4662/The House and the Dame

The House and the Dame
Date of Scene:	09 January 2021
Location:	The House of Mystery
Synopsis:	No description
Cast of Characters:	John Constantine, Peggy Carter

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John Constantine has posed:
Teleportation is a little disorienting. It's the contrast of sensations that's the jarring part. The smell of gunpowder and saltwater at the docks. Sawdust from near-misses destroying wood pallets. Shouts. Screams. John kissing Peggy, the pressure still lingering on her lips-- and then a fall over the pier that landed her square on her back in the middle of a (rather nicely appointed) mid-eighteenth century Victorian style London mansion.

The sudden quiet is almost oppressive enough, but as Peggy rises and looks around, there is an ominous sense of 'awareness' from all directions. Something intelligent and alert, observing her with wary suspicion. If walls could loom, these walls are /definitely/ looming.

The fireplace flickers to roaring life with no signal or prompt, as do antique gas lights that give off a surprising amount of light. This would be a the living room, it seems; a sweeping bannistered staircase goes up on the left, and to the right is a parlor or office overflowing with books and strange looking alchemical tools.

It'd be about this time that Peg notices the more worrying issue: there are no visible doors or windows in this place.

Peggy Carter has posed:
The woman lays there for a few seconds, catching her breath and reorienting her head. This is most certainly not where Peggy expected to end up, but here she is now. And alone. Seemingly alone, at least. "...Hello?" She tries again, quietly, across the Victorian room. Without answer, other than that flaring fireplace, she begins to pick herself up.

She carefully sits and then neatly shifts her legs beneath her, keeping knees pressed together even though she's not in a dress. She's ever a lady, even when dressed in tac gear. She looks across the place slowly, studying walls, lights, and the things that are noticably missing.

"Look. I did not mean to...intrude, and I know that Constantine is an arsehole on the best of days, but he's sent me here and if there is some way out of your hair, I will figure out how to do it."

John Constantine has posed:
The House grumbles at Peggy when Constantine's name is mentioned. There's a pause, then, and then a sense of... question? Worry, even?

Communicating with the House seems to be more a question of empathy than language. When it stresses inquiry about Constantine's whereabouts and Peggy's answers provide no comfort, there is a moment of suspended awareness.

The fireplace dims and the gas lights go low. In the parlor adjacent the doors pull open all the way of their own accord. It's as much laboratory as library; alembics, books, chemicals, all the trappings one would expect of a proper wizard.

When Peggy passes a particular shelf, a book behind her falls to the ground, face-down. The pages are splayed slightly open. Once retrieved, it appears the topic of the chapter at her fingertips is some incantation or magic for finding someone.

House, it seems, is enlisting her aid.

Peggy Carter has posed:
"So, you are an 0-8-4..." Peggy mutters to herself, though the empathic feelings that come with that verbalized comment is a mix of absolute respect and a little bit of fear. Not shock or disbelief, at least. She's, apparently, encountered such strange things before and she knows they are to be treated with a delicate hand. While the house doesn't verbalize, that is how she knows to convey emotions, so she continues to do so. "I...do not know where they took him. He was with bad people, being imprisoned, on the docks, when I...disappeared." Her worry for John overrides the fear of the house.

And there's care there too. Probably not love, but she's more fond of him than she'd probably admit aloud and chances are the house can probably pick that up.

She reaches one hand up, straightening her hair out and trying to look a little more presentable as her boots carry her through the odd house into the working parlor. A curious, arched brow comes in turn and her dark eyes start scanning across all the books on the shelves, horribly curious about the work that could be done here.

She jumps a bit as the book falls but leans over, intelligent gaze quickly scanning down the page. "...helpful. Don't suppose you've got more...Knockout gas spells? Or minor explosions? I've run out of most of my own tricks." Peggy admits. While not being a wizard, she can follow a recipe. She immediately puts the book down, seeing if she needs any ingredients or if it's just a chant.

John Constantine has posed:
At Peggy's inquest, a drawer rattles and slides open a few inches. Inside are phials the size of a golf ball, astonishingly delicate crystal. Milky fluid is suspended in colored liquid; green, red, purple. Little cages protect the spheres inside, though the cages can be easily disassembled by twisting off the topknot.

Magic grenades, maybe?

