#mine has been almost singlehandedly keeping me alive lately

[3pirouette]

Fic: The Honey Trap (2/?)

By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Distribution: AO3 Anyone else please ask first :) 

Story Summary: Peggy’d lost count. She wasn’t sure if she was a double or triple agent at this point, and in the end, it didn’t matter. What mattered was getting out of this alive.

Chapter A/N: Keep an eye out for the time stamps moving forward, this chapter takes us back to the beginning of all of this. Also, timeline, just like the rest of this, is AU. 

Chapter 2: Like it or Not

September, 1944

Wallace was haggard. He had been undercover with Hydra since before the war started, when they had only just begun forming and the British government wanted to get a mole in on the ground level, and it showed. “I know it’s a risk.”

“A risk?” Peggy squeaked in a whisper, her arms wrapped tight around her to ward away the chill. “That is beyond a risk. That’s deep cover. That’s long term and incredibly dangerous.”

“Which is why you’re here, and not someone else,” Phillips filled in calmly. “Now let’s hurry this up,” he waved his finger around, swirling the mist his breath left in the cold air of the meat locker. “No one’s going to believe I left that steak sitting on that table this long.”

“They’re looking to recruit,” Wallace pleaded, the bags under his eyes somehow darker the more he talked. “I’d be your recruiter. I’d be the contact so we can keep this in house and with people we trust. No middle men.” He moved his gaze from Peggy to Steve, pleading. “They’re running it all over the world with secretaries from every country, every agency, it won’t seem out of the ordinary, I promise.”

Steve was unimpressed. “She’ll stand out—"

“Because of you!” Wallace finally let the words he’d been holding back out. “They’re looking for any and every way they can to get to you, to find out more about you, to figure out how they can stop and defeat the man who is almost singlehandedly taking out Hydra. If we do this now, together, we can control the flow of information. We can control how they see the circumstances.” He deflated. “We let this opportunity pass us by and they might find another way in; one we won’t know about until it’s too late.” His feel shuffled on the slick ground as he fidgeted.

The foursome looked at one another in the dark, cold meat locker. Phillips only waited a second before speaking. “You’re doing it.”

“Sir…” Peggy started, not refuting his order but far more cautious than she’d be with orders given while in uniform standing under a tent.

“Wallace is right, and he knows these guys better than we ever will. His intel has saved our asses more than once.” Phillips leaned forward, eyes serious. “We are never going to get this opportunity again, Carter.”

Steve sighed, crossing his arms and letting the captain in him take over. “What do we have to do?”

“Go public,” Wallace said plainly, nodding at the two.

Steve looked like a deer in headlights. “We don’t- we’re…”

Phillips couldn’t hold in his chuckle. “You think there’s anyone this side of the Atlantic that’s worked with the two of you that doesn’t notice you making sappy, lovesick eyes at her, son?”

Steve swallowed hard and Peggy pressed her lips together, but neither argued. They’d been discreet, but not invisible. Peggy shook her head, confused by the premise. “Why public? Why not just recruit me from the steno pool?”

Wallace narrowed his eyes, the plan blossoming in his mind clear and precise. “Trying to convince them that a random secretary that just magically showed up in the pool has knowledge of Captain America would be harder than trying to convince them you’re his girlfriend without blowing your cover. We have to give them a reason to trust you know what you know without letting to world know you worked for the SSR and blow any future deniability you might have as a spy. We let slip you two are an item. Something small but irrefutable. Then we build up tension after that-maybe you have a blow up, maybe you get reprimanded, I don’t have time for details, but then Phillips transfers you out back to London, Carter. I can move in from there.”

Peggy looked impressed. “A tryst with a secretary technically breaks the fraternization rules.” She looked at the men, knowing they all knew far more egregious violations of that were happening on a daily basis. “It’s enough for a formal write up and reprimand, which is not a very top-secret document to get your hands on.” Wallace smiled at her as she caught on and talked it out. “And with my connection to Steve…”

“You become my connection.” Wallace took a deep breath filled with relief now that Peggy seemed on board with the plan. “We can fake information into Hydra. We can give them anything they want to hear, real or fake, while siphoning our own information on Hydra back to the SSR, and they’ll think they have everything they want to know about Captain America.”

Steve shook his head, standing akimbo. “I still don’t know—”

“I do,” Phillips pointed at them. “Oh-six-hundred, in my tent tomorrow with a plan, you hear me?” He turned, mumbling on the way out. “My steak’s gonna be colder than my ass after standing in here for so long.”

They watched Phillips step out of the meat locker, which was handily only across the hallway from the bathroom in the small restaurant they’d met in so he could feign coming from there. Peggy turned back to Wallace. “What do you need?”

“Exactly what I told you.” He looked almost happy, a light starting to grow in his eyes. “A big screw up, something that can prove to Hydra you two are together, then a blow up. Once you hit London, I’ll move in from there. I’m already ‘monitoring’ the SSR steno pool and code breakers for good candidates.”

