Chapter 36
The helicarrier hadn't been in the air long before Agent 45 returned in the Quinjet, having retrieved his grandson Roger from the Singapore control tower.
Clint Barton met them up top to help anchor the jet to the deck, wearing an oxygenated helmet to facilitate breathing now that they were flying at a high elevation. As soon as the ramp came down, he handed another two helmets to Agent 45 and Roger as they disembarked. It was hard not to stare at Roger, now dressed in an imitation of Steve's latest Captain America uniform. It was a pretty fair replica, Clint had to admit, and with his physique, Roger really did pull it off, at least until he went to change helmets and the deception became obvious.
"Your comm system's been going off every three minutes, regular like clockwork," Agent 45 shouted to Clint through his helmet. "I didn't answer any of the calls. Whoever it is must be very anxious to talk to you."
Natasha. It had to be. Clint hurried up the ramp, making sure Agent 45 and Roger made it safely below decks before resealing the cockpit, removing his helmet and answering the call as fast as his fingers could flip the switches.
"Clint?" Nat's voice said over the secure line, and Clint sagged with relief.
"Nat!" he said. "You're okay?"
Nat let out a long sigh. "I'm fine. Are you okay? Do you have any idea what's been happening?"
"Only what I just saw on the news." A partial truth. He had been able to spend a little time on the helicarrier watching the news reports regarding the destruction of the Insight helicarriers. But he also knew that Agent 45 had placed a second team in D.C. to keep an eye on things today. Had Nat bumped into any of them? Had they provided her any direct assistance during the chaos? But Clint knew he couldn't ask. Agent 45 wanted nothing of his family and their missions shared with anyone else, not even the Avengers, and he had to honor that request.
So he told Nat that his fictitious mission against the Ten Rings had gone off without a hitch, and then listened as she told him everything that had happened in D.C. The attack on Fury and his unexpected survival. Their sabotage of the Insight helicarriers. Alexander Pierce's death. Their decision to release S.H.I.E.L.D.'s and Hydra's secrets to the world. And Steve Rogers had been shot and was now in the hospital recovering after surgery, but - Nat was quick to reassure him - was expected to make a full recovery.
"You sure you're okay?" Clint asked her again.
"I'm fine. I mean, I just lost my job, but I've been there before." Nat's tone was wry. "I'm more worried about you and Laura. You've got mouths to feed."
"We'll be okay. We own our land free and clear. We have savings. I could retire now if I wanted."
Despite his words and the countless number of times he and Laura had talked about an early retirement so he could focus on being a father before Cooper and Lila's childhoods slipped away from him, Clint felt a faint unease settle over him. Was he really ready to take this step? What would he do with himself all day long? Out on the farm the list of tasks to do never really ended and he could make himself busy enough, but would that alone satisfy him? He'd been doing this job for so long. It was a part of him. Who would he be now, if not Hawkeye?
Nat told him where he could land his jet and where to meet her when he arrived back at D.C., and they signed off on the call. Clint made his way back to the bridge of the helicarrier to find Agent 45 and his two daughters sitting close together at one of the stations, speaking to each other in low voices.
"Get a hold of your team in D.C.?" Clint asked, coming over to join them. "Good news or bad news?" He was having trouble reading their faces. Natty and Sammy were both wearing tremulous smiles, yet they had tear tracks on their cheeks, too.
"Both," Agent 45 said, his face sober. "Mission accomplished, but my nephew was injured. Amanda's brother. He took a bad fall. We're waiting to find out how serious it is."
Clint's heart went out to 45's sibling, whoever he or she was. A parent learning that not one but two children had a brush with death on the same day? He couldn't even imagine. "I'm sorry to hear that."
45 nodded. "But we also got word that my oldest son's wife had their baby." Despite his obvious worry, his smile was sincere. "Thought I was done getting grandchildren, but they ended up expecting a surprise. They had a boy about an hour ago. He's doing great."
"Congratulations."
Agent 45 moved the conversation on with an effort. "You must be wondering where we're headed with this behemoth."
"Somewhere far away from Hydra, I hope."
45 nodded grimly. "You got that right. Somewhere far away from everyone."
The Carter family's safe house in D.C. turned out to be a church.
