Title: The Good Doctor (One Step Ahead, Two Steps Behind Remix)
By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette
Spoilers: Captain America The Winter Soldier
Disclaimer: They're not mine.
Word Count: 10,685
Distribution: AO3. Anyone else please ask first :)
Summary: Steve needs to know if Peggy knew about Zola. She did, and her cryptic words lead Steve on a hunt for parts of his past that he never thought he'd see again.
Feedback PLEASE at:triplepirouettephile Or just hit the little button there.
AN: This is super weird because I don't think I've EVER remixed one of my fics, but I came up with two endings, one VERY different, so I had to. I've actually ended up liking this one much better and I hope to revisit this little universe at some point. Not sure how compliant this is with Agents of Shield. Events described here happen post Agent Carter, so it's compliant with that.
Thank you to Tumblr's Youcantgivemeorders for the beta.
He had to know. He had to know because he knew that she would never, but the possibility, the inkling that she would have…
The truth was that Peggy must have known that he was down there; that Zola was working with them.
He knew it would upset her to ask, but he had to know.
He didn't even make it past the doorway before his bright, sharp girl beat him to it from her bed. "So Zola finally made his move?"
He knew his mouth was agape as he stood there, scratches on the side of his face still recovering and itching from the stretch of the new skin. She just laughed and held out her hand, silently inviting him to sit in the chair that was kept there just for him.
"You want to know what I knew." She said plainly, sitting tall and looking better than she had in weeks.
He smiled and shook his head as he took her hand. "Always one step ahead of me, aren't you?" He leaned forward to hug her, needing the contact after the last few weeks.
Steve expected a warm greeting, a soft whisper of a nothing that they weren't supposed to say in his ear just like she did every other time she was having a good day. A bit of a flirt or a maudlin thought about the life they didn't have together. He never expected what he heard.
Softly, gently, in his ear, she whispered two words.
"Hail Hydra."
He pulled back, his jaw twitching as it tightened. "Peggy…" The words slipped from between his lips, born of disbelief and fear.
"I'm sorry for lying, Steve, I am." She held his gaze, strong and sure. She wasn't upset, wasn't disappointed. "I always knew you'd figure it out."
He took a step back, gritting his teeth. "How long?"
"That's more complicated," she scooted up in bed, her face a steal trap of secrets and lies.
"How long?" His voice was forceful, but as he turned to look at her all he could feel was the pain of betrayal.
"All my life," she whispered. "It was what I was made for."
Steve turned away, disgusted. He couldn't even begin to think about all the times they were together, all the missions, all the private moments. The accusations sat on the tip of his tongue as he paced a few steps. "Peggy…?" It was a strained plea, one that didn't know what it was asking.
She shook her head, reaching across to her bedside table for a small pill case. "I always assumed the Alzheimer's would give it away, though I was sure the first moment you looked at me you knew." She turned the pill case over in her hands. She laughed lightly, "But then again, you just wanted me to be her so badly…"
He stopped, stock still, and barely remembered to breathe. "What?" His voice was flat as he asked, not even turning from his pose looking out the window.
She stared at his back. "I was made by the good Doctor Zola in 1948." She held her head up high as he turned, his eyes scrutinizing her closely. "I was made to help infiltrate the SSR and SHIELD. I was made to be a double agent, one who could take down our enemies and build an empire at the same time." She sighed, but was still proud. "I worked with Zola, with Russia, with whomever I was told, and helped them use the Winter Soldier to take it all down from the inside, and rebuild in our own image."
"So you're not…" He stepped forward, the mix of hope and dispair almost too much for her to bear in his eyes.
She shook her head. "In 1948 I emerged from a tub with all the memories of Margaret Carter, but with the very clear knowledge that I wasn't her. I didn't have a single scar that she remembered, didn't remember the taste of good tea or the smell of shepherd's pie aside form the memory that I should know." She played with the pillbox in her hand, remembering things more fondly than she felt she should with the stark face of Captain America hovering over her. "I followed her for weeks, learning everything I could about her, my mind full of things I knew she wouldn't know about Hydra's plans, and an allegiance to Doctor Zola so strong that I could barely breathe sometimes."
He sat down in the chair, resting his chin on clasped hands, energy and rage pulsing through him, barely contained in his shaking. "Did you kill her?"
She didn't respond, just opened the small ceramic pill case and pulled out a key, leaving a small capsule swirling in the compartment. "He was an interesting man, Doctor Zola. He believed in Hydra with all of his heart, but he also knew that what he was doing was dark, and shouldn't be done."
The woman who wasn't Peggy held the key out to Steve, dropping it into his open palm as her eyes began to water. "I had all of her memories. Every time I looked at The Winter Soldier's face I felt great pain, and yet the duty that Zola had built into my mind won every time. And then, because of her memories, I dreamed of you. I dreamed of her life before the war. I knew her wishes and I knew her hopes." For the first time her voice shook. "She was so strong, and maybe it was only some… some perverted form of self preservation, but I did all I could to try to keep him from killing her." She shook her head sadly.
He looked at her with such hope, hope that was breathing and dying at each of her words as he was cradling the key in his palm, and she's struck for the first time that maybe her entire life was never meant to be. She picked the small pill out of the container, holding it with her thumb and forefinger. "That key will open a safe deposit box at the First United Bank in Washington DC. Number 2613." She looked up at him, tears filling her eyes as she looked at his face. "You'll find everything you need to know in there."
He turned the key over in his hands, oblivious to the pill between her fingers. "What do you mean, everything I need to know?"
She brought the pill to her lips, but hesitated. She reached out with her free hand and covered his. "I dreamed of you, and I knew you in her memories. Every little bit of her that helped me hide, that helped me fulfill my mission, told me that what I was doing was wrong. And then you showed up, looking for her, and it was so easy to pretend that I hadn't done any of it, that I was that amazing woman whose life I'd stolen. I wanted to make you proud." She pulled her hand back. He looked up, his eyes darting from her hand to her lips as he saw what she meant to do. She gently pressed her hand against his arm as he reached out, trying to take the pill from her. "She had faith you'd be back, that you'd be able to fix things." She put the pill in her mouth and bit down with a sad smile. "I have that same faith."
