You're being more stubborn than me, that's saying something (Comfy-vember day 19)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
There was never a dull moment at SSR. Of course, it wasn't always about weapons trafficking involving a Russian doctor, a born killer and a crazy inventor, or matter from nowhere with the ability to annihilate a person mastered by a mad scientist, but the days were generally full.
As on that day in November 1948, when a bunch of youngsters decided to set off an arson attack at 3am.
Well, to be honest, the fire wasn't supposed to be criminal in the first place, just a simple, forbidden fire between friends. Except that these people had decided to set the fire in a warehouse used to store highly dangerous modified weapons.
When the police and fire department realized the risk of the fire getting out of control alongside uncontrolled weapons, they contacted the SSR.
Understanding the gravity of the situation and not wanting an incident like the Midnight Gas with uncontrolled weapons, the SSR had intervened very quickly. And among those who had intervened were two of New York's finest SSR agents: Chief Thompson and Agent Carter.
Both of them, although not on duty, had arrived first, at around 3:30. And from that moment on, they had been trying to figure out what was going on, and whether the fire was as random as all that, or whether the people who started it had worse intentions than they wanted people to believe.
At one point, Jack, along with Agents Henry and Comden, had re-entered the building to get a closer look at what they were dealing with, while Peggy remained outside, directing the troops.
But what had to happen happened, and while the building and the fire were relatively stable before the SSR Agents entered, the building exploded some ten minutes after the SSR had entered. From the outside, there was no way of knowing whether they had anything to do with the explosion or not, and no way of knowing what state the three men were in.
The explosion had been violent, and even outside the building, dozens of people had been thrown to the ground by the force of the blast. Peggy was one of them, but she didn't stay on the ground for long, getting up immediately.
She stared at the burning building in horror, and her first instinct was to run into the furnace to fetch her friend. She'd almost lost him a little over a year ago, and there was no way she was going to do it again. But almost immediately, her reason took over. There were other people here who needed her. Jack knew what he was doing and he could manage, at least until she finished organizing the rescue outside. She couldn't let her concern for him get in the way of her professionalism.
"Is anyone hurt?" She asked, looking around.
And yes, there were some injuries. None directly caused by the explosion, but the blast had been so powerful that debris had flown in all directions, injuring people.
Peggy took the lead and organized the rescue operation. And if some of the police and firefighters seemed reluctant to take orders from a woman, the SSR Agents present quickly changed their minds, obeying Peggy's orders directly and urging the others to do the same. “Do as Peggy says” was, after all, one of the golden rules of the SSR.
But that was something Peggy hardly noticed anymore. She knew that, as a woman, not many believed her capable of anything, but she also knew that she'd proven herself and didn't have to fight all the time. Her SSR colleagues had seen her in action enough times to know that she was much stronger than they were, and respected her, making sure that everyone did the same.
So caught up in the organization of the rescue effort, Peggy didn't see Jack emerge from the burning building, an unconscious man on his shoulders and supporting another who was coughing and limping quite heavily. The blond man himself was not without injuries, but he didn't stop, heading straight for the rescue area under the guidance of the police officers present.
That's where Peggy saw him, having stayed behind at the rescue area to supervise.
"Jack." She said, relieved, before pulling herself together. "Any wounded, Chief Thompson?" She asked.
"Yes. Comden took a beam to the head and Henry a metal bar in the leg." Jack says, pointing to each of the two men receiving treatment. "Comden hasn't regained consciousness since the explosion and his breathing is a bit complicated from the smoke but is stable. The metal bar was attached to the floor so we had to remove it to move Henry but it doesn't look like it hit anything important. He didn't bleed to death anyway." He added.
"All right. The hospital has been notified that we have injured people here and ambulances should be arriving shortly." Peggy informed him.
"Perfect." Jack said simply, before turning away to cough hard into his sleeve.
Peggy took this moment to observe her friend, trying to determine his condition. He was completely covered in soot, his hair and suit were burnt in places, he was wheezing, and Peggy could clearly see burn marks on his hands. And that was just what she could see.
"And you Chef?" She asked, remaining professional. "Any injuries to report?"
"No, nothing, just a little smoke, I'll survive." Jack replied immediately, a little too quickly for Peggy's liking but she'd let it go for now, making a note to herself to come back to it later if Jack didn't do anything. "Where are we with the investigation? Any idea why the building blew up on us?"
"Before the explosion, I was interviewing the fire starters and they might not be so innocent after all. They've been transferred to the nearest police station until we finish dealing with the emergency here. As for the explosion, we were hoping you could tell us more, did you do anything in particular just before?"
"Nothing special about the explosion. Henry opened an already half-broken door and fire exploded in the room. The explosion went off not even a few seconds later."