The laboratory's a mess and filled with the remains of unfinished experiments, but John or someone else at least keeps the place organized. Ingredients are in labelled containers and drawers and all the requisite tools are nearby. It's not terribly time consuming work but it clearly demands a certain careful regard for how to properly do the spellworking.

It's perhaps fortunate Peggy is the studious sort.


MEANWHILE:
John grunts in pain when he's smacked in the face with a broom handle. The magus is bound and tied in a chair, illuminated in a single pool of light in a dark and windowless room. Two goons are working him over; a third man stands apart, the interrogator.

"Tell us what you were doing with the Carter bitch," the man says. He's been repeating himself for some time.

"I told you, we were just looking for a place t' shag," John says with a blantant lie. He spits blood to one side. "Docks seemed like a good place for it. Laid some pipe with yer mum there, y'know."

Another impact rocks his head backwards, but John just laughs tiredly. "Bloody hell, you hit like a schoolboy," he informs the guard. His coat's nearby; one of the guards, taking a break from beating John, starts rifling through it.

"Wouldn't do that if I were you," John advises the man.

The interrogator grabs John's chin and forces his head back. A boxcutter knife drags over John's cheekbone, drawing blood. The wizard grunts in pain.

"Tell me where Carter is!" he roars.

Behind him the goon sticks his hand into a particularly deep pocket and screams. And screams. He leaps backwards, dancing in agony while clutching his wrist.

When the other guards turn to him, he holds up a macabre sight: all that remains of his left hand are bloodied bones and sinew from the wrist up.

The three give John a horrified look. He shrugs.

"Told him not to," John reminds them. Despite the lumps and bruises on his face, he shows his teeth in a grin.

Peggy Carter has posed:
"..Convenient." Peggy mutters in approval to the drawer that pops open. She slips careful hands across the few phials, testing the crystal with the tips of her perfectly manicured red fingernails. "Perfect. Now... are you sleeping or explosions... Well, I suppose if I don't find the answer in a book somewhere, they'll just get chucked at the bastards anyway." Peg mutters to herself and carefully begins to hook them to her utility belt for use later. Once she's loaded up on the pre-made stuff, she goes back towards the book.

"I've never quite had a gift for magic myself, but I do know how to follow orders. Or a recipe. On occaison. Let's see what we can put together." Peggy's discerning temperment helps here and she reads the entire location spell step by step before she starts hunting for all the components. Occasionally, she chirps up to the house, asking for a bit of assistance and after each ingredient she offers back. "Thank you, you're a great help. He should clean you better." She knows to respect her elders and, despite a century under her belt, she somehow suspects this house is her elder. Within fifteen minutes, she has something put together.

"Now, he said his gateway here was rather a one way ticket. If I lay this circle open, will I be able to pull him through? Or simply exchange places?" Either way, Peggy is starting to very carefully lay the final containment piece out, carefully not to leave any hole in the line of powdered she pre-mixed and is now patting out onto the wooden floor probably made for this sort of work, considering there are no cracks or joins in the wood there and it's remarkably smooth.

John Constantine has posed:
The spell calls for a drop of blood-- just a drop-- and the whole thing goes off with a flash of light and smoke. Ingredients on the platter are consumed with a noiseless, heatless flame. Feathers, oil, a piece of chalk, and the imprint of Peggy's lipstick on a napkin. Ingredients for finding a certain wizard, it seems.

When the spell completes there is a pause wherein absolutely nothing seems to be happening. Then a creak of wood, from the main room and the entryway beyond. Specific and easy to locate, like the tread of an invisible foot or some shifting and settling of the House.

When Peg looks to the foyer, there is a door there that was not there when she entered. The brass handle gleams in the light of the gas lamps.

Urgency whispers behind Peggy's ear. Go, go, go. Out the door into the beyond.

Peggy Carter has posed:
The urgency is enough to make her move, double time. Peggy's got the mystery potions hooked to her belt and her heavy ICER reloaded with a fresh magazine. It'll have to be enough. She dashes through the house to that portal and then slows down just enough to open the door as quietly and quickly as possible.

She's crouched, just in case they start shooting head height the moment the door opens. She has no clue what she's getting into and isn't tossing a potion ahead just in case John is RIGHT THERE and it's one of the explosives. She slips low into the room, ready for a fight.

John Constantine has posed:
"What did you do to his hand?" The demand comes from ahead of Peggy's position. It appears she's in a hallway, and the door closes behind her to reveal 'Janitor' written on the front of it. A sharp *smack* of someone being hit and a groan of pain.

