Chapter Eleven
They burst apart at the crack of gun fire. Peggy scrambles for cover and Steve stands tall and looks for the gunman.
"Get down," Peggy urges in a harsh whisper.
Steve looks at the gouge in the ground. Judges the angle. Looks back towards the house. Towards—
"Angie," Peggy utters—thinking something similar.
There's a scream somewhere far away. A distant—faint—cry of Peggy's name.
And she's off. Dashing towards the house with zero regards for her own life. Steve's fast on her heels and then ahead of her. He clears the pool in a leap and doesn't have time to slow down at the windows looking out over the yard. He smashes through one and careens into the den.
Tony's twitching on the floor and feebly pulling out the lines from a taser. "They got my mom—" he grunts.
Steve can hear the gun of an engine and tires on soft road. He blows through the front door—the bulk of it flying off its hinges.
His chest is already heaving. Lungs sucking in oxygen to keep the blood supplying moving to muscles. He squints. Sees the lights of the van out on the road.
Runs.
He doesn't run this fast often and his lungs and legs are burning like they used to when he was a kid and had to just climb a set of stairs.
Sam's always telling him he's gotta run different. That his form makes him look more like a geriatric than his Facebook friends list ever could.
"Get more aerodynamic," he says. "Maybe loosen up a little."
Steve thinks Sam's got a form like someone out of the Olympics.
Steve tries mimicking that natural way Sam has of dashing around. He can feel the way it makes him faster. Even if parts of him are straining and protesting it.
'It's not natural,' all his muscles are whispering.
The back of the truck, a laundry truck with an Italian name painted along the side in gold paint, blows open and a HYDRA soldier hangs out and takes a shot at Steve. He dodges. Keeps running.
Dodges another shot.
And another.
He's slowing down and the truck isn't. He's running on air and super serum and adrenalin and all the truck needs is a driver with a heavy foot on the gas.
There's another car behind him. The light off its headlights giving him a long, dark shadow.
He glances at it as it jets by and he's not sure who he's expecting to see in the driver's seat.
That it's Peggy, her face screwed up in terse anger and concentration, is terrifying. He's seen that look before. Had it burned into his brain.
Peggy's not in a nice place.
The front of the car she's driving crashes into the back of the truck and he sees everyone inside get tossed around like ants shook up in a jam jar. The gunman falls out onto the hood of Peggy's car. Scrambles for purchase. Lunges at Peggy.
Like an idiot.
She shoots him. Because what the HYDRA soldier seemed to miss was that an angry Peggy Carter is one of the most dangerous creatures on the planet.
She rams the truck again and shoots into its hold. Bullets plink and the truck swerves like its driver's been shot. Peggy lets off the gas and then guns it again. Her bumper hits the truck just right. Sends it into a nasty roll off the road and down a grassy hill.
He's winded when he makes it to her, but he still reaches out and grabs her arm. "Peggy—"
Her eyes are on the truck and flicker only to the magazine of her pistol as she checks it. "They took Angie."
He knows. And he can only imagine what she's feeling.
They scramble down the hill together and when stragglers crawl out of the truck and take shots at them Peggy cleanly puts them down.
These aren't SHIELD agents turned HYDRA by propaganda and smart spycraft. These are the zealots that will keep the group alive over the next sixty years, and Steve has to say he's not sorry to see a few more of them go.
Peggy hisses when they reach the wreck. Her features are still hard. Cold and still like Steve's vibranium shield.
Because the only person left in the truck is Madame Hydra herself. Her hands are held up in surrender and she looks—of all things—sheepish.
Peggy's gun snaps up. "Where is she," she growls through gritted teeth.
Hydra just smiles cool as you please. "Shoot me and you'll never find out."
"More like shoot you and this whole problem goes away."
Peggy and Madame Hydra both look at Steve with eerily similar looks of confusion and surprise.
He nods back at Hydra. "I saw her just before we came here. Same woman, but much older than the woman in front of us."
