6959/Dollhouse: Jane is back!

Dollhouse: Jane is back!
Date of Scene:	16 July 2021
Location:	Director's Office - Playground
Synopsis:	Bobbi gets an unexpected drop in. Jane is alive and well, which is more than can be said for Peggy. Motivated, Jane asks how she can be of help and Bobbi assigns her homework and a role in the upcoming mission.
Cast of Characters:	Bobbi Morse, Jane Foster

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Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Take a vacation. That's what she wanted to do. Get away with Lance, spend some time adopting some puppers, build a home. She needed away from all this. She needed some normalcy for a change. Nope, the moment they take a moment to celebrate the amazing work of their fellow agents during the recent crisis, somehow HYDRA manages to blind side them.

    Peggy is awake and is commanding from her hospital bed. But people don't necessarily want to bother her. Bobbi ran this base when it was being set up, before Peggy was appointed its chief, so here she is once more in the directors office. Though, the door is closed and the shutters are down. She has a tumble in her hand filled with whiskey and she is sitting back on the big seat.

    Open before her are three tablets with general 'keep the place running' on two of them, but the third is where she's planning out her second ever assault on the Triskelion. The first was in the framework and she intended there to be a big body count if things went wrong. This time, it's real life once more and dropping a single body could spell disaster for SHIELD. This one will take finesse.

    Bobbi looks.. tired. But also has a wedding ring on her finger. Unlike her fellow abductees the red lines from the pods have healed up but she has some other cuts and bruises from the post-wedding ninja battle still.

Jane Foster has posed:
SHIELD dispenses a generous holiday package as a government agency. Or it did. Those days racked up after months and years of tenure make a robust statement at the end of every pay period, rounded off by the factotums and HR systems paring service down to the quarter hour. The only trouble seems to be finding time to actually take those days off.

Wouldn't it be nice to jet away to somewhere quiet, less HYDRA-saturated? An attractive stretch of empty beachfront with a drowsy little village that swells to double its size in summer, so a grand total of two hundred souls, might be very much in line with Bobbi's desires. With many employees' wishes, resonating down the chain. But nope. Blindsided. Another task, another mission.

It pays to stay civilian. Perhaps no one knows this better than the loosely chained agents on the outer periphery of payroll, those practically melting into civilian life. Not just informants or consultants, associated by expertise at a critical time. Surprisingly the Playground's various security systems afford one of the prodigal daughters access, cleared by an indefatigable woman from her nurse-ringed citadel. Of course, no one is just walking up to a commander without serious firepower facing their brass pair.

Jane Foster isn't the sort to typically disregard propriety. Her psychological profiling, of which the latest file is a year out of date at minimum, shows no tendency to disregard social norms or procedure without damn good cause. With this in mind, she knocks.

No, she doesn't email. No inquiry made from a tablet so far beyond dead in a battery that its slow resuscitation from a wall charger will take hours. Days.

The rap is light, maybe muffled. She is content to wait, her sweater slipping off her shoulder. She idly corrects the neckline, pulling it back up to cling to her arm. Jeans and boots cry out for autumn, not Delaware's muddled, gasping heat. Suffocating, really.

But so's the alternative.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Contemplating turning off the lights to enjoy the whiskey hopefully without interruption, Bobbi suddenly hears a light rapping on the door. Glancing toward it, she pauses for a moment, twisting her lips with thoughts of pretending it never happened. But likely the person on the other side would just knock again.

    She puts the cork back on to the whiskey bottle and places it in to the side draw, shutting it. "Enter," she says and hits lock on the tablet about the upcoming mission. She can't afford leaks, not with so much on the line.

    There's an ICER at her hip but also one on top of the desk. She's more armed than usual, her staves on one thigh, a knife hidden in her boot and a high temperature carbon cutter hidden on her belt. She is not, however, wearing her wings. That cape is a bit too awkward when sitting in chairs for prolonged periods of time.

Jane Foster has posed:
Hope springs eternal in the most desolate grey soil. Any opportunity that trouble might pass is a natural one. Maybe the knock was just a cart rolling by or the petitioner reconsidered. Hold your breath, they may go. Playing for time comes very easily after all.

