Chapter 2
The 1938 Indian Chief rumbled to life with a kick of his heel, the throaty bass of its powerful engine reassuring beneath his thighs as it out into the Lower East Side traffic. The blue-and-grey motorcycle was a relic, like him. The dream bike his Irish-immigrant parents could only have dreamed of him someday owning, although they had both died so young Steve had hardly gotten to know them.
At least traffic hadn't changed all that much in the time he'd been asleep, though there was certainly a lot more of it now. The increase in volume was offset by the fact it barely moved, enabling him to weave in and out of stopped cars like a ribbon being braided into a pretty girls' hair. Narrowly missing a car door unexpectedly opened in the middle of the gridlocked Holland tunnel, Steve kicked the clutch and shifted gears using the 'suicide shift' located next to the gas tank to maneuver without braking. No matter how much things changed, some things always remained the same. Like idiot drivers!
He wore aviation sunglasses instead of the goggles he'd worn back in 1944. The helmet upon his head was hard resin rather than the soft leather worn during World War II, but the feel of the wind caressing his cheeks had changed little in the time he'd been asleep. The briny scent of the Meadowlands was so thick it was nearly palpable, though less so than it would be mid-summer when sun increased the rate of decay. Stark had built him an enhanced super-helmet with its own AI, but the full-faced wind-guard had left Steve gasping for air. They'd finally compromised by building a radio into his helmet that, for the most part, remained silent. Just in case they needed to reach him.
Plunking a handful of coins into the tollbooth to exit the Jersey Turnpike, Steve wound along the nameless river, the scent of the salt marsh fading the further he travelled inland. He forced his mind to focus on the sun, the curve of the road, the Indian throbbing reassuringly into his crotch as he drove. Years of self-discipline taught to him by the military helped him subdue the butterflies threatening to erupt out of his stomach as either vomit, or tears. Ninety-four years old. Peggy Carter was ninety-four years old. Really ninety-four years old. Not just twenty-five with a sixty-seven year gap like he had, but old.
"Somerset Valley Rehabilitation Center," Steve read aloud, staring at the white-and-green sign with apprehension. Squat, low buildings stretched across pleasant, neatly tended grounds. He guided the bike into a parking spot, though it wasn't difficult to find one in the nearly empty lot, and kicked down the kickstand. The engine fell silent as he stared at the place Peggy had been sent to die. He sat, squeezing the brakes on the handlebar in and out as he tried to pull himself together.
Ninety-four years old. Peggy's son had reassured him his mother was still pretty sharp for a ninety-four year old woman, but warned she'd gotten forgetful the past few years. Sometimes she mistook her grandchildren for friends who were long dead and in the grave. Had he really made enough of an impression upon her all those years ago that she'd remember him? The scrawny Irish kid from the Lower East Side of Manhattan who'd thrown his body across a dud grenade and not the image of Captain America the military had fostered to sell war bonds?
The lobby of the nursing home seemed homey enough, with a fireplace and powder-blue walls as though it were a living room in a private home. The scent of old-people mixed with urine, however, was unmistakable. Death. A place people were sent to die when they became too much of a burden on their loved ones. He'd been spared that unpleasantness with his own parents by their untimely deaths, but that just meant when his own time came to sit in a wheelchair and soil his britches there'd be nobody left alive to visit him. Empty. The nursing home was empty except for elderly patients left staring vacantly at the wall. A perky woman wearing white nursing shoes shuffled from patient to patient, sniffing to make sure nobody needed a change of Depends, but otherwise her charges were left alone with their own mortality. Steve followed signs down a long, featureless yellow hall to the nursing station.
"I'm here to see Peggy Carter … um … Miller," Steve said to the middle-aged African-American woman seated behind the station. She was dressed in street clothing, not a nurse's uniform, but her business-like demeanor and the badge clipped to her chest stated she was an LPN.
"All the way down this hallway," the nurse said, her expression possessing the infinite tolerance learned by those who cared for the elderly. "Take a left, go down to the end, take a right, and look for room B-112."
"Thanks, Ma'am," Steve said. He resisted the urge to salute her. Despite her lack of a uniform, the woman oozed authority.
He squared his shoulders and moved in the direction she had said, resisting the urge to cringe as cries came out of one of the open doors. Nobody moved to comfort the weeping woman, but a patient across the hall shouted 'shut up!' and slammed shut their door. B-wing. He counted room numbers as he passed Room 106, 108, 110. He paused in front of the non-descript door marked 112, nothing except the placard with two names on it differentiating it from any other door in this facility. He paused to compose his emotions. Goldstein. And Miller. A shared room.