It was St. Patrick's, in fact, the same church where Sharon's cousin Steven served as a deacon and Steve Rogers had sometimes attended when his schedule allowed. Clint's wife, Karma, who had arrived in a car to pick up Clint and Sharon from the side of the road, showed Sharon to a small meeting room that had been set up for medical treatment and then immediately left.
One of the medics who had helped evacuate the techs back at the Triskelion cleaned, stitched up and re-bandaged Sharon's knife-wound from Rumlow and then had her lie face-down on a portable exam table while he methodically removed all the tiny shards of glass she had lodged in her back from her fall through the window. The process was painstaking and not exactly pleasant, but finally she was bandaged up, given a fresh shirt to wear and permitted to leave.
Emerging into the hallways of the church, Sharon spotted a pair of heavy double doors and tried them first. They led into the chapel, where she found the S.H.I.E.L.D. techs her family had rescued sitting in small knots scattered among the long rows of pews. A few of the techs were talking quietly on their phones, arranging for rides back home, it sounded like, but the rest of them were either talking among themselves in low voices or else sitting in silence, heads resting on their arms on the back of the pew in front of them. The chapel was unlit except for the sunlight filtering in through the stained glass windows. After the chaos and violence of the last several hours, the quiet and the dimness felt as good as a rest. Sharon could practically feel the tension easing from her shoulders.
She recognized Agent Jacobsen sitting near the votive candle stand, elbows on his knees and hands clasped together, staring at the tiny flames flickering there. More than a little surprised he wasn't lying on his back in a hospital bed, considering he'd taken several bullets to the torso back in the Insight operations room, Sharon went over to talk to him first.
"How are you feeling?" she asked, sinking down in the pew beside him.
"Fine," he answered promptly, sitting up straight. Like Sharon, his blood-splattered Oxford shirt had been changed for a clean T-shirt, but he didn't seem to be hunched over in pain. Nor did his eyes look glassy from painkillers.
"These are good people, the ones who brought us here," he continued quietly. "You called them to help us?"
"I wasn't expecting them," Sharon replied honestly. "But I'm glad they came. Are you sure you're okay? I kinda thought they'd take you to an ER."
"Not necessary," Jacobsen said. "They had doctors and supplies and everything all set up here. They got me fixed up pretty quick." There was an odd note to his tone, something Sharon couldn't quite interpret.
"Did we lose anyone?" she asked, glancing around the chapel, trying to see if anyone was missing.
"Everyone who made it here, made it," he said briefly. And again, his words were oddly suppressed.
Did that include Steven, Sharon wondered? Or had Bram been unable to find him before the helicarrier struck the north tower? And what about Harrison and his team? Had they made it back? Sharon realized none of her family members were here in the chapel, and she got back to her feet, anxious to find them and get some answers.
"Thank you," Jacobsen said, and he reached up to squeeze her hand that wasn't bandaged. "Thank you for covering me back there."
Sharon squeezed his hand back. "Thanks for not being Hydra," she said wryly.
She left the chapel and headed back down the hallway, looking into each room she passed. When she got to a large multi-use room with the door propped open, she saw that half of it had been curtained off from view. A woman she didn't know came out from behind the curtain, saw Sharon, and held up one finger as if to say "wait." She went back around the curtain, and Sharon heard some whispering before someone else came around the curtain to greet her.
It was Aunt Sarah. Great-aunt Peggy's daughter. She was wearing a lab coat and her gray-dusted blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail. Like her twin brother, even in her 70s she was still spry, and last Sharon heard she was actively involved with treating patients at her various medical clinics across the globe.
But right now, Aunt Sarah looked terrible. There was no other way to say it. She was pale and visibly shaky, actually clinging to the other woman's elbow until she helped her down into a chair. Sharon pulled over another chair and sat down close to her aunt, heart thumping. This didn't seem to bode well for news about Steven. While Aunt Sarah wasn't the kind of mother to play favorites, she and Steven had very similar personalities and seemed to understand each other better than perhaps anyone else in the family. If the news was bad...
Sharon's eyes darted over to the partition. "Is that-?" she started.
"Steven's recovering in there," Aunt Sarah said, her tone carefully even. Too careful. "Bram was able to transport him here in time. Thank you for helping the team find him. Are you all right?"
"I'm fine." Sharon brushed aside her concern with a wave of her hand. "Was he shot? Rumlow was aiming for me, but then..." Her eyes went distant, remembering. "Everything happened so fast."