Bobbi calling out breaks the spell, and it is Jane who breaks the seal of sanctity around the office. A turn to the handle slips, then opens just enough for her to enter. Those heels barely leave an impression on the ground, hardly exciting. Everyday person with a lanyard discreetly stuffed into the back pocket of her jeans, a great way to bend her security pass, the brunette raises her open palm in a mute greeting.

"Commander Morse, good evening. Might you spare me ten minutes?" she asks.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Bobbi almost spills the whiskey. She puts the tumbler down and stands up, "Jane!" What a sight for sore eyes. So many months with her body comatose in the medical wing of the Triskelion, and then in the labs here.. with everything going on she hadn't even had a chance to check up on what had happened to her.

    And there she is. She looks fine. She looks very much alive. "How..," she asks bit a smile is spreading across her face. It's clear Bobbi's been through some tough times recently. She walks out from behind the desk and approaches.

    "Gosh tell me everything. Eeeveeerythiiing." Some good news. From all the chaos and madness walks in some good news. She motions to the comfy couches and takes a seat there herself. Her hands rest in her lap. The tired commander looks to Jane eager for knowledge.

Jane Foster has posed:
One particularly antiquated cryochamber that broke the astrophysicist's hand -- at least a few bones -- now resides somewhere completely out of the way, behind heaps of bankers boxes, forgotten supplies seized from the exodus out of the Triskelion, and probably six months' worth of paper towels. Maybe whatever projects Jemma not around to doing. Nothing to see there.

Loose brown hair escapes the pair of clips shoved haphazardly above her ear. "Everything would take a while, and I feel I ought to ask for official time on the calendar if a debrief is involved. Probably something requiring at least two cups of coffee," she says, a hint of amusement there in those clear, thoughtful eyes. A comfy couch will never go wrong as a choice, and she situates herself on one with light ease. "Congratulations in order first, of course."

The shoestring presence online with her social media reach continues, thanks to a skeleton staff involved. Other tiptoeing imprints stopped six months ago, edging into seven, managed and maintained at a bare minimum.

"I caught up with... Director? Agent? Carter. How does one properly address that? Director emeritus?" The fondness lies there, her expression warming, giving fuel to that hope. But behind it, something as incisive and direct as a girl who breached dimensions by sheer scientific basis alone, and then confronted the terminal end of the Bifrost when a man tipped all their existence on its head. Kree, shmee, what if a god widely worshipped and then lost to stories walked again? "She has days. Four, five at best." She doesn't mince words.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    The screen on one wall seemed uninteresting. It looked like it was showing the inside of a green tent with an empty couch. Why that's up on the big wall ... well, Colonel Talbot suddenly walks past. Bobbi glances up at the image for a moment and then reaches over to the remote control and presses the off button. The projection ceases.

    "That's a lot of coffee," she muses and nods her head, "A proper catchup can be scheduled. Are you cleared for duty?" Though exactly who would or could clear her for duty given everything that's happened does have her puzzled.

    She touches a finger to her wedding ring and smiles. "Thank you," but she doesn't delve in to it further. For a couple that have some spectacularly public breakdowns, their intimate moments are usually quite private.

    "Chief Carter. Fury made her the station chief here." Much to Bobbi's relief. That level of 'behind the desk' command is not for her. She's still learning how to be a level 8 commander, as is May for that matter. Taking it one day at a time.

    A dire nod of her head, "Yes. I know." She frowns. News gets around fast. "We're working on a solve," she says. Jemma and Bobbi realised pretty quickly they have just one hail mary they can play here and if it fails.....

    "I take it you want to help? I'm amazed you're up and about so quickly after everything that happened to you, but if you feel you're up to the task there's no way I'll say no - what capacity are you in right now?"

Jane Foster has posed:
Letting her gaze roam idly around the office would be as much of a breach as entering Bobbi's closet or rummaging through her drawers. The secrets contained therein hold no appeal for the brunette scientist, especially not with her superior already fatigued and jostled. Once she has settled herself on the couch, she does not stray from maintaining eye contact unless shifting around to get comfortable or straighten her sleeve.

