Chapter Thirteen: Family Matters

"I no longer curse the hand, as I once did
but glorify the force that stayed it, set the blade
aside." -Mary Karr

November 22, 2012 - JFK Airport - Queens, NY

"You know," said Peggy, as Audrey helped her into the car. "We don't really do Thanksgiving where I'm from."

"I know, mum," Audrey replied easily, suppressing an eye roll at her mom's dramatics. "We aren't doing this to celebrate the Pilgrims. Aunt Angie and Dad and I just wanted a chance to see you."

"Sentimentalists!" Peggy exclaimed, as Audrey handed Peggy's seatbelt buckle to Steve for him to click into place. "Both of you." Peggy's face softened as Audrey leaned back, and she placed a wrinkled hand on Audrey's cheek. "Though, it is quite lovely to see you."

"Good to see you too, Mum. How was the flight?"

Audrey settled into the backseat, basking in the nuclear-family of it all. "It was quite alright," Peggy answered. "The people at the airport were very nice with helping me get around."

"I'm glad to hear it, Peg," Steve said. He glanced at Audrey in the rearview mirror. "You got the directions?"

Steve hadn't trusted the GPS in his phone, so Audrey had googled the directions in advance and written them out. The whole thing felt so frighteningly normal, as though they were any regular family, as if Steve was any normal dad who was bad with his phone, and not somebody who had slingshotted 70 years into the future six months ago.

"Get on I-87," Audrey instructed, leaning forward in her seat to see both of her parents in one place. She and Steve had visited Peggy a few times in London since May, but it was always so controlled by the home Peggy lived in. Now, it was just the three of them.

Audrey reached for the AUX cable and plugged it into her phone. David Bowie began to reverberate through the speakers, but not so loudly that she couldn't hear her mother humming along. As she leaned back in her seat and watched the New York scenery blur past her, she wondered what this all would've been like had she been a kid.

"Are you eating enough, Audrey?" Peggy asked, jolting her from her thoughts.

"Yes, mum," she answered easily. "Tony keeps us all very well fed. And Pepper schedules a lot of meetings during dinner, which she says is for convenience but I think is to make sure we're all eating."

"Good," Peggy said, nodding sharply. "I knew I liked her. You know, it takes a special kind of woman to handle Tony, and I think she's doing a wonderful job. I mean, he hasn't gotten himself kidnapped recently, and that company of his is no longer getting entangled with terrorists. He's really settled down."

Audrey watched Steve's expression in the rearview mirror. His eyes rolled the slightest bit at the mention of Tony's past and she smothered a laugh at the reaction. Tony and Steve didn't always get along, but Audrey knew that if they actually talked to each other instead of at each other they'd have far fewer problems as a team.

"He has," Audrey agreed.

"And what about you?" Peggy asked Steve.

"What about me?" he asked. The annoyance had vanished from his face, now replaced by a gentle, nostalgic smile.

"Are you eating enough, Captain? I remember how you were. Absolutely demolishing our rations with that metabolism of yours."

"I'm eating well, Peg," he assured her, then turned back to the road.

"Well, in any case," said Peggy, "Angie is going to feed you a meal fit for an entire infantry when we get there, so you better get ready."

"Promise?" Steve teased.

"Oh, Rogers," Peggy scoffed. "You know I'm not the type for swearing."

November 22, 2012 - Albany, NY

The drive upstate took two hours from the airport, and Audrey spent most of it quiet, listening to her mother retell stories she knew by heart and Steve ask questions about all that he'd missed. They weren't together anymore, but they picked up the conversation with the ease of old friends.

A little before noon, they pulled into the driveway of Angie's house. It sat on a lake, though it was frozen now, and had big windows that Audrey always loved. Angie lived alone, since Peggy moved into a home in England. Before, she, Daniel, and Audrey's mom had all lived together in New York.

"Peggy!" Angie hollered from the doorframe. At 86, Angie's hair was still dyed a honey blonde and her nails were kept long and painted red. Over her outfit, she wore a bright apron that had KISS THE CHEF emblazoned across the chest. "Get over here."

