Chapter 44
She knew what she had to do even before she mentioned it to Steve. There was no reason for her to get his hopes up if she hadn't even come up with anything that could help.
She'd been avoiding it, she knew that much. It had been a few days since they found out about Aunt Peggy and Ava and Bruce had been down in the lab every moment of each day trying to come up with a way to reverse what had been done to Peggy.
Toni Stark knew she was a genius. There was nothing more she loved to do than to create, to build, or to make. She loved the feeling of holding tools and watching her ideas come to life in front of her. She loved having an idea in her head with no actual method of implementing it, but just going for it to see what would happen. She loved everything about the magic that was engineering.
Chemistry and biology on the other hand were subjects that were not her forte. And while she may still be better than the average person at those subjects, she would in no way describe herself as a genius in it.
So while she was able to help them from time to time, she was in no way going to be the reason they solved the mystery. She offered her labs, JARVIS' processing power to calculate difference synthetic make ups, and her brains from time to time, but she had faith in the two of them. If there were any scientists capable of undoing what had been done to Aunt Peg, it would be Ava and Bruce.
In the meanwhile, however, she knew she had to do something she really didn't want to do. Something she had been going back and forth on since seeing the video of her parents dying at the hand of the Winter Soldier.
She knew she would have to help bring him home. Because while Steve and Natasha had started looking already, with Natasha scoping out any leads she could find, it wouldn't be enough. Even with the combined resources of the new SHIELD, it wouldn't be enough.
SHIELD had known of the Winter Solider for years. Even with the HYDRA infestation, they had known he existed. Through whispers and ghost stories. But none of them were ever able to get more than a rumour of his even existence. Even with JARVIS cracking the files on what had been done to Barnes, there was still very little to offer on his current mental state and if James Buchanan Barnes was even alive anymore, or if he'd long since been replaced with the Winter Soldier.
One thing was for sure; she knew she had to try no matter what. There was still a man behind the mask. A man who served with Steve, Aunt Peggy, and her father in the war. A good man, who'd fallen to his death in a way that had haunted Steve for years, and who's legacy deserved to be that of a war hero. Not of an assassin.
He'd killed her parents, but was it even him?
She wanted justice for her mother. She wanted the people responsible to pay for what had been done to her. But James Barnes wasn't the one she needed to go after. He wasn't the one who'd hurt her or had killed her mother. He was just the weapon involved.
She knew what she had to do. Knew she needed to help Steve out in trying to find the Winter Soldier and bring him home. To help remove HYDRA's influence from his brain. Because at the end of the day, he was still the man she'd grown up hearing stories about. He was still the man who'd fought by her boyfriend's side in the war. Still the man who'd gotten Steve out of trouble more times than he'd probably be able to count. And he deserved better than what was done to him.
If anything, he really was the longest prisoner of war that the United States of America had ever seen.
And he deserved better than what was done to him. Even if he had been the weapon that had killed her mother. He deserved better than what was done to him.
And she hated having to even think about this. Her parents had died decades ago and she wished more than anything, that it could have been that. That they could have been left in the past.
But her father, even with how much he hated her, deserved justice. The truths of their deaths needed to be told to the world. Because even if the official cause of death was ruled an accident, everyone knew it was because Howard had been driving drunk. And that wasn't the truth. Not by a longshot.
He was guilty of many things. But killing her mother was not one of them.
"Hey JARVIS?" she said, looking over at one of her AI's cameras.
"Yes Miss?" J asked her curiously.
"I want you to begin a world-wide search," she said, "Anyone resembling a 95% match to James Barnes, I want you to alert me over. He's a master spy; he'd have learned how to cover his tracks by now. Scan his pictures from the war and see if you can get any CCTV shots of him from his fight with Steve. Search everywhere you can; he could be hiding in plain sight or even in a country with little surveillance."
"Are you sure Miss?" JARVIS said, with hesitation in his voice, "Is this really the course of action you wish to pursue."
"What's wrong, J?" she asked her bot softly.
"He hurt you," JARVIS said to her, "Not directly maybe, but he did. And you want to help him. You do not owe him or Mr Rogers anything. Just because he has become your partner does not give him the right to determine how you're allowed to feel. I do not believe the best course of action is to find Mr Barnes. Not when he and HYDRA have hurt our family so."
DUM-E came over to her then, and conveyed a similar feeling, and she stroked his arm tenderly.
She forgot, that when it came down to it, they were all just children really. Children who had a black and white look of the world. And they were learning. It was her job, as their mother, to teach them that there were shades of grey in the world. That sometimes things were far more complicated than it appeared.
