November 1990

Michael Carter crouched against the warehouse, his body shielded by a wall of weeds growing up through the cracked asphalt. The traffic was only a faint hum in the distance, here in the overgrown and largely deserted manufacturing district. "Svoboda?" he murmured into his wrist com.

"Almost there." Angelika Svoboda murmured back, her voice coming in clearly through his earpiece. "Stand by."

There was a soft clicking sound, and suddenly Mike could hear someone else, a man's voice echoing as if in a large empty room.

"Mic in place," Svoboda whispered.

"I hear it. Nice work." Back in the van, his mother would be listening to the audio, too.

"Is that what I think it is?" The voice coming through Mike's earpiece was unmistakably Howard Stark's. "Is that the harness I built for-" He broke off. "Oh, my God. What have you done?"

"Mr. Stark, the research you were working on could have saved lives. It could have changed the world." Mike recognized the second voice, too, a woman with a distinct Australian accent: it was Dr. Campbell from the P.E.G.A.S.U.S. Project. "We saved this. For you."

"You took it?" Howard said, sounding bewildered and awed, all at once. "You took it?"

"Carter was going to hand it over to NASA so they could build a light-speed engine." Campbell laughed with a hint of contempt. "A light-speed engine! Not only is it a pipe dream, but even if we could leave this planet, does anyone here think that's actually a good idea? Humanity is fractured, divided; we spend our days squabbling with each other over oil, over politics, over religion. We're not going anywhere until we can impose order on ourselves. You can help with that, Howard. The Tesseract can help with that."

"That's enough for me," came his mother's voice crisply through Mike's earpiece. "It's here. Move in."

Without hesitation Mike used his jimmy to pop open the window. Around the corner, out of his sight, Agent Veiga would be doing the same, while Svoboda would be making her way to the north entrance, having successfully planted the mic on the basement-level window.

"All I wanted to do was build a cheap, self-sustaining energy source," Howard said in his earpiece, his voice brusque and businesslike. "I wasn't looking to impose order on anything."

"Don't shortchange your work," Dr. Campbell said. "If you succeed, Howard, you could end the oil wars in the Middle East. You could make inroads into global poverty; there are still millions who don't have access to reliable electricity. You would be immortalized as a man who irrevocably changed the world for the better."

Mike slipped in through the window and crept down the darkened, deserted corridor. Getting in the building was the easy part; for Hydra to stay hidden it had to look deserted from the outside and therefore there could be no visible security... but there were bound to be safeguards inside.

"I thought you were the one who kept pushing for me to forget the energy experiments and develop weapons instead," Howard pointed out dryly.

"You've built enough weapons to see the sense in that, Howard," Campbell responded. "There will always be warlords, terrorists, organized crime... and superior firepower would protect everyone who just wants to live their lives in peace." There was a pause before Dr. Campbell continued. "Look, it doesn't matter to me what you want to build first, Howard. Let's get started. It will be better for you and I to work independently from S.H.I.E.L.D. That way whatever you come up with can be put on the market; you would be free to choose your buyers yourself. There's a lot of profit to be made."

According to Mike's transponder, he was getting close. So close that he could hear faint movements further down and around the corner; guards had probably been posted at all the entrances to the room Stark and Campbell were in. Where the Tesseract was being kept. Mike ran his eyes along the exposed ceiling of the warehouse corridor until he spotted what he was looking for. He crouched, and then leapt high, grasping onto a water pipe with one hand and a heating duct with another. He hung there silently for a moment, praying nothing would bend or crack under his weight, and then — when he was sure — he swung himself upside down and used his feet to gently, gently push in the grate set into the ceiling and carefully slide it to the side until it rested on top of the ceiling panel next to it.

Every muscle tense, Mike eased his frame through the narrow opening, moving as carefully and quietly as he could, until at last he was in the dusty confines of the building's ductwork.