Audrey helped her mother up the porch steps. It was cold outside, now that they were so far north, so she doubled back to grab a coat from one of Peggy's suitcases. By the time she brought it back up to the porch, Angie and her mom were already immersed in a deep conversation and Angie had smacked a kiss on Peggy's lips, as evidenced by both women's smeared lipstick.

"You move all the way across the damn Atlantic and now I don't see you anymore," Angie huffed. "My life's just boring without you, Pegs."

"I doubt that," Peggy snorted. "You liked to keep things interesting just as much as I did. Which one here is the Broadway star, again?"

Angie waved her away as she pushed the door open. "Yeah, yeah. I miss when we lived together. Those were the days." To Steve, Angie said, "You must be America's Golden Boy."

He barely managed to shorten his grin. "Steve Rogers, ma'am."

"Well-mannered, huh? It's sweet, but I think you're about ten years older than me, so the formalities won't be necessary."

"Will do," he said easily.

"Well, go on in, help the lady out," Angie said, ushering him inside.

He followed dutifully, leaving Audrey alone on the porch with her aunt.

"Oh, how are you, kiddo?" Angie said, pulling Audrey into a tight hug. Her perfume was the same as it had been in 1951, and it always reminded Audrey of New York when she was a kid. Each one of Angie's opening nights, she, Peggy, and Jarvis would attend as her guests and bring her massive bouquets of flowers to celebrate her performance.

"I'm good," Audrey answered honestly. "I'm happy to see you. I've missed you so much."

"I'm surprised you have time to miss me with all the trouble you've been getting yourself into." Angie slung an arm around her shoulder and guided her inside, where Audrey was immediately met with the smell of food. God, she was starving. To prepare for the meal, she'd had a smaller breakfast, and now she was feeling the consequences. "I thought I told you not to do anything that I wouldn't do," Angie scolded.

"Have I?" Audrey asked.

Angie narrowed her eyes at Audrey, considering. Finally, her features softened. "Good girl," she said. "Now, come help me in the kitchen. I can't lift this turkey on my own."

Audrey did as she was told. From the living room, she could hear Steve and Peggy catching up, talking about Angie and New York and Broadway as Peggy captioned the photos hung on Angie's walls. As they chatted, Audrey tied an apron around her waist and got to work helping Angie with the food.

The house was blistering hot, especially for Audrey, whose temperature already tended to run high. Worse, Angie had her latticing a pie directly in front of one of the vents, which was blowing hot air into her face.

Audrey pushed her sleeves up just as Peggy hobbled into the kitchen on her cane. "Darling," her mother called. "Could you get me a glass of water? And one for your father? He says he doesn't want one, but I think that's the Brooklyn talking."

"Yeah, sure," Audrey answered. She rinsed her hands before digging around Angie's cabinets in search of water. When she handed the glasses to Peggy, her mother gave her a look of disgust.

"What is that?" she asked flatly, pointing to Audrey's tattoo.

Audrey realized then that she'd forgotten to mention it to Peggy. She had assumed it wouldn't matter, seeing as she was on her way to seventy and Peggy had always been progressive, but, judging by the expression on her mother's face, she'd been wrong. She set the glasses of water down on the counter and took a deep breath, ready to explain herself.

"Uh," Audrey said.

"Don't say 'uh'," Peggy tsked, and Audrey didn't blame her. It wasn't exactly her most eloquent argument. "It's improper. Now, why don't you explain to me what this is all about," she demanded, waving her hand in the general direction of Audrey's arm.

"I got it to cover up a scar," Audrey explained. "There was—there was a mission that went badly and—um—sorry—seeing it kept...reminding me. So I got a tattoo to cover it up."

Peggy pursed her lips. "A scar is a reminder that you have survived," she said. "It's a reminder that you are strong."

"I know," Audrey said, "but I—"

"You should take pride in your scars, darling. It means you've defeated something that was out to defeat you."

"I don't take very much pride in these, mum," Audrey said. She didn't want to talk about it anymore, so she went to pull her sleeve down, but Peggy caught her wrist. If she wanted to, Audrey could've pulled away—she was stronger than her mother—but she knew it would just make things worse, so she waited.

"When I was shot," Peggy started.

