Chapter 33. Revealing Truths
The hug that Ariel received from Peri Wayne surprised her, reminding her of the similar hug she received from the woman after Merton almost died. There was no explanation for it from the older woman, but her eyes showed an emotion towards Ariel that she had never expressed before. Then the medical team came and ushered Ariel away to be treated. For several hours she was questioned, had blood drawn, and was put through a diagnostic unit to make sure nothing was done to her without her knowledge. When they gave her the all-clear she was surprised to find Merton waiting for her in the hallway outside the doors. He had already been restored to his rightful age and she felt comfort at seeing the crinkles in his eyes when he smiled at her.
"You look much better," he said warmly, as he hugged her. "Are you hungry?"
She nodded. "The food they gave me was terrible and they were always drugging my water," she replied. "I took to not drinking it, so I ended up dehydrated. Paulina tried to get water to me. That's how she was caught. Is she alright?"
Merton stopped walking and faced her, trying to find a way to tell her that wasn't too devastating, but knowing it wasn't possible. "She didn't make it," he said. "Mason fatally injured her in 1943. It was too late for the medic to help her."
Ariel staggered back, placing her hand on her face as she began to cry. Merton held her, not wanting to tell her the details here, in the middle of the hallway, but he was done with keeping things from Ariel, well, most things. Putting his arm around her he led her to a lounge room and closed the door after getting her seated on a chair.
"Who was she?" asked Ariel.
He shook his head. "She was a future operative and her real identity is need to know because her current self doesn't know it was her," he said. "She volunteered as she was dying of an incurable cancer. I think she knew she wasn't coming back alive from this assignment. We captured May Weatherly and Mason. The roundup of their current associates is still underway, and we routed all of them from the 1940s."
"All of the trouble they went to, the deaths they caused, kidnapping me," she began. "It wasn't worth it."
"They were true believers," replied Merton. "Bucky helped take down Mason. He's at Peri's now, with Sam. They'll be going back to their time tomorrow. I think you should go back with them."
"Are you trying to get rid of me?" she said, feeling a little lost.
"No." He shook his head. "I'm trying ... there's something you need to know. It's going to hurt but you need to know the truth. Come with me."
She allowed herself to be led to Peri's office, where Merton left her to seek out the older woman. When he came back with her Peri stopped when she saw Ariel through the window, and at first, didn't want to enter.
"I can't," she protested. "She'll hate us for lying to her."
"We have to tell her," he said. "I'm done with keeping things from her. She deserves ... hell, I deserve to know everything, because I'm pretty sure you've left a lot out."
Peri's face dropped then she put her hand on his shoulder. "We give up so much for the job," she spoke, sounding defeated. "Even though having her was initially a way to get the assignment done I never regretted having her. She was so beautiful, so perfect. I never knew I could love someone so much."
"She needs to hear that from you and from me," he replied. "For sixteen years she had a mother with Skye, but the Reapers took that away from her. We owe it to her to let her know that she was never alone."
"What if she hates us?" asked Peri. "Listen to me. I'm the chair of the Historian's Guild with powers to rival the most powerful person in the country. Yet, I'm terrified that my own flesh and blood will reject me."
"Then we have to let her go, like you did when you gave her to Skye to be raised as a regular child," he replied. "We'll have to accept her decision. But I can't lie anymore, not to her."
With a nod of her head Peri accepted that the time was right to come clean with their daughter about everything. Together they went into the office. Using the controls in her desk Peri made the windows opaque and locked the door. For the next hour they told Ariel who she really was, why she was conceived, and how her existence triggered the confrontation with the Reapers, then with Phoenix.
When the door was unlocked Ariel ran out, her eyes red and her heart twisted in so many directions that she wasn't sure what to believe any more. Blindly she ran through the interior hallways of the Historian's Guild until she burst through a door to the outside. At the large fountain in front of the building she found a bench that was sheltered and sat there, shaken over the discovery that Merton Andrews and Peri Wayne were her birth parents. About ten minutes after she sat there a shadow appeared in front of her. Looking up she was surprised to see the face of Will Greening, saying his full name out loud.
"It's actually Will Meredith," he stated. "You know how it is when we're on assignment. Are you alright?"
"No, I'm not," she replied. "Did you know?" He looked at her blankly. "That Merton and Peri are my birth parents? That they only conceived me to turn me into Bucky Barnes dream woman?"
"No, but it explains a lot," he said. "I've never seen either of them rattled but when you went missing it was like a switch was turned on. Both of them became very engaged in the investigation. What else did they tell you?"