She shook, foaming at the mouth as the poison took effect and he jumped back, panic written on his face. He could have stopped her, he should have, and yet a part of him was darkly satisfied that she no longer lived. Her body stilled and he was left standing with the key, the empty eyes of yet another person who betrayed him staring into nothingness.
He sat in the back of the baseball stadium, taking a page from Natasha's book and attempting to hide in plain sight. He had the two notebooks that he'd taken from the safe deposit box hidden in the sports pages of the newspaper he was holding. They were the only things that had been in there. He'd hidden them in his coat before he slipped out of the bank, hoping no one knew anything about them, but assuming he'd been followed anyway. Just two small notebooks; one filled to the brim, emblazoned with a red marker star on the cover. The other was nearly empty except for the front page. There were coordinates not far from Fort Lehigh, followed by a set of instructions.
"You into baseball?" Sam asked, sitting next to Steve and offering him a handful of popcorn from his bag.
"I'm a Brooklyn boy, what do you think?" Steve smiled, but it wasn't genuine, and Sam knew it. He waved off the popcorn and instead held the concealed books out to his friend.
Sam laughed, "I think your team's in LA, now." He handed Steve the bag of popcorn as the crowd around them cheered for the minor league team's latest run, covertly taking the notebooks and newspaper. Steve let his eyes drift to the field, pretending to watch the game as Sam perused the contents.
The memory hit Steve hard and he nearly lost his breath.
The small transistor radio wasn't loud enough to get all the way to the back of the group, and even with his enhanced abilities he was only catching every third word. He stood and left the tent, leaving the rest of the guys to the latest Dodgers game. He'd get the score in the morning.
"Game not going well?" Peggy asked from behind him.
He turned and smiled, holing out his hand for her to take. They took more liberties in the dark, when their superiors were more likely to 'not see' what they were doing. He led her to the edge of camp near the tree line where they could feel a million miles away from war with just a few steps into the brush. "I think it's going fine, but the transmission is going in and out, so I decided to go for a walk instead."
Peggy smiled up at him as they slipped past the brush and into the quiet solitude of the trees. "I'm glad you decided that."
"Me too," Steve leaned down for a short kiss, smiling as he straightened. "How was your day?"
Peggy huffed as she stepped over a branch. "Completely uninteresting. When Colonel Phillips isn't around it's like they all forget that I have a brain in my head. Just 'Coffee, Agent Carter,' and 'file these, Carter,' and 'but you're so much better at the typing than I am, Carter.'" She turned and looked up at Steve's amused face. "What? It's absolutely frustrating!"
Steve shrugged. "It's not like it's not true. You're better at all those things than half the people on this base!" She playfully thwacked him on the shoulder as she tried to hide her smile. "What? Including me!" He laughed and swung their hands as he continued their well-worn path. "I know what you're saying, though."
She wrapped her arm around his bicep, leaning close to his side as they walked. "I know you do." They walked in silence in the moonlight, the muffled sounds of the base getting farther and father away. "When this is all over…" Peggy sighed, musing out loud. It was a sentence she started often, sometimes she finished it, sometimes he did, and sometimes they let it hang in the air, promising all the things they could imagine.
"When this is all over…" Steve started, stopping them as they reached a small creek that had sprung up from rain runoff. Carefully he swept Peggy from her feet, carrying her in his arms as he stepped over the water, "I'm going to take you to do something you've never done before."
She let her hand run down the edge of his collar. "Oh yeah, Captain?"
He smiled charmingly as he set her gently on her feet. "Absolutely." He lifted her hand and twined their fingers again, kissing her knuckles before he started them walking again. "What's something you've never done that you want to do?"
She thought for a moment then smiled up at him. "I've never been to a proper American baseball game. I quite fancy having some peanuts and singing 'Take me out to the Ballgame'."
"Well then," he spun her under his arm in a gentle turn, the only dance move he swore he knew before pulling her close, "baseball it is."
The home team scored another run and the crowed cheered around them. The memory caused his heart to clench painfully, but it was tinged with an odd sort of hope. Finding Peggy the first time had nearly broken his spirit. So little time had passed for him, seeing every hope he'd had for the future smashed to bits had been more than he could take, but at least she'd been there, she could talk with him, she remembered him. Perhaps it was hope that she was somehow alive, hidden in a Hydra strong hold and giving them flack as a silver-haired and silver-tongued spitfire that sparked in his soul. Perhaps it was hope that she had died long ago, and she hadn't lived a life without him. He wasn't sure what he hoped for, but it was there nonetheless, and he didn't want to dwell on it.
"Well, this is a lot more than we knew before isn't it?" Sam, switched the notebooks, gesturing at the red star the symbolized the Winter Soldier before he slid it behind the other.
"Yeah," Steve turned, setting the popcorn on the armrest between them. "Gives us a much bigger head start than we thought." Another man got on base, and Steve could almost hear Bucky next to him, shouting for the pitcher to step up his game. The red starred notebook had names, dates, places… it was a wealth of information on The Winter Soldier, including some of his most recent hideouts. How that woman had known, he didn't want to speculate, but he wasn't above using it to get him as much of an advantage as he could get.
Sam flipped through the other notebook. "One page? What's it even about?" He grabbed a handful of popcorn as he rattled off the instruction list that was written on the first and only page. "Blue dial to one-hundred, green dial up to ninety percent, wait a half an hour, drain, press red button." Sam looked up before tossing a few kernels in his mouth. He shrugged as he chewed. "Drain?"
"We're going there first," Steve pointed at the coordinates at the top of the page. His other hand ran over the edges of the compass in his pocket. "I don't know if you'd believe me if I told you what I'm hoping to find." For Steve, the image was strong. Bucky, frozen in some kind of space-age suspended animation, floating in ice in a horror that Steve himself had lived.
Sam passed the paper and books back with a tilt of his head, picking up his popcorn. "Your call." He watched the team's bear mascot run the bases with a group of kids between the innings. "You go, I go."
"Tomorrow?" Steve asked, hopeful as he wrapped the notebooks in the newspaper.
Sam leaned back, signaling to the vendor walking around for a cold bottle of water. "Tomorrow."