“I won’t disappoint you, Wallace.” Peggy was earnest, knowing how hard it was to be so deep undercover, knowing Wallace needed a friend now more than anything.

“I know you won’t.” Wallace didn’t even wait for goodbyes, but slipped out to the back loading dock through the small door, the way he’d come in.

Peggy finally let out the shiver she’d been holding in when she and Steve were alone. “Well, that was…”

“Unexpected?” He pulled his leather jacket off and draped it over her shoulders before bending down and lifting the cover off the drain. “We usually get intel drops, not major operation requests.”

Peggy bent down next to him, even though she was useless to lift the heavy metal that had been installed under the guise of getting run off out of the freezer when it was cleaned. In reality, the restaurant was an Allied cover used for clandestine meetings. “To say the least.”

She’d heard they also had excellent food, which was a shame because somehow she and Steve always drew the short straw of the sewer entry. Steve carefully lowered himself into the hole then reached back up for her as he balanced on the thin ledge above the sewerage. “So, what are we going to do?”

“Well,” she sat and slid down through the hole as Steve helped her, hands wrapped around her waist. “I suppose I could get caught coming out of your tent.”

Steve reached up, closing the grate and door over, and then leaned down and kissed her gently in the dark. “I don’t like that. I don’t like any of this. It’s going to invalidate you to so many of—”

She reached up, stopping him. “I’ve never given a damn about my reputation, and I’m not about to start, now. They can think what they want about me, but despite how long term and dangerous this could be, it has the potential to give us a huge advantage.” She slipped her fingers through his. “In fact, people talking about me can only help us in this. If Hydra think I’ve been ostracized, it makes more sense for me to flip sides.”

Steve stepped forward, squeezing her hand as he pulled her behind him. “I understand it. On an intellectual level… strategically… it makes sense.” He sidestepped a pile of garbage as he pulled them down the tiny ledge, his enhanced vision guiding them through the murky sewer. They had a half mile trek before it opened up and they could make their way back to camp on his motorcycle that was hidden in the brush by the drainage pipe. He huffed a laugh. “You know, you and me disappearing from camp like this probably only fuels those rumors.”

“Wouldn’t everyone be just—” Peggy paused, stumbling for a second on a slick patch before catching her balance and continuing, “just so scandalized to realize we’re not off for a snog in the woods, but traipsing through a sewer and getting secret orders?”

Steve slowed, turning back to her and taking her in his arms. “You know, it’s not too late for some of that…” he teased.

Peggy gave him a gentle smack on the shoulder and pushed him around, starting their march again. “Save it, soldier. I prefer to kiss you in settings that don’t smell like the latrines, thank you very much.” She waited until they were firmly on the move before speaking again, picking her way carefully behind him. “Despite the circumstances,” she whispered, knowing he could hear it, “I’ll take any excuse I can get.”

His hand squeezed hers tight again. “When this is all over…” It was a sentence they started often, but rarely finished.

She smiled, hanging on to his arm as she moved over a cracked part of the ledge. “Yes, yes. Dancing and dinner dates and all the romance I can stand, right Rogers?”

“Yes, Ma’am.” He slowed, making sure she was over and steady before moving on.

“Well, like it or not, we may be stealing moments like this for the foreseeable future.” She sighed, thinking of what might lay ahead of them: weeks, or even months and years of deep cover.

“Not,” Steve grumbled, taking her hand tighter in his and pulling her behind him through the dark sewer, “I choose not liking it.”

~*~ The Next Morning 0600

Phillips waved his secretary out of the tent and rounded his desk, sitting on the edge so he could talk in hushed tones to the two across from him. “So, what do you have for me?”

Steve and Peggy looked at one another for a long moment before he pulled out his compass and handed it to Phillips.

The colonel shook his head. “It’s looks like that that give you two idiots away. Every time.” He sighed, holding up the golden compact. “Context?”

“The newsreel crew should be here tomorrow, right?” Steve started, motioning for Philips to open the compass. “We let them catch a glimpse of that on the reel, and you conveniently ‘miss’ it when you approve the footage.”

Phillips looked down at the compass, shaking his head. It was clear the picture of his best spy was rather comfortable in the compass and had not been put in there just last night. “How long have you been potentially compromising my best— No. You know what? I don’t want to know how long you thought this boneheaded idea of carrying her picture around was smart.” Phillips stood and made his way back to his chair, sitting heavily as he played with the compass. “Wasn’t a good idea then, but it should work well enough now.”

“We also have the element of speed,” Peggy added, looking between the two men carefully. “That footage can be across the allied countries in a matter of days, meaning Hydra will see it just as fast.”

Phillips nodded. “As soon as it’s out, the gossip rags will be all over the State Department’s poster boy having a sweetheart, and you get an immediate transfer.” He tossed the compass back to Steve, who caught it despite his surprise. “Help it along. You two go do a poor job of pretending to avoid each other. I don’t like making it look like we’re screwing up, but if we’re doing it, we’re gonna do it right.”