"I see. Even if the door was already ajar, it's possible that it created a draught and that the fire in the room suddenly intensified. Perhaps there was something in the room that caused the explosion?"
"It's hard to say, we didn't have time to see anything in the room. We'll have to wait until the fire is under control to see if there's anything left. In the meantime, we need answers about the origin of this fire. Have the suspects transferred to the SSR and ask Ramirez to start the interrogations."
"Yes, Chief." Peggy agreed as she set off to fulfill her mission.
She would have liked to insist a little more on Jack's injuries, but she knew there was no point at the moment, so she concentrated on her task. The sooner they were finished, the sooner she could take care of Jack.
Peggy then got so caught up in everything that had to be done that she didn't see the blond again until several hours later.
She'd just returned from the SSR, where she'd been checking in with Ramirez to see how the interrogations were progressing. Unfortunately, the suspects were stubborn, and although it was now clear that they were anything but innocent, they still hadn't managed to get them to talk.
Peggy was sure she'd get them to talk, but first she'd have to let them wait. So she asked Ramirez to stop the interrogations for the time being, and that she would deal with them later in the day. In the meantime, the instructions were to keep the suspects isolated, so that they couldn't communicate with each other, and to prevent them from sleeping.
It was barely 6 a.m. when Peggy returned to the scene of the explosion, and although there were fewer people, there were still a sizeable number of police, firemen and SSR Agents.
And in the middle of it all, directing operations, was Jack Thompson.
Peggy saw at once that the blond hadn't stopped for a moment, and hadn't done anything about his injuries either while she'd been away.
Deciding to take the temperature, Peggy approached another SSR Agent. "Agent Wallace, what's the situation?"
"Agent Carter. The fire is almost under control and firefighters say it'll be out in less than an hour. Unfortunately, the firefighters fear there's not much left to work with, and the Chief doesn't like that. Especially since the police aren't being very cooperative and are trying to get the case." Informed Butch Wallace, pointing to the police chief, who was in a heated discussion with another SSR agent.
"I see. Do you know if Chief Thompson has seen anyone about his injuries?"
"Negative Ma'am. We've tried talking to him about it but he keeps saying he's perfectly fine, doesn't need to see anyone and has too much going on to stop."
Peggy had to stifle a sigh at this, even if she wasn't totally surprised. "Copy that. Agent Wallace, can you take care of reminding the police that when illegal and modified weapons are involved, interventions fall under SSR jurisdiction? If you need to, there are all the regulations and laws regarding this fact in every SSR car. I'll talk to the Fire Chief and deal with Chief Tompson."
"Aye, aye, Agent Carter." Wallace agreed immediately, nodding before moving toward the police chief.
Peggy, for her part, headed for Jack, who was deep in discussion with the fire chief. The blond looked absolutely exhausted and, as Wallace had said, had done absolutely nothing about his various injuries. And as she got closer, Peggy also realized that her friend was shivering quite a bit. This was hardly surprising, given that it was no more than 5°C outside, and Jack had been out for several hours without even a coat.
Peggy took a confident step towards the two men and quickly saw that, from his attitude, Jack was more than eager to end the conversation but couldn't do it alone without being horribly rude. And as Chief of the SSR, he couldn't afford to look bad. Peggy, on the other hand, already had a bad image, so a little more or a little less didn't bother her, quite the contrary.
"Chief Thompson." She called as she reached him.
Jack turned and, seeing the brunette, quickly realized that she was bringing him a way out, and a flash of relief passed through his eyes. "Agent Carter?"
"I've brought back the transcript of the SSR interviews and it's promising, can you come and have a look, please?"
"I'll be right there." Jack replied, relieved, already detaching himself from the fireman.
The latter was about to protest, opening his mouth, but Peggy intervened before that. "I'd like to thank you for all your hard work tonight. If you could finish bringing this fire under control, that would be great. Then set up a security perimeter, but don't let anyone enter the ruins before the SSR. No one. No firemen, no policemen, no civilians, am I clear?" Peggy asked.
The firefighter in front of her seemed lost for a moment and turned to Jack, who was waiting for his colleague a few yards away.
"Oh for God's sake." He muttered before speaking more loudly. "Do what she says. Agent Carter is my second-in-command and the best agent we have here, so do as she says." he announced, before starting to walk away. "Carter, with me."
"Right away, Chief." Peggy said immediately as she followed him, paying no attention to the stunned firefighter.
The two SSR agents moved away from the site of the explosion to Peggy's car.
"How do you put up with this every day?" Jack asked without preamble, turning back to Peggy.
"What are you talking about?"
"Of their incompetence and indecency! How can you accept that everything you say will be systematically questioned and that no one will listen to what you have to say, unless a man repeats exactly what you've just said?"