"You're not wrong about the profits," he heard Howard say. He took a deep breath and let out a dry chuckle. "But you're crazy if you think S.H.I.E.L.D.'s going to sit back and let you do it. You don't know Director Carter like I do. She'll never stop hunting for this thing."

"When she realizes how many eggs she'll have to crack to get it back..." Dr. Campbell's voice had gone lower and slower. "-she'll be dissuaded."

"No, you don't get it." Howard's voice grew sharper as Mike army-crawled along the duct. "It's personal for her. The man she loved died getting that thing away from Hydra. It doesn't matter how much trouble you make for her. She'll never give up. Don't be fooled by the pretty face and the posh accent. Her backbone is made out of steel."

"Let us worry about that," Campbell said. "You just concentrate on your work. Think of the profits, Howard."

"Who's we?" Howard asked abruptly.

There was a long silence.

"I said, who's we?" As he got closer Mike realized he could hear Howard's voice coming through the ductwork now, not only through his earpiece. "Look, if we're going to work together, I have to know what that means," Howard continued. "You didn't set this up all by yourself, Dr. Campbell. Who is funding you? Who is calling the shots? Because I don't play well with others. You know that."

"We're philanthropists," Dr. Campbell said emphatically. "We're trying to make the world a better place."

"And stealing the Tesseract is going to help you do that?"

Mike crawled up to a vent in the bottom of the duct and looked down. He could see Howard Stark and Dr. Campbell standing next to Stark's harness device... and there was the Tesseract itself, resting in its slot, washing blue light across the dusty warehouse floor. A thrill shot through him.

"I'm in place," he whispered softly into his comm. "Target in sight."

"The Tesseract doesn't belong to any one person." Mike could see Dr. Campbell below him, clenching her hands into fists at her sides, obviously trying to restrain her annoyance. "It isn't S.H.I.E.L.D.'s or Director Carter's or anyone else's... it belongs to humanity!"

Howard smirked slightly, his white hair and mustache tinged blue by the light of the Tesseract. "Oh, so you wouldn't mind if I moved it into my lab, then?" he asked, his voice thick with sarcasm. "Set my own people to guarding it? Or are you the only self-appointed representative of humanity who gets to control it?"

There was a long, cold silence.

"That's what I thought," Howard said at last. "Thanks, but no thanks. Look, if you want to go to war with S.H.I.E.L.D., that's your business. But you're going to have to do it without me." The anger was rising in his voice, his face reddening. "And you're also going to dismantle that harness that I designed and send it and every single blueprint you have to Stark Industries in the next 24 hours, or my lawyers are going to have a field day with you in court. That's my machine and my design, and you have no right to it!"

Having said his piece, Howard spun on his heel and marched away, until he was just out of Mike's line of sight as he peered through the vent. There was a rattling sound.

"Open the door," Howard snapped.

"We haven't finished talking." Campbell was standing stock-still, the harsh glare of the warehouse lights washing out her face to a pale blur.

"If you don't have this door open in 10 seconds, Dr. Campbell," Howard said, biting off the words, "I'm going to start to think I'm being held here against my will."

"East entrance secured," Mike heard Veiga whisper in his earpiece.

"Almost there," Svoboda chimed in, just as softly.

Dr. Campbell's voice went smooth and soft. "No one's making you do anything, Howard, but I think you'll find we're very protective of the Tesseract. I don't allow any of my people to leave this building knowing its location, not without giving me certain assurances first. Like you said, having Director Carter show up on my doorstep would be inconvenient."

Mike tensed his muscles, preparing to burst down through the vent; whether Svoboda was ready or not, if they actually intended to hold Howard against his will...

Suddenly there was a high-pitched sound, and then a clang of metal hitting the floor. A whiff of an acrid smoke drifted up through the vent, and Mike had to hold his breath to prevent himself from coughing.

"What is that?!" Campbell burst out, eyes locked on Howard, her hand suddenly freezing in the very act of reaching down toward her lab coat pocket.

