[Jack Thompson] (The things they don't know about) Miss Tonya

[ 1 1 : f u t i l e - b u t - e n j o y a b l e ]

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Warnings: Explosion

Spoilers: Agent Carter Season 1

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"Well-armed for a mothball facility," Peggy remarked, peering through a pair of binoculars. "Wouldn't you say?"

Tonya hummed in agreement. She and Peggy were wearing what Tonya had called 'mission gear', but wasn't massively different from what Peggy wore on a day-to-day (aside from a rather fetching brown leather jacket – she must borrow that at some point). Tonya had considered disguising herself in some way, but quickly realised she was rarely seen in anything other than an expensive party dress, so she should be relatively unrecognisable anyway. "Stay sharp, Jarvis." she said, patting the shoulder of the butler in the seat in front of her as she moved to exit the car.

"But I'm coming with you." the butler piped up.

She and Peggy shared a look. "Mr Jarvis, that cook you caught stealing the spoons, was she a large woman? Violent?" the agent quipped.

Tonya gave a snort. "Nope."

As she opened the door closest to her and stepped out, she heard Jarvis interjecting hurriedly. "But she had a vicious tongue and extremely long..." he trailed off as he caught on to Peggy's sarcasm and it was only after the agent had firmly shut the door behind her that he dejectedly finished his sentence. "...fingernails."

The actress chuckled pitifully and then followed Peggy to scale the fence onto the site. They didn't face much trouble upon initially entering the building and after Peggy was sure she had located where the nitramine was being produced, Tonya clicked her radio on. "I'll check down here to make sure they're the only ones replicating the formula."

Peggy gave her a nod and set off in the direction the Vita-Ray Detector was indicating. Tonya followed another path, which brought her to a large space full of storage boxes and – bingo! – what looked to be the central powering of the facility. In fact, she was certain it was, as she tracked her mind back to the plans of the building she and Howard had studied when they'd considered purchasing it; at least something good had come out of that debacle.

After shutting down the power, she went to go and find Peggy but knocked into a large box of files. Tonya held her breath for a few seconds, but it seemed she was too far away to be heard by anyone. Looking down at the pile, she was struck with a rather self-indulgent idea; Peggy hadn't radioed for backup, so she may as well. She scooped up as many as she could hold and once and carried them over to a chute on one side of the room. Remembering the building's plans again, she knew that chute led to the furnace of the facility and while it was unlikely the furnace was lit and equally unlikely the files were of great importance considering Hugh Jones had left them to collect dust in his unused refinery, she gained a great satisfaction from sending them tumbling down the shaft; very probably futile, but very definitely enjoyable.

"Miss Carter, Miss Stark, it seems that you have company approaching."

Tonya jumped as Jarvis' voice sounded quite suddenly from her radio and she winced again as she strained to work out whether someone had heard. Either way, it probably hadn't worked out well at Peggy's end and she ventured to relocate her friend as she gave Jarvis a hushed reply.

"Typically, when communicating with associates on a covert mission, it helps if you whisper down the line, Jarvis."

"Apologies, Miss Stark, I will endeavour to keep that in mind."

"That's if Peggy let's you come along again."

"Tonya, you should probably think about making your way out of the facility as quickly as you can." Peggy's voice chimed into the conversation. "Mr Jarvis, do you think you could bring the car around?"

"Of course, when would you like it?"

Trust the British to make an escape mission sound like a tea order.

"Oh, in about twenty seconds."

Twenty seconds: she really had meant quickly. Utilising her memory of the building's map once more and ignoring the bickering over the radio, Tonya navigated her way to the nearest exit, which was closer than she had realised.

"Where's Miss Stark?" Jarvis enquired once Peggy was actually on the inside of the car.

Peggy tried to convince herself Tonya had found a way out; it was a skill of the Starks to weasel out of difficult situations, though there had admittedly been a lack of that recently. "She'll be fine, just keep driving,"

Though it would be good to check.

"Tonya, where are you?" She clicked into the radio again after no reply. "Tonya, do you read me?"

A more pressing matter arose as quite suddenly the explosion erupted behind them. "Faster!" Peggy pressured, praying that Tonya had managed to escape the blast; at this rate, she wouldn't know either way as the blaze loomed threateningly close to the car.

Jarvis slammed his foot on the pedal causing the tires to screech in response. "I am going faster!"

The explosion seemed to retreat on itself, dragging thankfully only the bumper and the registration plate of the car with it. Jarvis pulled to a stop and the two of them leapt out.

"Tonya, can you hear me? Did you get out?" Peggy spoke into the radio desperately as Jarvis looked around himself frantically.

"Hearing you loud and clear, Peg, and I got out just fine."

They whipped round to see the smirking Stark leaning against a nearby fence.

"How the bloody hell did you get there?"

Tonya shrugged and walked over to join them at the back of the car. "I'm a fast runner."

Turning their attention to the burning lump where the refinery had been, Tonya's smirk fast disappeared at the sight. It seemed her mischief with the files down the chute had definitely been futile.

"It would seem it works." Jarvis remarked.

"Of course it does," Tonya sighed. "Howard and I created it..."

...and what the hell had they done?

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Author's Note: I am so sorry I've been gone for literally months and now I'm back with the most pathetic chapter oop. I'll probably come back and change this later unless I get massive writer's block again eek. I'm going to publish another chapter though to make up for it (though that one is much better either rip). Annoyingly, I've been able to write loads for future chapters of this book, but I put off writing this one for ages coz I had no idea how to do it and I still hate it now but oh well. Hopefully, I'll be able to publish future chapters sooner though, because I already have most of them done! I hope you're all still vibing in these trying times - my messages are always open if you need someone to talk to (they're one of the few things I stay updated on lol).

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