Steve stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows staring out at a city under siege by sleet with a vague smile on his face. It had been raining all day, and while the weather seemed to be taking a turn for the frigid worse, he was sure it would turn to snow by nightfall. In one hand he idly spun his phone, waiting for it to vibrate with a notification but he kept his gaze fixed out on the tall skyscrapers around the Avengers tower in a poor attempt to hide his eager impatience.
The phone vibrated gently and he lifted it immediately to see the notification. He grinned at Mab's attempt at a sassy joke, and was working on composing a reply when Natasha appeared next to him.
She didn't bother trying to seem uninterested, but instead grinned like the cat that had caught the canary. "So," Natasha asked, "how was your weekend?"
Steve couldn't help the little smile that spread across his face in return, tucking his phone away to avoid a further prying gaze. "It was nice." He could still picture the green lawns outside the Legion of Honor and smell the ocean on the wind. Blue-green eyes glancing up at him from a reclined sprawl in the shade, and fingers tracing the veins of a captured leaf.
She raised an eyebrow. "That all I'm gonna get out of you, Rogers?"
"She's pretty," Sam yelled across the kitchen, as he dropped his bag onto the counter. "And they dipped out of the reception early."
"Did you now?" Natasha pressed, her tone strongly suggestive.
"Mmhmm," Sam confirmed, "And I had to fly commercial back to New York because someone had the jet transferred to SFO that night."
"We went for a drive," Steve said, stubbornly refusing to give in. He would have to remember to avoid the shift change hand-off if he planned on escaping regular interrogation from his fellow Avengers.
"Come on, leave him alone," Rhodey chastised, pausing in his perusal of the fridge. "Don't you have private lives you'd rather keep private?"
"No." "Nope."
Steve couldn't help but be reminded of a time when he and the Howling Commandos had similarly interrogated Bucky over a few pints of beer regarding a certain blonde-haired nurse. His mind lingered on that thought for a moment like a skip on an old record. But this one played in tandem with another song now, another set of smiles and another moment he would fix in his memory forever.
He could hear the songs of two bands playing, see two different sets of stars, taste two drinks and see two wicked smiles. There was none stronger than the other, or trying to remove an enemy with an intensity not balanced with present or past.
Steve walked slowly to the kitchen, tracing the edge of the counter briefly with his hand in an attempt to ground himself. Too easy, it would be too easy to lose himself in two generations of joy. He couldn't linger there for the knowledge it would soon be spoiled with both memory and forethought of grief.
Dragging himself out of those memories too late, Steve caught the last of Sam's question. "-installed today," Sam said, "wanna check it out?"
"Sure," he agreed, following the modern soldier to the elevator.
"Wait up," Natasha called, sliding off her perch on the back of the large leather sectional. "Check it out, stake a claim and all that."
"Gym, Friday," Sam called to the controlling intelligence and the doors slid smoothly shut.
"So when're you going to bring her by to let the rest of us say hello?" Natasha pressed.
Sam crossed his arms, appearing comically offended. "What, you can't take my word for it? I thought you trusted me, Nat."
"Or maybe we can just pretend to have private lives?" Steve asked as the elevator doors opened to the gym level.
Sam had been right that the gym equipment was being installed that day - the taped-off spaces where equipment would be placed were now crowded with discarded shrink-wrap, cardboard packaging, and even a few electrical components that probably were meant to be left in place by the manufacturer.
Tony was crouched on the floor with a screwdriver in one hand as he poked around an open access panel "That's called 'being greedy' and we won't stand for it, Cap." He pulled out a small computer panel and replaced it with a larger, more complicated one from his pocket.
Steve smiled at the familiar antics. "Hey, Tony. What are you doing all the way down in the city?" He seemed more comfortable these days up in the Compound, though he could be counted on to visit Alice's farm for Sunday dinner more often than not. "I'm pretty sure what you're doing voids the warranty in about ten seconds," he joked.
