Point of View

by: Shadow Chaser

Part 2 – Forever in a Day

When Steve Rogers first visited an elderly Peggy Carter in the hospice she had been placed at, he did not understand what the nurses and caretakers were telling him. They said dementia, Alzheimer's, senility, occasional lucid periods followed by rapid degeneration of lucidity. They said that she was sprightly and active, but that her memory lapses were prone to making her lose some motor coordination and become extremely dizzy and dehydrated. She always had a cup of water nearby in case she coughed too much or became very dizzied. Her caretaker waited nearby during his first visit as he had visited Peggy. He had not really understood their concerns and worries until it had been several hours into his visit and Peggy looked like she was about to fall asleep in her chair when she coughed violently for a few seconds before looking back up at him and asked with all of the broken-hearted wonder if he really was alive.

Even then, Steve had been a bit confused and had replied that he was, that it was what they had spent the last few hours talking about – she had only responded with confusion etched across her beautiful lined features before starting to cry again – just like she had when she had first seen him hours before. The caretaker had intervened then and gently escorted him out before Peggy's condition worsened and left Steve by the front desk of the hospice, blinking in confusion, sadness, and feeling like an elephant had sat right on his heart and lungs, unwilling to let him breathe.

He had returned to his SHIELD issued apartment in D.C. – not the one at Dupont Circle – and had spent the night researching all of the words and phrases the nurses and caretakers had told him about earlier. There was no sleep that night as he looked up all of the articles he could find on the internet, rifling through speculation, alternative medicines, and getting to the heart of the matter, the stories told by others who had relatives in similar situations. The next day, after muddling through a re-training course to which he only half-heartedly paid attention to – and suspected the instructor knew where he had been last night considering the relative ease he had been taught that day – he asked for a meeting with Director Fury. Surprisingly, Fury had granted his request before he realized SHIELD knew where he was at all times and knew he had finally visited Peggy; because the first thing out of Fury's mouth was that with all of their advance technologies, they still could not find a way to reverse Peggy Carter's condition.

So he prepared himself as best as he could with each visit to Peggy's hospice. Most of the time, Peggy was still sharp as a tack and the same woman he remembered from back in the war. He found that he was able to talk to her about a few things, acclimating to the 21st Century, the changes in music, dancing, even about his work at SHIELD after he had officially accepted an honorable discharge from the United States Armed Forces to join SHIELD as an independent contractor. He told Peggy about retaining his rank and pension, about his teams, about STRIKE Delta, generally everything up until SHIELD fall with HYDRA's reveal.

It had been roughly six months since the implosion of SHIELD, two and half months since he had brought Bucky home and Steve had avoided talking to Peggy about anything related to those subjects. He mostly just talked about taking a break from SHIELD's work to travel the world – and find Bucky and the sheer destruction he left behind as clues – along with the latest in the Avengers Initiative. Even with her frail health, he could see that Peggy could tell he was hiding something, but she was too polite to ask and for that, he had been extremely grateful. She had always offered her advice in her lucid moments before occasionally reverting back to when she had first seen him in over seventy years. Those were the moments that Steve fought back tears, fought back the pain of something crushing his heart and lungs until he could not breathe, to help Peggy through until that moment was gone or she had fallen asleep.

He never allowed himself to think about the lost moments, the 'what ifs' of a potential life with Peggy, having long agreed with her that she had lived a fulfilling life while he had just started his post-war. But they both knew that each sought a semblance of comfort with his visits, long denied to them by the ravages of time. But the dark moments were few and far in between, Steve enjoying the conversations, learning about the years that he only had history books now to read. Sometimes, when Peggy had a few good days, Steve would bring up bits and pieces of history he had read about that day and she would provide her own perspective on what had happened in the general sense; relaying a story about her days in SHIELD or even her home life with her children and husband.

Today was the tail end of one of those days, Steve having asked her about the start of the NASA Program and science related aspects that still puzzled him. She had told a few things about the early days of SHIELD in relation to NASA before she had asked what day it was and he had thought she had a relapse before she asked again. He told her it was September 17th, 2014 and she had only smiled mysteriously before patting his hand. She had then said that it was a day that she would remember and it had scared him for a second that she had planned to die after he left, but she only said that the memories were not as sharp, but she knew that today was an important day. She had also said a phrase that he had no idea what it meant, entro-something cas-something failure. He had wondered if she was experiencing a major relapse, but she had left it at that and told him to go home, that she expected to see him in a day or two to talk about his day after he left.

