This chapter was HELL to write. It took WEEKS, because I needed to make believable gadgets for the fifties (I have to thank my partner for his help!) and so on... and then it risked the effect "shopping list", but it was rescued by my Beta in shining armour, NepturnalHarianne, who was precious for the publication of this chapter.

As I said in "The Importance of Being Earnest", I am still writing this fic. It should consist of 11 chapters, at least following the planning. Don't despair ^^.

This said... Let's get down to business! (To defeat the huns!... oh, no, no, no! It's the wrong fandom!).

The flight took most of the night and Joan landed at the American base in the early hours of the new day. She had checked her make-up in the small stall on the plane while one of the agents that had flown with her took her luggage. Deeming her disguise still credible, she got out of the plane, where a beautiful, dark haired woman wearing a uniform walked up to meet her.

"Agent Harrison, I'm Agent Margaret Carter, welcome to the Strategic Scientific Reserve base, we were waiting for you." The woman started on a roll, welcoming her with calm efficiency. "It's of the utmost importance that the mission goes as smoothly as possible," Joan straightened up imperceptibly at her direct gaze. "If you would follow me, please."

"Thanks for the welcome, Agent carter. Please call me John." Joan said, following the agent's gesture with her eyes. She nodded towards the base. "We share the same sentiment, shall we go?" she said, happy to see that her voice held fine her lower tone and carried well.

"Call me Peggy, then. And let's go, Mr Stark will be insufferable. I take it that Q has equipped you?" Agent Carter asked, guiding Joan inside the base. She looked around, mapping the place in her mind, should she need it.

"Exactly, but Mr H said that Mr Stark would have something for me too." She answered, keeping up with Carter's pace as they progressed through the base.

"Well then, we are here," Peggy turned to Joan as they reached their destination. "enjoy yourself, John." She said, opening the double door in front of them, before striding in.

The room was large and high ceilinged. Joan entered without changing her pace, but her gaze was keen on everything. At a first glance, she could not recognize the various objects scattered around even though she was pretty sure that, strangely enough, those on one of the steel tables that lined the walls were indeed shields. Approximately 100 feet long and 30 feet wide, the huge warehouse was buzzing with activity.
The clean steel tables, including the one with all those shields, were more or less nine feet long and three feet wide. They stood at four feet from the walls as people in white coats worked on them with tools that seemed the refined and upgraded version of the DIY tools her father used to keep at home in a case under the garage's lavatory, or an advanced version of her husband's chemistry set. The last four tables in front of her were angled at 90° from the others, facing a wide platform where a control panel was placed on the short side of the building. Lights, valves, and circular windows that resembled temperature and pressure indicators decorated the wall behind. A man on the shorter side, with dark hair and intelligent dark eyes, was staring at them, sitting on the angled table nearer to the wall. Joan noticed that Stark's eyes (for that couldn't be anyone else) moved over her in a manner non dissimilar from Sherlock's way to gauge a new acquaintance. She also noticed that he seemed more on the leering side on the professionally dressed but still stunning Peggy. If the voices she had heard were right, the same treatment would soon be reserved to her too, despite the gender she supposedly belonged to.

"Well, well, well, look what we have here! Peggy, sure they know how to send agents from England!" Stark exclaimed. He wasn't wearing a white coat: dark brown dress trousers, a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up at the elbows and a waistcoat in the same colour of the trousers adorned the man. He came down from the table, standing before them. He was just a couple of inches higher than Joan, and seemed to be perfectly at ease with all those machines and mechanical parts that were strewn around. "Welcome to my little den, Agent Harrison. Mr H recommended me to give you the best, and that I shall do." He said, offering his right hand. Joan gripped and shook it firmly.

"Thanks for the welcome, Mr Stark," she smiled tightly, keeping her male voice pleasant but professional. "Now if you could please excuse my hurry, I really need to get going in few hours and I want to make sure I understand the instructions for your equipment." Joan said, trying to shift the attention of that unnerving man from herself to his creations. Stark beamed.

"Call me Howard, John, and yes! Let's get down to business." Howard Stark rubbed his hands together, evidently glad to be able to show off to someone new. "Follow me, I've selected a few items I think will benefit you and Agent Holmes the most." He said, winking at them and gesturing Joan and Peggy to follow. They moved at their left, leaving the warehouse main room for a smaller and more secluded area, where the actual weapons and instruments, those finished, tested and working, were kept. Howard beckoned the other two to come near the counter that rested on the farthest side of the room. Joan and Peggy followed him and Joan observed the man while he took several objects from the drawers of the counter itself.
"And here we are!" He exclaimed, voice thick with satisfaction, "this is the equipment that I prepared for your mission." He made a showing gesture with his hands, bringing Joan's eyes on the surface of the table. A couple of purse-watches, two bags (a document carrier and a doctor's bag), and a couple of strange long-sleeved undershirts in a sheen material. "I didn't want to burden you with more gadgets you could learn to use, so here we are, straight and simple!" He exclaimed with the same bouncing enthusiasm a child would show for his toys.