"Pep wants to bend my ear in person about acquiring some medical company; something about lawsuits and malpractice, I wasn't really listening." Tony snapped the access panel shut and hopped up from his crouch, slapping the machine for good measure. "Have to make a few modifications to spec if they have a chance of surviving you lot." he flipped the screwdriver in one hand and gestured threateningly with it. "Now," he ordered, "I want these to last at least a week before I need to come back and do repairs."
"Ooh, a Kinesis machine," Natasha crooned over a setup bolted to the wall that looked suspiciously like a torture machine hooked up to a wood ladder, either distracted or just quickly extracting herself from the accusing mechanic.
"I'll spread the word," Steve promised.
"These things come with manuals for proper use!" Tony called after Natasha, who waved off his warning entirely. Tony moved to the next machine, popping off the main control panel with his screwdriver and seemingly ripping out components with little regard.
Steve knew from experience that Tony knew exactly what he was doing. In some ways the casual disregard was a carefully constructed front to make others comfortable; the sheer processing power of his brain and breadth of compassion didn't match with their perception of him as a person, so he let others simply continue believing what they believed. It made no difference to him, really.
"I was starting to think you were avoiding me."
"Haven't been in the mood for a deeply irritating philosophical argument lately."
"Ah." Steve shifted awkwardly in place, glancing over to Natasha and Sam who seemed to be caught in a disagreement on how to operate the Kinesis machine. "Even if everything we do is for them," Steve said, turning back to Tony, "and for all the others, too, I won't just keep quiet if I see something that's not right. I can't."
"I know." Tony closed the panel and tapped it in place with the butt of the screwdriver. "And, I swear, I'm the only one who does. Did the U.S. Government even bother reading your record back in 1943? You've always been just a heap of trouble." Tony made a gesture with the screwdriver. "You start a fight to protect a smaller kid, Barnes breaks it up, you start another fight to protect some lady's honor, Barnes saves the day - are we sensing a pattern here?"
"And here I thought those were supposed to be top-secret."
"If there's a digital copy, nothing's ever really secret."
"Since you're in the habit of digging these days, what have you found about the Raft?"
"Nothing," Tony dug the screwdriver into a new panel. This one cracked as he pried it off. "And it's pissing me off."
"They knew you were going to try to dig."
"Seems like." Tony glanced at him with a rueful twist of his mouth. "And I really wanted you to be wrong." He flipped the screwdriver from one hand to another. "I'm working on it." Not an apology, but about as close as one might get from the flippant genius.
He didn't owe Steve anything. Honestly, Steve also wished he had been wrong. The implications seemed endless even as they stretched out into a distant concealing fog. They couldn't wait until it was too late to repair; they had work to do.
"Tony," Steve tried to start an apology in return, to make up for the secrets he'd felt he needed to keep, when a new alarm blared overhead.
If the normal alarm could be described as 'shrill and annoying', this took the concept and cranked the dial past capacity. Glass panels rattled and huge machinery shook in place as the alarm screeched through every speaker on every floor.
Tony instantly turned to the nearest access panel and with a swift wave of a hand assumed control. Blinking alarms and fourteen types of data flickered in quick succession, too quick for even Steve to follow. "The hell is this one?" Tony barked at his computer.
'Confirmed breach,' Friday reported.
"Well," Tony nearly sighed, silencing the loud alarm with a flip of a digital switch, "time for you to go to work. Suit up, Cap. We'll get back to sedition after you've tucked the kids into bed."
Lukas raised his hands slowly, languidly, leaning into the motion. Something creaked in the walls and the floor and shadows in the mess hall lengthened and deepened, thick like fog and yawning widely like hungry mouths.
Power. Frozen in place in awe, Ginny now understood the guards' checking and re-checking of Lukas's suppressor band. Without it, shadows leapt to his call; growing into the very monsters you can feel tickling the back of your neck when you look away from dark corners at midnight.
Miguel seized Ginny by the arm and hauled her out of the reach of shadows emerging under Lukas's control. They spread out in flat, textureless arms that anyone would struggle to perceive as two or three-dimensional as they absorbed every ray of light that threatened to define them.
Lukas laughed and it sounded both gleeful and relieved. "Got you now!" he yelled, his voice easily echoing over a barrage of alarms. The shadows grew larger; the tendrils thickened into shapes further across than Miguel's shoulders. They moved out of rhythm to Lukas's direction, either in advance of command or lagging behind Ginny couldn't be certain.
