Chapter Text
As Peggy continued to take dictation, she desperately tried to stifle a yawn.
It would not do to insult the Russian ambassador, no matter how monotonous the man’s voice.
“Запланируйте встречу с мэром как можно скорее.”
Peggy nodded and forced her eyes open as she made a note to schedule a meeting with the Mayor as soon as possible.
A few more instructions, and she was summarily dismissed, just in time to nearly crack her jaw with a yawn in the hallway.
Honestly, it might be covert ops but so much of this job was just boring.
She briefly wondered if she should have accepted that job at the SSR office in New York, but given the way the agents she’d interviewed with had acted, in New York she would have actually been a secretary rather than just undercover as one.
Six of one, the irritated voice in Peggy’s head muttered as she typed up her notes from the meeting and scheduled the necessary follow ups.
Several hours later, Peggy, or Katya Kuznetzova as she was known in the Soviet Embassy in San Francisco, punched out, and began the long walk back to Little Russia. She could have taken a streetcar, but she enjoyed the exercise and fresh air after being cooped up in the office all day and it gave her time to think.
Specifically it gave her time to think about getting out.
She’d been undercover for well over six months now, and so far she’d uncovered exactly nothing. And, frankly, it was frustrating as hell. To go from making a difference in the war, to making tea for diplomats was bracing, but she wouldn’t have minded it as a means to an end. She was just doubting there was an end.
It’s not that she hadn’t gathered intel — she played the part well enough that people confided in her almost without realizing it — it was that the intel she gathered was no use to her. She wasn’t there for trade secrets or information about high ranking minister’s mistresses. She was there for one reason and one reason only: Leviathan.
And so far she’d come up empty.
Peggy sighed and turned into an alley off Geary Boulevard, making her way to the second floor apartment she’d been living in during this assignment. She let herself in, locked the door, and shed her persona, putting Katya away and becoming Peggy once more.
She made some tea for herself and kicked off her shoes, then checked her watch.
Twenty minutes until contact.
Peggy finished her cuppa and then walked over to the stack of linens she kept by the wall, ostensibly because she had no linen cabinet.
In actuality because they served a purpose.
Peggy’s apartment shared a wall with a music shop one street over, the top floor of which held small, soundproof practice rooms. By drilling through the wall, she had created a small hole that allowed her to communicate with the person in the adjoining room, and twice a week her handler, a man code named Calgary, would rent the practice room to meet with her, to debrief and discuss. It was a frankly ingenious solution that allowed ongoing, two-way communication without the risk of blowing her cover.
It also meant that the soundproof wall wasn’t, and intermittently during the week Peggy was subjected to a range of instruments from a range of talents.
Hence the pile of linens.
She moved them aside and used them as a makeshift chair, making herself comfortable and waiting for the code.
At precisely 7:02pm it came.
“The complexity of psychology...” a voice began on the other side of the wall.
Peggy frowned. That wasn’t Calgary. The password was correct, but not the voice. Hesitantly she finished the phrase.
“Is really quite prosaic in its nobility.”
There was a pause from the other side.
“That is a terrible code,” the voice complained.
Peggy clicked her jaw in irritation. “Well I didn’t write it,” she informed him, before realizing how unimportant a correction that was.
“Good,” he replied, then chuckled. “A point in your favor.”
“I wasn’t aware this was a competition,” she snapped, done with this odd small talk. “And you’re not Calgary.”
“No,” he agreed. “Calgary… well the short answer is he’s out on medical leave.”
“Is he alright?” Peggy asked, suddenly worried. She hadn’t known the man except for these brief encounters, but he’d seemed competent, if dull, and she hated to think of any agent suffering.
“Yeah, he’ll be fine, or so I’ve been told. Truthfully it’s a bit above my pay-grade.”
“Is that so?” Peggy asked as she continued to be unimpressed. “Then how did you come to be his replacement?”
The man chuckled and Peggy shifted in her seat. It was a nice laugh, which for some reason made her uncomfortable. “Honestly? A lack of agents who speak Russian, I think.”
