4549/Secret Agent Grudge Match

Secret Agent Grudge Match
Date of Scene:	30 December 2020
Location:	Somewhere in the Mojave Desert
Synopsis:	Peggy and Bobbi thwart Dottie Underwood's attempt to co-opt the Mojave time portal for Leviathan.
Cast of Characters:	Bobbi Morse, Peggy Carter, Melinda May
Tinyplot:	Times That Bind

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Bobbi Morse has posed:
This is the second 'time hole' anomaly base. The first found by construction workers, the second found by Peggy. Out here in the middle of the Mojave, desert for as far as the eye can see. There is an assortment of generators, lights, defensive walls, tents.

    Bobbi sits in the command tent staring at her tablet for a while, though occasionally also glancing over at the stability readings of the anomaly. They don't want to lose it again, not like last time. Though.. the time phone was worth it. Speaking of the time phone, it's there - on the table, with a piece of masking tape on its back and permanent marker on it: 'TIME PHONE - DO NOT TOUCH'.

    The base is still a bustle of activity as tents are being set up and agents are assembling equipment. Two quinjets, three SUVs, several crates of unopened goodies too. The question of who the sniper was is still unanswered. "Peggy, .. purely hypothetical, but what would you say to your younger self?," she quizzes one of the three founders of SHIELD and the only one still alive.

Peggy Carter has posed:
Now practically living out in the desert, Peggy has been incredibly reluctant to take on any cases except for getting May back and guarding the site. Granted, she'll follow orders when other things come up, but she always comes straight back here. She's adapted back to the desert heat, now mainly in light linen jumpsuits with her cute retro sunglasses, much like her first stint out in LA. She's adapted to wearing flats, though. They are so much easier in the sand.

The purely hypothetical question comes and Peggy just blinks. She's staring at Bobbi hard, like she's trying to figure out if this is a trap or not. "Purely hypothetical. Because the things I actually would say would be in an attempt to change the timestream. I'd...tell her to fight against Paperclip harder. To vet her closest allies harder... just... Never to think we've dropped the ball on HYDRA..." Peg's words there are quiet. Very quiet. She doesn't want anyone but Bobbi to hear them.

Then she's painting more of a smile on her face and gives an answer a more normal level, "Well...I suppose I'd tell her it'll all be worth it. Just to keep...fighting. It'll get better. If that makes sense. And maybe that she can have a *little* bit of a life, needn't always be married to the office... but I doubt any of us listen to that."

Melinda May has posed:
While Morse and Carter consult, several techs are reestablishing a monitoring net around the portal. There are catwalks around it for observation, and one singular ground approach. Theoretically, that should limit the ability of any potential intruders to get close to it without having to go through a small army of security agents first.

Theoretically.

Agents come and go, setting up structures, securing technology and creating montioring stations. Not every agent will be familiar to either Morse or Carter; that's just the nature of the work. Their chosen action team will be, of course, but the support agents? There's so much room for unknown faces sporting the right security lanyard. Really not so hard at all.

It's true, that sniper has yet to be found. They disappeared into the desert, while the original setup team was ducking for cover inside the quinjet that brought them. Rather convenient, that.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Bobbi grins, "Now the real question is, knowing our younger selves.. me, I was real stubborn. I don't think I'd listen to a word older me had to say. I mean, I'd hear it, but I wouldn't really absorb it or act on it." She rolls her eyes, "But yes, changing the past like that? the ramifications? who knows how things would turn out. May be better, may be worse."

    "I bet if I tried to convince my younger self that I don't need to be married to the job.. I wouldn't laugh I'd just stare blankly back at myself," she muses and then taps on her tablet a few times. "I was thinking of asking Agent Croft to join us again and act as head of security for the site. What do you think? I thought she did well enough last time."

    She tosses the tablet on to the table and stands up, takes a stretch and then picks up her half finished coffee for another sip. "I also asked Hill if we could get a new issue of lanyards just for this site. She said yes, but I got the kind of yes that means 'yes, but it'll be a day or two' .. there's also another quinjet inbound. I expect they will arrive during your shift."

