womanofvalue | [outlander psl au]

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

womanofvalue

"The opposite." She sounds confused and a little taken aback, but she's not entirely sure what to do about it. "There's nothing about you, not from our side or the other." It means that she's going to have to be wary and at the first sign of danger, Peggy has absolutely no problem taking this man out, no matter how much bigger than her he seems. Breathing in sharply, she gestures for him to go into a room.

"Is there anyone to alert about your absence? Your Avengers? Wife?" she asks, unsure why she'd asked that last part, but rather than be embarrassed, she simply keeps a steady look on her face.

From:

bearstheshield

"I don't think so," Steve admits. "If I told you something, something a little crazy, would you try to believe it? Because I'm not sure how much I believe it myself but I need to be as honest with you as I can be and I don't want to keep anything from you. You've given me a lot of latitude by not throwing me in the brig so I think I owe you the honesty in return."

He doesn't know how this is going to go down, at all, but he's going to take a chance on Agent Carter.

From:

womanofvalue

Peggy's not entirely sure, honestly. After all, this man came out of nowhere in strange garb, looking like a madman, but she's also about to take him on a secret mission and she needs to know all that she can learn about him. "You can try me," she allows, not willing to promise one way or the other whether she's going to believe whatever this 'something a little crazy' might be, even as her imagination starts to fill in gaps without her meaning it to.

"Are you not really a soldier?" she ought to wait and let him tell her, but she needs to know that, first and foremost.

From:

bearstheshield

"I am, and I am a captain in the US Army. I've just not been born yet," Steve explains. "Something happened when I got near the standing stones. I heard this weird buzzing and everything just kind of faded away. When I staggered back down the hill, I had a splitting headache and it was colder - it had been sunny and bright the day we were doing our training exercise - and you are all part of my past."

He pauses for a moment. "For me, this war was over fifty years ago. The Allies win the war."

From:

womanofvalue

She wants to accuse him of having her on, but despite her instant reaction to not believe him, there's something that makes Peggy hesitate. Her arms crossed her her chest, she waits and lets her mind parse through the evidence. He's mad, she knows that, or is he? What if he really did somehow make it back in time? There's been legends about those stones for ages, but why would he come here? Why would Peggy be the one to find this madman.

She leans over to find a pair of non-descript civilian clothes, pushing them in his direction. "Change," she says. "You can't go wandering around looking like something out of a USO show," she says, still not sure whether she fully believes him, but she does believe that he's not from around here.

From:

bearstheshield

"I never was much for the song and dance," Steve agrees. He ducks into a men's bathroom to change and while the clothes fit, the shirt's a tight fit and stretches across his chest; Steve is certain you can see every muscle. The pants at least aren't quite as tight but they're a lot tighter than he'd normally wear a pair of khakis.

He tugs at the shirt self-consciously as he walks out. "Do I look less like the featured entertainment now?"

From:

womanofvalue

Peggy crosses her arms over her chest, eyeing him with mild disapproval. He's still going to catch the eye of everyone they pass, but he's a handsome man and she doubts they can change that so quickly. "I suppose you'll do," she says, settling the files down as she steps closer to him, a critical look on her face as she reaches out to touch a flat palm to his chest, moving towards the hem to stretch it out a touch without success.

"Now, do you speak German? Italian? French?" she asks, with the desperate hope of a woman needing to hear a yes to one of those questions. She has her own clothes to change into, but she can do that in a moment.

From:

bearstheshield

"I took French in school and I learned Italian from the boys who used to beat me up behind the school," Steve says, laughing a little. He's had his fair share of bullies over his life and now that he's a super soldier, he hasn't forgotten his roots. He still grew up in Brooklyn and while the Brooklyn of the 1980s is probably a lot different than the Brooklyn of the 1940s, he's sure there's some things that haven't changed.

"My Italian is probably mostly curse words, though. French is better."