Steve, in all of his visits to see Peggy, had never heard her speak like that and had stared at her for a long moment before she gently ordered him to get another blanket and to go home. She mumbled something about a doddering old woman being fine for a few days as he got her the blanket and watch her fall asleep. He stayed with her for a few minutes after that, just staring at her, tracing her lined face, remembering the soft upturn curves of her lips, still seeing it to this very day before he left quietly, telling her nurse that she had acted a little weirdly that morning. Her nurse had replied that she had been unusually giddy about this particular day, but would watch her closely to make sure she did not exert herself or have a bad relapse. He had thanked her and left.

The trip back to New York City was almost uneventful and as Steve rode the elevator up from the garage - having successfully avoided most of the paparazzi and tourists who constantly congregated at the foot of Avengers Tower – he shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather bomber jacket. It had been a gift of sorts from one of the brass when he had visited Walter Reed a couple of months before the Chitauri invaded. It had happened during the time when the military was trying to decide whether he should continue serving or be discharged from service. His joining of SHIELD as a private military contractor eventually had the military honorably discharge him with full pension and benefits accrued in the seventy or so years he had been missing in action.

"Sir..." JARVIS sounded hesitant and Steve glanced up at the elevator's ceiling. He knew that JARVIS's cameras were probably in the corners, but he could not help his habit at trying to address the advance artificial intelligence system that Stark had installed into the tower and his suits. It had taken him a few weeks to get used to the fact that JARVIS was literally everywhere and subsequently cameras and newfangled sensors of sorts – which still confused him since he didn't quite get what they were - were also everywhere.

"What is it JARVIS?" he asked, but a small niggle of worry pooled in him. The A.I. was almost unflappably calm, even when Stark was up to his usual antics. JARVIS had also been extremely helpful in providing supplementary information, especially when he had followed Bucky's bloody trail of revenge and brought him back to the tower.

The lack of a response from the A.I. as he arrived on the main floor of the penthouse puzzled Steve. But he did not get to think much of it when the sound of several feet echoed from the nearby stairwell as he stepped off of the elevator and looked towards it in time to see the door burst open-

And Steve received the shock of his life, his super-soldiered heart skipping a beat at the sight of a very much alive, very young Howard Stark and his ever faithful butler Edwin Jarvis. But what really rooted him to the spot was the beautiful, proud, utterly youthful face of Peggy Carter.

"Oh my stars..." Jarvis whispered, but he only had eyes for Peggy.

"S-Steve?" she looked white as a sheet and Steve could not help but stare.

It was as if his brain had short-circuited, his mind trying to comprehend the fact that he had just come from seeing Peggy at the hospice, still beautiful in her own way, but with wrinkles and a vitality that was waning. This...woman in front of him...she was... Steve blinked as if he could suddenly not see Peggy in all of her youth, his mouth unconscious opening and working around to try to say something, but nothing would come out. A small sound echoed in wake of the silence, before he realized that it had come from Peggy, halfway between a choked cry and something he could not identify.

"P-Peggy?" he whispered, suddenly wanting to do nothing more than reach out to her, but she started to shake her head.

"No, no...it can't be...you can't..." it was only then that he realized that she was pointing a gun straight at him, her usually steady arm shaking like a leaf. He took a small cautious step back, keeping his hands loose by his side to show that he was not going to do anything. He wanted to rush to her side and scoop her up into his arms, but another part of him wanted to placing a call to the hospice to see if the elderly Peggy Carter he had just visited was still there – because there was no way that the ones he had called friends, Jarvis included for the rare times he had interacted with the man, was standing in front of him. No possible way.

He instead found himself rooted to the spot, his mind running in circles as to how something like this could happen. How could Peggy, who looked just as he remembered the day before they had assaulted the Red Skull's base of operations, be here and when he had just seen her aged self at the hospice? How could Howard of all people, be here – though truth be told, he looked a little more worn than Steve remembered; heck even Jarvis. He opened his mouth again, not knowing what he was going to say, but wanting to say something. However, before he could utter a single sound Peggy tightened her grip on her pistol.

