PRESENT DAY – D.C.
"No, you gotta take the 92—the 80's warped for shit." Sam, hoisted into the backseat with his injured leg measly slung up to the ceiling of Tony's Audi, was directing (or more like backseat driving) the course to D.C. Clint rolled his eyes with an exhausted sigh as he looked out the window, his eyes focusing on the outer rim of the city fast-approaching in the distance. This had been going on for a while.
"Hey, peanut gallery," Tony snapped, his eyes hidden behind purple-tinted stylish glasses, and looked back at Sam, "I think I know how to drive my car. Thanks."
Natasha cleared her throat. "He's kind of right, though. The 80 is warped for shit."
Tony deadpanned and turned to look at her.
Natasha stuck her lips inward and turned her hands outward nonchalantly as if to say, 'I'm just sayin.' She directed her gaze outside the passenger-seat window to look across the oncoming Potomac River. The wide freeway bridge that crossed over it marked the entryway to the Capital. To the east, Washington rose up in the distance like a foreboding harbinger as the Capital Building's rotunda surfaced from the early morning fog. If you squinted, you could even see the fenced off remains of the Triskelion. In the fog, it still looked like they were smoking from the battle that took place nearly three years ago. And even if it wasn't, the stubby-looking buildings left behind from the once-grand HQ of SHIELD were enough to still feel a distant, hollowed sense of panic. What ghosts of HYDRA remained lurking there?
Apparently, now a days, ghosts were a lot harder to kill.
"Listen, it's been a long night…so maybe I'm just seeing things, but please tell me I'm not the only one that sees the goddamn wormhole in the sky?" Clint's voice cracked from shock as he pointed in the opposite direction from Natasha. Three heads whipped in Clint's direction to see where he was pointing to. Sure enough, a large, ominous hole had opened up into the sky as golden, blazing fire reigned down from inside it.
Natasha couldn't see where it was landing, but she could only imagine the panic and carnage it was leaving in its wake. Civilians. National leaders. Steve. There was no telling who was on the other end of that fire coursing down from the sky like it was being blasted down from some kind of angry god.
"Alright," Tony turned back to look between the three of them, "So, who decided not to share that the forecast today predicted the Apocalypse?"
Natasha rolled down her window and stood up, barreling her body halfway out of the car to try and get a better look at the massive atmospheric mess before them. The force of the air pressure outside the speeding car felt like a slap across her face as tears welled in her eyes from the wind squeezing up against them. Nonetheless, she did get a closer look at the distant wormhole. Too bad – she felt her heart drop down into her chest with a sinking sense of dread. "That's not coming from the sky…that's coming from the ground." She jerked herself back into the car, the wind billowing in through the window stung her ears, but she ignored it. "Something's below that thing."
Emi was screaming. Peggy wasn't sure why and she wasn't sure why she couldn't get her to stop. "Emilie." She tried to grab onto her shoulders, but Emi's skin was boiling hot.
"Why… Why did you bring me back?" She gasped in absolute anguish; her face contorted in several ridiculous directions. She seemed inhuman, her skin practically on the verge of splitting off of her face. "Peggy, why did you bring me backkkkkkkk?!" She fell to her knees as untapped, unrefined golden energy radiated off of her body. She looked like someone had lit her body on fire, but instead of actually catching aflame, she was stuck in some strange anti-flammable pocket of air. The fire engulfed her in an oblong, oval-shaped pocket. But the fire, despite causing no real threat to her flesh, still seared absolute agony into Emi's features. Her entire existence was a purgatory of which she could not escape. A burning, perennial existence of flames and fire.
The Stone that rested within her chest looked as if the entire sun had been brought down from the sky and locked inside her hollow frame. She looked so small with the gem nestled there, dwarfing her entire body. Her hands clawed at it, trying to rip it out of her chest as if digging it out of herself would bring some form of solace. "GET, IT, OUT." She screeched out of pure rupturing agony as her nails dug into her flesh, tearing apart the fabric there, and left long and bloody streaks across her chest.
Peggy tentatively reached for her, concern creasing her face down the middle. "Emilie…darling, look at me. Emilie, look at me."
Emi turned her gaze to Peggy's. Hysterical. Pained beyond imagine. Her kaleidoscope eyes were unfocused, blurry, a bleeding mess of paint spilled all together in one gooey, multicolored slush. Something was wrong inside of her. Her gaze was as jagged as it was hysterical. She didn't look like the soft-faced, cold-as-stone assassin, she had once been, but more like a dying animal in the peak of torment. "Peggy…Peggy…" Her face was like a child's, crumpled with grief, an unbearable, unspeakable burden she could not carry seemed to nestle itself intimately up against her. "Peggy, I can't control it. It's too much." She sobbed with quaking, riveting emotion. Raw. Stripped. Burdened.
No. She could do this. Emi could do this. She controlled men's minds just by meeting their gaze. She could control this. She had to. There was no other option. Peggy stepped into the intense, golden energy radiating off of Emilie's body. "Emi," the heat and power shaking off of her was enough to make Peggy's skin feel tight against her skull as if she didn't fit her own body. "Emi, my love, you can." There was something else too. The power…it felt like she was being siphoned. Her very life draining before her and into Emi. She could almost see it – her soul being channeled out of her flesh.
"Peggy…" Emi grabbed hold of her cheeks, meeting her eyes with glittering, agonized tears. "I feel them. I feel them all."
She broke away from Peggy, hands greasily slipping from her cheeks, as she stumbled a few feet away. "I feel the entire universe inside me." She wept, shivering with both raw power and pain that rippled through her body. She stepped into the Memorial Pool where she had just come from mere minutes ago, and instantaneously caused the knee-high water to begin boiling. Her power split off from her, shooting upwards from the glowing stone in her chest. Shooting straight up into the sky, Emi's power traveled all the way into the expanse of space. It looked like it was the fluffy, white tracing of an airplane in the sky, lit by the backdrop of the sun. It was intensely gold, bright, and burned your eyes if you stared too long.
Screaming like her heart had been ripped from her chest, Emi dropped down into the water. The entire world seemed to shake as the early morning sky above them ripped open, revealing a large, black, and massively expansive universe of stars, galaxies, and planets. Emi's power tearing apart the protective ozone between space and Earth – the endless black sky above them was wide enough to swallow all of their existence. She was going to destroy everything.
It wasn't supposed to go like this. Emilie was supposed to be , with tears in her eyes, watched with a crumpled, heartbroken expression. "Emilie." She cried, reaching out into the pool and grabbing hold of her. She ignored the heat and intense power that blasted around them. She ignored all of that in the one attempt that Emi would listen to her. "Emi, you have to control it. You have to."
Emi, soaking from both dingy water and sweat, shook her head as the glowing around them intensified. This was what it was like to be on the inside of an atomic bomb, Peggy realized. This much chaos, this much destruction, this much potential of carnage – all of it sitting right on the cusp of one person's will. "Why couldn't you just use the Stone…?" She cried, drops of sweat mingled with her tears.