Peggy frowns down mockingly at her, "I'm nearly positive colluding with your future self is a temporal paradox."
"I don't know about that. In the future I'm very smart."
"Not smart enough." Peggy aims the gun again and Steve has no doubt that if she pulls the trigger Madame Hydra is dead. "I kill you here and she no longer exists. The problem solves itself."
"She disappears and our men will kill your girlfriend."
She rolls her eyes. Actually scoffs. "And time could very well be a rubber band. Then you're dead and none of this ever happened."
"You sure?"
Peggy certainly looks it.
Madame Hydra's smile is like smoke curling up out of a flame. "Sure enough to risk her life?"
####
It was the cheapest damn ploy in the world. The oldest trick. One Angie herself had pulled off before using a paid off kid in a Model A and a wig. And Peggy had blustered out of the house like a god damn horsewoman of the apocalypse and missed the whole thing like a rube.
It was—is deeply disappointing.
She isn't gonna say she is ashamed of her girlfriend. It's just that if they both survive and Peggy doesn't walk into the sunset with the American Hero she has plans to never let her forget the time she peeled out of the house after a distraction van while Angie, all trussed up like Christmas dinner, watches from the bushes with a gun pressed to her temple.
The man with his knee pressed into her back starts to let up but the green haired so and so overseeing things shakes her head and he waits.
A few minutes later the other garage opens and Tony races out in Angie's brand new Ace she had just delivered over from England. If a barrel of a gun was growing warm against her skin she would have yelled after him to be careful.
Tony—apparently taking after his godmother—also fails to notice them in the bushes. And he turns the wrong way—driving straight off in the opposite direction from Peggy.
Or maybe not. If Peggy's on the road headed one way and Tony's going the other than there's no way another van can squeak past them to pick up Angie's own little group of hostages and HYDRA.
Angie's letting herself get used to that idea. Letting it blossom in her pleasantly.
Then the green haired lady is telling them to all head for the water and Angie's heart is sinking.
She and Maria get thrown onto a boat like they're sacks of potatoes and the HYDRA soldiers take the two of them down below deck and leave them crammed into a small space up close to the engine. It's dark and hot and smells like diesel and when the engine gets going it's so loud Angie can hardly hear herself think.
So she focuses on Maria. Because the other woman's clammy and cool and shivering like it's under thirty degrees when it's got to easily be over ninety in this hole.
She tries being soothing and stroking the bit of skin she can feel with her fingers and hands all bound up behind her. But Maria keeps on chattering her teeth and trembling like a leaf.
So Angie twists around until she's facing her and even though it's so dark she can't make out features she can still see the glistening of Maria's tears. Just running down her face.
The poor kid.
She scoots closer and presses her shoulder into Maria like a hug and her lips brush against a forehead all damp and tasting salty.
"It's okay," she murmurs.
The engine's still roaring but it's going on more like white noise. Loud static coming off a radio.
"Peggy'll find us."
"They're HYDRA," Maria hiccups. "HYDRA…Nazis…"
"I know."
She feels Maria shake her head. "You really don't."
Her breath is a little sour. And how close she is. The last few years she's only ever been this disheveled and close with Peggy.
Why'd she have to chase after the van?
Why couldn't she have just known. Why couldn't she be just behind this boat right now? Getting ready to sink it and take them both to safety and wrap Angie up in soft perfect arms and tell her "it's all right darling."
"I grew up with them," Maria whispers. "And I always said I'd die before I was stuck with them again."
"You won't be."
"You don't know that."
"I know Peggy. She's already sorting out how to save us. You'll see."
"Nice of you to have faith Angie." She shivers again. Sighs like a breath dragged out of dead lungs. "I wish I did too."
The poor kid is miserable and about two steps from dying of grief or going straight into hysteria.
Angie puts her cheek to Maria's and twines their legs together as best she can being all tied up and she hums a song. It's the first one that pops in her head. She sings it at the end of her act. She's on stage all alone and there's a black velvet curtain behind her sucking up all the light except that hot one shining down on her.