“And you do?”
“Да,” he replied.
“Good,” she said. “You won’t stand out in the neighborhood.”
“That’s the idea. Also, I think we should change our meeting schedule. How about Monday and Thursday?”
“Yes, good thinking. But since you’re here now, shall I debrief?”
“Shoot,” he said, then chuckled again. “Not… not literally though.”
Peggy rolled her eyes. “No. Alright, well the Ambassador is meeting with the Mayor next week, though I doubt it has anything to do with Leviathan. And I did manage to plant a bug in the break room. Alpha November Tango protocol. The SSR can begin listening in immediately, though I imagine it will be a lot of chatter about missing lunches and the like.” She paused, allowing him to finish taking any notes. “Do you have anything for me?”
“No, just the update on Calgary. You can call me Helicon by the way. And your code name is Peony, right?”
“Yes. Alright, well if that’s done, have a good evening Helicon.”
“Wait, what? That’s it?”
“I have nothing else to report, do you?”
“No, but I got the practice room for an hour. What am I supposed to do until then?”
“Practice the piano I suppose. Or sit in silence. Your choice.”
“Is that what Calgary did?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, I wasn’t his secretary.”
“Alright, alright. Point taken. Goodnight Peony.”
“Goodnight Helicon.”
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“...and a visit from the French Ambassador next week. I think that’s all.” Peggy rattled off the last of her updates and waited for the man on the other side of the wall to finish talking notes. “Have you anything for me?”
“Yeah, does the name Red Room mean anything to you?”
Peggy paused, racking her memory for any mention of the phrase. “No. Should it?”
“Not sure. I was doing some background research and I came across a redacted mention of it I was able to unredact. Seemed important.”
“I’ll keep an ear out,” Peggy assured him. “Anything else?”
“Yeah, what’s an 11 letter phrase for ‘sensible paraglider heading this way eventually’?”
“Excuse me?”
“What’s an — ”
“I heard you the first time,” Peggy interrupted crossly. “I’m just not sure what this has to do with my assignment.”
“Nothing. I just brought a crossword puzzle with me this time. Since you refuse to speak to me and I’m not interested in taking up the piano.”
Peggy rolled her eyes. “Are you so very bored with this assignment, Helicon, that you needed to bring entertainment?”
“It’s a small, soundproof room with nothing in it but a piano and my thoughts. Forgive me for wanting a little distraction until my hour is up and I can leave without suspicion.”
“You’re an agent, you should be able to handle being uncomfortable and alone,” Peggy reminded him.
“Sure, but just because I can, doesn’t mean I have to, especially if there’s an alternative. Something you might remember.”
Peggy bristled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’ve been undercover, alone, for almost eight months with no one to talk to who actually knows who you are except your handler who you won’t even give 30 minutes to for conversation. Which is your choice, of course, if that’s what you want, but I don’t think it is.”
“And what do I want?” Peggy demanded.
“Honestly, I have no idea. And I’m not trying to pry. I’m just saying, badly as it turns out, that I’m here, for another half hour, if you want to talk about the weather or the Dodgers or the rising cost of flour.”
Peggy bit her lip. He wasn’t wrong, per se, it was lonely work. And despite herself she did seem to like the man. They’d been meeting for weeks now and he was unfailingly polite and funny and smart. She just… she couldn’t be seen as anything less than utterly professional. And discussion of any personal nature always felt unprofessional.
“It’s not vital to the mission,” she said instead, with less conviction than she’d intended.
He sighed. “Well life isn’t only the mission. You know what you are?”
She paused. “Down to earth.”
Helicon snorted. “That’s one way of putting it.”
Peggy shook her head, though of course he couldn’t see her. “No, it’s… an 11 letter phrase for ‘sensible paraglider heading this way eventually’. Down. To. Earth.”
“Oh.” He sounded surprised, which she found oddly pleasing. “So it is. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Goodnight Helicon.”
