Return | Bucky Barnes x OC | (4)

Chapter 22- The Red Room Academy

1946- New York

"Jesus!" Peggy exclaimed as she entered her apartment after coming back from her mission to the Red Room Academy only to come face to face with a nervous looking Clara. "What are you doing here?!" She hissed.

"I had to!"

"You could have been seen! The SSR are still looking in to you! You could have lead them all straight here, to me. Do you have any idea how bad that looks?" Peggy snapped, slamming the door shut.

"I didn't have much of a choice." Clara defended. "Look." She said, thrusting the lipstick and key into Peggy's hands.

"Is that my key?" Peggy mumbled, turning them over in her hands. "And my lipstick?" She asked, confused.

"There's more," Clara muttered solemnly. She reached into her breast pocket and closed her hand around the vial, "Here."

Clara held her hand out and Peggy held out and open palm. Clara unfurled her fingers and let the vial drop into Peggy's hand.

"Where did you get this?" She asked gravely, her face falling and draining of colour.

"This is going to sound crazy-" Clara began, unsure of where to start.

"Where did you get this?" Peggy persisted.

"An SSR man called Otto Mink came by the house and tried to kill me. Then this blonde woman killed him so I let her stay because the SSR were wrongly after her too. Well, that's what she told me but she kept acting weird so one night I snuck into her room while she was asleep. I found your key, your lipstick and the vial of Steve's blood!" Clara rambled. "And that's not even the weirdest thing! She was handcuffed-"

"To the bedpost." Peggy finished, a grave look on her face. She pushed past Clara and darted for the phone.

"How did you know?"

"So were all the girl's at the Red Room Academy."

"No...she's from the Red Room?" Clara questioned. Of course, it all made sense now. "Of course. I should have known."

"It's okay, Clara. You weren't to know. I wouldn't have known until the mission." Peggy reassured as she dialled the phone.

"I knew...I should have seen it coming." Clara muttered under her breath, mentally kicking herself. All that time she had spent with Nat and she had never known. They handcuffed girls to their beds...

"Hello, it's Peggy." Peggy announced over the phone, "I need your help again. Great, I'll see you soon."

"Who was that?" Clara asked as Peggy put the phone back in its cradle but Peggy was miles away. She paced the room, deep in thought. "And where's Howard gone?"

"Right," Peggy said at last, "Here's the plan. We go back to Howard's once back up has arrived and take Dottie."

"Kidnap her? And who's this back up?" Clara queried but Peggy didn't stop to answer.

"I just called Dugan and the others, they'll be here in under an hour." Peggy answered quickly, "Then we take her to the SSR headquarters. We rescued a doctor from the Red Room so he can prove that Dottie's a spy. Then we can have your charges dropped because they'll realise she's the spy, not you."

"Sounds like a plan." Clara chimed happily, she'll finally be able to leave the house! "Wait how did you know her name was Dottie?"

"She lives down the hall. I always got this suspicious feeling around her but thought I was being paranoid." Peggy explains, "Based on your description it has to be the same person. Apparently no one's seen her in days."

"It's because she's currently handcuffed to Howard Starks bed!"

"A lot of the girls here would disappear for a few days in order to spend some time handcuffed to Howard's bed." Peggy grumbled.

"Peg!" Clara exclaimed once it hit her what Peggy was insinuating. "I didn't know people were in to that kind of stuff this far in the past..."

*

Agent Daniel Sousa of the SSR had been tracking down the 'Soviet Spy' for weeks. Everyone thought he was crazy for pursuing a dead end but he knew, deep down, that something was worth exploring. He had staked out Howard's mansion on his own in his desperation to bring the Soviet to justice. He hadn't expected her to have been so stupid as to leave. She hadn't seen him, that was good. This was his chance to bring her to justice. All he had to do was follow her, snap a few pictures and it would be impossible for the SSR to ignore him.

As Clara left Howard's mansion, Sousa followed close behind her, staying in the shadows. Not that it would have made a difference. Clara was too focused on making it to Peggy's and keeping the vial safe to be worried about the whole 'Soviet Spy' situation.

Daniel Sousa could barely believe his eyes as he tracked her all the way to the very same apartment that none other than Agent Peggy Carter lived in. For months the SSR had suspected there was a mole but Sousa didn't want to believe it. He didn't want to believe it now either but there was no denying Peggy must be in on it...

He knew Peggy had just gotten back from a mission to the Red Room Academy, the very same place where they trained these Soviet Spies. It couldn't be a coincidence that she fed them this information. He didn't want to believe it but there was just too much evidence for him to ignore. Peggy Carter was a Soviet.