"No," she said, her voice hard, her expression furiously hurt, "no, you can't. You can't be him. You-" Her nostrils flared as she blew out a forceful breath, "Who are you?! Who?!"

Steve was reminded in a not-so-good way of the time he had gotten caught by Peggy kissing Private Lorraine. This time, though, he had a feeling it would not end so well if she emptied her gun at him. For one thing, his shield was sitting in his suite a few floors above the main penthouse area.

"Miss Carter-"

"Shut up Jarvis," she said without looking back at Howard's butler who took a step towards her, but stopped at her words. She continued to glare at Steve. "Is this another sick joke by Leviathan? Because he, she, they, know that we worked with-" her expression crumpled as she bit her lip and shook her head again, "you can't be..."

Steve felt his breath hitch again at the naked agony in her expression, the pain of loss that he had never realized how much she had mourned. It tugged painfully at his heart, to see the shadows of such loss on Peggy's elderly face whenever she had one of her relapses. He had seen some of the pain during those times, had answered as best as he could to try to comfort him, but he had not know how much Peggy mourned until now. It was as if the same shadow of pain was now magnified tenfold on Peggy's youthful face. He grimaced, wanting to do nothing more than to make it disappear, to tell her that he was there-

But it was Howard who stepped forward, gently placing an arm on Peggy's outstretched one, his other one closing around the barrel of the pistol and lowering it. "Peg, it's okay...it's okay. Look, he's not doing anything...he's not going to hurt us-"

Steve inwardly reeled, feeling like someone had suddenly stabbed him in the gut and ripped the serrated blade up through his sternum. What had happened to make Howard of all people say something like that, especially about him? "I would never hurt-" he started, but did not get to finish as the other elevator swished open and Tony practically ran out of it, wincing a little as he gingerly touched the side of his head, but straightened at the sight of them.

"Oh thank God, no one's been shot yet," Tony huffed out in relief and Steve stared at him for a second before he realized that Tony knew about this, about the three in front of him.

"What's-"

"Coulson's little 0-8-4 present from last week, kind of is maybe, I dunno, a time travel machine?" Stark cut him off before gesturing to the others, "okay, guys, this is really Steve Rogers. Please, please, please, for the love of all that's holy, don't shoot him because you'll really regret it."

Steve opened his mouth to ask what he was going on about before Tony gave him a look.

"Thing Two's kind of somewhere here. I don't know where, but J's saying that he's somewhere here. He's been actively avoiding the sensors and stuff, staying to the shadows again, but J's seen his shadow somewhere in the building."

That got Steve's attention. Bucky.

Bucky was more than likely watching this whole thing from somewhere in the air ducts or shadows where Jarvis' sensors and cameras could not pick him up. Steve had almost forgotten about Bucky in the mere minutes he had literally ran into Howard, Jarvis, and Peggy. Stark's unspoken warning about Bucky's precarious mental state was not lost on Steve. When he had brought him in from the cold two and half months ago, it had been in the middle of Bucky's rampage against what remained of HYDRA – or at least what Bucky remembered through bits and pieces of shredded memories. He and Sam Wilson had found him outside a seemingly innocuous, though imploded, building on the outskirts of Odessa, kneeling in the withered ground. The charred remains of the building burned nearby, Bucky apparently having exploded it minutes before. It had been on a tip that Steve was pretty sure was Natasha tailing Bucky. His friend had not resisted as he and Sam had brought him back to the Tower.

What happened after that was a weird combination of him giving Bucky as much space as possible and sometimes avoiding him to prevent him from triggering any unexpected attacks on himself, to sometimes sitting in the same room as him in relative peaceful silence. Those times, he could feel Bucky's laser-like stare on him as he absently sketched random artwork or read over reports from Maria Hill; as if he was trying to remember something. Sometimes it ended with Bucky leaving the room without incident, sometimes it ended with Steve pinned to the wall, ground, or broken furniture with a knife to his throat. Those times he did not even put up any resistance, showing Bucky that he meant what he said on the Insight Helicarrier – that he would not fight him anymore, because he was his friend. Those times, it had taken either Bucky a few seconds to release him, or just minutes of him working internally through the memories that must have been so jumbled or erased from his head.