"Hand-held laser," Howard Stark replied, his tone nonchalant. He slowly walked back toward Campbell and back into Mike's view, holding something small and metallic in his hand. "You like it? I made it myself, just tinkering around. Burns hot for its size. Don't put your hand in that pocket, Campbell, and don't take one single step toward me, or the next thing I cut through won't be a door."

Campbell grew livid. "How dare you-"

"No, how dare you!" Howard shot back with equal feeling. "Did you really think I'd agree to your so-called partnership?" A scowl crossed his face. "You know, I might be a lot of things, but at least I'm not a dirty little thief. I'm leaving, now, and no one better follow me out, or they'll find out just how hot my laser runs."

There was a loud bang as the door behind Howard suddenly burst open, and Howard let out a surprised grunt as a man dressed in black charged through and knocked the laser out of his hand, sending it skittering across the warehouse floor.

"I'm moving in," Mike said tersely into his comm, and then he unceremoniously double-kicked the vent and came crashing down through the ceiling to land cat-footed on the dusty floor.

In a single glance he saw Dr. Campbell whirl to face him, a startled expression on her face, and just behind her the Hydra guard froze in the middle of trying to restrain a struggling Howard Stark, body tensing as he tried to size up this unexpected new threat, this masked man dressed in black.

Howard slammed his elbow in the man's gut in the same instant that Dr. Campbell put her hand in her lab coat pocket. Mike didn't hesitate. His leg swung out and connected with Campbell's hand, knocking away the gun she had just grasped and sending it spinning across the factory floor. Wide-eyed, she backed up rapidly, holding up her hands to show they were empty. Mike's eyes darted over to Howard, who had used the precious seconds in which his attacker was distracted to wrench himself from the man's grasp and scramble away as nimbly as a man his age could.

Mike gave the man no time to grab Howard again. He was there in a single bound, swinging his fist, and the man blocked the blow with his arm but grunted in surprise at the force of it, even though Mike had instinctively pulled his punch a little. He had long ago learned not to use his full strength unless he had no other choice, partly to avoid spilling blood needlessly, and partly to avoid calling too much attention to himself. By now some of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Mike had worked most closely with over the years had some idea of his true capabilities, but the trust among them ran so deep that his team respected his wishes and didn't ask too many questions.

But Mike had known from the beginning of this mission: recovering the Tesseract was paramount. If ever there was a time to unleash his full power, this was it. He stared the other man down, standing between him and Howard, daring him to make a move.

The other man's eyes narrowed, and he leapt forward and attacked fearlessly and viciously — he was clearly a trained fighter, unlike Dr. Campbell, who had stumbled back fearfully from the fight, showing no inclination to interfere. It was impossible to watch her properly while his hands were full with this man, and Mike was acutely aware of the fact that the Tesseract was not secured. But he had a feeling calling for backup was useless; through his earpiece he could hear a flurry of thumps and grunts from his team members.

"Veiga?" Mike asked as he delivered a kick that sent his opponent sprawling.

"I'm under attack!" came Veiga's voice in his ear. He grunted again, loudly, and there was a loud crash. "But my entrance is secure… so far."

"Svoboda?" Mike demanded.

"I'm overrun!" she answered through his earpiece, sounding breathless. "Some of them got past me. You have incoming!"

Mike resisted the impulse to swear, and slammed his fist into the guard's gut, dropping him just as half a dozen more men spilled into the room, dressed in combat gear and carrying handguns. Within seconds one of them had trained his sights on Mike and pulled the trigger.

He saw the bullet before he heard it, a tiny blur speeding through the air toward him, and without conscious thought he dodged it, his muscles obeying his instincts with whip-fast reflexes. The bullet zinged off the Tesseract's harness behind him, ricocheted, and struck the wall right behind Howard Stark, who threw himself to the ground, wide-eyed, far too slow to have saved himself if the bullet had been just a foot to the left.

