[outlander psl au]

[womanofvalue]

The ground was saturated with so much rain that Peggy thought she might be washed away, but just because the plains were soaked didn't mean that the drills stopped. The soldiers didn't know it yet, but the landings were going to arrive sooner than anyone wanted and that meant no one can be untrained, lest they end up paying with their lives on those beaches. Today, when the fog rolled in, her superiors informed her that she would be running orienteering with her men, eliciting a sharp 'sir, yes, sir' from Peggy before she took the maps to her own private tent in order to brief the Lieutenants.

Leaning over to study the map, her stubborn engagement ring catches her eye. It had managed to escape from where she had tucked it away, just like all her thoughts about Fred. Their engagement was a terse and stressful thing. When she had announced that she was going into the field with the SSR, he had threatened to leave her. It had been her mother that had convinced Fred to wait Peggy out, insisting that once the war was over, things would change.

As much as Peggy was fond of Fred, she was beginning to see the splinters in their engagement turn to wider cracks, chasms so wide that you could lose sight of the love you once shared and guided you towards that engagement. Carefully, she pushed the ring back, securing it with one of her brassiere straps. Snapping her compass shut, she gave the objective and the orders. "I'll be out in the field to keep an eye on each platoon. The first to reach the objective will not run additional miles," she promised.

"The others will be doing laps around the base, respective to their finishing position." Folding up the map, she handed one to each of her four Lieutenants. "Let them look at it for a few hours, then to the navigator." With a few more orders, she allowed them to prepare as she herself got ready. She tugged on knee-high rain boots, an overcoat, and despite the misty fog in the air, she double-checked that her hair and makeup was in good shape.

Several hours later found Peggy in the thick of drills, listening to the shouts of men in the distance as they worked their way towards her and the objective. Standing there with a brolly, she glanced at her pocketwatch and decided mentally that she would see the first platoon in no more than forty-five minutes. Clasping the watch shut, the echo of it was drowned by another sound -- one that didn't belong. The sound of twigs and branches crunching made Peggy reach for her pistol, simply to be ready.

"Phillips?" she called out, thinking perhaps something had happened and she needed to recall her men. She saw the silhouette of what appeared to be a man in the fog and she found herself inexplicably drawn towards him, mainly because it simply didn't make any sense. "Who's there?" she asked, when it was clear that the man she was seeing didn't bear resemblance to anyone on base. This close, she could see that his hair had a strange look to it, not to mention his clothes. "Has there been an accident?" What could have happened to render the man in such a state?

(Peggy also did not need to allow her conscious thoughts to become aware of how handsome the man was, despite the fact she feared she was already a lost cause, given the way she was filled with a renewed warmth and how her gaze lingered)

They were inside a ring of large stones, which she vaguely recalled the locals warning her about. She had paid little mind, marking them perfunctorily on the map before moving on, but now she had to wonder if the talk of strange rituals wasn't at least a little true. Forty-five minutes. She had forty-five minutes until the men arrived, surely she could deal with this surprise in that time.

Comments

[womanofvalue]

"Ideally, we're not going to need anything, but I don't want to send you into battle without," Peggy says, sifting through the equipment for the goodnight lipstick that she will use as a last resort, if that's needed. She lifts it up and gives it a mild wiggle. "Once I put this on, do be careful not to get near my lips," she says. "I've never tried it on a man your size, but I don't want to think about what it might do and I'd rather not have to lug your frame around."

Though, she blushes a little as she applies it, grateful for the forced barrier that will prevent her from taking advantage of their cover stories to steal a kiss or two from this man.

[bearstheshield]

Steve laughs a little at the thought of her having to lug him around but he understands the concern; he's not going to go kissing her on the mouth, for sure, and she's engaged besides.

"Well, we're a reserved couple. We're not going to be necking in front of a bunch of Germans. That's improper, right?"

[womanofvalue]

She flushes, touching the back of her neck with her palm to hide the colouring there, because the mental image of what he's just said is a rather difficult one to shake, primarily because she doesn't want to dismiss it out of hand so quickly. Luckily, she recuperates easily enough, going back to outfitting herself with equipment.

"Right," she agrees promptly, slipping on a shade of that lipstick, as if to protect herself. "I'm sure they have notions about how reserved and prissy the English are, anyhow," is her irritated comment. "Though God knows what they think of you Americans."

[bearstheshield]

"That we're destroying decency and everything else," Steve says, rolling his eyes a little. Isn't that what they always claim about America, so brave and bold and willing to be first in the world when everyone else is afraid of taking that step? Sometimes America can be wrong - a lot of times - but America is never afraid to express itself.

"We're destroying families and decent living."

