Variants

She would get out of here. After all, this was her job. And Peggy Carter was quite good at her job.

She’d been abducted straight from her office, had her clothes unceremoniously vaporized by a truly terrifying machine, and was now trapped in a cheap jumpsuit awaiting ‘trial’ for a crime no one had yet defined to her. 

Just to think, this morning she’d been practically floating on cloud nine. After the mission with Daniel, after saving Daniel, after kissing Daniel...the warmth and beauty of that moment seemed so distant now.

She breathed. Didn’t panic. Slowly assessed her surroundings. 

Peggy knew how to keep her composure under intense circumstances, but this place was trying even her patience.

She suspected it was some sort of ruse, designed for psychological torture. The obvious suspect was Soviet Intelligence. She’d heard they sometimes set up elaborate scenarios to play with the mind and convince people to spill secrets. Furthermore, despite convincing accents, it was likely the people here were not native English speakers. When she’d demanded a lawyer upon entering, the man at the front desk looked like he had no earthly idea what the word meant. And this place being a Soviet base would explain the vaguely Bauhaus-esque aesthetic, as well as the overabundance of red tile. 

And yet, Peggy knew that theory wasn’t correct. After all, the Soviets had been close partners during the war, which meant she was fairly familiar with their technology until three years ago. Nothing from that experience, and nothing in the SSR’s intelligence, suggested they were anywhere near the level of some of this technology. That threatening disintegrator robot, the doors that opened as if from nowhere. Nevermind how she’d watched another prisoner try to flee, only for him to immediately reappear next to his captor.

Every answer Peggy came up with ran up against this same wall. The mafia wouldn’t have access to this type of machinery, nor would any lingering Nazi sympathizers. Perhaps she’d been brought to an Isodyne Energy facility? After all, the scope of their atomic research was both terrifying and astounding, and she wasn’t fool enough to believe their work would be shut down immediately. 

But their research...it wasn’t controlled. That had been the whole issue. They’d been nothing but children playing with especially dangerous matches. 

Yet this place, whatever it was, screamed control. 

There was an animated clock on a television explaining some nonsense about a ‘sacred timeline’ as Peggy awaited her so-called judgement. She tried to soak it up, get any information she could. But it seemed like complete nonsense. How could one commit a crime against time, exactly?  

The screen chirped "For All Time. Always!" Peggy rolled her eyes. She knew half-baked propaganda when she saw it.

It was patently ridiculous, so she chose to reject it entirely.

No, the interesting part about this cartoon was not it's content, but that it existed at all. An organization she'd never heard of that produced internal propaganda? That spoke to a high level of coordination. 

Whatever this place was, it was unknown. It was strictly managed. And there was no guarantee the others would find her.

It was on her. She had to get to a hiding place where she could better plan her next move.

She looked around the room. Only three guards; one at the front of the line, one in the back, one behind glass at the entry. Easy enough. 

Of course the issue was then finding a way out of here. And after what she’d seen of the other captive’s escape attempt...she suspected this collar could be an issue. However, she was fairly certain it could be controlled by the boxes the guards held. All she had to do was be quick enough to knock one out of their hands. 

If she was going to move, she had to do it fast. 

She scanned the room for exit points. Behind her was no good, she’d have to climb all the way back up to the entrance. Ahead was no good either; she had no desire to find out what awaited in that judging chamber.  But there was a vent low in the wall she could squeeze into. 

Peggy cleared her throat politely and addressed the guard behind her, walking backwards through the empty, roped off queue. “Excuse me,” she asked in her most quiet voice. “I wonder if I might have a glass of water?”

The man glared at her as if she were dung smeared on the bottom of his shoe. “Back in line, varia-”

Peggy brought her knee up between his legs, then punched him hard across the face. The guard collapsed. 

She could hear the other guards yelling, scrambling for their boxes. She grabbed the abandoned stick of the guard at her feet. She knew they sparked with some sort of current, but she had no earthly idea how to activate it. Still, it would have to do. 

She hurled the stick at the other guard, catching him across the face, knocking him back. 