Audrey blew out a breath, exasperated. She knew this story, and she just wanted her mom to drop it before it became an entire conversation that made Thanksgiving weird for everybody.

"Oh, am I boring you? With stories of the time I almost died?"

"I know you got shot, mum, but it's not the same thing."

"Oh, please," Peggy huffed. "How is it not the same thing?"

Audrey gritted her teeth. Before she could think the better of it, she yanked on the neckline of her shirt, exposing the scar on her collarbone. DAGGER, in sharp, crooked letters, courtesy of Zechariah from the Red Room.

Peggy blanched.

"That's not all," Audrey said. If she had to make this point, she would make it to the fullest she could without stripping in Angie's kitchen. She released her neckline and went to lift the hem of her shirt, so her mother could see MIRACLE and ARCANE and 45 emblazoned across her skin. Peggy's hand shot out to the counter for extra support, and Audrey's brow furrowed.

Peggy wasn't squeamish. She told the story of how she'd been shot regularly and with a certain degree of delight. She'd seen the war and the death that followed, and then served for years as a spy. There was no way that scars alone were enough to make her dizzy—if they were on anyone else, Audrey would've expected her to remark on them with fascination.

So something else was making her mother go pale.

Audrey thought back to what the Madame had said. They wiped you, didn't they? She didn't want it to be true; she didn't want to find out now that Peggy had lied to her and her captors had told her the truth, but she couldn't shake the possibility.

Audrey took Peggy's hand and pulled her over to the mudroom, where she sat down on the bench in the entryway, beside a large pile of Angie's purses.

"I was held hostage," Audrey said. "By the Red Room. That mission in September almost killed me, mum." Peggy's brow furrowed. Audrey knew this look—it meant that her mother was thinking, but about what was anyone's guess. "They called me their project," she said after a moment with no reply. "They said they had me for a month when I was a kid."

"Darling, look—"

"These words were meant to activate me."

"Audrey—"

Audrey wasn't interested in hearing Peggy's explanation; she was mostly focused on the fact that her mother wasn't denying anything she was throwing at her. "You said they had me when I was a baby, for a few days. Not in the sixties for a month!"

"Do not take that tone with me." Peggy's voice was low and grave.

"You hid that from me. For almost fifty years, you kept that a secret from me." Audrey's voice shook from the anger, and she realized from the quiver of her lip that her entire body was trembling. "How could you? You're my mother. How could you do that to me?"

"What I did was for your own good."

"How was wiping a month of my memories supposed to be for my own good?" she shouted.

But Peggy didn't match her volume. "Audrey," her mom said quietly. She looked hesitant, which was about a million times worse than angry. When Peggy was angry, it was at a problem that could be solved. Right now, it was as though she was flinching against something she already knew. "When you came back, they managed to activate you and you...you hurt someone."

Whatever boiling rage Audrey had felt went cold almost immediately. "Hurt?" she asked, before the worse alternative came to mind. "Or killed?"

"Hurt," Peggy stated firmly. "You tried to strangle someone."

"Who?"

Her mom hesitated again. The silence lasted only a moment, but Audrey's mind was quick to run through every possibility she could come up with. the icy dread began to crawl down her shoulders and legs, like a bucket of water had been poured over her body.

"It was Howard," Peggy finally said, quiet. Audrey swallowed. "We—we had to stop you. We didn't know what they'd done to you, but you didn't come back the same. So we...we did a treatment with electroshock therapy. When you came back from it, you were fine. You were back to normal."

"So you just canceled out the kidnapping? And never thought to explain it to me?"

"Kidnapping?"

Both Peggy and Audrey's eyes flew over to the living room doorway, where Steve stood, his arms folded across his chest.

"Our daughter was kidnapped?" he asked. The polite tone he'd used with Angie was gone; now, he was giving orders.

Peggy took a deep breath. "When Audrey was young, she was kidnapped by a group of agents known as Black Widows."

"Like Natasha?" Steve asked, incredulous. He was looking to Audrey for answers this time and she nodded, numbly.

"Agent Romanoff's predecessors," Peggy explained. "They held her for a month."

Hearing it out loud was too much. Audrey jumped to fill the space after her mother's words, just so they wouldn't keep hanging in the air. "A month that I don't remember because mom brainwashed me as soon as I got back."

