This pre-supposes that it only takes a day to move from the Continent back to London, which it would if they had a plane like Stark’s ready to pick them up any time -- which they well might, given how important it is to get Zola back to London, and get the Howlies out to take down the Valkyrie base.

If they didn’t have such a plane, of course, it would take them longer. However, nothing in the movie (such as, eg. a travel-montage) does show it taking longer. It seems to imply a very short timeline.

Sidenote:

Steve never does anything Peggy says or does, always does the exact opposite -- which is the moral, heroic, selfless thing -- and also never asks what she thinks he should do.

This is partly a symptom of poor / misogynist writing, whereby Token ‘Strong Female Character’ Love Interest is relegated to a Sexy Lamp with post-it note stuck to it + behaving like a generic male bully in a female skin + idiot hetero-norms that make any straight couple automatic foils, who must bicker miserably and be on the opposite sides of every argument in order to generate ‘Chemistry.’ 🙄

Ergo, Steve never does what Peggy says, because as his foil what she says it always the opposite of what he says.

Making it, defacto, the [unethical, cowardly, self-serving, tactically unsound] thing to Steve’s [moral, heroic, selfless, also tactically correct] thing.

. (disclaimer: any other aspects of Peggy being unpleasant must be put down to Atwell’s performance choices.) .

Her show erroneously claims that Steve relied heavily upon her for “courage, strategy, and moral guidance."

Passing over the outrageous, insulting, and demonstrably-untrue suggestion that Steve needed external courage, or ethical guidance, from a moral roomba...

(Metas on why this is untrue, and would actually make the plot impossible if it were true!

HERE, HERE, and HERE .👈)

...This would mean Steve is -- somehow -- relying upon a person whom he doesn’t even speak to for 467 of the 473 days when strategic input was even relevant to his life. 🤦‍♀️

The numbers don’t lie.

Steve cannot have been relying upon Peggy for anything when they weren’t even in contact. That’s not physically possible. 🤷‍♀️

This simultaneously puts the lie to the idea of Peggy following the Howlies around Europe to collate intell in the places they hit.

A) because the Howlies aren’t shown sweeping these factories for information. They’re shown reducing them to fiery rubble, which you don’t do if you’re looking for documents. They’re not looking for documents; they’re looking for Zola.

B) even if the Howlies weren’t destroying the factories and were sweeping them for ABC (atomic, biological, chemical) intell, Peggy isn’t the kind of specialist who would even know what to look for. She’s an intelligence liaison, not a scientist. Not even a linguist. That’s not her area of expertise at all. Whereas the Howlies themselves are... surprisingly well qualified? They’ve worked in a Hydra weapons factory, so they know what’s important. Monty’s a Major. Gabe is a fluent German-speaker. Frenchie handles explosives. Dum-dum can drive tanks. Morita looks like a radio expert; shown operating captured Hydra radios more than once. Bucky’s a sniper. Steve’s a tank with a perfect photographic memory. They really don’t need an eighth wheel telling them how to blow up Hydra factories (how would she know?) That’s already their forte.

C) even if Peggy was a technical expert, her opinion is repeatedly denigrated by Phillips who says she was a chancey (ie. ill-qualified) hire. He wouldn’t send someone to judge important documents who is ill-qualified to do so and whose opinion therefore doesn’t carry any weight with him.

D) The only time she’s shown taking part in a mission, it’s actually more of a full blown Army Operation, where even the old man Phillips goes along in person. This is an unusual occurrence, i.e. not something she normally does. Just like I can’t claim that Col. Phillips fought alongside the Howlies, in person, throughout the war, because that is not what is shown, I cannot claim that Peggy did, either. Because that is also not what is shown. (And also why she didn’t join Steve on the mission to rescue the 107. That’s just not her job!)

So when Peggy asks Steve if he was about to... (do something important) mid-Valkyrie mission, and he goes ‘right!’ and carries on.

That’s the closest Steve ever comes to agreeing with her or doing what she says. (Another nonsense claim from her show.)

