He froze at first. He stood in place as if nailed down, incredulously watching what was happening before his eyes. Peggy turned around, and when she saw his terrified expression, she frowned. Steve took three quick steps towards her and firmly grabbed both of her arms. She jerked, but he didn't let go. He didn't intend to let her hurt herself anymore.

"Peggy, no," he whispered, looking at her bleeding forearm.

"Steve, what are you doing?"

"You can't do that. I know these feelings, ok? The moments when you do not know what to do and that you are completely lost. I know what it is like to think that death is the only way out. When your skin itches too much and you think that ripping it apart is the only way to make it stop. But it's not, Peggy. Trust me, I'll help you. I'll do anything, just… do not do this," he sounded broken, scared, and she could feel him trembling. She stopped squirming, letting him calm down. He led her towards the sink, starting the water and slowly cleaned her forearm. She let the knife fall into the sink and he let her right hand go. She slowly put her hand on his cheek.

"Steve," she breathed out, looking as terrified as he was. He had just confessed that he was suicidal when he woke up. That he was thinking about self-harm. All at once she felt a strong urge to kick something. To shout that she was not allowed to be there for him when he needed her the most. .

"Just," he continued. "Just do not do this again, Peggy. Do not hurt yourself."

"I… what? I was not…" she realized what his reaction meant. Suddenly, it all made sense.

"Steve, look at the forearm." But he just shook his head, trying to find out a bandage, while still holding her cut forearm over the sink.

"Steve, I really need you to focus on that place where I cut myself."

"I saw that, it will heal," he said stubbornly, still refusing to look at it.

"Yes, of course, it would. Steve, can you see it too? Can you see what was itching so much?"

Her words did not make any sense, but he let his eyes fall towards the cut. He inhaled sharply when his eyes focused on the injury. The cut was deep, but it did not cut any vein. And, weirdly enough, something black was peeking out from under her skin. A bruise? So quickly? What was it? He frowned.

"See? I found that out like ten minutes ago. I wanted to put it out. I didn't want to hurt myself, Steve, I just need to find out what it is."

"But…what do you think it is?"

"I have no idea, but you must help me take it out because it was driving me crazy for the last week. That's why I was scratching the forearm. But only today it moved, so I realized that it's something artificial. Someone put it in me, and I WANT IT OUT!" she almost shouted the last words. Constant tiredness, panic, and now pain were taking their toll. She handed him the tweezers.

"Here," she put them into his free hand.

"It looks as if it partially grew into your forearm. It will hurt when I just jerk it out."

"Having it inside me hurts, Steve."

Their eyes met. He saw the determination in her eyes and realized that there was no point in arguing with her.

"Ok," he whispered, took the tweezers, and cautiously turned her forearm towards him so he could see the incision better. He opened the incision with those tweezers a little bit, and Peggy involuntarily hissed. He immediately let go.

"Peggy, I can't…"

"Steve, you are not hurting me. And now there is no Dugan to dig it out as with the bullets in my shoulder. So, please." She started shaking now, the forearm starting to hurt more and more.

"Ok, but... ok, wait." He looked around, found the disinfection and used it on the tweezers. Then he took a deep breath and gathered all the moral power left inside of him.

"Steve, don't worry."

"I… I do not want to cause you pain. I don't want you to hate me."

She shook her head. "As if I ever could. I trust you. Just… try to dig it out quickly, ok?"

He nodded. It took less than ten seconds. He opened the incision, caught the object, and pulled it out of her forearm. There was a gush of blood which he immediately stopped by a towel, putting the tweezers into the sink, ignoring that the thing that he just dug out almost fell through the drain. Peggy caught it at the last moment with her free hand. Meanwhile, Steve patched her forearm and started scrubbing her blood from his hands.

"I think it should be stitched up. But this will work for a while."

But Peggy had her eyes only for the object.

"What do you think it is?" Steve looked at it for the first time.

"It looks like… some kind of chip. Oh, no! I bet I know… Tony implanted a microchip into you so he could track us!" he started to see red.

"I doubt that's it," Peggy interrupted him.

Steve took the object from her fingers. It was a small black plate with a name on it. STARK. He wanted to crush it at first, but luckily enough, he checked it first and realized, that it does not look like any tracking device.

"It looks as… I do not know, some sort of SD card?" he guessed.

"What is it?"

"Well, nowadays you can buy these to put files on it… to have it outside of your computer. But this one looks… old."

"I think it was Howard's," Peggy suggested.

"Why would Howard put that into your forearm?"

"Maybe he wanted to hide something."

"He wanted it to be found seventy years later?"

"He did not want me to be frozen for that long. If it is the… SD card, did you say? Can you dig the files out of it?"

"No, this one will require special equipment. But I know someone who will be able to read it."