"Hold your fire!" Campbell shouted at the men urgently, her high-pitched voice echoing through the cavernous room. "We need Stark!"

Without hesitation the men obeyed her, holstering their guns and pulling out strange-looking rods instead. Taser rods maybe, like those Natasha Romanoff would one day wield? But they didn't look quite like what Dad had drawn in his comics…

The men fanned out, ignoring Howard and moving in on Mike from multiple directions, their expressions eager as they brandished their rods. Six against one… they were confident they could take him. And he wasn't inclined to use his gun any more than they were; he needed Howard to be safe as much as they did.

The first man took a swing at him with a rod, which Mike easily sidestepped, and immediately he ducked, too, having heard rather than seen a second man attacking from behind.

The second man's rod whooshed harmlessly over Mike's head and struck the first man, who was still attempting to recover his balance. A bright blue flash lit up the side of the man's neck as the rod made contact with it, and he screamed in agony before collapsing onto the floor, wisps of smoke rising from the burnt wound.

Even more warily that before, Mike whirled around with fists up, facing each of the remaining five men in turn. Were those Tasers in the men's hands? The man who had fallen victim to the blow of his comrade's rod was lying motionless on the ground; not merely stunned, but apparently unconscious or maybe even dead. And that bright blue flash Mike had seen… it looked less like an electrical spark and more like the light the Tesseract was putting off.

Suddenly he felt sick; could those rods have been powered by the Tesseract, like the weapons Arnim Zola had designed so many years ago for Johann Schmidt's use? After all, these people still had access to Zola's mind…

Two different men leapt at him, once again with one in front and one behind, working in tandem in a well-timed attack, and once again Mike used his quicker reflexes to avoid contact with those strange rods.

These men were accustomed to fighting in well-rehearsed, coordinated maneuvers, he realized, heart beating in anticipation as he returned to guard position. Like a pack of wolves. There were benefits to that… but there were also downsides.

The man standing to his left, the tallest one in the group, abruptly launched a flying kick at his chest. Without hesitation Mike caught his foot with both of his hands and then twisted, sending the man into a horizontal spin before he hit the ground with a surprised grunt. Without bothering to look behind him, Mike whirled and curved out a right hook, just in time to make eye contact with the man who had been behind him before he staggered back, dropping his rod and clutching at his nose.

A third man was already in motion, and this time Mike had the space to lash out with a power kick that sent him flying ten feet into the air, shattering one of the suspended warehouse lights with his body before crashing down into the harness, shaking the Tesseract in its slot and sending jittery blue rays of light scattering around the room.

There were several cries of surprise, and then a shocked silence fell. Abruptly the men still standing backed up away from Mike, real fear showing on their faces for the first time.

"He's some kind of freak!" one of the men shouted, sweat beading on his face.

"I don't care what he is!" Dr. Campbell shrieked at them from the shadows at the edge of the room. "Just kill him!"

Mike quickly took stock of the situation. Three men still well and whole, and two that were attempting to shake off their injuries and join back in the circle, one with blood pouring from his nose and the other favoring a leg. All five of them had a sudden wariness on their faces. There was a pregnant pause. Then...

The bald man directly in front of him spoke a single word, in a grim voice: "Typhon."

It was like a spell had been broken. Suddenly all five of the Hydra men exploded into action. For the next several seconds it was pure chaos, with Mike ducking and punching and blocking and headbutting, as arms and legs and metal rods came swinging at him from all directions with no apparent rhyme or reason.

Panting hotly against the ski mask covering his face, Mike quickly lost himself in the familiar whirl and clash of hand fighting, one moment using vo binh dinh, the next capoeira, the next aikido, switching so effortlessly between them that the Hydra agents were caught continually off-guard. There was no time to think, only react. Men were crying out sharply all around him, flying up and then hitting the ground, slamming into each other, dropping their rods.