It was those times that Steve wanted to show Bucky he was there to support him, but Sam had said that with just his presence there, he was helping Bucky. The veteran councilor had also speculated that any sign of physical contact with Bucky, be it a pat on the back or hand to shoulder to show his support might be taken as the wrong way – his instincts as an assassin and the Winter Soldier overriding whatever familial or friendly interpretation it might have been taken before he had been wiped again and again. Sam had only told him to give Bucky time, that right now, his presence was what was keeping Bucky grounded since he had been brought in from the cold.

The fact that Tony was now cautioning that Bucky was somewhere, more than likely watching this whole thing from the shadows, was not lost on Steve. He honestly had no idea how Bucky would react if weapons were fired or if he himself was caught in a situation where he was liable to be injured or exposed to incoming fire. There had only been one mission he had gone out as Captain America since bringing Bucky in, but it had been overseas and had been a request from Natasha – so it had been mostly cloak and dagger without any media cameras around. Otherwise, his days at the tower had been filled with reading reports and helping Maria with intel to either bring in displaced SHIELD agents – after a very thorough background check – or to send them Coulson's way at his secret bunker. Even then, Maria had been occupied by a lot of Stark Industries' needs and also by numerous almost never-ending Congressional hearings. It seemed that Pepper did need an assistant and head of security for the New York branch, S.I.'s contracts doubling since the bankruptcy and absorbtion of AIM, fall of SHIELD, and Hammer Industries shutting down in the past four years.

Steve suspected that with SHIELD's files released to the public, everyone realized how much Stark Tech had been used in SHIELD itself and also that S.I. was the only one who had relative access to such technologies without startups building from ground up. It also did not help that between Maria and Pepper, the two had ruthlessly gone after what they perceived as copyright infringements after SHIELD files were released, protecting Stark Industries itself. Tony had a hand in it too, increasing a public relations campaign that distanced S.I. from the SHIELD-HYDRA connection. Steve had been fascinated by the manipulation of public perception. In an unusual sense, he recognized some of the stuff he used to do as a USO performer, but he had mostly been concentrated on finding Bucky, and now, trying to help his friend.

"How do we know you're lying about Captain Rogers-" Jarvis started, his eyes darting from Howard to Peggy and back. He looked nervous and just as Steve remembered, trying to somehow protect Howard – but it seemed now also trying to protect Peggy.

"You don't," Tony took a step forward, hands held out as if he could ward away Peggy's gun which Howard was still holding down, "just, take my word for it-"

"Captain Rogers died in 1945, what's to say that the government didn't use his blood and create a clone of sorts-" Howard still stood in front of Peggy, but was giving the two of them an icy look – daring them to continue lying and Steve realized that this was going to go nowhere. Even though he didn't really quite believe what Stark had said about the 0-8-4 Coulson had left with them, he had seen a lot of unusual things since he had been woken up from the ice. It was starting to get to the point where his and Bucky's pulp science fiction novels were getting to be a little more science fact than science fiction. No matter what Tony said or what Howard or the others countered with, there was only one person Steve realized he needed to convince to end this standoff of sorts.

"I, um, still don't know how to dance, but it's about sixty-nine years, seven months, and probably a couple of weeks too late...that rain check on that dance still good?" he focused on Peggy who started slightly and stared at him, her expression sliding from furious hurt to a mournfully torn one. He bit the inside of his cheek to calm his own nerves down, hoping that she believed that it was really him, that he was who he claimed to be.

"8pm," she whispered and he gave her a hesitant smile.

"The Stork Club doesn't really exist anymore, but I'm still willing to learn," he said, feeling a little sheepish. He honestly had no idea if anyone else had been listening in to his final conversation with Peggy before he had crashed, but judging by the slightly baffled looks Howard, Tony, and Jarvis were wearing, none of them knew about this.

He had his answer a few seconds later as she sniffled loudly, a watery smile on her face as she shook her hand out of Howard's. Rubbing the corner of one of her eyes, she finally lowered her gun. Steve breathed a quiet, unseen sigh of relief, as she shook her head, Howard stepping back to allow her a somewhat private moment while Tony looked visibly relieved and scratched the back of his head before his face scrunched up in a wince.

"Ow, I need an ice pack," he said and Steve could not help the relieved grin that spread across his face. At least the standoff was over, hopefully he would be able to get answers next.