It’s OOC for Steve, who has proven mostly indifferent to her increasingly unsubtle advances thus far (until she turned violent, whereupon he (or someone else) put her photo in his compass... which is just sad, tbh. 😥)

Whereas, her interrupting the mission at a crucial point to make it about herself (to make Steve kiss her the same way Lorraine also sexually assaulted him) is consistent with her characterisation elsewhere in CATFA (eg. interrupting Steve’s 107 rescue to make him include her in it, when she was irrelevant.)

Even then, it’s something Steve was going to do anyway, regardless of whether she told him to or not. So her input is not a deciding factor in the plot (still a Sexy Lamp). Her net moral/strategic impact on Steve is still zero.

(Another point in the ‘they didn’t spend any time together’ column.)

Conclusion...

Steve and Peggy knew OF each other for 626 days

or 20 months, 15 days / 20.5 months.

(From mid-June 1943 to the beginning of March, 1945.)

They spoke on 2 days max in June, 1943 (the 22nd and probably 23rd, the day of his serum and day after) despite being in the same place for a week prior and sharing a prior car ride!

They spoke on 4 days in November 1943.

Nov 3rd, in Italy, pre-107 rescue,

Nov 10th, in Italy, post-107 rescue,

Nov 14th(?) In London, the day Steve relayed Hydra intell and told Col. Phillips he was assembling his own team, while Brandt was expecting him to be in America receiving his medal for valour; probably the same day the Howlies were founded.

Nov 15th(?) 8am, in London, when Peggy shot him.

They spoke on 2 days in February & March, 1945:

in the pub in London (Tuesday, 27th February?)

the day of the Valkyrie raid (Thursday, 1st March.)

(While they are shown in the same place on another intervening day, at London HQ during mission planning, and it’s possible or even plausible that they did interact, they’re not actually shown speaking to each other on that day.)

Totalling: a maximum of 8 days.

(could be as low as 6.)

And 6 months later, Peggy, Stark and Phillips founded SHIELD and had already recruited Zola into it in order for it to be front page news by

Tuesday, 14th August, 1945:

(Thus putting the lie to the ridiculous idea that they didn’t know they’d recruited Nazis or what they were up to, btw. 👆)

So of the 20.5 total months they knew each other, Steve and Peggy were only shown being in the same place and in contact during (but not for the entirety of) 4 months -- Jun and Nov ‘43, and Feb and March ‘45.

For 19.5 of the 20.5 months they knew of each other they were not even in the same place:

4 months while Steve was on one side of the Atlantic, during the late June-October USO Tour, she was in Europe.

And 15.5 months / 473 days when he was on the continent doing Hydra weapons-parts factory raids (from mid-Nov 1943 - Mar 1945) and she was in London.

And this is deliberate by the film-makers, to depict theirs as a thwarted relationship-that-never-was, a Casablanca style ‘we never dated’ situation.

Not a romance, but what could’ve been a romance, had circumstances been different.

Them not being together is literally the point.

They show zero direct or indirect contact between the two during those 15.5 months, and multiple things imply that there was none.

For example:

She doesn’t know that Steve has a friend in the 107 (a correspondent would).

Steve is surprised to see her.

Steve tells her about what he’s been up to, as if it’ll be new information to her.

(Sidenote: as per She Hulk, Bruce Banner is under the impression Steve slept with some woman during this time. SIGH.)

Despite Agent Carter show’s attempts to retcon her history (stolen valour) with Bucky’s war record (nonsensically, since he is a soldier and she’s supposed to be a spy), the film and script are clear that she isn’t in Europe with the Howlies.

(She complains about having every door shut in her face, professionally, and Phillips says she was only at a desk job because he “took a chance with” hiring her. So she’s complaining about not being in the field.)

Steve wouldn’t be carrying a photo of someone he sees for work all the time. The compass is physical evidence that she wasn’t there.

(Sidenote: He wouldn’t be dating anyone Period, since he specifically said he didn’t want to do that. And Peggy also said she wouldn’t date until after the war is over. But anyway! And, logically, if she's supposed to be a spy she also wouldn’t have her face broadcast in cinemas, making any cover useless, as Steve would know. But anyway! It just highlights how they’re not really doing their jobs of writing her as a spy properly.)

Steve wouldn’t need to take a photo out of an SSR personnel file (which is what it looks like) if he saw her regularly in person for work or if they had been corresponding by letter.