"For God's sake, Emi," Peggy was crying, but she didn't even register her own tears, "because I couldn't lose you." She was on her knees on the edge of the pool as she grasped Emi's searing fingers in her own. Her eyes ached in the intense light that shrouded Emi's face. She both looked like she had a blinding halo encircled around her face as well as a crown made from the burning, exploding stars above them.
"Because you were weak." She suddenly hissed. Emi's face, intensely too beautiful in the fierce light around her, went feral and vicious. "You couldn't make the one, needed sacrifice. The one to stop Thanos from destroying everything." Her fingers tightened around Peggy's with a steel grip. "You couldn't let me die."
At her angry, venomous words, the water around her instantly stopped boiling and instead rose up around her in suspended slow motion. Emi rose to her feet with a savage, uncontrolled expression that coated itself across her face like spilled poison. "And so now," she rasped through gritted teeth, "I have to do what you couldn't." Her eyes turned stone cold and the light around her face lessened. "I have to destroy him."
And that's when Emi let the water fall down around them in an epic symphony of violent and powerful waves. It splashed down like a tsunami from the sky. Crashing up against the Lincoln Monument, the water knocked the columns down in its wake. The roof, suddenly unable to handle the weight without the marble formations, creaked wildly as it slid forward. The stony president that was seated in the middle of the monument was suddenly buried in the pile of marble, stone, and granite.
Peggy leaped out of the way as a particular powerful blast of water came towards her. What had she done…?
The earth beneath their feet shook with a dangerously unstable vibration. An earthquake in Washington? Not likely. Except, to Emi, now it was apparently. As the earth's shaking increased, the empty Memorial Pool split in two, straight-down the middle, as the rift dug itself all the way down into the center of the earth. The Washington Monument, on the other end, seemed to quiver and shake as the intensity of the quaking increased. It was tipping sideways, dangerously threatening to fall.
"Emi – stop it." Peggy screamed as she ran to her and began to engage in hand-to-hand combat. Her fists crushing up against her chest, as Emi flew sideways from the force of Peggy's blows.
"You brought me back, Carter," Emi seethed with unhinged, uncontrollable fury, "and now I have to balance it all on my own." Her hand, breaking free of Peggy's hold, found its way around the other woman's throat as she lifted her above the ground. Her former partner, choking and sputtering to plead with her, tried to grasp at Emi's deadlocked fingers around her neck. But Emi's eyes were rigid with rage, unmerciful. Her fingers tightened and Peggy's struggles eventually stopped, her body going limp.
Emi dropped her on the edge of the Memorial Pool as she turned towards the rising sun over the smoking ruins of the National Mall. There was much more to be done yet.
Tony squealed to a stop three blocks from the wormhole. By the time they had all gotten out of the car, he was already decked in full-on Iron Man armor. "FRIDAY – you wanna fill me in on what I'm seeing?"
The AI quickly scanned the wormhole that was, as Natasha had observed, indeed spiraling up from the ground. "It's a doozy, boss." She reported into Tony's intercoms. Several different related incidents throughout history all flashed across Tony's high-tech monitor built into his helmet.
"Extraterrestrial?"
"'Fraid not, sir, I'm getting traces of definitive natural-occurring molecules."
FRIDAY was right. It was a doozy. While the molecules involved may have "naturally occurred" on Earth – they weren't Earth-originated. In fact, there was only one other event in all of recorded history that had traces of anything like it. Moscow, 2013. A farmer, clearing his field, finds the burnt and charred remains of a body at the edge of his property. The body was later identified to be a known HYDRA agent, Emilie Jones. A known affiliate and partner of Margaret Carter.
"Tony." Natasha snapped as the great inventor sifted through historical data. He turned to her and offered a solitary nod through his helmet. Right. Steve. He tossed Natasha the molecular tracking device. He'd built that little number in the hopes that they could track down known missing persons – for example: maybe a Class A asshole super soldier captain, who turned out to be protecting his parents' assassin. But what he actually ended up using it for was really only to keep moderate tabs on said Captain Asshole. Yeah, sure, they were fighting, but at the same time, he still cared for the moron. "You press the on-switch to use it." He remarked with a smug little wave to Natasha.
She rolled her eyes, but grabbed hold of Sam. They had a plan – Tony and Clint would go off together to do recon of the wormhole situation, while Natasha and Sam would find Steve. Depending on how both situations ended up, one team would circle back to help the other. If both teams needed the assist, well, that'd just make things more interesting.
Booting up the tracker, Natasha looked up to where the device was directing them. Towards the outskirts of the city – basically where they had just come from. She turned to Sam, he gave her a little nod, his wings already extending from his pack.
"You sure?" Natasha fixed him with a concerned look.
"Stark's got me on about 15 pain suppressing pills. I'm good." Sam gave her two finger guns along with the "pew pew" sound effect, as if that was supposed to make her feel better.
With a smirk and a shake of her head, she allowed him to scoop her up underneath her arms as they blasted off into the sky.
Once the two of them had pitched into the sky, Tony turned back to the wormhole. Clint was tightening the top of one of his arrows. Earlier in the car, he and Sam had a bit of a "heated" argument over Clint's specific type of arrows: "they're boomerang arrows, O.K.? They're very functional, thank you very much." But as Stark directed his gaze towards him, he could tell the master archer had fallen into total seriousness as he looked over to his fellow iron-suited avenger. "You ready?"
Tony nodded a little reluctantly. "Always."
Natasha and Sam dropped onto the flat, concrete roof of a warehouse on the southside of the city. It was big, long, and probably could have held a couple dozen tanks. Natasha pulled out the tracker from her belt and nodded at the readings. "He's here."
With Natasha off of his gear, Sam slid down his wraparound wrist mechanism, and entered in Red Wing's command. "Go inside and check it out, little dude." His robotic sidekick chirped in confirmation and swooped down through a broken window on the side of the building. Sam walked over to the edge of the warehouse and looked down to the still-darkened streets behind them. The dawning sun had just started to rise in the east, making everything to the west still somewhat seeped in dark blue, early morning darkness. The wormhole, from here, looked like it was some kind of ominous UFO floating just above the ground.
Yeesh. Whatever the fuck that thing was, he was just glad he got stuck finding Steve's dumbass. He had to smirk. How was Clint holding up with those boomerang arrows against that thing?
Red Wing buzzed back up to him and spat out a holographic layout of the building. Steve was nowhere to be found. They'd have to search for him manually. Lucky them. He turned to Natasha who was looking back to the spinning mess of clouds and space above them.
"What do you think it is?" She asked softly. He couldn't help but admire the way the sunset settled over the crown of her head like her blonde hair was practically interwoven with the colors of the sunset. Her head eclipsed the rising sun, all the colors straining through her fair hair like a spiderweb of color settling across a body of water. He loved all the things about Natasha – her mind, her smile, her ferocity – but her beauty…that was something else. Next level.
"Probably just a regular Tuesday for us." He teased.