But there was a method to their madness. His full attention absorbed in fighting the men still on their feet, he had no bandwidth left to keep an eye on the injured men lying on the ground. Mike heard the subtle buzz of a weapon being activated down at his feet, and his limbs were simply too entangled with the other combatants to immediately do anything about it. His eyes darted down just in time to see the first man he'd brought down swinging a rod feebly at his legs.

The rod didn't even really strike him, just touched him in the calf with no more force than a leaf falling from a tree.

Everything stopped.

Agony.

Pure, unadulterated agony. Pain like he had never felt before — pain that shut off all thought, all vision, all sound — pain that wouldn't even let him feel his body hit the floor, though he dimly understood that he had just gone utterly limp. Every single nerve in his body on fire, too intense to let him scream, too much to even let him breathe. A thick blackness crept across a field of gray, and even though Mike was desperate to stay awake, desperate to recover the Tesseract and protect Howard, there was simply nothing he could do, no defense for this.

He blacked out.

He didn't know how long he had been out when his consciousness returned.

The first thing he became aware of was the hard floor underneath him. He realized he was lying on his back, eyes locked open, staring up at the ceiling, vision blurred and wavery. Everything hurt, even his insides, and the smell of burning flesh hung heavy in the air.

A face swam into view.

"Well, well, well. Not so inhuman after all," the bald Hydra agent said, bending down over him with a gloating smile made rakish by a split lip. He had a gun in his hand, and he casually pointed it at Mike's face, only a foot away. "Let's find out if you bleed red just like the rest of us, freak."

He coolly pulled the trigger at the same instant Mike mustered every ounce of strength that had returned to him... which wasn't much.

It was just enough to let him clumsily swat at the man's hand just as the deafening crack of the gunshot retorted. There was a sudden blast of heat and fresh pain against the left side of his face, and desperately Mike flung himself to the side, rolling over painfully once, twice, rolling over something hard and cylindrical as he went. There were Hydra agents lying motionless on the floor all around him.

The bald man — the only one still standing — started in surprise at his movement before recovering his wits and raising the gun again, eyes darkening. Scrabbling desperately by his side, Mike felt his aching fingers close around the hard cylinder he had rolled over: one of the pain-rods. One finger touched what felt like a switch, and he flipped it without hesitation and threw the rod at the bald man.

It struck him across the face with a flash of blue light.

The man dropped instantly, his mouth opening to cry out but not a sound escaping, and he writhed silently on the floor for interminably long seconds before going deathly still, the rise and fall of his chest halting, his eyes glazed.

Shakily, Mike pushed himself up and staggered to his feet. So the pain-rod did kill, or was supposed to. Had he gotten lucky, that he had only been touched with one lightly? Or had his cells regenerated quickly enough that it was his serum-enhanced genetics that had saved him?

Every inch of him still hurt, his face most of all. Wincing, he put his hand up to his left cheek, and it came away bloody even through the ski mask. He could see a small broken crater in the concrete floor where he had been laying when the gun went off; the bullet must have narrowly missed him and blasted his face with heat and bits of concrete. His left ear was ringing loudly, and sounds were strangely muffled on that side. The gunshot had damaged his hearing, going off so close to him. He hoped fervently that it wasn't permanent.

He looked around the warehouse, feeling his strength beginning to return bit by bit, and his eyes fell on Howard Stark… who was bent over next to the harness, using a pair of clamps to maneuver the Tesseract into a small carrying case. He was surrounded by equipment that had been overturned and scattered messily around him. A large canister had tipped over, its lid rolled five feet away, a thick oily liquid now oozing its way across the floor. Had Howard been in a scuffle of his own? Dr. Campbell was nowhere to be seen.

Mike strode toward Howard, feeling more and more like himself again. In the very act of closing the case, Howard glanced up and saw him coming. Abruptly the vague expression of worry on his face changed to one of incredulity… and fear.

Mike opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, the sound of approaching footsteps made them both turn.

