"Sorry." Jason Wilkes said, wincing on her behalf as he pulled the needle away. He quickly pressed a cotton ball to the fresh mark on her skin, which stood out distinctly amongst the other fading injection spots dotted around her inner elbows.
"You really don't have to apologise every time," Moira assured him, in as good-naturedly a tone as she could manage.
"I know. But I also know how unpleasant it is to be tested on in one of these labs."
Moira quirked an eyebrow. "And here I thought I was the only woman you'd conducted tests on to restore memories taken from her by an all-powerful mutant. Suddenly our relationship feels so cheap." She quipped dryly, making a rare joke. It must be the lack of blood. Or exhaustion from the relative strength training she had endured with Peggy that morning – first name privileges only to be used while Agent Carter handed her ass to her.
Jason gave her a charming smile as he labelled the vial of blood he had just taken. "Come on, Moira. You know what we have is special."
"It has to be." She grinned. "Only a masochist would keep coming back for more of this."
"Ouch!" Jason gasped, continuing their friendly teasing. "It's not that bad is it?"
"I've had worse days," Moira admitted, rolling her sleeve down and hopping off the stool.
The endless tests were starting to get to her though. Every time she walked towards the lab, for a brief moment Moira would allow her hopes to rise. A stubborn belief that she would finally find out what had happened to her, and whether it was permanent or reversible. Instead, she was subjected to more tests, listening to the team of scientists debate around her without ever coming to a conclusion.
"I guess I just thought we would have made more progress by now."
"You knew coming into this that it wouldn't be easy. Barring a few pieces of evidence, we had no idea that mutants existed until the Mutant Division was founded – let alone that mutants existed in such large numbers. This is new territory; we don't know what their abilities make them capable of. It's going to take a lot of work for us to get your memories back, but with S.H.I.E.L.D's resources? Your best shot it here, with us. I don't know if you know this," he said, playfully dropping his voice and furtively glancing around the room, "but Howard Stark is actually quite a big-shot around here. He's determined to get to the bottom of this, and once he puts his mind to something it's only a matter of time before he figures it out."
She gave him a begrudging smile.
"We will get to the bottom of this," Jason assured.
"I keep trying to remember but I never get more than abstract fragments." She admitted, disappointed by her own failures more than the team doing their best to help her. "And the few memories from that time I do have, came to me when I first lost my memory. Now, I hardly get anything new. It's like it's getting worse."
"You just need to have faith," Jason encouraged.
"I know that," Moira said brusquely, softening her attitude when Jason arched a brow. "It's just – Look, I always used to rely on my gut and follow my intuition. Now? It's like I can't trust my own mind anymore."
"I understand why you doubt yourself. I can't fathom what it would be like to have someone in your mind. For them to wade through the organ that makes an individual who they are and to take parts of it away. To not only have to doubt yourself, and to not be able to trust your own thoughts, but then to have the people who should have your back lose faith in you as well." Jason said, setting down the tube and giving Moira his full attention. When he saw her downcast expression, he hastily clarified, "I'm not saying this to make you doubt yourself even more. I'm saying, I understand why you feel this way, but you need to find your faith again. We told you this wouldn't be easy, and it will be a lot harder if you go into this prepared to distrust anything you learn. If you can't even trust yourself.
"Doctor Xavier isn't here, Moira. If we get your memories back, they will be yours. Not something implanted, not something that's been tampered with. And if you don't get them back, that's not something to put on yourself. Your memory loss was never your fault – it's something that was done to you. Don't forget that."
"I know. It's just hard to reconcile myself with. I can't understand why he did this because I don't know anything about him."
"You wonder if he did more than take your memories?"
Her shoulders slumped, weariness catching up on her. "Sometimes. I don't think he would hurt me. The few feelings I remember from that time, I seemed to be happy. And Levene said all the mutants he met, except Erik, were accepting of me. But recently I find myself feeling… protective? Of the mutants. I almost feel like I'm a traitor when I discuss them with anyone else. And I don't know whether that's me – and my missing memories are still able to impact my emotions – or if it's some kind of safeguard he put in there to stop me from getting treatment or working on anything related to mutants again."
"How do these feelings manifest themselves?" Jason asked, pulling her charts across the counter. "Are they triggered by certain words, actions, places? Do they happen often?"
"All the memories I have are odd flashes."