The third guard behind glass had the remote in his hands. Peggy jumped over the velvet dividers, grabbed a pole used to hold them up, then slammed it into the glass, cracking it, startling the guard into dropping his box. 

She rammed the glass again, broke it, leapt over sharp shards. The guard swung at her with that deadly looking sparking stick, but she managed to catch it by the base and wrench it out of his hands. He swung at her with bare fists, catching her once across the face, but she managed to get behind him, got her arms around his neck, forced him into a sleeper hold. Slowly...slowly...he sank to the floor. 

Peggy stood, breathing hard but trying to get herself together. Some sort of alarm was sounding. She quickly scanned the broken glass on the floor, looking for the discarded control box. Her time was limited. She had to…

And suddenly she was standing in the middle of the room, just where she’d been five minutes ago. 

A man in a beige suit was holding a control, smiling at her. “Hi there,” he said pleasantly. “You know, this is gonna be pretty hard to clean. Might cause a whole backlog.”

Peggy found herself off balance, staring, incredulous at his casualness. 

In the next moment,  guards swarmed the room, pointing those sparking weapons at her.

“Whoa, whoa, hey now,” the beige man said quickly, addressing the guards. “Take it easy. Judge is almost ready for her sentencing, there’s no need to do anything drastic. Think of the paperwork.”

“This incident will already require paperwork,” one of the guards growled. “Might as well take out a rogue variant while we’re at it.”

“Come on,” the beige man said quietly. “There’s no real harm done. Everybody’s okay, right? S-14, S-23, S-42, you’re all okay?”

The fallen guards from each corner of the room groaned in what seemed like assent.

“See, everyone’s fine. And look, light just came on above the chamber, it’s sentencing time. No need for pruning, alright? You know the judge likes to hear cases herself.” 

The guards lowered their weapons slightly. The beige man seemed to take this as assent. “Excellent. Let’s get you off to sentencing.”

He took her arm, led her through a dark doorway, guards surrounding them closely. “I’d stay, but I’ve actually got another case to deal with right now,” the strange man was saying. “It’s always one thing after another here.”

“And where is here, exactly?” Peggy said coldly. 

The man looked surprised. “Oh, didn’t you see the video? My bad, that one’s on me. This is the Time Variance Authority. You’ve been charged with a crime against the timeline.” He gave a small smile as he led her to a glass podium. “Judge will be here in a moment. Good luck. I mean it.”

She listened to his soft steps, muffled by the carpet underfoot, until the chamber door clicked shut. 

“How do you plead?” the judge asked again, annoyance lacing her voice. 

Peggy found it astounding this woman had the gall to be irritated. “Ma’am, as I previously stated, my name is Maragaret Elizabeth Carter, my date of birth is April 9, 1921, and under international law I am not required to give you more information than that.”

The judge leaned forward in her seat, eyes sharp. “And as I previously stated, you stand accused of crimes against the timeline, and we are not bound by Earth law of any kind. How do you plead?”

Peggy's nails cut into the palm of her hand. “It is impossible to commit a crime against time. And since no one has told me the charges, am I to assume I am being held improperly? Again, it is a basic human right to know what-”

“Variants are not in possession of basic human rights!” the judge snapped. Peggy tried not to let ice crawl down her spine. “However, as no one has explained your crime, that might be a more productive line of questioning than arguing semantics.”

The judge quieted for a moment as she shuffled some papers around her desk. Peggy knew arguing law was useless here, but she hoped it would at least buy her some understanding of this place. Buy her time until someone, anyone, found her.

Peggy looked down at her wrists, trying to think of a new line of distraction. 

The judge cleared her throat. “Ms. Carter, did you kiss a Mr. Daniel Sousa?”

Peggy looked up, newly surprised. 

“Did I what?”

“Did you kiss a Mr. Daniel Sousa?”

This...this was a ploy. This was a ploy to find out more information about her job, her life, about the SSR. 

Fierce protectiveness curled through Peggy. No. She’d never give up Daniel. She’d lost too much to lose him too. 

Her voice went monotone. “My name is Maragaret Elizabeth Carter,” she repeated. “My date of birth is April 9, 1921.”