"Fuck you, you twat," John spits. "I told you don't mess with my things."

"We gotta get him to a hospital, man," comes a third voice. There's a pause and then a sigh.

"Okay," says the more authoritarian voice. "Get a tourniquet, wrap his hand up, and get him out of here."

Peggy gets close enough to peek into a gap between sagging double doors. John's tied to a chair and a man's standing over him with a boxcutter. "You like these games? Like some SAW shit? Well you took my friend's hand, so I'm gonna take your ear."

John twists and grunts as the man pinches his ear hard and raises the knife to it!

Peggy Carter has posed:
The 'Janitor' door behind her is given an arched brow and a very momentary smile of amusement. Hopefully it goes back to the place she was before. If it doesn't? Well, she'll have to be resourceful. The sound of voices down the hall are enough to drive her dead silent and her body dropped, crouched into the shadows of the wall, so she's not easily seen at eye level but can get a full look of what is going on.

<Well shit...> The house probably still can't hear or feel her, but she's DEFTINITELY feeling that right now. The momentary plan of wait for the enemy to split up and take them down a smaller number at a time? That suddenly is not going to happen, as she's unwilling to risk John's body being maimed just to piece out her enemies.

That means, instead of the subtle approach, she abruptly springs forward and kicks in the door loud enough that she should draw all their attention for a moment. One of the cloudy globes is thrown at the feet of the HYDRA agent the most distant while, at the same time, she's shooting at the neck of the one that is threatening John's ear. Then she levels her ICER at his farther away colleague. Her goal? Take them all out within 10 seconds. 15 is too much in a fight like this.

John Constantine has posed:
Shock and awe is a well documented tactic for a reason: it works. The phial hits at the enemy's feet and bursts. It's not full of liquid-- some other substance, strange and gelatinous. It expands in volume a hundredfold and covers the man face to toe. There's no time for even a scream before something incredibly caustic starts to work and hisses and burbles. He drops in place, dead before he can even get a scream off as his body simply collapses on the floor. All that remains is the green ooze, which then starts inch-crawling towards the nearest dead body at a glacial rate.

The man with the missing hand is too far gone to even offer a fight.

Those fast and hard hits come up aces and then it's just Peggy and John in the room.

"Bloody hell luv, took your sweet time getting here," John tells Peggy. "I thought he was gonna take me ear off." he inquires while she secures the enemies.

When she looks back at John he's standing, rubbing his wrists and having slipped his rope restraints *and* one of the handcuffs off his wrist. He rubs at chafing marks just above his wristbones. "You all right, no new holes or anything? Glad House was willing to do me a turn, I was half worried she'd toss you into the Astral just out of pique."

Peggy Carter has posed:
The sight of what the phial did to the man gets a momentary look from Peggy which is *almost* shock, but not quite. She simply wasn't expecting that and, while she's killed many people in her life, she's never done it quite so fantastically before. There's no time to dwell on war crimes, however. She looks back to him, concern furrowing deeply at her face as she studies his cheek and almost reaches to touch him, but there's no time.

"You COULD have warned me, instead of my thinking you bloody well martyered yourself. Hopefully she's left a door for us open to go back because, if not, getting out of here is going to be *interesting*." With that, Peggy wastes no time, moving back to the double doors which she came in. She pauses just long enough to clear the call before dashing over to the janitor's closet again.

With a silent mental prayer to a god in which she rarely believes, she pushes the door open.

John Constantine has posed:
Rather than a posh British mansion, Peggy's face to face with Ajax, brooms, and buckets.

"It's a one-way thing luv," John calls after her. He retrieves his jacket and shrugs into it with a sigh of comfort. "Feel naked without this thing," he remarks, fondly. He checks the bodies as well before Peggy comes back. One of them has a phone. John examines it quickly and pulls up Google Maps. He hides it in his pocket when he hears Peggy's footsteps.

He immediately assumes a beatific expression of meditation, hands steepled in front of him in a mystical posture. "Quiet now, I need to focus."

A few seconds pass. "I sense... a coastline dirtied by time and industry. I see... an island, and the Toll Pike... Water nearby, flowing..."

His eyes open. "I see an old meatpacking building in New Jersey. 'Garden State', I think. There's a good twenty or so guards in the building, but they're reasonably sure this place is hidden. You should call in some allies and see if they can make a distraction while we slip out the back."

