Chapter Text
I open the door to see Daniel sitting on a stool, leaning against the lab counter. He looks tired, the bags under his eyes and the messiness of his jet-black hair apparent even from afar. I stumble a bit, the pain in my abdomen still bothering like a clingy child.
“You look terrible.” I comment, stabilizing myself on the doorframe.
Daniel inhales sharply, blinking to keep consciousness. “Says the woman with the rebar hole through her abdomen.”
I furrow my eyebrows, before closing the door behind me, suspicious of this defensiveness of his. “Is anything the matter?”
He sighs and crosses his arms as I approach him. “You didn’t call me here to ask me about my emotional state.”
I put a hand on my hip. “Right.” I pause, shifting my weight to my other foot. “Yes, I called you here because we have a problem.”
“Just one?”
A beat of silence passes.
“Dr Wilkes has lost his foothold here. Last night he disappeared temporarily, and now he could vanish forever at any moment. We need to do something to anchor him into this world until we find a more permanent solution.”
“Whatever that something is it’s already giving me indigestion.” Daniel tilts his head a bit down, his voice low and gravelly.
“Daniel, not only is Dr. Wilkes a good man, he is the centerpiece for the case we’re building against Isodyne, Whitney Frost and that Arena social cabal.” I place my other hand on my hip.
“So you need him.”
I can’t help but be a bit surprised at his comment, but I push back my surprise to reply. “ We need him.”
Another brief silence passes. “Alright, what’s the plan?” Daniel asks half heartedly and tiredly.
“Dr. Wilkes has designed a containment chamber to stabilize himself, but he needs a sample of zero matter. I intend to get that sample from Whitney Frost.”
Daniel looks at me, squinting in confusion. “Okay…”
“The best chance we have of getting close to Whitney without being detected is her husband’s campaign fundraiser tomorrow night at the MacArthur Grand Hotel.”
“Not an easy ticket to get.”
I begin walking along the counter. “Howard Stark donates money to all the political candidates to ensure good favor with whomever wins. So, Mr. Jarvis has two tickets secured.”
“Of course he does.” Daniel comments, grabbing his crutch and slowly getting up.
I walk over to the counter where a syringe lays patiently. “We can modify this vacuum syringe from the SSR,” I pick it and hold it up. “To get the sample of zero matter. We use the crowd to our advantage, and we get close enough to puncture her skin, and then we make a hasty exit without any fuss.” Daniel slowly walks over to me, eyebrows furrowed with a questioning glance.
“You’re gonna do this?”
“Yes.”
“You, who can barely walk? You, who Whitney’s tried to kill within the past 48 hours? You, who Whitney will see coming from a mile away? Same as Jarvis, by the way.”
“Well, someone else then.” I say hastily, gesturing with the vacuum syringe.
“Who? Me?”
“Rose, then.”
“She’s on a flight home. Her mother’s sick.” He lets go of the counter, gesturing his hand away and turning away.
“Well, maybe–”
Daniel cuts me off. “We can’t trust anybody at the SSR. That’s become painfully clear. And I’m not about to send a civilian into the jaws of that lion without sufficient training. No, what you need is a highly skilled, unknown face who can… blend in with the glamour and throw down in the gutter. I don’t know anyone besides you who can pull that off.”
I look down, leaning my arm on the counter. Then , suddenly, a thought occurs to me. Like a volt of lighting, I’m struck with realization. Looking off into the distance, I respond after a beat of silence.
“I have a terrible idea.”
*
“Underwood, Dr. Wexford is here to conduct your psych evaluation.” A burly guard says, opening the heavy metal door to the cell.
“Show him in.” I hear an uncharacteristically dull voice from inside say. I take a deep breath and pin my clipboard down under my arm.
Slowly, I walk into the cell and see an old foe sitting there. Dottie .
She’s wearing a drab, dusty blue patient uniform, her brown hair tied up in a bun. She’s surrounded by identical grey metal walls, with only a bed as furniture. This is torture if I’ve ever seen it.
That previously dull face of hers slowly lights up as soon as she sees me. She smiles nearly ear to ear as I step in, inhibiting the kind of eager giddiness that could leave one smiling for hours.
“Hello, Dr. Wexford.” Dottie says in a low, honeyed voice, a smirk forming on her lips.
Even when the guard brings in a chair, our eye contact doesn’t cease. She’s relentless, and doesn’t dare look away from me, or say another word. Neither do I back down.
“You can leave us.” I say in a faked American accent, my own gaze not leaving Dottie’s.
“Are you sure? This one’s a handful.” The guard asks, and my grip tightens a bit on my briefcase I'm holding.
“Don’t worry. I have protection. Now please, some privacy.” I reply. “We have a lot to talk about.”
Dottie’s grin widens.
Once the guard left the room, I set down my briefcase beside the chair, which strained my stomach wound, and I let out a soft grunt and sigh. Dottie notices this.
“Oh, Peg, you’re hurt.” She says in that same honeyed tone, her hands resting patiently on her thighs.