"Are you speaking as a security chief or as a friend?" asked Ariel. "Not that I know you that well."
"But you knew that I was a security chief?"
"Why else were you on my rescue mission?" she asked. "Were you security chief in Brooklyn as well?"
"Not a very good one if I managed to get the shit kicked out of me by some Nazis, and I almost got Captain America killed," he replied. He sighed. "I guess they had their reasons not to tell you, probably the most important one was to keep your parentage a secret so that Lowell Mason didn't find out about you."
"Yet he did, and he apparently was training his own daughter to be my doppelgänger, until Peri authorized her sanction. That led to the Reapers taking out headquarters, and killing my adoptive mother, Skye Paxton."
It was a good thing Ariel wasn't looking at him at that moment or she would have seen his surprised reaction, as fleeting as it was. He didn't speak as a couple walked past them then he looked at her.
"You know, our whole profession, being tasked with protecting the truth, can't be done, unless we live a life of lies," he began. "We insert ourselves into history, under assumed names, and occupations, with a made up back story, and we spy on people, sometimes not even people with historical significance. We do that to provide a supposedly unbiased perspective of life in different eras, trying to portray those times in a historically accurate way. What's worse, is that if we want a regular life, with a spouse, a family, even real friends, we have to step back from our life's work and give it all up for love."
"They didn't," smirked Ariel. "They tried to have me on the sly. But they were caught, and Peri was only allowed to carry me to term if she gave me up. What type of woman gives up her child to keep her job?"
"Were you happy?" he asked. "Did Skye Paxton do a good job as your mother?"
"Yes, but that's beside the point," said Ariel. "Peri chose her job over me."
"Sounds like she had a hard decision to make," responded Will. "Give up your life's work, of fighting the influence of those who would destroy people's lives in a bid to take control of them versus retreating to a private life and raising your child. You do know that Peri's parents were killed by the Hidden Ones, another HYDRA offshoot. It's why she became a historian, to uncover their activities to the light of day. It's why she was obsessed with understanding everything about James Buchanan Barnes. There were other people forced into servitude with HYDRA, but he was the only one to wound them deeply enough with his escape that it took decades for them to even think of rebuilding."
"How do you know all this and not know that she was my birth mother?" asked Ariel incredulously.
"Because the security division is always watching the historians, watching for the one who uses their station to become that which they fought, a tyrant," he said. "Peri Wayne has a security file so large that it should cause concern, but it doesn't. It's also heavily redacted because what she did to fight HYDRA, in all of its incarnations, was effective. I guess she even sacrificed raising her own child, entrusting that baby's life and safety to a trusted friend who she was sure would do a much better job of parenting than Peri ever could and keep her daughter safe."
"You think I'm wrong," stated Ariel.
"No, I think you're human," he answered. "Ariel, they did what they thought was best at the time. Were their reasons valid? I don't know, I don't judge them for what happened 24 years ago when they conceived you. But I know you were never out of their thoughts and when you joined Merton as a historian, he was so proud of you. Where was he when you and Bucky broke up?"
"Waiting nearby," she admitted. "He helped get me home, took care of me, and closed the store for several days to stay with me."
She put her face into her hands for a moment.
"Have you ever seen a picture of Peri as a young woman?" asked Will. "I can tell you right now, there are none in the archives, but Merton has some. He has a physical photo album of you that includes several from the day you were born and from the month they were allowed to have with you before Skye legally adopted you." His mouth was set in a firm line then he swallowed and looked at her. "Peri looked exactly like Paulina."
"She was Paulina? But Paulina died."
"Yes, she did, I was there," said Will. "She was definitely Peri, but she came from 30 years from now and Peri from now doesn't know that she was the operative from the future. You realize by me telling you these things I've compromised my standing as a security chief. I don't care anymore. I was all ready to stay in 1940 with a woman I fell in love with, then I got critically injured in that fight and they had to declare me dead in that timeline. I missed out on a wife and a family because I intervened for another man, wouldn't stand back and let that mob kill him." His face showed all of his disappointment with how his life was changed by a HYDRA influenced mob of young thugs. "I don't regret that, but I do regret that it wasn't me that married Rita Warren, and it wasn't me that fathered her children." He stood up. "Don't let your anger destroy your relationship with two people ... no three people, who love you so much that they were willing to put their lives on the line to help rescue you. I'm going to go now. I always say too much when I get emotional about something." He began walking away then turned back. "For the record, don't let anyone know I told you these things. Even Merton doesn't know that I'm aware of the photo album."
