12.15, May 23rd, 2014
"Is Jarvis another security officer?" Peggy asked as the elevator rose. One side was mirrored, and she couldn't help staring at herself in it. Mirrors were still a bit of a shock to her; it took a second to recognize a face that she hadn't seen in the mirror for seventy years.
"I am an AI, Mrs Carter," Jarvis' voice said smoothly from the elevator intercom. "I was first designed and developed by Mr Tony Stark in 1990."
"You're a computer?" Peggy said in surprise. "My goodness! You sound like a human! Are you sure you weren't one?"
"Thank you, ma'am," Jarvis said, "but I promise you that I am entirely the product of Mr Stark's programming talents. I am not like Dr Zola. I can assure you that I have no undisclosed Hydra sympathies."
Sharon laughed, but Peggy grimaced. "I knew we should never have let Zola create that computer setup," she muttered, "but that idiot Howard thought that as a computer, Zola would be easier to control…"
"If you intend to persist in insulting Mr Stark Senior, ma'am, I am sure that you and Mr Stark shall be great friends," Jarvis said dryly. "Now arriving at lab #4."
The lab was a huge, open-plan room that looked like something in the belly of a spaceship compared to the last lab that Peggy had walked into. That had been Howard Stark's, and ahead of its time itself.
His son seemed to have a taste for gleaming silver and black. Several high-tech suits of armour were dotted about the floor on stands, each next to a workbench strewn with tools. A large mechanical arm was moving on its own accord, soldering some part of one of them. Several holographic images were being displayed in the air over an open space of floor. Two dark-haired men were walking around that space, interacting with and altering the holograms. They turned to look at Sharon and Peggy as they walked out of the lift.
For a second, Howard Stark was jogging over to her, clasping his hands with an excited grin.
Peggy just managed to stop herself short of calling him "Howard". Tony Stark really was the image of his father, and though he was certainly younger than Howard had been the last time that she remembered seeing him, streaks of grey were starting to seep in over his ears and in his beard. He also had something blue and glowing in his chest, shining through his shirt.
"Mr Stark," Sharon said with a nod.
"Please, only my employees call me Mr Stark," Tony Stark said with a grin that made him look even more like his father. "Call me Tony or Stark or Iron Man or That Sexy Thang. I'm gonna guess that you're Agent Sharon Carter, and you…" he turned to Peggy. "Please, ma'am, I know they didn't make eye-candy like this in the forties, but if you wanna eat it up, lemme get you a spoon."
"Don't flatter yourself, dear, I've seen Steve Rogers without a shirt," Peggy parried. "I was just rather startled by the light in your chest, and by how very much you look like Howard. I think I should warn you that you flirt like him as well."
"Oh, low blow," Tony gasped, pressing his hand over the blue light in his chest. "I'm down. Man down. You fight dirty, lady. Did you fight that dirty in the war? Steve Rogers is a brave man. And it's an arc reactor, by the way. Means it's a super-battery. Used to keep my heart going until surgery got good enough, the official line is that that's my girlfriend's job now. But it's real handy, having a miniature fission reactor close at hand or lung or whatever. I can power all kindsa stuff. Did I tell you I am Iron Man?"
"Hi," the other man said, coming up to shake their hands. He was bigger than Tony, taller and bulkier, but he held himself hunched as if trying to make himself smaller and trailed quietly in Tony's wake. "I'm Dr Bruce Banner."
"Very nice to meet you, Dr Banner," Peggy said politely.
"I've heard a lot about you, Doctor," Sharon said, eying him up apprehensively. If he noticed, it didn't seem to bother him, though Tony was frowning. Peggy wondered what it was about the gentle-looking man that was putting her niece on edge. She'd mentioned that he was a dangerous man when angry, but Peggy couldn't imagine it.
"Of the twelve doctorates in the room, Bruce has got all the medical ones and the better biochemical ones," Tony said, clasping his hands, "so he's gonna have a look-see at what Hydra shot you up with. This way, ladies. Did they seriously mix up their needles and give you super serum instead of potassium chloride?"
"Evidently," Peggy said, following him over to what looked like a small, freestanding surgery off to one side of the workshop floor. Tony started laughing.
"Oh, that's golden," he chuckled. "I haven't heard of a bad guy fail that epic since Loki thought he could intimidate the Hulk. The footage, by the way, is hysterically funny, so remind me to show you sometime. Hey, speaking of hilarious—Jarvis! Gimme a clear shot of Rogers' face when he gets here! I could do with a new desktop!"
"Of course, sir."
"Please have a seat and roll up your sleeve so I can draw some blood," Bruce asked, gesturing to the surgery table. "Whoa, hey—is that blood already?"