They already knew about those. She had shared the rare memories she had from her time with the mutants – begrudgingly including the kiss. While she had expected the same rebuke her superiors at the CIA had delivered after sharing this detail, using it as a justification for her demotion, the scientists at S.H.I.E.L.D had instead launched into speculation that Xavier had used this contact to tamper with her memories.
"Sometimes it's a conversation, other times a place. When I stayed in the barracks I got a feeling of familiarity. At first, I thought it reminded me of when I completed my service training but, the more I thought about it, the more I struggled to bring up an associated memory."
"So you suspect the familiarity is in a lost memory?"
"Exactly."
She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. "When we first met and we discussed S.H.I.E.L.D, I got this feeling of – I don't know how to describe it exactly. Apprehension, perhaps? Then when Colonel Phillips and Agent Carter spoke about reconnecting with the mutants, I started to feel a strong sense of... aversion? Maybe that's not the right word."
"Well given your last interaction with them, that is more than understandable," Jason said as he continued to scribble notes in her file.
"No," Moira said surely. "I wasn't worried about seeing the mutants – well I was. I am. But the feeling I had, it was more like I was opposed to seeing them as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Like I knew they wouldn't want to meet with them. Us." She quickly corrected, forgetting her place.
"And you worry your emotional response is something Xavier planted in your mind as a defence strategy? It could make sense. They obviously value privacy. The most likely cause for Xavier to remove your memories is so the CIA wouldn't learn too much about mutants or discover any mutants' current location." He said, weighing up the possibility.
"I know. But I'm certain the feeling was mine – Iwanted to protect the mutants."
Jason smiled as he continued to write his notes. "Maybe you have more faith in yourself than you know."
She sat quietly while Jason started shuffling through her file. Reflecting on her feelings during that first meeting with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s directors, she was confident those were her own emotions – something which surprised her. Moira couldn't remember the last time she trusted her mind so completely. It wasn't just Xavier either, she felt that there were others she had to keep safe. People she felt responsible for.
"This emotional connection is interesting." He mused. "It suggests there is no permanent erasure of your memories, more likely a block to stop you accessing them."
"Which means it can be removed?"
A knock disturbed them as Peggy stepped in.
"Dr Wilkes. Any progress today?" She asked amiably, strolling over to the pair.
"I think so. In fact," Jason said tentatively, "after I consult with Howard and Aloysius, we may even be able to start some experimental treatment after today."
Peggy smiled, turning to look at her student. "Good news indeed."
Moira on the other hand only had eyes for Jason. "You really think so? When could we start?"
"Maybe a few days from now? We'll have to set up some equipment. And then we have to convince your S.O. to give you a day or two off training to make time in your schedule."
"I'm sure that can be arranged," Peggy said briskly. "We'll just double your workout beforehand to compensate."
Moira bit back a groan of despair. While boxing and hand-to-hand combat were a fun challenge, relative strength training was the stuff of nightmares. Moira would die happy if she never had to do one more pull-up again.
"Don't get your hopes up too much." Jason encouraged her, watching the tentative smile cross her face. "As I said, it's experimental. Purely based on a hypothesis."
Despite his words, she still enjoyed the optimism blossoming within. Even if it didn't work, it was something. Something other than blood tests and psychological analysis.
"Are you finished now? I had hoped to spend some time with Miss MacTaggert before she met Howard later on."
"I don't see the harm – just don't work her too hard." Jason smiled before bidding her goodbye.
Aloysius wandered in just as Moira was leaving, and she was happy to ignore his usual cantankerous comments as she hurried to catch up with her S.O., who was already walking away. It took her a while to notice they were not heading in the usual direction, as they were engulfed by personnel leaving their offices and meetings for lunch.
"Aren't we going to train?" She asked, confused as they passed their usual building and carried on towards the parking lot.
"I thought we would do something different this afternoon."
Opening the door to her car, Peggy ushered Moira into the passenger seat and started the engine.
"Can I ask what we're about to do?" Moira asked as they passed through the gate and made their way onto the access road.
"What does S.H.I.E.L.D stand for?"
The response was becoming a reflex. Maybe that was why Peggy kept asking her. "Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage, Law-Enforcement Division." She answered automatically.
"And what does that mean to you?"
"That someone wanted our name to spell out shield."
Moira bit her tongue as soon as she said the words. She really must be exhausted to speak out of turn like that.
To her surprise, and relief, Peggy laughed before she could apologise. "Actually we did. The first exceptional we worked with carried one."
"Captain America?"
"Steve Rogers." Peggy corrected. "Who was part of..."