From:

womanofvalue

She studies him and thinks that possibly, he can pose as a French civilian with her. Her own French is good enough that she can get by, nodding as she starts to formulate her plan. She finds her own clothes, ducking behind a sheet, but she pokes her head out at the last minute. "Don't go anywhere," she warns, not wanting to have to chase him up and down the continent.

She changes quickly into the demure skirt and top, stepping out and absently working her hair into a low-pinned bun to give her a more working woman look. "We need to get to a place called Castle Kaufmann. Once there, I'll pose as one of the waitstaff, but to get there, we need to pass as civilians," she says, eyeing him up and down.

"You'll never pass as my brother," she notes with disapproval, taking out the false identity papers with a pen so that she can start to tweak up the stories. "You're going to have to pose as my husband," she says, head down, all business. "Rogers, was it?" If he hasn't got any records, this could work out well. No one will know him, after all.

From:

bearstheshield

"Rogers, yes ma'am. I guess you're going to want something more French than that if we're going to be passing for French workers," Steve says, giving her an appraising look. She looks neat and put together still, yes, but somehow it's softened when she's out of the Army uniform. He likes it more than he ought to.

"I'm pretty decent with a cover story if I have time to prepare for it. Give me what you need me to learn and I'll stick to it."

From:

womanofvalue

"We'll steal a friend's name," she says, writing in Dernière in the name, amused at the thought of posing as one of his family members. "Let's say we're on our way to visit my family in the countryside, that we're newly married and we're seeing the sights along the way, which gives us a reason to be near to the Castle," she says as she works with the papers. "Obviously, we bear tender sympathies to the Germans," is her deadpan, annoyed remark.

That said, this whole story is missing something. Sitting back in her chair, a furrow crosses her face and she gets up to start pushing and pulling drawers, tearing through to find some semblance of rings.

From:

bearstheshield

"When I think about Germany, all I can think about are their tender mercies," Steve deadpans back. He's not prone to sarcasm but Peggy has a way with it that makes him feel comfortable tossing it back at her.

"My French is pretty good but if yours is better, I would rather you take the lead. I feel like you're going to be way more capable at espionage than I'll be."

From:

womanofvalue

She raises her brow over her shoulder, knowing that yes, her French is likely better, but that's quite a compliment. Finally, she finds something in the drawer, but it's only the one plain gold band, left behind by a man they had lost to a terrible accident during training. She holds it up, settling back atop the table as she slides it on. "This will do," she says, confident of that. "We wouldn't have that much money, anyhow, a simple band is apropos."

"I'm not making a mistake taking you, am I?" she demands, wanting him to look her straight in the eye to answer that. "It's my life on the line, after all."

From:

bearstheshield

"You're not making a mistake. If we get in a bind, it's my life before yours and my body as your shield," Steve assures her. She's probably important to the war effort and while he's important in his time, he can't possibly affect WWII.

"I'll do my best to keep you safe and complete this mission."

From:

womanofvalue

Peggy could never have predicted this day, not when she'd woken up. She has a man from the future vowing his loyalties to the avengers and now telling her that his body is hers to use as a shield. Peggy is not so easily flustered, but she is now, staring at him with disbelief. It's not that she doesn't believe him, but this is all so mad.

"Yes, then we'll see about delivering you back to where you belong," she says, distracted by the intent stare she's been delivering, assessing him all the while. "Once I have Erskine back, we can drop you off anywhere you need to be."

From:

bearstheshield

"Mission first. That's completely understandable," Steve says. He's never going to ask her to compromise the mission on his behalf. He's from fifty some odd years in the future but what he does now can affect that future. He's not going to do anything to jeopardize that even if it means making incredible personal sacrifice now.

"So, the target, who are we looking for?"

From:

womanofvalue

"His name is Dr. Erskine," Peggy says as she dons a beat-up hat, finding a set of keys to one of the civilian vehicles that will help drive them through most of the way they need to travel. "His work is classified," she adds, because while he might be helping her with this mission, she's not about to start telling all their secrets.

