81.
Brooklyn, New York City
June 25th, 1946
Peggy goes off to work the next morning, and returns awfully quickly, hurrying back into the apartment as Isabel is sweeping the hardwood floors.
"Peg? What're you doing home so early?" A pause. "You didn't get yourself fired, did you?"
"Not yet. I took coffee to the men and found out their plan to intercept Howard's first piece of weaponry being sold. I requested a sick day for my imaginary lady's problems. Dooley was horrified and told me to go shopping. But the only thing I'll be going shopping for is a disguise."
"A disguise to what?" Isabel asks, eyebrow raised.
"To go to a club tonight where the sale is taking place. For that formula slip Howard was talking about. I couldn't possibly go as Peggy Carter."
"Oh, no. Of course not," Isabel says, still not catching on to what Peggy's talking about.
"The man who's making the sale, his name is Spider Raymond. Apparently, the Spider likes blondes and money, and that's what I'm going to offer him. What do you say? Are you working tonight, or would you be up for a bit of dancing?" Peggy asks with a sly smile.
"I thought you didn't want me involved?"
"You won't be, not too much. But I need you to stay in the club and let me know if any of the SSR agents enter. You know what they look like, you've seen them that time I took you to the base. I can't have them moving in on the deal and ruining my plans or getting me killed. Technically you are a member of the SSR anyway, since you're a Commando, so you coming along isn't illegal or anything."
"How am I supposed to tell you if they come?"
Peggy reaches into the pocket of her coat, pulling out two of the small receivers the Commandos had used in battle, the ones that sit just behind their ears. "With these. We can cover them with our hair, no one will know we're wearing them."
Isabel takes the receiver. "I'm in. I love dance halls."
Peggy and Isabel walk through the front doors of the club and into a vibe of dancing and smoke and jive, loud jazz music filling the large hall from the big band on the stage at the far end. The club is pretty crowded, men and women loitering around the bar, groups of them swing dancing in front of the stage. The women all, frankly, look gorgeous. Peggy blends right in in her gold, plunging, floor-length dress, her brown hair hiding beneath a long blonde wig that suits her perfectly. Isabel feels slightly underdressed in her second-best dress – she couldn't bring herself to wear the red dress Steve and Bucky had bought her two Christmas' ago, and she wanted to wear something that she could run in if she needed to. Her dress is still red, though, falling just below her knees.
Peggy looks around subtly. Around the outer edge of the hall is an upper balcony level that wraps right around, dimly lit. Peggy can just make out a small room on the upper balcony above the main entrance, a small amount of light filtering out onto the balcony just outside it. From the edge of the hall a dark-haired, suited man emerges, passing another man who stands stoic as a guard. He tucks something into his breast pocket as he walks, flanked by another man, looking angrily around the room. He passes by Peggy and Isabel, who smile shyly at him and act cool, though Peggy thinks she may recognize the man. She lets him go in favour of retrieving Howard's formula.
"So, what's the guys name again? The one you're after?" Isabel whispers, just audible over the noise.
"Spider Raymond," Peggy replies, looking around for him. "My gut says he's in that room up there. That's where he'll be making the sale from. That man who just walked past, he probably didn't offer enough money."
A man saunters over to them, interrupting them. "You look like ladies looking to dance," he mutters, a half-empty glass of whiskey in one hand.
"I'm afraid I'd only step on your toes," Peggy responds immediately in a perfect imitation of an American accent. Isabel hides her surprise and impressed expression.
"Another time, perhaps," the man offers, knowing a rejection when he sees one, before walking away from them.
"Since when were you going to be American?" Isabel asks.
"Since I needed a complete disguise."
"Do I need to be British? I don't know if my accent is any good."
"Just be you," Peggy reassures quickly.
Peggy turns, spotting Spider Raymond, the owner of the club who's looking to fence Stark's weapons. He's standing on the balcony of his office upstairs with the light on, looking out at the club. He's a slightly man, mid-forties, with dark skin and a balding head, wearing an impeccable tuxedo. The guard outside his office turns someone away and Peggy gets a steely determination wash over her features.
"I'm going to talk to the Spider. Find yourself a seat somewhere with a view of the whole club and try not to look suspicious. Keep an eye out for Sousa and Thompson, plus another other agents they'll bring along. But those two, they'll definitely be here."
"Will do, ma'am," Isabel says with a sly wink before walking off, blending seamlessly into the crowd in the direction of the bar.