"The Super Soldiers Initiative."
Smiling, Peggy said, "He is something of a legend within the ranks."
"So are you," Moira pointed out. In the few interactions she'd had with S.H.I.E.L.D staff outside of the science labs, everyone was impressed to discover she was working closely with the founders and was on a first-name basis with two of them. Moira knew that Stark was a personality, but she hadn't expected how loyal the organisation was to Agent Carter and Colonel Phillips. There seemed to be reverence among the ranks for the team who had worked alongside Captain America.
"S.H.I.E.L.D acts as a barrier between different forces in the world," Peggy explained. "Not just between humans and exceptionals, but also between the good and the bad and all the old in between. We serve to protect."
"I know."
The further lack of response indicated that Peggy didn't believe Moira's half-hearted agreement.
"I had asked Jason to speak with you during today's session. I felt you would respond better to him."
"Why?"
"Jason has been in a position similar to yours before. Having his being altered through a process uninitiated by himself. Struggling to right himself again." She clarified. "I knew that he could empathise with you in a way that I perhaps couldn't."
"Where are we going?" She asked curiously, wondering if she were in for another assessment.
"It's not far," Peggy assured.
She didn't see the point in asking any more questions until they arrived, and evidently, Peggy was not the kind of person who needlessly talks to fill a silence. Instead, Moira considered their possible destinations – perhaps a surveillance assignment, a field test of some kind. Or maybe they were going to another S.H.I.E.L.D facility. There were plenty across the country.
The parking lot of an unassuming restaurant certainly did not cross her mind as a potential destination and yet that was where they stopped. Moira looked to Peggy for elaboration, but her S.O. merely got out of the car and headed into the establishment without looking back.
Peggy led them to a table in the middle of the eatery.
The interior was plain; a white checkered floor, dark blue paint on roughly spackled walls, and uniform furniture. There were only a few patrons inside, all dressed in dark suits who kept their attention only on the plates before them.
"What do you fancy for lunch?" Peggy asked brightly. She glanced to the chalk specials board beside the kitchen. "I might have the split pea soup."
Moira glanced down at the menu, "Maybe the club sandwich?"
"They're very good."
A brunette waitress materialised and took their order. She shared a smile with Peggy before sashaying into the kitchen.
"Do you two know each other?" Moira asked.
"I'm a regular."
Moira smiled nervously as they lapsed into silence. "Why am I here?"
"I thought it best that we spend time getting to know one another." She replied, leaning back as the waitress came to pour them some water. They declined coffee.
Peggy waited until she had left before resuming. "I want you to be able to trust me. I needyou to trust me if I am going to be an efficient mentor. You are an excellent student, Moira. But I sense, after everything, trust is not something that will come easily to you."
"I would have thought that would be an advantage to people in our line of work."
"It pays to be wary, to not let yourself get attached. In your missions. Don't forget that you will work within teams, you will work with other members of staff. You work within an organisation. If you trust no one, your work will only be so efficient."
"So you want me to pledge faith to the agency, to not question..."
"You should always question." Peggy interrupted. "I am not asking you to blindly trust us, I am asking you to trust me. Training is difficult. The treatment you will go through will be more difficult. There will be times it seems too much, that this path is too hard, that the commitment this takes is not worth the cost. When that happens. I want you to feel like you can talk to me about it. I want you to know that I am here for you."
A clutter from the kitchen drew Peggy's attention away. Half a smile formed, ready to tease her friend's clumsiness, but a hysterical cry sobered her. Moments later, the brunette waitress stumbled out of the kitchen. She was incredibly white and seemed on the verge of tears.
"Angie. What is it? What's the matter?" Peggy said, her hand landing on the woman's arm in an attempt to soothe her.
"They were playing the radio in the kitchen and I just heard," Angie said, dropping her tone to a whisper before casting a nervous eye around the restaurant. "The President's been shot."
"Cancel our order, put the bill on my tab," Peggy said efficiently, nodding to Moira to follow her to the car. "We need to get back to headquarters."
"Sure," Moira said, barely able to hear her S.O. over her own mind.
President Kennedy. Shot. President Kennedy. Kennedy. Speech. Speech, there was something about a speech.
Turning on the car radio, Peggy peeled out of the parking lot and headed back towards base. There was no need to find a news channel, every station was talking about it. By the time they pulled into Peggy's usual space the President was dead, but all Moira wanted was to talk to Jason.