The drive was longer than Steve would have liked. Necessity meant his shield and Sam's wings were hiding in the trunk along with Steve's suit and the body armor Sam brought. Stopping for gas and restrooms meant they had to blend in, and those things didn't blend. Even though Steve hadn't seen anyone following him yet, it did leave them open to attack, and he wasn't going to get complacent.
They didn't know what they were walking into, and it kept Steve on edge. It seemed to simple to just get the notebooks and get out, to be able to drive to wherever this was and find… well, that was another question that kept his hands fidgeting.
"I gotta ask man, because I heard," Sam didn't turn away from the wheel, his eyes giving Steve the space that the car couldn't. "You ok? I heard that Peggy Carter died, and I know you knew her from back then."
Steve sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. "That wasn't Peggy. The real Peggy, anyway." He felt Sam's eyes flicker to him, and he reached into his pocket, grasping the compass like a talisman. "She was a Hydra clone." He sniffed, trying to sit up straight. "She replaced Peggy right after SHIELD was founded and helped Hydra from the inside."
Sam's mouth hung open as he looked back and forth between Steve and the road. "I- I didn't think we could do that yet."
Steve shrugged. "Neither did I, but, you've got me, and Bruce Banner, and you fly- I stopped questioning what was possible a long time ago."
Sam nodded, "Good point. How'd you-"
"She told me," Steve sighed, leaning back and watching the trees pass. "Right before she gave me the key for the safety deposit box to find those books, she told me everything, then took a pill of cyanide."
"Well, shit," Sam cursed, grasping the wheel tight. He took a deep breath and let a few seconds go by before he spoke again. "So, I'm going to go with you're not ok." Sam sighed, glancing over to see Steve's tight face. "Any idea what we're looking for?"
Steve shook his head, twisting his hands together and cracking his knuckles. "She said I'd find answers, that she tried to keep Zola from killing the real Peggy, that she worked with Bucky. I just want-" He stopped, unsure of what he actually wanted to find. His friend frozen? The love of his life imprisoned for decades? Neither? Both? To hope for those things was to hope for torture on the people he cared about the most.
Sam just watched the road ahead, letting his friend work through the emotions as the pavement passed under them.
"We're here." Sam shrugged and checked the satellite GPS that had brought them to the coordinates. "Like, right here, not even a smidge of a degree off, and there's nothing."
The forest around them was sparse, but it was clear- they were in the middle of nowhere with nothing to be seen. They'd walked almost five miles from the nearest road where they'd hidden the car. The trees were old enough to have been here since far before Peggy was replaced, and not a trace of a building or railroad could be seen. All Steve could do was sigh.
"All dressed up and no place to go," Sam laughed, sitting on a log and attempting to lighten the mood. "No buttons or levers, at least that I can see."
Steve turned in place, stepping here and there and examining trees, kicking rocks, and getting madder by the second until he turned and punched a sapling, sending it tumbling over with a barely contained roar of frustration.
"I'm sorry, man," Sam said earnestly as the dust settled. "We'll do some research, we'll figure it out." He leaned forward, his pack creaking with the weight of the wings. "We have a whole book on Bucky. We're going to find him and get him the help he needs. You know that." At Steve's defeated nod, Sam continued, "As for Peggy-"
Steve kicked at the roots, pulling his helmet off. "She deserves better than this!" He stopped and turned to Sam. "She was the best woman, no- the best person I ever met and she would have done everything in her power to fight Hydra if she could have. Now people will think that she helped build it from the inside. This isn't fair!"
"Life isn't fair, man." Sam stood and stepped closer to Steve. "We lose the best people all the time."
Steve was damn near a tantrum and he didn't care. "That's not an excuse! If I were there I would have seen it. I would have known it wasn't her. The scars alone I would have known-" Steve threw his helmet to the forest floor in anger and stopped dead at the hollow metallic sound it made when it bounced back. He looked to Sam before dropping to his knees, pawing through the dirt to reveal a metallic hatch door, aged and withered with time.
They cleared the hatch, both men having to pull to get the rusted hinges to work. The groan of the metal echoed through the hole in the ground, the stale smell of old air and mold floating up to them. Steve and Sam stared at it, both unsure of what they would find in the dark hole.
Sam pulled out a small flashlight, shedding more light on the small ladder that he hoped would be enough to support them. "You ready to find out?"
Steve bent down and picked up his helmet, slipping it back over his head, an eerie calm overtaking him. "Only one way to know."
Steve nearly jumped into the hole, catching onto the ladder with a metallic groan as it pulled against the nuts and bolts holding it together. Sam followed, hearing his friend drop to a concrete floor only a few feet below him. Dim emergency lighting could be seen not too far ahead, but the men both pulled out small flashlights anyway. "This is not even close to what I expected," Sam pushed away a cobweb as thick as silk, pressing deeper into the corridor next to Steve.
"Me neither." Steve inched closer to the wall and continued his slow creep forward.
Sam ducked under a hanging pipe that no longer held whatever it was meant to carry and looked at his friend. "What the hell were you expecting?"
Steve shrugged, the tunnel seemed to go on for a few hundred feet more at least, but the door at the end hung wide open on it's hinges, more murky grey beyond it. "I don't know. A Hydra base, guards. Maybe even just an office with some files." Steve stopped, shaking the piece of fabric that hung on the side of the tunnel, revealing the Hydra symbol under the dust. "Even if this is just an emergency exit, it's been neglected far too long for this place to be active."
Sam was quiet as they neared the door on the other end, but couldn't help but ask the question. "What did you hope to find here?"
"Peggy," he blurted without thinking. "A little house and her waiting on the porch for me."
"Like a present?"Sam laughed lightly. "Well, no one can accuse you of not being an optimist."
"I know she's not here." Steve stopped at the doorway, standing straight, his voce a little more broken that he wanted it to sound under the circumstances. "I just- I hope she didn't suffer. She said she tried to keep Zola from killing her. I want that to mean that Peggy's alive, but I know that's not true." He looked into the grey hole, the dust swirling in the dim light of a corridor of emergency lighting. "Whatever I find here, info on Peggy, on Bucky… it'll be worth it. I can clear their names, their memory."
"Then let's go." Sam slipped through the doorway first and turned right into the hallway, the space a little larger, a little more formal.
There were doors now, but it was painfully obvious that the base had been abandoned long ago. Why the electricity was still working after enough time had passed to put a thick layer of dust over everything, he wasn't sure.