He walked back inside the guild headquarters, hesitating when he saw Peri and Merton. Neither of them said anything and he kept walking, knowing they probably heard everything he said but not regretting a single word of it. Outside, still seated on the bench, Ariel's brain was working overtime. When she first took on Assignment Bucky Barnes, she was ready to go further than any other historian to really find out what made him tick prior to his fame, and infamy. The attraction to him was almost instant and it was mutual. He bared his soul to her in ways that she had never experienced before. Within the constraints imposed on her she did the same with him. If she hadn't been a historian he would have been the love of her life. He still is.
Will's admission that he was the secret love of Rita Warren was surprising. Miss Warren, as she was always referred to in the library, was his secret love in return. He loved her enough that he considered leaving the future for a life in the past with that quiet, sweet natured woman. It meant he would have likely signed up for the army, like other men of his age at the time, exposing him to injury and death in World War II, until a brain injury suffered in a fight against Nazi thugs took him out of the timeline. Ariel remembered that time when the death of that nice looking accountant was talked about in the neighbourhood, noticing how pale the woman seemed whenever Will Greening's name was brought up. It was another year before she met Roy Beaton, a shy bachelor who helped pick up the books from her book cart when a wheel came off, sending the contents onto the floor. They only dated a few months before Pearl Harbor, then he enlisted and asked her to marry him after basic training, going through with it two weeks before he shipped out to Europe, probably on the same ship Bucky had been on. You still love him.
What could she do about her parents? Her parents ... how many times did she catch Merton looking at her with a soft smile on his face? She remembered talking with him about how he had been out in the field in the same timeline for 23 straight years, the same length of time she had been alive, thinking it was quite the coincidence. But it wasn't, he was banished to Montana for his part in her conception. That he had been promoted to a supervising historian in proximity to Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes meant that his dedication to the profession was above reproach. He achieved that before Peri was chair, before the Reapers destroyed Guild headquarters. He fathered a child with another historian, against the rules of the guild, then proved his loyalties by staying away, until the day he pulled her out of the portal bubble, bringing her to life in 1940. How many times did he comfort her, advise her, and protect her, then helped support her home when she had nothing left inside after she walked away from Bucky in Walt Whitman Park? He loved you as a father.
That left Peri, the woman who took her in after her mother died, mentored her, and encouraged her to develop her potential ... but for what? To reclaim the child she gave up? To instruct her in the art of seduction in order to attract and keep the attention of a notorious ladies' man? Even worse, Ariel felt like she had been used as bait to draw out members of the Reapers, who now called themselves Phoenix; such ridiculous names for a bunch of misfits who saw themselves as the supreme leaders of the future. Unless this was also to ensure that she could go back with Bucky, could have a life with him that Peri would never have. Ultimately, she gave her life to help catch Lowell Mason in the act of committing so many crimes that he would never get out in his lifetime. If Ariel went back in time with Bucky would their descendants be safe as well? She began to hyperventilate with the realization that her descendants were also Peri's. Peri Wayne was protecting her family, the only family she would ever have, the descendants of her only child, Ariel Paxton.
Standing up she quickly walked then ran towards the door into the Guild headquarters, somehow not surprised to see Peri and Merton standing just inside. She opened the door and faced them.
"Do you have descendants in this time frame?" she asked. "Were you protecting them?"
"Yes, but it wasn't enough," said Peri. "Even though we planted evidence about Bucky being sterile and your children being conceived with the help of a sperm donor there were always attempts on them, several of them successful. Lowell Mason somewhat believed the evidence, but others through the years saw the resemblance to Bucky, as his genome is so strong that the blue eyes and dark hair are inherited by many of your descendants."
"What happens if I don't go back, if I stay here," she said. "Do they cease to exist?"
"I'm unsure," admitted Peri. "We could all disappear or cease to exist because that would be a major deviation from a known timeline. Ariel, at this point, I just want you to be happy. He made you happy and if you were born a hundred years sooner, and him a hundred years later, there wouldn't have been all the need for this because you could have met each other on your own."
That was the truth of it, as she had felt the same herself. If she didn't return to 2024 with Bucky Barnes, she was sealing the fate of possibly dozens of people, people who were alive right now. She would regret that and as Will pointed out regret for not doing something was worse than regret for acting with purpose.
"I have to talk to Bucky," she said.
"Then let's call an air car," said Peri. "Do you mind if we come? There are some things still to be said before you go."