I slowly sit down with a quiet grunt, Dottie’s features adopting mock worry.
“You’re real hurt.”
I take off my fake glasses. “I thought you’d like to know that we’ve received no contact from the Soviet government or anyone claiming to be Leviathan, asking for your release.”
Dottie barely reacts, still staring at me. “This is my surprised face.”
I look around at the bleak concrete walls, evaluating my next words carefully. “Considering this will be your home for the foreseeable future, perhaps you should start decorating.” I comment mockingly.
“It takes more than six walls to hold me.”
“Six?”
“We’re in a cube, Peggy. Try to keep up.” She replies in an equally mocking yet playful tone.
I tilt my head up a bit. “I admire your confidence.”
Dottie smirks, leaning back and propping herself up with her arms. “Seeing you gives me a reeaal boost.” She tilts her head a bit, still never breaking eye contact, even though I’ve done so several times.
“How do you mean?”
She chuckles, looking me up and down. “Well let’s see. You came here in disguise, not in official SSR capacity,” she pauses. “That means you don’t want this little visit on the record, which means you’re probably going behind someone’s back” she says her last few words in an albeit playful tone. She looks me up and down again, before tiling her head again and smirking. “ How naughty …”
She pauses, letting her last comment hang in the air. “So, if you’re not here to interrogate me officially, and you’ve gone to such great lengths to hide the fact that you came at all… I think the reason for your visit is pretty obvious.” She grins widely, staring me down. “You need my help.”
It takes me a moment to respond. I rest my hands on my knees and turn my head away. “That may be, but don’t get all excited. I only need you for one and one task only.”
The wide grin of hers turns into a full-on smirk, and she presses her palm to her chest. “So, you need me? Oh gosh, Peg. I’m flattered .”
The urge to roll my eyes at her is terribly hard to resist, but I do resist, nonetheless. “I need you for a simple retrieval mission, blend in with a crowd. Think you can pull it off?”
I hear her chuckle. “Oh, Peg. It took you so long to figure out that I wasn’t who I said I was. Of course I can blend in with a crowd. And a retrieval mission? Piece of cake.” Dottie crosses her legs.
I nod, watching her every move in case she decides to do something stupid, so my eyes naturally lock on her legs as they cross, like she will take out a knife from a hidden holster on her thigh and stab me at any moment. I think she notices because she leans back a bit and smiles.
“One more thing,” I slowly slide my hand into my pocket and take out the silver Arena pin. I hold it out to her, just enough so she can see it, not far enough that she could grab it without reaching out.
“Oh, gosh. Still?” she asks, her voice just as playful and honeyed.
Just as I expected, she reaches out to grab it, but I pull it back just in time. I look down at it before asking her a question. “Why were you trying to steal this from the vault in New York?”
For the first time, she looks away from me, tilting her head away. “ Maybeee, I was hired to steal it.” Her eyes dart back to me. “Maybe the pin is not just a pin. Maybe that pin unlocks the secrets to every major decision made in this cesspool of a country.”
I maintain eye contact, twirling the pin around in my hand.
“Maybe it just matched my blouse.” She adds casually, shrugging and leaning back.
I put the pin back into my pocket. “Play coy if you like, but we both want something from the men that wear those pins.”
Dottie tilts her head, pressing her ear to her shoulder, looking at me with that same coy smile of hers.
“And I’m going to break you out of here to help me get it.” I add.
She raises her head back up, her expression surprised, lips parted. “Is that right?” she asks almost disbelievingly.
I set my hands on my lap again. “As you astutely pointed out, I’m not authorized to offer you a deal at the moment. However, once we’re through, and I’ve removed the red tape,” I pause. “we can work on negotiating your deportation.”
After a few seconds, Dottie leans forward. “Sound fun. I’m in.”
I furrow my eyebrows in surprise. I wasn’t expecting her to be cooperative at all in this scenario. “That was easy.”
Dottie shrugs. “What can I say? I’m a giver.” She smiles, punctuating her last word with a nod.
“Just so we’re clear, I know you’ll try to run, and I’m prepared for it.”
She narrows her eyes, smile never fading. “Just so we’re clear, I know your deportation offer is a lie, and you can never be fully prepared for me. ”
“Then we’re in agreement.” Dottie nods. “You’ll help me get what I need, and then I’ll lock you back in this cell.”
That damned smile of hers never fades, and as I take out a small circular device out of my pocket, her eyes lock on my hand. “Use this to get through the door.” I toss onto the bed, and Dottie picks it up with caution.
I slowly get up with a sigh of pain as Dottie’s sharp eyes stay fixed on me. “Simple as that, is it?” she asks cautiously.
“I’d call it intermediate for a smart girl like you.” I pick up the briefcase.
“Awh, you’re making me blush.” Dottie comments, which I ignore.
“I’ll handle the guards; you just follow my trail up to the ground level.” I reach for the door, but before I do, I turn back to her. “Um, no window shopping.”
I knock on the door. “When you get outside, go right.”