[womanofvalue]

"Well, you are destroying decency, but some profanity has never put me off," she assures, adjusting the holsters she's sliding under the hem of her skirts without becoming improper, keeping a steady eye on Steve the whole while. It's strange to think that a man from the future has tumbled through, which makes her think...

"You could tell me how this all ends, couldn't you?" she tells him. "You could give me tactics and advice on how to win this."

[bearstheshield]

"I could," Steve says, waffling on that a little. "I'm afraid if I do, though, I might mess things up. What if I tell you that everything winds up all right and you get complacent and then it messes things up in the future? I can say than when I come from, we win the war. The Allies win. I can't tell you how we get there, though, because I think I might be messing with fate a little too much."

[womanofvalue]

She wants to know, is the trouble. For all that Peggy might insist that she's patient and willing to wait, she's got someone here that can actually tell her the outcome of the future and somehow, she's meant to be cautious and tentative. It frustrates her, even to know that they'll win the day. "An argument could also be made that you were always meant to come back and tell us how to do certain things," Peggy feels compelled to take the other side.

"How do you know it's not that? After all, what if you're the key to this somehow?" She's ready, now, armed to the teeth (and then some), and now it's just a matter of the boat making its landing.

[bearstheshield]

"It might be. It might be that I was supposed to come here and turn the tide of the war," Steve says, weighing that over and over in his mind.

"I just don't want to be responsible for the Allies losing because I gave you bad information. Before I was a soldier, I was in art school. If it wasn't about watercolors or charcoal or perspective, I probably can't consider myself an expert on it. I only paid as much attention to history to pass the class and move on."

[womanofvalue]

"You think you're awfully important then, do you? One man, all by himself?" It's a touch critical, but then, Peggy doesn't really have it in her to believe that one single person can work to change the war. Information from him, perhaps, but that would mobilise whole armies and do the work that's required.

One man? Well, she's afraid that she can't quite wrap her head around it. "How on earth do you go from being an art student to a solider? Is there another war on?" she asks, because it's about the only reason she might see. "Or is there some other reason for you to shift your gears so wildly?"

[bearstheshield]

"I got recruited. Sometimes it's not about the man who trains for the job and it's the one who shows up," Steve says, shrugging a little. The wheres, whens and hows of how he came to be Captain America aren't something he thinks he can share with Peggy right now. He doesn't want to compromise their mission right now.

"I'm always going to be the one who shows up."

[womanofvalue]

"Well, you showed up right in the middle of my field," is what Peggy says in response to that, given that she's still somewhat wary that this man truly is an echo reverberating back from the future, and yet, what harm is there in believing it? As they draw nearer to the shore, Peggy thinks that they can hopefully load up quickly and transfer, but she dons a heavy coat to look like a pretty civilian wife and not the agent that she is.

"Just tell me that after this war, we don't rush ourselves into another," she pleads, as if that's all that she actually needs to reassure herself, though she probably shouldn't know too much about the future.

[bearstheshield]

From what Steve knows of history, it's not long before America gets itself involved in another war. He doesn't know much about British involvement in the Korean War, if any, but he hopes that Peggy doesn't ask him any particulars.

"You and I both know there's always another war to fight. It's not like this war, though. Nothing is like this war."

[womanofvalue]

It had been a hopeful thought, but apparently not enough for Peggy to have for very long. There's always more wars to fight, she knows, even when they aren't spoken about so loudly. Still, it's disappointing even though she tries to keep that from off her face. "Well, in that case, I only have to focus on stopping this one and the man we're rescuing is paramount in importance," she says, becoming brisk and officious again.

She won't be distracted by Steve or the future, no matter how keen she is to probe into both of those things. "If it goes bad, you need to get him to safety and forget about me," she instructs. "Do you understand?"

[bearstheshield]

It's not something he wants to think about. He wants to rescue Peggy Carter no matter the cost because he's come to care about her in the past few days but he nods. The mission is always more important than the individual players and there's a part of him that knows that, a part of him that fights for the greater good and knows that he has to keep on fighting for the world and not for himself.

"Got it. Extract the target no matter what. What's the guy's name, what does he do that's so important?"

[womanofvalue]

"Dr. Erskine," Peggy informs him as she keeps her gaze forward to try and avoid looking at him and losing her pace of conversation as she stalks forward, loading their gear into the jeep as she keeps an eye around them to make sure that no one is watching them with too much interest.

Even if so, she might simply have to cozy up with someone and give them a knockout kiss if that's the case. "He's integral to our efforts at the SSR in developing a weapon to help us beat the Germans," Peggy says. "If we can get him back, that is."

[bearstheshield]

"Erskine? As in Erskine's formula?" Steve knows the name well because that's what makes him who he is. He's got Erskine's juice flowing through his veins and if he doesn't save him now, Steve might not well exist in the future. Maybe that's why he's been sent here.

