Wanda
The three Peters were gone, but not the rain clouds.
They stayed overhead, pouring on and off, matching the dismal mood of everyone in camp.
"Agent Maximoff,"
I looked up from typing up a report for the new Colonel Phillips. Our first battle had been rough. Half of our battalion was either killed or captured. Our former commanding officer was one of the dead. We were merged with the 107th Battalion and we were now being led by Colonel Phillips, a stern, disapproving man from Texas.
"Do you have that report finished?" the Colonel asked.
I looked over the paper.
May 30, 1942
At 7:00 hours, the 107th Battalion along with the remainder of the 98th marched along the Allies' border to counter German attacks. The confirmed casualties are 10,190 with 150 captured.
A dismal story in just a few sentences.
I tore the paper off the typewriter.
"Yes, sir."
Colonel Phillips glowered at the report. He tossed it onto his desk, on top of a stack of blank papers intended for condolence letters to every single one of the families of the fallen.
When Colonel Phillips took command, he easily dismissed the three Peters as killed in action. But Loki, Strange, and I knew better. They would've survived and been captured by Hydra. Of course, Hydra would find out about their incredible abilities and then experiment on them like lab rats.
Colonel Phillips snatched three envelopes off of his desk.
"Agent Maximoff."
"Yes, sir?"
"These condolence letters are for men from the 98th. It's been two weeks since the Battle of Lorraine."
I took the letters from his hand.
"Privates Holland, Garfield, and Officer Maguire don't have any family back in the United States."
It was the ugly truth. Like Strange, Loki, and I, they didn't have any family in this timeline or our own.
He gave a grim smile.
"No family, huh?"
He raised the report.
"You see this, Agent?"
I didn't answer. It was one of those rhetorical questions, the kind you're not supposed to respond to.
"This is a failure. An embarrassment. This is what's bringing this army and every allied nation's morale down low."
Doctor Strange lumbered in.
All day, he had been working like a dog to transport wounded soldiers and organize emergency operations.
His white doctor's coat was covered in blood and dirt.
And in his shaky hand was a mug of coffee that he gave to me.
"Thanks. I needed this." I said, taking a sip.
Strange's entrance cut off Phillips' rant.
"Doctor Strange, just the man I wanted to see. What's the status of our wounded men?"
"We're out of blood, sir." Strange said wearily.
Phillips raised an eyebrow.
"Excuse me?"
"We have fifty wounded and counting. We've run out of blood donors. We're going to have to ask others to donate."
"Well, get the word out, Strange. If men's lives are at risk, find every volunteer you can."
With a polite nod to me, Strange left the tent with Colonel Phillips.
Loki walked in, looking just as tired as Strange. He had been up since four this morning.
"Where's Agent Carter?" he asked.
"Sleeping. She had night shift." I said.
Even though I was allowed to clock out last night, I couldn't get any sleep. I kept dreaming strange dreams. I was wearing the same suit that I created in Westview. There was some kind of multiverse-destroying monster that I was trying to fight, but I was getting killed again and again.
"You'll need to wake her up. Stark and I need to speak with her. I'll be in tent B4 in case you're wondering."
I sighed. Everything that had happened in New York; meeting Loki, Strange, and the three Peters, the inter-dimensional tsunami, time-traveling to 1942, it felt like decades ago. But my watch that the Spider-Men designed said my body had only aged a few days since then.
With my coffee still in hand, I went to the tent that I shared with Agent Carter.
Since Colonel Phillips took over, we had a fresh wave of new faces, although we lost a lot of them thanks to the last disastrous battle.
Peggy was lying on her cot, but she wasn't asleep.
"Hey," I said. "The Colonel needs you."
With a tired groan, Peggy got up. When the 107th took command, there were barely enough tents for everyone. They assigned me to a tent with Peggy and two nurses.
Somehow, through all the commotion, Peggy and I managed to become friends. For the last year or so, I had barely had contact with people, much less befriending them.
I could see traits and qualities in her that Steve had too.
I sat on my own cot.
"I thought you were sleeping."
"I tried to." Peggy said, running a brush through her hair.
"There is an end to it, right?" I asked.
"An end to what?"
I shrugged.
"I don't know. All this bloody aftermath. The war, maybe. We did have peacetime, right?"
I meant it as a joke, but it hit deeper for me. Ever since Ultron, I'd been jumping from one fight to the next. The spaces of peace in between didn't feel like peace for me. I was either mourning the death of a loved one, going on the run from the feds, or messing with reality.
I did have a peacetime, right?
Peggy chuckled slightly.