She smiled softly at one of his sensors, "Baby, I know you just want to protect me. You've been there with me since the beginning. Both of you have. But it's not that simple. It's not even fully about me. This man has been torn away from his entire life. Torn away from everything he cares about. Deprived of the chance to live the life that he was meant to live. And he deserves better than that."
"Okay," JARVIS said after a moment. "But if he hurts you in anyway, then I'm going to allow Butterfingers, U, and DUM-E to have at him without me holding him back."
She laughed softly as DUM-E perked up.
"I'll allow it," she promised them.
"I'll begin the search," JARVIS said, and she sighed as she sat down. It really had been a long few weeks.
Toni paced back and forth in the hallways as she waited for Uncle Daniel and Aunt Peggy to arrive at the tower.
It had been nearly a month since they'd found out what HYDRA had done to her surrogate mother, and in that entire time Bruce and Ava had worked relentlessly, trying to find a solution to what had been done via the serum that her father had created and abandoned all those years ago.
Months of testing, of sampling, of trying to find out first what had been done to her Aunt and then how to reverse it.
It was a week before they realized that the serum was inhibiting hippocampus from recalling memories. Because the serum was meant to not erase the memory but inhibit them from being recalled. Which of course was ridiculous as there was no way to actually enforce which memories were inhibited and which ones weren't. No wonder her father scrapped the project. She couldn't see any way based on how the serum worked for it to function accurately and reliably.
It also explained the abnormal brain activities that the doctors had seen when they were trying to determine what had happened to Aunt Peggy all those years ago. And why Aunt Peggy was slowly losing the ability to recall events from her life as the serum stayed in her system for as long as it did.
After Ava had determined that, it was a matter of figuring out how to remove the serum from her system. Which was something Bruce had a lot of experience studying from when he'd attempted to undo the effects of the radiation on his body after he'd been turned into the Hulk.
There were a lot of late nights, take out, and failed attempts.
A lot of frustration as Ava broke down in tears and Harry cheered her up by reminding her that what she was doing what incredible. That even if they weren't able to undo the serum, she had done everything she would have been able to do.
Toni had reminded her of her own failures when she had been younger. Because science never went smoothly. There were always unexpected results. Always things that would go wrong without any of them wanting it to. And all they could do was change the parameters and try again.
After a month and a half, they found a potential cure. And after a few weeks of testing, they were almost confident that it would work.
Uncle Daniel had been harder to convince, but Toni had asked him to trust her. They all wanted what was best for Aunt Peggy. They all loved her, and none of them wanted anything bad to happen to her.
So he agreed. He'd signed her out of the nursing home she was in, and flew her in Toni's plane to the Tower, where she'd set up the Med Bay to be prepped for any possible negative outcome. But she hoped it wouldn't be any.
She hoped it would work.
As selfish as it was, she wanted her aunt back. She wanted her family to be whole.
Even if it was too late for Jarvis and Ana. For her mother, and even her father.
She wanted what was left of her family to be whole.
"Maria dear," Aunt Peggy said as Uncle Daniel wheeled her into the Med Bay, "It's been so long since I've seen you. How are you doing? How is Toni? She still sneaking into Howard's lab when he's not looking?"
Steve shot her a slightly amused look, and she let out a laugh at the memories of when she was younger, despite the panging feeling in her chest. If this worked then her Aunt would look at her and see her goddaughter, and not the ghost of Toni's dead mother.
She really wanted this to work.
"She is," Toni smiled, "Now Peg, I'm going to need you to lay down on this bed, okay?"
Harry and Steve moved to help her out of the seat, as they sat her down carefully on the bed they'd set up for her. Ava moved to connect some wires to her as Bruce took a look at the monitors to adjust the settings.
"Is all of this necessary?" Aunt Peggy looked over at Uncle Daniel, "I just bumped my head slightly on that last mission. Nothing that I need to get checked up over. All of you are making a fuss over nothing.
"We just need to administer a mild anesthetic," Ava told her softly, "In case any of this causes you pain, we'd like to prevent that all together, if possible."
Uncle Daniel nodded as he held her hand gently.
"It's all going to be okay, Peggy," Uncle Daniel told her softly. "Ava, Harry, Toni, can I talk to you quickly before we do this?"
"Dad," Ava started, and Uncle Daniel shook his head in a non-negotiable way. Ava sighed as the three of them followed him to a corner of the room.