Natasha turned back to look at him with a small, brave smile gracing her lips. It was girlish and quiet. All that violent power within her – the greatest assassin known throughout history – and yet, she stood before him with a smile that looked like it came from a little girl that wanted to tell him something beautiful. She was so fucking perfect in that moment. Washed out blonde hair, green eyes like emeralds, the colors of the early morning sky framing her like she was some kind of goddess sent from the clouds above. "Sam, in case we don't…uhm…make it out of this one…" She began as her eyes found his.
"Hey, stop that." Sam shook his head with a frown, brushing off her concern.
"No. I need to tell you something." She said firmly, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. Her eyes locked on his.
Sam gave her a sideways smile, half of his lip curling upwards at her words. "Tell me when this is over. Give me somethin' to look forward to." He winked before he reached out and ran a thumb across her cheek. "Let's go get Captain Dumbass."
Tony flew over the National Mall, while Clint ran below him to check out the scene from the ground. The place was a wreck. The Lincoln Memorial was in ruins, the Washington Monument was tipping sideways like it was taking a page out of the Leaning Tower of Pisa's handbook, and the reflecting pool in between both was drained entirely of water, cracked right down the middle. Something had happened here. And based on how the wreckage of the Lincoln Memorial was still smoking with fresh dust, it hadn't been long ago.
Just as Natasha had observed, the wormhole was blasting directly up from the ground, shooting upwards with no direct source. It was like it was just spiraling up into the sky without any beginning. How in the hell…? Tony stuck his fingers out, only a few inches away, and felt the quivering force of power reaching out to him. There was something about it that made him want to go closer, and yet, he felt like if he did—
"TONYYYYYYYY." Pepper. Screeching. Screaming. Her voice like a freight train blasting forward into his consciousness. His head immediately jerked around, sparing a look down to the ground where Clint was, but she wasn't there. Why…? Why had he heard her voice…? "TONNNYYYYY." Her scream was shrill, desperate, but it echoed. It was like she was calling to him from all directions, but nowhere simultaneously.
The calling, if that's what he could call it, made him feel…weird. Not weird as in he felt "weirded out," but more like he felt changed. He felt like Pepper wasn't calling to him, Tony Stark – billionaire, playboy, philanthropist – she was calling to a kid named Anthony in in Long Island, New York. A boy who stopped believing he was capable of love, after his father's slightly-more-than-borderline abusive musings. A boy who gave up trying to be more – he was smart, wasn't that enough? A boy who tried to rectify the hole in his gaping, harrowing existence with a number of intoxicants – all of which failed to make him truly feel anything. A boy who, once upon a time, wanted to be hero. Pepper's scream was reaching into him, pulling forth the very fiber of his being…the moral stitching of all that he was. His soul.
And that's when he realized… The screaming wasn't coming from nowhere; it was coming directly from the pillar of light shooting up into the sky before him. Jesus Christ. Was she trapped inside? He flew closer and tried to look into the intense, dazzling golden light before him, but he couldn't see a thing.
"Pepper?!" He called into the light. He could feel the heat of the energy radiating in through his suit. This stuff could have literally burnt the titanium directly off of him if he wasn't careful. "Pep, baby?!" He yelled once more, but the screaming had stopped. She was gone… But how…? How was she "gone," if she'd never been there in the first place? She had died. Tony had arranged her goddamn funeral.
How…?
Moscow, 2013.
But that was impossible.
Theoretical.
Hypothetical.
Defiant of all belief.
A piss stain on all of evidential science.
Cross-back energy. How the fuck was that even possible?
"Clint, buddy, askin' for a friend, you seein' any newly resurrected people down there?" Tony asked into his com as the pieces clicked together.
There was a long, confused pause on Clint's end. "Uh no. Should I?"
Sam set Natasha down with ease on the ground floor of the warehouse as he landed beside her. He had been expecting tanks, nuclear bombs, weapons of mass destruction. Anything that basically implied "general death to all." That seemed pretty run-of-the-mill for Peggy Carter now a days. But there wasn't anything. No, literally, there was nothing at all. Long, open dusty floors just spanned out in front of them.
Natasha frowned at the sight. Not promising. However, there were four other floors to the thing – odds were, Peggy Carter was damn good at hiding things. She obviously hadn't wanted Steve to be found all that easily.
"Let's split up." She found herself suggesting, before immediately regretting it. Sam was in absolutely no state to be on his own. His leg was bandaged up to his upper thigh. He might not have been able to feel the pain of his injury, but it was still there nonetheless with very fresh, very new stitching. "Wait, I meant—"
Sam was already shaking his head. "Tasha." He crossed his arms and gave her a look. "I'll be fine." She knew that face; he wasn't going to move on this. "It's the best and quickest course of action.
With a crestfallen look, she took a deep breath in like she was getting ready to hold her breath for the world's longest holding breath competition. She was entirely worried about him, he realized. Crushingly worried about him. Sam had to smirk at her concern. It was the worst situation to find himself feeling this way, but he was almost glad for Steve's dumbassery. Natasha Romanoff, the woman he'd been in love with for nearly two years, was worried to death about him. So, yeah, he had to smirk.
"I got moves, girl, I'll be fine. Besides, I'm in your ear." He reached out and tapped her earlobe, before he gave her one last wink and shot into the air. Natasha, stuck below him, watched for a moment too long, before she jogged down the stairs.
And not surprisingly, the darkness below was absolutely pitch-black. Natasha realized, rather quickly, she could not see a thing. She took out her electronic shockers and powered them up, part of her way becoming lit by the pulsing blue electronic light from her tazers. However, she could still only see pieces of the long, dark hangar before her. The skin on the back of her neck broke out in gooseflesh as a cold, uneasy tension tightened itself deep into her bones. There were creatures of the night that saw much better in the dark than she did. And she was willing to bet, those eyes were directed at her now.
Not only did she feel unsettled, something in the air smelled of a distinct, but undeniable twinge of iron. Iron was in blood. Always a good sign. Shifting one of the shockers up to her full height, she lit the remaining distance in her pathway to the backwall of the hangar. Unfortunately (kind of?), there was nothing. The way the lighting of her tazers fell across her darkened pathway reminded her of something out of the Blair Witch Project. Blurry light came up from behind; unsettling and slightly unfocused. Any number of unknowns could have come at her from the sides of her vision, and she wouldn't have known – a dark, lightless room that was filled with blind spots.
"Steve?" Natasha called out into the dark, empty room before her. If Peggy was here, she'd rather face her sooner rather than later. The idea of making herself known by calling out seemed stupid, but if Peggy Carter was down here, lurking in the darkness, she would have known already. The assassin would have preferred to face the rogue HYDRA agent than pretend like she wasn't privy to her.
Finally making it to the backwall, Natasha's hand reached out to feel the cinderblock walling beside her. She ran her fingertips along it as she walked on, her tazers hovering over the cement floor. She was just about to give up and go back up to the ground floor, when she nearly tripped over him. A slumped, dark mass. She would have mistaken him for a pile of discarded rags and garbage. But no. No. It was Steve. "Fuck. Steve." She cried out and dropped to his side.