Dr. Campbell emerged from the shadows at the edge of the room, cradling something bulky and metallic in her arms. A gun of some kind, an enormous one, one that looked nothing like anything Mike had ever seen before, all gleaming surfaces and sleek curves and glowing blue lines. Another Tesseract-powered device? Howard was standing directly between her and Mike, and she was pointing the weapon at both of them.

Just then both Viega and Svoboda ran into the room — the entrances must have been secured at last — and abruptly froze when they saw the standoff.

"Put down the Tesseract," Dr. Campbell said to Howard softly.

"Or what?" Howard asked contemptuously. "You'll shoot? Don't be stupid! If you fire that while I'm holding this" — he was holding the Tesseract case like a shield in front of his chest — "the energy discharge is going to kill everyone in this room! Including you."

A dark smile tugged at one corner of Campbell's mouth. "You think I'm afraid of that?" she asked in a low voice. "It won't hurt the Tesseract a bit… and as for my life? It would be a privilege to give it for the cause. There are more than enough to take my place." She flipped a switch down by the stock, and the weapon's whine intensified. Her eyes narrowed to slits. "Cut off one-"

Mike stomped on the edge of the canister's lid where it rested by his feet and it flipped up into the air, and in a flash he snatched it edge-first and flung it toward Campbell with a mighty heave.

She hadn't even fully turned toward the sound when it struck her in the head edge-first, and she crumpled to a heap on the floor, the weapon slipping out of her grasp with a loud clatter.

In only a few swift strides, Mike was by her side, kicking the weapon away and ensuring Campbell was no longer a threat. Then he turned toward Howard.

Instinctively backing up away from him, Howard slipped in the puddle of oil and fell backwards, but instead of catching himself with his hands he kept a tight grip on the Tesseract's carrying case, clutching it protectively against his chest as he went down hard.

Mike held up his hands briefly to show that he meant no harm, and then went down on one knee and offered Howard a hand up. Howard met his eyes, and suddenly his fearful expression changed to one of wonderment as recognition seemed to dawn.

"Steve?" he gasped, looking up at him in disbelief.

Mike paused for a moment. "You know what? That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me," he said, smiling behind his ski mask.

Howard let out all his breath out in a sudden huff. "You're not-" he started, and several different expressions crossed his face within the span of seconds: relief, and confusion, and more than a little regret. "The way you were fighting, I thought-" He took a deep steadying breath and then accepted the hand Mike held out to help him up.

Once again on his feet, Howard straightened up slowly, wincing a little as he put his hand to his back, and then looked at Mike with narrowed eyes just as Veiga and Svoboda walked up to flank him.

"Who are you?" Howard asked.

"Someone who's in a better position to keep the Tesseract safe than you are," Mike said. He held out his hand again, this time for the case, but Howard only clutched it against his chest a little tighter.

"You work for S.H.I.E.L.D.?" he demanded suspiciously.

"I work for Director Carter," Mike corrected. "Not exactly the same thing these days, is it?" He glanced at Dr. Campbell's still form sprawled across the floor, and then held out his hand again, but still Howard hesitated.

"I think you'd better give it to him, Howard."

They both turned toward the voice. Peggy was walking toward them, gun still holstered, surrounded by several more S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.

"Dr. Campbell was willing to die just to buy a little time," Peggy continued matter-of-factly. "She must have called for reinforcements. I think we should have the Tesseract well out of reach by the time they arrive, don't you?" She stopped, hands on hips, and surveyed Howard calmly.

Howard glanced down at the case, and finally, reluctantly, he handed it over to Peggy.

"My team will escort you to your car and follow you home to make sure you get there safely," Peggy told him. Then she nodded toward Howard's hand-held laser still lying on the floor by the door. "But before you go, better use that to destroy the harness device."

"Destroy it?" Howard repeated, looking dumbfounded.

"I think it's a bad idea to leave it lying around here, don't you?"