"You what?" Steve demanded.

"Do not start with me, Steven," Peggy snapped. "I was her mother, and I was the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Which one of those roles were you playing when you played mind games with our kid?"

"You were dead in the Arctic Ocean, at the time, so I'm not sure how much say you get in this all, but I was acting as both."

"Both?" Audrey asked.

"We had to protect you," Peggy said. "From being targeted again. But we also needed to protect other people."

"From me," Audrey finished.

Peggy winced, but answered nonetheless. "Yes."

Audrey wanted to vomit. She thought about her hands and how little she knew about the things that they'd done. Peggy and Steve were arguing now, loud and sharp. Neither one of them seemed willing to pull their punches, but Audrey drowned the sound out as her hands found the doorknob and she threw her body outside into the snowfall.

She sucked in a breath of the cold air. Audrey hadn't grabbed the keys, so she couldn't go for a drive, but it was probably for the best—she wouldn't place much trust in her ability to operate a vehicle in that moment. She looked down at her hands, which trembled from something much worse than the cold. In fact, her whole body was shaking as she stumbled down the front steps and collapsed on the snow-covered lawn.

This is a meltdown, she recalled Isabel telling her. A meltdown occurs when someone on the spectrum is overwhelmed by or unable to process what is happening to them. Audrey did not know how to process or understand what was happening to her. That Peggy had kept something from her for so long. That she'd tried to kill Howard on the Red Room's commands. That the Madame had been right, and the dreams had all been memories.

Which meant—well, a lot of things. First, the Soldier. He had been her friend. He had brought her a handful of daisies. The Madame took her underground and forced her to recite the activation words. When she misbehaved, they'd made her stand in front of the target and hold still while the other girls shot apples off the top of her head.

Audrey wanted to throw up, but there was nothing in her stomach. She grabbed a fistful of snow and held her breath to keep from crying as her parents' muffled shouting carried outside. Audrey didn't know how to process that either. She'd gotten into plenty of fights with Peggy, growing up, as did her siblings, but never Daniel. What your mom says, goes, Kiddo, he'd told her often growing up. I just do as Peggy says.

But Steve wasn't the type to roll over, he was the type to pick fights. Including this one, apparently.

Audrey felt horrible for Angie. They'd made it all of thirty minutes before the entire meal had fallen apart. She wished she'd just kept her sleeves down, or dropped it when Peggy was telling her she was wrong, or not gotten the tattoo at all.

Audrey traced hypotheticals back to their origins. She wished she hadn't joined S.H.I.E.L.D. She wished she hadn't inherited the Super-Soldier gene. She wished she hadn't fought in New York, because then she wouldn't have been so quick to jump into Europe to forget about it. Audrey wished a lot of things, but she kept opening her eyes to the same snowy landscape, the same cold biting into the backs of her knees, the same snow melting into mush in her hair. The same hands she didn't trust. The same mother she was wrong to believe.

She lay in the snow and tried to keep track of the time that passed but couldn't. Audrey felt it getting colder, and wondered what it had been like for Steve in the moments after the plane went down, when his body went into cryo. She wondered if it had hurt, or if it was like everyone had always told her about freezing to death—that it was just like falling asleep.

"Hey," a voice said. Audrey opened both of her eyes to find her father standing over her. "What are you doing?"

"How long do you think I'd have to lay here before I freeze like you did?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. But I don't think I wanna find out."

"You're gonna stop me?"

"Yeah, kid." He gave her a look like she was crazy. "I'm gonna stop you from freezing to death to make a point, even though the fact that you would do that is probably something you got from me."

"How?"

"How would I stop you? Probably just by...picking you up and bringing you inside?"

"No, I mean...how would I have gotten it from you?"

Steve sat down next to her in the snow. "Jeez, that's cold," he said, wincing and rubbing his hands together. "I'm not sure," he admitted. "It's probably equally likely that you got the stubbornness from your mother, now that I think about it."

Audrey snorted. "Yeah," she concurred.

"Look," Steve said. "It's easy to talk about what either of us would've done if we'd been in her place, but we both have the benefit of hindsight. Neither of us were there. Neither of us were dealing with what she dealt with."

