Brooklyn, 1942. The days bled together like ink in water—cold, quiet, and ultimately forgettable—until they weren't. The war hadn't yet crashed its full weight onto the city, but its shadow had already arrived, slithering through alleyways, clinging to the edges of every ration line, and humming in the silence between distant sirens. Brooklyn had become a waiting room for violence, where gray stone met gray hearts that grew grayer still. Despite the oppressive aura of uncertainty, amidst the slow collapse of the world she once knew, one thing shone with undeniable clarity: Peggy Carter.
Where others donned the war like a coat—heavy and resigned—she strode through it as if it hadn't yet earned the right to touch her. Her spine held the defiance of someone who had long learned to bear the weight of expectations and hurl it back in the faces of those who imposed them. Her voice could slice through the fog of despair with a sharpness that demanded attention while retaining a softness rarely permitted to breathe in a time of turmoil. In a world cloaked in shadows, Peggy stood resolute, her essence unmasked. She simply was.
Knull watched her, his gaze predating anyone else's. He observed her not as a man watches a woman—such a notion was simple, predictable—but as one would behold the chaotic beauty of storms surveying the coastlines, old and inevitable, patient in their presence. Their paths had crossed only once in a fleeting moment, days ago—a conversation no longer than the flicker of a breath, yet long enough for something intangible to settle between them, weaving an invisible thread tied to fate. He could have forced it. He could have marked her, claimed her as his own. But even gods sometimes wait, and Knull was not one to rush what felt destined.
As fate is always so eager to reveal its hand, the moment came, shifting the balance of Peggy's reality. An off-book HYDRA cell, young and unbranded, prowled like rats testing the uncertain wires of American defense. Their movements were quick and precise, efficient yet hollow—distorted echoes of strategies borrowed from something older and purer, reminiscent of Knull himself. They were not worthy of the darkness they navigated.
Peggy, ever drawn to the right place at the wrong time, unwittingly stumbled into their path. It happened near a forgotten storage hangar, late in the evening, under a sky tinted with the blood-red hues of a sun too weary to continue its watch. Each step echoed against frost-bitten concrete, a sound muted by the desolation of the night. Peggy felt the weight of solitude pressing down upon her like the chill in the air—she was alone, far too alone.
Suddenly, a glint of steel sliced through the dimness, a blade flashing from her right—too fast, too close. Instinct kicked in; she turned, drawing her sidearm, but time had already slipped away from her grasp. The edge of death lurked just beyond reach, and she knew it. Then, without a sound, everything changed. She braced herself for the impact that never came.
The would-be attacker crumpled to the ground, his body folding unnaturally as life faded from his wide, shocked eyes. Just as quickly as he had arrived, the man was gone—absorbed back into the void that birthed him. And from that recess in the alley's darkness, Knull emerged.
He didn't walk or stalk; he simply arrived, as though the very fabric of the night had granted him passage. His coat billowed unperturbed by the wind, his form too still, too ethereal to belong to the realm of humanity. His eyes held depths of ancient wisdom, filled with something the world had yet to earn. He regarded Peggy with an intensity that made her heart race—not with fear, but with something akin to recognition.
"I told you," he said, his voice a low caress, smooth as silk dragged across rough stone. "They would never see you for what you are."
Peggy's hands remained steady, even if her breath quivered betraying her surprise. Her resolve hardened as she gripped her gun tighter. "Who the hell are you really?"
His unwavering gaze bored into her. "Someone who doesn't want to see you die before you've done what you were meant to."
"And what's that?" she demanded, her curiosity ignited amidst the seriousness of the moment.
"Change everything," he replied with conviction. The weight of his words settled in the space between them, heavy and filled with potential.
As Knull took a step closer, it was not an act of aggression, but rather a declaration of existence itself, an assertion of his unparalleled presence. "You don't know me," she challenged, but the tone lacked conviction—the crack in her armor was evident.
Knull offered a subtle tilt of his head, an expression almost resembling amusement, tinged with an undercurrent of sorrow. "I know what you are."
Her grip tightened further around the weapon. "And what's that?"
"A woman who refuses to break where others bend. A match in a world soaked in oil."
His words struck a chord deep within her, igniting a flicker of vulnerability she had fought to keep hidden. "Why me?"
"Because you're already burning," he intoned softly, "and I like the way your flame defies the wind."
That unsettling feeling returned—not of being surveyed like prey, but of being truly understood. It unsettled her more than the threat had.
Slowly, deliberately, she lowered the gun, wrestling with the fragment of trust that had ignited in her chest.
"You're not military. Not OSS. Not MI6. You're not even from here, are you?" she observed, piecing together the enigma standing before her.
He turned, his movements soundless, as if the alley itself had decided to suspend reality, but she took a cautious step toward him. "So who are you?"
He didn't stop but did hesitate for just a heartbeat. "I'm the one who never stopped watching."
"Will I see you again?" The question slipped from her lips, laden with both trepidation and hope.
He didn't respond in words. Instead, he turned slightly, just enough for her to glimpse the edge of something not quite a smile—a flicker of softness that felt out of place in the dark void he embodied.
Before the shadows enveloped him completely, he whispered in a voice barely above the wind, "Goodbye... for now. But I'll always be watching."
And then he vanished—not into darkness but with it, melding seamlessly into the very essence of night itself.
Peggy Carter stood alone, gun lowered at her side, her heart ensnared in a profound blend of questions and yearning. She did not know how long she remained there, reeling from the whirlwind of emotions that had cascaded through her. All she understood was this undeniable truth: she wanted to see him again, even if the thought terrified her, especially because it did. As the weight of her own desires settled in her chest, she realized that something had shifted irreparably in her world, igniting a flame of purpose that refused to be extinguished