Isabel goes to the bar and orders a wine, taking a seat at the end. It's awfully loud being right near the band on the stage, but she's got an uninterrupted view of everyone in the club, of the front doors, and of the office upstairs and the hallway leading to it. The barman hands over the glass of wine, looking at her appreciatively. Isabel returns a smile so as to seem approachable and not as uptight as she feels, taking a long swig to calm herself.
She watches as Peggy's gold and blonde figure walks up to the guard, who doesn't look overly fond to see her.
"I'm looking for Mr. Raymond," Peggy says innocently, running a hand along the expensive-looking but fake necklace hanging around her neck. It's one of Becca's jewelry sets from when she was a child and they used to play dress up, but it looks impressively real. "I have something I'd like to sell."
The guard looks Peggy up and down, takes in her million-dollar appearance, and then smiles ever so slightly. "First door on the right."
"Thanks, sugar," Peggy says sweetly, smiling with a flash of red, before passing him.
She heads down the hallway but stops at a small mirror on the edge of the hall above a vanity. Taking her lipstick out of her purse, Peggy reapplies a layer of red lipstick, smacking her lips together. She continues and knocks on the specified door, opening it before there's an answer.
"Mr. Raymond, is this a bad time?" She asks.
The man looks up from the small book in his hands, surprised. "We'll only know after it's over," he says suggestively, putting the book away and waving her inside. "Bring the rest of you in here."
Peggy pushes back the distaste in her mouth and forces a smile, stepping inside, her gold dress dragging lightly along the carpeted floor. "I hope you don't find me forward."
"Well, I'm not the judgmental type."
Peggy walks further into the room, swinging her white purse in her hand before dropping it onto one of the velveted chairs. "Um, I know you are in, um…" she closes the curtains over the window, blocking the view of the club below, but not before spotting a red-clad female in the corner of the bar looking around as though she were having a marvelous time, "…possession of a certain chemical formula."
The man stands suddenly, about to usher her out. "I got a lot of club to run, miss, so if you'd just–"
"It's okay," Peggy says quickly. "Let's make this a game. You seem like you might like games," she continues, leaning onto the desk and giving him a full show of her cleavage. "You don't have to tell me anything," she promises, moving around to perch on the edge of the desk beside him. "You just have to, um, look right here."
The man does look and he looks hard, stumbling back into his desk chair with a bewildered expression.
"Now, I don't care where you got it, but cards on the table. You are the proud owner of a certain chemical formula. Just a little piece of paper, right?" The man shifts, intrigued but not giving anything away. "I have some friends who would be very interested in buying that formula," Peggy offers, sliding onto Raymond's white-clad lap.
Raymond pulls a face that indicates he isn't interested.
"Now, I know, I said "Spider Raymond, he doesn't hold onto anything for long. He must already have a buyer". But you see, the thing is, I think I can offer you more," Peggy says, dropping her voice just a bit lower and fiddling with the lapel of his white jacket. "Is it here? Do you want me to search you?"
"Sweetheart, I don't have it on me," Raymond says.
He chuckles, and so does Peggy, just to keep up the innocent act. And then Raymond grabs her by the back of her golden hair and pulls her toward him, slamming their lips together. Peggy uses the moment to her advantage. She brings her hand up and clasps it around Spider Raymond's neck, squeezing hard. She's got him up against her lips so he can't shout out. Quickly, he loses strength.
There's a knock at the door behind them and a man enters. "Hey, boss, there's a guy downstairs–" He pauses when he sees Peggy in Spider's lap, their lips locked together. "I guess he'll just have him wait," the guard says before closing the door again.
Peggy pulls away immediately, and Spider slumps in his chair, unconscious, his face a little blue. She sighs, shaking her head. "Well that was a bit premature."
Peggy hurriedly searches the office and finds the safe, but no key. A bit more searching, and then of the man, and she finds a watch on his wrist, the rectangular shaped face twisted at an odd angle. Taking it off his wrist, she turns the face all the way to the side, pulling it off. It's a perfect size and shape to fit into a small dent in the front of the safe. She clicks it into place and then the hands of the clock are moving of their own accord along with the knob to enter the safe code in. The hands turn in time with the knob, and then the door to the safe pops open. Peggy opens it, her eyes widening, a golden glow washing over her and the entire room from a small round jeweled egg inside. It isn't a formula, but a containment vessel for the solution of the formula. Spider Raymond is selling the bomb itself, not the formula.
Peggy immediately goes to Raymond's phone on his desk, phoning the number for Edwin Jarvis. She waits a few rings and then the phone answers and she's immediately hit with the sound of music. I dreamed a dream of you last night–
"Jarvis residence."
"They've weaponized it, already," Peggy says immediately, staring at the egg in her hands.
"Miss Carter?"
