April 14, 2010
"Where are we?" Steven asked, looking around in wonderment as he emerged through the portal — slowly, since Grandma Peggy was holding on to his arm as the five of them left her warm kitchen and found themselves on sun-drenched rocky terrain instead.
The blue sky was brilliant overhead, but the waters surrounding them were an even brighter blue. A strong, cool wind with a salt tang blew their hair around, and they could all hear the enthusiastic cacophony of a sea lion colony in the near distance.
His sister Amanda lowered her hands — not with the slow grace with which his mother always did magic, but with a sharp, precise chop — and the fizzling portal disappeared behind her.
"Moneran Island," she answered, sounding inordinately pleased with herself. "Between Japan and Russia. It's one of the places the Masters of the Mystic Arts use for, ah, discreet training." She pocketed her sling ring. "About the only other people who come here are the occasional boatload of tourists, and you can see them coming from miles away."
Steven slowly turned a full circle, gazing at the horizon appreciatively. The island they stood on was small, and verdant with vegetation except for its narrow rocky beaches. The nearest land was only a brown smudge in the distance.
"Here, Mom," Uncle Mike said as he set up a camp chair for Peggy, and he helped her down into it and then wrapped her up well against the wind with a thick blanket he had brought. "Comfortable?"
Grandma Peggy settled back into the chair. "Yes, thank you, darling."
Steven's cousin Natty was already testing the grip of her boots against the ground. It was tricky terrain, he could see: rough rocks hidden by large clumps of plants, the kind that were liable to be slippery once you had crushed them underfoot.
"This'll be fun," Natty said, and she didn't sound entirely sarcastic, either.
"Hey, I thought Grandpa would be here to see our progress," Amanda said, looking slightly put out.
Peggy sighed heavily. "Hope Van Dyne voted Hank Pym out of his own company yesterday. Your grandfather went to San Francisco to see what he could do for him."
Uncle Mike absorbed that for a moment before reaching over to pull the blanket more snugly around Grandma's shoulders. "Hank must be furious."
"Yes, well, Hank's anger may look intimidating, but it's all on the surface," Peggy said. "There's nothing but hurt underneath. Hope was all he had left of Janet. Losing the company, he can forgive. He has his retirement fund and he'll be very comfortable, financially speaking. But losing her..." She didn't need to finish the sentence.
Everyone looked somber for a long moment, but finally Uncle Mike rubbed his hands together briskly and said, "Well, let's get started before Mom gets a chill. Ready, ladies?"
"Let's go," Natty said, deploying a pair of collapsible batons with swift flicks of her wrists and holding them at the ready.
In response, Amanda crossed her hands at the wrists, clenched both fists and then rapidly uncrossed them, sending gold sparks flying out as two large golden disks flickered into existence in front of her hands. Grandma tilted her head with curiosity, and Steven couldn't blame her: his sister's rune shields didn't look quite like what Grandpa had drawn in his comic books for the Masters of the Mystic Arts he had encountered. Instead of overlapping circles and squares forming a complex geometric shape, Amanda's shields were formed into several concentric golden circles overlaid by five crisscrossing lines that formed a large star in the center of each.
"Are those pentagrams?" Grandma asked Steven under her breath as Natty and Amanda began to circle each other warily.
"Oh, the five-pointed star has been a symbol of power since long before the Wiccans, Grandma," Steven murmured, crouching down beside her chair. "We talked about it in my symbology class. The Greeks, the Taoists, the Babylonians... it meant something different to each of them. In fact, as the old story goes, Sir Gawain put one on his shield and incorporated Christian beliefs into its meaning." He smiled in remembrance of one of his favorite bedtime stories. "But a lot of the time, the star represents control: the control that spirit wields over the four elements, for example, or a method for good to contain evil."
Natty made a feint toward Amanda with a baton, which her cousin moved to block with one of her shields... but Natty was already whipping her other baton in from the opposite direction, and Amanda was forced to step back to give herself time to block that one too. Natty immediately pressed the attack, and the next several seconds were a blur of motion as Amanda swung her golden shields to meet Natty's every swing, her blond ponytail with its streak of red whipping back and forth to match her sharp, precise movements.
Steven watched with considerable interest: while he had worked with Natty and Amanda separately to help them refine their fighting styles — as had Uncle Mike and others in the family — the two women didn't often spar with each other, and that was by design. Those in the family who had chosen to train as fighters found it useful to occasionally face off against an opponent who didn't know their every move already, to give them an idea of how an opponent would respond to their attacks in a real-world setting. Today was bound to be particularly interesting: Amanda had been working with Bram's wife Aliyah to experiment with new ways to use her rune-shields, and Steven was eager to see how Natty handled them.