With a grunt of effort, she flipped him over onto his back. Even in the meager light, she knew it was bad. He had dirty, blood-soaked bandages wrapped around his mid-section, his skin was ashy (even in this light), and his breathing was shallow. "Steve." She reached up and cupped his cheek. "Come on, Steve, come on. Wake up, sleeping beauty."
With a dry, ragged groan, and a few weak coughs, Steve cracked his eyes to see her hovering above him. "Nat…" He whispered. His lips were chapped to severe dehydration as flakes of skin and blood had dried over each other. She was sure he hadn't eaten in the two days it had been, and it was obvious he needed medical attention immediately.
Steve, using his remaining effort, reached up to place a hand over Natasha's. "I'm sorry." His eyes folded over once more as he closed them. "I'm so sorry for everything…" He murmured with a sullen shake of his head. "This is all my fault…" He croaked with the voice of a dying man. "I thought I could stop her. I thought I could save her…" His breath hitched in his throat as if he was breaking into tears. And Natasha realized, he was, as his eyes reopened to meet hers. They were filled with pained, repentant emotion so thick she thought she could have physically scooped it up like ice cream frozen and on display.
"Hey, you did the best you could, alright?" She whispered to him with a small smile. "Now, you wanna make it up to me? You gotta help me get you out of here."
Steve's eyes, glazed and glassy with an internal infection, met hers with a weak nod. With a massive swell of effort, and help from Natasha, they managed to pull him up to his feet. She leaned him up against the wall as she slid her arm underneath his. For whatever reason, this seemed like a good idea at the time. But what Natasha failed to remember was that Steve was still a super soldier even when he was bleeding out. He still weighed a ridiculous amount. He would have toppled her over if not for her conscious effort to stay upright.
"Sam." She pressed down into her com through gritted teeth as they labored across the massive warehouse hangar. Steve leaning heavily on her, Natasha's every muscle fighting to keep him steady. "Sam, he's down here on the sublevel. I'm gonna need an assist."
"Tell the old man to stay alive until I can come and kick his ass first." He replied with an obvious teasing tone to his voice.
Natasha chuckled, but it sounded more like she was being strangled under the density of Steve's mass. "Sam's coming, Steve – just hang on." Just hang on.
This entire thing, this massive pillar of golden, explosive raw material, was potential kinetic energy. Not of matter, not of objects that had the potential to move, but the very souls of every known creature in existence. The potential of all living things, their potential to exist. Theoretical astrophysicists – people who spent more time developing grand plans and formulas of the universe than actually running any data – called it cross-back energy.
At least, that's what Stephen Hawking had called it. He theorized, like Albert Einstein, like Richard Feynman, like Jane Foster, that the universe was a complex place of tradeoffs. With the tiniest of tradeoffs between humans – giving that homeless guy your last dollar, stealing a pack of gum off the supermarket checkout counter – comes massive implications of potential. Not just in morality, but in actual kinetic potential. You physically change the course of your life, but you also alter the formulaic designs of the universe.
For thousands of years, mankind lived thus like animals. Basic needs were met such as our reliance on sustenance and warmth, but it was not until man learned to give that we became humans. Take for instance, the greatest known event of biblical history – the Crucifixion and Death of the Christ. A tradeoff, a gift for all of humanity, so that the Sins of man may be forgiven. Textbook. To put it more simply, and not so religiously bound, as I am not one to bow to theological thought – our lives are a series of givings and misgivings. We give so that we may receive. Therefore, the greatest known formula of our expanding, ever-changing universe is reduced to a simple algebraic equation:
x = x
A soul for a soul.
The textbook passage of Hawking's theoretical writings surfaced in Tony's mind as if, for the first time, he realized just what kind of earthshattering revelation the physicist had been onto. Of course. Theoretical in nature, cross-back energy was the manifestation of Hawking's theory. For every sacrifice, there is a reward, a forgiveness, an equal repayment. But when that repayment is not given, when the sacrifice is made but there is no manifestation of its reward, the potential of the reward is called cross-back.
This meant that the very existence of human life, the very existence of any life, had unanswered, untapped, unearthly potential. What could be. What was to happen. Where you would find yourself. These questions of existentialism were questions we faced every day, but for physics, it meant a boundless well of kinetic energy. Anything was possible for the immortal soul; it was bound up in thousands, millions (perhaps trillions) of what could have beens, what wasn'ts, and what was to bes. Infinite potential.
It was a joke in modern science. The grand musings of Stephen Hawking on his deathbed.
Yet what was here, before Clint and Tony, about to swallow up the entire world, was a massive, unanswered collection of such kinetic energy. The kinetic energy of every, single, soul that had ever existed.
Tony landed on his feet beside Clint as they both stood before the spiraling column before them, watching it blast up into space. "I hear them." Clint whispered, tears in his eyes. "I can hear Laura…"
Moscow, 2013. The girl who was burned. Emilie Jones. She had been burdened with carrying this boundless potential energy inside of her for all of her life, but she was alive (again). She had to be. This much energy, this much potential – it matched every vital piece of data left of her.
Peggy must have brought back her back – they were working as partners. But probably what Carter hadn't realized was that the resurrection of such an entity, with this much power, this much energy, was the ultimate tradeoff, the ultimate sacrifice. She had been freed of all this energy, only to be given all of it, all at once. It would have collapsed the very fabric of their reality. But the kicker of it all – the physical manifestation of this energy, as normally we wouldn't be able to see it – was due to a very stupid, but simple reason. The universe was, for all intents and purposes, scientifically and without reason, unbalanced. The raw, uncontrollable energy would destroy their world if they couldn't fix it. If this Emilie could not bottle it back up.
"Nat," Tony weakly spoke into his intercom. The shock of the astronomical, universe-defining discovery still wrapped up in his voice. His thoughts, for once, were difficult to formulate. "Romanoff – you… Carter's not working alone. She…" His helmet slid down as he ran his fingers into his course brown hair, clutching it with a maddening worried expression. "Her partner, Emilie Jones… The wormhole… She needs balance… Goddammit. She's coming for Steve."
"What do you mean? Tony."
They had reached the uppermost floor of the warehouse – they needed to get Steve to the roof. Natasha had just sent Sam to the roof to radio Tony, while she stood watch over the slumped, half-unconscious figure of Steve – if they could reach Stark, he and Sam could take him to the nearest hospital while Natasha figured out what to do about Carter.
At least, that was the plan in her head. Now, she wasn't so sure. "Tony, you're gonna have to give me more than that – what do you mean? Jones is coming for Steve?"
Sam burst onto the roof of the warehouse. The sun gloriously coating his face as he tried to catch his breath from racing up the stairs. He pressed his fingers to his ear, holding down on the com, as he called for Stark. "Hey, Tony – we got a heavy load of stupid here for ya'." He chuckled as his uneven breathing echoed into the radio.
The static that answered him did not find his joke funny apparently. Or maybe that was just because it was the only the response he got.
"Stark? Tony?" Sam called again into the static void that answered him. Panic rose in his chest as he surveyed the awakening city around him. It felt like the world was spinning.