"The bullet wound was simple enough to treat," Aunt Sarah said matter of factly. "But he took a pretty hard blow to the head when he hit the ground."
Sharon stared at her. "Is he-?"
"I have him in a medically induced coma," Sarah said quietly. "I stopped the bleeding, I did everything I know how to do. We'll have to wait until he wakes up to see what his status is."
Sharon's heart twisted in her chest. She knew enough to know that with a fall like that, brain damage was a very real possibility.
"Can I see him?" she asked after a beat.
Aunt Sarah nodded, and Sharon got up and looked behind the curtain.
Steven was lying in a hospital bed, eyes closed. His combat gear and his shirt had been removed and there was a blanket pulled up to his armpits. There was a bandage wound around his head, but it was clean and there were no other visible wounds or bruises on him. It looked for all the world as though he were merely sleeping, if not for the pale stillness in his face. His wife Beatrisa was sitting beside him, one slender hand resting on top of his. She looked up at Sharon wordlessly, and then looked away and resumed sliding beads one at a time along a string with the thumb of her free hand, her lips moving in a barely-whispered prayer in Portuguese. Her eyes were puffy and red.
Aunt Sarah came through the curtain behind Sharon, and heavily lowered herself into a chair by the bedside.
Sharon put a hand over her mouth, eyes still on her cousin. "He took that bullet for me," she whispered, almost to herself.
"That sounds like him, all right." Aunt Sarah sighed deeply and then squeezed Sharon's other hand. "Don't blame yourself, darling. We all knew the risks when we signed up for this. Steven more than any of us."
Sharon nodded, although it wasn't as comforting as it should have been. What would Aunt Peggy say when she heard the news? She wasn't yet so far gone that she wouldn't grieve if anything happened to her grandson.
And the fault of it lay with Rumlow. Sharon felt a hot surge of anger just thinking about it. She pictured once more the moment when the upper levels of the north tower had collapsed in on themselves, and hoped fiercely that Rumlow had been there when it happened, and good riddance to him. The world was better off without him.
"Did the rest of the team make it out?" she asked, forcing herself to sound more calm than she felt.
Aunt Sarah nodded. "They're all fine. We took Harrison straight to George Washington University Hospital. Not for himself," she added quickly. "Christina went into labor earlier today. He made it just in time to see his son born."
"That's great," Sharon said quickly, happy to be able to latch onto one piece of good news, at least. Then she cleared her throat. "Um... Aunt Sarah? Did Clint make his report to you yet?"
"Yes, he stopped by to let me know he was back, and to see Steven. He was pretty upset. He and Steven have always been close. I think Karma took him somewhere to cool off."
"I really hate to ask this," Sharon said reluctantly, "but he isn't by chance using again, is he?"
Sarah stared at her with a definite hint of hostility in her eyes at the very suggestion, and even Beatrisa was startled out of her fervent prayer and looked up at Sharon in surprise.
"Let's take this elsewhere," Sarah said, and she moved to get back up. Sharon offered her a hand, but she waved it aside and stood up on her own with an effort, a fierce determination in her eyes. She led Sharon slowly out of the room, into the hallway and then into what appeared to be a storage room; there were children's Nativity costumes neatly boxed and labeled along one wall.
"Why would you even say that about Clint?" Sarah asked Sharon after closing the door behind them. She seemed to be controlling herself with an effort.
"Because he was acting like a crazy person out there!" Sharon shot back. She knew she should probably be more tactful, but it had been a very long and difficult day, and her exhaustion was starting to get the better of her. "He interfered with me while I was trying to contain a threat! He pointed a gun at himself, he let the other guy get away! And not just any Hydra agent... their top assassin! The guy who murdered Fury!"
Aunt Sarah looked at her steadily for a long moment, and Sharon could practically see the rapid-fire thoughts flickering behind her blue eyes. "No one murdered Fury," she said at last. "He's alive."
Sharon did a double take; she'd been bracing herself to hear Aunt Sarah make excuses for her nephew, deny that he was up to his old tricks again. "What?" she said blankly.
"Harrison was listening in on STRIKE's dispatch channel," Sarah said. "He heard everything that came through Jack Rollins' mic up in the Council chambers when Romanoff showed up to handle Alexander Pierce. He heard Nick Fury's voice, too."