Natty swiftly swung both batons in parallel and Amanda blocked them with her right shield, but Natty continued pressing up against the shields, golden sparks flying, using her full strength to force a resistant Amanda into bending her back, pushing her off-balance.
Steven knew what was going to happen next, and sat up straighter waiting to see Natty's foot swipe out and hook around Amanda's ankle, taking her down to the ground. In his experience, once the fight went to the ground Natty almost invariably had the advantage.
But half a second before she did it, Amanda abruptly let her left-hand shield fizzle out, and her now-unencumbered fist came flying out and punched through her right-hand shield.
Natty took it on the jaw and staggered to the side, caught off guard. By the time she had recovered her stance, Amanda had already re-formed her left hand shield and was waiting on the balls of her feet for the next round.
"Since when are your shields one-way?!" Natty exclaimed, rubbing her jaw with a faint grimace, but she looked more intrigued than annoyed by this unexpected development.
"You like that?" Amanda called back. "Aliyah helped me work it out. Good, huh?"
Natty laughed a little. "Never saw it coming. Didn't the Masters of the Mystic Arts ever think of that?"
"What for?" Amanda asked lightly. "They're mostly protecting themselves from magical attacks, and answering back the same way. They don't want the fight to get physical, since most of them are much stronger in magic than in body." She shrugged one shoulder. "I'm not most of them. I can switch back and forth."
"Oh, this is going to be fun," Natty said with a grin that showed a flash of dimple, and without further ado the two of them began clashing again. This time Natty was clearly focused on identifying holes in Amanda's new style of defense, and her footwork was so precise and her strikes — despite their deceptive grace — so powerful that Amanda was often pressed backward. But her shields never failed in strength, and she had a habit of turning what looked like a retreat into a repositioning that abruptly turned the tables. For several minutes, Steven and Peggy watched with fascination as first one, and then the other, seemed to gain the upper hand.
Finally, Uncle Mike called out for a pause, and Amanda and Natty pulled back panting and looked at him expectantly as he went over to give them some advice.
"So how much did you end up having to tell Beatrisa the other day?" Peggy asked Steven quietly while they waited. "After you gave the Hulk a helping hand?"
"Not too much," he replied softly. "But-"
Grandma waited patiently, and then gently prompted him: "But what?"
"I kinda... No, not kinda. I want to tell her everything," Steven blurted out.
Grandma frowned slightly. "To what purpose?" she asked slowly.
Steven shrugged a little helplessly. "I don't know. I just... I don't like lying to her."
"Well, Steven," Grandma said after a short pause. "May I ask what sort of relationship you intend to have with Beatrisa moving forward? You know she won't have contact with Bruce Banner anymore. He's never coming back to Rocinha."
"I know," Steven said quickly. "But... she's my friend, and we're going to keep in touch. I just... I really feel like I need to come clean with her. We almost brought the Army down on her head. She lied to them for us. She risked her life for mine. We really-" He exhaled quickly. "Our family really owes her some answers. That's what I feel."
"Is that what this is about? A sense of obligation?"
Steven sighed. "Grandma- I don't know how to answer that."
"Well, I think you do. You just don't want to say it."
Uncle Mike came back over to stand by them and Natty and Amanda resumed fighting, putting an end to the conversation.
Natty had clearly decided to take a different tack this time, and she immediately began pressing Amanda back with a blitz of aggressive power moves that threatened to overwhelm her cousin's usual control. After a few minutes of this, Amanda — growing tired and a little clumsy — narrowly avoided a flying kick that would have knocked her shielded hand away from her torso by launching into an unexpected flip backwards.
Natty seemed to think she had Amanda on the ropes and pressed forward again... but Amanda had already smoothly transitioned into another move, leaping up as she twisted her torso fully, using the centrifugal force to fling her right arm outward so fast it was only a blur.
A golden blur left her hand and came spinning unerringly toward Natty.
With barely enough time to see it coming, Natty threw herself down skidding onto her knees on the rocky ground, back bowing back in a deep bend as the golden circle spun overhead, missing her face by less than an inch. Natty didn't even have time to get back on her feet before Amanda had spun again and flung her other rune-shield. This one Natty couldn't avoid, and it crashed into her shoulder and knocked her onto the ground.
Amanda stumbled a little on the rocky ground before she recovered from the twist. Immediately she took a wide-legged stance and crossed her wrists in preparation to form new rune-shields, but before she could complete the gesture, Natty lifted herself off the ground just enough to fling a fist-sized rock at her with a loud grunt.