Peggy Carter has posed:
That's what she feared. Peggy mentally curses as she steps back into the room, staring at his strange meditation. "Jersey. Bloody hell. It'll take at least twenty minutes for SHIELD forces to get here, but..." Peggy presses quietly against the wall, pulling her own phone out and putting in an emergency distress signal, and an HYDRA alert. She gives the information about the numbers of guards in the building, at least, and requests a whole team.

Even if they get themselves out safely, it's worth clearing out a nest whenever possible. Once the notice is sent and she gets at least one acknowledgement, she motions to the other phials on her belt, "What do these do, and do you want to take one in hand? If we can sneak out of here quietly, all the better, but you should be somewhat armed, at least."

Once he's taken any weapon from her he's willing to take, she checks the hall again. Still clear. She cracks open the door, listening for any sound of voices or bodies from either direction. If she hears some, she chooses the other. Low, fast, and silent. That's the plan to get out. Hugging walls and shadows. Clearing every hall as she goes.

John Constantine has posed:
"They do lots of things, and they're extremely unstable," he explains in the same hushed tones. John takes them from Peggy and jams them into his coat pockets, which somehow don't bulge or sag at al. "And don't worry about me. I'm armed!" he whispers, argumentatively. John looks around and then picks up the broomstick they'd been hitting him with. He wields it at Peggy like a fencer. "See? It's even got a stabby bit. C'mon super spy, you can handle it," he says encouragingly.

They make good time through the back half of the building. Peg's just about to dash past a guard post when John 'pssts' behind her. He's standing at a doorway and gives the handle an experimental jiggle. It doesn't open. He looks left and right, then wedges a hairpin and a little piece of steel into the door lock. It pops as smoothly as if he had a key in hand.

"In here," he whispers hoarsely, and tilts his head into the room before entering.

It's a storage area. Lots of crates and containers. Some marked 'US MIL', others with foreign government stamps. A heavy plastic case is marked with the SHIELD emblem: two magnetic pulse rifles with charge cells. High-powered versions of the ICER.

John ignores them all, hunting like a sniffing dog through the shelves. When Peggy catches up, he's kneeling on the floor in front of an old steel lockbox covered in faded, hand-stamped runes.

"Mind the door, the lock's a bit rusty," he whispers at Peg, already in the process of picking the simple lock.

Peggy Carter has posed:
The woman trusts him. While he's not her general working partner and he did muck up the entire night this evening, she trusts him. So when he stops her from going forward, she gives him a bit of a LOOK, but doesn't argue. Then she's in the room with him and she's certainly not missing those crates. "The fucks." Peggy hisses beneath her breath. Not surprised, but angry. Incredibly angry. She shifts the hand her gun is in to pull her phone out again and take a few more photos. Evidence, as it were.

She's then scooping up one of those pulse rifles, something that's going to give her far more of a punch than what she brought tonight, and she heads back for the door. "I got eyes out, just make it fast." She whispers back to him, willing to buy him what time she can while she stands guard.

John Constantine has posed:
It's nice to know that even in HYDRA, logistical inertia is a common enemy. The box must be from the forties or fifties; the sort of heavy long-term storage container that NATO used for years for storing precious or fragile items, painted olive drab and with serials and category markers stenciled onto the side in near-faded black spraypaint.

Electricity zots John's fingers and he suppresses a yelp of pain and hisses instead. The singed fingertip's shaken a few times and he scratches out the rune he'd touched. Magic floats skywards and fizzles into nonexistence.

"C'mon... c'mon... /there/," he grunts, and the tumblers align. The box opens up. From where Peggy is she can't see the contents. John briefly examines them, then wraps it in a discarded canvas bag nearby and ties it off.

"Right, I'm ready then," he says once he's near Peggy. "Are your mates on the way then? It's not going to be much of an escape if they catch us in here before the cavalry shows up."

Peggy Carter has posed:
"They're on the way, but probably another five or ten minutes out. Let's see if we can get out quiet and leave them to clean up. I'd... rather not have to answer questions about you being here." Peggy states flatly, having no wish to add to John's file with the disapproving nature of it already. Just easier for everyone if people assume she was alone there. She'll take the discipline hit if she needs.

A curious tilt of her head is given towards whatever he pulled out of the box. She's got a narrowing of eyes at him, the look saying she's absolutely going to be asking about that later but, right now, they need to move.