Sharon stared. "I watched him get shot!" she objected. "I followed the ambulance to the hospital! Agent Hill herself told me he didn't make it!"
"I don't know what to tell you," Sarah said. "Harrison said Fury had a whole conversation with Pierce before he heard shots fired. Then Fury and Romanoff talked together a little more before the line went quiet. It sounded like they took Pierce out together and then evacuated the building in plenty of time."
"I don't believe it," Sharon said faintly, and yet she did believe it, and was deeply relieved by it. It had been a shock to learn that Fury was dead. He had always seemed so impervious to anything that threatened mere mortals. It fit better to think he took a rare opportunity to be believed definitively dead: the best thing that could ever happen to an operative. You can't kill someone who's already dead.
But that still didn't explain Clint's bizarre behavior.
"None of that changes the fact that that guy with the metal arm tried to kill Fury," Sharon pointed out. "And now he's running around loose because Clint just let him go!"
"It's more complicated than you know," Sarah said quietly. "When the assassin engaged with Steve Rogers in the streets the other day? There were businesses in the area with CCTV cameras. We... hacked into them. Mom wanted us to do our own investigation. The guy got unmasked during the fight, and Mom looked at the footage and recognized his face. I know her memory's not the greatest anymore, but she remembers things from her past much better than anything that happened recently. She knew the guy. Years and years ago."
Aunt Sharon pulled a photo out of her lab coat pocket and showed it to Sharon. It was a black and white photo of a dark-haired young man with an open smile that lit up his whole face. It took Sharon a moment, but eventually she realized it was the same guy she'd seen unmasked by the river, although his hair was short in the photo and his demeanor was markedly different.
"Who is that?" she asked blankly.
Sarah moved her fingers so Sharon could see the other half of the photograph. Steve Rogers was standing next to the man, wearing his old-school Captain America uniform and a brilliant smile to match his friend's. And it was immediately obvious by their body language that they were friends.
"What-?" Sharon whispered.
"His name is James Buchanan Barnes," Aunt Sarah said, tucking the photograph away. "But Mom just knew him as Bucky. He made friends with Steve Rogers back when they were growing up in Brooklyn. During the war he served as a Howling Commando. That's when Mom met him."
"I've heard of him," Sharon said slowly. "But how is that possible? Isn't he long dead?"
"He spend several months among Hydra's prisoners of war," Sarah said, a thread of sadness coloring her voice. "We think that Arnim Zola may have tried to replicate Dr. Erskine's work. Performed experiments on him. Found a way to brainwash him into doing Hydra's work. Mom knows for sure that Bucky would never have done something like that voluntarily."
"He's a puppet?" Sharon said, horrified by the thought.
"The fact that he just rescued Captain Rogers from the river rather than letting him drown makes us think he may have broken his conditioning, at least partly," Aunt Sarah said. "And if that's true, we have a responsibility to protect him until we know more about what happened."
Sharon blinked, surprised by the realization. Now it made sense, why the assassin had looked back at the shore with such longing in his face... and why he'd walked away without killing Captain Rogers or getting help for him. There must have been such a tumult in his mind, his true self battling with his false one, that it must have left him nearly paralyzed with indecision. In the end, maybe walking away was the best he could manage.
"He may be as much of a victim as his victims," Sharon murmured, more to herself than to Sarah.
"We don't expect the authorities to help," Sarah said. "They'll only see Barnes as a killer. But Mom's sure that Captain Rogers will try to track him down. To help his friend, if he can. You won't report this, will you?"
Sharon felt a pulse of pity for Captain Rogers. After going through all the trauma of thinking he had lost everything and everyone from his own time, to finally find his best friend, alive and well against all odds... only to find he was working for the enemy. Worse, there weren't many who would understand the situation and be willing to stay their hand if Barnes turned up again. She herself would have killed him without hesitation if not for Clint's interference. Her stomach twisted at the realization.
But she could help Captain Rogers now. Her silence could buy him time to handle the situation.
"I think that's what Captain Rogers would probably want," Sharon finally agreed.
Aunt Sarah looked relieved and then sighed softly, crossing her arms and hunching in a little on herself. She really did look unwell, Sharon thought. It was more than just being shaken by her son's injury. It was some kind of deep exhaustion or maybe even an underlying illness. Was there something the matter with her that Sharon hadn't been informed of?
And then she remembered something else about Aunt Sarah that she hadn't been informed of until today.