The rock flew through the faint golden strands of a barely-formed rune-shield and hit Amanda squarely in the shoulder, knocking her onto the ground, too.
"Hold!" Uncle Mike called out, and the two women got back to their feet, dusting themselves off and breathing heavily.
"If that'd been a knife-" Natty started with a jaunty tone as the two of them walked back toward each other.
"Oh, stop," Amanda interrupted. "It wasn't a knife, and besides, I didn't hit you half as hard with that shield as I could have. If you'd been anyone else, you'd have been down for the count."
Open amusement shone on Natty's dirt-streaked face. "Well, I'm not anyone else, am I?"
"Yeah, well, the only people I'm likely to face are Hydra goons, not fellow super soldiers," Amanda said.
"You never know." Natty stooped down and picked up the batons she had dropped. "Why'd it take so long for you to make new shields after you tossed the first pair?" she asked curiously.
"Ugh," Amanda said with feeling. "We're still working on that, me and Aliyah. Trouble is, it's really hard to keep up the concentration I need to keep the rune-shield cohesive once it's left my hand. You might have noticed, they disappear in seconds." She sighed. "Just can't switch mental tracks that fast."
"Hmmm. That is a conundrum." With a grimace, Natty reached down and massaged her knees gingerly; she'd come down on the rocky ground pretty hard.
"Probably best left as a desperation move," Uncle Mike offered. "Unless you figure out a way around it."
The three of them began batting ideas back and forth, but before Steven could formulate some ideas of his own to contribute, Grandma cleared her throat from beside him.
"Well?" she asked Steven expectantly, and he grimaced a little: he'd been hoping she would forget where their earlier conversation had been heading. "What about Beatrisa? Why are you so intent on telling her more about us?"
Steven stared out at the brilliant blue of the water for a long moment, watching the birds soaring up and down on the strong sea-breeze.
"If I'm gonna be a priest, Grandma," he said at last, "I won't ever get to have a spouse to share this with, like everyone else in the family. You know... being as introverted as I am, I don't mind living in my own head a lot of the time, but sometimes it's really hard to be what I am and have to hide one of the most important things about me from virtually everyone I know. Everyone else gets to release that pressure when they go home to their families at night. Is it really so wrong for me to want to have a friend I can do that with?"
"It isn't wrong," Peggy said quickly. "But we'd be endangering Beatrisa if we told her so much. With the spouses, at least we have them physically under our protection if Hydra ever found us again. With Beatrisa half a world away, all by herself, there's no guarantee-"
"The in-laws aren't just safe because they share a roof with a super soldier," Steven said with a sudden passion. "We're in a very different position now than we were when Hydra blew our family's cover, the day Frank Rumlow took me hostage." He could say the words now without a hint of the old terror that used to lie behind them, and he could see his grandmother sitting up straighter to take note of it.
"Back then, we only had one fully trained combatant in peak condition to provide protection for the whole family: Uncle Mike," Steven continued. "You and Grandpa were getting older, Mom may have been strong but she didn't know how to fight, and Uncle Dave and Aunt Tien were basically helpless. It isn't like that now." His voice was firm. "Virtually all of our in-laws have either a gun or a sling ring, and they know how to use them. We've taught them situational awareness. They know when and how to call for help. No one's escorting Bram's wife or Sammy's husband to their jobs or to the grocery store to keep them safe. No one's hesitating to drop their kids off at school and then drive away. And why?" He emphasized the next words strongly: "Because even if Hydra managed to get their hands on one of the weaker members of our family, they'd be out of their minds to do it. Because within the hour they'd have about 20 fully trained, ticked-off combatants kicking down their doors, and we wouldn't stop for anything. They'd pay for it in blood."
Steven paused to take a few deep breaths, looking across the verdant island until the scowl faded from his brow.
"We may not be untouchable, but we aren't living in fear anymore," he continued more quietly. "We don't have to live in fear anymore. If we brought Beatrisa into this, we could give her the tools she needed and teach her how to protect herself. She'd be just as safe as any of the rest of us."
"Suppose she doesn't want that sort of life?" Peggy asked quietly.
Steven shrugged his shoulders, a gentle resignation on his face. "Can't know until we ask," he said.
April 15, 2010
"Olá?"
"Beatrisa," Steven said into the phone, relieved she had answered so quickly.
"Steven!" She sounded relieved, too. "I have been waiting for you to call."