Peggy Carter has posed:
The phone is given a long look, "Do you think we should check in on her? I know that we're trying to limit contact, but it doesn't appear that the phone is making anything less stable and I... I just don't want her to think we've abandoned her." Peg knows May won't think that, but there's still a trace of heavy guilt in her dark eyes. She's going to be carrying this one for a long time, it seems.

The question of Croft gets an immediate nod of approval. "She's trustable, has her wits about her, and seems to be taking all of this in stride. She'd do just fine for head of security if she feels like living in the desert for an uncertain amount of time. Warn her to pack warm weather clothes." Peggy's just abandoned most of her SHIELD issue clothing, but then she never really liked it to begin with. By the time they had uniforms, she was far too senior to be required to wear them.

"As for my younger self..." Peggy gives a short, strange laugh. "I'm starting to remember bits of this. Whether it's because the memories are forming in my mind as we change the past, or there's just been so many decades between it'd faded, I'm not certain. But... I wouldn't trust it. I was just as wary of changing the time then as I am now. I always knew the world was... strange. You see a 95 pound man turn into Captain America in a handful of minutes and you start accepting that the impossible is often possible. It makes you prepared for all sorts of things... and wary of it as well."

Melinda May has posed:
Most of the support crew has been around since just after the first boots hit the ground. Since then, though, there've been a half dozen other drops come in, and a couple dozen new personnel. One of the more recent additions is a slender L5 agent whose lanyard gives her access to 80% of the facility without extra permissions. She's on the tall side -- a couple of inches taller than Peggy's height, a couple of inches below Bobbi's height. She's got red hair. It's currently pulled back in a low chignon on the back of her neck, leaving her creamy, lightly freckled complexion fairly clear.

At the moment, she's carrying a small piece of equipment toward the anomaly site, making her solitary way through the white, inflated tunnel that leads to the entry port into the monitoring station.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    "It's weird you know. When I was a young agent I was this small person in a pool of incredible agents. I hardly knew anyone. Now I'm this level seven kick ass agent and.. I still hardly know anyone," she says looking at the security monitors. There are people going this way and that. No one seems to be terribly suspicious at the moment. She's not expecting trouble, which is usually when she knows to expect it.

    Bobbi picks up her tablet and starts to type, sending through the request for Agent Croft to be assigned to the new Anomaly site. Her eyes move back to the time phone and she replies to Peggy, "No. We have a schedule. We should stick to the schedule. If there's one thing May appreciates, it's predictability. When things aren't predictable, she assumes something has gone wrong."

    There's a flash of a grin to Peggy's worried face, "And let's face it, now that that Dottie person from the past has been dealt with, she's practically getting her first vacation in years." She places the tablet down as she hits send and says, "This is my first experience with time travel so I'll take your word for it. I won't be born for another .. lots of years. I'd hope that any ripples we create don't accidentally erase me from existence."

Peggy Carter has posed:
The comment about Dottie leaves a weird tingle at the back of Peggy's neck. Like something concerning the woman's face is hovering just on the edge of her consciousness, something she should have noticed before, but she simply didn't. The older agent probably just looks restless to Bobbi, one hand coming up to rub against the juncture of shoulder and neck, as she tries to push away whatever that weird feeling is. "Dottie is... never entirely dealt with. But yes, I think my counterpart has gotten her out of May's hair for now, at least." She hopes.

"And you will not be erased. It's distinctly possible after this incident, I went to someone to... remove the memories from my mind, just to be certain nothing DID change. I am paranoid nowadays. Back then? I was even worse. At least there is an entire organization of people who understand the things I've seen now. You and the others don't gawk at teh possibilities. If I said these things back then? They've have locked me away.." Peggy gives a little little laugh, almost pitying her younger self as she thinks on it. She doesn't push about calling May again.

Melinda May has posed:
The redhead moves with relaxed, practiced ease. There's a confidence in her step that's reminiscent of either Peggy or Morse. A woman who knows her value, so to speak. She is fiddling with the box in her hand as she steps through the plastic drapes into the forechamber that leads to the anomaly chamber. This keeps her face from appearing clearly on camera, but that shouldn't be an issue.