"That's...that's how I am the way I am. The serum I was given? It's Erskine's formula."

[womanofvalue]

Peggy falters to a stop in her determined walk. She's of a mind to believe that of course there are coincidences in the world, that it's not out of the realm of possibility for that to be true, yet this seems utterly strange. Of course, doesn't it mean that they're successful? For him to have Erskine's serum, that must mean they rescue him.

Pinching the bridge of her nose, she shakes her head, gaping at him. "You're telling me that you're from the future and you're imbued with Erskine's formula? Do you know the man?" she asks, though the years between would make that impossible.

[bearstheshield]

"I've never met him," Steve says, shaking his head quickly. "I just know that it's called that, that a man named Erskine developed the serum that gives me my strength and agility. Do you think it's fate or something that I wound up back here?"

Steve isn't a really superstitious man and aside from showing up at the occasional mass or murmuring a prayer when he's in a bind, he doesn't believe in much that he can't see with his own eyes - he just has the benefit of seeing a hell of a lot with his own two eyes, especially in the last few years.

[womanofvalue]

She's not entirely sure what to make of it, but coincidence seems a stretch at this point in time. Whatever Steve is doing here, Peggy is beginning to think that he's right and he's meant to be. Still, that doesn't change the mission and hardly changes the plan, it just adds a complex layer to things.

"We'll deal with that once he's rescued," she counters, because there's no point in wondering why the universe is what it is, especially if they're gearing up for nothing but failure. The question in the back of her mind, of course, is why her? She can see Steve Rogers somehow being dropped here if he needs that serum in the future, but what role does Peggy play in all of this?

"There," she whispers, pushing aside the brush to show the castle beyond. "The outer guard will be the first we need to deal with, and quickly, unless we want to be plastered all over the security cameras."

[bearstheshield]

"And here I was thinking I wouldn't have to deal with technology in this day and age," Steve says, groaning under his breath. He would rather not kill the guard, though, and he thinks if he just knocks him out that will be better overall.

"Don't let yourself be seen and I can take him out. He will wake up with a headache but no harm and no foul."

[womanofvalue]

Peggy might feel a strange pull towards this man that she can't explain, but her eyes flash with fury when he suggests that she stay behind him. She's the one who was chosen for this mission and as far as she's concerned, Steve is simply lucky enough to have been invited along. Giving him a cross, furious look, she pushes a hand at his chest. "I will deal with the guard, seeing as then I can also gain us entry into the house seeing as I've been studying the security systems for weeks," is her pointed, sharp reply.

"I can ensure that he doesn't have any bruises at all, and not even a headache when he wakes," is her added remark, giving Steve a look that says if he doesn't pay attention to her demands, he might be in the same boat soon.

[bearstheshield]

Steve lifts his hands and spreads them, trying to gesture that he's really not here to fight. "I'm sorry. It's in my nature to protect whoever I'm with. This isn't because you're a woman or because you're not capable. It's because I'm the one who throws myself in front of everyone else to keep them safe. I'm invincible. I can move faster, take harder hits, get up from bigger falls. I can take two or three on the chin and keep going and I don't want to see you hurt. I don't want to see anyone hurt if I can help it."

He pauses for a moment. "It's not about your skill. I swear."

[womanofvalue]

Peggy wants to insist that she doesn't need protecting, but worries that he's not going to fold. She hopes that he does, because she doesn't want to think that he's going to treat her like she's incapable simply because he's invincible. "I don't care, this is still my mission," Peggy hisses at him with fury and righteous (in her opinion) anger on her face.

"I don't care that you think you can somehow serve this mission better, you're here for backup. Understood?" she barks at him, like she would any of her soldiers that she needs to fall in line.

[bearstheshield]

"It's not that I think I'm better. It's that I can...never mind," Steve says, nodding at her order. "Yes ma'am. I'm backup and I'm following your lead. I'll stop trying to take command."

It chafes a little because he's worried and he doesn't think he can stop himself from jumping out in front of her if he has to but he has got to rein it in and let Peggy do her job.

[womanofvalue]

Peggy keeps staring at him with the pointed look of a woman who's used to being in charge, only relenting when he yields and lets her have control of this mission. "If," she says, clear and sharp, "it appears that I'm in deeper than I can handle, then I will give you leave to step forward and help, but let me be a spy before a soldier right now," she says, as she makes it to the outer posts, starting to strip off so she can change into the housekeeper's clothes.

She only pays a little mind to the fact that Steve is right there beside her, trying not to become too embarrassed. "Hand me that hat," she directs, the little maid's hat poking out of a bag.