He didn't seem to notice, finding dark delight in the panicked commands the guards were yelling, nearly screaming. There were supposed to be safeguards, right? There was more than just the suppressor bands to keep everyone safe, right? Whatever was meant to act as a second step of safety clearly either wasn't working or simply didn't exist.
Ginny was lost in her terrified wonder and Miguel again had to pull her back and out of danger as the shadowy threat was realized. She had thought that a flat black arm of shadow was growing larger, when in fact one of them had begun to flail in their direction. She only fully realized it as it slammed down onto the steel table she'd been standing next to only moments before, turning it into a crumpled heap of scrap.
Now people began to scream. Shadowy arms whipped through the air with the swiftness and silence of an owl's midnight strike. Seemingly flat against the texture and depth of a light-touched world, everyone around them struggled to keep out of the range of their fury.
Up on the catwalk, screams of terror were swiftly extinguished as the arms slammed down, leaving only a wet crunch of bones or a gurgling whimper from those who couldn't escape in time. Ginny was vaguely aware that Miguel was pulling on her arm as a new siren sounded.
"Geneva!" he barked, trying to pull her out of the room as blast doors started to lower at the edges of the mess hall. Whoever was still in the mess when those doors came down would be trapped in here with the shadowy monster Lukas was creating.
But Ginny felt a powerful urge to stay.
"What is it like," Hector asked, his ear pressed to her growing belly in search of any sign of movement, "being a mother?"
Well into her second pregnancy, Geneva had plenty of experience to draw on already. "I read somewhere that a mother's brain literally reorganizes itself after you have a baby. Helps you bond, connect, things like that."
She rubbed a hand in her stomach, checking the baby monitor to ensure their conversation wouldn't disturb the sleeping toddler. "I believe it. Literally makes you a new person."
She could so easily categorize her life into 'before' and 'after' motherhood. There were things she knew about her child that defied explanation, a knowledge of one cry from another, releasing logic to allow generations of instinct to take control.
"I don't know," Hector said, smiling as a feather-light kick responded to his voice, "not everyone who has a kid is like that."
Miguel positioned himself under the nearest blast door and grunted with exertion, planting his shoulder under the heavy machinery to keep the door open for her escape. "Geneva, we need to go!" Miguel roared over the screech of his own suppressor band.
Ginny did not respond, staring still at the young man who stood at the center of chaos and the shadowy arms moving more out of sync with his controlling gestures. She pulled her arm out of Miguel's grasp as Lukas doubled over, crying out in pain.
"Lukas?" Ginny cried.
Even though he was no longer moving to control the shadows they continued to move on their own, moving faster and more furiously beyond even what Lukas had been directing. He had been crushing tables and beating on those who had threatened him - a powerful but childish tantrum at best - but now those arms thrust into vents, seeking deeper shadows to draw on.
"Lukas, it's me!" Ginny tried, calling out to him even as she had to duck under that dark force that sought to crush her into wet pulp.
"Stay back!" Lukas cried, clutching at his middle. But his eyes spoke with fear as he looked at her from across the room. He opened his mouth to warn her again and shadows came instead. Darkness poured from his eyes like empty tears.
Metal groaned behind her as the blast door sought to crush Miguel alive. "Geneva!" he bellowed. Ginny turned, seeing the metal was starting to warp under his grip, and a furious concern flashed in glittering gold eyes. She couldn't hear it, but she could see his mouth form the words.
Don't do it.
Ginny knew what he meant, but had trouble finding the right words for her response. There were countless parents who never wanted kids, or had one too many, or found out afterwards that the experience wasn't for them. They might not call themselves a 'mom' or a 'dad', and there wasn't anything wrong with that.
"Maybe, but…" Ginny rubbed at a stitch in her side. She had forgotten the part of pregnancy where little feet could kick you in the ribs. "You become a mom, and suddenly all the world's children are your children, too. You feel them crying deep in your gut in a way that never hurt you like that before."
