"Steve," Peggy said, her brown eyes pleading, "please say something."
Steve had found himself at a loss for words several times in the past couple of weeks, but not like this. There'd been times when he couldn't find the words, but right now the entire concept of words seemed woefully inadequate. If he were going to express what he felt, it would probably have involved tearing half the building apart with his bare hands, and he certainly couldn't do that. But what substitute was there?
Viper's revelation had surprised him, but it hadn't had the impact of this, simply because he'd barely known her or Eva. If he had, he might have figured out for himself that they were actually two different people. Peggy, however, was the woman he'd once hoped to marry. He'd clung to her as a connection to the past, as an invaluable friend he couldn't bear to do without. He knew her husband and children. He'd eaten Thanksgiving dinner with them and had been invited to join them for Christmas. He'd trusted her. Even when he'd been annoyed with her for keeping things from him, at some level he'd assumed there was a reason.
Now she wanted him to say something. What in God's name was he supposed to say?
"Where is Fyodorova?" he asked.
Peggy blinked a couple of times, clearly startled by the question, and it seemed to take her a moment to remember the answer. "She's back in lockup," she said. "She actually went there herself. After debriefing she asked if we needed anything else from her, and when they said no, she said they could put her back in handcuffs and return her to her cell. We've got a camera on her, so we're reasonably confident she's still there," she added, with just a hint of sarcasm.
Steve was not interested in her wit – or her issues with the Soviets. "Let her out," he said. "She was nothing but loyal the whole time we were up there. She could have turned on us at any time and I have no doubt she could have taken us all, but she didn't."
"Steve..." Peggy began.
"Let her out," he repeated. "Let her leave with her daughter."
"Natalia is not her daughter," Peggy said, standing up a little straighter. "Their blood types rule it out."
"She's the only mother Natalia has," Steve insisted. "I'll keep an eye on them. You let her go."
Why was he demanding this, of all things? Was it actually because he believed it? Or was he just trying to spite Peggy by telling her to her face that he trusted a Soviet assassin more than he did her. It didn't matter. What did matter was that this was yet another contest of wills, and this time, Steve was not going to lose. He would stand here like a brick wall, insisting, until Fyodorova was out of that cell.
"All right," said Peggy. "I'll trust your judgment."
That was a lie, he thought. Peggy didn't trust him any more than she trusted Fyodorova – she just wanted his forgiveness, and she thought this might be a way to earn it. Or maybe she was hoping Fyodorova would betray him, too, and send him crawling back to SHIELD. If so she was in for a surprise, because he couldn't imagine a bigger betrayal than the one Peggy herself had just committed. Either way, he would have to keep looking over his shoulder. She would definitely have people watching him.
Peggy led him downstairs to the lockup. Fyodorova was sitting there, in the same cell, quietly reading a magazine. She looked up as they walked in.
"Where is Natalia?" was her first question.
"She's still with the Pym family." Peggy unlocked the door again. "You're both to be released into Captain Rogers' custody." Her voice was stiff and clipped.
Steve had expected Fyodorova to say something sarcastic, but all she did was set her magazine aside and say, "thank you." Steve supposed she didn't want to antagonize somebody who could still have her deported.
"Janet and Natalia should be upstairs," Peggy said.
"Thank you, Fyodorova repeated. She stepped out of the cell and took Steve's arm. Why did she do that? Was it so he could protect her? Did she want a hostage? That was the problem with people – their real motivations were inside their heads, and unless they explained, Steve could only guess at them. Even if they did explain, he had no way to know who was telling the truth.
Janet was, indeed, there in a quiet waiting room on one of the upper floors. It was furnished like a living room, with fake potted plants and coffee-table books. Hank was sitting beside her, and Hope was between them, reading a book. A large birdcage on the floor by the sofa had Crusoe the dinosaur in it, and Natalia was sitting cross-legged next to this, playing with a Rainbow Brite doll. The little girl was wearing a new pink plaid romper but despite that and the colourful doll, her expression was serious – until she looked up and saw the new arrivals in the room. Her face burst into a smile, and she bounced to her feet and called out, "Konyshka!"
Fyodorova hurried forward to scoop Natalia up and give her a kiss on the end of her nose. "Were you a good girl for Mrs, Pym?" she asked in Russian.
"I was a very good girl!" Natalia promised. "She made her ants do tricks, and Hope gave me this dolly!"