The door swung open. An enormous brown artists' portfolio hit him square in the chest, his arm flying up just in time to prevent it from hitting him in the face. Brown eyes stared up into his. A surprised squeak escaped perfect lips that had been etched into his memory, so many times had he longed to kiss them.
"P-p-peggy?" Steve stammered.
"Oh!"
The portfolio slid from her arms, spewing its contents all over the nursing home floor. He bent to help her pick them up and banged heads as she bent down at the same time. The woman gave a cry of dismay as an errant gust of wind from an exterior door caused the pictures to slide across the grey-and-white tiles. The sketches were followed a millisecond later by the contents of her purse as it slipped her grasp and dumped out. Pencils rolled everywhere, the tiny sticks artificially loud in the quiet corridor. The woman scrambled to gather them up before they were stepped on by a passing patient.
"I'm sorry," Steve said, scrutinizing the woman who'd just exited Peggy's room. "I should have knocked."
The eyes and lips were Peggy's, but her long, jet-black was unlike Peggy's wavy chestnut brown. Her figure was also less curvaceous than Peggy's had been, but still shapely. Her daughter?
"Oh … that's okay," the woman said. Her lips curved into a smile that took his breath away so closely did it mirror that of her mother. "I was just … I should have looked where I was walking."
She gathered sketches of naked men posed in typical art school model poses, yanking one out of the pathway of an elderly man shuffling down the hall with his walker. She exchanged pleasantries with the man, deliberately avoiding Steve's eyes as she stuffed the pictures back into her portfolio. Steve kneeled beside her and gathered her pencils as she queried the elderly patient about his game of Pokeno and his romantic gestures towards a certain Mrs. Schneider. Perfect white teeth flashed a brilliant smile as she forgot he was there.
Steve's chest hurt. He resisted the urge to reach out and give the young woman the kiss he'd never had the chance to give her mother. His heart beat so loudly it felt like it was beating in his ears. This was not Peggy. This must be her daughter … no … impossible … too many years had passed. This would be the granddaughter who would have been his granddaughter had fate not intervened and placed sixty-seven years between him and Peggy Carter, the woman he had intended to marry. The old man bid them farewell and continued his shuffle down the hall.
"Mrs. Goldstein has gone down to the dining room already," the woman said, her expression grateful as Steve handed her back her pencils. "It's meatloaf tonight. Not too bad if you add lots of salt. And pepper. And maybe a little hot sauce. Actually … the meatloaf is pretty bad. Maybe you'll just want to get something out of the vending machine." She flashed a friendly smile that would have lit up the Empire State building.
"I'm here to see Peggy," Steve said. "I'm an old friend."
Confusion flashed across the young woman's eyes as she looked at him, then down the hallway behind him to see if there was somebody else with him. She tucked her enormous artists' portfolio under her arm, artwork hanging precariously from the edges which had yet to be zipped shut to protect its contents.
"She said … um ... shouldn't you be a little older?" she asked, her voice lilting upwards as the top-secret question he couldn't answer hung between them. She jutted out her chin, a bit more rounded than Peggy's heart-shaped jaw, but every bit as determined.
"I look young for my age," Steve said, rising and extending his hand to help her back to her feet. "I'm Steve. Steve Rogers. I knew your mother … uh … grandmother … when she was … um …"
He trailed off. With all of his family and friends dead, this was the first time he'd had to concoct a cover story explaining how he knew someone from World War II when his physical body was still only twenty-five years old. Peggy's son had made a comment about he sounded young for his age when he'd called to set up today's visit. They were expecting another World War 2 veteran, not a young man. He should have given the matter more thought.
The woman's head tilted to one side, her eyes raking his body from his cropped blonde hair to his chino khaki's. He was dressed like a World War 2 veteran, never having quite adjusted to the tight fit of blue jeans now favored by men his age. Right down to his combat-style boots even though he wasn't in uniform. Not that they even made uniforms anymore like he'd worn back when he and Peggy had been … friends.