"I got scraped by a couple of bullets," Peggy said, glancing at her left wrist. The wound had stopped bleeding, and actually looked partly healed already. "My goodness. That was only a few hours ago. This stuff does work rather well, doesn't it?" She rolled up her sleeve and removed the strap for a concealed knife.
Bruce took an empty syringe out of a drawer in the desk next to the medical table and took the cork off of it. "You know, I never get why they don't just use one of these," he murmured. "I mean, it's all too easy to blow an air bubble into someone's heart and kill them if you don't know what you're doing… or if you do." Peggy sat on the table and held out her arm. "I mean, it can't be traced to unnatural causes, and you can't confuse an empty needle…" He carefully drew a needle full of Peggy's blood. "Does that hurt?"
"Not at all, and you don't seem to have blown an air bubble into my heart," Peggy assured him. He removed the needle and gave her some cotton to press over the sting, and then took her wrist and had a close look at the graze on her wrist.
"It's healing up pretty quick," he said. "That's some impressive stuff they've figured out."
Behind him, the elevator doors opened again and Steve Rogers stepped out. He frowned suspiciously at Sharon before his gaze travelled to Peggy.
"Close your mouth," Peggy called over. "You'll catch flies." He stopped gaping and jogged over, a familiar smile spreading on his face as he stared at her in disbelief. Peggy felt a similar mix of shock and happiness at the sight of him. Sharon had told her that he was alive, and she had confused memories of seeing him, but it still hadn't seemed quite real until the moment that he stepped out of the lift.
"Hey, there," he said. "You know, I used to know a dame who looked just like you."
"And I used to know a guy who looked just like you," she replied, "but he was shorter. And he stood me up for a dance." She reached up and hugged him when he got near enough. He seemed surprised, but hugged her back gently. Peggy wasn't sure if it was shyness—come to that, she'd kissed him, but she couldn't remember ever putting her arms around him—or simply caution for his immense strength. She remembered that he'd been afraid to shake the senator's hand on the day that he received the serum, not knowing how to touch anything without accidentally breaking it. "It's good to see you again, Steve," she said, closing her eyes and holding him tight. "And to be able to remember it, at least." She opened her eyes and stiffened as she spotted a ghost standing behind him.
"Who's he?" Sharon demanded, sounding more agitated than when she'd greeted Bruce. "That metal arm—is he—?!"
"Don't!" Steve shouted, letting Peggy go and grabbing Sharon's wrist as she reached for a gun. "Don't. He's not—it's not what you think. He's—"
"Bucky!" Peggy gasped, hopping to her feet and stepping tentatively towards him. His hair was shorter than she'd ever seen it, almost buzzed, showing lines that looked like surgical scars on the left side of his head. His left arm was gleaming metal. But his face still looked the same as it had the last time she'd seen him, right before his last mission in 1944. It was James Buchanan Barnes.
Bucky looked startled to be addressed, staring at her in confusion. "I… know you," he said uncertainly, before looking helplessly at Steve. "Don't I?"
Peggy looked again at the scars on his head and then lost expression on his face, feeling her heart break.
"This is Peggy Carter, Buck," Steve said, letting Sharon go and stepping back over to his best friend, standing protectively between Bucky and the others. "Agent Carter. Do you remember her?"
Slowly, Bucky shook his head. Steve looked crestfallen for a moment, but then he smiled. "It's okay, Bucky," he assured him. "It'll come back to you."
"Bucky, what happened to your memory?" Peggy asked. "What happened to you? We thought you'd died seventy years ago…"
"Zola's experiments in that lab in Austria," Steve said, scowling. "Whatever Zola did to him, it helped him survived the fall. Then Hydra found him, and…" his scowl deepened. "They kept experimenting."
"Oh my god," Peggy whispered, looking over Bucky. He was staring at her distantly, as if trying to place her face. "Bucky… Sharon, for goodness' sake," she added, noticing the way that her niece continued to stare suspiciously at Bucky. "Stop glaring at him. What on earth is wrong?"
"Captain Rogers," Sharon said tightly, not taking her eyes off of Bucky, "is he the Winter Soldier?"
"He was, but it's not what you think," Steve snapped. "Hydra took his memories. They tortured and fried his brain and turned him into a tool. He didn't know what he was doing—"
"He killed Nick Fury," Sharon argued, "and God knows how many other people for Hydra! He—"
"Ninety-eight," Bucky interrupted quietly. "I read my file. It says that I killed ninety-eight people for Hydra. Thirty-four targets, plus collateral and witnesses."
"Oh my God," Peggy muttered, feeling sick. Bucky was staring steadily at Sharon and listing off his Hydra kill-count monotonously, as if he was breaking down a shopping list.
"But before that," he continued, "I killed Nazis for Steve. As long as I have a choice, that's what I'll choose to do."