"I just want the three of you to know how proud I am of you," he told them all. "Even if this doesn't work, you've done so much for us, and you should know how proud I am of all that you've done. Peg and I had a great life together, and I love her more than anything in the world. And the selfish part of me wants her back in my life. The Peggy I feel in love with. But if this doesn't work, it's not any of your faults. You've done all you could, and I know your mother would be proud of the three of you if she knew all you've accomplished."
"Dad," Harry said, and Uncle Daniel pulled the three of them into a tight hug.
"I love you all so much," Uncle Daniel told them firmly, "Nothing will change that. I promise you."
"We'll get her back, Dad," Ava said, as they pulled away, and her father smiled at her softly.
Steve looked over at her when she came back to join him, "Are you okay?" Steve asked her softly, and she wiped a tear she hadn't even known she'd shed away, as she nodded.
"Yes," she said softly, "I just. I really miss her, Steve. She was everything to me growing up. She showed me that I don't need to be a man to succeed in this world. She bought me my first lipstick, and she was by my side when my parents died. She taught me how to fight for myself, physically, mentally, and emotionally. And I've accepted I may never get the Aunt Peggy I knew back. But if there's even a chance I can have her back in my life, then I need to take it. I need her back, in my life."
"I know Sweetheart," he said, as he wrapped his arms around her. "I know."
"We're ready," Bruce said with a nod as he looked over at them all. "Whenever you are."
Peggy looked up at all of them with a dazed look from the anesthetic and she moved to sit beside her aunt, Harry by her side. She carefully took Aunt Peggy's hand in her own.
"Ducky," Peggy said softly, "I need to give Toni her ducky that I brought back from my mission! I completely forgot."
"You can give it to her after you get checked out Darling," Uncle Daniel kissed her forehead, and Peggy closed her eyes lightly.
She loved her Aunt and Uncle. When she was younger, she used to look at the two of them, the love between the two of them, and crave something like that. She'd never had someone in her life who loved her that much at that point. And it was all she wanted. To be loved and supported through her life like how Uncle Daniel never tried to hold Aunt Peggy back. He let her flourish and he stood by her side fighting next to her.
She looked over at Steve, who gave her a gentle smile, and she knew she'd found that in him. She loved the man, and she knew he would be there with her through everything.
Ava held up the needle, filled with the serum they'd generated as she moved closer to her mother. She looked extremely nervous, but her hands were steady as she injected her mother, releasing the new serum into her system.
As she pulled the needle out, Toni found herself watching Peggy carefully. While they had been able to guess how long it would take the serum to kick in, they really had no way of knowing. No way of being able to tell just how long it took before the serum kicked in and either worked or didn't.
She gasped, as she saw Peggy begin to shake, as Ava and Bruce scrambled to look at the monitors.
"What's happening?" she demanded, looking at the readings herself, trying to figure out what was happening.
"The two serums are fighting each other," Bruce explained to them, watching Aunt Peggy's vitals on the screens. "The old one is trying to fight for dominance and the one we just injected her with is fighting, trying to overwrite it. It's going to be a long road as they struggle against each other."
"It's hurting her," Steve said, looking at Aunt Peggy, "Isn't there anything we can do?"
"We gave her the anesthetic," Ava said, with a shake of her head, "That was the maximum allowed as per our testing. Any more and it removes the potency of the serum. Mom just has to hold on and fight the pain as our serum takes over and tries to replace the other one. We can't do anything but wait."
"She can handle this," Uncle Daniel told them confidently, as he stroked her face, "She's always been a fighter. And she'll do anything to fight for her family. She'll come back to us. Just wait and see."
Peggy stilled then, as if his touch was enough to placate her, and Harry stood as he took her hand in his.
"It's okay Darling," Uncle Daniel said as he stroked her hair, "Just rest, my love."
"Daniel," she said in a low voice as she opened her eyes carefully, "What happened?"
"What do you remember, Sweetheart?" he asked her, and she blinked awake.
"I-" she paused, looking around the room. "I remember talking to Pierce in my office. And I remember learning the truth. Where's Toni, she needs to know!"
"I'm right here, Aunt Peggy," Toni said coming forward, "It's okay, Aunt Peggy. We know. We found out about HYDRA."
Peggy's eyes widened, looking at her, then at Ava and Harry.
"I've missed so much, haven't I?" she said, and Ava let out a sob as she leaned in and hugged her mother.
"Do you remember none of it?" Harry asked, voice breaking slightly.
"I remember it in flashes," Peggy said, as Daniel nodded encouragingly at her. "I remember some things better than others."
"I missed you, Mom," Ava said, as tears streamed down her face.
