just because she's on a mission...

Chapter 10

Dottie was trapped. At least, inside her own head.

The memory of the tiger was now fresh, a raw wound that was internally hemorrhaging shame, pain, and grief into her blood. She felt the horror of listening to those shots being fired into it, reverberating in the hollow of her chest. She was trapped in that feeling; that sense of terrible weakness, terrible failure, wanting to make it right. But whose idea of right?

Damnit. She knew what this was now. Ivchenko. He had roused this memory to weaken her, to pry his way into her head and ensure her compliance in taking out her target.

Her target. Peggy.

It was like an out of body experience, watching herself crouched on the rooftop. But, no ...That wasn't quite it. She was trapped in her own head, peering out through her own eyes as if they were windows... She watched her hands caress the butt and barrel of the sniper rifle, she watched her crosshairs find Peggy in the alley behind the Automat. She watched Peggy knock out that agent, a man twice her size, with one punch. So she is that strong, she remembered thinking.

The thought thrilled her somehow. But she was detached from herself. Put the gun down, she kept telling herself. It was strange how that old memory of the tiger had been so immersive and intense, she had felt every hair on her head ... yet in her own body, she could hardly feel the wind, hear the traffic, or bend her own digits and limbs to her commands. She watched herself take aim, stared at the crosshairs on the back of Peggy's head, her mind scrambling desperately. She watched another agent come running into the alley, gun drawn.

She was filled with urgency, remembering her target's chestnut hair, the smell of it, the thickness of it in her hands... Her target. Peggy.

Put your gun down, she said to herself again. She couldn't believe she was trying to argue with herself, yet there she stood. She watched her hands hesitate with the rifle, but then reassert their aim. This was the terrible feeling of being strapped in the passenger seat while someone else was driving the car off a cliff, and being unable to do anything about it.

But she could nudge the wheel. She had to be able to nudge the wheel. Left, left, left, left, just a little, just a little, left, left, left, left, she insisted to herself. She only needed to change her aim just a little and the agent with his gun trained on Peggy would become the target. Nobody said she couldn't shoot any other SSR agents. She didn't care if she did. You're not going to let him take your target away, are you? she demanded of herself. You are the best, you're not going to let him steal your mission from you, are you?

The crosshairs nudged slightly to the left. She watched the agent go down, bleeding. She saw Peggy Carter turning around to see where the shot had come from. She knew that there were other agents behind the one she'd just shot. The Red Room agent she was knew that she had blown this chance. Good. She fled the scene while she still could.

The Red Room agent knew Agent Carter was keeping something of great importance in her room at the Griffith, though she didn't know what it was. Great enough that she was going to go back there for it, even with the SSR apparently looking for her. The Red Room agent knew that that would be her opportunity.

She went back to the Griffith, broke into Agent Carter's apartment, and nicked that lipstick she'd been lusting after. She applied it carefully, and waited. Being beautiful really did make being deadly so much easier.

Dottie continued watching herself. She watched herself apply the lipstick, and tried to force her hand this way or that. Sometimes she succeeded and had to wipe a little excess off. If she was going to end up killing Peggy, it couldn't be like this. It couldn't. She had to have more control of her own mind. She didn't want to kill Peggy, but if it came to that, it couldn't be just one more repeat of her great failure; becoming weak, needing someone or something, and then being forced to choke her grief out of existence when the terrible deed had to be done.