Scenarios

A/N: This prompt is from shepweir always who suggested once upon a time that there be a one-shot of Jack and Peggy being 'sent on a suicide mission together where only one of them is supposed to make it back. They have to decide which one. Naturally each chooses to say the other...'

Enjoy.

You or Me ~:~ Me and You

Kaliningrad Sea Port, Midnight…

"What the hell, Carter! Why are you here?!"

"Why am I here?" Peggy asked incredulously, as she glanced around at the docks where they were currently being shot at by a posse of Hydra thugs, and she couldn't help but wonder if she was missing something.

But nope, she hadn't. She and the man that she both called her boss and partner were surrounded by heavily-armed and very angry men. Their fury was quite understandable, as this same boss/partner had taken it upon himself to seize an opportunity to infiltrate their local hub of operations and steal their little black book, which listed their undercover agents.

Jack popped around the refrigerator-sized crates they were hiding behind to fire off a few shots at their pursuers, before ducking back down and retorting testily, "Yeah, why are you here? The plan was – "

"The plan was suicide!"

Yes, the S.S.R. really needed this information. Yes, it would have been impossible to duplicate the circumstances that allowed for the opportunity to happen again. However, that window of opportunity had been short-lived, and it would have been impossible (even for her) to get out undetected.

And if she hadn't been sent out on a lunch run because she was the only one who spoke the native tongue, she could have told him so at the time, and perhaps, they could have avoided this catastrophe.

As if to illustrate her point, a steady rata-tat-tat! of machine gunfire sent wood chips and splinters flying over their heads.

"How is this better? You are going to die too!"

"Maybe, maybe not," she acknowledged with a shrug. "But you definitely would have been dead ten minutes ago, if it wasn't for me."

Ten minutes ago, it had been their two baseball teams-worth of Hydra thugs versus his lone ranger; a couple of their rocket launchers, to his couple of flash-bangs; and whatever heavy assault armaments they had, to his semi-automatic pistol with whatever was left of its last spare cartridge and his trusty knife. Thanks to her and her well-prepped bag of wonders (which included a half-dozen grenades), the enemy was down to a team and a half and had no more rockets to reload their launchers.

Jack looked as if he dearly wanted to protest. His face was doing quite a few grimacing contortions, before he reloaded his pistol with one of the extra clips that she had packed in her duffel and bit out: "Fine, my hero, how do you propose we get out of this mess?"

Peggy did another quick scan of the area, hoping to find a miracle exit, but it was rather pointless. The goons had them pinned down. There weren't enough of these handy crates to provide them cover to any of the nearby warehouse buildings, and the only boat moored to the pier was currently up in flames.

"I don't know yet," she admitted reluctantly, before adding with a regretful nod to her poor bonfire of a launch boat, "Their stunt with their last rocket ruined my original exit strategy."

Over the noise of her fired off rounds from her Smith & Wesson at the tosser trying to outflank them, she could hear Jack's sarcastic drawl of, "Great."

She ignored all of the curses that he continued to mutter after that, and she resumed her search for a way out. It seemed rather hopeless for a few moments, but finally, in the dim light of her smoldering boat, she could see a small motor boat, or possibly a dingy, tied to the next pier over, out of range of their pursuers' guns. Tossing her despairing partner a smile, she declared, "Oh ye of little faith. I said 'yet'."

Jack followed her gaze and quickly spotted the little sea-craft, but being the cynic that he was, he was quick to find the flaw in her plan. "So we swim out there and what? Pray that it's got petrol? All the while they shoot at us from the shoreline? That will never work, Carter."

Her smile became rather sad, as she pointed out the obvious truth: "It will, if I stay behind and provide you cover fire."

"I'm not going to be able to swing by and pick you up," Jack pointed out, frowning in obvious bewilderment. "And that still leaves you without any cover fire."

Peggy just looked at him, waiting for the penny to drop.

And when it did, his blue eyes widened with horrified shock, and then his pale skin became livid with apoplectic fury. He nearly burst a blood vessel, as he irately roared out:

"Oh hell no! And you call me suicidal? Why would you - ?"

"Who said anything about my suicide?" she asked with false naiveté. To assist in her charade of hope, she hid her face by peaking around the crate's corner again to make sure no one was sneaking up on them.