"Oh, believe me, there are some days when I think that there will never be an end to this blasted war."
It just occurred to me that after WW2, Peggy would keep working for the SSR. Then after that, she founded SHIELD.
She never stopped fighting for years.
I remembered what I came here for.
"Stark wants to see you."
She buttoned up her uniform blazer.
"Maybe you should take off for a little while."
I shook my head. There were too many soldiers that still needed help.
Our medical team was understaffed. Lately, I've been finding myself helping bandaging wounded men and clearing room for more cots.
Peggy's eyes wandered over to a footlocker beside my cot. The name was printed in big block letters; PRVT. GARFIELD, PETER And it wasn't mine.
"What's this?"
I hesitated. I wasn't very open about my personal struggles with people. But Peggy had seen the same things that I had. I could tell her.
"A friend of mine….from the 98th was declared dead. He has no family, so I kept his things."
Peggy and I both knew that the army had a bad habit of throwing out a soldier's personal effects. I wasn't the only one doing it. Strange was keeping Peter 2's stuff and Loki had Peter 1's.
Peggy picked up a newspaper and showed me a propaganda photo. It was a big, strong man wearing a ridiculous costume, saluting with a smile.
It was also Steve Rogers. One of the first Avengers.
"I knew him before I was deployed here." Peggy said. "He wanted to serve in the army. Got turned into a poster boy instead." she gave a grim smile. "Your friend goes missing in action. Mine has to perform a song and dance number. Tell me, where's the justice in that?"
She walked out of the tent and left me to stare at the picture of Steve Rogers.
This time, it wasn't a digital profile picture on a top-secret government file or a full-page, full-color photo in Time magazine, but just a simple, black-and-white photograph.
Growing up in the ashes of a communist regime, we were told that Captain America was American propaganda supporting western ideals. But then I got to know him for the person that he was. He was kind, brave, and genuine. Yes, he had some flaws. But he was one of the few people that looked at me and didn't see a destructive monster. He saw a person.
Now I sat in the back row of a crowd with Strange and Loki, watching poor younger Steve Rogers try to give a rousing speech about patriotism and fighting Nazis.
Not so easy to do in front of a battalion of battle-weary, grumpy men.
"Who wants to help me sock ol' Adolf Hitler in the jaw?" he asked a silent crowd.
There weren't even crickets chirping.
Captain America maintained his stance.
"You know, if you sign on-"
Someone cut him off.
"I already signed on. How do you think I got here?"
People started booing him.
Steve's smile faltered. It would be difficult to bring this crowd back.
"Come on, guys. We're all on the same team here."
A few tomatoes were flung at him.
I toyed with the idea of going back to the tents. This was just hard to watch.
Why did they bring the Captain America tour here? It's not that I didn't want to see Steve. It wasn't good for morale. In fact, it was making it worse.
Loki smirked. Whether that was because his former archnemesis was getting heckled or his archnemesis was wearing tights, I didn't know.
I gave him a polite elbow to the ribs.
"Ow." he hissed.
Strange gave me an amused expression. I shrugged.
"Simple pleasures."
"Bring back the girls!" someone else shouted.
Steve gave up and trudged backstage. Three USO performers took his place.
The three of us had lost interest. We left the stands and made our way back to the tents. The show might have been a bust to Steve Rogers, but hope was brimming inside me.
"Once everyone leaves, we should go find him." I told Strange and Loki.
"What?"
"I know we're not supposed to tamper with history, but Steve is already going to free the prison camp."
"Wanda," Strange started.
"I'm serious! They're still alive. We all know it. He's got to-"
I started back towards the stage. Strange stopped me.
"Wanda, I'm sorry. But we can't intervene like this."
I tilted my head.
"Excuse me?"
"Steve Rogers needs to make his own choice about this." Strange said.
I could feel my face getting warm.
"But he's going for Barnes. We all know that Peter is going to be experimented on. We can't guarantee that they'll be in the same lab. If Steve doesn't know who to look for, they'll get left behind. Strange, the entire compound is going to explode!"
We had stopped in the middle of the dirt road. A few people looked in our direction.
"Wanda," Loki said softly. "Strange has a point. We're already intervening too much already. And we could set this timeline's projection further away from the main one."
I took a step back. I couldn't believe that Strange and Loki would let the Peters endure even more torture than they should, much less agree with each other. It was all I could do to stop an angry outburst.
"You don't know Hydra like I do." I said in a low voice. "And what they did to me was nothing compared to what they did to Bucky Barnes. Think about it."