"Let me send some of my people here," Howard said. "They can dismantle it and transport it to Stark Industries and-"

"My people are going to be here waiting to ambush Campbell's reinforcements and then get rid of the evidence. And you don't need the harness because you won't be working with the Tesseract again," Peggy said firmly. "Ever."

Howard narrowed his eyes. "You mean you're still going to hand it over to Dr. Lawson? You've got to be kidding me. What makes you think it's any safer with her than it is with me? I actually have experience fighting Hydra."

Peggy went still, and Howard laughed humorlessly. "Oh, yes. Don't bother pretending to look surprised. These idiots have Hydra written all over them. But you already knew that, didn't you?" His expression hardened. "You knew Hydra was back. Why didn't you say something?"

"I did," Peggy said irritably. "After Dr. Greiling disappeared I warned you repeatedly that there was an internal problem, that you couldn't assume anyone at S.H.I.E.L.D. was trustworthy-"

"You never said Hydra-"

"I can't speak openly to you, Howard, because I don't know who around you can be trusted!" Peggy retorted. "You went behind my back working with Greiling to copy Hank Pym's work, you showed an appalling lack of judgement, and-"

"You just can't bring yourself to forgive me, can you?" Howard snapped. "After all I've done for you, and for S.H.I.E.L.D., and for this country, I make one little mistake, and you still don't trust me? What more do I have to do to prove myself to you?"

"It isn't about forgiveness, it's about protecting the Tesseract, and protecting you. At all costs!" Peggy shot back. "If Hydra infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D., what makes you think they haven't infiltrated Stark Industries as well? You need to clean house, Howard! Even the people closest to you may have been compromised. Be honest with me. Up until today, did you have any notion that Dr. Campbell was involved in something shady?"

"If you knew, than you should have-"

"I didn't know!" Peggy shot back, frustration coloring her voice. "Not until the Tesseract was already gone. I'm not omniscient, you know, much as I wish I were. We both have egg on our face this time, and I'm not ashamed to admit it."

Howard scoffed loudly, and shook his head, pressing his lips together firmly as if to stop a fresh torrent of accusations from pouring out.

"Look, there's no point in us standing here blaming each other when the real enemy is out there, and probably moving in right now," Peggy said pointedly. "We need to clear out of here."

They did exactly that, with Howard carving up the harness with his laser efficiently and silently, his face set in stone, and then several S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in an unmarked car escorted him as he drove back home. Mike followed his mother, who was carrying the Tesseract in its case, back toward the van, keeping a careful watch as they passed more agents headed in to set up the ambush.

Once they were in the van, his mother put down the case with a small sigh of relief, and then looked over Mike with concern. She reached up to pull off his mask carefully, and gasped a little once it was off. She put a gentle hand under his chin and turned the left side of his face toward her.

"Oh-" she started to say in dismay, and then quickly cut herself off before she said his name in front of the other agents in the van. They knew him only as Agent 45, and they certainly didn't know his relation to the Director. It was safer that way.

"Just a little shrapnel," he said dismissively, but he refrained from mentioning the fact that he was still having trouble hearing out of that ear. He didn't want his mother to send him off for medical care when he had no intention of taking his eyes off the Tesseract until it was safely in Dr. Lawson's hands.

Without waiting to be told, Agent Svoboda rummaged around the back of the van until she found the first aid kit, and began to dab disinfectant on his wounds with gentle hands. His mother finally sat back in her seat, relaxing slightly, and laid the case securely across her lap.

"Better make sure-" Mike started.

"Yes," she agreed, and she carefully opened the case a crack. A bright blue light streamed out and lit up her face. His mother stared inside for a long moment and then slowly closed it again, her expression thoughtful.

"Where to?" Collins asked from the driver's seat.

"Andrews Air Force Base," Peggy said, coming back to herself and speaking authoritatively. She sat back with the case clasped firmly in her arms, and the van started to move.