"She's the keeper of all this energy. That's what we're seeing from this wormhole – potential energy that needs balance. It's… It's too complicated, but Steve's in danger, Natasha. You and Birdbrain gotta get him the fuck out of there." Tony snapped at her through the now-staticky radio connection.
Ordinarily, Natasha wouldn't have tolerated Stark's tone. But this was not ordinarily. She glanced down at Steve who was looking back up at her with a concerned expression. In the light, she could really see how dirty he was. Dust and black ash coated his face like he had been dunked in soot. His hair was greasy and desperately in need of a wash. Well, all of him was really in need of a wash.
"So, she's coming here? That's what you're telling me?"
Tony was saying something, but Natasha didn't hear him. A violent, dangerous revelation occurred to her. She had sent Sam to the roof.
Sam didn't know how to describe the massive glowing thing that had dropped in front of him. It was like a star had fallen right down from the sky and landed before him. God, it was blinding. He shielded his eyes as it grew closer.
"GAWH!" He cried out as he suddenly realized the flesh on his forearms was blistering from the extreme heat of the supernova that was drawing ever closer to him. "NATASHA." He called out to the assassin as he fell back. He screamed in agony as his burned hands slapped against the gravel of the roof, digging into the injured flesh. He desperately tried to scamper away from the powerful light before him, but it kept coming.
His wings were trying to extend themselves, but the dire heat of the burning light was forcing the eject mechanism to malfunction. He was trapped. Cornered. And whatever the hell this thing was, was going to burn him alive. The thing, now towering above him, softened the intensity of its blinding light. It was a woman, he realized. A ridiculously beautiful woman. She had an adorable face that looked like it was formed from flower petals, rounded off by two halves of a heart. At any other time, Sam would have thought she looked like a sweet kid.
"Where is he?" She asked him. Her voice was just as soft and sweet as her face. Sam, of course, appropriately mused, on the cusp of the building's edge, that if teddy bears could speak, that's what they would sound like.
"Where's who?" Three guesses as to who Nova here was looking for. First guess: not him.
The woman cocked her head and frowned at him. "You." She studied him closely, but she wasn't looking at him. The girl looked more like she was studying his crazy good looks rather than his existence as a human. Her crazy eyes – spinning and spiraling with a mixture of ten thousand colors – were calculatingly analytical. No, she didn't see him as a person. She saw him as a problem. "Yes. You'll do."
Natasha turned sharply to Steve. Blue eyes weakly rising to meet her urgent gaze. "Wait. Here." Before the super soldier could answer, she was leaping up the last set of stairs. Her powerful legs, quick and well-toned from years of training and ballet, gracefully carried her up to the roof.
She kicked down the door just in time to see Sam floating up into the air. Good. Yes. He was escaping. Except… Where were his wings? Emi, who was standing before him, outrageous golden light pouring down around her, turned slowly to look at Natasha. Oh, my God. No. Sam wasn't escaping. No. She was holding him up. Sam's terrified eyes met hers. Go. He gave a little shake of his head. Go, Natasha. She could hear his voice in her head. A surreal sense of reality settled over. Sam and her were magic, the two of them suddenly able to talk telepathically. No. No, Natasha just knew what he was thinking.
And it wouldn't fly.
She screamed his name for all she was worth, stumbling forth as she fell into a dead sprint to reach him. Emi gritted her teeth as rage boiled over her expression as she turned sharply back to Sam. Just as Natasha was about to reach him – mere finger lengths away – Emi's hand flicked upwards and Sam, eyes wide, dropped over the edge of the building.
At first, Natasha could not grasp what was happening. Sam. Sam had just… He was falling off the edge of the building. He was falling. Natasha was screaming his name, dangling off the edge of the building as she tried to reach for him. His eyes were locked on hers as he fell. Time slowed. He was falling in slow-motion. A joke. She could hear the universe laughing at her. His eyes were locked on hers. Tears flowed down her cheeks as she screamed hysterically into the open, early morning air.
His eyes were locked on hers. She could tell he was yelling something to her. Screaming in raw, agonizing closeness.
I
LOVE
YOU
And then a sickening crack that resonated across the entire world. The entire universe heard it. It was loud enough to make God tremble. It was loud enough to know that Sam Wilson was dead.
Natasha was screaming. His eyes had been locked on hers.
His eyes had been locked on hers.
He was staring up at the sky now. Blood pooling around his head like a crimson halo. His eyes had been locked on hers.
"Natasha." She spun to see Steve hunched over behind her. "Nat…" He looked behind her to the ground where Sam was. She saw the moment his eyes fell on Sam, a little flash of revelation, a sickening connection of truth. "Oh…" He dropped to his knees as he shook his head, shock carving itself bright and raw into his features. "Sammy…" He was shaking his head as tears came to his eyes, his breathing ragged and uneven.
Oh, he was hyperventilating, Natasha realized with a delayed sense of urgency. She looked back down to Sam as mad, exquisitely mad, tears flowed down her cheeks. "Steve." She gasped through her sobs. How…? How…could they…? "Steve, we gotta go." She gargled through choking, sticky tears and snot. "We gotta go." She heaved with shaking sobs with a shake of her head.
Jones. She turned sharply to look back at the rest of the rooftop, her vision blurry through her tears. Luckily, Emi seemed to have disappeared. "We gotta go." She repeated just as a craven, heartbroken sob escaped through her words, burying any hope of deciphering them. She wanted to collapse. She wanted to collapse and scream. She couldn't go on. No. No, she really couldn't. Everything inside of her felt like it had been gutted out of her chest and she had to somehow live without her vital organs.
She wanted to die.
But she had to live. Because of Steve. "We gotta go." She whimpered as she stood up, grabbing hold of his arm and screaming it into his ear: "WE GOTTA GO." Every sculpted heartbroken, anguished expression broke out across her face. It looked like a demon was trying to escape from her, clawing itself out through her face, morphing her expression into something monstrous and indescribable.
Steve wasn't moving because he was sobbing. They were both sobbing. They were both screaming. And neither of them heard each other.
They didn't hear the girl with the petal-soft face land behind them. Natasha looked behind her, seeing the girl out of the corner of her eye, and her sobs stopped in her chest. "Steve, stay behind me." She wheezed with a heaviness in her chest as she came to stand in front of the weakening super soldier. The sun was well on its way to rising, as it came to settle across half her face. Her tears lit up with golden lacing as the sun caressed her cheek, making the liquid pouring from her eyes appear like melted gold. There was no way she could kill this woman. Natasha knew there was no way. But she had to try.
She pulled out two identical pistols and dropped the safety for both of them with her thumbs. "You killed him." She shook her head with a dignified sense of fresh-cut, untamed vengeance. Natasha had wanted revenge, retribution, a reckoning (if you wanted to get extra biblical), on numerous people over the course of her long life. But this woman, this woman who she did not know, this woman who had untapped power, had just killed her closest friend. Her best friend. Emi's life meant nothing to her, but her death would mean everything. "Fuck, you." She spat through gritted, clenched teeth as tears poured down her face. She fired both pistols at once, both bullets, as she predicted, never reaching their destination. They stopped in front of Emi and dropped to the gravel roofing beneath their feet.