"Wanted to make sure the Army wasn't still hanging around when I did. Are you okay? Are they gone?"
"Yes, I think so. They question me; I think they were mad," Beatrisa said readily. "Mad that I don't know where Bruce is going. But they go away, I don't see them for three days now."
"Good." It was confirmation of what Sammy had already learned after a little judicious hacking had unearthed General Ross' report to his superiors: that he'd hit a dead end in the search for Bruce Banner. The irony of Ross losing track of a "30 megaton nuke" hadn't been lost on anyone in the family, especially when they knew that the only consequence he would face would be his eventual appointment as Secretary of State. But as Father Andreassen always said, Steven thought with philosophical resignation, justice often doesn't arrive in this life.
"You are back in Indiana?" Beatrisa asked. "You are okay? Your ribs-"
"Yeah, I'm feeling better. I went to class today. Just got out."
"That's good. Very good. Um... Steven? I really need to talk to you." Beatrisa sounded suddenly nervous. "I need to tell you-"
"Hold on, Beatrisa," he said quickly. "Hold that thought. This is actually me calling before I come over to see you. You said next time you wanted me to call first. Is- is that okay?"
"You... come back to Brazil?" Beatrisa was puzzled. "But you just got home."
"Well, I want to see you. In person. When's a good time?"
Beatrisa hesitated a moment, and then laughed lightly as she admitted: "I want to see you in an hour, as soon as I have tidied up my house. But I think it would take longer than that for you to get here."
"No, I can be there in an hour."
She scoffed lightly. "You come from America to Brazil in one hour?"
"Yeah, why not?"
"You know, if you are to be a priest, you have to learn to stop lying." Beatrisa's tone was wry.
"No, that's exactly it," Steven said seriously. "No more lies. I'm done with that. I'll knock on your door in an hour. Okay?"
There was a short pause. "Yes. Okay."
Beatrisa opened the door only moments after he knocked. "Your airplane flies very fast," she said to him deadpan.
Steven suppressed a smile. "No flying," he said. "I walked. And it only takes a few seconds."
She squinted one eye at him, and then she drew back from him very slightly as her eyes widened in surprise.
"You believe me," he said, a little surprised himself.
She stared at him like she'd never seen him before. "But how could you do that?"
"We'll get to that," he promised her. "Can I, uh... come in?"
"Oh... yes." She stepped back to let him in and then closed the door behind him.
Inside it felt cramped: the ceiling a little lower than he was used to, the furniture a little too much for the small space, even though all of Rita and Joaquim's toys had been stowed away in baskets and lined up neatly behind the couch. There were so many books in the room that they had to be stacked two deep on the towering bookshelf, and the whole arrangement looked more than a little precarious.
"Oh, I know," Beatrisa said with a slight laugh, following his gaze. "I should get rid of some. But it is like getting rid of old friends. I cannot do it."
Instantly, an image popped up in Steven's head of himself building more bookshelves for Beatrisa. There was room above the couch, maybe, as long as there was a lip on the shelves so that books wouldn't topple on anyone's head. Or maybe against that wall there, the one that looked like it led toward the kitchen. Except the passage there was already a little on the narrow side. Maybe there was more room in Beatrisa's bedroom. He'd seen some elevated bed frames that had plenty of cubbies underneath for books and things. Good for making the most of small spaces. Maybe...
And it was at that moment, trying to figure out how he would rearrange her bedroom furniture, that Steven admitted the truth at last: It was no good at all, his plan to invite Beatrisa to be his confidant. That wasn't what he really wanted, and it hadn't been since they moment he had first laid eyes on her.
"Come and sit down," Beatrisa said, pulling gently on his arm, and he pulled himself out of his thoughts to sit on the well-worn couch next to her.
"Are your kids home?" he asked, just to have something to say, even though he could tell the house was too quiet for that to be the case.
"No, my mother take them-" She quickly corrected herself. "-took them. To a playground down the street."
He nodded, and then swallowed in a dry throat. "Oh."
"Did you... want to see them?" Beatrisa asked after a moment's hesitation.
"I didn't really get to meet them properly before," Steven said slowly. "I do want to, but maybe today isn't the best..." He trailed off as he struggled to know how to finish the thought. How to even begin to say what was in his heart.
Maybe it would be better if he didn't try to say it at all. Maybe it would be easier to show her. And without even really thinking about it, he was already leaning closer to her, heart beating fast, and suddenly there was nothing in his field of vision but Beatrisa's brown eyes and parted lips, when a look of deep distress crossed her face and she blurted out:
"Steven, I am so very sorry. I should not have kissed you, when you came before." Her hands twisted in her lap. "I am- I am very sorry."