They were there in less than half an hour, and found Dr. Wendy Lawson waiting for them at the appointed place, the wind whipping through her short hair as fighter jets roared overhead. Peggy got out of the van, and Mike followed her and stayed a pace behind and to the right as she walked with the case held tightly in her hand.

"I apologize for the delay, Dr. Lawson," Peggy said as they met on the tarmac. "But I have it here, safe and sound." She held the case out.

"I can't thank you enough, Director Carter," Dr. Lawson said, and the sincerity was evident in her eyes as she took it with equal care. "You don't know what a difference this will make for my project."

"If you do good with this, that will be thanks enough," Peggy said with equal sincerity, meeting her eyes warmly. Then she added, "I hope you have a safe way to transport that to your lab."

Dr. Lawson glanced back to where a young blonde woman was waiting back by the aircraft, dressed in an Air Force flight suit with a helmet tucked under her arm.

"I believe Captain Danvers already has the engines warmed up and waiting," Dr. Lawson said, turning back toward Peggy.

Peggy smiled slightly. "Then it looks like everything's in good hands."

When the operation was complete — with the second wave of Hydra agents dispatched and Peggy returning to personally confirm that the evidence in the warehouse had been disposed of — the two headed back wearily to Mike's home, where they found both Dad and Sarah were waiting for them there along with Mike's own family. Mike had never been more grateful to accept the fierce hugs of his wife and children, even if Harrison had then looked at the bandages on the left side of his face with a scowl and ground out: "I told you I should have come with you."

And when Sarah had finished testing his hearing and shown him the results, she sat back and looked at him soberly.

"Tell me what you're thinking," she said.

"I feel like a jerk for even caring," Mike said reluctantly. He reached up to touch his left ear gingerly. "I mean, I still have enhanced hearing in the other. And the hearing on this side isn't much worse than what it is for a normal person. I shouldn't... I shouldn't be ungrateful."

"But you've never known anything else," Mom said softly. "You're allowed to grieve for it."

Mike closed his eyes momentarily. "I've known all along that I'm not invincible. But sometimes I kinda felt that way." At his side, Tien squeezed his hand comfortingly.

"Where were you earlier today?" Dad asked Sarah suddenly. "When I came by your house I asked Dave, and he started acting funny and wouldn't give me a straight answer."

"Oh, Daddy, I'm afraid I've... gone and done something a little reckless," Sarah confessed.

"You?" Steve said, puzzled. "What did you do?"

"I drove to New York today," she said matter-of-factly. "To Greenwich Village, Bleeker Street. And I pretty much just walked through the doors and asked for a teacher."

"At the Sanctum?" Dad asked, shocked.

She nodded, managing to look both embarrassed and defiant at the same time. "I met with the Master there, Daniel Drumm, and explained to him what I was trying to do with the serum, and... well, Dad, I've never done it before in my life, but I went ahead and dropped your name. The Ancient One said her people would be keeping an eye on you, so I figured it would be safe enough. I don't know how often middle-aged mothers wander into their domain asking to learn magic tricks, and I just... I needed them to take me seriously."

All of them stared at her for a long moment. "Well, what did they say?" Dad asked at last.

Sarah reached down into her pocket and showed him a slender metal bar with a pair of loops, designed to slide over two fingers.

"They said if I was going to attempt reality-bending spells," she said calmly, "it would be safest to do it in the Mirror Dimension."

TO BE CONTINUED

Author's note: This was a monster of a chapter to write, with a lot of plot to move and action to show, as well as quite a bit of important development for multiple characters, not to mention setting things up for the next big sequence... but hey, I enjoy a good challenge!

Howard Stark is as tricky a character to write as Tony Stark is, and for the same reason: he's essentially a good guy, but there's no getting around the fact that he has some significant flaws, too. I hope I hit the right balance of portraying him accurately (after all, he himself admits in "Endgame" that the greater good often did not outweigh his self-interest) but also not downplaying his good traits. Like Tony Stark, he frequently tries to be a better person, and sometimes succeeds. Let me know what you thought.