Moments
A/N: Hello again, so as promised more Cartson. I may incorporate elements of season 2 later on but for now, it is definitely AU.
Also brownie points for anyone who can spot my reference to Pride & Prejudice : )
Anywho, Enjoy!
Better Together
"Listen, Jack. I know you wanted, expected even, to be partnered with Carter when you got out here," Samuel Jorgensen declared half pleadingly, half apologetically, as they sat sequestered in his new chief's office.
The scotch that had burned so good, now turned sour in Jack's stomach, and it now made sense as to why his friend had offered him his best right out of the gate. He was buttering him up.
"But you gotta see it from my point of view," Sam continued to explain. "She's damn good. You weren't overselling that. And it would be a damn waste of resources not to have the both of you as team leads."
Jack didn't say anything in reply to this for a while, mostly to pettily punish his friend, who was anxiously awaiting his forgiveness. But then he swallowed the last of his scotch as well as his disappointment and drawled, "Well, I am glad to hear that you're not gonna make a liar out of me."
At Jorgensen's questioning look, he explained, "I told her that you would see her merit and give her a chance."
"I do, but just so you know, she still needs to prove her worth to some here."
"She always does."
~A~
"What is that? Like the sixth this week?" Jack asked, as she erased yet another one of her team's cases from the assignment board.
She couldn't tell if he was impressed or exasperated, so all she said was, "Yes." With a nod to the one that he had just cleared, she asked, "And this is your…fourth?"
"Yeah, we would have had more, but we're down a man. Connors is out sick," he answered somewhat defensively.
Now that they weren't partners, it was a little hard to read him, but with that tone, she could tell that the competitiveness between their teams was getting to him.
"Hmmm…I had heard from my boys that the only reason you hadn't joined in on this ridiculous bet was that you 'don't bet on a sure thing'," she mused thoughtfully.
"That's right," he acknowledged cautiously, detecting a trap. Smart man.
"Oh good. Then you won't mind when Jorgensen assigns Daniel to my team, when he comes out here in two weeks."
Daniel had to testify in court next week, but after that he was going to be flying out here temporarily to follow up on a lead that the Chameleon-Maker was practicing his arts here in L.A.
It only made sense that the chief would assign the best team to such a high-profile case, and both she and Jack were itching to wipe that stain of a case from their record.
Jack sensing the challenge, smirked at her, "Oh, you thought I meant you were the sure thing? Carter, that's so…sweet."
She resisted the urge to slap the patronizing smirk off his face (she had just asked for it, hadn't she?), and retorted coolly, "Just have your man recover quickly. I don't want to hear you whine about how you lost to us due to man-power issues."
~A~
"I heard you caught the auction house case," Jack stated into the break room's silence, as he waited for his coffee to brew and she for her tea's water to boil.
"We did," she confirmed, not doing a very good job at hiding her annoyance.
Jack detected it of course, and was just as bad at hiding his glee (and worse at conveying genuine sympathy), as he asked, "Witnesses can't remember a thing?"
"Not a damn thing," she huffed, wishing the water would boil faster so that she would not have to be in his gloating presence any longer. In the few months that they had been thousands of miles apart, she had somehow managed to forget how unbearably smug Jack could be.
"That's got to be tough," he commiserated.
Her team's investigation into the missing auction pieces was proving more than a bit difficult, especially when the crowd of bidders and the auctioneer, the staff, and security personnel did not recall anything other than 'feeling the happiest I have ever felt'. More like – what were the kids calling it these days? Oh yes – stoned out of their minds. Yet there was not a trace of any known euphoric-inducing substances in their systems.
But no matter how sincere in his sympathy Jack might (eventually) become, she was not going to give him the satisfaction of knowing how flummoxed she was.
"Eh," she shrugged dismissively. "The auctioneers are most likely simply committing insurance fraud, if somewhat creatively," and to quickly change the topic, she inquired curiously, "You got the dead mafia lieutenants case, right?"
"Yeah," he huffed, apparently equally disgruntled with his new case as she was. "And before you say anything – No, it wasn't a lifetime of pasta finally catching up to them. All three were in their prime, and the last one was a health nut. Ate like a rabbit," he sneered that last bit in disgust before concluding, "And the coroner ruled that all three Nobili lieutenants died of heart attacks 'induced by unnatural causes'."
Peggy did not say anything in reply to this, mostly because she hadn't been going to say any of that stereotypical drivel as she had already known all of that – a fact which he should have very well known about her. So instead she limited her response to steeping her tea and arching her eyebrow.
Either not catching on to her pointed look or choosing to ignore it, he continued with exaggerated breeziness, "So it was poison, simple enough. Why the L.A. gang squad needed to call us in, I don't know. It was probably someone from the Paguro family who decided to get creative in the way they take down their rivals."
Before she could point out the many holes in his theory, he returned to the bullpen with his cup of straight black coffee – which for the sake of her winning their little wager was probably for the best.
~A~
"Hey, Miss Car– Agent Carter - ma'am - sir," a young wet-behind-the-ears agent called out haltingly, while holding a phone to his ear.