It only lasted a second, but it was a clear memory. President Kennedy was speaking, giving a speech, something about weapons. The mutants were there: they were listening to him speak. And then she turned to look at Charles and he looked right back at her.
More tangible than grainy footage or a photo Levene had found from a British newspaper. An actual memory of him.
She stood in the lobby as the agency moved in frantic motion, readying themselves in case the assassination was only the start of a full attack on the country. She stood still for a moment, and then she moved with them.
Left, right double jab, left, right, left double jab.
"Moira," Peggy said. "You're tensing your shoulders again."
She felt a pair of hands land on her shoulders and firmly tug down. "There."
She hit again and it felt better, stronger. "Thanks."
Peggy moved around to the other side of the bag. With pursed lips, she looked her up and down before demanding, "Tell me what's wrong."
"Nothing's wrong."
Peggy corrected Moira's form, not stepping back until she was satisfied with her pupil's footwork. After a particularly vicious hook to the right side of the bag, she tried again.
"You're tensing."
Moira rolled her shoulders back down and resumed.
"You still look tense."
Trying to roll her shoulders down, even more, Peggy interrupted her. "Not your form."
"I'm focused."
Walking around the bag, Peggy stepped into her line of vision. "No. You're angry."
Moira let out a sharp exhale as she launched at the bag. "Are you telling me anger and punching don't mix?"
"Anger will only get you so far. Strength comes from clarity of mind." Peggy said, pulling Moira's fist down.
That sounded like the kind of philosophical crap Charles would spew.
Attempting to swallow a growl of frustration, Moira let her arms hang limply by her side as she turned to her superior.
"Talk to me," Peggy said sternly, leaving no room for debate.
Moira wiped her forehead with the back of her taped hands to avoid her eyes. "When I get fragments of memories back, I get emotions more than a full visual memory. When I remembered Charles – Xavier's – face last week," she corrected, not wanting to sound too intimate with the man, "I, I could feel how much I cared about him. That brief moment that I remember, I felt special. Cared about. When we were listening to the speech and I realised how much danger the mutants were in, I wanted to protect them." Moira confessed before immediately falling silent, almost burning with a strong sense of shame. If she were at the CIA and had said that to her superiors or a fellow agent, she would be torn to shreds for the weakness.
"Especially him." Peggy prompted when Moira said nothing further. "You wanted to protect him."
"And the others." She quickly rebutted.
"It's all right, Moira. I'm not going to judge you." She said gently. "We've all felt that way about someone before."
"I guess that person didn't then betray you and ruin your career," Moira said quickly, continuing before Peggy could speak. "What does it say about me? And my judgement?"
"You need to trust..."
"...myself, I know. Jason said the same thing."
"Then maybe you should listen," Peggy said sternly. "He is a doctor after all."
"I was hoping with this treatment that I would have remembered everything by now. That I would have found some memory to justify everything."
"To justify your feelings?"
Resisting the temptation to take the easy out, Moira told the truth: "To justify his decision to take them."
Once again there was no judgement, Peggy simply nodded. "This isn't an exact science, they are only working on guesses. It could take a long time before it leads to anything concrete."
"I know. And I'm grateful for everything that they've done for me. It's just hard not to get impatient. I feel so close."
"Certainly a good sign." Peggy smiled. "And luckily for you, if you do get frustrated, you have the perfect outlet."
"I thought you said anger and punching don't mix?" Moira said, quirking an eyebrow as she resumed her routine.
"I said it would only get you so far. In the field, it could get you killed." Peggy said sternly.
"Strength comes from clarity of mind." She parroted.
"Exactly. Now, give me ten more minutes then you better go get washed up before your next set of injections."
Over the past several weeks, Wilkes had been administering a serum that was designed to – well Moira didn't really understand the intricacies of what it would do. Ultimately it should trigger a release of her memories, which Wilkes was now confident had been suppressed rather than removed. Unfortunately, since Kennedy's assassination, Moira had seen nothing new and she wasn't the only one becoming increasingly frustrated by the lack of progress.
"I'm telling you we have to try something else." Aloysius insisted as Moira walked into the lab. "Your serum clearly isn't yielding any results, I say we move on to my idea."
"The serum takes time." Jason grated. "It has a lot of damage to repair in the neural network. It was never going to work miracles overnight."
"I see no reason we can't use both," Howard interjected, the rare voice of reason. He beckoned Moira into the fold, bringing her presence to the attention of the others. Jason smiled friendlily as she moved to stand by his side.