"Seconded to W.A.N.D. for a trial. I suspect they are understaffed, for whatever reason. It was that or S.W.O.R.D., possibly next on the docket," she replies. Her wry tone carries a certain knowing weight, that hint of a dimple appearing on her cheek and vanishing too quickly. "At the present, I go wherever the need is."

Those clear, bright eyes don't shift away and neither does she fidget. Not the kind to express her anxious energy or nervousness through excessive movement, her stress factors appear in other ways. Not that she seems stressed. "Chief Carter," she repeats. Pleased, then; it's easier. "I contributed my DNA to the genetic cocktail same as Simmons, Johnson, and Whitman." A brief explanation, that. "Time is of the essence, and even sitting atop a boundless supply of resources, it's an all hands-on-deck situation. The countdown hasn't stopped because we require alternate solutions. What options do you consider and what does she need? Subjective assumptions on my part are hardly helpful when hard fact is at hand, attempts made and others certainly failed or discarded?"

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Bobbi tilts her head curiously at the mention of WAND. The strangest sibling in the SHIELD family of silly acronym groups. If ever there were a part of SHIELD she doesn't understand, it would be WAND. SWORD makes a lot more sense in her mind, but she makes no comment of it. She merely nods.

    "I remember," she says about the contributors to saving Peggy's life the first time. "Well then, I suppose if I have your time let's see how you can help." She furrows her brow slightly, "To put it simply, the longevity mechanism in Peggy is tearing her apart as much as it is healing her. What we did was a stop-gap and this attack on her has tipped her over the edge."

    "The only viable option we have is to reset her DNA back to how it was before she received the classified formula in the first place. Luckily when May was stuck in 1949 I asked her to get a sample of Peggy's blood. I had a gut instinct we might need it some day. Unluckily, that blood sample and the machines we used to fix Peggy the first time are both in the Triskelion."

    Which, occupied by US Military forces, means, "We're going to infiltrate the Triskelion undercover as military, extract what we need, and get out without hurting anyone. Because if we drop a soldier HYDRA is going to have a field day ripping us a new one in the media all over again."

    She smirks and brings the whiskey to her lips. As it lowers she says sarcastically, "Simple. What could possibly go wrong. Oh and Talbot is on site and General Hale may also be.. and in case you weren't yet aware, we have confirmed General Hale is HYDRA. Talbot, we are quite sure, is not."

Jane Foster has posed:
All those silly acronym groups, right? SWORD, SHIELD, STRIKE, SNORT. The latter clearly belongs to the old-timers responsible for hacking their enemies' social media or disrupting news feeds with pictures of cats and attack birds that block weather cameras.

"I suspect either they're highly understaffed or being hidden away from the action." Jane shakes her head. "Not exactly high demand for them lately, is there?" They can at least laugh about that, for who in any branch of SHIELD's lengthy arms gets to sit idle except a receptionist?

That smile wipes off the board a moment or two later. Jemma may be the doctor with the license, though Jane tracks Bobbi's statements just as easily. Her own career may stand in the stars, but it originally began in medicine. Verisimilitude of young people! Isn't it grand? "Any reformulation of the original would be impossibly small," she murmurs, more to herself. "Neutralizing the recombinant and longevity mechanisms aren't possible? If we could induce a state by introducing something that acts like an antagonist, any effects would be suppressed long enough to buy Simmons options." A slow turn of her thoughts comes to rest back at a point. "Or Doctor Banner, for that matter. Richards may be brilliant but less in medical breakthroughs you'd need in short order."

Cards tossed out that might already be discounted nonetheless are important to lay forth, since the other alternative is madness. Next to madness. A building occupied by military forces gives them problems, doubly atop that. "You have decent intelligence for the disposition of the building, that the machinery or the sample is even still there? Has General Talbot confiscated or destroyed anything?" It's a big building. And she's been preoccupied.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    "I seem to recall May running around with the WAND van of supernatural nerds at one point when they were trying to find Daniel Sousa. I confess I lost track of so much going on there when we were trying to bring evidence of HYDRA to the United Nations. I recall them having some consultant, a young witch? You may know more than me at this point.."