"Do you know anyone else handling high explosives at this time of night?" Peggy snaps.
"As a matter of fact, no," Jarvis says, sounding surprised. "It's just I promised my wife a soufflé and if I don't get it in the oven by–"
"Mister Jarvis, what was once only a theory on a piece of paper has now been manufactured into a bomb, so apologies to your wife, but dinner will have to wait."
"No, you're quite right," Jarvis agrees. "Mister Stark left a note, hold the line," Jarvis says.
Then Peggy hears the phone be put down, right next to the record player. She looks worriedly toward the still unconscious Spider, willing him to stay that way. The sweetest dream, I ever knew. Where I awake –
"Is the nitramene, by any chance, glowing?" Jarvis asks, picking up the phone again.
"Yes," Peggy says, picking up the glowing egg.
"Oh, that's not ideal. An orange or golden glow would indicate "the nitramene has reached peak volatility and should be handled with caution. Cracking its shell would result in a blast radius of, oof, five hundred yards."
Peggy pauses, thinks of Isabel sitting downstairs and the other hundreds of patrons. "Delightful."
""Render it inert with a solution of sodium hydrogen carbonate and acetate". Where you're going to find that at this time of night, I have no idea," Jarvis says helpfully.
"Leave that to me."
"There's one last note here. "Avoid touching the core to the containment ring. Touching the core will result in–"
"Death?"
"Well I was going to say 'core overload', but yes." Peggy hears the vague mumble of a female voice calling out to Jarvis, and then the man calling back for a moment. "If that will be all?" Jarvis asks, this time to Peggy.
"Mister Jarvis, you do realise this job will have certain after-hours requirements?" Peggy snaps in frustration, trying to keep her voice low.
"So does my wife, Miss Carter. Good night."
Isabel looks up from the bar where she's currently avoiding the attentive eyes of a man across from her, her eyes flicking up toward the office. The curtains are still drawn, and all appears to be calm. She can only pray that Peggy is okay. She looks to the main entrance then, catching sight of three well-dressed men walking in, three very familiar men. They're approached by one of the security guards of the club, and after a few moments of conversation, the front man, whom Isabel deduces may be Peggy's colleague Thompson, flashes his gun in its holster on his hip beneath his jacket. The guard steps away with a nod, and the three men walk further into the club.
Isabel discreetly presses on the radio behind her ear, speaking quietly and hiding her face in her hand as though she were scratching at her hair. "Peggy, your work friends are here," she says quietly.
Peggy's voice fires back immediately. "How many?"
"Three, I think. But I only recognize one, Thompson."
"Distract them if they come close."
Isabel isn't quite sure how Peggy expects her to distract them, but she can only try. She slides off her stool and waltzes her way through the dancing couples and smoking groups until she gets a little closer to the three men, loitering close by them as though she were just watching the crowd. She glances at them out the corner of her eye, but they seem to be pretending that they're only patrons to the club as well. She doesn't know if they'll even be a problem, if they're even going to pounce on the buy.
She notices movement near the hallway leading to the office, the guard who'd spoken to Thompson and the others at their entrance speaking with the guard standing watch at the hallway. The hallway guard moves then, walking purposefully toward the office.
"Crap," Isabel whispers. "Peggy, the guard's coming. Hide," she mutters into the radio, her voice slightly panicked.
Peggy's putting the egg explosive into her white purse carefully, not wanting to jostle it at all. Once it's settled between her belongings to stop it from bouncing around, she does up the bag and puts it over her shoulder, leaving the play necklace on Spider's desk to pretend she'd sold it as she'd told the guard.
She's walking to the doors when Isabel's voice comes through the radio, warning her that the guard is coming to the office. The doors open before Peggy can move and the hallway guard steps in, walking toward her and she hurriedly steps backward. He looks past her, to Spider lying unconscious in his desk chair, and immediately turns a glare on her, pulling a gun from his back pocket.
Peggy reacts quicker. She grabs a stapler from the table beside the door and slams it into the side of the man's face, making him fly to the side. She hits his other side, and then uses the momentum to swing back once more, slamming him three times across the face and spurting blood out from his nose. To finish, she unclips the stapler and slams a staple into his forehead with enough force that he falls backward, unconscious. Grabbing his legs, Peggy drags him into the office and shuts the doors behind her, closing the carnage within their walls.
Peggy hurries down the hallway, trying to act as calm as possible, and emerges back into the smoky atmosphere of the club. She passes an unfamiliar man with a groomed moustache and gelled hair on her way down. She offers him a small, innocent smile, and then keeps walking.