Slowly they swept through every room. It was a small base, two circular corridors that led to one last hallway with one door. Offices in each corridor were gone through, papers and files were perused and pondered over, but there was nothing that referenced the Winter Soldier, Margaret Carter, or anything even remotely useful.
"Six empty offices and four full of expense reports." Sam shook his head and put the folder down on the dusty desk in front of him. "For a secret organization trying to take over the world, they really liked their paperwork."
Steve shrugged and leaned against the wall, his shield hunching his back as he took his helmet off. "We've got one more room."
"Hey, don't get all sappy on me." Sam walked over and took Steve's helmet from him, plopping it back on his head unceremoniously. "Did you see that room? With the heavy door and the green glowing light under it and the crazy keypad lock? If this were a horror movie that room is where the monster is, the big bad. If there's any information to be had here, it's in that room."
"You're right," Steve straightened up and strapped his helmet back on. "One more room."
Sam leveled his gun and leaned against the doorframe, ready to go back into the corridor, just in case. "If there's nothing there, we'll deal with it then."
They walked slowly to the end of the hallway, finding the keypad lock broken and the door unlocked. Steve swung the door in slowly, his shield up, Sam right behind him with his gun aimed high.
An eerie green glow pervaded the room, but all they saw were rows of cabinets, just like every other room, with files missing or dumped on the floor. An empty desk was heavy with dust. The room had been abandoned and they were the first in it in years, just like every other room in the base.
"What's that smell?" Sam asked, sniffing lightly.
Steve pressed further into the room. The chemicals assaulted him, the scent nearly gagging him. "Smells like oil, some kind of cleaning agent, iodine maybe, too." He looked back at Sam, but a flash caught his eye over Sam's head on the other side of the room. "There."
Sam tuned and they both hovered over the circular pumping tank. It was moving some kind of liquid gel, something that was heavy and slugged through the system. The hum wasn't very loud, but it was still working. "What the…?" Sam ran his hand carefully over the metal body, exposing the metal plates covered in German writing.
Steve leaned in, his fingers running over each as he read it. "Warning: shock. High Voltage." His eyebrows leaped high on his head as he ran it over a square box that was wrapped around one pipe. "Caution: Gamma Rays."
"Like that Banner guy?" Sam asked, following Steve as he made his way along the pipe.
"Like Bruce Banner," Steve confirmed as he dusted off another plate. "Caution: Vita Rays."
Sam turned to Steve, "Vita Rays? Some crazy health kick I don't know about?"
"It's a small spectrum of high frequency ultraviolet light. It's what made me-" Steve stood and turned, the words dying on his lips. His shield dropped from his hands, landing on the floor with a soft thunk.
"Made you what?" Sam turned, expecting to see a bigger machine, or a green light, hell, perhaps even a hulk. This was none of those things. "What the hell?"
The whole wall behind the door was a monolith of working lights and wires that they'd already glimpsed, but as the huge door swung slowly away it revealed a glass tank filled with a grey-green gel. The tank had frost coating it's corners, obscuring what was inside, but not obscuring it nearly enough. "Peggy," Steve whispered, rushing to it.
She was suspended, naked, in the center, hanging there like a ghost of the woman she'd been, hair plastered to her head and neck, eyes closed and lips tinged blue. The red of her painted fingernails shone through the gel like a beacon. "Oh my god," Sam whispered, reaching Steve's side.
Steve gently touched the glass, pulling back when he felt the sting of electric current.
"What do we do?" Sam asked, looking at the readouts and dials, his heart pounding. When Steve didn't answer Sam pulled him around, tugging off his helmet and forcing the man to look in his eyes. "What do we do?" he yelled.
Sam would have sworn he saw the moment when Steve Rogers, overwhelmed at finding his lost love suspended in a tank of green gel and barely gasping for breath, turned into Captain America, tall, strong, sure, and taking charge.
"Go to the car. Get the notebook and the clothes from the trunk. I'm going to call for help." Steve stood tall, watching as Sam turned and left.
All at once he wanted to and didn't want to turn around. This was her, could be her, but he needed to be sure. Despite the tingle of electricity, he turned and reached over, wiping the frost from the glass. His cheeks reddened at the site of her. Without the frost the gel was crystal clear, revealing a form he'd only ever imagined. But he wasn't there for that now. No, he was looking at her right shoulder, for two small marks that were exactly where he expected them to be.
He'd checked, of course. The woman pretending to be Peggy hadn't had those two little reminders that when Steve said to stay down he meant to stay down. Peggy had gotten them on an ill-fated mission in the Alps three weeks before Bucky died. He'd been furious with her as he held his hand against her shoulder, nearly panicking at the sight of her blood.
It had been the one time he'd seen her in anything less than full dress, when they'd pulled her into the tree line and he'd exposed her shoulder, looking to see how bad it was. He knew exactly where those bullet holes were, could draw them from memory.
The cloned Peggy hadn't had them.
This Peggy did.
He dug frantically for his phone and thanked God that by some fluke of science that he had a signal in the underground bunker, though it probably had more to do with the tech inside the phone than anything.
He punched the video call button furiously, waiting for the gruff tone at the other end he knew was coming.
"Cap, long time no talk. Nice work in DC." Tony Stark was as snarky as usual, a crooked smile on his face, but it fell quickly. "What's wrong?"
"Get the suit on and get here," Steve ordered, his face stone set.
"Uh, gonna need a little more than that," Tony said, but Steve could tell that Tony was already on the move to get ready. "What's-"
Steve turned the phone around, leaning over to make sure he got exactly what he wanted to on the camera. Peggy would have to forgive him for her state of undress later when they saved her life. "Do you remember Peggy Carter? Because this is her- alive, and we need to get her out of there."
Steve turned the phone back around, seeing Tony's stunned face. "But I thought she died two days ago…" His voice trailed off, pain and grief written in between the syllables.
"I have a long story," Steve said as he watched the Iron Man suit materialize around Tony, "but you need to get here now."
"Half hour, tops," Tony said as the video screen switched from the view on his phone to the interior camera in the helmet of his suit. "For now, turn that thing around and start translating all that German for me on that control panel, maybe we can get a head start. Jarvis?"
