So, let's move on! :D I hope you enjoy this story!
The set place was a parking lot with a small building in the middle. It seemed like the house of the parking attendant. The village was empty for decades from what they could see.
They waited for Tony. He was late. They started to be nervous about his delay. Natasha thought that it would be for the best to leave this place and try to forget about it all, but seeing Steve, she was sure that he would not be able to let it go.
Tony arrived half an hour later. He got out of his car and looked at them. They nodded to each other, not knowing what to say. Tony jerked his head towards the entrance of the small building.
"Shall we?" Steve and Natasha followed him.
When they entered the door, which proved itself to be bulletproof and needed Tony's fingerprints, they found themselves in the middle of a hall which led to the doors of a lift. Tony summoned the lift and together they entered it. There was only one button with an arrow down. Tony pushed it and they started to descend.
"How did you learn about this place?" Natasha asked Tony. A weird first sentence after so many months, but they did not meet as friends, and she was curious.
"As I told Captain, I let Jarvis scan my dad's diaries. And there it was."
"Did you read them all? Or was it only… a coincidence?"
"My dad wrote there so many exclamation marks, that it dragged Jarvis's attention. Furthermore, I looked at his diary from the last week of… from his last week. And I found out, that he had plans for the next day… if he had not been … you know…" It was obvious that he did not want to start this topic now. "… then he wanted to visit this place. I found out that this was his idea of a super-secret lab. He decided to bury all the evidence because he started being slightly paranoid. So, he, my mother, Jarvis – the original, I mean, and Colonel Chester Phillips, who I only heard about, were the only ones who heard about this place. The problem is that My dad, mum, Jarvis and Phillips are not alive. And with them died this secret."
"What do you think you will find here?"
"Aren't we descending for too long?" Steve interrupted them.
"Nah, when my father wanted to bury something, he dug deeply." Tony shook his head. It seemed, however, that Tony did not talk only about the lift. "Anyway, according to the diary, my dad hid the frozen body of Margaret Carter in here."
The frozen body. Not Peggy, not some super-powerful equipment that saved her and preserved her until she is thawed… the frozen body.
Steve felt cold chills running down his spine and felt nauseous at once. And when he thought that maybe he will definitely collapse, the doors of the lift opened.
"Let's suppose that the machine my father created is still working, shall we? So, now, we are looking for anything that seems to be still working. "They started their search.
"What did actually happen to her?" Natasha asked.
"She was in a car crash," Steve answered.
"It wasn't just any crash," said Tony. "I read everything about it. She was following a guy that had some important intelligence. He managed to escape from his prison. He stopped the taxi, dragged the taxi driver out of the car and got in. Then he wanted to escape, but Carter was standing there, in the middle of the road, aiming her gun at the man. He most probably thought that she was unable to shoot him, but he considered her only a woman, so he drove towards her, thinking she would move away."
"I thought," Natasha interrupted him, "that she was a codebreaker."
"And sharpshooter." Added Steve.
"She knew what specialization to choose. Those two are the craziest ones."
"Yeah, Yeah, she was great." Said Tony impatiently. "Anyway, she managed to shoot him. One bullet straight in between his eyes. Nobody knew whether she thought that he would jerk the car to the side, but when she shot him, she did not have any time left to jump aside."
Steve had to stop since he was shocked after hearing that. He could have seen her. He had seen her. The day of the Project Rebirth. But then, he was there to drag her aside, to save her. Even then she was angry with him. He could hear her scream "I had him!" even now, after so many years. She was upset with him even afterwards. She did not forgive him for not letting her finish her job for months.
He was angry with her too then. Did not she realize that she could have died there if not for him? It took them weeks of working together to learn about each other enough to understand. To understand, that Steve would do anything to protect anyone he could. And, that Peggy would finish anything, she was supposed to do even if she should lay down her life.
Together, they were a perfect team. Among other tasks, Peggy's main task on all missions was to protect Steve at any cost. And because was there to protect her, the safest thing for Phillips was to send them to the missions together.
Alone, however, they might have seemed to be almost suicidal. Peggy jumping in front of every car (as Steve was saying, even though the car was actually just the one, until now), Steve in front of every tank (Peggy was returning back the car by thack, even though, also, the tank was actually only one), and both ready to jump on a grenade (Phillips was saying it often. He could have seen Peggy's attempt to jump on the grenade as well as Rogers'. He was sure that if she was closer, she would have ended up under Steve with a few broken ribs).
"There it is!" Steve's stream of ideas was interrupted by Tony's exclamation.
They all gathered around something that looked like an iron coffin.
Sooo, what do you think about it? :) Do not hesitate to let me know :)