Her lanyard says she's okay to be where she is... for this moment, anyway. She pauses at the junction that separates the ground approach from the monitoring station proper. She should turn right. But she's busy with that box and turns to the left.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Bobbi says, "Right, but.. she's not still alive now right? you and Steve and barely a handful of others cheated the grim reaper but... not her right?" She raises an eyebrow and opens up the file on her tablet of the former Leviathan slash Red Room agent. The old photo doesn't do her justice.

    "Well, let's be honest though. If you spouted these stories to the local police or the FBI they'd still lock you away. The public are still adjusting to the idea of alien armies wanting to invade the planet. People put blinders on and just like to pretend it didn't happen," she says.

    Bobbi peers at the security monitors, "Hey," she says to Peggy, "Who is that?" -- she drops her tablet and starts moving to the tent exit, the passage way to the anomaly is a short one from the command tent, "I said no one enters the anomaly area without our express permission. Let's go Peggy," she says and starts at a jog to intercept the red head on the monitors.

    An agent posted as security holds out a hand to Mysterious L5 redhead, "Ma'am this area is restricted under Agent Morse's orders, turn around now," and his other hand moves to the ICER on his hip.

Peggy Carter has posed:
"...she... *Shouldn't* be..." Peggy mutters, but there is doubt behind her tone. Especially because she can't remember reading about the woman's death, and that's certainly an obituary or report she'd have been very interested in seeing. Her frown deepens as she sinks back on her heels, trying to remember where she could have heard about it, "But I don't recall how she..."

Then idle musing doesn't matter. There's someone in the area and the body language of the person is setting off alarm bells. Peggy's eyes narrow, "...I swear she used to stand just like that..." Peggy mutters, under her breath but Bobbi is probably sharp enough to hear it. And it's probably just in Peggy's head, right? She nods as Bobbi says to go and begins the run after her, a little faster than a jog because the more she starts moving, the more this whole situation smells. Her ICER is already out in her hands.

Melinda May has posed:
The redhead looks up at the security agent and her bright blue eyes go round. "Oh, gosh," she says in a clearly midwestern accent, sounding perfectly surprised and perfectly vexed with herself. "I turned the wrong way. I'm *such* a ninny..." She turns away from him, as if to return the way she came. He almost has time to relax.

But her body snaptwists around, momentum carrying her around much faster than he expects. Her long leg rises with dancer's reach and her heel connects with his jaw before he can even pull that ICER from its holster. His head snaps back, his body follows its momentum, sending him reeling against the white fabric wall and into a heavy metal scaffold setup to act as a wall. The fabric tears as he collapses through a gap in the scaffolding.

Now, it's a race between the nimble redhead and the other security agents between her and the anomaly. Oh, and, of course, Morse and Carter coming in from behind.

The way the redhead moves? She might as well be Natasha Romanova.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Bobbi's jog turns in to a full on run when it becomes apparent something is very very wrong. An agent going down. Shouting. The sound of an ICER shooting. Bobbi ducks out of the way just in time to avoid being hit by a stray bolt. "Who used to stand like that?," she asks wondering what Peggy has picked up on.

    Three more agents engage the mystery red head. One has a stun baton in hand, one with an ICER, and the third is unarmed. They square off against her and then in a burst of action charge in and start hitting and shooting.

    Bobbi leaps in to the cordoned off area in time to see those three agents drop. "Hold it right there Agent," she says with her ICER out, pointed at the person, "Put your hands up and turn around slowly. Peggy... do you have cuffs on you?"

Peggy Carter has posed:
The moment Peggy hears the word 'Ninny' on the open commlink, she knows the woman. "Definitely not dead. Definitely the redhead trying to break into our site *right now* is Dottie Underwood. She used to stand like that." Peggy states flatly, not a hint of doubt behind her voice.