Boots rang against metal, sirens blared overhead, water and swirling darkness beat a rhythmic drumbeat in tune with Ginny's heart. At the center of chaos Lukas locked terrified eyes with the only figure standing her ground.
He reached out for her, and Ginny took an involuntary step forward.
"Ma!" Lukas cried, terror filling his plea.
Hector rolled over to go to sleep but Ginny couldn't sleep yet. Her second child was a wriggly one - sure to be a troublemaker from birth. She wondered what this next step in motherhood would change in her again. Parenthood not being a fixed mark she was always changing, always learning.
Parenthood. Not just the act of birthing a child or having one in your care, but the intense dedication to highs and lows and challenges and failures of just trying to avoid fucking up. So for the Mothers and Fathers, the ones who lay on the floor and cheer when the baby rolls over for the first time, who stay up all night before the first and second and third and tenth Christmas, it was just so much more than just having a child.
That incredible evolutionary process of caring for a child would change you - science could confirm it but mothers had known all along - so that nothing would ever be the same. Any time a child cries, you hear it, no matter the age.
So when a child cries for a mother, you answer.
Ginny's shoes pounded against the metal floor and she took a wild leap over a shadowy tentacle that tried to trip her. Her shoes were on the table before her brain caught up. She'd crossed the open floor faster than seemed possible when that child had reached for her. Because he was young - too young for this place, barely older than her eldest, too young to legally drink - and he had called for her.
"I'm here," Ginny soothed, wrapping her arms around him.
Lukas clung to her with the desperation of a drowning man. He was so cold - bone-chilling, soul-sucking cold. It was silent around him. Pressing against all her senses, a deep and quiet hunger.
Inside her, a warmth answered. The shadow pulled at it, drew it out of her, hungry beyond satiety. With a quick pop of circuits, Ginny's suppressor band crackled and died a swift death as that thrumming heat grew. Like cool water on hot oil it danced through her, or falling stars plunging into deep lakes but somehow in reverse. Glittering power rising from darkness.
Ginny wrapped herself around Lukas, tucking his head under her chin as she rocked slightly back and forth. "Shh…" she soothed into that quiet darkness, "I'm here."
She knew chaos reigned outside of that dark and quiet place but somehow none of it reached into the orbit of Lukas' power. The thought of it filled Ginny with sorrowful pity; how terrifying it must be to be so isolated by your own power.
Humming gently, rocking him like one of her own babies, the familiarity of that combination kept Ginny calm for her friend. The humming, the soothing, the rocking; this was just another tantrum to a mother, just another late night with a crying baby cutting a tooth.
Less familiar, massive hands appearing on her arm and hauling her out of darkness.
If Ginny had thought that she had descended into chaos before she was wrapped in darkness, she was wrong. That is, if the hellscape she emerged into was any reference.
The mess hall had been transformed into a ribboned nest of shredded metal barely accessible by two grinding metal doors that seemed to have been mangled into a permanent open position.
Guards in tactical gear swarmed the room, brandishing what looked suspiciously like heavily-customized fully-automatic rifles and not the electric stunners Ginny was used to seeing.
A familiar shape in red, white, and blue stood at the other end of the mess, giving firm orders to some of the guards. As one raised his rifle, Steve grabbed it by the barrel and yanked it out of the younger man's hands entirely. He removed the magazine, ran the action to expel the round in the chamber, and tossed both parts in opposite directions.
The hands that had pulled her out of darkness belonged to Miguel - no surprise there - but it was surprising that as she was pulled back, back and away from reaching shadows, a woman in red stepped forward from Miguel's side and used bright red light to control, surround, and compress the shadowy cocoon.
Other Avengers, less recognizable to Ginny, scattered through the room, seemed to be engaged in similar acts of de-escalation.
"Geneva, what were you thinking!?" Miguel seized her by the shoulders, spinning her away from the chaos so he could show her the golden fury in his eyes.
"Move, Aztec!" A guard ordered, approaching Ginny with what looked like a suppressive collar in his hands. It looked much more menacing than their usual armbands.
"I will not," Miguel all but snarled, moving to completely shield Ginny from the guard's view.