    She wonders if WAND really does get to sit on their hands. The vampires and other magical weirdness that seems to go on that she pretends not to notice because if she did she'd have to acknowledge even more strangeness is real.

    "The current version of the formula is classified level 10 and Fury has made it quite clear we cannot have access to it. However, Peggy was given a beta version of the formula back when it was still being designed. It had flaws, flaws that almost killed her. That's the reason she was placed in cryo - hoping someone in the future would have an answer."

    "But without access to the original research, it'll take us months to figure out how to make the formula in her body work to her advantage. As for neutralising it? it's designed to regulate her DNA while also being a part of it. Attempting to remove it .. it'll just repair itself, probably worse than it is now."

    Not that Bobbi doesn't know how the infinity formula works, and the super soldier serum. She literally wrote the definitive paper on the latter. The concoction running through her own veins is an amalgamation of those two plus some other things - but even now she has a responsibility to maintain some secrets.

    "What we have is a procedure Jemma developed for delivering DNA alterations across an entire body simultaneously. It was originally used in a different project that is also classified, but we retrofitted it to introduce our DNA stew to fill in the degraded gaps and keep Peggy alive. This time we will use it to reset her back to how she was in 1949. A clean slate."

    About the Triskelion she nods her head, "We've had two agents working in Talbot's team since he moved in to the Triskelion. We also have a bug in Talbot's command tent and stealth surveillance drones. That and Talbot is strict about S.O.P. That works in our favour here. We're about as prepared as we can be."

    "So far Hale hasn't been able to breach any of the vaults - especially not the WAND one. The only things he's had access to were stuff we left on our tables. No access to computers, no access to weapons storage. The Triskelion is doing what it was meant to do so far. We can't bet on that being the case forever though."

Jane Foster has posed:
Another directorship is sitting perfectly unaddressed at the moment. Perhaps the ideal time to make a move and start polishing up her rank -- for the next decade or so, of course. Jane isn't without ambition or else that Nobel wouldn't be collecting dust in a safety deposit box under someone else's name.

"I will look into it, as time allows." When Peggy isn't about to end up pushing daisies and confronting a situation she cannot organize away with vim and vigor. English mores for orderly arrangements can only stretch so far. The brunette rolls her heel slightly against the ground, nodding lightly at struck-down ideas. Well, if Fury wants to slash his budget by losing station chiefs, that's on him.

"Reintroduction brings several different risks, not the least of which is her body rejecting what it might see as foreign genetic markers and a heap of issues beyond that, supposing the template is irregularly applied or transparent enough for her immune system and the current serum effects to reach her." Jane's thoughts on that are spoken simply enough, giving at least air to the fact they talked about it. The matter might not make any difference, but at least they discount that. "There could be emergency measures if this doesn't work out, yes? Would Wakanda be an option? Temporary cryo-sleep should results be less than ideal? I'm not suggesting buying time when solutions present themselves, only Plans F through Q, because at the rate things are going lately, never hurts to have them."

Her gaze turns inward for only a few moments. Triskelion still secure, a plus. The vaults not breached entirely, another small win. "So what rests ahead, and what do you need?"

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Bobbi nods her head and glances down at the whiskey in her hands. "Mm. Yes. You've hit the nail on the head. What if it doesn't work. Wakanda are still our friends. We also have the King of the Inhumans hanging around at the moment too. He has access to some .. interesting .. alien technology. Cryosleep is an option, though we don't have a working cryo-chamber at the ready."

    "Project Farscape has five in production. I've sent off an enquery to Brand to find out if any of them are functional and if they can get one here asap." SWORD mission to send a space ship off in to deep deep space. They will likely be happy to lend one, but unhappy it'll set their mission back.

    The unsaid words. They've run out of options. Everything they intend to do is going to be beyond experimental and a miracle if it works. Peggy's medical state is so unique, such uncharted territory, that the question of 'can we just find someone with magic to fix it?' was even raised.