"You don't have to kill anyone if you don't wanna, Bucky," Steve said gently.
"It's what I do," Bucky said with a shrug, looking down.
"But he hasn't killed anyone in the two months that he's been here," Bruce interrupted firmly. "He's deprogramming himself and starting to get his memory back. Agent Carter—uh, Peggy," he clarified as both women looked around. "I need to take hair and tissue samples as well, if you don't mind."
"Not at all," Peggy said, tearing her eyes away from Bucky and hopping up onto the bench again. It hurt to look at him. She had never been too close to him or known him well, but she'd known him enough to see in his eyes and his voice that Hydra had scraped out everything resembling a person and put nothing but orders in his place. It was painful, it was dehumanizing, and it was terrifying.
"Also, Fury isn't actually dead," Tony added. "He faked it. So, y'know, can't pin that one on him."
"I tried," Bucky said grimly. "He was my target. And I might try again if I see him again. He's not Steve."
"Director Fury's alive?" Sharon said in surprise. "Who knows?"
"The people in the room, Natasha Romanov and Maria Hill," Tony said, counting on his fingers. "Oh, and Pepper. I think she was glad to hear she'll get a shot at killing him herself, since those leaked SHIELD files told us that he faked us out about Phil's death…"
"Thank you," Bruce said, finishing swabbing Peggy's mouth, bagging the swab and setting it next to the bag containing a few strands of her hair. "I wonder why the pigmentation didn't regenerate," he mused, tapping the strands. "Aside from that, physical rejuvenation seems complete and total."
"Yes, I'm certainly not feeling my arthritis anymore, and it's nice to have all my own teeth and my eyesight back," Peggy said, glancing at Sharon and Steve, who were started to argue heatedly about the safety of letting Bucky run free. Tony was hovering nearby and interrupting with irreverent comments (so much like his father, Peggy kept thinking) and Bucky stood silently by with his eyes fixed on Steve. It was the only time that any sort of life sparked in his eyes. "What about my Alzheimer's?" she asked tentatively. "I don't think I've been lucid for nine hours straight like this since the late nineties, and I'd rather like to keep it going." She tried to smile, but the thought of the disease made it feel like a bomb was sitting in her brain, waiting to go off and wipe everything.
"I can take you down to the proper medlabs for a full scan to make sure, but so far there's no indication that the rejuvenation wouldn't have spread to your brain," Bruce said reassuringly. "I'd like to do multiple checkups anyway. We don't know yet if your serum is permanent, or how similar it is to James or Steve's. For the next few days, if you don't mind, I'd like to do one checkup a day to monitor for discernible changes and to try and determine if your serum has an observable half-life." He gestured to Steve and Bucky, who were talking quietly, something about a red dress. Sharon's argument had shifted to being with Tony, who had a look of absolute glee on his face as he wound her up. "I've been over Steve's data from checkups since he came out of the ice and there's been no observable decay and thus no observable half-life, which means there's no telling how long he'll live if he doesn't get himself killed. James' doesn't have an observed half-life either, but he only consented to checkups two weeks ago."
"He doesn't look any different from seventy years ago," Peggy said. "Well, he does. He's changed so much… but he doesn't look older, I mean."
"Could be an effect of going into genuine cryo-freeze," Bruce said thoughtfully. "It's not the same thing as getting frozen under the Arctic. Only time'll tell for him and for you."
"Thank you very much, Doctor Banner," Peggy said. "I'm sure I'm in good hands. Sharon tells me that you're the authority on super-soldiers."
"Yeah, it's, uh, more of a lifestyle than a study," Bruce said with a chuckle. "I was studying how to recreate Erskine's formula for the military about… God, ten years ago. I thought gamma radiation might be involved. I, uh… wasn't completely wrong."
"If you don't mind my saying, it doesn't look like you've undergone the same physical changes as Steve and Bucky," Peggy said, remembering that Sharon had refused to expand on what had happened to Doctor Banner on the basis that she wouldn't believe it. "Sharon said you have problems with your temper, though?"
"Yeah, that's, uh, one way to put it," Bruce said, laughing sheepishly. "The other is that I turn into an, uh, enormous green rage monster."
"I beg your pardon?" Peggy asked, staring at him.
Tony burst out laughing. "Bruce, please, let me show her, I gotta show her," he begged. Bruce shrugged and nodded. "Great. Jarvis, roll the Loki Smash footage, it's my favourite."
"You mentioned," Sharon said, looking up as a holographic screen appeared in the air before them. Peggy noted that she backed up somewhat, keeping the other five people in the room in her line of sight while she watched the screen.
On the screen was an image of what looked like an empty bar. After a couple of seconds, someone came crashing through an off-camera window and went rolling across the floor. He was tall and pale with long, dark hair and wore black-and-gold clothes with a sweeping green cloak.