"Steven said some things to Rumlow before the shooting started," she started slowly. She hated to bring this up now, but Aunt Sarah seemed willing enough to talk and asking Aunt Peggy about it later was out of the question; it was the kind of question that was likely to confuse and upset her in her current state. "He said that Hydra showed up at your house, back when Steven was just a kid, and took him hostage."
A haunted kind of look came into Aunt Sarah's eyes, and she didn't answer for a long moment. Finally, she nodded reluctantly. "That was a long time ago. It was why we ended up moving to England when my mother did. Doesn't make much sense to stick around when Hydra knows your address. Not that we knew they were Hydra at the time. We thought they were ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agents turned mercenary." She forced herself to speak more briskly. "Speaking of which... we need you moved out of your apartment, darling, as quick as we can. Dave's getting together everyone who can be spared to help you pack up. I think he's already got a truck reserved for you."
Sharon brushed that aside with a wave of one hand. "But what was Rumlow's dad trying to steal from you? That's what I don't understand. Hydra was deep undercover back then. They took a big risk, openly attacking Aunt Peggy's family like that. What did they think they were going to get out of it?"
Sarah looked Sharon in the eye and seemed to make a decision, squaring her shoulders and taking a deep breath.
"They wanted the serum that my husband and I had developed in our home lab," she said.
"Serum?" Sharon's heart seemed to skip a beat. "You don't mean-?"
"Super-soldier serum?" Aunt Sarah finished matter-of-factly. "In a way. But not exactly. The truth is, Sharon... after Captain Rogers went down in that plane all those years ago and was presumed dead, my mother — your Great-Aunt Peggy — took into her possession several blood samples that had been collected from him by the SSR not long after his transformation."
An electric sensation swept over Sharon.
"No one at S.H.I.E.L.D. knew that she had them," Aunt Sarah continued softly. "You know how much she respects Captain Rogers. She didn't want to see his blood misused. So she hid the samples away. But when she became director — when I had grown up and become a doctor and married a geneticist — she let us use them for research. Not for making super soldiers," she added quickly. "Mom didn't want even us doing that. So many things could go wrong." Her expression was serious. "But we were able to develop the serum for medical uses."
Sharon's heart thumped rapidly in her chest. "You made it into a medicine?"
Aunt Sarah nodded. "To tell you the truth, what we developed easily could be made into a super-soldier serum. I imagine that's what Hydra wanted with it. But as for us? All those medical clinics around the world that your Uncle Dave and I oversee? We've been using the serum to treat people for medical conditions that can't be treated conventionally. It's incredibly powerful — and versatile. It can heal all kinds of wounds. Repair organ defects. Help paraplegics walk again. Even make the blind to see."
Sharon let out a breath, understanding at last. "You used it on Agent Jacobsen today," she said wondrously. "On all our agents who were injured. And Steven, too? I didn't... I didn't think he would survive that fall," she suddenly confessed.
Aunt Sarah paused for a long moment. "I think it's safe to say that if it weren't for Captain Rogers, a lot of people wouldn't be here today," she admitted, and suddenly her eyes grew moist and she quickly looked away and brushed at her eyes impatiently.
Clint Barton looked out the window and watched as the helicarrier he stood on slowly descended until it broke through the cold wispy clouds, revealing an archipelago below consisting of two larger islands and lot of tiny ones. He could see a few small settlements scattered here and there, but much of the land was largely undeveloped, holding nothing more than flocks of sheep.
The Falklands. Clint's work as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent had taken him to a lot of places in the world, but he'd never been here. They were hundreds of miles from the tip of South America and further than that from Antarctica down to the south. These islands had changed hands many times over the years, but they were currently British territory.
It wasn't a half-bad place to hide a helicarrier. Not a lot of traffic coming to and from this place. Only a few thousand residents, plus a small contingent of British troops stationed there. Plenty of open water to land in. In fact, the helicarrier was now coming down on the east side of the archipelago, near one of the undeveloped smaller islands... and Clint could see that Edwin had not deactivated the retro-reflection panels hiding the helicarrier from view. The camouflage wasn't perfect - seen from up close, there would be a tell-tale blurring in the air - but there were so few people around here that it might not matter. The British were intent on protecting the bird colonies here, which meant the locals would know better than to approach any areas designated as a preserve.