"Mr Stark, can we proceed?" Joan said with a pointed glare, her patience wearing thin. "I still need to be updated about the Tesseract and then I'll have to leave to meet my colleague."
Howard Stark seemed crestfallen for less than a second, then he grinned.

"I like this guy", he said, eyeing Peggy with what would be a conspiratory glance. "he goes straight to the point. Alright then, let's begin!"
Stark then took the first item, one of the purse-watches, and dangled it in front of the two women from its chain "Thiiiis… this seems a normal, if stylish, purse watch. I especially designed it for my line, I like my creations to be nice and smart, you know." Joan suppressed an eye-roll. "But! It's not just simple purse-watch. If you push the crown three times and rotate it counter-clockwise, for three times as well, you will obtain a wonderful functioning grenade." The man grinned madly while bouncing said small grenade in his hand, under Joan's unnerved eyes. "The explosion is very noisy and produces a lot of flames but it actually can't injure much." Joan raised an eyebrow, "it's good for a diversion without casualties, isn't it just an annoyance to tend to enemies' injuries?"

"Can you keep on, Mr Stark? We are on a schedule, here." Peggy intervened, receiving a grateful glance from Joan.

"Ok, ok, you're on a rush, aren't you? The bags! The bags are pretty much unassuming but they're internally reinforced with an alloy of Vibranium and steel." He paused to look towards the first table Joan had noticed entering in, "It's not as efficient as Captain America's shield was, but it's good enough to block a bullet."
The mad genius' fingers, perpetually moving restlessly it seemed, reached the shimmering material of the next items and toyed with it as he spoke. "The undershirts are a special treat," he smiled genially. "I've prepared several of them and you should always make sure to wear them. They're made of a special material, a mix we studied, that keeps constant the temperature of the body, very useful when you need to work outside and you can't have too much encumbrance. The material is pretty resistant to piercing and cutting, so it offers a moderate resistance to knives. An interesting side-effect, I admit." He said that last part with some consideration, as if it were something he'd only chanced upon. "This should be all-" he was already moving away, but then he stopped and turned back around. "Oh, no, I was forgetting! The handles of the bags," he took the bags back, showing Joan an unlocking system, "are actually two handguns. Not very powerful, but good for emergencies and short-range. I suggest to be very professional and always bring the bags along. You never know when you'll need a shield. Or a gun."

Joan smiled at that, reluctantly charmed by the man, and leaned forward to inspect the bags. "Handguns will be certainly useful," she nodded. "About this unlocking system…"
She then proceeded to ask Mr Stark about the exact functioning of the tools and left only when she was satisfied about their proper use.

Agent Carter led Joan in another office, in a separate area of the army base. She sat at her desk and took out a manila envelope, blank on the outside but stuffed with documents.

"Please, John, sit there and I'll explain you about the Tesseract."
Joan nodded and took the envelope, sitting on the chair on the other side of the desk.
"The truth is that we don't know much about its origins." The Agent begun in a matter-of-fact tone. "We know that Johann Schmidt found it in Norway and that he started experimenting with it. Since it seems to be an unlimited source of energy, he used it to fuel the weapons H.Y.D.R.A. developed at the time." The agent shuffled with some of the documents in the folder, stopping only when she found a very blurry photo of what seemed to be one such weapon, with its specification on the side. "I don't have details on the Tesseract itself and we think it went lost when Captain Rogers…"
Joan noticed how Peggy's voice trembled imperceptibly, her eyes for a moment full of hurt. Joan had to fight the impulse to take her hand: it would only be acceptable if she weren't currently playing the role of a man.
The Agent seemed to shake off her obvious sadness, her expression slowing back to one of pure professionalism before she begun talking once again.
"Anyway, all the data we have on the weapons developed with its energy is in this folder." Agent Carter slid the papers towards Joan, who took them and tucked them inside the bag with a nod. "A piece of advice: if you find yourself in front of one of those weapons, try to get as far as possible from them. It doesn't matter where they hit you, they will kill you nonetheless, and nothing remains. They usually have blue glowing parts as you've seen in the photo, because they use the same substance the Tesseract seems to be made of." She added.
Joan felt herself shiver at the thought of such powerful weapons in the hands of their enemies.
Peggy seemed to think for a moment, almost as if she were ticking boxes in her mind to check that they had exhausted all the topics they had to discuss. Knowing how some minds worked, such as that of her very same husband, Joan wouldn't have been surprised to find that to be the truth. Agent Carter nodded imperceptibly once, and then gazed at the clock. "It's time for your transport. If you want to follow me." She said, standing up.

"Agent Carter," Joan started, glad he voice didn't waver "Thanks for your help." The woman's lips upturned in a rapid smile.