    "Do you want to come undercover with us to the Triskelion? we're dividing in to three teams. Team Blood. Team Machine. Team Distraction."

Jane Foster has posed:
Poker faces are a thing in spy worlds. The ability to pass without being caught out when shocked, alarmed, or afraid is an asset. The best -- May, for example, or Romanoff -- only display what they want. Jane Foster is a doctor of cosmology and how cosmic background radiation feeds the incarnation of a multidimensional tree that simultaneously acts as a timeline and axis for universal expansion. Spook? Yeah, not like that.

She only mildly raises her eyebrows as Bobbi generously crash-courses in the tools in the chest they might have access to for sake of Peggy Carter. To say nothing of those who might be favourably disposed to helping, which rhymes with Reve Hodgers, likely.

Circling her thumb around her middle finger three times, the brunette smiles. Briefly, not much more than an instant. "Frankly I could be out the door and en route right now if that would do any good. Inside assets already in place will help. Who is assigned to each thus far?"

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    "I'm currently assigning personnel for the missions, but Simmons is team B since.. well, it's her crazy machine after all. I'm team A since I'm the who code locked the vault that blood is in. Team C will include Collingwood who has been undercover in Talbot's operation at the Triskelion previously."

    She smiles a moment and puts the whiskey down, "Jane I can tell you're highly motivated right now. We all are. I think if you want to put on army fatigues, you'd be best suited to Team C. Their job will be to draw attention away from Team A and B and if things go wrong, help extract anyone in a sticky situation."

    "I'll be asking May to lead Team B. Heck if I can staple him down I'll ask Phil to lead Team C. This is all hands on deck, so long as those hands aren't too famous. We need to blend in, not draw attention to ourselves as much as possible. The last thing we need is a confrontation with Talbot."

Jane Foster has posed:
"Blending in won't be a problem unless any of them have interest in science programs or marched around the Hayden. I can't claim to be anonymous." Not particularly so, but then there lies a certain candor in her stilled silence. Jane's public profile apart from superheroic status may be an asset some days. She spreads her hands in slow, deliberate motion. "Though not knowing the first thing about being a soldier will not be problematic? I could see that being a particular drawback."

Truth to fact, there, even if her divinity would flatly argue about that fact. She can shut the reproachful voice up with a comment about an ash branch. "If that would be too high a risk of damage, then you can always put me with Simmons. Giving her cover and backup to work is important, though I won't lie that extraction lacks appeal. I just would rather we do not require those countermeasures."

Either way, she's not coming right out and saying there will be a woman in two places at once.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Bobbi nods her head, "That will be fine. Consider yourself on Team B then." She looks back to Jane and then says, "The abridged undercover in the military manual is available on the intranet. You have six hours to acquaint yourself with the particulars. If after that period you feel you don't know the contents let me know and we will find another way for you to help."

    Research! Learning! something most SHIELD agents are pretty darned good at. "May will be able to cover for any discrepancies in the field. You only need to look like you know what you're doing. We're going to walk in, flash security credentials, pick up our stuff, walk out, put it in a truck and drive away. It should be straight forward, but.. that's why we always have plan B, C, D, etc.." Usually some of those plans are made up on the fly.

Jane Foster has posed:
Research, learning, the cumulative weight of a thousand lives squashed into a six hour jaunt? Not too daunting.

"Understood," Jane says. "I feel that I have taken up more than my fair share of ten minutes as promised, but you have my aid. I'll understand reassignment to A or C as you see fit. Regardless, we will get through and deal with the situation accordingly. Carter will not die by HYDRA's hand."

Such a straightforward statement, one so very matter of fact in its appreciation. Anyone in the know probably says the same thing ten times a day. Five? The solution counts. "Let me get out of your hair and get to work then." No smile then, but there wouldn't be. "And thank you. Better we get this over with now and catch up rather than run out of time."

She rises then, light and still, sweater slinking off her shoulder again. No help for it, and any attempts to correct it invariably fall right back. "To Peggy's health and success."