The helicarrier finally alighted onto the surface of the ocean, and Clint let himself adjust to the disorienting change in the feel of the deck under his feet before going back to find Agent 45 and his family.
As soon as everyone was ready, Agent 45 led them all below decks to one of the boat launches, and before long they had donned parkas and were motoring across the icy waves toward the only structure on the shore of the nearest small island, a small bunker whose dark shape stood in stark contrast to the snowy landscape.
Amanda had been carried onto the boat by stretcher. She was conscious and alert, although her complexion was pale and she didn't say much during the ride, just held her husband's hand and kept her eyes mostly on him. A thick blanket was spread over her to combat the chill. Clint was sitting next to Aliyah and he leaned close to her and asked under his breath: "Is she gonna be okay?" He was still amazed that she had even survived a stab wound that deep. Aliyah really was a miracle worker, apparently.
Aliyah nodded slightly. "I think so," she murmured. "But she lost a lot of blood." She took in a slow breath. "And she's worried about her brother."
They were close enough to shore now that Clint could see there were people outside waiting for them. A large group of men were standing around by the boat dock, most of them wearing military-style snow camouflage, but one man among them stood out in a black great coat. Behind them, closer to the bunker, there were more people, these bundled up in bright red parkas and running around in the snow in all directions with little rhyme or reason to their movements. Clint was confused until they drew closer to the dock and he realized they were children, a couple dozen of them, playing what looked like an energetic game of tag in the snow. Their high-pitched shrieks and giggles carried easily in the clear, chilly air.
Agent 45 cut the engine and the boat glided smoothly forward and brushed up against the dock. The men in uniform - Clint could see now that they were British soldiers - efficiently tied up the boat and then unloaded Amanda, with two strong men carrying the stretcher toward the bunker. Clint accepted the hand up that one of the soldiers offered him, and then he was back on solid ground at last, along with the rest of Agent 45's family.
The man in the black great coat was shaking Agent 45's hand heartily. He was in his late 30s or early 40s, with dark hair and eyes, and notably photogenic.
"Well done, Agent," he said to 45 in a polished British accent, and then he let his eyes roam over the rest of the team and added warmly, "Well done, all of you. Good clean operation. Not that I expected anything less, of course." He took the time to give each of them a good firm handshake, calling them by name and giving them a personal "thank you." He had a small red remembrance poppy pinned to his lapel, Clint noted when his turn came.
"Everything onboard is well-secured," Agent 45 told the man, who nodded in acknowledgement and gestured to the group of soldiers, who boarded the boat with a minimum of chit-chat and started up the motor again. The man in the great coat boarded last and then the propellers churned, taking them all toward the helicarrier.
"You sure these people are okay?" Clint asked Agent 45 under his breath, watching the boat dwindle in the distance.
"We did a little judicious vetting," Agent 45 responded coolly. "And besides, they're not getting access to that helicarrier's weaponry. We left Edwin behind, and he won't unlock any systems without my say-so. As far as they're concerned, they just took possession of the world's largest transportation vessel." With that, he pulled off a glove and put his fingers in his mouth, letting loose a shrill whistle, and began striding toward the children in the red parkas. Instantly their spirited game came to a halt and they all started running excitedly over to the team as if by prearranged signal.
As they ran closer, Clint saw that many of them looked Vietnamese and he guessed they must be Agent 45's grandchildren. But then he spotted several Hispanic kids, a pair of black kids, and about a dozen white kids, some with American accents and some that sounded distinctly British as they shouted and jostled each other in their haste to get to the dock. So maybe not.
Suddenly Clint grinned. Actually, between the matching parkas and the fact that they seemed to range in age from 5 to 12 or so, those kids were doing a pretty decent impression of an international children's choir.
"Mom! Mom! Mom!" A boy and girl about the same ages as Clint's own Lila and Cooper threw themselves bodily into Sammy's arms and got fierce squeezes in return. A few steps away an older boy in his tweens who strongly resembled Roger was giving Natty a more sedate hug, and Aliyah was loudly scolding the two black boys for wearing their parkas unzipped, but she was doing it with an affectionate smile on her face that made it clear she was feeling more of a mother's relief than real displeasure.
Rob was kneeling down in the snow and speaking quietly to a young boy and girl, whose eager smiles were slowly fading from their faces as they looked across the snow at the British soldiers just disappearing into the bunker with Amanda on the stretcher.