"I'm used to it, Jack. And I know that's not going to change. Not right away, anyway. And in the meantime, I have colleagues who are willing to parrot my directives."
Clearly, Jack wasn't satisfied with the brunette's answer, but she didn't give him time to think about it any further.
"Anyway, that's not the topic of conversation here. Have you seen anyone about your injuries?"
"Peggy, I don't need-"
"You've been caught in an explosion, you've been inside a burning building for over 15 minutes, you've been standing in the cold for almost 4 hours, you're wearing nothing but a shirt and suit jacket and it's no warmer than 5°C." Peggy enumerated. “I can see why you didn't want to stop before, because there were things to do, but it's all right now. The fire's under control, the area's secure, the wounded have been taken to hospital and the suspects are in custody. You can stop Jack, and let me look at your wounds because I know you won't want a doctor to do that."
Peggy clearly sensed that a part of Jack was in complete agreement with her. But unfortunately, that part was currently being overtaken by another part of the blond, which absolutely refused to stop.
"Jack." Peggy sighed, putting a hand on his shoulder. "You're being more stubborn than me here, and that's saying something. I'm not asking you to go to the hospital, I'm just asking you to let me take care of you. Please."
Jack held his friend's gaze for a few dozen seconds longer before finally sighing.
"Okay." He finally capitulated. "Okay, I'll stop."
"Thank you." Peggy nodded as she opened the rear door. "Get in there."
"Damn Carter, buy a guy a drink first." Jack said with a playful smile.
"Thompson, I'm not above knocking you out with a punch to get you to rest so if you don't want to wake up in a few hours with a nice headache, get in this car. Now."
"Aye aye, understood, do as Peggy says." Said Jack as he climbed into the back of the car.
Peggy sighed before slamming the door behind him, careful of course not to hit him in the process.
After that, she went around the car and opened the trunk. She quickly grabbed the first-aid kit and a thick blanket, before closing the trunk and re-entering the car on the back seat, next to Jack.
"Jacket and shirt off." She asked.
"Going fast here, Miss Carter." Jack chuckled, as he complied.
"Mrs. I'm a married woman." Peggy replied without losing a beat.
"Whose husband is 2,800 miles away."
"My fist's always ready." Peggy deadpan.
"Okay, okay, I'll stop." Jack said, a little more seriously. He'd managed to remove his jacket but was having trouble unbuttoning his shirt, his fingers trembling from both the cold and the burns.
Without saying a word, Peggy gently batted his hands away, and began undoing the buttons herself, careful not to pull too hard on the fabric in case any burns were hidden underneath, which they most certainly were.
"Now that we're alone, you'll be able to stop talking nonsense and tell me how you really feel, and if you're hurt more than I can see, which is already more than you've told me."
Jack winced but sighed slightly. This simple sigh brought on a coughing fit, and Peggy just stared at him, running a hand up his back as the coughing fit lengthened a little.
When he finally stopped coughing, Jack's breathing was a little short, but nothing too dramatic.
"Okay, the smoke from the fire didn't do my left lung any good." He admitted, wincing a little.
Peggy frowned, but unfortunately wasn't surprised. After the assassination attempt he'd been the victim of almost 2 years ago in Los Angeles, Jack had suffered some respiratory damage, his left lung having been perforated by the bullet. Most of the time, the blond was completely unaffected by this injury, but when he was ill or, in this case, when he breathed in large quantities of smoke, the old wound came back to haunt him.
"Hm. It might be prudent for you to spend a few hours on oxygen today, to keep it from getting worse." Peggy suggested, continuing to work on his shirt.
Indeed, because of the damage to his left lung, Jack sometimes needed a little extra oxygen, and Howard had optimized what already existed, allowing the blond to do this from home, without having to go to hospital every time. And while Jack had been more than a little against it at first, he'd come to accept it, and today he wasn't so reluctant to use it. Except for one thing.
"I can't do this at the office, Peggy." He contradicted.
"I know. And I wasn't thinking of you doing it at SSR, I was thinking of you doing it at home."
"It'll have to wait until the end of the day."
"But you're already done for the day. I'm taking care of you, and then I'll take you home."
"It's not even 7 o'clock. The day hasn't even started yet, I can't go home already."
"I thought night Agents didn't work the next day. And that injured Agents didn't either."
"Normally yes, but not right now. Peggy, we have an investigation that just opened, I just can't go home. And it's okay, honestly, my breathing isn't that horrible, it can wait until tonight for me to go home." Jack insisted.
Peggy stared at her friend for a while, but she had to admit he was right. "Okay." She allowed. "But if your breathing gets too bad during the day, you're going home."
"Deal." Jack agreed, knowing he wouldn't get any better and that there was no point in trying to argue any further with the brunette.