The creature that came after him was huge, almost filling the screen, a roaring, giant green man in torn brown pants.
"ENOUGH!" the man yelled, rolling to his feet. The green monster paused with a grunt. "You are all of you beneath me! I am a god, you dull creature, and I will not be bullied by—"
The green creature, evidently losing patience, grabbed the man and slammed him into the floor repeatedly. Peggy gasped, but Bruce and Steve both smiled and Tony started laughing hysterically. Bucky just watched blankly. Sharon's eyes widened as she watched the man get pulverized—or not, Peggy was startled to realize, as the green monster held the man upside-down for inspection. The stone floor was cracked, but the man was alive and capable of moving his head, arms and free leg before the monster smashed him into the ground twice more for good measure, leaving him in a crater.
"Puny God," the monster growled, stalking away. The man in the crater just wheezed. There wasn't even any blood.
"I'm sorry, but how is that man not a smear on the ground?" Peggy asked.
"Is that him?" Sharon asked, looking around for confirmation. "Loki?"
"Yeah, Loki's an alien from another world, that's why he wasn't splattered," Steve explained. "He led the alien invasion of New York. Despite what he said, he isn't a god, but his people are technologically very advanced, so thousands of years ago people thought they were gods."
"Loki… Norse Mythology? The Trickster?" Peggy remembered. She'd read a lot of Norse Mythology in an attempt to track the Red Skull and his thinking, but it hadn't been much use. Nordic lore was rhetoric to the Red Skull, an excuse off of which his madness occasionally sparked.
"Yeah, not as clever as he likes to think he is," Bruce said. "The angrier I get, the stronger the Hulk gets, and, uh, I think it was the 'dull creature' that really kinda set us off. And, y'know, the alien invasion."
"That's you?" Peggy said, trying to reconcile the roaring green beast with the mild, friendly man in front of her.
"Hard to imagine, I know," Bruce said with a nervous smile at his shoes. He hunched his shoulders tensely.
"Oh, I don't know," Peggy said encouragingly. "You should've seen Steve before the serum."
Tony, who had been winding down, burst out laughing again. Bruce looked up and gave her a broad, relieved smile. Steve gaped, only looking more surprised when Bucky laughed. It was really only a brief chuckle, but everyone in the room looked around in shock like it was the roar of a dragon.
"The woman's a walking miracle," Tony declared. "Dropping seventy years and a debilitating and permanent brain disease has nothing on making that guy laugh."
Bucky looked startled by all of the attention, backing up a couple steps. "Hey, it's okay," Steve said, smiling at him. "It's good. It's good to see you laugh again."
Bucky nodded. "Can't remember the last time I did," he said quietly. It struck Peggy that he was probably speaking very literally. She knew how frightening it could be, knowing that your memory could slip away at a moment's notice, and felt a powerful, burning hatred for anyone who would do it to somebody on purpose.
"Doctor Banner, are you free to do the scan that you mentioned right now?" she asked.
"Sure thing," Bruce said, picking up the samples. "We're pretty much finished with the designs here." He glanced at Tony. "All that's left is to machine the eye and find somebody who's qualified to do the surgery, which, for the last time, no, I'm not, and you definitely aren't."
"We can talk about that later," Tony said dismissively, rounding on Bucky. "First things first—Iron Giant! How's the ear? No pain?"
"Feels good," Bucky said, tapping his left ear. "No problems."
"Really no problems?" Tony pressed. "Or no problems as in 'there are problems but I don't think they're important because I'm dumb and Hydra sucks'?"
"It's great," Bucky insisted. "Doesn't hurt at all."
"Good, them c'mon over here and have a look at this eye," Tony said, bringing up the projected holograms that he and Bruce had been working on when Peggy and Sharon walked in. "Bruce, give me a shout when you're done and we can all get lunch."
"Sounds lovely," Peggy said, smiling at Bucky as he went over to join Tony among the holograms.
"I'd come with you, but, uh… I really need to stay with Bucky," Steve said, lowering his voice. "He has moments where he, uh… drifts."
"Forgets where and when he is?" Peggy asked sympathetically.
"Forgets that he doesn't want to be the Winter Soldier anymore," Steve said, looking down. "And I'm generally the only one who can snap him out of it, so…"
"It's fine," Peggy assured him. "Sharon will come with me, won't you?"
"Sure," Sharon said, following Bruce over to the lift.
"I'll see you at lunch," Peggy promised Steve. "You can tell me all about the twenty-first century—and this time, I'll be able to remember it!"
Steve nodded. "Sure thing. I wanna hear more about your life, too. We never managed to talk for long enough in the nursing home. You can tell me all about the twentieth century!"
"It's a date," Peggy said with a grin.