I marched off, trying to get my heart rate to slow down. I wanted to scream. But if I did, I knew I would also be releasing two month's worth of tension and fear. And I might lose control of my powers. That couldn't happen.
I turned a corner and slumped on a bench. I was behind a tent, so it would be enough cover in case I had a mental breakdown.
"Are you alright?"
Stephen Strange sat down next to me.
I didn't answer. I really didn't want to talk to him.
"You're close with them, aren't you?" Strange said.
My throat burned.
"Yes."
Maybe it was a matter of necessity. The three Peters were some of the only people in this time period that actually knew me.
Sure, I had gotten to know Loki and Strange well, but Strange could be arrogant and cold while Loki was either too serious or not serious enough.
Then there were the Peters; so alike, but so different.
They were open and easygoing and quickly became their own inseparable trio.
I couldn't keep my thoughts bottled up anymore.
"They remind me of my family." I blurted out. "The Peters."
To me, the youngest Peter was too close in age to my twins. He had the same hopeful brown eyes and energy, but was more reserved.
Peter 3 was like Pietro. Tall, speedy, and a little bit of a jock. It made me wonder what Pietro would be like if he had lived five or eight years longer.
And my father would've liked Peter 2.
Those comparisons just made the thought of the Peters dying hurt more.
A tear trickled down my face. I furiously wiped it away, but Strange saw.
"Your brother….and Vision….I never offered my condolences."
I gave a dry smile.
"That's an awfully formal apology."
He smiled a little too.
"Okay. I'm sorry for your loss?"
"That works."
We sat there in silence for a little longer.
The clouds finally had enough and released a downpour of rain.
"Let's go back to the administration tents." Strange said.
He covered us with his coat while we dodged puddles, but we still managed to get damp.
When we got there, Colonel Phillips put Strange and I straight to work with stacks of paperwork that somehow didn't get wet.
Most of the papers were reports and condolence letters.
We needed to record all the deaths of those that died in the field hospital and who was still wounded and their recovery.
Minutes later, two people burst into the tent.
I turned around. It was Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter.
I should've been more prepared to see Steve, but I could only stare.
Luckily, Steve was way too panic-stricken to notice me gawking like an idiot.
"Ah, the Star-Spangled Man with a plan." Phillips said, looking down at reports. "Tell me, what is your plan today?"
"I'm looking for a man on the casualty lists, sir." Steve said quickly. "James Barnes. B-A-R-"
"I can spell." Phillips said, scowling at more unfinished condolence letters.
He noticed Strange and I in the corner, pretending to be focused, but really listening in.
"Agent, Doctor, go get yourselves coffee."
It was his way of saying we were dismissed.
But just because we left the tent didn't mean we couldn't stand outside and listen.
"I signed about a hundred of these letters, but the name sounds familiar." Phillips told Steve.
"Are we sending in a rescue mission?"
Strange and I gave each other a look. This was our chance. This was our ticket to saving the Peters.
"Schmidt's camp is too many miles behind enemy territory. I'm not willing to risk the lives of the rest of 107th."
"But sir-"
"We are not sending in troops and that's final." Phillips snapped. "Do you understand?"
A pause.
"Yes, sir. I do."
Steve stormed out of the tent, defeated. Or was he?
I recognized that fiery, defiant look.
I grinned and we ran to catch up with him.
"You're going over enemy lines, aren't you?" I said, failing to keep my excitement down.
Steve stared straight ahead.
"You heard that, didn't you?"
"Yes. And I think it's a fantastic-"
Strange gave me a warning look.
"I'm sorry. I don't believe we've met." Steve said to us.
I had to remember that to Steve, I was a stranger.
"Uh, no…. Captain. My name is Agent Maximoff and this is Dr. Strange."
"We're from the 98th." Strange added.
Steve nodded.
"I heard about what happened to the 98th. I'm sorry."
"We have friends that were captured." I said.
Before I could continue, Peggy was racing to catch up.
"What do you think you're going to do?" she asked Steve. "Walk to Austria?"
We were going at a brisk pace back to the stage. Steve grabbed his shield. It was just a stage prop made from tin, but he obviously thought it could help him.
"If that's the plan."
Steve started towards a nearby jeep.
He pulled himself into the driver's seat.
"You said I was ready for more than this." he said to Peggy. "Did you really mean that?"
Peggy didn't hesitate. "Every word."
"But with respect, Captain. I think we can do better than a jeep." Strange said with a smile.
"You've got a plane, doc?" Steve asked.
"I know someone that does." Peggy said.
Howard Stark, genius inventor and industrialist, also the father of Iron Man, pulled a trench coat on.