Then she's sweeping out into the hallway again, that pulse rifle in her hand, steadied against her body, and ready to be used the moment needed. If the guard desk is bored and quiet, maybe they'll be lucky. She ducks low, trying to slip below the window of the place and towards the best door out.

John Constantine has posed:
"Ashamed of me? I'm hurt," John whispers back. When Peggy looks to him he clutches his heart and staggers as if wounded. "Quite all right luv, I wouldn't want to let my friends on about me if I were you, either."

They're making good time to the security desk. The front doors are nailed shut; seems the side doors and loading dock are the only ones in use. Unfortunately the guard post faces that side door square on and there's little room for subterfuge.

John frowns at Peggy's back when she keeps pressing forward. He looks left and right and then digs a little, intricately carved matchstick from his pocket. It breaks between his fingertips.

The sound of footsteps echo behind them, heavy treaded boots making an approach from behind. John hisses at Peggy and turns to a door. It's mercifully unlocked; he grabs the back of Peggy's belt and hauls her into what turns out to a small office that looks quite abandoned. This must be an old HYDRA safehouse; the computers look like they were obsolete in the nineties. Not one of their main bases, then.

John braces near the door and holds his breath until the sound of footsteps retreats into the distance, then exhales in relief.

Peggy Carter has posed:
Normally, Peggy is used to calling the shots. So having an off kilter partner like John who is NOT scared to manhandle her without warning, well, it's a bit of a change. When she's pulled into the room, he gets a look from her that could *murder* if her eyes knew that spell. Fortunately, they don't. She's shocked she pulled off the one to get to him. Holding her breath against her pounding heart, she remains pressed against the door with him, waiting.

"I *could* have taken them. Sure, it'd have brought the rest of the calvary, but I've fought through worse. And it's not that I'm ashamed of you, it's that you've already pissed off enough SHIELD agents and I'm trying to save you the trouble of more of them coming poking about you interfering in operations. Besides... most of this is... Off book. I'm going to have explaining to do already." Seems the old Director has been pulling her own, lonely ops without permission. That explains why she was there solo.

In the old office, she looks around, searching for any window they could climb out if they are lucky. In the very distance, an alarm starts. There is some exchange of gunfire outside. Seems SHIELD is here.

John Constantine has posed:
"Bloody hell, and people tell /me/ I'm reckless," John tells Peggy. She starts casting around for an exit; John seems content to wait out the rescue efforts, and pulls out a chair to sit in so he can kick his feet up on the desk to wait.

Gunshots, shouts; John sits up, then stands with a pleased expression on his face. "Ah, and speaking of. Shame they got here so fast, almost," he tells Peggy. "Twenty minutes of time to kill in an old office? I could think of a few ways to waste it creatively," he whispers.

She's all business, though, and John returns to his seat again. "I'll just sit tight, here, until you and your people have things sorted," he advises her. "Saw a fire escape I can shimmy down, guards won't be around to see me go out the east side."

He grins at Peggy. "You make a pretty good rescue team, y'know," he advises her. "I'll have to make it up to you sometime."

Peggy Carter has posed:
The fight is far off. Probably a good ways up the docks. It means they don't have people breathing down their necks, but they certainly have a few moments to themselves. Peggy's eyes, still angry and keyed up, snap from the door back to him. She's ready to go, but she knows he's right. They should wait. It'll be far less risk to life and limb.

Besides, she's starting to feel those slugs from earlier. Her whole torso is going to be purple by the morning.

She sighs, walking over to his side and coming to perch on the edge of the desk nearest him. She's still hugging that pulse rifle like a best friend, but she's not quite so ready for an immediate fight as she was. His last comment gets a deep smirk and a slightly cooler look from her eyes. "Make it up to me? Considering the runner you took, I never expected to see you again. Got what you wanted, ducked out. I didn't really expect more."

She then reaches one hand off the rifle, digging into her pocket to grab the pendant he'd shoved at her before. She reaches it out to him. "Here. Just in case you decide pulling a permanent runner is wiser... at least you have this back."

John Constantine has posed:
"I'm not the only one who got something, if I recall," John observes, pointedly. "The way you talked, I assumed it was a one-time thing. You strike me as the sort to commit hard to not repeating regretful mistakes. Wouldn't want you to be embarassed if I bumped into your mates at SHIELD."

