Work Text:
Peggy sighed, walking into the building with great expectations and a cup of warm coffee. She signs in with the secretary, and heads up to where her desk was. She sat, waiting for her partner to arrive, hoping that they would be good fun, because even if they are on a mission to help their country win a war, she still believes that it’s good to do things that you’re enjoying. A man who she’s assuming is her partner walks in. He has curly hair pulled into a ponytail, is about one meter eighty centimeters tall, and was wearing the standard work uniform. He waved at her as if they know eachother, and walks over to her desk.
‘Hi. Lafayette. And I assume you’re Peggy?’ He had a nice voice, laced with a French accent, and she returned his smile.
‘Hi, Lafayette. Yeah, it’s Peggy Schuyler. Excited for the mission?’
He laughed slightly, and raised his eyebrows while smiling. ‘I suppose it will be an opportunity to do something new. Are you excited?’ Peggy shrugged. ‘Seems fun enough. We get to see the British headquarters. Wanna head out?’ Lafayette nodded, so they grabbed their coats and information pamphlets and left the room.
‘So, is your name just Lafayette, or is there more?’ Peggy asked, as they walked through the oddly painted walls. They were beige, which did not match the furniture or the rest of the building. Lafayette sighed. ‘Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette. Everyone asks that.’ Peggy’s mouth opened slightly. ‘That’s…a lot.’ Lafayette nodded in agreement. ‘My parents were a bit different. Anyways, we’re using fake names for this. Check your information pamphlet, there’s a passport in there, we have fake names for this. I am-‘ he opened his passport ‘-Tommy. Interesting name.’
Peggy reached into her bag and got her information pamphlet.
‘Shouldn’t the government be against making these? Anyways, I got Mariah. That’s actually a really nice name.’
They reach the door, and step out into the fresh autumn air, watching the breeze play with the fire coloured leaves that were swirling around in loops. The wind is cold, but some of the warm summer air remains. It’s a good thing that they had coats, they won’t need the hoods, but the heat will be accepted with gratitude.
Peggy walked on the inside of the red concrete pavement, littered as all of New York is. They passed a park and watched kids run around and climb on swings, enjoying the last bits of good weather before the cold winter days when people take refuge in cozy cafes and lie in bed with three blankets on. They passed some of said cafes, and walked through a few streets next to them, then turned to the more posh part of the city, where they would get a bus to a swimming pool which is close to the office building where their mission was, belonging to the British. No, not the ones that were risking their lives for their country, it was the rich ones who spent too much money on things they would never touch again and sent the other people to do their dirty work.
They walked through the bustling New York streets, making small talk and getting to know eachother. Lafayette was a Frenchman who came to America to fight, but swapped roles with his friend Hercules Mulligan, who was a spy. He hoped to bring revolution to France once the Americans got independence, which was hopefully soon. He grew up really fast - orphaned at 12, and commissioned into the French Army as a Musketeer at just fourteen. He seemed genuinely nice, and the two clicked wonderfully.
He spoke very good English, and said that he was born and raised in France, speaking French. He said that he was friends with George Washington, which is pretty impressive, and also friends with uprising names, like Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Peggy spoke about her less interesting childhood, about how she lived in her sister’s shadows, and how she was always just tagged along, a mere footnote, while everyone admired smart, beautiful, Angelica and kind, caring Eliza. It’s not that she didn’t like her sisters - that’s not the case at all, she loved them very much, but it was a bit tiring to always be behind them, always forgotten.
They reached the bus stop after half an hour of walking and childhood trauma dumping, but it still was faster than getting a taxi in the traffic of a Friday at school drop-off time. They sat down on a bench made of metal, with chipping blue paint messily painted on it, with a fanta ad on the poster next to it, and graffiti scribbled on the rain shield above them, which was dirty and probably once transparent. They spoke, and commented on anything they thought of, telling stories of everything and anything, and Lafayette spoke of his friends, who he seemed very fond of.
He said that he has three friends, and another guy is also friends with them, but he isn’t as close with them as the rest. He said that his friend group consists of John Laurens, a young man from South Carolina and he was very against slavery, despite his parents owning so many slaves, and there was Alexander Hamilton, a kid from the Caribbean who had a rough childhood, he was supposedly a wonderful writer, having ‘wrote his way out’ of his difficult situation, and his bond with Laurens was unbreakable, through death or life, he said. They claimed they were best friends, but Lafayette said that he has seen them when they were drunk many times, and that it could argue with their claims. There was Hercules Mulligan, an Irishman who had moved to the wonderful New York when he was six, and now worked as a tailor’s apprentice, and there was also Aaron Burr, a New York born man who was an orphan, and a college prodigy, Peggy had probably heard Angelica mention his name at some point, with how many college aged men she knew.
A scarlet red bus pulled up, and Peggy checked her watch. ‘Is that for us?’ she asked, knowing it probably was, but asked for clarification anyways. Lafayette nodded, and they got into the lengthy queue headed for the swimming pool that were boarding the bus.
The bus was cramped, and packed with people, some of which needed to be reminded that deodorant exists. The drive lasted for about twenty minutes, stopping at several other stops to pick up even more people, and the person to seat ratio was slightly concerning. Eventually, they saw the bug blocky building of the swimming pool drawing closer, and they got off, thanking the bus driver, and turned left to where many offices and industrial buildings were.
Twelve minutes of walking later, they reach a building that was an abandoned Cheetos HQ, until the British adopted it as a meeting, documents and office building, where most important and snobby Brits worked. The building was towering, white and at the corner of a block. The part at the corner that was supposed to be pointy was stylistically chopped off, with panels of glass replacing it, giving the middle and lower class a glimpse of how the rich work - in boring, boring, hours and, quite often, not much work once they reach the status of rich. Sometimes, the most sweet and simple person can be ruined by exposure to the wrong things.