[ the bottom drops out of her stomach.

her worst fears have come to roost. the little signposts had been there all along: the adversarial nature, the murder, the attempt to cover it up by instigating an inhuman race war. his cockiness, his evaporated empathy, his so much of him. peggy thinks for a second -- glances over her shoulder at an old jewellery box sitting on her dresser -- and has to wonder where things went so wrong.

is this how shield falls in the future? will she be as blind then as she is now to hydra's influence? a soft blue curse worms its way under her breath but before she can invite the pair of them inside, an old indignation flares up.

gently, quietly, she grabs her coat from where it hangs just inside the room. peggy closes her door. ]

He's bugged me once before. [ innocently, she imagines, back then. but now she can't be sure of anything. ] My room mightn't be secure. We ought to take this outside.

[ the walk feels longer than it is. every step is heavy -- and each one puts more knots in her stomach. journeying from the mansion to the range gives her too much time to think. hydra's name has been floated 'round the topic before now, mostly as peggy has tried to contextualize what it might mean to confront a turncoat, but she'd never applied it to the man in earnest. now she feels she has to.

and has to wonder who flipped him and how. in a rare fit of anxiety, she chews a shallow wound into the inside of her cheek. peggy tastes blood the entire distance. there are a set of papers, a report, back in her quarters that begin to make her wonder...

but before she can put that wonder to words, natasha gives her report. peggy receives the news with a stoic expression. it wouldn't be the first time someone's attempted to put a hit on her -- and there's no use in nurturing the sudden pique she feels. they have far far far bigger and meaner fish to fry than whatever the mansion did to them this past turn. although, with a chilly realization, she knows natasha could have easily taken her out during that last event. she'd been a soft and sentimental civilian for its duration. ]

You're right. [ peggy finally speaks up -- flint creeping through her voice. ] You must be right. Whatever that event did to him, it must have worked to reveal what he'd otherwise been trying to conceal.

[ conceal at the cost of murder and social upheaval. the unspoken accusation makes her feel nauseous. ]

He must be awfully high-placed to figure he could offer you so much. [ all of hydra's resources. ] Or awfully desperate to see me gone.

[ she glances back at the mansion. ]

Right. No more prevaricating. [ this is an order given as much to herself as to anyone else. ] Whether he's a damned HYDRA head or a measly squirming tentacle -- he needs to be taken off the board.

[ not killed, per se, because what good does that do in a place where death is impermanent? but removed from the general population, certainly. it's funny how that one word -- hydra -- stirs up so much action in her. ]

You're right. Most people don't know HYDRA. But more than a few of them know what a Nazi is.

[ she is ruthlessly comfortable in tying the two together. and why shouldn't she be? as far as her career is concerned, the two have been devilishly intertwined. indistinguishable. she stands with her shoulders square and her allegiances solid. no matter what dispensation she may give to the how and why of it happening, it doesn't change the fact that there is no shade of grey to a nazi. not in her mind. and others, those who have approached her quietly and alone, have already noticed the similarity between fitz's rhetoric and that black stain on humanity.

natasha's reasons are good ones. optics are important, certainly, but peggy's never cared enough about how her own reputation suffers. she feels compelled -- urged -- to expose the rot to daylight rather than give it a tender nuanced touch. ]

More than that, I daresay this iteration of the man is just proud enough to admit it openly once the facts are pressed to him. [ he must be getting tired with the upkeep of his own lie. why else would he be trying to start a supernatural race war? there's only so far that sort of wool can be pulled over their eyes. ] I'm not saying we handcuff him to a table and put the screws to him. But I'd love to see what his answer is when he's asked point blank where his loyalties lie. Not to mention...

[ peggy breathes in. finally, at long last, her attention swings back to steve. there's a minefield here, one shaped like an absent bucky barnes, and she wants to proceed delicately. ]

I have a SHIELD report in my possession concerning a programming initiative, within HYDRA, called the Faustus method. Are either of you familiar with it? It would have been employed prior to and immediately after they toppled the lion's share of the agency.

[ she waits to let the implication sink in -- or else she waits to explain it if an explanation is wanting. ]