"Director Fury tasked me with asking Carter some questions. You should make sure the rest of the Iron Legion are ready to move out. You'll be deployed the moment Stark and Banner have found the Cube."
"Right. Of course. A pleasure meeting you, Carter."
Rumlow is all smiles as he holds out a hand for Peggy to shake. Smiling right back, Peggy takes advantage of the HYDRA infiltrator's mistake, grabbing his hand fast and squeezing it even harder than she squeezed Fury's. She doesn't quite break Rumlow ' s hand … but she does make sure to purposefully grind the bones together, causing him to gasp and buckle a bit as she beams down at him.
"A pleasure to meet you too, Agent Rumlow."
When she lets go of his hand, he just laughs it off, shaking out his no doubt tingling fingers and commenting on her strong grip. Then, he leaves them there, with Commander Hill watching him go for a moment with a strange look on her face. Then, she looks back to Peggy.
"Agent Carter."
A clear attempt to trip her up. Fortunately, Agent hasn't been her designation for a long time. It's Captain Carter, though obviously she can't correct Hill with that. Instead, Peggy just smiles blandly, playing her role to a T. It's not hard… she had plenty of experience at playing the vapid secretary back before she was dosed with the serum. "I'm sorry, Commander Hill? I'm no Agent. I'm Mr. Stark' s Personal Assistant, Penny Carter."
Maria presses her lips together tightly.
"… Right. Except that's not quite the truth, is it? We know Tony Stark likes to make Artificial Intelligences. We know he has more than one. And we know what you are. What we don't know is just how much you're based on your template. How much of you is Stark's AI… and how much of you is Peggy Carter, the woman who helped found SHIELD?"
Director Fury must have put Maria up to this. Perhaps because he thought that Peggy would appreciate a friendly female face. It's a pretty basic attempt at manipulation, but to be fair if they think she's a newborn AI in an android body, they might be trying to keep things simple for her sake. Still, this is a little ridiculous. Had Tony known this would happen when he'd gone with this strategy? Had he known he'd have the few remaining actual SHIELD agents running around like chickens with their heads cut off over her? Tony had assured her that he had the situation with Loki and this would-be Chitauri Invasion completely under control… and so far, Peggy had no reason not to believe him. But this was still such a waste of time. Unfortunately, she couldn't tell Maria that. No matter how much she wanted to take the other woman by the shoulders, shake some sense into her, and tell her to get back to work.
" I 'm sure I don ' t know what you ' re talking about, Commander Hill. Even if I resemble this other woman, I am not her. I am Penny Carter, Personal Assistant to Tony Stark."
Huffing, Maria shakes her head… and then changes tactics all of the sudden.
"Has… has Mr. Stark ever made demands of you? Has he or his wife ever had you do anything you didn't want to do? Look… Penny. If anything untoward has happened, SHIELD can help you and-!" Jesus fucking Christ. Rumlow was a hairs breadth away from assaulting her… or rather, from suffering a few broken bones from ATTEMPTING to assault her, and not only had Maria completely glossed over that fact, she was now accusing Tony Stark of sexual malfeasance instead! Peggy had just found that she could in fact reach the end of her rope. Fortunately, she had enough self-control to rein in just how badly she was going to snap.
Reaching out, she places a hand on Maria's shoulder, applying just enough strength to make the other woman freeze in place as she leans forward.
"Is this relevant to either of our work, Commander Hill? There is an alien invader aboard this spaceship and yet you seem more concerned with Mr. Stark, the man who invented the technology that made it possible for that alien invader to be captured. Perhaps you have your priorities out of order, Commander." "I-!"
"Good day, Commander."
Then, giving Maria Hill a perfect robotic smile, Peggy lets go of the other woman's shoulder and spins on her heels, walking away. She'd asked for this, she reminds herself. She wanted to be on the ground floor, she wanted to be in a position to help. Tony had tried to tell her how stupid the people he had to rely on could be, but she hadn't believed him.
Ugh, the worst part was, while no part of her wanted anything to do with Rumlow… Hill's insinuation that she might be engaging in sexual acts with Tony and his wife had put the mental image in her head and now Peggy couldn't get it out. Stupid overactive sex drive. Stupid SHIELD. Stupid Tony Stark. Stupid fucking alternate universe.
… She better have something to punch sometime real fucking soon… -x-X-x-
His technopathy combined with the numerous backdoors he and J have into SHIELD's systems at this point means Tony sees everything that happens on the Helicarrier, and around it at all times. Even as his physical body is hard at work in the lab helping Bruce set up his detection network for the Tesseract, Tony is also multitasking, watching Thor and Sif talk about Loki, and Rumlow and Hill both make fools of themselves with Peggy.
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