The robot's voice answered, joining their call. "Yes sir?"
"Lock in to the GPS on Roger's phone, get me on autopilot so I don't have to watch out for any trees."
"It should work," Tony said, standing in jeans and his t-shirt. His suit was sitting in its portable briefcase, the bracelets on his hands signaling that Iron Man was only a few seconds away if need be. "I've never even heard of a concept for this kind of suspended animation, but from everything we've found here, and everything I know – which, incidentally, is a lot, it should work."
Sam had taken to gathering anything he thought they'd need as Steve and Tony talked, Steve translating anything in the room in German that Tony thought might be helpful. Along with Steve's clothes and the first aid kit from the car they now had a mostly intact lounge chair, a fire blanket that was only half moth eaten, a jug of potable water and he'd used some old towels he found in a supply closet to make the area as clean as possible. He stood next to them now, waiting for whatever he could help with.
"And you're sure she's alive right now?" Steve asked, hope swelling in his voice and lighting a fire behind his eyes.
"Absolutely sure." Tony shrugged and pointed at the needle that was bouncing. At one point it had scratched ink into a tape of paper running through it, but now it simply bounced it's way through space, leaving a groove in the rubber pad beneath it. "If that's what you translated it as, it means she's still maintaining higher brain functions. I don't know what the hell that gel is, but you can be damn sure I'm going to find out, because if you look at her chest-"
"Careful," Steve warned tightly.
"You can see she's started breathing," Tony finished. "She's a gorgeous lady, Cap, but she was like a second messed-up mother to me. Or, the other one was. That's gonna mess with my brain for a while, that's for sure." He shook his head and looked up to the glass case, the gel moving slightly now with each breath of it she took. "It's not active breathing, not conscious… I think it's sorta like a baby in the womb- it's there, it carries oxygen, so there's a transfer- like a baby's lungs filled with amniotic fluid. When she was frozen before she didn't need to breathe. Now, it's just- carrying what she needs to her tissues, and her body's… practicing."
Tony turned and put a hand on Steve shoulder. "I'll put the suit on. If things go wrong I can have her in one of the most advanced intensive care units in the nation in less than twenty minutes." Steve nodded. "But they're not going to go wrong."
Sam took the notebook from Tony as he held out his hands, the bracelets glowing just a bit and the armor coming to life to mold and attach to his body. He left the helmet off, setting it to the side. "It's been a half hour," Sam said quietly, pointing to the two buttons next to one another: one a silver knob, one bright red.
"I'll do it." Steve stepped forward, his hand resting lightly on the knob.
"Don't be-" Sam started and stopped, looking between Steve and Tony. "If it goes wrong…"
"We tried," Steve said, looking up into her unmoving face. "We tried, Peggy."
"Do it," Tony commanded softly, his robotic hand gently on Steve's shoulder.
He twisted the knob. At first it looked like nothing happened, but slowly they could see the gel drawing down the edges of the glass. It took only minutes, pulling Peggy limply down as the level dropped, the gel filtering out until only a layer of the stuff was left at the bottom and covering her, a gurgling sound filling the air as the last of it filtered out through a drain.
She wasn't moving, she wasn't breathing.
"Red button," Sam said urgently. "Press the red button."
Steve slammed his hand down on the red button, reaching to press one hand on the glass just as the lights dimmed and a current flowed through the floor of the case, sparking to life over the gel and over Peggy's body. She convulsed, lying on her back, arms and legs thrown like a rag doll. The sparking disappeared into smoke, and the scent of burnt hair floated through the room. "No," Steve whispered, pressing his hands to the glass.
"She's breathing," Sam cried out happily, but it was short lived as she tried to breathe and instead coughed up the heinous dregs of gel over the edges of her lips.
"That's not good," Tony said, rushing the glass. "I don't know what it is, but I don't think it was meant for active breathing."
Steve picked up his shield, ramming the glass as she coughed. "I'm coming, Peggy," he yelled, running farther back with each attempt as tiny cracks formed in the glass, grunting as he crashed harder and harder into it until on his fifth try it shattered around him. He climbed up on the small platform, slipping to his knees on the gel. "Peggy," He cried as he reached her, turning her onto her side and holding her head straight.
Sam was right behind him, laying the fire blanket over her. It wasn't much, but the gel still seemed cold and she was as naked as the day she'd been born. Tony, still in his suit and afraid of what the gel might do to it, leaned over the control panel. "Hit her on the back, nice and easy a few times."
Steve did as he was told, gentle thump that led to her coughing, her eyes squeezed shut tight as the gel flew from her lips in coughing fits. He wrapped the blanket around her, cleaning the gel away from her face with his glove at first, finally tossing the glove to the side to use his hand when that didn't work.
"Peggy," he whispered when it seemed like the worst of the coughing was over and her breath slowed to a labored wheeze. "Open your eyes for me, Peggy."
There was a choking sound that panicked him for a moment, but it was just her attempt to speak as a strangled "Ste-" slipped from her lips.
He pulled her into his lap, using Sam's help to slide her to the edge of the case. Tony helped them lift her over the broken glass and onto the lounge. "I'm here, Peggy, I've got you."
"Knew you'd come," she breathed out, coughs wracking her body for a moment. Steve knelt by her side, using one of the cleanest towels they had to clear the gel from her face and smooth out her hair. When her breathing steadied she inched open her eyes, a smile sitting on her face before they fluttered closed again.
"That hospital you mentioned?" Steve looked up at Tony expectantly.
"Get her in something that won't fall off of her while we're flying and I'll have her there in less than twenty minutes. Fifteen if I can catch the jet stream."
Sam already had his hands full of Steve's clothes that he'd shed in favor of his suit. Steve looked at it, pulling his plain blue t-shirt from the pile and gently pulling it over her head slipping each arm through with the fire blanket still wrapped around her. He looked at the little that was left: His jeans and boxers, and picked the boxers. He slipped them over her legs and under the blanket as carefully as he could, pulling the blanket away once they were up over her hips. "Is there and tape or gauze in that kit?" he asked, looking at Sam.
"Steve," Peggy murmured, a smile on her lips as her eyes flickered open again as Sam handed him a tiny roll of tape.