Seeing this made Steve feel happy for half a moment, before his heart shrank in on itself again as he remembered all the other, horrible things that had happened in the last month. And then there was the fact that the Pym family and Natalia were not the only people waiting in the sitting room. Maria Stark was there, in a chair at right angles to the Pyms' sofa – she'd been talking to them when Steve, Peggy, and Fyodorova had walked in. Now, as the two Russians had their reunion, Maria stood up to talk to Steve.
"Captain Rogers," she said. "How nice to see you." Her voice was quiet and polite – the greeting was just a pleasantry, not something she actually meant. It wasn't that she was unhappy to see him, but she had a reason for being here, and didn't want to get bogged down in small talk.
"Mrs. Stark," Steve nodded. "Or is it Mrs. Stane now?"
"Not yet, not yet," Maria said, shaking her head. "Captain Rogers," she took a deep breath, "where is my son?"
Her face was pleading – and Steve noticed that her left eye was not open as wide as her right, as if it were slightly swollen. Had she been crying?
"Tony?" Steve looked at Peggy. Tony was still staying with Steve in his room at SHIELD. Neither of them had bothered moving out yet. Steve was going to. Today. He wouldn't stay in this building where Peggy Carter was in charge. For the moment, though, she knew where Tony was better than he, so he had to look to her for help.
"He's downstairs, working on some the items Captain Rogers retrieved from the arctic," said Peggy. "Shall I call him for you, Mrs. Stark?"
"Please," said Maria.
Peggy made a phone call, and everybody waited nervously. Pym sat on the sofa, drumming his fingers on his knee and sipping at a styrofoam cup of coffee. He looked tired and grouchy, even more so than usual. Janet and Fyodorova talked quietly, with Janet giving the other woman an assortment of parenting advice while Natalia leaned over to look at the pictures in Hope's book. Maria stood in one place, stiff and distant.
Steve stayed next to Maria. He felt like he should say something to her, since he was the one who'd taken Tony away from the apartment for a second time, but she didn't seem to be angry with him. She didn't seem to be angry with Tony, either, just quietly upset. Most likely, she just wanted to know her son was safe, to have him home again.
Peggy waited by the door until Tony arrived, and then showed him in. "Ah, Mr. Stark," she said. "You have a guest."
The first thing Tony saw was the cage with Crusoe in it – he headed for that with a smile, only to stop short a moment later, when he noticed his mother.
"Tony," said Maria.
Tony put the stack of papers he was carrying down on top of the bird cage and then came closer, reaching for his mother's face. She caught his hand before he got there, and made him lower it as she squeezed his fingers affectionately.
"What happened to your eye?" Tony asked.
"I slipped in the shower and knocked my head on the faucet," Maria replied. Tony opened his mouth to say something, but she interrupted him. "Tonino, when are you coming home?" she asked. "It won't be Christmas without you."
Janet Pym got up. "Well, we should probably be running along," she said. "Right, Hank?"
"Right." Hank finished his coffee and offered Hope a hand. "Come on, Honeybee."
"Bye, Natalia," said Hope, waving to her new friend.
"Merry Christmas," Peggy said to them, then took Steve's arm. "Captain, if I might have a word," she said.
Steve followed her out, because she and Janet were right. Maria and Tony needed privacy to have what was probably going to be a painful conversation. He got a glimpse of Fyodorova leading Natalia to the other end of the room, asking her to show her a toy that was there, and then Peggy softly shut the door.
"Steve, is there anything you need right now?" she asked.
Steve needed Bucky not to be dead. He needed to know that there was somebody who would tell him the truth when he needed to hear it. He needed a tall frothy beer in a bar in the 1940s with his lost friends. But he wasn't going to get any of that from Peggy – she was the person who'd taken it all away, by thawing him out four decades into the future. "No," he said.
"Then I'll give you some space," she said. "Do you want to come to the funeral?"
"Yes," Steve decided. The least he could do was to see off the friend he'd murdered.
Peggy nodded. "As of now, you're on sabbatical until at least the end of January," she promised. "Merry Christmas, Steve." She stood still for a moment, her head facing him even as her eyes darted back and forth, trying to think of something else to say. In the end she couldn't, so she just walked away.