"Perfect. Now on to the other wounds." Peggy replied, continuing to unbutton the blond man's shirt.
"Some burns on hands and forearms but hard to tell like that. On the face maybe as well."
"Okay. Anything other than burns?"
"Other than a few bruises and scratches, negative."
Peggy nodded and when she had finished undoing the buttons on his shirt, helped Jack remove it, careful of the potential burns.
And just as Jack had said, there were light burns all over where he'd said.
Before she could do anything about it, Peggy grabbed the big blanket she'd taken from the trunk and laid it over Jack's shoulders, who was shivering badly.
"Thanks." He said simply, pulling the soft material tighter around him.
Peggy simply sent him a small smile before opening the first-aid kit, taking out a greasy ointment.
She then took one of Jack's hands in hers and looked more closely at the burns there.
"It doesn't look too bad." She declared, putting on ointment on the burns, looking relieved.
"I didn't catch a piece of burning metal with my full hand, it was just brief contact with flying debris."
Peggy nodded but didn't look at him, concentrating on her task. After putting cream on all the burns on his hands and arms, Peggy then covered everything with bandages, trying as hard as she could not to block his fingers in too big bandages.
"Done for the arms. Nothing on the torso but show me your back."
"Seriously Peggy, you don't trust me that much?" Jack asked, raising an eyebrow.
Peggy only raised one in turn, without backing down.
Knowing she wouldn't back down, Jack sighed and turned, pulling the blanket off his shoulders and shivering in the process, so Peggy could see that, indeed, he had no wounds or burns on his back.
"Good." Peggy said simply.
"Thanks." Jack sighed as he covered himself with the blanket, still shivering a little.
Peggy seemed to realize this and leaned forward, opening a compartment Jack didn't know existed under the back seat and pulling out a shirt and thick knitwear.
"I didn't know you kept this in your car at all times." Said the blond.
"You'd be surprised what you could find in my car, Jack." Peggy replied simply, helping him into the new shirt.
"How many weapons?" Jack asked with a smirk.
"What do you call a weapon?" Interrogated the brunette, helping to fasten the buttons on the shirt.
"In your hands, just about anything. Even a stapler becomes a weapon when wielded by Peggy Carter." The SSR Chief smirked, thinking back to the incident with Spider Raymond at the start of the Stark affair.
This remark drew a small laugh from Peggy. "Well, anything can be a weapon, if you try hard enough."
"Even in your makeup bag you have more weapons than in the SSR armories."
"Now I think you're exaggerating."
"Oh yeah? You want to talk about your eyelash curler that hides a knife in its handle? Your pocket mirror that you use to look into a room before entering? Your toothpick case that hides tranquilizer-infused stingers? Or your soporific lipstick?" Jack asked with an amused smile.
Peggy opened her mouth to protest, but realized that her friend was perfectly right, so she said nothing about it.
"Still, I'm sure you're quite happy right now that I keep a spare shirt in my car. With the added bonus of a handmade knitted sweater by Mrs. Jarvis herself." Peggy said, grabbing the knitted fabric she'd pulled from under the seat.
Jack observed the shapeless mass of wool his friend was handing him with a skeptical eye. "Ana Jarvis made this?" he asked, trying not to sound too disgusted.
"You have to start somewhere. It's ugly, I grant you, but at least it'll keep you warm until we get back to the office."
"I bet you didn't tell her that." Jack scoffed lightly, putting on the sweater anyway. And Peggy was right, it was ugly, but it was warm.
"Even you wouldn't be able to go up to Ana Jarvis and tell her to her face that her sweater is ugly."
Jack then imagined going up to the Hungarian to tell her that and winced as he imagined her reaction. No, definitely not. "Probably not." he confessed.
Peggy nodded and then stepped back a little.
"Well, how about we go back to the office, so we can go look at those interrogation transcripts?" she suggested.
"Only if you buy me coffee on the way." Jack bargained.
"Okay, but just this once. Pull up in front if you'd rather, I'll let Agent Wallace know we're heading back to the SSR." Peggy said as she got out of the car.
She didn't wait for Jack's reply and stepped away from her car, heading for where a few dozen men still stood.
"Agent Carter." Agent Wallace greeted as she approached.
"Agent Wallace, Chief Thompson and I are heading back to the SSR offices. Call when the scene is passable or if anything major happens."
"Agreed."
Peggy nodded and then turned around, heading back to her car. She settled behind the wheel and saw that Jack had migrated to the front, and was curled up in a ball on the seat, under the big blanket.
The brunette said nothing more and simply started her car, taking them to the SSR. Maybe the blond next to her was the Chief of the New York SSR, but that didn't mean he knew how to take care of himself. But that’s okay, Peggy was there to remind him or do it for him. That's what friends are for, after all.
@comfy-vember
