Chapter 3: Decisions
Traffic on the 405 at 6:04 pm is four lanes in each direction of bumper-to-bumper traffic. Making their way inside Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) Peggy and Steve look up at the departure information: Trenton, New Jersey | On-Time | 8:14 pm. They are standing in a long hallway full of people of every nationality. Steve's eyes bounce from one traveler to the next; a large Latino family with kids trailing in front on the verge of exhaustion; a single Indian woman in her thirties, with matching carryon, air pods, and eyes glued to her smartphone dashing from a flight; to an African man in matching beige windbreaker and slacks with a powder blue polo walking towards TSA. Every couple of minutes an overhead page goes off regarding the final boarding of a plane.
Peggy notices Steve is not looking at the departures monitor but is trapped in thought. He is blaming himself. The meeting was doomed the second Potts entered and Steve thinks he could have turned it around. She sees Steve's gears turning, believing he wasted all those years on the hope that Tony would meet with them, two strangers, as opposed to leading the clean effort in Sokovia. 'Now we are too old for any kind of contingency plan,' reading Steve's mind as if it was her own.
"You can't keep doing this to yourself," Peggy says.
"Who else is there Peggy?"
She searches his eyes hoping to say something reassuring, nothing comes to mind as he avoids her eyes and stays in a stoic profile looking up at the monitors.
The departure sign begins updating itself with new information.
Some new information updates down to other monitors. Peggy picks up a word that makes her stand a little straighter, under International Flights:
Kampala, Uganda
If we take a plane to Kampala we are a stone's throw from a small nondescript country called Wakanda. Surely we could find transport from the airport…
Looking at Steve, staring at the floor, she sees his head is moving in the same direction.
"It is more than we bargained for," Steve says, but she can tell he's already sold on going.
"I was thinking the same, we're hardly packed for an international flight," hoping to get a smile out of him.
No such luck.