She could be wrong, but Peggy doesn't seem to think she is and now she's full on sprinting in the direction of the redhead and the unfortunate agents who probably will not be alive when they get there. Her ICER is up, ready to fire the moment she gets any sort of view on the woman. Bobbi might be willing to talk, but Peggy isn't. The moment she gets sight of the woman, Peggy's taking a shot.

Not that she expects Dottie to stand still long enough to be hit, but Peggy doesn't trust the woman to stop on voice command alone.

Melinda May has posed:
And, no. Dottie does not stand still long enough for either agent to take a shot. No sooner has she dropped the third unfortunate agent -- that's four, so far, who won't be leaving the desert alive -- then she lashes out with her foot again to flip the stun batton through the air and launch herself at Bobbi, swinging. She is agile enough and fast enough that she slides right under any shots the blonde fires, and smart enough to keep the blonde between her and Carter.

"Peggy!" she calls out merrily, even as she engages Bobbi. "What are you doing here? I thought you died! How wonderful to see you alive!"

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Bobbi shoots her ICER at the moving target. The thought going through her head: 'dang she's fast, just like Natasha. Well no shit Bobbi, she's a Black Widow!' This last thought snaps her out of the stupor at the unexpected ferocity of the attack as the stun baton not only hits her but shocks her.

    Her body drops down to one knee and she twitches a few moments before she rises back up again with her fists up. The Bobbi that Peggy knows shouldn't have been able to eat a stun baton like that. The heart rate monitor on her wrist starts to spike up and down wildly and Bobbi's left hand clenches and unclenches.

    "Dottie Underwood, I thought you'd be rotting in an unmarked grave somewhere," she says with a touch of strain in her voice and then starts trying to grapple her in to an angle she can expose her to Peggy, but her movement is becoming a touch sluggish even as perspiration appears on her forehead. Something is clearly wrong with Bobbi and they don't have time to deep dive in to that with a Black Widow trying to kill them.

Peggy Carter has posed:
"I can't say the same for you." Peggy deadpans to the now redhead, but doesn't otherwise waste time with idle banter. Especially as she sees that Bobbi isn't exactly in the best condition after that stun she took. There's something in the back of Peggy's head which is doing calculations of just how bad that might be, but she has no time to ask. She fires two other shots at Dottie, but is doing her best to be very careful NOT to hit Bobbi, so that's making it a bit harder.

"She doesn't leave this area, no matter what. Unconscious if possible, dead if necessary!" Peggy calls the orders over the comms, not just to the security team which is quickly widdling down int heir direct area. She's then closing in, the ICER still in hand, but it's proving a bit too dangerous with Bobbi engaged hand to hand. So, Peggy will sweep in with a violently fast kick to the back of Dottie's knees the moment she gets a chance.

Melinda May has posed:
Dottie can see Bobbi's distress as easily as Peggy can. And Peggy will know better than anyone: The Leviathan agent never fails to use weakness against her oponent, if she thinks she can. She lashes out with that stun baton again. She doesn't really have much skin in the game when it comes to Morse. Morse is not only expendable, she's a minor inconvenience.

Peggy, on the other hand, has always been a prize."Oh, Peg," she says, sounding almost disappointed. "Don't tell me you're still mad about L.A."

The redhead knows she needs to take out the blonde and neutralize the incoming security first. That doesn't mean she *won't* engage Peggy. Of course, she will! It just means she has her list of priorities. And even Peggy is, sadly, secondary to her primary mission, which has everything to do with that box she was fiddling with earlier.

As Bobbi raises her fists, strain in her voice, the redhead smiles at her. "Oh, you're so cute," she says, her blue eyes almost pitying the woman. It's clear, though, she has no regard for her. Even when Bobbi tries to grapple her, the redhead merely uses that opportunity to apply another strike or two with that stun baton.

Don't think she'll release Bobbi, though, if Bobbi can't slip her grip on her own. Because Dottie's never been shy about using a human shield, either.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Bobbi blocks a few blows from the stun baton, but then wraps an arm about it trying to disarm her of it. Of course, it stuns her again and she twitches once more. Her left arm clenches against her side and the heart rate monitor on her wrist is rising and falling wildly. She slumps again and the world goes blurry for her, voices distant. Her heart racing and beating wildly she snaps back out of it as Dottie's human shield.. well THAT won't do!