"What's the new idea?" Moira asked, bracing herself for an onslaught of scientific jargon to which she could only nod her head and make half-hearted sounds of encouragement.
"Samberly wants to use a prototype machine. It shows images intended to trigger a neurological response." Howard explained.
"After you regained another memory it occurred to me that physical stimuli may be required to activate your memories. Certain sounds, smells, images..."
"And you have a machine that can do all of that?"
"A prototype." Jason clarified. "It's only been tested a few times and primarily as a form of cognitive suggestion."
"It doesn't require any invasive procedures so there's no harm in letting Moira use the machine alongside your treatments," Howard concluded.
"Excellent," Moira said, only slightly concerned that S.H.I.E.L.D was developing what sounded to be a mind-control machine. "Can we start today?"
"I don't see why not?" Samberly said, turning to his colleagues. Howard instantly agreed and after a second Jason did too.
"I'm going to keep working on the serum, I may be able to make some modifications to it now we're altering the treatment plan," Jason said, staying behind in the main lab as Howard and Aloysius led her into one of the smaller labs.
"Is that it?" Moira said, feeling the slightest bit of trepidation as she eyed a cylindrical machine with only a small window at the front to look out of.
"No, no," Howard replied, hastening her forward. "That was for someone else."
He led her towards another piece of equipment and asked her to go inside the square chamber and lie down on the inclined bed. She did as asked, looking around at the metallic walls which shimmered under the bright lights overhead. The table felt cold and unforgiving beneath her as she hopped on and Moira struggled not to move once she was settled.
As Jason joined her inside, Aloysius explained through a microphone, connected to speakers in the chamber, that it would be best if she remained still.
"Sorry, I know it's not very comfortable in here," Jason said sympathetically as he prepped a needle on the table beside her. "It's still in its early phases of development."
"It's fine."
"This will make you more suggestive to the external stimuli, which will hopefully trigger another memory." He said softly, pressing the needle into her skin. She barely felt it anymore.
"I'll be just on the other side of that glass if you need anything," Jason promised, wiping her arm and taking his things back outside. The door closed with a heavy clank.
"Focus on the screen like last time," Samberly instructed.
It was hard not to, there was little else in the dark enclosure to draw her attention other than the screen crackling in front of her, waiting for a signal.
"Starting now."
The temperature in the room began to rise. Ambient noises, clicking, mumbled conversation, an engine rumbling to life, gunshots, someone coughing. Flashing images. Children, grass, books, smile, river, moon. Everything flashed and Moira focused with all of her might. And yet, the lights raised, and she remembered nothing.
"Don't lose faith," Howard reassured her once the experiment was complete, walking her out to the parking lot. "We'll keep trying, keep modifying – if it comes down to it I'll track down Xavier myself and demand he gives your memories back. After all, we know they exist. There's no purpose to your amnesia now."
"He'd probably just make you forget too." Moira grouched before offering Howard a kind smile. Once she'd realised his flirting was endemic to his personality, Moira had found him to be an easy person to spend time with. She was starting to understand how Peggy was such a good friend with the entrepreneur, despite an obvious difference in character.
"I'll see you tomorrow."
"Have a good evening, kid. Get some sleep." He said, waving lazily before strolling back toward the lab.
Stepping out from the portico, a strong breeze washed over her face. She jerked back and froze, unsure why she had moved away from a slight draught.
Moira moved out into the open again. The wind blew across her body, this time accompanied by a strong smell of flowers. Caught off guard by the scent in the sterile lot, Moira stumbled sideways. Gravel crunched under her feet instead of the clack of tarmac under her heel. She wasn't alone but she couldn't make out who was with her.
And then the memory hit her. It was him. Charles.
They were walking together around a mansion – his mansion. In Westchester. They were talking about opening a school for mutants. He was going to be a Professor: Professor X. And she promised not to tell anyone about it.
He said he believed her before moving in for a kiss. They'd kissed before and she didn't hesitate to return it, feeling happy and loved. From that first moment of bliss, however, it soured, and she felt cold. It felt like he was stealing the breath from her lungs. He was stealing far more than that, but she couldn't register what he was doing. Unable to ask him, beg him, to stop before everything went dark.
Moira turned on her heel and walked back into the science research building, the sound of gravel giving way to reality as her shoes clicked along the path. It took only a few seconds for her to abandon her shakily recollected composure and break into a sprint. She caught up with Howard before he could reach the lab.