They weren't yet, but they were clearly getting into position. She determined that this would provide her sufficient time to sell her pitch, so she continued with as much confidence as she could muster, "Before you go, we'll herd them into a cluster, throw the last of the grenades and flash-bangs, and then we'll take advantage of their confusion. While you are swimming out to the other pier, I'll be providing cover fire for you and running towards one of these other buildings, which should provide me more maneuverability and coverage."

"And is this bag of yours a bottomless pit of ammo?" Jack scoffed in disbelief, clearly not buying her act.

She ignored his question, and instead briskly announced, "Speaking of – toss me a clip. I'm out."

Jack reached into the duffel at their feet and obligingly handed her a clip from their dwindling supply. She reloaded and signaled to him where she had last seen the thugs getting situated, and then they both darted around their corners to fire off a few more shots. Jack managed to wing his guy, and Peggy sent hers toppling off a stack of large port containers where he had been attempting to set up a sniper's nest.

This setback in the posse's offensive strategy gave her and Jack a little breather room, but only just enough to resume their debate.

With a resigned sigh, she argued, "It has to be this way, Jack. Do you see any other way out?"

Before the man that she was desperately trying to save despite himself could admit the truth, he hastily scanned the area, searching just as she had. And just like she had, he saw the hopelessness of their situation.

Grudgingly, he confessed, "No, I don't." Almost as an afterthought, he half-growled, half-whined, "But why is it that you get to be the one who gets to go out in the blaze of glory?"

"Because you're the Chief."

She had meant her statement of that simple fact to soothe his ruffled feathers, but apparently all it did was get his dander up further, as he sat up a little straighter and scowled even more fiercely at her, full-on growling, "And as Chief, I order you to swim to the boat and take this with you while you are at it."

Peggy ignored the cylindrical plastic tube of documents that he thrust at her, meeting him eye-to-eye, scowl-for-scowl, as she staunchly declared, "No."

"No?" he asked incredulously, and before she could repeat herself, he exploded, "Goddamn it, Peggy! This is not the time to be a stubborn broad!"

Mulishly, she retorted, "This is the exact time to be."

Surprisingly, he didn't point out that she was being insubordinate or threaten to man-handle her and toss her into the sea. (Ha! As if he could.) She almost wished he had, instead of imploringly asking her:

"Again, why?"

Perhaps, it was the hitch in his voice or the depths of despair that she was seeing in those normally icy blues of his, but whatever the case may be, his display of vulnerability pulled at her, and she admitted fiercely, "Because I am not going to watch another man I – I admire – die!" As she caught the pleading tone in her voice, she added, in an attempt to retain some dignity, a hasty respectful, "Sir."

For several seemingly ageless moments, Jack scanned her face, as if searching for something. The reason behind her struggles to find the right word for her feelings for him, how much of her desire to stay behind had more to do with Steve, the sincerity of her statement in general – she couldn't tell.

And she wasn't sure if he ever found his answer, because their soul-searching was rudely interrupted by another burst of machine gunfire that sent the wood chips and splinters flying again.

"Goddamn it!" Jack howled in frustration. "Would you quit firing at us?! We are trying to have an important conversation here!"

After he sent his own burst of gunfire back, holding the bastards barely at bay yet again, Peggy gave up on her dignity and begged, "Jack, please, get to the boat. Get home."

"No, Peggy, I won't," he declared rather grimly. "I am not leaving you."

At her devastated expression, he asked with growing impatience, "Look. How do you think I will feel if you get killed?"

It was vastly inappropriate of her, she knew, but even though he was staring at her beseechingly for understanding, all she could hear was a distant echo of an argument long ago made in Dooley's office, and her lips involuntarily twitched in amusement, as she unhelpfully supplied, "Like a moron?"

Jack growled a string of unrepeatable obscenities either at her, for throwing his words back at him, or at their shooters, who had sent yet another man out to try to outflank them.

After she made Idiot #3 regret that choice by popping him in the kneecap, she declared, "Look, if we keep arguing like this, we'll run out of ammo, and the point will be moot."

"So get to the goddamn bo– "

"So," she interrupted, "We need to think about this logically. You have the greater lung capacity. You can swim deeper longer, and therefore, have greater chances of making it to the boat and completing the mission."