Audrey knew he was right; Peggy wiping her memories had been the safest option for all parties involved, and it had been a way to stop her from causing more hurt than she already had. "I'm mostly upset that she didn't tell me."

He nodded. "I know." After a moment, he added, "You could've come talk to me."

Audrey knew that, too. But where was she supposed to begin? There was something deeply mortifying about admitting to the terrible things she may have done; she didn't want her father to think less of her for them. "I just. I feel like I'm bad," she admitted. "I keep having these dreams. They—they feel like memories, but they can't possibly be true. Except they are. I don't know what I've done. I don't know who I am."

"I do," he insisted. "Whatever you may or may not have done while brainwashed isn't you, Aud. You're just—you're the woman who helped save New York. You led that team that saved countless lives. You helped me when I woke up. Whoever that was, that did all those things—that wasn't you."

"It was my body."

"It wasn't you," Steve repeated firmly. "I might have only met you recently, but you're my daughter." Something about hearing him say it made Audrey want to cry. "I think I know you well enough to tell you that you're not a bad person."

Behind him, Audrey could see Peggy pull the front door open.

"Are you sure?" she asked Steve.

He put his arm around her and pulled her into a hug. "I am."

They were still for a moment, and Audrey did her best not to start sobbing. When Peggy interrupted, it was almost a relief. "Darling," her mother called from the porch. "Will you come talk to me?"

Audrey looked to Steve, who gave her a subtle nod. "Go for it," he mouthed.

She pushed herself up from the lawn, ignoring the way her jeans clung to her legs with cold water, and padded up the porch, trying to keep her steps even. Audrey stood in front of her mother, but couldn't bring herself to look Peggy in the eye.

"I'm sorry," Peggy said, placing a hand on Audrey's chin and pulling it up so that she was forced to focus on her. "I didn't think you would ever have to find out about what happened," she explained, "but I should have thought about what would happen if you did. I just—we didn't know if explaining it to you would have brought back the power of the words in terms of their effect on you, and we didn't know if that would endanger you in the future." She smoothed back Audrey's hair, pulling a dead leaf from the back of her head. "I was trying to look out for you."

Audrey nodded slowly, trying not to blink so the tears welling in her eyes wouldn't spill over. "Okay," she said, but her voice came out thick and syrupy. She couldn't hide from Peggy. She'd never been able to—her mother knew her too well.

"Oh, come here, my darling," Peggy said, squeezing her arms around Audrey and pulling her into a tight hug. "I'm just glad you're okay," she mumbled into her shoulder. Audrey couldn't help it—a sob hiccuped out of her throat and she sucked in a breath of cold winter air, crying into her mother's shoulder. Peggy was patient with her as she caught her breath, and when Audrey pulled away, she held her daughter's face in her hands.

"Let me get another look at it," Peggy said after a moment, gesturing to her arm. Audrey nodded, not speaking, and rolled up her sleeve. "It is quite beautiful," Peggy remarked. Then, she raised a scolding finger in Audrey's direction. "Just promise me you'll never get one of a boyfriend's name."

She sniffled. "Yeah, I can promise that."

Peggy pinched her cheek. Audrey rolled her eyes, but leaned into the gesture. "Good girl." She looked to Steve, who stood at the bottom of the steps. "Well then. Shall we eat? Food's getting cold."

"I'm starving," Steve replied. He turned to his daughter. "Aud?"

She nodded. "Yeah," she said, wiping her eyes with the edge of her sleeve and nodding vigorously. "Let's go inside."

A/N: thank you so much for reading! let me know what you thought about the family dynamics in this chapter—they're a challenge to write but i think this one turned out okay? we've got more steve and audrey coming next chapter + some general team stuff + more braudrey!

Chapter 14: Heart of Gold

Audrey found herself at Bruce's door at three in the morning, feeling shaken and guilty but knocking nonetheless. She would have gone to the labs, but Bruce had submitted his research, and she knew he wouldn't be there. He had no reason to be.

When the door swung open, Audrey flinched. "I'm sorry," she said.

"Don't be," Bruce answered, pulling the door open wider.