    Bobbi might not be with it right now in terms of her best ability to fight, but she's as strong as Rogers and won't be used as a human shield. She grimaces and then drops to the ground in a ball. If Dottie doesn't let go she'll have to roll out of it; and if she does let go she'll have to take cover from Peggy's wraith.

    Even still.. once on the ground, Bobbi doesn't get back up. She's visibly shivering and clearly out of the fight. All her lessons from May about staying calm and zen inside during a fight went completely out the window the first time she came up against somehow highly skilled... and getting tased by a stun baton twice really didn't help her cause.

Peggy Carter has posed:
"We need a medical team for Morse, NOW." Peggy's hissing over the comms, her attention slightly split as she watches Bobbi's figure crumpling in the fight, and the uncomfortably ashen tone of her skin. Even from this distance, Peggy knows it's bad. Possibly life and death bad. But she can't run to help the other agent physically because it's all she can do to keep Dottie occupied and away from the final objective.

Peggy's about 9 months into intensive PT herself, having been in rough shape when she woke up early in the year. But that's 9 months of intense training after 40 years in the field. She doesn't have the Red Room's child training program but she has literally two life times of field work, a bit of serum in her, a fit frame, and she KNOWS Dorothy Underwood. It gives her a certain advantage.

As she watches the other agent strong woman her way out of the grip, Peggy immediately swings in with a blow to Dottie's solar plexus, trying to knock all the wind from her. Then she already expects the woman to close the distance, trying to get leverage on Peggy, so she's got one elbow where she thinks Dottie is going to reach and a second arm coming down to pull her hand through into a lock if she goes the other way. Peggy is moving fast as she humanly can and at the very top of her game, adrenaline driving her on all cylinders. "I have no time to be mad at a blip in history like you."

Melinda May has posed:
Dottie swings Bobbi's body around, swapping the baton for an ICER. From the first day she saw one of those, she's wanted one. That is, she thinks, one of the advantages of pretending to be a SHIELD agent. She gets to play with some of their toys.

Thus, when Bobbi drops, she lets go and flips back out of the way. Morse is no longer a threat, as far as she can tell. And while Peggy closes in on her, she starts firing off shots from that pistol in her hand. At least two of the incoming security agents drop before she's dodging the hit to the solar plexus and closing in on her old nemesis. She grunts with the impact of the elbow, but counters with a knee aimed at Peggy's kidney, firing off another shot or two at the other agents descending from the catwalks above.

Even as they fight -- and there's no question Dottie continues to engage Peggy -- they move closer and closer towards that anomaly. "I don't see why you're fighting so hard, Peggy," she says, sounding almost reasonable. "It's not like you're going to be able to resurrect the dead. Agent May was good, but you know I've always been better."

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Bit by bit the wild fluctuations on the heart rate monitor start to settle down. Bobbi turns on to her side and stares in blurry confusion at what she sees. "Peggy," she rasps and wipes her right arm across her forehead, "She's moving the fight closer to the time hole."

    Bobbi takes the time on the ground to focus on her breathing, just as her instructors taught her years ago when she was young, learning martial arts for the first time and getting a huge thrill out of it. Shakily she reaches for her ICER - it's gone, that's what Dottie took from her. She scowls and turns her head toward the entrance as she sees agents drop - at least with dendrotoxin and not real bullets. She's killed four already just to get this far, more deaths would be even more tragic.

    Bobbi can hear the blood beating and thumping in her ears as she sits up against a strut behind a box. Whispering to herself, she says, "What is it you say Steve.. I can do this all day?" She half pushes herself up, then drops back down as her muscles feel like putty. "Nope, that's never gunna be my catch phrase."

Peggy Carter has posed:
Peggy is moving fast, and using some styles she's learned over the last few months. More modern, martial arts hits and locks, things they didn't train back in her day, so it's a totally new kind of fighting than what Dottie might expect from the venerable agent. She takes the hit to her kidney with a little hiss of pain, but it's worth it to get in that close and an arm around the woman's wrist so she can pull it through and try to dislocate Dottie's shoulder.