“Goodnight Peony.”
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“Vasili Dassaiev is going to be in Los Angeles next week!”
Peggy hadn’t even waited to remove her shoes or coat, and frankly she had to keep herself from shouting the words, she was so excited about the development.
“Seriously? That… do you know where?”
“I’m working on that. But I know he arrives next Thursday by private plane. I’ll try to get more information before our next meeting.”
“Oh, wow, Leviathan’s number two on US soil. That’s… that’s big. I gotta — ” He broke off with a sigh. “I gotta cool my heels here for another 59 minutes until I can leave without raising suspicions.”
She heard a metal clang and a murmured curse from the other side of the wall.
“Are you alright, Helicon?”
“Yeah. I’m just anxious to get going.” He chuckled, that soft, slightly cheeky laugh she so enjoyed despite herself. “I guess now I know how you feel.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, finally removing her shoes.
“Eager to get rid of me,” he explained and she frowned.
“I’m not…” She sighed. “That’s not an accurate description of the situation.”
“No?”
“No. I’m just…” She slid down against the wall, and leaned her head back on it. “How… how did you learn Russian?”
“Sorry?”
“It’s a question.” A question that could both be seen as personal and professional and Peggy was quite proud of herself for the solution.
“Europe,” he replied finally. “I, uh, I had a lot of time on my hands.”
“You didn’t serve?”
“No, I did. I was, uh… I was injured. Pretty bad. Decided to learn a useful skill while I recovered. And I always had an ear for language.”
“Really?” Peggy was impressed. Russian had not been easy for her to learn, even with a native grandmother. “If that’s the case I’m surprised you’re not somewhere undercover yourself.”
“I said I had an ear for it. Can’t write it to save my life. Which, you know in this line of work, it just might. Plus I’m… memorable.”
Peggy grinned in spite of herself. “Far too handsome for undercover work, is that it? Jawline too strong? Eyes too warm and wise?”
“Something like that.” His voice was full of humor and she could almost feel him grinning back. “So how’d you get into this?”
“This assignment? The language component, same as you.”
“No, this. This line of work. Unusual for a woman, in my experience.”
Peggy clucked her tongue in annoyance. “I think perhaps your experience and your imagination are both lacking, Helicon, because we’re actually quite adept at espionage.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t. Just that I hadn’t had the pleasure. Look maybe we just got off on the wrong foot here.” He paused for a moment. “That would have been hilarious, by the way, if you could see me.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” she told him, though of course she’d put two and two together. The long recovery and the joke… he was making an effort to share. Perhaps she could too. “My brother.”
“What?”
“My brother is how I got in this line of work. He… he didn’t come back from the war, so I sort of took his place. Turned out I had a knack for it, so I just kept with it.”
“I’m sorry. About your brother I mean. Not the other… not that you kept with it.”
“Thank you.”
They were both quiet for a minute before he huffed out a laugh. “You know what this reminds me of? Pyramus and Thisbe. You know the, uh, the play within a play from A Midsummer Night's Dream. Do you know it?”
Peggy rolled her eyes. “I’m British; Shakespeare is practically in my DNA. How do you know it?”
There was a pause and she could practically hear him rolling his eyes back. “We got schools in New York too, ya know.”
“Do you? From the agents I interviewed with there I couldn’t be sure.”
“Oh yeah? I put in a little time with the New York SSR myself. Who’d you meet with?”
“An Agent Krzeminski?”
“Ah. Yeah. No, I can see why the school thing shocked you. What a grade A jackass, excuse my French.”
“Yes, he didn’t impress me so much as convince me to take this assignment instead.”
“Well then… I guess he’s not so bad.”
“Oh he is,” Peggy assured him and the man laughed, then clucked his tongue.
“Alright, I think it’s been long enough. I can claim a headache and leave a little early. Gotta get set up for LA. See ya Thursday Peony.”
“See you then Helicon.”
Peggy was surprised, when he left, to realize she was looking forward to it.