Steve stopped what he was doing to stroke over the side of her face. Her skin felt rubbery, not as soft as he remembered it. "There's my best girl," he whispered, not caring about anyone else in the room as he leaned over to kiss her cheek. "We're gonna get you to a hospital."
He gathered the extra girth of the waistband of his shorts in one hand and wrapped the tape around it tightly, creating a knot that would at least hold them on her for the meantime.
Her arms were weak, but she reached of for him, failing and flailing instead. "Stay," she croaked desperately, tears flooding the tiny slits he could see her eyes through.
It broke his heart, but he knew what they had to do.
"I'll meet you there. But you have to trust me on this." Steve grasped her hands tight, tipping his head for Tony to come closer. "Tony will fly you to the hospital. I'll be right behind you guys."
Peggy's lips were still slightly blue, she still quivered with cold or shock, none of them knew which, but she grew stock still for a moment when she looked at Tony. "Howard?" she whispered, before her eyes closed and she lost consciousness.
"That's my cue," Tony said, popping his helmet in place and sweeping in and lifting Peggy from the couch, not even allowing Steve the time to attempt a goodbye. "See you there. Should take you just under an hour, I'll have Jarvis send your phone the coordinates." As he spoke the thrusters in his legs lifted him off the floor and he leaned forward, out of the room just as he finished his sentence.
Sam looked at Steve, shaking and covered in goo, and reached for another old but fairly clean towel. "Clean yourself up," Sam ordered the shell-shocked man, tossing him the towel. "We have a hospital to get to."
The world was swimming. Deep blacks and bright whites that exploded behind her eyes. The dreams were closer this time. It felt like Steve had been there, and another man with dark skin, but he wasn't… and Howard, but stronger and older and… and… and it was slipping away already. She didn't want it to slip away. She didn't want to live in the dreams.
It was better than the reality. The shivering, naked reality where they woke her to ask questions, to find out secrets, to let her sit shivering and covered in gel in the cold concrete room once again until she said what they wanted to hear, or until they got frustrated with her silence and shoved her back into that godforsaken tank where she felt like she was drowning over and over until there was nothingness.
But she felt warm. She hadn't felt warm in as long as she could remember. It was always cold and slime and darkness until she choked and choked for air and then nothing.
She was warm. Maybe that meant it was ending. Maybe that meant that she was dying.
Steve watched from her bedside as her eyes flickered beneath her eyelids. By the time he'd gotten to the hospital they'd had her cleaned up and in an ICU isolation room. He'd walked right past all of the nurses and doctors, hauling a chair into the isolation unit and sitting by her side as Tony worked to placate the flustered staff.
Her hair was still wet and matted, pulled up and over the pillow and away from her face. He'd brush it for her once it dried, he thought to himself. Her lips weren't quite as blue any more, and her hands had a bright pink blush to them- cold extremities happy with the warm flow of blood once again.
He tucked the blankets tighter around her and waited, his hands folded in the prayers his mother had taught him.
She didn't want to get used to the warmth. And she didn't think she'd thought this much in a long, long time. It couldn't be a good sign.
Unless…
She could swear she smelled it- something akin to that musk that he liked. Not quite, but close enough, and the sound of breathing. She felt like she hadn't heard anything but screaming and the hum of electricity in decades. But it was there. Warm gentle and so reminiscent of the nights in the field where she stayed up, close to the edge of her single tent, listening for his heavy breathing in the tent next to hers.
Steve. Every cell in her body screamed that Steve had saved her.
Her brain reminded her that she'd accepted he was dead, had poured the last of his blood over the Brooklyn bridge years ago.
But she was warm. Maybe she was dying, maybe she'd been rescued. Maybe…
For now she was warm, and she wasn't going to waste a second of what finally felt like rest.
"I can't get him to leave," Sam said, watching Steve stare at Peggy through the ICU room window.
Tony sighed and shifted, turning his back to the window as he addressed the man next to him. "He won't. He's a stubborn spangled man."
Sam laughed lightly, shaking his head. "I brought up a suitcase- just some things I grabbed from his apartment yesterday. I got a room, but he won't- he won't even go to sleep."
Tony pulled Sam away from the window and into the empty waiting room across the hallway before he spoke again. "We talked about her once. Only once. But-" Tony looked away and shook his head. "When I was growing up, that woman who was a fake was around all the time. She cared about my dad, she cared about me, I know that, deep down, even after she messed everything up. Thing is, she never really told me about herself. She never talked about Steve. She never talked about that time he was around as much as my Dad tried to make her, and now I know why. She knew about it, but she hadn't been the person that was there." Tony licked his lips and played with the sunglasses in his hands. "When Steve came back, well, it was fresh. He'd just missed that date."
Sam shrugged. "I mean, he loved her, right?"
"They were in the middle of a war. You know what that's like. The way he talked about her…" Tony's eyes drifted to the open door, even though he couldn't see Steve. "I don't even know how to describe how important she must have been to him."
"He only ever said he was visiting her…" Sam sighed, his memories of war and fear and desperation filtering into his consciousness and how much he would have loved to have someone to hold on to in that time.
"She was dying," Tony whispered. "That woman was dying. He didn't want to get more attached than he already was."
It was soft. Everything around her was soft. She didn't know how else to describe it. Soft, and warm, and it smelled vaguely like Steve.
She felt calm, rested. Safe.
Peggy couldn't remember the last time she felt safe.
She could remember cold and shocks and the smell of burnt hair in her nose as they brought her to consciousness again and the bitter cold of the gel as it pooled around her and the pain as she sucked it into her lungs when she couldn't hold her breath anymore.
All of those memories were fading faster and faster into nothing as flashes of Steve crossed her mind, as she saw someone that might be Gabe Jones in the background, helping to pull her from a shattered case, as she remembered an older, stronger Howard in some tin can hovering over her, lifting her, and then flying.
She remembered flying and thinking that she'd lost Steve again.
She thought she was dying but maybe…
If she opened her eyes in a cold, cement block room, she would be disappointed. She knew she'd be disappointed. She wanted to wake up. She wanted him to be there.
If she focused, she could flutter her eyes. She could force them open. Maybe, maybe she could wake up.