"Come on," she says. "We'll take turns driving, you can sleep first," she says, eager to get moving before their intel changes again and the target moves. "Once we reach the coast, a ship will take us and the car to the continent, we'll continue from there. Once there, I'll pose as a maid in order to rescue him, you're the backup."

From:

bearstheshield

"All right," Steve says. He knows how these kinds of missions work and he has to trust her enough to be able to sleep while she takes first shift. If he doesn't, he'll end up bone tired and a liability to both of them when he needs to be fresh to keep them both safe.

As he settles in the passenger's seat of a car that looks like it ought to be in a museum, he faintly thinks that Erskine sounds familiar. Where does he know that name from?

From:

womanofvalue

Peggy is already trying to map the route in her head, thinking of when they'll have to make their first stop, imagining that it will be in France once they get off the ferry. There are a few safehouses that she knows they can take advantage of, they can surely take one of those for the night.

Starting up the car, she loads up a bag of weapons, ordinance, and other supplies they might need in the back, donning a hat. "Now," she says, seeing as they're just starting and he won't likely sleep yet, "what on earth does an avenger do for a living?"

From:

bearstheshield

"What needs to be done, mostly. Spec ops work, extractions, things behind enemy lines." Steve gives her a mildly sheepish look. "Things like this, actually, even though espionage isn't exactly my thing. I was enhanced by a serum so I'm tougher, faster, stronger than the average soldier. I can take a beating solidly on the chin and get back up so they usually send me in when there's no hope left."

From:

womanofvalue

Peggy gives him a curious look, because while it's very helpful, it also seems far, far too convenient. How does a man out of time with all the necessary skills end up here with her? It's terribly odd, honestly, and all with a man who looks like he's come out of a poster to help her with her mission. "What sort of serum?" she asks, a touch wary.

After all, it seems a touch too on the nose as to Erskine's work, but how could he know about this? It's classified and even if he is from the future, he shouldn't know this.

From:

bearstheshield

"Some super soldier thing. I'm the only one they've ever used it on. They found the recipe locked away, lost to time. Didn't want to use it on anyone who didn't seem like the right personality type," Steve says.

"The director of SHIELD didn't want to give me many details. Said it was on a need to know basis and the need to knows were him and Tony Stark."

From:

womanofvalue

Peggy furrows her brow, not sure how to reconcile any of this. It genuinely sounds as if this serum is a powerful thing, something that Erskine himself would be developing, yet Steve is from the future. If Erskine's formula was to succeed, wouldn't there need to be a subject here? She's been searching for one, for Phillips, to no avail.

Besides, rescuing the man does take priority. "SHIELD?" she echoes. It's a good name, but she has no idea what on earth it might stand for. "I'm not sure what that is. Also, Tony Stark?" she echoes. "Any relation to a Howard?"

From:

bearstheshield

"His father," Steve confirms. "I've never met him myself because I think he died before Tony was out of college but that's his name. He founded Stark Industries."

He wonders if the company is around even now. It must be, in some capacity, if Peggy knows to pull the name Howard Stark out of thin air. He wonders if that's the connection, if that's the reason why he's come here to this specific time and place.

"Is he someone that you know?"

From:

womanofvalue

"Howard is an integral part of a project that we're working on," Peggy replies, a touch thrown off by the fact that she's talking to a man who knows his son. Truthfully, Howard probably has plenty of children around the world, but none that Peggy has met. "I can bring you around to his tent when we return. In fact, we're going to have to," she says seriously, because Howard will need to work with Erskine to finish the serum.

She takes them towards the back roads in order to start driving a little faster. Every time she glances over at him, she finds her attention lingering, unable to help it. He is an immensely attractive man, after all. "I don't even know that Howard is dating anyone, properly, at the moment. Not for lack of trying," she says evenly. "He enjoys pushing the limits, even with me."