At the same time she's trying the lock, her other leg sweeps behind, going for the back of the woman's knees so even if she doesn't manage the dislocation, she's doing her best to keep Dottie off balance, if not actually on the ground. "You were good for the 50s. We've gotten better since." Peggy doesn't even blink at the suggestion May might be dead. She doesn't believe it for a second.

If there was any question if Peggy was 'up to service' at her age, or after the cryostasis for thirty years, they should be put to rest her and now. She fights like a woman at the prime of her life who has decades more training than should be possible for someone in their thirties. She's breathing hard, but not struggling or slowing down. She's riding all her muscle memory and adrenaline high.

"Got it, boss. Just keep breathing and hold on!" Peggy calls across her comm, not certain if Dottie realizes she's been made, but Peggy's now carefully adjusting her fight to steer Dottie away from her intended target. It's like an incredibly violent dance, Peggy never letting her get close enough for the ICER to be practical between them. Just lots of hard hits, her nose bloodied somewhere in all this, as well as the corner of her lip, and yet she's still going.

Melinda May has posed:
Dottie actually lets Peggy lock her arm at one point, but only so that she can use the other woman's body as a pivot point and stabilizer as she empties the rest of the ICER's magazine into security agents. Once that weapon is empty, however, she drops it and engages fully with her opponent. "Please," she says almost derisively in response to Peggy's taunts. "You're hardly the only one to upgrade skills in 80 years."

There's an edge to the Leviathan agent, now. Just a hint that she's not actually the same woman she was the last time they women fought. But, then, she's lived through the fall of the USSR, the collapse communism around the globe, and the changes of the Red Room over the intervening time. Whatever her initial sunny taunts may have suggested, she has lived through too much to ever truly recapture the bubbly personality who first walked into the Griffith all those years ago.

When she fully engages with Peggy, the fight takes on a whole other tenor. It's fiercer, sharper, and probably bloodier for both. She's not pulling her punches. And neither is Peggy.

But she doesn't easily give up her momentum toward the anomaly, either. She has a mission to complete. And at one crucial moment, she breaks away from Peggy to scoop up the box she came in with and pitch it expertly towards that heat shimmer in the middle of the tented room.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Bobbi fumbles with one arm, her left arm feeling like dead weight at the moment. She pulls on her tactical goggles. She might not be at even 10% of her regular capability, but like any SHIELD agent worth their weight she doesn't know the notion of giving up. Going through her head is just how to kill her, as more Agents drop from the dendrotoxin.

    Her loose cape snaps to life, forming wings and the anti-grav helps her rise up on to wobbly legs. This takes her back to the days of combat training under the influence of truth serums. The world is warping and bending around her and the Heads Up Display links to her heart rate monitor, warning her of the erratic rhythms.

    But priorities change: the box, the one she saw Dottie holding when she was approaching the room. A quick glance to the side in the goggles Heads Up Display and she kicks the wings to full acceleration. She hurtles awkwardly through the air like a rag doll connected to a rocket sled and attempts to catch the box.. but instead awkwardly runs in to it.. which is enough to push it and her off to the side and crash in to the side of the tent.

    Going through her mind at this point ....I really hope this isn't a bomb.

Peggy Carter has posed:
In the morning, Peggy is going to feel this fight. Probably a few cracked ribs by the end of it, bruised kidneys, a broken nose, and other minor fractures. She'll be lucky if they are all just minor. But right now, all the pain is just a quiet haze at the back of her skull she's ignoring. She's riding on adrenaline, determination, and decades of training that almost seem to be working up to this moment. Dottie has gotten colder, more cruel. Peggy? She's become more refined. A sharpened weapon instead of her spitfire, daring young self.

"Yes, but I also upgraded my *friends*." Peggy snaps as she catches sight of Bobbi in the air, heading for that box. That means she can take advantage of even the split second of distraction and open torso that Dottie left herself making the throw. Peggy seizes forward, forearm coming up to SLAM into the woman's nose, shoving it so far into her skull she might be trying to do brain damage.