Peggy and Jarvis were still wary and uneasy as they entered the common area of the penthouse. But if Howard felt the same, he did not show it as the first thing he did was to run straight up to the glass panes and press his face against it. The common area had been designed with a huge mezzanine in mind, almost two floors of open-air with glass windows that showed a spectacular view of New York itself. Tony watched with a slight air of amusement at the sight of him looking as giddy as a kid in a candy store as he took in the view. He poured himself several fingers worth of scotch as his other hand held the ice pack to the side of his head, already feeling the bump rise from where Jarvis had whacked him with the wrench in one of his other toolboxes.

He gulped down a mouthful of scotch, letting the alcohol burn all the way down and warm him while giving him a mild buzz as he saw Howard turn from the view to look around at the penthouse area.

"Certainly looks futuristic, Peg," though Tony told them that he was Howard's son, he still could not quite believe that this was his father. There was a youthful vitality that Tony had never seen before, an eagerness and almost child-like wonderment that really clashed with his memories of his father. Somehow, he could not fathom calling this man who was staring with wide-eyed wonderment at everything, his father in his head. At least...maybe not yet. It was still so mind-boggling.

"Excuse me, sir," Tony nearly jumped out of his skin as Jarvis spoke up next to him and laughed weakly.

"I forgot how sneaky you are, Jarvis," he moved to the side as the butler indicated that he wanted at the drinks, "help yourself."

"Thank you," Howard's butler immediately took out three glasses before he looked up, "Captain Rogers? What would you have?"

"Huh-what?" Steve seemingly started from where he had sat down in the common area, seemingly still in a daze of sorts. Tony frowned a little as he noticed Peggy sitting in the opposite seat, clear across the coffee table, also jumping a bit. They had not been quite staring at each other, but he suspected it probably wasn't the whole lovey-dovey stare that he was frankly expecting. He suppose that the two were still coming to terms that, yes, it was Steve Rogers, and yes, he was still alive.

"What would you like me to prepare for you?" Jarvis instead sounded completely nonchalant, as if he had not come through some kind of time machine and ended up in the future. That was what he remembered about Jarvis the best when he had been alive; his unflappable demeanor and cool calm in the face of everything out of this world or child's temper tantrum related.

"Uh...I, uh, don't get drunk-"

"Humor him, Cap," Tony interjected, bringing Steve's head around to look at him for a second before shrugging. He rolled his eyes and gestured with his chin to what Jarvis had prepared for Howard and was mixing up a vodka martini for Peggy. He supposed that finding out one had just arrived in the future was probably calling for very strong stiff drinks. An idea occurred to him and he ducked down for a moment to rummage in his cabinets. He came out with a rather aged whiskey bottle before opening it and poured Steve a generous amount. "Probably not going to get him sloshed, but hey, it's old, it's been sitting there, and it should have some liver-killing properties."

Jarvis frowned at him as he reached over and picked up the bottle, giving it a delicate sniff before looking at his own cup and downing the alcohol in it and pouring himself two fingers of the whiskey. Tony gave him a rueful smile as he picked up his and Steve's drinks with a practiced hand and rounded the bar, dropping the drink off on the coffee table before he took the empty chair near Steve, but diagonally from where Howard had ambled towards and was sitting, staring at the gigantic plasma TV in the far corner. Jarvis came by and gave Howard his drink as well as Peggy's before also sitting down.

"Is that..."

"TV," Tony resisted the urge to turn it on, even though he suddenly wanted to show Howard all of the newfangled technological wonders of the 21st Century. Though he was sort of certain it was a stable time loop, he still could not figure out what made it a stable time loop. Was it the lack of information, or the saturation of information? "It's got proprietary Stark Tech stuff on it that I've been tinkering with-"

"Stark Tech?" Howard turned to look at him and Tony winced a little.