"I need him." She pointed to Steve. "I can balance it all." She told Natasha, tears welling in her eyes. "I just need him."
"Emilie." Natasha looked beyond the girl in front of her, to see Peggy Carter, decked and highlighted gloriously in the morning sunlight, had appeared, standing behind her. "You're confusing balance with murder." She looked at the girl with a saddened expression. An emotion that Natasha wouldn't have thought possible to cross Peggy's face. "I made the sacrifices necessary. I did." Her voice was severe, powerful, and in control. It seemed she knew exactly what to do. "Leave Steven out of this, love. It doesn't concern him – you know the promise I made. Don't test it." Her words were suddenly razor sharp, a blunt warning to the other woman.
Peggy wanted to protect Steve? But she had…tried to kill him…?
Emi turned around as Carter began speaking to her. The power around her intensified so only Peggy probably could have seen the girl's extraordinary face. "I need him!" She screamed at her, a burst of light shocked out from her and shoved Natasha to her feet.
The woman gave a single shake of her head. "No, Emilie, you don't." Suddenly, before any of them could register what was happening, Carter was running at her. Legs encircling around her waist, hands clutching her throat, as they went flying off the edge of the warehouse.
Natasha, gasping and still softly crying, walked over to the edge of the building. Both of the women had seemingly disappeared, but in the distance, right where the taller buildings of downtown D.C. rose into the distance, she saw two figures throwing each other into their structures, demolishing everything in sight.
She turned back to Steve, who was slumped in an upright position, hands covering his face. He removed them, sliding them down his face, as Nat turned to look at him. He was crying. He shook his head. "He made me promise him… He made me promise that this had to be worth something…" His expression implied he was going to break down into irreparable hysterics. "And now… Now, she's… She's trying to save me…" He was blubbering, hysterical, making half-assed confessions after the fact.
With gritted teeth and a sallow sense of nobility, Natasha stalked over to Steve and with both hands cupping his cheeks, yanked his face up to meet hers. "Sam is dead." She snapped at him. "Stop. Stop. Get your shit together, Rogers – we have to get out of here, O.K.?" Her green eyes were still filled with half-shed tears, some that were still rolling down her cheeks like escapees from her carefully regulated prison. But the quintessence of Natasha Romanoff – the calculator, the assassin, the unapologetic poison – was all there. She would mourn Sam, but she would not allow Steve the dignity of seeing her break. Not yet. Not when she had a duty to Sam to protect him.
Steve bit down on his lip, still struggling not to break down, with his eyes on hers. "Natasha, she's trying to protect me." She could see the inner turmoil whirling across his face like a hurricane locked inside of him. Peggy Carter was his hurricane. A hurricane he did not want to control or predict where it was going next. He just wanted it to continually fuck his life.
A rage so violent, she felt she could have ripped the skin off his perfect face, poured over her like a dunking bucket from above. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath in. "Steve, I don't give a shit. She has killed too many of the people I love. It's OVER." She didn't realize it until she was finished, that she was screaming at him. Her vocal cords felt scraped and worn like she had twirled them around a knife. Her fingers were white knuckled on his cheeks, fingernails digging into his skin – the whole package.
Steve's jaw was bunched, straining to fight back the emotion welling up inside of him, he looked up at her, eyes wide and filled with guilt. There he goes, Natasha observed, sucking up every ounce of wrong in the world. She used to think she was the one who squeezed all that guilt out of him, shook it loose out of his ancient spirit, and threw it off over the horizon. Now, as she dropped her hands from his face, feeling a shaky sense of disgust, she knew she was no longer the person who could stand by his side. She was no longer the keeper of his repentance. Their relationship was forever changed because she would blame him. Forever.
She reached to the earpiece nested in her inner lobe, radioing Tony. "Tony. You need to get your ass here. Stat."
Peggy and Emi made their way downtown. And their journey was anything but mellow. Throwing each other into office buildings, smashing glass in their wake, flattening cars, and breaking down entire city blocks with the force of their power. Plus, Emilie's spinning tower of death, rising up over everything, which threatened to suck up the entire natural world as we know it, was not good for the climate either. The civilians became pretty well aware of the situation, when local radio show, the Rickey Smiley morning show, cut off suddenly due to the Hughes Radio Tower being chopped in half because a certain British assassin thought she could use it to stop the rampage of a feral-minded partner of hers.
She was wrong.
There was mass panic as people ran into the nearest buildings to avoid the epic battle playing out in front of them. President Ellis was hidden away in the deepest bunkers of the Capital Building. The Vice President was being carted out of the District via helicopter. The rising hysteria was palpable as pedestrians of the city quickly realized the annual apocalypse that usually came to the Avengers in New York was in their own backyards.
Later on in the day, when it was all over, reporters would be able to draw a straight line from where the damage began on the National Mall to the ending point in the Supreme Court Building. The two powerful assassins had made a large loop around the city as they collided, fought, and crashed into the towering monuments, structures, and buildings. The damage would be catastrophic. The Smithsonian would have its top half caved in, the White House on fire, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial's dome would have Emi's shape thrown down into the center of it. A couple thousand would be critically injured. Another hundred dead. An irreparable loss.
And as the two women clashed, Tony and Clint attempted to keep the damage to a minimum. In fact, because Tony was being thrown into the side of a building, Clint answered Natasha's distress call. He was perched atop one of the taller buildings in the downtown area. "Tash – Carter's here with the flashy crazypants lady. Stark tried to get in between them since they're kind of destroying, well, you know, the entire city…but he was a little taken aback."
"I was not taken aback – she tried to throw me into the Sun. And Clinton" – Tony flew past him as he made a lap around the damage enfolding before them – "don't talk about me like I'm not there. You know I hate that, I thought we talked about this at marriage counseling."
Natasha made an annoyed sound on the other side of the coms. "Listen, can either one of you help me with Rogers – we're on top of a warehouse on the other side of the city."
"That's not something birdbrain can handle, huh?" Clint said with only a twinge of bitterness. Yeah, he was still pissy about Sam's lack of faith in his boomerang arrows.
There was a long silence on the other end before Natasha answered: "Sam's…gone."
Tony and Clint fell silent.
Stark, who was hovering underneath a falling piece of debris, managed to just catch the collapsing piece of structure as it nearly fell on top of his head. "What?!" He snapped as he threw the fallen remnants of building off of himself. "How is that possible, Natasha?"
"Jones broke his wing pack…" Clint heard the deep catch of gnarled feeling in Natasha's voice. Tony didn't, but Clint did. He could tell what she looked like just by the sound of her voice. Sadness carved thickly into the sides of her face like it had been there for thousands of years. He wanted to go to her. Besides, he wasn't much help here – Natasha shouldn't have been on her own for this.
"I'm on my way, Tash. Just hang tight." Clint answered as he clicked his grappling hook into place atop the parking garage he was perched upon.
"FUCK." She screamed into the com. Clint could hear scratching static on the other end as her audio capacity canceled out from the volume. He tried not to wince. "I will skin him." She seethed through the other end of the static.