"I'm so sorry, Darling," Aunt Peggy said, wiping away her tears. "I've missed so much of your lives. And I wish more than anything I could have that time back with you."
"It's not your fault," Harry told her firmly, "You were trying to find out the truth and HYDRA took you from us."
"I should have fought harder," Peggy said, frustratedly, "I shouldn't have let them get the jump on me. I could have told you Daniel, of what I suspected. But I wanted to get more proof first. I wanted to know if it was all in my mind or if there was any truth to all of it. And in doing so I lost so much time with my family. With my husband, my children, and my goddaughter."
"We have you back now, Peggy," Daniel said taking her hand in his. "It's more than I ever could have dreamed of and I'm so grateful to all of you for everything you've done to bring her back to us. I-" his throat closed up slightly, "I love you so much, Darling, and while I would stay by your side until the end of time, caring for you, I'm forever grateful to have you back in my life."
"I missed you too," she said, looking endearingly back up Daniel. "I want to know everything. Tell me everything I've missed. It's not the same as being there with you through it all, but I want to hear about your lives. I want to know everything, in case the serum made me forget something."
She looked at Ava first, "My Darling, you've grown so much," she said, pushing a strand of hair away from her face, "You've become such a strong, beautiful woman. And clearly, very intelligent."
"You don't mind that I didn't work for SHIELD?" Ava asked her Mom, slightly nervous, "You founded it and were one of the strongest women to ever work there in the entire history of the organization."
"And you have become a brilliant scientist for Stark Industries," Aunt Peggy said with a smile, "All I ever wanted was for the three of you to be able to pursue any endeavour you wanted without the struggles I faced when I was younger. I wanted you to all flourish and thrive. And you've all done just that."
Ava smiled at her mother and Peggy squeezed her hand gently, "And I see you've found a nice young man for yourself."
Bruce looked like a dear caught in headlights as Uncle Daniel gave him an appraising look.
"He's a good man," Ava said with a smile as she looked over at him. "Incredibly intelligent and has been there with me for some hard times. I love him."
"I'm happy for you, Ava," Aunt Peggy said. "And Harry?"
"Mom?" her cousin said, swallowing softly.
"Why did you choose to work for SHIELD?" she asked him curiously, "You could have done anything. At one point you wanted to be a famous race car driver."
"I was seven," Harry said drily. "You know I gave up on that dream long ago."
She laughed, but let her son go on.
"I wanted to be like the two of you," Harry said finally, "You both did so much to make this world a better place. You lead so many important missions, and I wanted to do something like that. I wanted to make the world a better place and keep it safe. I wanted Ava to live in a world without fear and I wanted to make sure that no one else I loved would ever be in danger ever again. Of course that all went out the window when Toni decided to fly around in a tin can. But I just wanted to be like you. And I think I found my place with SHIELD."
"He's done an amazing job," Daniel said giving Harry a fond son. "I still have higher ups who used to report to us back in the day call me up and let me know how proud I should be of Harry for everything he's doing. He's an incredible agent, and I have no doubt he's helped saved countless lives so far."
"He has," Toni said, smiling at him, "SHIELD is now a subsidiary of SI. It was the only way I could keep everyone else safe after the fallout of HYDRA, what with too many compromised agents revealed. I took a look at his file, and Aunt Peggy if you saw some of the things he's done, you'd be so proud."
"I'm glad," she said, smiling at her eldest child. "I look forward to hearing more of your life, Harry."
"I have so many things to tell you," Harry said, swallowing.
"We have all the time in the world," Aunt Peggy said, before turning to her.
"And you Toni," she continued, "It seems like quite a bit has changed in your life since my memories were removed. You became an amazing CEO, a superhero, met Captain America and fell in love with him. I always knew you would set the world ablaze."
"I learned everything from you," Toni said with a grin, "You taught me that I can do anything if I just put my mind to it. I learned it all from you, Aunt Peggy."
"I'm so proud of you, Toni," She smiled at her. "Of all three of you. And I can't wait to hear everything that I've missed in this time."
Daniel squeezed her hand, as Peggy closed her eyes, looking exhausted.
"Sleep, Peggy," Uncle Daniel told her, "We don't need to rush anything. Like you said. We have all the time in the world to catch up."
She looked like she wanted to argue, but exhaustion began kicking in. Daniel kissed her on the forehead, and the group piled out.
For all HYDRA had taken from them, at least they'd managed to bring her aunt back.
A/N: I always did intend for Peggy's memories to be brought back and after forty long chapters, it's been done. Hopefully you guys enjoyed this chapter and I can't wait to hear what you all think!