Steve waited there for a few minutes, lost in his thoughts. He could hear voices from inside the waiting room, and a clinking sound as Natalia demonstrated the toy, moving big wooden beads around corners and loops of wire. It all faded into the background, though – until the door suddenly banged open. Steve jumped a bit, then turned, expecting to say goodbye to Tony. He figured Tony would have extracted from his mother a promise to talk some sense into Stane, and would be going home for Christmas. But Tony stalked out alone, carrying the cage with an agitated Crusoe inside it.
"Tony, please," Maria begged.
"Not while he's still there!" Tony informed her, heading for the elevator. He banged on the 'down' button, somewhat harder than necessary. "I don't like him, and I won't live with him!"
"Obadiah has never been anything but kind to either of us!" Maria huffed.
"That's not even true," Tony told her. "He just moved in and took over – that's not kind, that's conquest. He hit you!"
"He did not!" Maria touched her swollen eye self-consciously. "I told you, this was an accident. Tony, you cannot possibly make me choose between you and Obadiah. You cannot ask that of me!"
"Well, I'm not. I'm making my own choice," said Tony, as the elevator doors opened. "And I'm choosing to leave!" He stepped into the elevator car.
"Tony!" Maria hurried to join him.
The doors began to shut.
"Anthony Stark!" she barked.
The doors closed.
Maria stared at them a moment, then saw Steve. "Colpa tua!" she told him, furious. "This is your fault! You dragged him off into danger – he's going to end up like his father, in a plane crash or shot in the head!" She turned and stormed back into the waiting room to get her things.
Steve pressed the elevator button himself. He hoped it would come and go by the time she got back. When he heard the door open a moment later, he winced, but it was just Fyodorova carrying Natalia. She came and silently joined him as a second elevator arrived. They stepped in.
"What did you do when you were gone?" Natalia was asking her caretaker.
"We went back to the cold," Fyodorova told her. "Captain Rogers rescued a boy who was trapped all alone in a submarine. He was very happy to go home."
"Did you see the blue aurora again?" asked Natalia.
"No," said Fyodorova. "And if we did our job right, nobody ever will."
It didn't take very long to spot Tony once they arrived on the lobby level. He had evidently realized that Crusoe's cage was too big to take through the revolving doors, so he was now trying to get out one of the regular doors next to it, pushing with his back – but the door would not budge. Tony muttered some bad words and turned around to kick it in anger.
Steve went up and opened it for him.
"It's a pull door, not a push," he pointed out.
"Shut up," grouched Tony.
Steve followed him out, with Fyodorova and Natalia trailing behind. It was snowing slightly, and his jacket was still hanging on a hook in Peggy's office, but he wasn't going back for it. Nor was he going to go pick up his stuff from the room he'd been staying in. He would call later and have somebody bring it over, or maybe just do without it – it wasn't like he'd taken much with him. Steve didn't want to spend a moment more in that building when he didn't have to.
"Are you going to need a place to stay again?" he asked Tony. Tony Stark was one of the few people Steve wouldn't mind having around right now. Mostly because Tony always told Steve the truth, even when the truth was you look like hell.
"No. I'll go stay at the place in Brooklyn again," said Tony. "Or maybe even at the Mansion," he added, referring to the old house on Fifth Avenue that Maria had said would be turned into an art museum someday. "There's still power and whatnot there for the guards who look after the art collection. They can't throw me out when I technically own the place."
"All right," said Steve. "If you need somebody..."
"Thanks. I'm fine," Tony said, and hurried down the steps to Park Avenue, where he put up a hand for a taxi.
Steve stood back and said nothing more. Who was he to offer anybody comfort, when there was nobody who could offer it to him?
"Captain?" asked a voice behind him.
He looked over his shoulder – Fyodorova and Natalia were still behind him. They both looked slightly worried, uncertain of their own futures.
"Madame Director said we're being released into your custody," Fyodorova reminded him. "So... now what?"
Now what, indeed? "We'll go back to my apartment," said Steve. "It's not much, but it'll be better than the abandoned place where you were living. The people next door are nice." He hadn't thought of it this way yet, but helping Fyodorova and Natalia was probably a good idea, even if only because it would give him something to focus on, something to keep him from sinking into the darkness.
Or maybe not. After Bucky died – after Bucky died the first time – he'd set out to destroy what was left of HYDRA. He'd failed. After Howard died, he'd set out to look after Tony. He hadn't don't a very good job of that, either. Now... who was he to try and take charge of a woman and a child? What if he failed at that, too?