It's not written for her. It's out of a lousy musical they're turning into a picture. But everyone who hears it say she was meant to sing it. Folks come up to her in the club and ask what she's thinking about.
Who she's thinking about. Who's her particular stranger in paradise.
####
Peggy maintains eye contact, but finally, after a long and quiet moment, clicks the safety on. Madame Hydra's so pleased with that. Grinning like she's won a bet—
Peggy buffalos her into unconsciousness with the side of her gun. "That smugness was worse than sand in your knickers," she says—half in apology.
"I was kind of tempted to do it myself." She smiles and doesn't make a joke about him being too chivalrous to hit a woman.
Which just makes Steve want to kiss her again.
Which can't happen.
They kissed and Peggy's girlfriend was kidnapped. It's not quite cause and effect but it stings the same way.
Peggy stands back up right and stretches with an "oomph." Her hands bracing against the small of her back as she twists from side to side. "We should take her back to the house. Interrogate her proper."
"You think she'll give us anything?"
"Red Skull's right hand woman? Not on purpose. But she'll give us something."
"We should check the van too. They probably stole it, but if they didn't—"
"A nice fat HYDRA ring in my backyard."
"You couldn't know."
Her lips are pressed together so tightly they form a thin line so Steve doesn't push it. There's a time for heart to hearts and as much as Steve needs it to be now…it isn't the time.
####
He's not gonna say he's been walking around for the last four years carrying a very idealized version of Peggy in his head. While he'll admit (to Sam and a 2015 Nat only) that he's maybe romanticized her a little he still remembers Peggy for what she was—is.
One of the best damn soldiers and spies he's ever worked with.
They leave Hydra tied up in the trunk of the car. Peggy worries that she might still escape so Steve carefully balances the front end of another car on top of the trunk. "Hopefully it won't dent," he says.
"I'm sure it will buff right out."
They go inside and clean up the glass and Steve picks a room and gets it ready for the interrogation while Peggy makes more calls. Than they bring Hydra into a room and Steve rolls his shirtsleeves up past his elbows and stands in front of the door with his arms crossed and his biceps bulging and Peggy sits in a chair opposite Madame Hydra and just
stares.
She's thoughtfully put a clock in the room on a nightstand. It ticks and ticks and ticks. Steve does sketches in his head. Imagines rendering the scene in charcoal—his fingers turning black as he blends in shadows.
Madame Hydra's first words seem to bounce against the bare walls. "The silent treatment? That's your plan?"
Peggy's unreadable. Like one of the ciphers the Howling Commandoes had to use and only Bucky and Peggy ever seemed to understand. "Why Angie?"
She laughs. "Not going to ask me about the other one?"
"I've a good idea why your future self wants her. Why Angie?"
"I was surprised about the other one. Such poor taste—"
"Why Angie?"
"She cried when we caught her. Just constant shivering—"
Hydra's looking to get a rise out of one or both of them. Peggy's not taking the bait. "Why Angie?"
"And that name. Maria Carbonell. I bet English isn't that girl's first language."
"Why Angie?"
"Maybe…Ladino? Now in a den of Hydra loyalist. Many of them still with a few heils in their hearts."
That line sparks something in Steve and he has to flex to keep from doing something he'll regret. But Peggy sits there still cool like a cucumber. "Why Angie?"
And there it is. A chink in Madame Hydra's carefully constructed armor—fashioned out of spite and condescension. She snarls, "Because you ask!"
Peggy just tilts her head.
"You ask 'Why Angie.' You take her with you to Zurich and she takes you to Los Angeles. You destroy my world—my work for her. You live together. Dine together. Breathe for one another in the most sickening—" She smacks her hand against the table and it cracks like a bullet out of a gun. "You ask 'Why Angie'. That is why you don't have her."
Even in the face of that vitriol Peggy hasn't cracked. "Your work."
Hydra pales.
"I've been wondering who took up the cause. After I took Erskine from you. And Zola." Her smile is sweet and cloying like taffy warmed up in the sun on the boardwalk. She tilts her head. "So they're left with you." She looks her up and down like appraising art. "The lab assistant."