(This simultaneously rules out the possibility that she went out with the Howlies and then went back to London.)

Likewise, Peggy wouldn’t need to steal a photo of Steve out of a personnel file if they had been in regular contact, either in person or by letter.

Steve and the Howlies are shown in direct contact with each other, easily implying a long-standing relationship without having to go to a lot of film-making effort, via montage... but she is not.

Whereas she is shown in the montage, but not being in direct contact. If the film-makers had wanted to show direct contact between them during this montage, they very easily could have. But they didn’t. If she had been there with the Howlies, and it was the film-makers intention to imply that, she would be in the footage with the Howlies, not sitting in a cinema in London watching footage of a mere photo of herself in the newsreels.

By February 1945 she still isn’t on first-name terms with Bucky, Steve’s second in command.

Steve’s time in London was so minimal that when he goes drinking to grieve Bucky, Peggy is able to find him in the Whip & Fiddle, even though it’s in ruins. So either they were in London for such a short period that the pool of places he could potentially be is only one (1), AND/OR that pub is emotionally significant because of Bucky, the person he’s grieving (not her).

We are never shown the Howlies returning to that pub at all until after Steve is also ‘dead’ (ie. no proof they’ve been in London long enough that it’s a place they’ve gone multiple times.) They treat it as a special, 'one-off Solemn Event’ sort of a place to go. Not a regular haunt.

And Steve is still surprised to see her there, meaning he didn’t tell her he was going there; so the reason she finds him can’t be because Steve told her where he was going. (Could be that one of the Howlies told her.)

She still has to ask Steve whether he respected “your friend” Bucky (when even Col. Phillips knows to refer to Bucky as Steve’s oldest friend, by this point).

Steve tells her he can’t get drunk and has to ask whether she knows that already or not. Yet another example of something a close confidante or correspondent of 15+ months would know, that Steve would assume she already knew, if they had been in continuing contact.

(It’s unlikely that Steve himself didn’t know, before this moment. Soldiers who founded their unit in a pub haven’t done any drinking for 15.5 months? Not likely!)

His clever acting choice lends an air of despair and futility to the scene, too -- Steve trying to drink away his sorrows, even though he knows it won’t work. He can’t undo the past, he can’t bring Bucky back. (Had CEvans’s tone been different, it would’ve connoted something else.)

If he was in contact with Peggy, and this is canonically the very kind of thing he would complain about to her (and canonically also the very kind of thing she would tell him more about), then he would’ve complained about it, eg. via letter, too. But he didn’t, because he doesn’t know whether or not she knows. So they weren’t in contact.

It is shown that the updated intelligence of what Steve and the Howlies are accomplishing in Europe during 1944 is being relayed back to HQ in London, because Peggy and other personnel are shown taking Hydra base flags off their maps, as Steve and the Howlies take them out.

(As a consequence of Steve et al taking them out, it’s implied.)

However... it is not shown that Steve directly relayed that information to Peggy.

Peggy herself says that Phillips is in charge of devising strategy, not herself, and Steve soon disregards any strategy suggestions she makes -- in fact, he gives her orders, not the other way around, because he’s a captain.

So if Steve was telling anyone what the Howlies are up to in Europe, it would be his superior officer Phillips. Not an agent like Peggy, of no military rank.

(This is supported by the scene where Steve, having returned from rescuing the 107, goes straight to Phillips to report his successful mission. Not to Peggy, despite her being right there.)

Plus, the Howlie shown handling communications isn’t Steve...

...it’s Morita. 👆 (And guess who interrupts and shoves him out of his seat?)

So if the Howlies were in contact at all during the 15.5 months of Howling Commando Hydra weapons-factory raids:

1) it would’ve been very difficult / limited, and all shop talk. 2) it must’ve so unimportant that no trace of it shows in the film. 3) it probably wouldn’t have been Steve on the radio, anyway. 4) there were only six prospective Hydra weapons factories mentioned as targets for Steve and the Howlies, so only six more occasions when they even might’ve officially interacted:

Roughly:

And while there are more Hydra bases indicated as existing on the maps/via flags removed from the maps...