"I just, I don't want her to be alone, you know?" Steve toyed with his paper coffee cup, looking across the bed to where Tony was sitting. "It was terrifying when I woke up. I thought Hydra had me. I- I didn't even really have time to think. I just knew it was all fake and I ended up busting through half of SHIELD's Manhattan office. I didn't know who to trust."
Tony nodded, looking over at Peggy. "I get it. But she's well taken care of here. You can go home. I doubt she'll have the strength to bust anything up. Plus, they don't know when she'll wake up."
"Exactly." Steve set his cup down on the bedside table. "I don't want her to be alone because I decided to go home for a little while."
Tony scratched his head and looked at the way Steve watched her, he couldn't quite quantify the feeling in the pit of his stomach. "I'd offer to stay, but…"
"She won't know you." Steve finished it, solemnly.
"No. And to tell you the truth, I don't know her either." Tony leaned back, thinking over all the times the clone had taken care of him, had been in his home. "You know, once I figured out what my Dad had done, all the weapons contracts he took after the War, I was furious with her."
"With Peggy?" Steve asked, looking up, his brows knit.
"The other Peggy, yeah." Tony sighed deep and leaned his elbows on his knees, looking the woman in the bed over. "She was the one who talked my Dad into a lot of those questionable contracts. She gave him some bull about it helping SHIELD and protecting us by proxy." Tony shrugged and leaned back. "I stopped visiting the 'her' in the nursing home when I saw what our tech had done." His tone left no room for argument, no room for confusion about how he'd felt about her recommendations. "My Dad held her in such high regard that after a while he just did anything she said- and I couldn't figure out why someone that he thought was so above reproach was telling him to sell weapons to the highest bidder and take up these questionable government contracts, but he'd do it, with big stars in his eyes, too, because it was her." He rubbed his hands over his face. "I didn't understand it when I was a kid, I just thought maybe they were sleeping together back then, that she had him under her thumb for some reason. I understood it even less when I realized what kind of a hand she had in getting Stark tech into the hands of terrorists. It makes sense now."
Steve hung his head. "She did so much damage. That woman, posing as Peggy..." Steve didn't finish his sentence, he couldn't. It brought too many mixed emotions to the surface.
"She'll have to live with it," Tony whispered, nodding at Peggy, "but if she's anything like my Dad thought she was, like the woman I got a glimpse of occasionally in that clone, she'll not only turn it all around, she'll make it better."
Steve carefully grasped her hand, warm and pink and finally as soft as he remembered, but still with tubes taped into her skin. "She's going to be horrified, so upset. I would be."
"She will." Tony was matter of fact about it as he stood, which surprised Steve, but his voice was warmer as Tony dropped a hand comfortingly on Steve's shoulder. "But she'll have you, so that's a start."
She couldn't put it off any longer. Her brain had swum to consciousness a while ago. At first it was vague, the light seeping between her lashes, the sounds of the machines around her, the gentle blow of air from a vent somewhere and the quiet breathing of someone close to her. It was all fuzzy and nebulous enough that she could lull herself back to sleep, that she could pretend it was a dream.
She couldn't pretend anymore. Her body ached to take a deeper breath, to move, to shift. They'd fooled her before, though. Just once. They'd tricked her with a warm bed and a bowl of soup and a promise to let her go just before they shoved her back into that vat, back into the thick sludge that made her feel like a horrific, grotesque Jell-O mold.
Yet, if they were going to fool her, she couldn't do anything about it. She'd had dreams, and warmth, and more thoughts than she could remember in the blank time that she could feel passing when she was in the gel. It was space and time that she could feel marching when she was frozen in there, but she couldn't think, couldn't move, couldn't be, she could just wait.
She couldn't wait anymore.
She slowly opened her eyes a crack, took a slightly deeper breath.
The bright lights hurt; hurt to focus, hurt to look, but she adjusted quickly. A ceiling, beige walls, and lowered blinds in a style she'd never seen before. She blinked and then tried at her hands. It was just a small movement, just enough to figure out if they had her cuffed or restrained. The movement rustled the crisp sheets more than she'd wanted, made enough noise to draw attention to her.
"Peggy?"
She snapped her head to the side so quickly at his voice that it hurt, but she didn't much care.
Steve.
It was Steve.
He fell from the chair to his knees at her bedside, his hands gently framing her face, his eyes glued to hers. "Peggy? Can you hear me? Are you- are you ok?"
"Steve?" She breathed, her heart pounding hard in her chest, the monitor over her head beeping with the increased rhythm.
"I'm here," he whispered, brushing the hair back from her face. "We found you." He smiled, just a little. "I found you."
Peggy took a shaky breath, smiling back as tears filled her eyes. In all the time she'd been in that horrible place, in all the fantasies of Steve finding her, or the Howling Commandos coming to her recuse, or anyone for that matter, she'd never truly believed that it would happen. She'd believed she'd die in that green sludge. "And here I was all those years," she whispered, reaching up to hold his hand, "thinking I'd be the one to find you."
He swallowed hard, looking down. "There's- there's a lot you missed, Peggy."
"I'm sure," she nodded morosely. At his words all she could see was the green sludge, obscuring her vision as she struggled, the men in the full body suits that held her down, the radiation and the syringes and the screaming.
Her eyes unfocused and Steve started to panic as she squeezed his hand tight. "Peggy, Peggy?"
"Cap, I-" Tony walked in, swinging the door wide with a loud swagger, startling Peggy enough to jump back with a sharp cry, scrambling to the head of her bed. Tony stopped dead, pulling his sunglasses off to watch the pair in amazement.
Steve jumped to his feet, reaching for her hands. "It's ok, it's fine. That's just Tony."
Tony threw his hands up, closing the door gently. "I'm just Tony."
Peggy slowly calmed down, hands squeezing Steve's as she slowed her breathing. "Just…Tony?"
Tony slowly let his hands fall, didn't move as she carefully raked her eyes over him, cataloging him. "For now." He tried to smile, to show that he was here to help. "I can give you the autobiography when you're feeling up to it."
"Tony," she whispered, looking back and forth between the two men.
"He helped me rescue you," Steve supplied, a small smile turning up the corners of his mouth as he settled Peggy to sitting, reaching over to raise the head of the bed.
Peggy squinted, looking closer at him. "You- you had a helmet. And you- flew?"