And there, catching up to the children with a more sedate pace, was a dark-haired woman with a porcelain complexion watching over them all with a pleasant smile, dressed in a gray fur-lined coat and matching hat and holding the smallest of the children in her arms. Somehow she managed to look elegant despite the bulkiness of her clothing.
"Grandpa!" the boy in her arms squealed - he was Vietnamese and looked about 4 years old - and he wriggled down from the woman's arms and charged over to 45, snow flying up from his boots with every step. Agent 45 stooped and swooped him up in to his arms.
"Hey, T.O.," he said, giving him a squeeze. "You been a good boy?"
"Maggie says no," the boy said straight-faced. Agent 45 laughed out loud and mussed up his inky black hair.
"These your grandkids?" Clint asked, and 45 looked at him over the boy's head.
"Yes," he replied. "And some of my great-nieces and -nephews. As far as we knew, Project Insight didn't have a fix on our family's location, but we decided to get the younger children as far away from any population centers as we could. Just in case."
"Can't say I blame you."
"We'll stay here for the night," 45 continued, nodding toward the bunker. "It's well-secured, and there's food and beds inside. You're welcome to stick around as long as you'd like."
"If it's all the same to you, I'd like to get back to D.C. as quick as I can," Clint replied. He was anxious to meet up with Nat and Steve and see for himself that they were okay. And the sooner S.H.I.E.L.D. - or what was left of it - could get a handle on the mess in D.C., the sooner Clint could go home and swoop his own children up into his arms. He was looking forward to that even more than usual. Over the last 48 hours, his whole world had been knocked out from under his feet, and he was eager to remind himself of the one constant in his life. The one thing that kept him grounded. In his mind's eye he could already see Laura's welcoming smile and feel her close embrace, soothing away all his worries.
The sooner that happened, the better.
Agent 45 nodded, understanding. "I'll have them refuel your Quinjet and do the engine checks right away. It'll be ready to go whenever you are."
"Thanks. I'm just gonna grab a bite and then head out."
45 shifted the boy in his arms so he could free a hand to give Clint a good, firm handshake. "Thanks for your help, Hawkeye. We couldn't have done this without you."
"Not so sure about that," Clint said, gripping his hand in return. "Your daughter's a firecracker. Both of them, actually."
A proud smile touched 45's lips. "Well, call me if you ever need anything," he said. "And I do mean anything, Hawkeye. Your family's our family. We answer the phone all hours of the day."
"Will do."
45 nodded in farewell and then turned to greet some of the other children who were loudly clamoring for his attention. The little boy he was holding had a firm grip around his neck, and just as Clint began to turn away, he saw that the bandage he had taped over the gash in Agent 45's neck earlier had been partially pulled loose.
The wound underneath was now nothing more than a faint pink line.
Clint had to control the jolt of surprise that he felt, but he kept his face neutral as he turned and strode toward the bunker.
What on earth? That gash had been deep enough to need stitches. He'd assumed Aliyah had taken care of that at some point during their journey to the Falklands, but there hadn't been any sign of stitches just now. How had that deep, bloody wound healed so quickly?
Clint couldn't say he'd never seen a wound that bad close so well on its own. Because he had seen it before. On Steve Rogers. His injuries healed so fast, Clint had once seen him dig a bullet out of his arm with his bare fingers rather than let it close up before the medics got there to remove it properly. But then again, Steve Rogers was one-of-a-kind, in more ways than one. Agent 45, while a talented agent, was just a regular guy.
Or so he'd believed.
His mind racing in new and unexpected directions, Clint went into the bunker, bolted the hot meal a woman inside offered him, and made his escape as quickly as seemed polite. As soon as his Quinjet was in the air with the destination locked and the autopilot on, he hunched over in the pilot's seat, bracing his elbows on his knees and thinking hard.
There was something weird about Agent 45 and his family. There was no way around that conclusion. And suddenly Clint found himself reevaluating everything he thought he had known about his old mentor.
