Chapter Two

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Bruce didn't know what to do.

"This is the strangest thing I've ever heard of," he muttered, shoving his glasses back up his nose and rummaging through the snowdrift of paperwork on the floor, trying to find the next page. Among the legal papers were digital scans of the inside of the probe, which was most certainly not a probe, and he was finding them very interesting.

"Stranger than turning green when you're angry? 'Cause I know somebody who does that, and some people might think it's pretty weird," Tony quipped, scrolling through the SHIELD files on his screen. Natasha had leaked them online a few months ago at the height of the SHIELD vs. Hydra fiasco. As soon as they'd been able to get their proverbial feet under them, SHIELD had put specialists on the job of hunting down their spilled files and deleting them.

Fortunately for them, they'd been mostly successful.

Unfortunately for them, Tony had a private server equipped with his own formidable anti-spyware, and he had copied the entire file dump onto it within seconds of it hitting the internet. Those files had come in handy a few times already, so he was hoping they might have information on this new situation.

Bruce shook his head and ignored Tony completely, carefully pulling page 692 out of the pile.

"Aha, here we are," sang Tony, spinning around on his chair and blowing the file up big enough for Bruce to see from where he sat. "15 August, 1947: Aircraft went missing in the Arctic, manned by her and Corporal Timothy Dugan, yadda yadda yadda - yeah. Looks like we found it."

"Found what?"

Tony jumped perhaps six inches and spun his chair to scowl at the newcomer. "Watch it, Cap - one of these days you'll sneak up on me and I'll nail you with a repulsor."

Steve Rogers grinned and leaned against the doorframe, unlacing his boxing gloves. He'd been down in the gym again. "That'll be the day. You need help with those papers?"

Tony wasn't listening; he'd gone back to the file on the screen - the one, Bruce realized with a sinking heart, that was big enough for him to read from his place on the floor, let alone the super soldier in the doorway. Suddenly he didn't want Steve to step any further into the room.

"No thanks, I've got them," Bruce started piling the rest of the papers up haphazardly. "Hey, Tony, weren't we going to work on that project of yours?"

"Yeah, yeah," Tony waved a hand dismissively. "Say, Cap, this is right up your alley - you ever heard of an Agent Margaret Carter? Her body just turned up at the North Pole in a Stark Tech capsule from the 1940's."

Bruce's heart sank.

The sparkle died in Steve's eyes, but he kept his voice light. "Not funny, Stark - I'm not so old I don't know about April Fools day. Clint and I already had to turn the refrigerator right-side up."

Tony stared for a moment and then started sputtering with indignation. Bruce cut in before he could make things worse. "Steve, we've been looking through the SHIELD record dump, and I've seen the scans of the capsule. Corporal Dugan and Agent Carter were lost in the Arctic in 1947. The wreckage was only recently recovered."

Steve's face didn't move a muscle, but he reached for the doorframe as if the floor had suddenly gone soft around his feet. "You're saying," he cleared his throat, "you're saying Peggy came after me?"

"It looks that way. Steve, I'm so sorry..." Bruce gestured helplessly, uncertain what to say and hating the feeling.

"Do - do we know how - was it - "

Bruce stepped closer to his friend, trying to figure out how to comfort him. "It would've been quick. They had a cryo tube with them - they were probably trying to recover your body. We don't know why, but she was found inside the tube, probably in an attempt for protection from the crash. It shielded her well - the scans show no massive trauma - but she probably froze to death before regaining consciousness. It's doubtful she felt anything, Steve."

Steve nodded, trying to be polite even now. "Ah, thank you for telling me. I..." His voice broke and he turned to go.

Tony, who was in the dark and unhappy about it, broke in. "Um - wow, you were close, right? I'm thinking you must've been close. Bruce? Stop kicking me! Bruce!"

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Hours later, Pepper came out to the balcony with a file. Steve, sitting near the railing, stood to greet her. She saw him snap something small and metallic shut and slide it into his pocket, but didn't comment. Instead, she sat on the lounge chair beside his, and propped the file on her knees.

"Steve, do you have a minute?"

"Yes, ma'am," he resumed his seat, not quite meeting her eyes. She noted the grazed, still healing knuckles and his wet hair - he'd probably just come back from beating up punching bags in the gym, without boxing gloves if his knuckles were anything to go by.

"I know it's hard," she began gently as she flipped open her file, "but we have some logistics to go over."

He ducked his head, swiping his hair back. "I know. I've been trying to think, but I'm not sure who her next of kin would be. She had one brother serving on the front lines, but he was killed before I ever even made it over there."

That, Pepper knew. "Actually, the records are a little messy, but we think he wound up as a prisoner of war, escaped to Switzerland, survived, married, had three children, and passed away in 1991."

Steve's head jerked back a little, surprised she knew all that, and Pepper smiled before continuing. "His children are not her next of kin though. When SHIELD was formed, Agent Carter signed a number of papers, including one designating Howard Stark as her next of kin. I don't think she ever knew that her brother had survived, since he was in a hospital in Switzerland for some time after his escape."

She rifled through the papers on her clipboard, checking to see if they were all there. "Since Howard has passed on, Tony is the next in line. At the moment, he has legal custody, and her body will be transferred into his care tomorrow."

Steve looked out over the city again, and Pepper's heart ached for him. She'd been to the Smithsonian; she'd seen the newsreels of Captain America laughing and joking, surrounded by his peers.

Now, here in the future, he still smiled when with his friends, but he was different too - more serious, less open. She worried for him. He had to have known that Peggy was long dead, but the news that she had been killed looking for him had obviously struck a heavy blow.

Pepper took a deep breath and held out the clipboard. "I would like your help in planning the funeral. I didn't know her, but you did. If you're willing, could you be involved?"

Steve bowed his head for a minute, and then nodded. "I'd be honored, ma'am. Thank you."

They sat in silence for a long time, listening to the muffled roar of the traffic far below.

"Her mother and father are buried in England - I'm not sure where," Steve suddenly volunteered. "It would be nice if she could be with them. Assuming, of course, the cemetery is still there."

Pepper adjusted the hair picks in her bun. "Why wouldn't it be there?"

"Lots of things have changed since I was last there," Steve said, and for a moment Pepper could see the years in his eyes. "New buildings, parking lots - it could have been destroyed in the Blitzkrieg." An echo of a screaming bomb rang in his ears, and he flinched slightly, snapping back to the reality of the balcony in New York.

"Well, if anybody can find it, JARVIS can," Pepper reassured him, pulling up a holographic screen and tapping out commands. "I'll have him run a search on it, and check in the morning. Do you need anything else before I go to bed?"

He thanked her politely, rising from his seat as she left. Then he settled back down and stared up at the sky, vainly seeking the otherworldly comfort of the stars beyond the haze of light pollution. One more thing that had changed - a fellow couldn't even see the stars anymore.

Perhaps he'd go back to the gym.

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Regarding the legal jargon here and in the future, it's pretty much bogus. I did some preliminary research, but the laws all change depending on where and when you live, and believe it or not, I couldn't find an existing case to base it off of. So just take it with a grain of salt, okay?

Thanks!