"Romanoff? Use your words." Stark blasted a flying golden monument of Christopher Columbus as it flew down the street as Peggy Carter smashed into it.
"Steve's gone. He's gone."
That's not really true. Steve was very close to Natasha, but he knew he had to put some distance between them. Otherwise, she'd try to stop him. And yes, he knew what he was doing was stupid. Incredibly stupid. Beyond stupid. But he'd seen the look on Peggy's face atop that rooftop…
She had looked like… Well, she looked, for the first time in all this carnage, like Peggy Carter. Impossibly strong. Eyes bright. Focused. Uncompromising. All too brilliant for his own capabilities. The same woman who split a man's head down the middle back in Russia with just the back of her elbow. Authentic to who she had always been. A monument of self-sufficiency. A rising goddess from the dust of a lost time. She stood before him as she had always stood in his mind: proud, stubborn, and outrageously angry.
Steve couldn't shake the way her energy poured over him like a rejuvenating wave of life. He had felt the pure power radiating off of her like she was bound up with the same amount of energy as a nuclear bomb. He had been afraid of her before all this, he'd been afraid of who she had become, but he had seen her, not the HYDRA agent, M16, but Peggy. And now, now he feared nothing.
Invincibly certain. It was the only way to describe how he felt in that moment. His certainty in her redemption, in who she was, was entombed within him. It had been buried within him long ago. His unflinching faith in Peggy Carter made him feel like the wound in his gut was obliterated. Erased. Sealed over.
He was alive and he would put a stop to this. Peggy needed him. He would save her.
Laughing as he limped up the broken and smoking streets of Washington, he felt like a man who had been predestined for some fair amount of theological greatness. Indoctrinated. Sanctified. Renewed. If he had been the religious kid he used to be, he would have felt like he'd just gone to church.
But no, he just finally knew what he had to do.
He came to the intersection of Constitution Avenue and First Street. Only about a tenth of a mile away. He saw her, on the steps of the Supreme Court House, yelling indistinctly at the other woman before her.
"Emilie, there is another way." Peggy cried as she caught Emi's flying fists. They were both bleeding, bloodied, and bruised all across their indestructible bodies. "You don't have to do this." She sobbed as her strength hiccupped beneath the greater power of Emi's. She couldn't hold her back forever. Tears streamed down her grim-encrusted cheeks as her eyes pried into the other woman's fevered, disassociated gaze.
With a guttural growl, Emi threw Peggy down the steps. "There isn't, Carter." She hissed at the assassin as she struggled to right herself. "There isn't another choice. You made sure of that." Her words, despite all the venomous undertones, remained as soft and sweet as the first day Peggy had met her. All those years ago. In the basement of a HYDRA bunker. How far they had come.
They don't play games, Carter, and they don't care who you love. They don't care period—they will turn everything you love to ash without even flinching. And while your entire life is burning, they'll wait until all the blood drains from your body, before they do it, all over again.
Peggy's head was bleeding profusely from slamming into the side of the marble steps, but she managed to lift herself meagerly. Her face upturned, reflected a clear look of utter guilt and reverence. She didn't just love the woman before her, she worshipped her. "Darling…" She hoarsely began with a small shake of her head. A sign of truce between them as she spread her hands in innocence. "Darling, you're right. I was weak, and I couldn't bear to live without you…not anymore. I was tired of living a life where everyone had to be a sacrifice, where everyone I loved had become a collateral malignity. I couldn't… I couldn't do it. But we can stop him. Together." The blood oozed down the side of her face as it mingled with her tears. "Just… Just come home to me, my love." Peggy held out her hands, trying to reach out to the other woman who stood only a few feet above her.
Emi looked down at Peggy's outspread hands and then back up to her watery gaze. There had been a time when Peggy hated that gaze full of pinwheeled colors and shapes. The gaze that commanded her to do the atrocities she had once done for the sake of protecting Bucky. The gaze that had bored into hers as she realized, for the first time in centuries, she was still alive. But where they had once been enemies, now they were the only two people in the world who could change what was coming… It had been a plan all along since that night in Paris. Unspoken, but known between them. They knew what had to be done. Emi had to be burned for the Soul Stone lodged within her, Peggy had trained with Ailis so she would understand the power of the Stones.
The plan wasn't worth it, however, if Emilie was only ever used for sacrifices. Her father's. HYDRA's. The War. Peggy had refused to be another person who lacked the concern, bled her dry, used her to get what she wanted. So, she brought her back. The two of them, together, united, could have destroyed the Titan that blurrily advanced on the horizon. And at the end, when it was all over, maybe…Peggy could have shown Emi what it was like to live. To breathe the air of unfiltered cages, to relinquish her control over the minds of man, to feel free of her own power.
She would have let Steve have his ending with Bucky. It was what he deserved. But Emi… She was the only one who knew her, who she had become.
Tears were welling in Emi's eyes. She remembered. She remembered what it was like, in that hotel room, the morning after they both woke and discovered they were more than bondage and bodies. They had once been young girls, girls who had giggled in the dawning light of an early morning sunrise, danced in the rain, wished upon stars for a new, better future. Borne their trials, fell in grace, only to rise to the occasion once more. It had all been there. That single morning they shared. "Peggy…" She whispered, hands quivering as she grabbed onto her partner's.
Peggy instantly grabbed her hands tightly, pulling the other girl close. Their foreheads rested against one another as the soft glow that encircled Emi gathered around the two of them, engulfing them in flickering, golden light. "I'm here, my darling."
"I can't control all this for much longer, Peggy." Emi said with a sacred clarity, a small smile coming to her face. "You know what you have to do."
"Please…" The other woman whispered with a small shake of her head, eyes pleading for some kind of divine mercy in the dazzling gaze of Emilie. "Please don't make this into another choice for me."
"I'm not." Emilie said with a wrenching, broken smile growing across her face. In that moment, Peggy could see the little girl within her. The girl who grew up with billions of souls within her belly. Sown into her by a father who did not understand her strength. She was heartbreakingly brave. "Because I know exactly what to do." She whispered as her eyes shifted away from Peggy's as they found the face of another, who was dragging himself up the stairs of the Court House behind them.
"Peggy." The voice rasped behind them just in time for Peggy's head to snap sharply at the sight of Steve, half-standing, half-collapsing, into a lean-to position.
The revelation dawned on her like the sun breaking through clouds after thunderous rain. As if in slow motion, she turned back to Emi to see her eyes focus in on Steve's. "Emilie – NO!" She screamed as she tackled the all-powerful woman to the ground. She threw Steve back with a forceful wave of her hand. "Steve, get out of here!" She held Emi down with every ounce of raw strength as she screamed at Steve.
It was happening. This was the moment. It was all leading to this…
Ailis had known. They had all known.
But she hadn't wanted to accept.
Emi's power brightened like a solar beam flaring up in Peggy's vision as she threw the girl off of her. Rising to her full height, she gracefully stepped down the stairs to the slumped body of Steve Rogers at the foot of the Court House. He was laying in the street, struggling to get to his feet. His eyes shakily reached up to the powerful woman before him.