It probably wouldn't matter. Konstantina Fyodorova was more than capable of looking after herself.
"All right," said Fyodorova. "Thank you. I know you don't need to trust me. In fact, trusting me is a terrible idea." She smiled weakly.
"I've made worse decisions lately," Steve said. At the bottom of the steps, a cab pulled away with Tony and Crusoe in it. Steve went down to the street to see if he could get the next one. Peggy, with her obsession with security, would probably be upset that he hadn't asked for a SHIELD car. Under the circumstances, his only thought on that idea was a vindictive, good.
The last thing Steve needed at that moment was another awkward situation, but apparently the universe was not yet done with him. Their taxi pulled up outside the building where he lived and they headed into the lobby. As Steve reached for the elevator button, the mechanism 'ding!'ed and the doors opened. There were Paul and Darlene Wilson, with baby Sam in his mother's arms.
"Steve!" said Darlene with a smile. Her voice seemed terribly loud in the empty lobby, with its bare walls and cracked tiles. "We were just talking about you!"
The idea of holding a conversation, of being pleasant and trading meaningless neighbourly bullshit, was so exhausting that a part of Steve wanted to just turn and walk back out of the building, or push past them into the elevator without a word, or even to just tell them to go to hell... but he knew he couldn't do any of those things. Captain America didn't do that, and Steve Rogers' mother hadn't raised him that way. So he made the formulaic reply, "only the good stuff, I hope."
"We were wondering where you were, actually," Paul said. "We haven't seen you in a couple of weeks, and we were worried."
"We had heard about the German lady being shot," Darlene agreed, "and since the magazines said you two were close, we thought maybe it was something to do with that."
"No," said Steve. "I've just been..." he paused. Usually when he went away, he told the Wilsons he was working, and they wouldn't ask for details. They knew his work was secret. They were also perceptive enough to know when something was wrong, though – so instead of the normal excuse, he said, "a friend of mine died. One of the old crew, from the war."
"Oh, I'm so sorry," said Darlene. "Was it Peggy's husband?"
Steve cringed. "No. One of the others."
"If you need somebody to talk to, you can always come by the church," said Paul. "We've got the numbers for a couple of grief counselors."
"Thanks," said Steve, but he knew he wouldn't do that. He wouldn't be able to admit to the counselor that his friend was dead because he'd killed him. Even if that wasn't covered by his nondisclosure contracts, it was not something he could ever tell anybody, because nobody would want to think that Captain America was a murderer.
Steve couldn't think of anything to add to that, so for the next few seconds the Wilsons just stood there looking awkwardly concerned, until Darlene decided to smile at and green Fyodorova. "Hi," she said. "We're the Wilsons, Steve's next-door-neighbours. I'm Darlene, this is Paul, and the little guy here is Sam." She gave the baby a bounce. He was looking at Fyodorova with big solemn dark eyes, and sucking on his own fingers.
"I'm Connie," Fyodorova replied smoothly, "and this is Natalia." She looked at Steve, inviting him to come up with a story. Why couldn't she think of one herself? She was supposed to be the secret agent.
"I know her from work," he said. "She lost her lease, so I invited her and her daughter to come stay with me for a while."
"That's very generous of you," Paul said, with one eyebrow raised. Not surprising – he was a preacher, after all, and Steve had more or less just told him that he was planning on living in sin with a woman. Why shouldn't he look askance.
There were another few silent seconds.
"We really should be on our way," Darlene decided, shifting Sam from one arm to the other. "It was nice meeting you, Connie."
"Thanks," said Fyodorova. "I'll see you again soon, I'm sure."
The Wilsons left, talking in low voices as Paul held the door for his wife. Steve, Connie, and Natalia stepped into the elevator.
"They seem nice," Fyodorova observed.
"They are," Steve agreed. Right at that moment, however, he never wanted to see them again. He never wanted to see anybody again, really. The Wilsons turning up in the elevator were just a reminder that he was going to have to keep seeing and talking to people day by day, whether he liked it or not.
She licked her lips. "I meant what I said earlier. I didn't know you knew him. I wish I'd..."
"Forget it," Steve said gruffly. There was nothing anybody could do about it now.