The judge slammed on her desk. “Ms. Carter, I must ask you to answer the question.”

"“My name is Maragaret Elizabeth-"

"If you do not answer, we will assume guilt."

Peggy glared. “I don’t see why kissing is relevant in a court of law. It is an entirely private matter.”

“Not so, Ms. Carter. Kissing Mr. Sousa is the crime you are accused of.”

Peggy’s mouth fell open a bit. 

“Excuse me?”

The judge shuffled more papers, read off a long scroll. “Kissing Mr. Sousa spirals into a relationship with Mr. Sousa,” she said in a bored monotone. “This leads to Mr. Steven Grant Rogers being alone upon his return rather than marrying you, as he is supposed to. This is the breach of the sacred timeline of which you’ve been accused.”

The judge looked up as if she’d just said something perfectly reasonable. 

Peggy stood quiet and dumfounded for several moments. 

“Steve is dead,” she finally managed.

The judge shook her head. “No, Mr. Rogers will be returning to your place in the timeline in 1949. This is supposed to happen, and you are supposed to be with him when it does. Any dalliance with Mr. Sousa is a dangerous and irregular mistake that must be corrected.”

“You’re...you’re telling me my crime is kissing someone? I don’t understand.”

“You haven’t denied kissing him, which suggests guilt. If you don’t refute this, it will be taken as an admission of guilt, and you will be sentenced to reset.”

“But I don’t understand!”

“Are you denying that you kissed him, and branched the timeline by doing something you weren’t supposed to do?”

“You keep saying this ‘wasn’t supposed to happen!’ What does that mean? I mourned Steve, I felt his loss for years! But his plane crashed in Arctic waters! No one could survive something like that! My superior officers provided me with more details than I'd ever need about how a body freezes!"

"Ms. Carter, this is out of order."

"I don't know what kind of joke you're playing here, but it's cruel! I wasn't supposed to kiss Daniel? Am I supposed to sit at home pining forever? Thinking constantly on how Steve died horribly? I’m not allowed to move on? I’m not supposed to try to be happy?”

Peggy noted, with some embarrassment, that there were tears on her cheeks.

“No,” the judge said frankly. “And the TVA accepts that statement as an official admission of guilt. You are sentenced to be reset. Next case please.”

Shock overcame Peggy as they led her away. She barely felt the guard’s hands on her shoulders, barely felt the carpet beneath her feet. 

And after that, she didn’t feel anything at all. 

Agent P. Perpetuum sat in the library, pouring over case files. There was an answer to the problem here, and she knew she’d find it eventually. 

There was a quiet knock on a nearby shelf. Perpetuum looked up. 

For a moment, she couldn’t place the Agent in the beige jacket and pants, and she found herself swept up in uncharacteristic confusion. But her face quickly relaxed into a smile. “Agent Mobius, good to see you.”

“You too, Agent, you too.” He shook her hand, quickly and professionally.

“I was just wondering if you needed any help with these case files,” Mobius asked. 

She smiled. She was grateful the Timekeepers had provided her such capable and helpful colleagues. “No, thank you. I’m just working through old romantic variances. Just working to get this stack cleared.”

Mobius made a sad clicking noise with his tongue. “That’s a shame, I’d love to bring you on my next assignment. I’ve heard you’re a hell of a fighter in the field.”

She looked up, confused. “Where did you hear that? I’m not cleared for field weapons, or fighting of any kind.”

Mobius looked lost for a moment, the confusion she felt reflected in his own eyes. But after a moment, his face cleared. He shrugged and smiled. “Must have misheard some rumors. You know how it is, so many people working here.”

“It is a bit of a maze,” she laughed. “But, better that this place is a maze than the timeline.”

“Isn’t that the truth,” Mobius grinned. “Well, let me know if you ever do want to do field work.”

“Of course, thank you.”

Her fellow agent nodded. “For all time?”

“Always,” she answered automatically with a smile. 

He walked off, footsteps soft on the carpet underfoot. 

She turned back to her work. The sacred timeline must be preserved. After all, this was her job. And Agent P. Perpetuum was quite good at her job.