Warning: Somebody gets injected with something and then moved around without giving permission. All very platonic, but I thought I'd better play it safe just in case. If you want to miss it, skip the last four paragraphs.
Chapter Nine
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August 15, 1947
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"Howard, you know you can't fly an airplane with that arm. Besides, I need you on the radio."
"Look, my tech, my trip." Howard Stark was at her elbow, arguing hotly as they crossed the airfield. He had badly burned his arm in an explosion of a faulty engine two days before, and it hung in a sling across his chest. "If the tube malfunctions, which it won't, because I made it, but if it does, what are you gonna do, huh? I made the blasted thing. I made the whole plane, for Pete's sake - I can fly with one hand, no problem."
Peggy Carter swung around fast enough that Howard had to do some fancy stepping to avoid running into her. "Howard, if you try to fly with one hand, I will personally knock you out and have Jarvis lock you in the boot of your car until we're gone." She zipped up her flight jacket with a jerk, ignoring Stark's pout.
"Oh, that's just cold, Peggy. Jarvis is on my side, aren't you, Jarvis?" Mercurial as ever, Howard dropped the frown and confidently grinned at the tall, lean man who finally caught up.
Jarvis folded both hands behind his back, looking slightly uncomfortable. "I'd rather not say, sir."
Howard stared for a moment, jaw dropping theatrically. "Aw, for the love of - Peggy, how dare you corrupt Jarvis? There's gotta be some kind of law against that."
Peggy finished buttoning her cuffs and turned to face her friend. "Howard, I need you on the radio to talk us through in case the instruments go down. Corporal Dugan can fly your plane quite well; I trust him implicitly. If something goes wrong though, which it won't, you're the man I want on the air to talk us back." She looked straight into his eyes, trying to show him how desperately she needed him on the radio. "Please, Howard."
Howard let a long silence drag out before his shoulders finally slumped in acquiescence. "Fine, okay, okay, I'll do the radio. Just don't do any funny business with my plane, and come back safely, huh, Peg? Where's Dugan? I wanna talk to him a minute."
Dugan was puttering around the plane, doing a last-minute check with one of the airstrip personnel. At Howard's approach, he grinned cheerfully, growling out a greeting as he tightened the bolts on one of the plates.
"Hey, Dum Dum," Howard said in an undertone as he reached the big man's side. "Come here." He pulled the pilot over behind one of the propellers and pulled out two hypodermics from his jacket pocket, folding them into the man's hand. "In case something goes wrong and you're stuck out there, each of you use one of these. It'll help keep you from freezing to death until I can get a rescue plane out there."
Dugan nodded, but didn't ask questions. Chemicals and inventions were not his area; he liked machinery and dynamite - those he could understand. Carefully placing the two vials in his jacket pocket, he gave a gruff nod of thanks and returned to the safety check.
Howard went to hand Peggy into the plane himself. "Be sure to lock the Stark Tube up tight before you take him out of there," he reminded her for the hundredth time. "We need the temperature to be kept constant to preserve cellular integrity."
Peggy rolled her eyes half laughingly, one foot on the step of the plane, poised to swing herself up. "We are not calling it a Stark Tube, Howard!"
He shrugged, enjoying the banter. "Well, I made it, didn't I? Who do you think I would call it after?" He only just hid a snicker at the disgusted look on her face.
"I think you're an incredible narcissist." Peggy checked her dark goggles around her neck. Howard pretended to be offended, but then sobered.
"Say, Peg, stay warm and be careful, okay?"
Peggy nodded, strapping on her thick gloves. "I will, Howard. Take care of yourself, and don't get drunk while we're on the air, or run off with any impressionable young girls."
"Hey, now - I'm the model of decorum," Howard protested with a twinkle in his eye. Peggy laughed aloud before hugging him briefly, mindful of his sling. "Goodbye, Howard."
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"Hey, Peg, do you see anything?" Stark's voice crackled over the radio with a strange, tinny sound. "What do you see, Peggy? Peggy, talk to me."