Her eyes land on Thompson right away, patrolling the perimeter. Agent Ray Krzeminski stands in the middle of the floor, speaking with a bunch of women who've circled him for a drink and a dance. Agent Yauch patrols the other edge of the perimeter. His eyes almost fall on her and Peggy quickly turns away, showing him the back of her blonde head. It's then that her eyes land on Isabel, who's standing by the wall in her red dress, prepared to move off to distract any of the men should they attempt to intercept Peggy. Agent Thompson comes to a stop right in front of the main exit to the complex, blocking Peggy's way unknowingly. He's turning toward her, scanning the crowd–
Peggy spots the man who'd asked her to dance earlier and grabs his arm, pulling him toward her to dance and wait for the time that Thompson moves so she can make her escape.
"Uh, so glad you changed your mind," the man says sincerely, looking a bit flustered.
"What can I say? It's every woman's right."
There's a gunshot upstairs then, faint due to the jiving music but audible to those who know one when they hear one. Thompson looks up at the noise above him, immediately calling in his two men and hurrying up the stairs. Only one man had been close to the room with Spider, and Peggy got a good look at him, the man with the moustache who'd passed her. Clearly, he must have been in on the deal and mustn't be happy that it's fallen through, since Peggy stole the artefact.
Peggy quickly pulls away from the man's arms, saying, "Thanks, doll. We should try it again sometime."
The man looks a little lovesick as she hurries away. She grabs onto Isabel's hand, and Isabel was moving to follow her anyway, and hightails them both out of the club.
Hailing a cab isn't hard. They both just have to stand on the curb and Isabel only has to stick her thumb out for four to pull up at once. They chose one and jump inside, locking themselves in. Isabel sighs and slumps, looking exhausted and a little freaked out. Peggy keeps on guard as the car pulls away from the curb in the direction Isabel provides, and just spots the moustached agent emerge from the doors of the club behind them, his eyes searching wildly for the person who stole the artefact he was buying. Peggy doesn't know if Spider gave a description of her appearance before he was clearly shot going by the sound, and she hopes not. Not that it matters too much, considering she isn't really blonde. Discreetly she removes the wing and leaves it in the back of the taxi underneath the seat.
They pull up at the apartment and Isabel hurriedly throws a handful of coins at the driver, telling him to keep the change, before they both climb out. Isabel unlocks the front door and they climb the stairs in the hallway to their floor, unlocking the door and getting inside. Peggy locks the door behind them, enclosing them in the darkness of the apartment.
"What the hell is going on?" Isabel asks as soon as they're inside, throwing her clutch down on the kitchen table and running a hand through her dark hair. She looks at Peggy expectantly, but Peggy doesn't have time to explain much.
"The formula Howard wanted us to find wasn't just a written on piece of paper anymore," Peggy explains, going into the kitchen and grabbing the bicarbonate soda, white wine vinegar and bourbon whiskey bottles from the shelf above the stove. Isabel watches with a confused frown. "Whoever got their hands on it, presumably Spider, fashioned the formula into a bomb and put it into the egg in my purse as a containment vessel so it can be moved. The nitramene has reached peak volatility, apparently, so we have to be careful. It's blast radius is five hundred yards."
"You brought a potent explosive into the apartment?" Isabel reiterates, following Peggy into the bathroom where she shuts the door behind them.
"Where else were we going to do this?"
"Do what?"
"Disable it," Peggy says simply, removing the egg from her handbag very carefully, revealing the glowing orange sphere.
"Oh dear God, where is Dernier when you need him?" Isabel asks, widened eyes watching Peggy carefully lie the egg down on the edge of the basin.
"In France, I believe, with his family, as well all should be."
Peggy pours the bicarbonate soda, white wine vinegar and bourbon whiskey into the plugged sink, the liquid foaming and bubbling. She then empties one of Isabel's old perfume bottles into the toilet, dipping it into the sink's liquid to fill the bottle. She hands the half-full perfume bottle to Isabel, who looks at it strangely but doesn't question it.
"According to Howard, that mixture you're holding should neutralize the explosive."
"But how are we supposed to–"
Peggy carefully picks up the egg, and with tweezers, lifts the prongs on top of it, slowly pulling the vial inside out of the containment vessel. As she lifts it, a pale orange mist leaks out into the air, rising to the roof of the room. Peggy accidentally nicks the edge of the egg with the vial, and it sparks in her hands, turning yellow and bright and spurting out more smoke. Isabel winces, jamming her eyes shut, sure she's just met her end in an explosion, but the vial calms and fizzles.
Quickly, Isabel sprays the solution into the top of the vial with the perfume bottle's solution, and immediately the orange light shrivels up, leaving a charred black ash in the bottom of the vial.