He'd been a star at S.H.I.E.L.D. long before Clint met him, known to be one of Director Carter's favored agents going back to the '70s. And once another trainer at S.H.I.E.L.D. who had been a field agent during that same time period had shared a few stories of some pretty over-the-top heroics Agent 45 had engaged in during his missions. Clint had always assumed those stories had been exaggerated to impress him and the other trainees, but now he was starting to wonder. If Agent 45 had that crazy of a healing factor, maybe he really could throw himself fearlessly into the kind of firefights a more sensible agent would hesitate to enter. After all, Clint himself had just witnessed 45 bodily throwing Hydra agents out of a Quinjet, sending them flying like rag dolls... and that from a man well past his prime.
But if he was what Clint now suspected he was...
But how could he be? The SSR - and later, S.H.I.E.L.D. - had never been able to replicate the super-soldier serum invented by Abraham Erskine during the war. After the doctor's assassination, Colonel Phillips and Peggy Carter had tasked a group of researchers to try, but they had hit a dead-end and eventually given up.
Clint lifted his head, eyes widening as a startlingly new possibility occurred to him.
Peggy Carter.
The common denominator was Peggy Carter.
What if the real story was different from what anyone knew? Not one super soldier... but two. One handpicked for Project Rebirth in 1944 and signed off on by Peggy Carter as the director of operations for the SSR. The other emerging onto the scene in the 1970s, just after Carter became director of S.H.I.E.L.D... but this time in secret.
Agent 45.
But if Clint was right about this, if S.H.I.E.L.D.'s researchers had managed to replicate the super-soldier serum a few decades later, why wouldn't they publicize it? Proclaim Agent 45 as Captain America 2.0? Make him the face of S.H.I.E.L.D. and use his very existence as a deterrent to the agency's enemies?
Yet Peggy Carter had apparently left him to toil in obscurity. He hadn't even operated under his own name.
And it wasn't just him, either. It was Agent 45's daughter, too. In a flash, Clint saw once again the way Natty had dangled a much heavier Castillo off the floor, that crazy charge she'd made with Hydra bullets flying everywhere, the way she had followed Clint up to the deck so quickly despite not having a grappling line. Was it possible she had actually spider-crawled her way up that shaft? It was long enough that her muscles should have been weak as water by the end of the climb. But she'd immediately thrown herself into hand-to-hand combat and successfully subdued Castillo without showing any signs of fatigue.
A cold chill crawled its way down Clint's spine as the implications became clearer. What would happen if a super soldier fathered a child?
Supposedly the serum was designed to alter every cell in the subject's body. That would include sex cells. If Agent 45 had received a dose of serum from S.H.I.E.L.D. back in the '70s, and then gotten married and started a family in the natural way...
That would make Natty a super soldier too. Without ever needing to be given an infusion of serum.
And Sammy. And the two brothers they had mentioned.
Suddenly, everything snapped into place. No wonder Natty had been so enraged by Hydra's old injustices against Steve Rogers. If it was a serum derived from his blood that had genetically enhanced her whole family, they would all look on him as a founder of sorts. Someone to be honored and to emulate. His cause would be their cause.
And it was why Agent 45's family had dared to let a teenage Roger go larping as Captain America in the middle of a battle zone. If he, too, had been a super soldier from birth, trained by a super soldier grandfather and mother, suddenly that didn't seem quite as crazy as it looked. In fact, his very name... that could have been in honor of the world's first Avenger, couldn't it?
And then Clint thought of Agent 45's young grandchildren running around in the snow back in the Falklands, and he understood in a flash: they, too, would have inherited the same genetic strengths. Too young to help in today's fight, but their very existence such a threat to Hydra that the family had seen fit to hide them in the desolation of the Falklands until they were dead sure Project Insight was grounded.
And the whole project must have been initiated by Steve's old colleague Peggy Carter. As a founder of S.H.I.E.L.D. and later its director, who else would be more likely to possess the records, materials and personnel needed to resume Erskine's research at any time she chose?
Even the involvement of the British military in the receipt of the helicarrier just now seemed to bolster his theory. Peggy Carter was a beloved figure back in her home country, thanks to her service both during the war and in the decades afterward at S.H.I.E.L.D. Her diplomacy could have easily paved the way for a discreet partnership.
Then again, there was the small matter of her age. As Steve's contemporary, she must be getting up there in years. So maybe she didn't arrange matters like this herself anymore. Maybe her work had been more or less turned over to Agent 45 by now.
Clint knew he had no proof for any of this. But it explained a lot. And if it was true, that really only left one question in Clint's mind:
As an old friend of Peggy Carter's... did Steve Rogers know?
TO BE CONTINUED