"For heaven's sake, Howard!" Peggy snapped into the receiver, squinting against the constant bright light reflecting off the ice. "It's not as if there's a line of arrows blazed across the ice saying, 'go this way.'"
"Oh." There was silence across the line for a moment, and then: "How about now?"
Peggy sighed. Sometimes the man acted as if he was a fraction of his age. "Howard, that plane crashed two years ago, and we've had record-breaking arctic storms since then. I'm starting to think all traces may have been long since snowed under."
"Wait, Peggy," Dugan spared a hand from steering to point across the ice. "There might be something dark over that way."
She leaned forward, straining watering eyes against the brightness, hoping against hope. Although she had long since come to terms with the fact that Steve was dead, something in her heart refused to give up. Some stubborn part of her couldn't help dreaming that the super serum had enabled him to survive, and that any moment he might come walking out of the ice, hungry and tired and so very glad to see her…
The plane hit a pocket of turbulence, and Peggy snapped back to attention, carefully scanning the ground for any wreckage. Of course he couldn't have survived. The only thing they could do at this point was to retrieve his body and give him the burial he deserved. Hence their current mission: Project Sarcophagus.
She cast a glance behind her to the contraption Howard proudly called the Stark Tube. It was long, taking up most of the space behind her seat and Dugan's, with the new Stark logo embossed brazenly on both ends. A series of latches gleamed down the side and a set of control dials finished it off. If they could find Steve's body, this was how they would bring him home.
The point of their mission was twofold: find Captain America's body and bring him home for public honors and private testing. She had orders to maintain his body at a low temperature to conserve cellular integrity until the new SHIELD science division could get their grubby fingers on him, but Peggy had long since decided to sabotage the tube if she found him. With any luck, her captain's body would be thawed enough to render his genetic material useless for study by the time her little sabotage job was discovered. The thought made her almost physically ill, but only over her dead body would they use Steve for monetary gain.
She had been almost relieved when Howard had been injured, because she knew she could never have convinced him to agree with her on that point.
Crackling static came from the radio. "Hey, Peg, we just got a weather report radioed in from Reykjavik. They're seeing a heavy storm coming up your way. We'd better abort the mission."
Storms in the arctic were no joke. Dugan was already turning the plane. Peggy went for the radio receiver. "Roger that. We're turning around now." She cast a wistful look back in the direction they'd seen the dark shape. It was obscured now, and part of her knew she would never see it again. This had been their last chance.
Dugan must have seen something in her face, for he spared a hand to roughly pat her shoulder. "We'll come back sometime, Peggy," he bellowed good-naturedly over the roar of the engines. "We'll find him."
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The weather got worse much faster than either had expected. Dugan was a good pilot, but the gusts of wind were challenging even for him to navigate. Peggy took comfort in listening to the well-tuned hum of the engines. Stark had made them himself - they wouldn't have any trouble. She swiped her hair out of her face, making a face as it stuck to her gloved hands. The familiar motion reminded her of weeks spent behind enemy lines and the grenade pins the boys used to save for her when her hairpins had been lost. Steve especially seemed to always have one on hand, offered with a shy, endearing grin.
"Carter," Dugan's voice was strained, and she suddenly realized something was really wrong. "Radio Stark to tell him the wings are icing up. Any tips?"
Peggy's hand slapped down on the receiver. "Howard, the wings are icing over. Didn't you solve the icing problem?"
Howard's voice crackled back confidently. "I did, I did! Use the switch on the dashboard."
Peggy took a look at the cluttered dashboard. "Howard, there are about fifty switches."
"The orange one, in the center at the top. And there are only fourteen switches - don't be nasty."
Peggy reached for the switch, only to find it had already been flipped. Dugan looked back at her, blue eyes bright over his moustache. "Peggy, I hate to worry you, but that deal ain't working. I tried it fifteen minutes ago."
Her heart chilled, but she scanned the dashboard one more time - perhaps it had been mislabeled. She even tried flipping a few others, to no avail. Howard, when they called him back, insisted it was the orange one. The concern in his voice was rising, and she tried to be calm, hoping he would follow her lead.