"Yeah...um, Stark Industries is still running in this day and age..." he shrugged, "I, uh, don't run the company, Pepper, er, Pepper Potts is the CEO-"

"What-"

"Long story," Tony shook his head, "but she's definitely keeping the company afloat and in the right direction. I just, kind of spend my time...tinkering..." He suddenly felt a little shy about telling his father about his activities as Iron Man. Would Howard approve, disapprove, say that he was crazy for putting himself in harm's way. A million other questions flitted across his mind before he gave him a wan smile and took a sip of his drink, "Anyways, would tell you more except I still want to be sure that this is a stable time loop-"

"A what?" Steve still looked a bit punch drunk and dazed, fiddling with his glass of whiskey. He looked like he wanted to drink it, but was hesitating for some odd reason. Opposite of him, Peggy was gingerly sipping her vodka martini, but rubbed a small circle around her temples, seemingly finding his explanation a bit annoying.

"Stable time loop. Right now, I'm pretty sure that in my memories my Dad, er, uh, Howard here, didn't tell me anything about encountering my future self at this very moment while I was growing up," Tony said and to his pleasant surprise saw Steve nod, understanding what he was saying. Which was good, because he really did not want to get into the past-present-future here, now, soon, deal which he supposed was verily like watching that scene from Spaceballs. Though he supposed that probably making Steve watch that scene if he was confused would provide some insight, but it seemed like the star-spangled man was following his words.

"That would imply either I forgot or I've never returned to the past-"

"But then how would you have had me if you've never returned to the past?" Tony asked and Howard frowned thoughtfully.

"Good point, so then going on your theory of a stable time loop, that machine that brought us here could theoretically send us back, right?"

"Probably," Tony agreed, "it was emitting tachyon field particles and some things that I've read in the Selvig papers about quantum tunneling effects and the Einstein-Rosen Bridge theory."

"Einstein-Rosen...I'm vaguely familiar with that theory, it was published just a few years before I was born."

"1916, yeah, after Schwarzschild published his findings about wormholes and the like, speculating on black holes and white holes," Tony said, "there's been a few advances in that theory since then. But generally with the theory of relativity-"

"-You can't travel back in time through a wormhole when it was first converted into a time machine by accelerating one of its mouths."

"...Mouths?" Tony heard Steve whisper, now looking utterly lost as did Jarvis and Peggy, but he ignored them.

"Like I said, tachyon field particles, which could indicate that it may not be a wormhole that brought you here, but maybe a rip or aberration in the fabric of space-time-"

"But that would indicate that there is a wormhole of sorts that may not be visible in our spectrum of light, Tony," Howard shook his head, "those papers did say that while a black hole does emit light of a sort, it completely missing to the naked eye because of the event horizon. Supposedly we can't even see the so-called white holes, so what's to say that we didn't go through a white hole of sorts? I mean, all I did was just kind of touch it and it glowed blue-"

"Blue?" Tony interrupted again, "Like what kind of blue?"

"Uh-"

"J, bring up the files we have on the Tesseract technology," he said and saw the hard-light holographic projection appear in front of him with the necessary files related to the Tesseract and its wormhole opening capabilities. At the same time he saw Howard look astonished at what had appeared, in his mind, out of thin air, while both Jarvis and Peggy frowned. Steve was nodding slowly, having worked through what he said and Tony had to admit that the fearless Captain was a very quick learner. He supposed the serum might have helped a little, but judging by what his father had said while he was a child, Steve was always a quick learner even before the serum.

"How do you have Schmidt's Tesseract here?" Peggy interrupted, leaning forward to stare at the projections and Tony opened his mouth to say that his father found it and gave it to SHIELD before he paused for a second.

"Uh...it was found, um, years ago," he stuttered a little bit and saw everyone look at him before he shook his head at Steve's confused expression.

"What aren't you telling us?"

"I, uh...I can't," he quickly realized that if he said that it had been found by Howard back in the 1960s in a certain, then Peggy or even Howard would put it together that it would be found very near Steve's body. He also realized that if he told them that, then the Tesseract might be found earlier which could conceivably change the space-time continuum and possibly rupture whatever stable time loop he had. He quickly searched his memories and thought that nothing had changed... It seemed Steve got his unspoken answer as he pinched his lips, his expression torn between wanting to say where the cube was – and probably also be rescued much earlier than when he was fished out of the ice in late 2011 – to not saying anything because of his unspoken warning.

"I believe you have not become your own grandfather, sir," JARVIS interjected dryly, making the three time travelers jump in their chairs.

"It is definitely not human," Howard whispered, staring up at the cathedral-like ceiling.