"You wanna end up in the Box with her? Move!" He may have been giving orders, but his tone sang with fear and lacked conviction.
The band around Miguel's wrist crackled as the circuitry fought against his power. "Child," Miguel hissed, "should I wish to change, this little machine could not stop me. I am a prisoner here only because I continue to allow it. I suggest you find other actions to occupy your attention."
Whatever expression had spread across Miguel's face seemed to convince the guard that, whatever the value of his paycheck, it wasn't worth it. The guard lowered his voice. "Move to B Block."
Miguel kept one hand on Ginny's shoulder and promptly marched her out of the door he'd mangled to keep open. "It would be best to keep your head down," Miguel shot her a look, "but I can see you have no intentions of doing so."
The sounds of the ensuing- but diminishing- chaos followed them. Miguel's firm hand on her shoulder was all the kept her from going back. "He's not even old enough to drink, Miguel. And all of that… I don't think it's his fault. There's something wrong."
The walls felt tighter than before; narrow hallways, floors and corners dampened with intruding seawater, tightly returned their rapid steps with harsh echoes seeming to applaud that violence.
"Things are going to change." If they had thought the Raft was oppressive before, Ginny was sure it was about to get a lot worse.
Miguel hummed in agreement. "I doubt they'll let us speak to any of your friends on the outside again." He pulled Ginny around a corner and towards B Block, the Raft's auxiliary unit. "It was bound to happen eventually. It is in their best interest to keep their secrets silent. It always is."
Ginny was half-listening. "This isn't… we're not…" she mumbled through the beginnings of the thought. "This place isn't what we think, I don't think."
Miguel hummed in agreement again. "Which is why you should strive to be invisible, rather than at the exact center of trouble."
Ginny nodded, but along with her own thought instead of Miguel's warning. "Right." She nodded, her gaze locking on a small group sitting at a table in B Block as thr security gate opened. "Yes."
Miguel caught on immediately, stopping them short at the main gate of B Block. "Geneva," he warned sharply. "Absolutely not."
"You can join me, or you can go count ceiling tiles, but I'm not letting Lukas sit in the Box for the rest of his life."
The guard at the gate for B Block barked an order as the open security gate began to buzz alarmingly; "get a move on!"
They lurched into motion, Miguel falling into step behind Ginny as she walked into the crowded Mess Hall. She moved with a vivid intent, and the monster of a man walking behind her helped to part the crowd as she bee-lined towards her goal.
"Mr. Volkov," Ginny greeted the older man, flanked by his gargoyles, "we need to talk."
A/N: I need to thank all of you for your patience. I spent the last little bit of time re-writing my outline for this story. Just like with RITD, as I added dribs and drabs to my 30-page notes doc, the story began to feel cumbersome under all of the details that I wanted to add. But, sometimes we just have to kill our darlings. I simply can't put everything in the story without losing the narrative relevance, and as much as it kills me that I can't give you every version I've written of the Big Drama moments, this is only one Version of History.
That being said, I am working on a way to share the removed clips with you all! The "What If…?" show did open the door for all these universes, so I'm taking the opportunity to expand on some ideas that had to get cut. The first one I have that's nearly complete is based on what if Alice had to weather The Snap alone? Because we all know she wouldn't do well. Keep an eye out for What If: Versions of History in my stories!
It's been a wild few months with this story rattling around in my brain, because the message I want to send both directly and indirectly is one of the more intense ones I've ever written. It's also super hard because this is definitely an action-oriented story, and I really really suck at writing action. What I ended up doing here is really alluding to it, but not trying to describe it. More of what I'm going for here it Ginny's experience of it all, and what she ends up focusing on. It's a cop-out, I know, but it's a relevant cop-out!
On a related note, as this author's note goes on forever, if you ever notice that I'm trying SUPER HARD to avoid describing something in a "normal" way… it's possible I'm trying to lay down foreshadowing that doesn't smack you in the face. I pride myself in my twists, but that allllll of them are foreshadowed if you're really really paying attention. Food for thought.
To top off all the insanity, I also started a new job today so there's ALL THAT to deal with too.
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