He pulled back, his eagerness abruptly gone cold. "You... are?"
A flush of guilt touched her cheeks with pink as she blurted out: "I- I should not do anything to pull you away from your calling. I know how unhappy I was before I found mine. I- I had a moment, when you came last time, but... I will not let it happen again. I promise."
"Well... it was kinda nice," Steven said slowly, hoping that he wasn't blushing with the confession, but suspecting he probably was.
Beatrisa's face almost lit up for a second, but her smile faded quickly. "But you are going to be a priest," she said, low. She paused for a moment, and when he didn't answer, she prompted him uncertainly: "Aren't you?"
"I... think so?"
An expression of deep concern swept across her face at his questioning tone. "Oh, no," she whispered, looking up at him with wide eyes. "No, no, no. This... this is my fault. I-"
"No, Beatrisa," Steven said firmly, reaching out to put one hand on top of hers. "This is not your fault. Something happened when we met. You noticed it too, didn't you? I mean... before that, I was sure about what I wanted. But ever since then... I'm starting to think maybe I got something wrong."
Her face was filled with confusion. "But you said- You tell me, you leave the Marines-"
"Yeah, I left the Marines. I hit a point where I just... I knew that saving lives wasn't enough for me anymore. I wanted to do more. I wanted to help people do something with their lives. Live the best way they could. And during my time at the monastery, it all felt so right... I thought being a priest was the next natural step." He met her eyes. "But maybe it was something else instead."
She frowned slightly. "What?"
"You know, I never would have met you if I hadn't gone to Notre Dame," he pointed out.
She cocked her head at him. "Oh, you go to study to be a priest so you can meet a woman?" she asked archly.
Steven smiled in response. "That wasn't in my head. But maybe it was in someone's."
She gazed at him, intrigued. "You really think so?"
"Look, if there's anything I've learned in my life, it's that I'm not the only one with a hand on the wheel," he said calmly. "And when I can feel something nudging me in a different direction, well, maybe I should pay attention to it." He studied her face carefully. "What about you? What direction are you headed? What's your calling?"
She thought for a moment, and lifted her hands expressively. "What it has always been. I am called first to be a mother. And I am called to help other people in need, as many as I can."
"Is there room in there for anything else? Anyone else?" He tried not to hold his breath as he waited for her to answer.
"I was not supposed to do any of that alone," she said matter-of-factly. "That happened because my husband could not defeat his demons."
"Then..." It was hard to know how to word it. "Then you're saying that if you, uh- If you-"
"If I decided to be with someone again?" she finished, and he nodded, relieved that she was on the same wavelength.
"Would it hold you back from your callings?" he asked.
Beatrisa shook her head confidently. "No," she said positively. "No, it would be a help. And-" She hesitated a little. "And- I would be happier too, I think. Sometimes... it is lonely."
"Yeah," Steven said, and suddenly he felt so light that he almost looked down to see if his feet were still on the floor. "Yeah, I know what you mean."
Peggy laid down her pruning shears and sat down on the bench next to Steve with a soft sigh, massaging her right hand with a faint wince.
"This didn't used to hurt," she said wryly. Over by the rose bushes, Maggie was still going at it with a will, carefully clipping away at the thorny branches as a cool spring wind blew faint spots of pink on her cheeks. She'd had a hectic winter, helping Henry line up donors for his party and build his campaign team, and she had jumped at the chance to take a break from the political world and spend a day getting their garden ready for warmer weather. Her children were at their other grandparents' home down at the end of the lane today, which meant they'd been able to get some work done without interruption for a change.
"I know what you mean," Steve answered Peggy, still massaging his own hand from the turn he'd taken earlier. Just then the back door opened, and they turned to see Steven striding toward them across the grass. Without a word, they both scooted over to make room for him on the bench between them.
"Hi, Grandma. Hi, Grandpa," Steven said, sitting down.
"Did you talk to Father Andreassen yet?" Peggy asked knowingly.
"Yeah," Steven said. "I explained my... conundrum. Asked if he had any advice."
"And?" Peggy asked.
Steven stretched his legs out, digging the heels of his sneakers into the dirt, and blew out a long breath. "Said he was proud of the work I've done so far, and he'd be sorry to see me drop out, but he understands if that's what I choose to do. He said a lot of students eventually discern out of the priesthood, and that there's nothing to be ashamed of. It isn't for everyone." A wry smile touched his lips as he quirked an eyebrow at Steve and Peggy. "And he admitted he really liked Beatrisa when she came to campus last year. Thought she would probably be good for me."
