Agent Carter: Saving Dottie Underwood

Chapter 1

After making sure that Ana would be alright -Mr Jarvis was staying with her- Peggy made her way out of the hospital and quickly walked over to the car, which to her relief was still there with its trunk closed.

She opened it carefully, gun in hand just in case, and was met with angry blue eyes boring into hers. If looks could kill, Peggy would have probably dropped dead right there on the concrete.

She decided to pay no mind to Dottie's, understandably, sour mood. What choice did they have but to keep her in the trunk? The backseat was needed for a wounded Ana to lay on, after all.

"Come on, up you go," she said decidedly, extending a hand for Dottie to take.

Dottie raised a brow and begrudgingly accepted the offer, letting Peggy help her to her feet. For a moment she staggered, almost losing her balance, but Peggy steadied her with a hand on her shoulder.

"Are you alright?" she questioned, concern slipping into her voice against her will.

"M fine," Dottie mumbled, "just a little dizzy, that's all."

Peggy looked her up and down, her dark brown hair was all tousled and she seemed pale as a ghost, her condition seemed to have only worsened since they had escaped Whitney's mansion.

"You don't look fine," she commented, "in fact I dare say you look terrible."

"Why, must be all the zero matter torture and then getting tossed around in the boot of a car for half an hour. You sure know how to flatter a girl, Peg," Dottie remarked sarcastically.

"It was a 15 minute drive at max, you're being dramatic again. And you've got yourself to blame for falling into Whitney's hands, if you had only retrieved the sample and then left as you were instructed to, none of this would have happened!" Peggy exclaimed exasperatedly.

She knew that the last thing she should do was to get on Dottie's wrong side, but all the frustrations and worries of the past hours boiled over, and frankly, she was angry. Angry at Dottie for not following instructions, angry at herself for ever even expecting that Dottie would follow instructions, angry at Whitney for hurting so many people she cared about... (and no, that definitely did not include Dottie, she did not care about Dottie, nuh uh, not at all).

All she wanted to do was go home, take a long hot bath, wash off the day and then go to sleep, but she had to take care of Dottie first and figure out how to detain her until she could be handed back over to the FBI to serve the rest of her prison sentence. Thinking about that made her feel uneasy. As much as she had been adamant to Dottie that she would put her back in her cell right away, it did not feel like the right decision anymore, even if rationally she knew that it was. Dottie absolutely deserved to be locked up, the world was safer with her behind bars, and yet...

She pushed the uneasy feeling down, though, for now her biggest concern was if the woman would even make it back to her cell alive.

Said woman squinted at Peggy and wanted to open her mouth to say something, but instead she swayed on her feet, hit by another wave of dizziness and nausea, and weakly let out, "I think I'm going to be sick..." before she doubled over, retched twice and then indeed began to throw up.

Peggy quickly put away the gun which she had still been holding and positioned herself behind Dottie, brushing her hair out of her face and holding it behind her as she continued to throw up. It was a gesture almost too gentle for two enemies, and she had to stop herself from putting a hand on Dottie's back and rubbing it to comfort her while the poor Russian was puking her guts out.

"That's alright, get it all out," Peggy reassured her awkwardly. She knew that Dottie would absolutely hate appearing this vulnerable in front of her, but there was nothing to do about it.