Steve unlocked the door of his apartment. Nobody had touched it since he'd relocated to SHIELD a couple of weeks ago. Dust had gathered on the coffee table and on top of the TV, and the dishes he'd left in the sink were still there, the traces of food on them gone either rock-hard or moldy. Even his laundry bag was where he'd left it, draped over the back of his sofa. At the time, he'd been in too much of a hurry to clean up. Now it didn't seem worth the effort.
Fyodorova seemed surprised by what she saw. "Is this it?" she asked, peeking into the kitchen.
"Do you expect me to believe you didn't know where I lived?" Steve said.
"I knew the address, but I'd never been here," she told him. "I would have figured Stark would find you something nicer."
"I told them I didn't want their help," said Steve. "I want to make it on my own." That was what he'd once told Bucky, too. "You and Natalia can have the bedroom. I'll sleep on the couch."
"You should get one of those sofa beds," said Fyodorova. She set Natalia on the ground. "What do you think, Solnyshka?" she asked.
"I like it," Natalia replied with a smile.
"Then say thank you to Captain Rogers," Fyodorova told her.
Natalia looked up at him. "Spasibo," she said.
"In English," Fyodorova said firmly.
The little girl took a deep breath. "Thank you, Captain Rogers," she said carefully.
"You're welcome," he replied. Then added, "it's Steve. Call me Steve, Natalia." He didn't know how comfortable he was with captain right now.
Natalia cocked her head and turned to Fyodorova for permission. She wasn't used to calling any other adults by their first names.
"It's allowed, Natalia," Fyodorova said, and began taking dishes out of the sink.
"You don't have to do that," Steve said, putting out a hand to stop her, but she gently pushed it aside.
"I like to earn my keep, too... Steve," she said. The name was a test. Was she, too, allowed to call him that?
"All right... Connie," he replied. The Wilsons would be expecting to hear him call her that, anyway.
She nodded, and began running the water to fill the sink. "What would you like for dinner?" she asked, businesslike. She squirted liquid soap into the water, and the bubbles foamed up.
"You're gonna cook for me, too?" he asked, startled.
"I like cooking, and I don't get to do it very often," she said, wetting a dish cloth. For a moment she was silent, and then she sighed. "It's something normal people do."
That, Steve could understand. Of all the things his life had ever been, normal was not one of them and probably never would be. Right now, however, a little normal was the best thing he could think of. A little bit of pretending everything was all right, even if that was no longer possible.
"What do you want to make?" he asked.
Connie looked at Natalia, who was making herself comfortable on the sofa. "Natalia," she said, "what do you want to eat?"
"Pel'meni iz lososya, pozhaluysta," said the girl.
"English," Connie reminded her.
Natalia pouted, thinking about it. "Fish bread soup?" she tried.
"Salmon dumplings with broth." Connie nodded. "Do you like Russian food, Steve?"
"I've never tried it," he admitted. Fish dumplings sounded odd, but they couldn't be any worse than some of the stuff they'd tried during the war. In many of the various places he'd gone with the commandos, they'd all dared one another to try the strangest-looking local dishes they could find. Some of them hadn't been half-bad.
"You'll learn to love it in no time, especially with me cooking it," said Connie proudly.
It could be a trick, Steve supposed... they could be trying to poison him. But even if they were, somehow it really didn't seem to matter anymore.
Once Connie finished the dishes, she gave Steve a shopping list and sent him to the grocery store on the corner to buy the ingredients she needed for the dumplings. He went, wondering as he did whether she would be there when he got back. Maybe she would take all his stuff and vanish into the night. Steve wouldn't particularly care if she did – the only possession he was particularly attached to anymore was his shield, which he'd left at the building because the trip to the wreck of the Ilya Murometz had technically been an undercover mission. Considering what it represented, she could have that, too.
Connie herself had said, 'trusting me is a terrible idea'. Why had she said that? It was obviously true, but why did she go to the trouble of pointing it out to a man who was offering her a temporary home? Was it just so later she could say she'd warned him? But she'd said such things before, too. She'd warned him that he was using him, that any partnership between the two of them would last no longer than it took to destroy HYDRA. The impression Steve got was that she was telling the truth. She wanted his help, but not because he had any illusions about her – there seemed to be nothing for her to gain from her warnings, except that he would know she was being honest with him.
Or was that what she wanted Steve to think?