"So what are you thinking?" Steve asked him.
Steven took a moment to respond. "I still feel that I've been called to serve other people, spiritually speaking," he said slowly. "But if I'm being called to do it with Beatrisa by my side, it's gonna look a little different from how I thought, that's all. Father Andreassen actually had a really good suggestion, and I'm considering it."
"What's that?"
"Well, if I stick it out at Notre Dame and get my degree, I'll be 34 by the time I graduate. Only another year after that, and I'll be eligible to become a permanent deacon."
"A deacon?" Peggy said in surprise.
Steven nodded. "Yeah. I'd still be able to do a lot of the things I've been training for: preach, baptize, witness marriages, conduct funerals, take care of parishioners in crisis... anything the priest needs me for, really. And best of all-"
"-they'll let you be married, as long as you do it before you're ordained," Steve finished.
Steven nodded. "Yeah. So if I... you know, end up in Brazil, it would just be a matter of finding a good priest to serve under."
"Would you be happy with that?" Steve asked. "Serving under a priest instead of being one?"
"I don't need to be in charge of people, Grandpa," Steven said with a hint of amusement as he got up and stretched luxuriously. "That's not why I got into this."
When he had left them to grab a rake and give his sister Maggie a hand gathering up the clippings, Peggy fixed Steve with a knowing look.
"When are you going to tell him?" she asked.
"Tell him what?" Steve asked.
"About Father Andreassen," Peggy said coolly. "Every time Steven mentions his name, you get that look in your eyes. The one that says you know something we don't."
Steve looked down at his hands and suppressed a smile. Trust Peggy to pick up on that. And if she had, Steven almost certainly had as well, as observant as he was.
"Did you know him?" Peggy asked. "In the future?" It wasn't really a question.
On reflex, he answered with a question of his own: "Does it matter?"
Peggy was quiet for a long moment, and then said: "Look, Steve. I've been thinking about it a good deal lately. About how this family is going to handle things when the younger you wakes up from the ice. It's less than two years away, and we need a plan." She paused, studying him carefully. "I know you don't like to talk about that time."
Steve took a quick breath in and let it out. "I'm okay talking about that time. I don't think you like it when I talk about that time."
Peggy bowed her head slightly in acknowledgement. "That was before," she said at last, glancing back up to meet his eyes. "Back when I thought I'd only be poking at old wounds when there wasn't anything I could do except grieve for you after the fact."
Her voice strengthened. "But ever since we started going undercover to help the Avengers during the times in their lives when they thought they were utterly alone, I knew: there is no chance whatsoever that this family left you to your own devices. You weren't alone at all, not for a moment. You only thought you were."
Steve slowly rubbed his palms against his pant legs, smoothing out the creases. "Yeah," he said at last. "I think you're probably right."
"You never knew about our family's existence," Peggy continued. "So whatever we did, we did it quietly. Perhaps we sent other people to help you. People like Father Andreassen, perhaps?" She looked at him expectantly.
"I met him in D.C.," he admitted at last, seeing there was no point in being coy about it. "When S.H.I.E.L.D. transferred me there after the Chitauri attack. He was my priest at St. Joseph's."
"There, see?" Peggy said, sitting up straighter in her rising eagerness. "That's exactly the sort of detail I need to know. I suppose he showed up and helped you with something crucial in a moment you least expected it?"
"In more ways than one," Steve admitted.
"And were there other times? Other people? Think about it. Any time you experienced a... a tender mercy, I suppose. Something you thought was only luck, or a small kindness from a passing stranger..."
"Yeah," Steve said slowly. "I can think of some things like that."
"Would you be willing to write them down?" Peggy prompted him. "Anything that helped lift you up when you were down, anything at all, no matter how trivial? Particularly in those first few months before Fury put you back on duty, when things were hardest. If I had a detailed record, perhaps I could spot the opportunities for us to intervene." She paused to study his face. "I know how much you hate asking for help for yourself, Steve, but may I remind you that you aren't asking me for anything. I'm offering."
Steve smiled a little, and reached out to touch her cheek gently. "The young Steve Rogers hated that kind of thing," he reminded her. "The old one is... a little wiser now. Did you really think I was going to refuse your love?"
Peggy tried to smile in return. "I hoped you wouldn't."
"Okay. You win. I'll write it down."