The pendant's accepted, examined carefully. Thumb and forefinger slide over the smooth facets and he puts it over his head again, disappearing into his shirt. When he looks up, that knowing, sly expression and a lopsided grin is tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I'm just not the sort to get tied down, luv. But this--" he wiggles an index finger back and forth between them. "It's fun. Give me a call, aye? We can blow off some steam again. I might even stay for brekkies next time."

The grin spreads. "If you ask nicely."

Peggy Carter has posed:
The woman's nose wrinkles slightly more, especially as he goes on like that. "Look, you don't get to put yourself down and then treat me like a pity fuck two sentences later. I'm not exactly the sort to get tied down, but I'm also better than a shameful secret you sneak out on. So, you want breakfast... You call. I'm not here for a chase like some desperate spinster. I've got enough things in life to hunt down."

As she says that bit, some of the fight can be heard coming closer, like a reminder of the active hunts she is on. She straightens up, hand back across the rifle and body at action attention once more. It's a good distraction from the very faint edge of hurt that might be heard on the back of the tone in her words. His sneaking out? It didn't feel great.

John Constantine has posed:
John gets up, hands in his pockets, and steps towards Peggy. The rifle interpolates between them, preventing him from getting too close. Still, he leans just an inch forward, holding her gaze with endlessly mischevious blue eyes.

"You're quite a few things, Peggy Carter, but pitiable is not a word I'd ascribe to you in any way," he murmurs. "Call it a little ... sympathic screwing, then. Just because I don't give a toss about most people doesn't mean I like being alone, any more than you do. We're a bit alike in that way, aren't we?"

He holds the gaze a few seconds. Then he shifts, leans back, breaking the moment. Eyes flicker down, then up, and he tilts his head towards the door. "Off y'go, then. Save the day. I'll call," he reassures her.

Peggy Carter has posed:
As he steps closer, every inch of Peggy closes off. She goes from slightly teasing, exasperated, keyed up, but highly competent agent to a quietly shut down ice queen. Though, that's also the Peggy that switched out her ICER for a SIG, the one who is willing to be a cold blooded murderer when she needs. She sets her face into that neutral, listening to his words without protest. Finally, all he gets in return is a quiet grunt of skeptical breath. But she doesn't tell him NOT to call.

Then the fight is right there. She needs to give back up to her people and buy him time to sneak out. "Good night, John. Keep your head out of this business. It's nasty, even for us." With that, Peggy dips back into the hall with a swing of her shoulders. Pulse rifle is expertly lifted and she's shooting into the backs of HYDRA agents, pinning them in with her team out the front.

"It's Carter! I'm here!" He can hear her call in the distance, team clearly recognizing her and the operation completing as smoothly as an abrupt, unplanned raid in the middle of the night can go.

John Constantine has posed:
The operation goes smoothly. SHIELD hits hard and fast and the HYDRA goons were not positioned for a real fight. Local cops, maybe, but not a SHIELD strike group working with a federal task force, to boot.

In short order they've got the area secured and the prisoners are getting loaded up. It's when all's said and done that Peggy gets a call back to the storage areas. A SHIELD officer nods respectfully when she arrives.

"Sorry to bring you back, ma'am, but you're the ranking officer on site still," he tells her. He gestures at the piles of crates with his pen. A good number are gone already. "Near as we can tell this cell's been here off and on for twenty or thirty years, at least. Maybe longer. They must have only recently reactivated it. Mostly black market goods, some stuff like weapons and explosives. Drugs. Trafficked items. We did find something weird in the back, though," he says, leading her along. "Old office supply stuff, mostly, some of it's gotta be from before this place shut down in the fifties. But this one--" he shoves a container aside. There's the metal box John had picked open. Covered in plenty of mall, intricate rune. Marking faded by time and neglect. He turns it around to the side protected by the wall.

It reads: US Prop OSS Div.

Extreme Caution: 0-8-4.

"It's the only one with a broken lock. Any idea what it could have been?"

Peggy Carter has posed:
It's lucky that Peggy is an excellent actress after two lifetimes of spy work. It means she schools her face with ease, giving no hint that she recognizes the box. The agent is given a quiet line of her lips and slight shake of her head. "Not a clue. It'll probably be in my old files. Pack it up with all the other things and flag a note to my desk, I'll go hunting in the morning." And with that, she moves onto helping clean up other things. She doesn't need anyone else seeing the edge of temper that has suddenly kicked up in her chest.

Maybe she WOULD be the first one to call John Constantine after all.