Margaret "Peggy" Carter was a British officer with the Strategic Scientific Reserve and Steve Rogers's World War II girlfriend.
In November 1940, she infiltrated Castle Kaufmann, the headquarters of the SS general Johann Schmidt, leader of HYDRA, Adolf Hitler's top secret science division. Disguised as a maid Eva, she freed the captured scientist Abraham Erskine and was brought into the Strategic Scientific Reserve.
While training several candidates for Project Rebirth, she came across a frail-bodied young man named Steve Rogers, who Dr. Erskine was intent on becoming the project’s first human test subject, due to his goodhearted nature and great will to serve his country. Although initially skeptical of him because of his appearance and weak health, Peggy eventually saw that Rogers was smarter and more practical than the rest of the potentials, and was often amused to see the smaller man outwit the burly recruits. She was impressed and developed respect for him when, during a test, Rogers chose to muffle a grenade with his body, not knowing it was a fake. It was this choice that inevitably led the SSR to approve Erskine’s choice to make Rogers Project Rebirth’s first test subject, and Peggy was tasked to escort Rogers to the laboratory when that time came.
After Project Rebirth proved to be a success, Peggy developed a crush on the physically-enhanced Steve Rogers, though she referred to it as "having faith in him." However, following Dr. Erskine’s murder and the loss of the last copy of the serum, Peggy went on with the S.S.R. and was separated from Rogers, who was sent to tour America and became a famous icon amongst the masses as Captain America.
Peggy was reunited with Rogers when he flew to Italy to advertise war bonds and attempt to boost morale. She was unofficially on-site at the time and soon discovered that Rogers was feeling stifled once more, wanting to use the gifts Dr. Erskine had given him to serve his country as a soldier. Their conversation was interrupted when an ambulance arrived and Peggy let slip that the injured soldiers were from the 107th, at which Rogers instantly rushed to see Colonel Chester Phillips and demand the status of his friend, Sgt. James "Bucky" Barnes. Phillips confirmed that Barnes was missing, and when Rogers learned that no rescue mission was being planned, Peggy realized he was about to do it himself. Wanting to give him a fighting chance, she helped him enter enemy territory by cajoling Howard Stark into flying them there.
Later, she entered Phillips’s tent in time to hear him declare Rogers dead, after which Philips reprimanded her for her part in Rogers’s scheme. Before he could finish, a commotion drew them both out of the tent, where they found Rogers leading the formerly HYDRA-captured troops back to base.
After his incredibly successful rescue, Rogers was drafted into the S.S.R. and began to serve in a more active capacity, putting him in close contact to Peggy, who tried to remain professional around him. Her attempt largely failed when she caught him and a female lieutenant kissing, leading her to shoot him while he was trying out a new shield. She was, however, quite pleased when a film of Rogers' efforts in the field revealed that he kept a picture of her in his compass.
Following the apparent death of his friend Bucky, Peggy found Rogers attempting to get drunk in a bar she had once found him and Barnes in. She informed him that Dr. Erskine had presumed his body processed the alcohol too fast, preventing him from his goal, then told him to respect Barnes’s choice of following him until his death.
When the S.S.R. planned for a full-frontal attack on HYDRA, Peggy went along, saving Rogers from a soldier wielding flame-throwers before reminding him to go after the Red Skull. She and Colonel Philips later appeared in Schmidt's car to help Rogers get to Schmidt's plane, The Valkyrie, which was already leaving the hangar. Before Rogers headed into the plane, Peggy gave him a kiss.
Following their defeat of the remaining HYDRA soldiers, Rogers called in, reporting that Red Skull was dead but that the plane was heading for New York with no way of stopping it. Rogers decided to put the large plane in the waters of the North Atlantic Ocean. Peggy, believing that this would result in his death, doesn't give up hope and insists on the matter, implying that there would be time for them to sort the situation out. Rogers claims that there isn't enough time and proceeds with the landing, and Peggy attempted to distract him from his impending death by setting a date with him, promising to teach him how to dance.
Peggy was recruited into S.H.I.E.L.D. by Howard Stark a few months after WW2 came to an end. She retired a few years before the events of The Avengers, and resides in London. Her niece Sharon Carter works as an agent for S.H.I.E.L.D.
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