"And Steve... I know-" Peggy said, and her eyes grew moist as she laid one hand on his knee and gazed into his eyes. "I know that whatever we did for you, it couldn't take away the pain of what you experienced. It couldn't give you back everything you thought you lost. But-"
"I know you did everything you reasonably could," Steve assured her firmly. "And knowing what I know now, I wouldn't want to be spared from it all. Feeling alone like that... it made me need the Avengers. I had to lean on them, and that made them more comfortable leaning on me. I wasn't the flawless Captain America they thought they knew from the history books. They saw me as I really was, and... I really needed that."
"We'll do just enough for you," Peggy said softly. "No more, no less."
June 1, 2010
"Six weeks," Bram said, shaking his head as he sat down at the dining room table. "Six weeks."
"I think that's a new record for our family," Joe said as he scooted over his chair to make more room for his brother.
"I guess when you know she's the one-" Maggie started.
"-there's not much point to waiting," Amanda finished.
Steve and Peggy exchanged glances — and smiles. Their own courtship had lasted five months, but the engagement had been a single week. "Not much point to waiting," was exactly what they had repeatedly told Peggy's parents, who had seemed a little taken off-guard when they showed up in New Jersey for a visit with their daughter only to end up attending her hastily arranged wedding instead.
At least Dave and Sarah hadn't been blindsided by Steven's proposal to Beatrisa. They'd gone to Brazil several weeks ago to meet Beatrisa and her children and her mother, and when they came back, the two of them had been complacently certain that it wouldn't be long before everything became official. Beatrisa had taken the news of their family's secrets with a serene acceptance, and it hadn't seemed to change how she felt about Steven in the slightest.
And so a few minutes ago, Dave, Sarah and Steven had left together to take Beatrisa on her first trip through a portal. Soon she would be here and meeting Steve and Peggy, as well as Steven's siblings, for the first time. This would make the eleventh time that a prospective new member of the Carter family would be brought into the fold, and by now everyone knew the routine and eagerly speculated about how Beatrisa would react to this first meeting. In the interest of not overwhelming Beatrisa with numbers — and noise — they had decided to leave the in-laws and children home.
"We're still a crowd," Bram said wryly, looking at them all sitting around the dining room table, "but hopefully we won't scare her off before the wedding."
"Speaking of weddings, did you hear Clint went and got married on the sly?" Maggie asked, with the air of someone who had been bursting to say it. "Without even inviting any of us?" She sounded a little put out.
"He came and told us about it afterward," Steve said. "It was just an informal ceremony at the courthouse with Mike and Tien as the witnesses. He told us that he and Karma didn't want a big fuss."
"Because the baby's so close to coming?"
"It's more that they felt it was only a formality," Peggy put in. "Karma is more or less a part of our family already. And she certainly wouldn't have invited her own family. She and Clint just wanted to do it and have it done."
"Any word on what they're planning to name the kid?" Bram asked.
Amanda rolled her eyes. "Who knows. Every time someone asks, Clint starts cracking jokes about 'Thor Odinson Carter.' Can't get a serious answer out of him."
"If we got a serious answer out of him, he wouldn't be Clint," Bram said dryly.
"Well, brace yourselves, because he might not name the baby after an Avenger at all," Maggie said. "He's never really been into the whole 'family business' like the rest of us."
"That's his choice," Steve said mildly.
"I know, Grandpa. I just hate to see him standing on the outside."
Just then they heard a portal fizzle open in the next room over. After a brief silence, they all heard a few hesitant footsteps and then a breathless feminine "wow." They exchanged glances around the table and smiled knowingly: that had been the reaction of pretty much everyone in the family the first time they'd stepped through a portal.
And then Steven walked into the room, side by side with a short, dark-haired woman who looked a little timid at suddenly being the center of attention. Sarah and Dave came through the doorway behind them.
"Hey, everyone," Steven said, looking around at his family as he put an arm around the woman's shoulders. "This is Beatrisa."
Everyone else responded with a hello or a wave or a welcoming smile, including Peggy by his side, but Steve found himself suddenly rooted to the floor in shock.
Because he knew Beatrisa. He'd seen her before.
The woman from the funeral.
He could remember it as clearly as if it had been yesterday. Walking into St. Luke's Cathedral in London wearing his best black suit, with Sam Wilson by his side. Feeling hollow, wrung-out. Peggy's death had hit him like a gut-punch, even though he'd sensed in his last few visits with her that it was coming. His distraction over the Sokovian Accords and his conflict with Tony hadn't helped the situation. He'd felt so at-sea that he hadn't been able to put up even a token resistance to Sam's insistence on coming with him. It really would have been better for Sam to stay behind with Nat and represent him in the negotiations, but for once in his life Steve hadn't been able to bring himself to be practical. The plain truth was, he had dreaded the thought of walking into that church to face Peggy's grieving family alone, and Sam's steady presence was the only thing that had gotten him through the doors in a fit frame of mind.