"And this is Europe. Not the Southeast Pacific. You know the area better," he rejoined, looking rather triumphant at returning the favor and using her old argument against her. "And if we are going to be logical about this…Which one of us has played baseball and has a better throwing arm? That's right, me!"

A whole string of outraged thoughts ran through her mind at that ridiculous assertion. But when she had the thought of 'If the words 'throw like a girl' are in any way, shape, or form connected to me, I will shoot him and be done with it', she realized his game.

"Are you trying to piss me off so that I will want to leave you here?"

Jack smirked boyishly at her, as he innocently inquired, "I dunno. Is it working?"

Peggy opened her mouth to argue further but stopped because there was a sudden increase in yelling and gunshot fire, coming from their remaining besiegers.

"Why the hell are they shouting in Russian at us?" Jack asked exasperatedly. "They've got to know by now that we are – "

"Shhh!" Peggy hushed him, cocking her head to listen and understand better. "They're not shooting at us." There was another round of gunfire, this time in their direction. After ducking down even further, she ruefully admitted, "Or at least not just us, anymore."

"Then who?"

After hearing several shouts of the word 'снайпер', Peggy answered, "Sniper."

"What the hell?"

And then there were several more frantic bursts of gunshots at the far end of their dock and terrified shouts coming from the men who had previously been issuing death threats at them.

Before she could determine the source of this new commotion or figure out how to take advantage of it, out of nowhere a truck came barreling around one of the many warehouses that they had not been able to get to, and the French-accented voice of Jacques Dernier called out:

"Hey, Juliet and Romeo, need a ride?"

~A~

It hadn't taken them long to take the Howling Commando up on his offer. A heartbeat and a half really, and they were both running and diving into the bed of the truck.

Dernier and Gabe Jones provided cover fire, while the driver sped off as soon as he got the signal.

Once they were out of range and it looked like there were no pursuers, Peggy barked, "Report, Jones."

"Well, ma'am, your guy Ramirez was successful in following your orders in getting a hold of that Jarvis fellow, who got a hold of good ol' Howard, who got word to Dugan."

"And here we are," Jacques concluded, his smile beaming wide beneath his mustache.

From beside her, Jack asked curiously, "And where is Rick?"

"Oh, oui, he was leading the charge along with Dugan against that nest of vipers," Jacques explained. "But after we radioed that we got the two of you out, they should now be on their way back to base."

"And which one of you fine lot do I owe a thank you for those timely sniper shots?"

Jacques looked puzzled at this, and Jones merely shrugged, admitting, "I don't know, whoever he was, he wasn't one of us."

Peggy found the idea of the mystery sniper rather disturbing, and couldn't help but wonder aloud, even though she knew no one could answer, "Then who? And why?"

"Don't care. But when we get back, Marge, I am going to write you up on so many insubordination related charges…"

Although he let that threat hang ominously in the air, it lost some its teeth, as he reached over and grasped her hand. Whether that simple gesture was meant to reassure himself or her, she did not know. All she did know was that it felt comforting, and she had no plans to pull away any time soon.

And apparently neither did he, as he kept a hold of her hand all the way back to the Commandos' base.

~A~

The next Monday morning…

"Hey, Lisa, is Angie here?" Peggy asked the raven-haired waitress behind the Auto-mat's counter.

"Oh no! That lucky dame got a call back for a second audition. Didn't she tell you?"

"Um no, I have been out of town," Peggy hedged, while silently wishing her friend and roommate good luck.

Lisa nodded, and, bless her heart, didn't ask any prying questions, but instead brightly expressed, "Oh, I hope your trip went well!" before bustling over to help the next customer, an elderly gentleman.

As it was rather busy, Peggy thought it would be awhile before the perky waitress swung back around to her, but after she took the gentleman's order, Lisa was back at her side.

"Before I forget, one of your friends stopped by and gave this to me to pass along to you."

Peggy looked up to see Lisa holding out an unmarked envelope. Warily, she took it, and when Lisa had bustled off again, she cautiously opened it.

Inside was a scrap of paper, and on it, in lurid red ink, was written:

Dear Peg,

Nobody gets to kill you, but me.

XOXO

~D.

Heart pounding, Peggy turned over the letter and saw that it was a soup can label from the company warehouse that the sniper had been in.

'Oh bloody shit.'