She doesn't stop there, though, the base of her other palm snapping up, straight into Dottie's jaw, and then her knee to her solar plexus. Peggy is pressing forward and using Dottie's body as a punching bag with every open spot she can buy herself. The moment she feels Dottie starting to stumble, she jerks forward and grabs her hair, slamming head into the pavement.

Melinda May has posed:
The box Bobbi intercepts doesn't explode. Consider that a bonus. At least, it doesn't explode with any flash or bang. There is a burst of radio static. And maybe some of it filters through the anomaly. But maybe it doesn't, since the box never passes the event horizon, trapped beneath Bobbi's body as she lands in a heap against the side of the tent.

Dottie also goes down in a heap, broken and bloodied by Peggy's brutal and relentless assault. By the time it's over, she'll probably be spending a goodly amount of time in a secure medical wing, never mind a prison cell. The Leviathan agent isn't going anywhere under her own power, now.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Bobbi awkwardly disables her wings and rolls on to her back with an ooooof, "Did we win?" Her heart rate is starting to smooth back out again and she grins as she sees Peggy's blurry form still standing and Dottie's not. She gives Peggy an exhausted thumbs up.

Peggy Carter has posed:
As Dottie does not come up fighting from the final slam into the ground, Peggy still doesn't trust it. She sinks forward, putting her knee into Dottie's back and hauling the woman's arms around behind her. Peg might not be in SHIELD issue clothing, but she's got her belt on, the one where her ICER normally lives, and a small pack of zip ties. One of those is going around Dottie's wrists with not even a finger's width of give to it, so the woman can hopefully not dislocate herself out of the tie.

"Where the hell is that med team? Morse, glad to see you awake, but stay down. You look like death and I have no clue what she hit you with." Peggy's assumed that Bobbi's been poisoned, no reason to think the woman's heart is giving out. "And I want at least 4 agents on her, getting her to lock up. She needs cuffed at all points in time. Probably drugged." Peggy really doesn't trust the woman is unconscious, but after trying at those arms one more time, she slowly stumbles up to her feet and slightly backwards. Limping, but conscious and in one piece herself. "...and yeah. We won. I... don't think anything got through the portal but, with all due respect, Morse...I'm making a call. We need to know if the line is still open." Peg stumbles over to the time phone, still catching her breath as she picks it up, praying there's still signal on the other side.

Melinda May has posed:
1948.

May is at the Stark mansion Peggy calls home. She is in a solarium, given it's cold and snowy in New York when and where she is, moving slowly and purposely through the tai-chi forms that are helping to keep her sane. Because... there is almost nothing she can do to help herself, right now. She's frustrated and she has no one to take those frustrations out on.

But when that time phone rings, her head snaps around. She drops any pretense of zen and jogs to where it sits, picking it up, expression sharp.

"May here. Go ahead."

Peggy Carter has posed:
As Peggy hears May's voice over the phone, she slumps just a bit to the side, the adrenaline she was living off of suddenly cutting out as there's no emergency left and their connection to the past is still in tact. "May. Sorry to... disturb. We had a little hiccup over here, but it seems everything is still clear. I just... I wanted to hear your voice about the matter. Please, don't let me disturb your day." Peggy's voice is a little out of breath and ragged from everything, but the relief is palable, even over the phone.

Melinda May has posed:
May can hear the raggedness in Peggy's voice. But, she's still glad to hear from her. "I'm reading you loud and clear." She reaches for a towel to wipe down the back of her neck. "Don't worry about disturbing me," she says dryly. "You've got me locked in Stark's mansion, so it's not like I'm doing anything important." Maybe Peggy even remembers that, now. And remembers how tightly May sat on that frustration so as not to unbalance her younger self.

Regardless, there's a beat. "But, hey. Wish everyone a Happy New Year for me. Go clean up whatever it is. I'll catch up with it all during the next update." Because that's the right call. Even if it's not the one she wants.

God, she hopes they get her home soon.