The moment he and Sam had arrived, they'd been greeted by a Latina woman dressed in a long black skirt and modest white blouse: Beatrisa, he knew now, although at the time he hadn't caught her name.
"Captain Rogers?" she had said in a Portuguese accent, reaching out to take his hand and clasping it warmly with both hands. "I am so very sorry for your loss." Her brown eyes looked at him with open compassion, kind but not intrusive.
Based on her demeanor, professional yet gentle, Steve had assumed she was connected to the church or the funeral home in some way. It hadn't even crossed his mind that she might be part of Peggy's family.
It seemed obvious now that that was exactly why Beatrisa had been there. And that her experience comforting mourners hadn't come from working for a funeral home at all… but from being a clergyman's wife.
"The family is in the viewing room now to say their goodbyes," Beatrisa had told him quietly without relinquishing his hand, "but some of them thought you might like a few minutes alone before the casket is closed."
It was exactly what he had wanted, but never would have had the courage to ask for. To have to say goodbye to Peggy in front of her family, the family that should have been his… he had dreaded that more than anything else.
"…and this is my grandmother, Peggy Carter." Steven's voice suddenly intruded on his thoughts, and Steve came back to the present with a jolt as Peggy let go of his hand to lean forward and give Beatrisa a hug.
"It's so wonderful to meet you at last," Peggy said warmly. Beatrisa returned the embrace, her eyes closing briefly as her chin rested on Peggy's shoulder, and in his memory Steve could see her as she had been in St. Luke's, eyes downcast as she had pinned the pallbearer's boutonniere on his suit lapel. There had been the faint sparkle of tears in her eyelashes, and through the fog of his own grief he had wondered about that.
It was like a cold wind blowing through his soul. That was six years away. Just six more years, and then it would be over. Peggy would be torn from him. Again.
She would leave them all behind.
"And last but definitely not least, my grandfather, Steve Rogers," Steven said, and Beatrisa turned from Peggy toward Steve.
"I have heard so much about you from Steven," Beatrisa said warmly. "I am very much looking forward to getting to know you."
Steve searched for words for a long moment, pausing to appreciate the inexplicable feeling he had of a final puzzle piece clicking into place, and then he looked into her eyes and took her hand in both of his.
"It's good to have you in our family," he said firmly, patting her hand. "Real good."
And then the oddest feeling swept over Steve, an electrifying sensation that made every hair on the back of his arms stand up, and instinctively he pulled his hands away from Beatrisa's and took a step backward, bumping into the chair behind him and nearly losing his balance.
"Steve?" Peggy asked, startled, even as Bram reached out to steady him with a firm hand.
"Grandpa? You okay?" he asked with sudden concern, and without waiting for an answer he slid his hand up to Steve's wrist to find his pulse.
The strange feeling pulsed over Steve again. But it wasn't physical weakness, even though he could clearly see in Peggy's worried eyes that that was exactly what she suddenly feared.
No. It was strength. Strength such as he had not felt for a very, very long time.
Steve slowly lifted up his wrinkled hands and stared at them, and then narrowed his eyes with the slightest of effort.
Instantly, lightning crackled to life between his fingers.
He couldn't help it. A grin spread across his face, and when he looked up, it was Beatrisa's eyes that he met first.
"What is it?" she whispered, looking at the electricity branching his hands with quiet awe.
"It's Mjolnir," he answered with certainty, and he could not keep the note of triumph from ringing in his voice. "It's here."
"On Earth?" Maggie blurted out from behind Beatrisa. "Is that... is that today?"
Steve's grin widened. "It's Thor. He's landed." He slowly lowered his hands and let the power fade from his fingertips, but still he could feel it hovering in the back of his mind. Mjolnir was aware of him. Only half a world away, ready to answer to his beck and call if he had need of it.
Of course, he wouldn't need it. Not now, not anymore. But the exhilaration was undeniable. It had been so long. More than half a century. He'd waited patiently, but now it was time at last. Within days Clint Barton would lay eyes on Thor for the first time.
The Avengers were beginning to assemble.
Peggy took his hand in hers once more, and looked up at him with his joy echoed in her eyes.
"It would seem Captain America's the only one missing in action now," she said wryly.
TO BE CONTINUED
Author's note: Reviews are welcomed! Let me know what you think.