Dugan, ever solid and dependable, gave her a quick, reassuring look. He couldn't clap her shoulder - both hands were clutched around the plane's steering, pulling back with all his might. "Brace yourself, Peggy," he growled, "I can't pull her up much more."
He didn't say it, but Peggy suddenly realized they weren't going to survive this. All around them, the snow was being blown up in great swirls. When they occasionally caught a glimpse of the ice, it was sharp and jagged, with no safe landing in sight. The dials on the dashboard swung wildly, impossible to read with certainty.
"Thank you, Corporal," she told him, laying a hand on his arm, and he nodded brusquely. They had been through too much together - there was no need for words. Howard on the other hand… She swallowed and reached for the radio with a heavy heart.
"Howard?"
He immediately answered. "Peggy? Did you find it?"
Peggy forced her voice to be steady and calm. She couldn't bear for him to hear this. "Howard, none of the switches are working. I'm afraid we're heading into a crash landing."
"It's the orange switch! The orange one, center top - I installed it myself!" His hysteria was mounting, painfully apparent even across the radio waves. Her heart broke for him. She'd been where he was now, she knew how it felt. She tried to make her voice gentler.
"Howard, we've tried every switch. None of them work - I think it's just too cold."
"Not again, please God, not again!" Howard was half sobbing, half praying into the radio. Peggy spared a glance out the window. The plane was wallowing badly, and Dugan's urgent face told her she had only seconds.
"Get in the tube, Peg," the corporal told her suddenly. "I reckon it's the strongest thing on board." Touched at his selflessness, she shook her head firmly, and reached for the receiver again. There wasn't room for two in the tube, and she wasn't about to selfishly take shelter and leave her old friend out.
"Howard, this is not your fault. Do you hear? It's not your fault. I chose to fly off up here, and I knew the risks when I did. Don't blame yourself, Howard. Promise me that."
He cut her off. "Is the throttle still working? Use those hypos I gave Dugan..."
Urgently, she clicked the button again. "Howard, listen to me. There is nothing you can do. Don't come looking for us - I'm not entirely sure where we are, and we're not going to survive this. I don't want any more people dying. Steve wouldn't want it either." Her voice cracked, but she pressed on, watching the ice come closer. The plane dropped, propellers catching briefly, and her stomach swooped. Steve had been brave, so could she.
It seemed strangely fitting that she die in the same way he had. Staring down at the white world filling the windows, she suddenly understood his need for companionship, to be reminded he wasn't alone in his last few minutes, his attempts to comfort her.
Yanking off her gloves for more dexterity, Peggy fumbled out the hypo Dugan had given her and pressed it into her arm though she knew it would do no good in a crash. The world began to turn a little fuzzy, and she wondered what on earth was in the stuff. "It's all right Howard, truly. Go home, marry a nice girl, invent all those marvellous things you told us all about, move on…"
Dugan was doing something with his belt, using it to hold the throttle as far back as he could, tying it to the arm of the pilot seat before he lurched to his feet behind her. She felt his hand on her shoulder, and then the stab of a needle as her friend unexpectedly gave her his own injection as well. The world started fading faster and the receiver fell from suddenly lax fingers, Howard's frantic cry of "Peggy, Peggy!" ringing in her ears. Dugan pulled her backwards and bundled her into the opened tube behind her seat as gently as he could in his haste. She tried to protest through the gathering vagueness, but wasn't at all sure it worked.
The last thing she heard was his gruff voice close to her head.
"Cap'd never forgive me if I let anything happen to his best girl. Good luck, Peg."
There was an increasingly dim series of clicks as the latches caught. She never felt the shuddering concussion as the left wing of the plane struck the ice and sent the plane into a spin, shearing off the other wing before the cabin hit the ground and rolled, bursting into flame.
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Okay folks, disclaimer here: injecting somebody with something is always a bad idea, unless medically prescribed and with permission. Please excuse Dugan though - he knew he wouldn't be able to convince Peggy any other way, and he wanted to keep her as safe as he could.
And yes, take a moment of silence for Dugan, our selfless, lovable, wahooing mustached bear.
Thoughts? Drop me a line - I love to hear 'em!