"Find them and terminate them, Agent Harrison." She told Joan, steel in her voice.

"We will." Joan answered. The two agents exited from the warehouse and headed to the heliport walking in silence.

In the end, it was almost noon by the time Joan boarded the helicopter that would bring her to New York City, and she could barely contain her enthusiasm. On the field again, and on her way to her husband's, who wouldn't be expecting her. She almost felt like on their first mission in Dublin.

The cab (false cab, arranged by Mycroft) that brought her to the Waldorf-Astoria was slowed by the huge traffic in Manhattan. Joan first saw the hotel from the car's window at three in the afternoon.
Hopefully, they would have the time to go through their new program and she could make it fast enough to teach him about the new equipment they had been given, too. She gave herself a pep talk upon getting out of the cab, falling in her "John-persona" once again.
At the reception, she asked for the room they had been assigned (a double roomed suite, suitable for two bachelors) and, presenting the documents the MI6 had expressly forged for her, she was given the key to their room.

At the 27th floor of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, the key was a heavy weight in her hand. She took a deep breath, inserted it and turned.

Sherlock was waiting for his liaison officer, annoyed by his lateness and trying to make sense of the reports he had found upon taking possession of the room, the day before. His Peter Sherrinford persona was perfect, a pair of fake glasses perched on his nose, his hair, shorter and kept well in order (he hated it, it had taken a whole week of job for Joan and him to get him rid of his habit of grabbing his hair, a habit Peter Sherringford didn't have, anyway), and the three piece suit in different shades of blue was perfect, to his body and to the Sherringford disguise. He was re-reading a paragraph describing the discoveries that their contact claimed they'd been able to do about the Tesseract ,when he heard the key turning in its keyhole. He tensed slightly, ready to fight if necessary. He remembered then that only one person would have the key of the room, and he relaxed somehow.

"You're late. You're terribly late and I am already appalled." He said, with Professor's Sherringford northern accent, sharping his Rs and rounding the vowels. When the voice answered, he abruptly turned around, absolutely distracted, uncaring of the file that he had been reading, whose sheets full of mostly useless data were now scattered around the floor.

"Your accent is slightly off kilt, remember not to open those vowels too much." Sherlock froze, he knew that voice, he had committed every nuance of that voice to his memory, included this version: lower and calmer.
He had taught her to talk like that, like a man. Sherlock's eyes darted immediately to Joan's. She was smiling, underneath the moustache the thin lips were stretched in a self-satisfied expression that was Joan's "I surprised you" smile.
He gaped for a second like a fish, and then-

"What is your name?" he asked, correcting immediately his pronunciation. Joan's smile widened and answered.

"Doctor John Harrison, pleased to meet you, Professor Sherringford." She said, hiding a grin that wanted to spread across her face.
Sherlock stood up suddenly and proceeded to close the windows, shut the blinds and lock the door as fast as possible without giving anything away.
The room was submerged by darkness, but for a small sliver of light coming from the curtains that played with Joan's hair, highlighting the short cut.
Sherlock closed the distance in a couple of long strides, cornering her, looming over her, completely flabbergasted for a moment.
He shook it off quickly though, and he lifted her, hooking his hands underneath her arse, and pushing her against the wall, pressing his body on hers. The kiss was demanding and freeing and Joan wanted to burst out laughing but she knew she couldn't, and her lips were pretty busy in that moment anyway, answering in kind to Sherlock's hungry outburst. She looped her arms around his neck, trying to avoid messing the short hair up. They eventually parted, noses touching.
Joan finally grinned, her eyes crinkling.

"You. Are. Extraordinary, John." Sherlock murmured on her lips. Joan smiled and her husband kept talking "but this moustache is terrible. It tickles like hell." he added, falsely disgruntled, before looking her in the eyes and smiling. "I'll never get used to it."
Joan chuckled, trying to keep the voice as low as possible, and pecked him again.

"You are repeating yourself. And I'll repeat it for you: now you know what I feel when you don't shave for a couple of days." She retorted, aiming for nonplussed, landing on breathy.

"You're here. We're together and you managed once again to surprise me. I'm always genial, but marrying you has certainly been my greatest moment of genius." He murmured in her ear, as low as possible.

"Heaven forbids you're anything but a genius even in finding a wife." She deadpanned. "It's just that you're useless without me. You don't eat, you don't sleep…" she added, sliding her hands over his arms.

"I don't sleep when I'm with you either…" he murmured sensually, biting her ear. Joan moaned lightly, but pushed him away and got back on her feet.

"What a charmer. Business before pleasure, Mr Sherringford," she adjusted her clothing, smoothing out the wrinkles with a playful smile in his direction. "Let's get back on track, I have to update you on a billion things."
She walked away then, seemingly unaffected (apart from the point of her ears, that Sherlock knew was her giveaway when flustered) and her husband grinned madly. The outcome of the mission was looking definitely looking up.