"I can't tell you because I don't know if I'm going to screw up the stable time loop-"

"But you said we either returned to our time or forgot-"

"Yeah, only speculated," Tony shook his head at the human Jarvis' question, "it's not an exact science. Even here in the future we haven't been able to figure out how to time travel. If we did, and just telling you, I definitely would be able to figure it out first, I'd go back and change several things." He waved his fingers through several pages of notes on the Tesseract and brought up a scan of the 0-8-4 he had made just after one of Coulson's little minions had dropped it off with him. "Exploded view, J," he commanded and the 0-8-4 broke into pieces, at least pieces he supposed were not completely fused together. It was hard, because the 0-8-4 was completely smooth and had no signs of being welded or bolted together, no moving parts.

"That...wow..." he glanced beyond the holographic projection to see Howard staring at it with wide eyes. Even Peggy was gingerly touching one of the corner pieces as if it was actually alive. She rubbed her head again, seemingly warding off a headache of sorts.

"Is that-"

"-the 0-8-4 on your end? Probably," Tony answered Jarvis' unspoken question, "looked like this?"

"Yeah," it looked like Howard was forcing himself to focus on the projection of the 0-8-4 instead of everything else, "is that what it looks like on the inside?"

"Dunno," Tony shrugged, "I only got to scanning it a few days ago, haven't really been tinkering much with it. Coulson, er, the guy that dropped it off with us said that they found it in one of HYDRA's-uh, shit-"

"HYDRA is still alive and well in this day and age?" Peggy immediately jumped in and Tony winced, shooting a look at Steve who stared at him in alarm.

"Uh..." he hesitated before taking the plunge and closed his eyes briefly, "yes?" He ran through his memories once more, but it seemed like nothing had changed – or if it did, he did not realize it. After a few seconds of silence, he opened his eyes again to see four pairs of eyes staring at him and breathed out a quick sigh of relief. "Huh...stable time loop."

"It would seem so sir," JARVIS agreed, "I would suggest caution when speaking further on this subject."

Tony glared at nothing in particular, "Thanks J. Really helpful." He turned his aggravated look to Howard who was trying hard to hide a smile and light chuckle behind his glass and felt something squirm inside of him – as if the remnant remains of a young Tony Stark begging for his father's approval. He barely remembered his father laughing much less at a joke he might have made when he was younger.

"I thought HYDRA fell when, uh, you," Howard gestured to Steve, "killed him?"

Tony glanced over to Steve who wore a slight frown on his face as he put his still-full drink on the coffee table and hunched forward. He seemed to be warring with something in him, "Schmidt...didn't exactly die."

"What?" the three time travelers all looked at Steve in shock, Peggy rubbing a circle around her temples again, and even Tony was surprised. He had thought that Schmidt had died that day. Everyone did.

"He and I fought, he touched the Tesseract and was seemingly sucked into...a wormhole," Steve flicked a look at them before gesturing with his head towards the projections, "it was like when the Chitauri came through, that kind of wormhole." He looked up and across the table at Peggy, "Destroyed a lot of the stabilizing equipment, navigation, stabilizing controls...had to put the plane down when I could, Peggy...Peggy?"

Tony looked up in time to see Peggy as white as a sheet, the vodka martini she had in her hand falling to the ground. She was gripping the edges of her couch, her mouth open, eyes wide with fear. Her expression was a mask of unseen horror before Tony's eyes widened as he saw her suddenly blur like she was moving fast but staying in the same place. A sudden high-pitched screaming whine filled the air around Peggy, her blurring form abruptly coalescing into the ghostly after image of several faces that projected out from her own. Some had blonde hair, others short bobs, older ones, but all of them had open mouths, silently screaming.

"Peggy?!" Steve was already half-way across to the other side of the table, arm outstretched as if he could reach her, before Tony realized it would be bad for him to do so-

"No, Steve don't!"

-But it was too late as Steve touched her and went flying back, smashing through the coffee table in a shower of glass and splinters before slamming into the couch, breaking it as he slid across the ground. Tony looked back in time to see the blurriness that had engulfed Peggy suddenly disappear and a split second later, the woman collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

Author's Notes:

Time travel concepts provided generously by some research on Einstein's theory of relativity, Stargate SG-1 episodes of Sam Carter being an awesome astrophysicist, and the Babylon 5 time travel episodes.