Schmidt's daughter. Hmph. She had his nose. He thought with a semi-satisfied smirk across his exhausted face. The Red Skull would have been goddamn giddy to see how this all turned out.
Natasha and Clint came racing around the corner just as Emi grabbed hold of him by the shoulders. Peggy could hear the Widow's screams as Clint shot an arrow that missed Emi's face by inches. The man was never supposed to miss. He probably wouldn't have, if he wasn't dealing with Emilie Jones.
Steve's eyes shifted from the woman before him to Peggy's as she raced down the stairs, screeching at Emilie to stop. Her power, visible in lavender gooey transcendence, poured out of her hands and came to surround Emi, trying to pry her from Steve. Ignoring Peggy, she dragged Steve to his feet as she held him up by just her delicate fingertips. Reaching over, she leaned her peachy-soft lips against his earlobe and whispered a single command, "Empty."
It was in poor taste, but Steve had to smile. The woman before him had slowed Time down. He wasn't really sure how she had managed it, but it was some kind of private joke between the two of them. Make his death last an eternity, even though it was happening right that second. He could feel it. Happening. Inside. It wasn't even painful. He settled his head against the woman's shoulder as he saw Peggy, dancing in slow motion, charging towards him. Her face carved with an urgency that screamed of a life framed by one, single, condition: keeping Steve Rogers alive. And it was beautiful. He could finally remember what it was like to be loved by her. Even if it was in the last seconds of his life.
The memories fell upon him like snow, sticking to him, melting to his consciousness as he remembered a lifetime of memories. He lifetime of things he had kept hidden, intimate, and secret onto himself.
1942. She was bathed in sunlight on the grounds of Fort Leigh, towering over him like an edifice of assuredness. He remembered the smile that braced his sallow, thin face as she nailed Gilmore Hodge directly into side of his head.
1945. She kissed him softly as snow fell softly around them in Trafalgar Square. He could still remember the way the crystalline flakes settled on her eyelashes.
1943. She told him she had once wanted to be an aeronaut. Touch the stars. Bring them down from the heavens.
1945. She cried into a two-way radio, begging him to live, begging him to land a plane that he knew he could, but feared the price of failure.
1944. She told him that she loved him. Whispered it. Gnarly. Thick. In between wet, silky kisses inside a tent. Bucky on the other side of him. Fingers lacing across his skin like velvet.
"EMILIE LET HIM GOOOOOO." Peggy screamed as she knocked the woman off of him. She ripped her off of Steve with herculean strength, but Emi was smiling up at her as they fell a short distance away. Grinning manically.
"It's done. It's done."
Peggy turned sharply to see Steve collapse to his knees as blood began pouring out of his nose, mouth; his uniform was suddenly soaking with red, crimson blood. She dropped Emi and ran to Steve, catching him just as he fell to the ground and into a coughing fit of blood and bodily liquids. He looked up at her with a shaky, weakening gaze. A smile pulled itself across his face as he looked up into hers.
"I knew….it…" He whispered with an astounded look of joy. "I knew you, Peg."
2014. He remembered her. Shaky. Illusively blurry in a drug-filled haze. He remembered her. Crying. On the edge of his bed. She was doing it for him. It was all for him.
Peggy shook her head as a sob bubbled up in her chest as she cradled his face in her hands. "I knew you would, my darling." And she did. Steve would follow her to the ends of the Earth. This moment was coming all along. She just didn't want to see it. But here it was enfolding in her arms, draining out in the blood of Steve Rogers. She shook her head with an agonized smile writing itself across her face. The smile itself told of an untold tragedy that could play across her face and hers alone.
1943. She told him her parents had been killed. Blown away in the Blitz. They were gone. She was defeated. Lost. Weak in the knees. Eyes overflowing. His arms the only ones to catch her.
"Peg… It's okay, doll…" His eyes, hooked onto hers, were losing their glow, losing every sign of self-possession within himself. Emi had ripped his insides apart, dissolved them into nothingness. All she had to do was touch him and command his very soul to empty of its sustenance. Peggy could move a mountain, but she couldn't fix this. She couldn't do the impossible. "This was my choice." His voice was whispery, raspy without the guttural ebbs and flows of his deep, but gentle voice.
1944. He used to read The Odyssey late at night, when the rest of the camp was asleep. Peggy would crawl into his sleeping bag with him, lean her head against his chest as he read. Drift off. Sleeping soundly. His voice flowing in and out of the Greek poetry. Rocking her to sleep into the waves of Odysseus.
In his dying moments, Steve remembered the little girl. The little girl with the honeydue curls, the one with the incandescent eyes that shined like amber… He remembered the dream. And he smiled a little bit more, offering the woman cradling him all he could, as he realized like a grand, life-fulfilling prophecy, she had brought the world to an all-encompassing stop for him. She had changed the entire face of the global conundrum called existence…all in the hopes, that he would someday understand what every bloody act had meant. Blood borne out of love. Sacrifice for the sake of his own life. A love stronger than God's.
"I love you…" He whispered as the comforting inky darkness began to seep in around the edges of his vision. Peggy hovered before him in a narrow tunnel of light. She would disappear soon, but that would be okay… It'd all be okay…
He could feel Bucky reaching out to him, calling out to him from the distance beyond the tunnel of light in his eyes. He'd be with him soon. They could lay down together on Coney Island Beach. No one else would be there; just the two of them. Together. At last.
1942. What's your name, private? My name, A-Agent Carter? No, you bellend, the bloody invisible man behind you. He laughed. Funny. She was funny. Sharp. It's Rogers. Steve Rogers. That was a brave thing you did. Falling on that grenade like that, Steven. More laughter. It's Steve, ma'am. I'll call you what I right and bloody like, Steven. They both smiled. A long history drawled out before them in that moment.
That was the beginning.
He should have known that was where his end was too. Because after her, that was it. Nothing else mattered.
"I love you." Peggy whispered back to him as tears poured down her cheeks, she reached down to kiss his forehead. "I always have."
Tears came to Steve's eyes as they ran down his cheeks. His smile was serene, caught in distant euphoria. Bucky, blurry at first, came to stand behind Peggy. He could tell it was him because he didn't have the metal arm anymore. No. Where they were going, he didn't need it. They were finally together. Bucky. Peggy. Steve. Just like it was supposed to be.
Bucky was pulling him up off of the ground, helping him to his feet, as the distant sound of beach waves reached his ears. He could hear the city sounds of Brooklyn from his youth. The sound of the saxophone player that lived downstairs from his ma and him when he was 10. He was leaving. Going back home.
"Steve…?" Peggy whispered to him, as she came back up from kissing him, her eyes suddenly grooving into his unstaring ones. The blood bubbled down the side of his face.
There was a strangled, unbreathable sob as Peggy Carter pulled him up close to her, cradling his face in the crook of her neck. His body limp against hers. Natasha and Clint came up to the foot of the stairs, finally reaching the pair with shocked faces of disbelief.
The world fell silent to the only sound heard: the ragged sobbing of a woman who had sacrificed everything for this small, sickly boy.