just because she's on a mission...

Chapter 9

The virtue of her dancer's build, Dottie knew, was that she looked good in virtually everything.  Not that she cared about being beautiful; she was deadly, and that was better.  But being beautiful made being deadly so much easier.  That strapless black dress she'd worn when she'd seduced Howard Stark was a particular winner.

Today's wardrobe choice was far more subtle, but even her most modest church-mouse outfits couldn't entirely conceal her assets: long legs, firm ass, slender waist, and breasts that, while not enormous, nevertheless insisted upon themselves, even from underneath a cotton blouse and a fuzzy cardigan sweater buttoned at the top.  Ivchenko's priorities existed miles from women and sex, but Dottie was aware enough to notice that even he couldn't help an appreciative glance or two during this, their first face to face meeting since he'd arrived in the States.  She pushed the car door open and he clambered inside.

"You seem tired," he observed as he buckled in.  It was strange to hear his heavily accented English.  She almost preferred for him to switch to Russian.

"I don't sleep much," she replied coolly.  "It's better that way."

Ivchenko smiled that smile that said he knew much more than he was saying.  "Of course.  And when you do sleep, do you dream, dorogaya?" My dear, he calls me, she thought with bitter amusement.

Dottie shrugged.  "I'm sure I do, nachal'nik, but I don't remember."  A lie, but what did it matter.  They made her the best liar, what did they expect? Yes, boss, of course, boss, I tell you what you need to hear, boss.

Ivchenko nodded approvingly.  "Good.  Dreams will distract you."

Dottie's eyebrow barely twitched.  Distract me, she thought.  How laughable.  You and the other doctor, and that woman, you torched everything inside me so I would be impervious to distraction.

"Still, dorogaya, I'm feeling that you are... distracted by something.  Are you feeling well?"  he pressed.

"Never better," she answered, her voice flat and diffident.  Ivchenko could dig into people with weaker minds, but not hers, she assured herself.  She was an agent of the Red Room.  Her head was a stone fortress.  Ivchenko would not be able to crack her defenses, would not be able to see her body's hunger for Peggy Carter. 

She held Peggy in a special place in her mind, carefully not thinking about her, protecting the memory of her kisses with a wall of forgetting, of studiously ignoring her; keeping the sense memories of her desire obscured, but not so obscured that their presence could be forgotten and then be allowed to leak into her thoughts.  Ivchenko would not find Peggy there. 

Dottie needed him not to.  She knew enough to know that just the fact of her desire alone would be enough to make Peggy too great a liability in Ivchenko's mind.  Dottie knew she'd be made to kill her, or worse, Peggy's life would taken out of her hands completely and someone else would be sent in to do it. 

He nodded, not saying anything for a moment.  "You will observe me, when I am in the SSR offices today, yes?  And in all the days to follow, unless and until I instruct you otherwise."

"Of course."

"Good," he said.  He smiled at her, staring at her face as she drove, her eyes pointed forward, not looking at him.  "You must be very conscientious when you are observing me at the SSR offices, yes?"

"Don't insult me," she retorted evenly, "I'm always conscientious."

Ivchenko smiled again, fiddling absently with his ring.  "Yes, but this will be the most important job you have ever done.  You must pay close attention at all times.  You must focus."