Tony smiled. "Yup. That's the short version, at least." He shrugged and took a cautious step further in as he put his hands in his pockets. "Again, I'll give you the long version when you're feeling better."
"I'm a bit overwhelmed," Peggy revealed quietly, a slow smile starting to tug at her lips, "But I feel better than I have in…" She let it drift away, not wanting to say the words. Not wanting to say that she had given up on home after a month with Zola in that bunker, not wanting to mention that she'd given up on the rescue mission because she figured they wouldn't waste time rescuing a girl. She wanted to ask how long they'd waited, how long it took them to figure out she was missing, she wanted to ask so badly who had noticed first, and why it wasn't any number of people she'd actually believed (at least for a little while) that could rescue her.
Her heart broke a little. She must have been gone so long for them to find Steve before they found her.
Her heart mended, just a bit, because of course Steve would be the one to find her, to know her value.
"Peggy?"
Steve's voice broke her reverie, calling her back to the present. "Yes, of course. I'm… Thank you, for saving me."
Tony laughed, a guffaw that seemed very out of place, but he shook his head. "That was the most English, proper thanks I've gotten for rescuing someone, ever." He smiled wide. "You're very welcome, Agent Carter."
Steve just rolled his eyes. "Are you here for a reason, Tony?"
"Since you mention it," Tony strode closer, a sly smile on his face. "I sent Bruce the sample of the gel. He got one look at it and he was on the first plane out of God-knows-where. He'll be here tomorrow morning."
Peggy looked up, her eyes wide. "The gel I was in?"
"Yeah." Tony nodded, his hands fidgeting behind his back, unsure of how to step. "Dr. Bruce Banner is one of the foremost scientists in the world when it comes to bio-organics and Gamma Radiation, both of which you were exposed to."
"So then you know what they did to me?" Peggy's question was hopeful, but fearful at the same time, Steve held her hand tighter.
"Not yet," Tony admitted sheepishly. "No records. Everything we pulled from the facility itself was useless- except for you, of course." He smiled, but was met with only a blank stare. He cleared his throat to continue. "As soon as Bruce gets here we're hunkering down in that bunker, going through everything, seeing what we can find."
Tony looked back and forth between Steve and Peggy. "If, uh, you can remember anything. It might be helpful." He looked down at his shoes, then back up solemnly. "Bruce wanted a blood sample, too, if you're willing to give it."
Peggy nodded, even though the thought of a needle made her cringe internally. "Of course."
"I'll, um…" Tony stepped back, slowly edging out of the room. "I'll text you details later, ok, Steve?"
"Yeah, thanks." Steve didn't even look back at him, just kept his eyes on Peggy, who was watching him as he left.
"Sorry," Steve mumbled out when he was gone. "That was a lot for just waking up."
"I suspect everything will be a lot." Peggy took a deep breath. The clothes, the room, the way Tony spoke… this wasn't the same year she'd left. In fact, she'd venture to guess it was farther in the future than she'd like to admit. Sure, Steve looked the same, but Erskine always thought he'd age slower, that he would be young and strong and, well- the word Phillips had used was useful, as a soldier long after the rest of his division had passed. It could be ten years, twenty years, hell, if she stretched her imagination, maybe even fifty years after she last remembered.
"Getting used to what's happened," Steve shook his head and sat on the edge of her bed, cradling her hand, "It won't be easy."
Peggy smiled. "Do you know me? I've never done things the easy way." She sighed softly. "But they've always been worth it." She looked around the room, looked Steve up and down as he watched her. "So give it to me straight, then, what year is it?"
Steve cringed. "Guess."
Peggy looked around the room, looked up and down at the tubes in her hands, at Steve's clothes. "Well, long enough for a lot of changes. Low guess, 1962… longer- Well, I'd say somewhere around 1983. I can't imagine they had me in that thing and I came out feeling this good after so long, but it's clearly not anytime I might remember." Steve's face didn't budge, just held that slightly screwed up, slightly bashful look that she knew meant she was wrong. "Longer than '62?"
"Longer than '83," he told her, his look betraying how much she wasn't going to like this.
She took a deep breath and sat a bit straighter. "Well then, get the shock over with. It's in the 90's, isn't it?"
"Twenty-fifteen." Steve pushed his shoulders down, his face strong and severe. "When I said a lot had happened, I wasn't lying. It's- it's a really long story."
Tears welled in Peggy's eyes. Perhaps it was everything catching up with her, perhaps it was the realization that it was so very long, longer than she ever imagined. Perhaps… perhaps it was the look of sorrow and regret on Steve's face. A tear slipped over her lashes, but Steve didn't let it get past the swell in her cheek before he wiped it away with his thumb. "In that case," Peggy fought for composure, "we better get started. I seem to have some time on my hands for a story, how about you?"
Steve nodded, "I do. All the time in the world."
"Good, because my story starts off by being stood up." She smiled, just a bit, and the responding shake of Steve's head was just what she needed.
"Hey, I have a very good reason!" He countered, his fear of that time nearly dissipated by now.
Peggy playfully pushed on his shoulder. "Right, well, I'm going first. I was stood up."
"Late." He took her hand, far too careful with it in her opinion as he made his weak rebuttal.
She shook her head, wishing her hair were done and not falling in uncontrolled waves around her face as she moved. "That's how you tell it."
Steve leaned forward, his eyes sparkling, and his face serious. "I'm here now."
Peggy smiled, letting her hand slide over his cheek and down to his shoulder. "We both are, my darling." She gently shoved him back, a fire in her eyes. "Now, right after the war, which I'm sure you know we won by now, I transferred to the New York office of the SSR."
Peggy slowly told her story, reviewed each moment she had wished he'd been there for, every step, every villain she took down, every adventure with Howard and Jarvis, and she couldn't help but feel excited at the spark she saw in Steve's eyes.
There was a darkness that swirled inside her, a deep, creeping secret, things she didn't want to know about the how and why of why she was still alive, why it took so long to find her, but that didn't matter. At least not right now.
Steve was back, and he was listening to her story, and she was going to hear his.
For all the fear and darkness she'd endured, for all the nightmares she knew she would still have, that monster of a man brought her to this moment.
The good Doctor Zola, as they all called him, kept her alive for his own purposes, but in the end, he gave her a second chance.