"Spit it out, Williams," she ordered briskly, if not unkindly.
Williams nervously swallowed, as he reported, "They found the missing paintings and vases – vahzes? – vases at the auction house, when they did an overhaul of their inventory."
Peggy pinched the bridge of her nose in the hopes of warding off a headache, for there went her simple insurance fraud case.
"Do they know if the found items are authentic?" she asked hopefully.
There was a brief pause, while Williams relayed the inquiry, and then apologetically her youngest team member shared, "So far, but they are still in the process of authenticating."
Shit. Thompson was going to have a field day with this.
~A~
"Hey, boss?"
"Yes, Anders?" he replied patiently. His irritation with the man's hesitancy was assuaged by the deferential honorific.
"We got a problem. The city morgue has another suspicious gangster death," Anders explained.
"I don't really see the problem," he scoffed. "A good Nobili is a dead Nobili."
"Er, that's the problem. It's not a Nobili, but one of their rivals, the Paguros."
Shit. He sincerely regretted giving Peggy a hard time now.
. ~A~
"Coming from the lab?"
Jack's curious voice cut into her mental rundown of her to-do list, as they both stood waiting for the elevator.
More out of the desire not to stand there in awkward silence for the slowest lift in history than out of the desire to gloat, Peggy shared her good news, "Yes, Dr. Samberly just confirmed the toxin was airborne." (They had had the forethought to obtain blood samples from the amnesiac 'witnesses' when the auction house was 'robbed' a second time). "We're going to stakeout the air vents at this afternoon's auction in case there is a third attack."
"Catch your guy red-handed. Clever." Jack praised.
Peggy was not sure how to reply to that, mostly as she was waiting for the backhanded part of the compliment. When it didn't come, she didn't say anything, not until after they entered the elevator and she noticed him rocking impatiently back and forth on his heels while waiting for the lift doors to slowly close.
"Where are you headed to in such a rush?"
Jack shrugged (but stopped rocking), as he shared with forced casualness, "Oh, to check on all the gang-squads' alibis."
She arched an eyebrow and declared, "That's ballsy."
Jack shrugged again but stood up straighter at her compliment, asserting, "Not really. We wouldn't be doing our jobs, if my team did not look into this angle, especially since they have a bit of a reputation for being 'overzealous'."
She didn't know what was more impressive – him having the guts to actually label local law enforcement (and the gang squad no less) as persons of interest or him being humble about it.
Not wanting to sabotage his newly gained trait of modesty, she mirrored his attitude of nonchalance, stating mildly, "It's as good as a theory as any."
Their weird truce ended however as soon as the elevator doors opened. As if a spell had been broken, Peggy found herself saying, "Well, I would say 'happy hunting', but…"
Jack grinned at her knowingly, almost predatorily, as he stated wryly, "But so far we've been nothing but bracingly honest with one another. Why change now?"
"Yes, why indeed?"
They went their separate ways then – she, to the armory, and he, to the bullpen. But before they got out of hearing range of one another, Peggy heard Jack call, "Hey, Carter! Break a leg!"
Sensing that he didn't completely mean it in the thespian sense, she flipped him the two-finger salute before disappearing around the corner.
His deep appreciative chuckles echoed down the halls after her though, sending her spine a-tingling.
~A~
Jack's attempt to scowl a helpful clue for any one of his team's cases was thwarted by Carter cocking her hip against his desk.
Without looking away from his case board, he growled irritably, "Not now, Carter."
Now though would be the perfect time for him to taunt her about the fact that her team had let their one caught suspect slip through their fingers, while laughing their happy-gassed asses off, but as she gave as good as she got, he just wasn't in the mood.
Peggy huffed impatiently, "No, it's not about that." When he didn't look at her, she reached over and spun his chair around to face her, declaring sharply, "Look, that missing-actresses case that you have? The one where seasoned stars go missing for days and then come back less than green and practically talentless? I may have a lead for you…"
He still didn't say anything, mostly because he couldn't believe his ears. But as he didn't tell her to piss off, she continued, "Angie was told that 'Perry Rhys' was the headshot photographer to have. Apparently, new actresses' careers sky-rocket after using him, and his name appears on all three guest lists of the places that your stars disappeared from."
Jack finally found his voice, and his ever present skepticism won out over common courtesy, as he snarked, "What is this? 'If you can't beat 'em, join them'?"
Yeah, his Gam-Gam would have smacked the back of his head for that, but Carter only rolled her eyes and sighed tiredly before walking away, "Just look into it, Jack."
He did look into it.
And of course, her tip panned out, as it was goddamn Peggy-effing-Carter.
A lot of weird sciencey mumbo-jumbo (that he wasn't going to ever fully understand) allowed Rhys to steal and transfer talent into those who were willing to pay.
And now in order to balance the scales, he owed her a tip. Or else he would never be able to look her in the eyes again.
And that would be a damn shame, for she had such a fine pair of them.
A/N: Also, the plots of cases were inspired by/adapted from WH13. Double brownie points if you recognize them ; )
Anywho, thoughts?