Steve doesn't think he's ever heard Peggy sound so patronizing. She's using it like a knife—and having had to deal with it enough herself she's very good.
Madame Hydra's gaze flickers to him and back to her. "Says the triage nurse of the 107th."
Now the smile's sharp. "I'm well aware of who I am dear. And I don't have to dye my hair green and run to some future self for help."
"She knew my plans. She came to me."
"With the idea of kidnapping Angie?"
"The other girl was her idea—"
"Then Angie was all yours?"
That's when Hydra lurches forward. Straining against her bonds and letting her words drop like old honey. "After the Soldier she's always been my favorite—"
Peggy punches her. Hard. And she enjoys it. Her mouth's open in an angry half grin and she's looming over Hydra who's laid out on her back from the blow.
"Peggy."
She whips around and seeing Steve immediately pulls herself together. Even tugs on her shirt where it's ridden up from the quick viciousness of the blow. "Right." She's still jittery and the next words out of her mouth sound forced. Almost like a bad actress in a play. "Captain would you care to confer with me. Outside?"
He glances down at Hydra. She's shaking her head and wincing, but otherwise seems unharmed. So he nods.
In the hall he reaches for Peggy and pulls her into a hug that's all stiff like they barely know each other. He ignores it. "You okay?"
"Twice now that woman's arranged to have Angie abducted." She frowns. "Experimented on. Because of me."
"Experimented?"
She shakes her head. "All to get to me."
"It worked in there."
"That's not helping."
"Look Peggy—whatever she's done you can't blame yourself."
She scoffs and shakes her head. She's acting like she's insulted more than she's angry. "No, I blame that green haired loon. I've got two children, and ex-husband and a best friend worth more than a Rockefeller and she's fixated on my girlfriend? And you heard the way she said it. She's probably the first one pinning little pink triangles on—"
He reaches out again and squeezes her shoulders. That's enough. She smiles shyly out of thanks and shakes her head. "If she was planning on taking Angie already than she should know where they took her."
"So we go back in?"
"Yes. No." She groans. "Let her stew a while. I need a good cup of tea and something to eat first. About the only thing I've eaten all day is—" She blushes a red nearly as bright as her lipstick. "Tea?"
"Sure."
####
They're having their tea and eating a box of cookies Peggy insists on calling biscuits when the front door opens and Tony clanks in in his armor, sans helmet. That is, presumably, still hidden away somewhere by Peggy.
Between her wide eyed startled look and her cheeks being puffed out from all the cookies she's stuffed in her mouth Peggy looks a lot like a chipmunk.
His fingers itch to draw again. But this scene would be in colored pencils. That way he could get the red and gold of Stark's armor just right and the way the light overhead catches in Peggy's hair.
"Angie and my mother have been kidnapped and the last you saw me I was half dead from electrocution and you two are eating…cookies?"
Peggy holds the box out and speaks without swallowing. Little specks of cookie fly. "Biscuit?"
He's ready for Stark to rankle but the other guy shakes his head and comes forward and takes the whole box from her delicately.
"Did you even wonder," he asks.
The bashful look Peggy shoots Steve is enough for him. Neither of them had actually noticed Tony was missing. Hadn't even thought about it.
"We caught Madame Hydra—Viper—a version of her," he says. It's a…decent excuse.
Peggy swallows her mouthful of cookie. "We've been interrogating her to find out where they took them."
Stark kicks the box of cookies back and catches a few in his mouth. Crunches on them noisily. "I've got that one covered."
"How" Steve asks.
"They took my mom, and she happens to have my watch."
Peggy's confused. "I'm sorry how does that help?"
"The watch and my suit communicate on a spectrum that hasn't even been discovered yet. Which means we're the only ones broadcasting. Which means—"
She looks at him with a kind of awe she wouldn't even gift Howard with. "You can find them."
Tony grins. "Yeah. I can find them."