"I've gotta say, Peggy. This plan of yours is nuts." He nodded to Steve. "No offense, Cap. Good to see you again, by the way."
"Again?" I repeated.
"Howard Stark designed the equipment for the super soldier project."
"One of my lesser-known achievements." Howard said, giving Strange a weird look. "How do you know about that? It was kept under wraps pretty well."
Strange improvised.
"I met with Senator Brandt before we shipped out. He couldn't not talk about it."
Steve shrugged. "That's Senator Brandt alright."
We continued through the darkened camp. Despite a few guards and nurses, most people were asleep or in tents.
We turned on a path that led away from the camp.
"Wouldn't your plane be in the hangar?" I asked Stark.
On the other side of camp was a makeshift hangar for a few small scout planes.
Howard flashed me a smile.
"Agent, you're forgetting that there are guards stationed around. I had it towed to a clearing a few hours ago."
After a brisk walk through the woods, we expected to find the plane alone. We weren't expecting the four soldiers, two sheepish civilian men, and two commanding officers.
We all stopped.
"Sorry, Mr. Stark." one of Howard's employees said. "They were onto us."
The commanding officers stepped into the light coming from the plane.
It was Loki and beside him was Colonel Flyn, a misogynistic blockhead who reminded me too much of Secretary Ross from the Sokovia Accord days.
They looked intimidating in dress uniforms.
"What are you…?" Strange stopped himself. We were in enough trouble as it is.
I gave Loki a piercing look. Did he rat us out?
"I saw some of your hired hand looking suspicious earlier today, Mr. Stark." Colonel Flynn said. "Perhaps you could explain some things?"
Howard stood taller. He had the same expression that Tony had when he was trying to charm his way out of trouble.
"Of course, Colonel. With the recent weather we've been having, the hangar was doing more harm than good to my plane. I asked Louis and Otis here to tow it to the clearing when-"
Flynn cut him off. He wasn't buying any of it.
"Yet you're being accompanied by a doctor, two female agents, and America's poster boy! If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were,"
"Colonel Flynn, you idiot!" Loki snapped. "Haven't you noticed the current situation?"
It just occurred to me that two soldiers flanked Loki and the other two were behind Flynn. So they weren't working together.
"Of course I have, Lieutenant Laufeyson. I'm not blind."
"Then maybe you haven't considered that Colonel Phillips was concerned about Hydra getting word." Loki said through gritted teeth.
The two men were sizing each other up. I felt like I was watching reality tv.
"Please, enlighten me." Flynn said.
"I'm not at liberty to. The Colonel has sent these four individuals on a classified assignment. And if you excuse me, I was about to debrief them."
Now it was Flynn's soldiers looking sheepish.
Colonel Flynn tried to mask his confusion with irritation.
"Last I heard, Rogers was supposed to be on stage."
"Well, the show's canceled, obviously."
Loki scowled at Flynn's men.
"You're dismissed along with your commanding officer."
Flynn and his soldiers walked off.
My strong desire to maim Loki disappeared.
Loki smiled grimly.
"That might be a court martial on my part. If he tells Phillips, that is."
"We'd better get her started up." Howard said. "Lieutenant, mind lending us your men? We could use the extra muscle to position the plane better."
Loki nodded to the other two soldiers and they followed the others to the plane. Strange and I were left.
Strange shook his head in surprise.
"Since when did you become a scary drill sergeant?" he asked.
"Five minutes ago." Loki said. "I caught Flynn coming over here. Thought I might need to cover for you."
"I thought you hated answering to authority." I pointed out.
What about all of Loki's stories about being pushed around by the TVA and SHIELD?
"I don't hate answering to authority when I'm in charge."
I rolled my eyes playfully. "Oh, I forgot."
"Thank you." Strange said.
Loki nodded. "You know, I wasn't lying about the debriefing part-"
He pulled out two bundles of cloth from his coat pocket and handed one to each of us.
I felt the contents inside. It was two metal wristbands and cartridges.
Web shooters.
"Make sure Rogers gets those to them." Loki said.
"We will."
"Hey, Maximoff! Strange!"
Howard was standing in the open door. They had finished positioning the plane.
"Are you coming?"
"You know we are, Stark." I said.
"Wanda, Strange."
We turned back around.
"Do me a favor and don't get hit when you're in the air."
We saluted him.
That was a longer chapter, but it was definitely awesome to write!
I was thinking about adding the scene when they're in the plane and Steve bails out, but I figured that part could be left out.
Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends!
Thanks for reading!