Both women breathe a sigh of relief, the bomb rendered inert in their hands. Peggy's breathing is a bit labored since she'd been holding it. She lets the vial and the egg drop back to the basin. A second later, Peggy grabs the bottle of straight whiskey and takes a long swig before handing it to Isabel, who takes her own long sip, wincing at the taste.
"I thought we were done with bombs once I left on that damn ship to come home," Isabel says, standing on slightly weak legs. She opens the door to the bathroom and steps back out into the living room, her voice echoing through the wooden hall. "Peggy, I don't know what that was but that was–"
Isabel's voice cuts off with a strangled cry, and Peggy immediately jumps up. She steps out into the living room, and Isabel isn't there anymore. "Isabel?"
She hears a scuffle behind her, and turns, looking into Isabel's room. Isabel's standing there, the man from the club behind her, the man who'd been there to attempt to buy the formula. His arms are wrapped tight around her face so she can't scream, and her neck so that she can't breathe. Her face is turning blue, her eyes wide.
The man with the moustache looks up, his eyes landing on Peggy, and he lets out a cruel snarl. He throws Isabel away in favour of Peggy. She bounces over the top of the bed and into the bedside table, falling to the floor with a thud. Peggy can hear her coughing, sucking in deep, desperate breaths, but she doesn't have time to make sure she's okay.
The man raises a pistol to Peggy's head. She ducks down and charges, kicking him in the leg and pushing him off balance. She grabs his arm and points it away from her just as he shoots, the bullet embedding high into the wall. Peggy pulls at his arms and moves him over her shoulder, bringing his own arms up to smack himself in the face with his gun. The man stumbles away into the living room, off balance, and Peggy lands another hit upside his head. He trips over the sofa and falls to the floor, quickly scrambling up. He grabs hold of Peggy's arm and flings her away across the room, past the dining table, and smashes her into the wall by the fridge. He tries to punch at her, but Peggy grabs the door to the fridge and opens it, his hand smacking into the glass bottle of milk and shattering it. Peggy pushes on the door and it knocks into him, sending him stumbling back long enough for her to kick him. She just misses his groin but gets him in the lower stomach, making him double over. He recovers quickly, slamming into her and pressing his arm up against her throat to try to choke her. Peggy struggles against him, pinned against the wall.
The man grabs Peggy by the hair and swings her around, forcing her face over the stove while he turns on the gas, the fire painfully close to her skin. Peggy pushes back, holding her chin high enough that she won't catch alight. She manages to knee him hard in the back of the leg and he loosens his grip long enough for her to grab his own hand and slam it down onto the open flame. He screams, high pitched. Peggy grabs a pan from the sink and swings it at him, hitting him across the face. He stumbles back on uncontrollable feet, apparently a little dizzy, toward Isabel's room, slams into the wall beside the door. Just as he does, Isabel emerges from the room, recovered from being strangled. She spots the man beside her and just manages to duck as he pulls a pocket knife from his pocket and swings at her, the blade whizzing above her head. Peggy's on him in an instant, trying to wrestle the knife from his hands. He lands a punch to the side of her head and she stumbles away, her ears ringing and her head throbbing.
The man looms over Peggy, and just as she thinks she may have been caught off guard, something hard flies across the room and hits the man in the head, knocking him forcefully to the side against the wall. The hardcover book thuds to the floor beside him, open to a well-read page. Peggy grabs the man, who stumbles in her grip, unable to see straight, and then runs him through Isabel's room. She throws him with all her might at the last second and he flies through the open window, his back just scraping against the window frame. He flies over the fire escape and down toward the deserted side street below, landing with a thud and a crunch on the hard-concrete ground. Peggy steps carefully toward the window and looks out at him.
"Jesus Christ," Isabel whispers from behind Peggy, running a hand through her hair. "Oh my – you just pushed him out the window. Everyone's gonna know he came from here. Oh God, we're gonna get arrested, we're–"
"Hey!" Peggy cuts in, grabbing both of her arms and shaking Isabel slightly. "It's going to be okay. I'll fix this. They won't ever know," she promises.
Peggy promises that, and she does, but she's going to do it without asking Isabel for help because she thinks Isabel's done enough to help her, and by extension, Howard Stark. Isabel stays upstairs and cleans up the trashed apartment, scrubbing every inch of it clean of finger prints and blood that could lead to them being found.
Meanwhile, Peggy goes downstairs and emerges onto the street. When she searches for the man in the green suit's body, she finds it's disappeared, only a pool of blood left on the pavement.
