Chapter Twelve

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Five minutes after Tony got back to the Stark Tower landing pad, Fury called up, top priority.

"Tell him no, JARVIS," Tony ordered, tinkering with one of the gauntlets. It wasn't working quite right - something kept pinching his fingers and he couldn't figure out what.

"Too late," Fury's voice came from the screen. "Really Stark, you expect me to hide out in your basement for months and not get myself a calling code?"

Tony made about six mental notes to do a complete overhaul of his AI. After Fury had left his reluctant hospitality to get SHIELD into working order, he'd done a cursory security sweep, but it obviously hadn't been deep enough. "Right, so you called, hello, goodbye." He turned back to his gauntlet, resisting the urge to blast the screen with the repulsor.

"Stark, this has gone far enough. We know Agent Carter's body is in your tower, and we want it back." Fury was adamant, a warning edge in his voice.

Tony was trying very hard to keep his temper. "What is this, Invasion of the Body Snatchers or something? Leave me alone. I know my rights. Oh, and don't call her an it, seriously."

Fury leaned forward. He was probably trying to look confidential, but it came across as menacing. "You don't have any idea what's at stake. Our scans report that she was injected at two sites with an unknown substance right before she died. We need to know what that was. Howard Stark might have left one last gift for the world."

Tony found the problem - it was a jammed finger hinge, easily fixed. He pulled out a screwdriver and used it to pry off one of the plates for better access. Without looking at the screen, he talked back, paying more attention to the machinery in his hands. "Is that what this is all about? Some unknown chemical compound? News flash: I figured that out ages ago. Genius, rememb-"

He broke off suddenly, staring past the gauntlet and then over to Fury's face.

"You're thinking - " his eyes narrowed, "you think it was some version of the super soldier serum, don't you?" The gauntlet slid unheeded to the floor with a rattle as he slowly stood, realization dawning on his face. "You think Dad tried to recreate it - and gave it to Peggy Carter so she could stand a better chance of finding Cap."

Fury looked more inscrutable than usual. "I don't need to answer your questions. I just need her body." His voice adopted a conciliatory tone. "We're even willing to return it for burial after we've properly tested it."

It was a big concession, but Fury didn't know that they were way past the point of wanting to bury her. Tony pulled up a holo screen while Fury was speaking, and ran a few quick diagnostics. He was pretty sure he knew where Fury's "calling code" was based, but to be safe, he selected several more servers.

"No deal. Get off of my screen, you and your sick bunch of lackeys - I'm going to go throw up now." With a flick of his fingers he forced the servers to crash, and watched with pleasure as the image died.

"JARVIS, run a complete overhaul on the crashed servers before you restart them. Close all access points, and lock them off from the rest of the system until I have a chance to look at the log."

"Very good, sir." The proper British voice almost sounded pleased at the prospect.

"Oh, and where's Brucie boy? I need a pow-wow. Like, yesterday."

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Bruce paced the length of the lab and back again. "Well, we can't give them her body,"

"Obviously," interjected Tony from his place on the holo table, surrounded by oversized projections of Peggy's blood cells. Technically, sitting on holo tables was not advised and tended to distort the images, but he didn't care. Besides, he'd made the thing, he ought to know what it could handle.

Bruce went on as if he hadn't heard him. Actually, he probably hadn't. "And we can't offer to give them blood samples instead of her whole body, because thanks to Steve's transfusion, now she does have some serum in her blood. They'll think they were right, and want the rest of her for increased levels of testing."

Tony poked at one of the projections as it passed him, and it fizzled into a blue blur. To be completely honest, biology was not his strongest point. That was more Banner's area.

"Why can't we just tell them that she's alive?" Bruce fiddled with his spectacles until he accidentally dropped them, and had to crawl under one of the tables to pick them up, voice slightly muffled as he continued. "Yes, they have a legal claim on her dead body, but the fact that she has an unaided heartbeat is an indication of some form of brain stem activity. Since she's not brain dead, we can claim that she's alive and contest the ruling."

Tony shook his head. "Pep and I have talked about this, and we both agree that's a no-go. They're not fools. If we claim she's alive, they'll take that as proof that she has the serum, and be even more determined to get their hands on her. The court ruling that awarded her body to SHIELD all but declared me unfit for the position of her next-of-kin. As long as she can't speak for herself, she's basically theirs."

He met Bruce's eyes across the room as they both came to the same conclusion.

Bruce voiced it first. "Then there's nothing we can do. I guess we just have to stand firm and see if she wakes up."

"Who wakes up? Peggy?" Clint was suddenly standing in the corner of the room, where he most certainly hadn't been a minute before. Tony annihilated half a dozen cell projections with his startled jump.

One might think living with two SHIELD assassins would let you get used to the fact they were stuck in stealth mode all the time, but it didn't.

"Speaking of Peggy, how is she?" Clint shifted, directing the question to Banner. The assassin was dressed in exercise clothes with his bow over his shoulder and an apple in his hand. Tony desperately wanted to make a joke about William Tell, but he was interested in Bruce's answer too.

Bruce rubbed his hands together and eyed the apple hungrily. It had to be nearing lunch time. "Good news, I think. Today we took out the ventilator tube - she's breathing almost completely on her own now."

Tony held a spontaneous little celebration on the holo table, complete with simulated Iron Man suits and fireworks. Clint was more cautious.

"Almost on her own - care to give us a definition?"

Bruce shrugged. "Well, her SpO2 count isn't quite as high as I'd like, so I taught Steve how to use the oximeter. He's in charge of giving her oxygen every time the count dips below a certain point. That way he gets to help with her recovery, do something useful instead of just hovering." Steve had been almost pathetically grateful to actually have something to do, and had applied himself industriously to his new job.

Clint nodded and deliberately bit into his apple, provoking a Hulk-sized growl from Bruce's stomach. Bruce turned red as the proverbial beet and tried desperately to pretend it was not him as Tony snickered. Clint grinned wickedly, before growing sober.

"So, you think she'll wake up?" he asked around his mouthful of apple. "Steve could use a break. I can't think of a guy who deserves a break more."

"I - don't know," Bruce admitted, shaking his head. "There's been some eye movement, but her pupils show no reaction to light, and she doesn't react to stimuli. She's certainly achieved basic involuntary functions, such as her heartbeat and breathing - but I don't know if she'll ever be able to fully regain consciousness." He looked up at his friends with a shrug, tapping his glasses absently against his palm. "Even if she does wake up, we have no idea what to expect mentally. The chances of her being more than a vegetable are slim at best."

Heavy silence settled in the room as each man thought of their captain's slow heartbreak, waiting hopefully by the bedside of the girl who might never wake up, might never come back to him.

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Three floors above, Peggy Carter's eyes opened for the first time in seventy years.

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Why yes, I did just end the chapter there. Have a good weekend, folks!

Thoughts?

Disclaimer: I don't own anything except the storyline.