...None of these 👆 are explicitly linked to Steve and the Howlies, there’s no indication that the existence of these was discovered or relayed (or that they specifically were destroyed) by Steve and Co.

And it’s made out to be a Big Deal that they find out where the Seventh base is, (the base Bucky told Steve they were shipping weapons parts to). Because that’s where Red Skull is.

T I M E L I N E :

1943

JUNE: Mon 14th, Bucky gets his orders, Steve gets a 4F, visits the Stark Expo, meets Erskine, enlists and gets a 1A. Tues 15th, Bucky ships out, Steve arrives at Camp Lehigh. Mon 21st, Steve is chosen for serum. He and Erskine discuss it in the evening. Tues 22nd, Steve receives serum, Erskine is killed, Steve stops the Hydra saboteur, and is photographed by a NYE journalist. Wed 23rd morning, Phillips speaks to the President and the SSR is immediately re-tasked, Steve appears on the front page of The New York Examiner, the Hydra sub is moved to dry dock. afternoon, Steve has his blood drawn, Stark examines the Hydra sub, Phillips relays the President’s orders, Brandt recruits Steve into the USO when he objects to Phillips's orders. night, Phillips, Stark, and Peggy, fly out to London.

JULY-OCT: Steve in the USO, travelling across America.

OCT/NOV: Bucky and the Howlies are captured by Hydra at Azzano.

NOVEMBER: 3rd, afternoon, Steve does USO show in Italy, 5 miles behind enemy lines. evening, Steve rescues 107.

10th, Steve returns to base with 400 soldiers of the 107, having safely travelled 35 miles including 30 miles of mountainous heavily fortified enemy terrain, with wounded in tow.

? 11th-14th, Steve's rescue is reported in Stars and Stripes, Senator Brandt decides to give him a medal for valour, news gets back to UK and appears in The Daily Mail. Brandt expects Steve to come back to the US to receive his medal in person. Steve declines.

? 14th, London, HQ, Steve relays Hydra intell to Phillips and Peggy, night, Steve recruits Bucky & the Howlies, takes Bucky's input on the suit.

? 15th, London, HQ, 8am, Steve gets sexually assaulted, Steve gets physically assaulted (Peggy shoots at him), Steve picks the shield, Steve relays Cap uniform ideas to Stark. .

1944

Howlies deployed in Europe, taking out 6 Hydra weapons factories shown in Italy, Greece, France, Czech Rep. and Poland. (Avengers 1 deleted scene also shows Steve taking part in the planning of D-Day, which would’ve put him and the Howlies in France from 6 June 1944 - August, if they took part. And I thought there was a reference to Steve taking part in the Battle of the Bulge too, somewhere, so that would be Dec-Jan ‘44-45.) .

1945

FEBRUARY: (possible) Sun 25th, Bucky ‘KIA.’ (possible) Mon 26th, Howlies & Zola travelling back to London.

(possible) Tues 27th, London am, Steve writes/delivers a report about Bucky, goes drinking to grieve. Phillips (reads Steve’s report? knows about Bucky) sends a misleading telegram about Zola, back-dated February 3rd, to Washington via SHAEF. pm, Phillips interrogates Zola and finds out 1st March is Valkyrie Day.

Wed 28th, London, HQ, Valkyrie Mission briefing.

MARCH: Thurs 1st, Atlantic. Steve and Red Skull 'KIA.' Last contact with Peggy. Fri 2nd, Moria and Dum-dum capture Werner Reinhardt. Mon 5th, Steve reported "disappeared" in newspaper. Fri 23rd, KGB opens file on Bucky.

APRIL: Surviving Howlies are mopping up remaining Hydra personnel in Europe? MAY. Tues 8th, V-E Day. London. The Howlies reunite at the Whip & Fiddle, for the first time since they were founded there, to drink a toast in remembrance of Steve.

AUGUST: Tues 14th, Stark, Phillips and Carter have founded SHIELD and recruited Zola and more, which is reported on front page news.

TL;DR: They knew of each other for 626 days total, (from 15th June 1943 - 1st March 1945), 20.5 months; 19.5 of which they weren’t in the same place, and only spoke on 8 separate days.

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