Steve could practically see her trained artists' eyes taking in every detail of his appearance, burning it into memory for some later sketch. He'd once been an art student himself, back when he'd gone to every Army enlistment station in New York City trying to get them to accept his scrawny, 90-pound rear end to go fight the Jerries. Peggy had been far too practical to be an artist, herself, but her smile the day he'd given her a sketch of herself standing in front of a map of Europe, snapping orders as though she were the general instead of Douglas MacArther, had made his heart melt. This woman's eyes were brown, like Peggy's, but the pink mortification which crept into her cheeks as she realized Steve had caught her checking him out was a humility the brazen Peggy had not possessed. She recovered from her momentary disadvantage and stuck out her hand.
"I'm Bernice," the woman said, her grip less sure of itself than Peggy's had been back when she'd run interference between the military and Howard Stark. "Bernice Rosenthal. Peggy's great-granddaughter. I was just … um … leaving."
"It's nice to meet you, Bernice," Steve said, her resemblance to Peggy causing his hand to linger instead of automatically releasing the handshake. "I … um … I believe I'm expected?"
"Yes," Bernice said, the expression of confusion clouding her face once more. "Though … I think grandma was expecting … um … well she'll be glad you came to visit. For some reason she thought you were the same guy she used to work with back when … um? Kinda crazy, huh? Like you would have been able to knock out those aliens with your shield if … um … well anyways she'll be glad Howard Stark's son thought enough of her to send somebody out here to speak to her."
Steve avoided blurting out that he really was the person Peggy was expecting. Her family had assumed he'd be a geriatric old man. His real identity was classified, as was his real age. Only Peggy and a few aging war veterans were still alive to know otherwise. Bernice stood there, her fingers twirling one of her pencils as though it were itching to take flight across a blank sheet of paper.
"Your grandmother was the most formidable women I ever met," Steve said, choosing a middle ground that would tell the truth without betraying secrets S.H.I.E.L.D. deemed too classified to reveal. "It's an honor to finally be able to see her again."
Whatever thought crossed the young woman's mind, she didn't speak it. An elderly woman called her name from further down the hall, inviting her to visit on her way out. Bernice was obviously a regular visitor here and had ingratiated herself to the nursing homes failing residents. Bernice smiled and tugged her hand from the handshake he'd never released, pointing towards the doorway she'd just exited.
"Grandma's really looking forward to seeing you," Bernice said. "She gets more visitors than the rest of these guys, but it's still not a lot of company. No matter who you really are, she'll be glad you came."
Before he could say another word, the young woman clutched her portfolio to her chest and hurried down the hall, calling out greetings to the nursing home's various residents as she made her way out of the building. She walked not with the purposeful stride of a woman needing to get from point A to point B in the most efficient manner possible in order to carry out some important mission as Peggy had, but the gait of a young woman who enjoyed pausing to smell each flower that graced her path. An artist's walk.
The long, black hair that trailed down her disappearing back was too dark and straight to be natural, the color of an Asian woman even though she possessed no Asiatic features. Dyed? She wore black boots reminiscent of his own combat boots, tight jeans with artfully placed rips he'd learned were the latest fashion, and a snug-fitting black knit shirt which showed off her slender figure which was not as curvaceous as her grandmothers had once been. A few years younger, he estimated, than Peggy had been at the time he'd met her. Twenty-one? Twenty-two? One of the pieces of paper which had slipped out of her portfolio had been a syllabus from the School of Visual Arts.
Staring at the door he'd come to walk through, Steve Rogers knocked and prepared to go inside.
X
Note: Bernie Rosenthal was Captain America's love interest in the 1980's Marvel Comics reboot. As portrayed there, she was a law student and glass-blowing artist and no relation to Peggy. Marvel decided she was too ordinary and moved on to more convoluted characters (Sharon Carter - Peggy's niece who was eventually co-opted by Red Skull; and Diamondback - another morally questionable assassin). Given Steve's 'origins' character … an ordinary guy who wants to do what's right … I feel he would be attracted to a non-super woman who possesses the best traits of both Peggy and–himself- (Steve Rogers was a fine art student when he was inducted into the Army). The kind of person Steve joined the war effort to defend in the first place, not another inflated super-ego like he's got up the wazoo since joining the Avengers. The old-fashioned WWII guy who found Peggy just 'liberated' enough to be intriguing but hates bullies would be turned off by a gun-toting super-agent. Since I have only been able to dig up a rudimentary plot synopsis of the old comics featuring Bernie Rosenthal, my Bernice has very little to do with the 1980 version other than her name and love of art. I decided not to make Bernice a law student as –I- am an attorney and that would just be a little too Mary-Sue! I write fiction to get –away- from my day job!
Thanks for reading! Don't forget to hit the blue button on the way out and drop me a line!