The Hustle (An Agent Carter Fanfic)

The Set-Up

Angie's cousin Tito is a hustler. The best shot at pool in all of Brooklyn, maybe even the five boroughs. It drives her ma mad with worry, her eyes cast towards the cross on the wall and the picture of the Virgin beside it. Keep him safe, she'd whisper, kissing her rosary when he'd slip out late at night.

On those nights, even Angie prays he'll stay safe. His father died in the war, his mother of the flu when they could scarce afford rent, let alone a doctor. Tito's the closest thing that Angie has to a brother.

When he starts hustlin' the wrong crowd, the crowd that Angie's other uncles - the ones that survived the war - run with, Angie starts to get worried. Her mother worries too, the rosary beads clutched in her hand at the front of the church. The priest won't see Angie any more, and the nuns give her dirty looks when she comes in to sit with her mother, hands folded in her lap as her mother kneels before the cross. She doesn't fit here. The good pious girl is gone to the big bands and flashing lights of Broadway.

She was gone long before that, though. Gone when she'd confessed to Father Bosco that something wasn't quite right about her. Her mother doesn't talk about that day when Angie was fifteen when she'd come home to find Tito sitting with her mother. He'd heard her confession, he said, and it wasn't right. She doesn't talk about how her mother went to the church and the the priest had recommended an institution, or how Angie had spent three months shut away there when her family could scarcely afford food and there was no work for her mother. They told her it was to fix her, but she'd never felt broken.

Silences fill the space between them, punctuated with stiff conversation in two languages. Angie refuses to coddle her mother, and only speaks English to her, her mother refuses to acknowledge that Angie is losing her heritage and is becoming more American.

Her uncles crack their knuckles and say things that cut her deeply. Tito is the only one who cares about her, but even he doesn't like it. She knows she could sent away again, if the wrong person found out, but she's better now. She doesn't think about it, and goes dancing with navy men at fleet week and lets them kiss her because that is what she's supposed to want. She channels her anger and her confusion into her acting, she wins bit parts and wants more than her crap job at the Automat, serving coffee to ghoulish men who can't respect a dame even if she's their own mother.

Tito's hunched over the counter one morning in June, a cup of coffee steaming before him, reading the race results when it happens. It's after the breakfast rush, in the lull of late-awaking wives and old folks who want to gather over nickel coffee and talk about the war or politics. Angie's humming to herself, reading over Tito's shoulder as she passes, noting the baseball score from yesterday.

"Didn't you say you went to the game?" She glanced down at Tito as his dark hair fell into his eyes. It was frizzing, the day was cool but humid, mist blowing in off the river sticking to everything and leaving Angie with lasting feeling of miserable dampness that even being indoors could not chase away. "How'd they do?"

He shook his head and folded the paper. "Didn't get there, had things to do."

"Things?" she questioned.

He looked up at her, brown eyes a warning. "Yeah, Ang, things."

"I was only askin'." Angie shakes her head and turns away. "She cute?"

Tito scowls. "Your ma know you been askin' fellas about girls?"

Angie wants to pour her pot of coffee over his head. The threat is there in his voice, and he'll make good on it, same as her uncles. He does care about Angie, more than anyone else, but he's every bit as bad as the rest of them. He rubs Angie's face in her wrongness and snidely points out her flaws while standing in front of her to protect her from her uncle's belt or her grandfather's admonishment.