With a nod of her head Ariel accompanied them up to a vehicle dock where instructions were given to the piloted vehicle to go to Peri's residence. On the way there Peri and Merton told her the rest of the truth about everything, including how Skye was actually trapped in the past and chose to stay there. When Merton told her that Skye Paxton was Victoria Houseman she didn't react with anger but with sadness that they never had the chance to be truthful with each other. Knowing that Victoria Houseman had two daughters there, and a husband off to war, she couldn't blame her for not letting on who she really was. She had made the decision to stay and that meant Ariel couldn't know about their relationship. When the air car docked, and a security agent came to help Peri out he saw Ariel was with her.
"Mr. Barnes is in his room," he announced. "Mr. Wilson is in the solarium."
"Thank you," said Peri, turning to Ariel. "Merton and I will go visit with Sam. Take as long as you need with Bucky."
Inside the room Bucky had just stepped out of the shower, wearing only a towel. That was the first thing he did when he returned from his restoration in the persona room. They even cut his hair in the style he wanted and removed the full beard he wore during his return to the 1940s. A polite knock brought him out of the bathroom, and he opened the door expecting to see Sam. He was startled to see it was Ariel. Suddenly Bucky realized his body was quite exposed and she was staring at his shoulder, her mouth open but nothing coming out of it for several long seconds.
"They hurt you so much," she finally said in a small voice, tentatively raising her hand to his shoulder then lowering it. "So many scars."
"The scars closest to the seam are older," he said, looking down. "They'll never disappear although newer scars take about a month to fade. Come in while I put some clothes on."
Before she could protest, he was gone, picking up some clothing from the bed and going back into the bathroom. He returned in the act of pulling a T-shirt over his head. Neither said anything for a moment.
"Are you alright?" he asked. "Sam said you didn't look well when they rescued you."
"I'm fine. They drugged my water bottles to keep me docile. Then one of them tried to assault me but I knocked him out with a chair. You helped capture Mason?"
He nodded. "Yeah, though we lost an operative."
"I know, Will told me." She sat on a sofa and waited for Bucky to sit with her. "Here's the thing. Everyone is telling me I should go to 2024 with you but I don't want to go if you only want me for pity's sake."
Her eyes began to fill with tears and Bucky shifted to kneel in front of her, taking her hands in his.
"You think I only feel pity for you?" he asked, genuinely concerned. "It took over 80 years, but I came through a gauntlet, Ariel, and now I'm in front of you, both of us alive at the same moment of time with our whole lives in front of us. I want you as much as I wanted you in 1943. I want you to come home with me, marry me, have my children or not, and live with me until death us do part. Do you forgive me for how I hurt you?"
Tears began to fall as she kept looking at him, breathing noticeably. "I don't know how," she whispered.
"Say it," he replied. "Just say it. Say you forgive me. Start with that. I forgave you for not being Ariel Black the moment I saw you because you're still the woman I instantly fell in love with in 1940."
His eyes glistened as she began to cry then he gathered her in his arms and held her, kissing her face before kissing her on the lips. She responded, kissing him back while grasping him tightly to her. When they finally broke apart, she looked at him and caressed his face.
"I forgive you," she said, her chin trembling. "I haven't been well emotionally since I got back from 1943. Are you sure you really want me?"
"Positive," replied Bucky. "Who else am I going to listen to Benny Goodman with, or know what I mean when I talk about the Brooklyn Dodgers, or understand when I get irritated over how expensive a dozen eggs are? You've lived in the 40s. You get me."
"I'm scared," admitted Ariel. "All my life I've been focused on being a historian and being out in the field. I don't know what I can do in 2024. I need something."
"Libraries haven't changed that much," said Bucky. "If there's one thing I learned about historians from my time there, is that you're very adaptable. You'll be good at whatever you end up doing."
They heard a meow and looked down to see Rosie rubbing against Bucky's legs.
"How did you get in here? I can't believe you kept her," he chuckled, picking the ginger cat up and scratching behind her ears.
"I couldn't leave her there, plus Walter died," she replied. "I really did have a dog named Walter but I left him with a friend. He died of a seizure while I was in Brooklyn."
"I'm sorry, that must have been the icing on the cake when you got back," said Bucky sympathetically.
The cat squirmed after a few moments, and he let her down to focus on Ariel again. Gently, he touched her hair, playing with it between the fingers of his right hand.
"It's real," she smiled. "I'm a natural redhead, just like you said. My mother, Peri, had natural red hair and my father, Merton, carried the gene for it."
"I know," he replied. "Merton admitted he was your father when I asked him. They told you everything?"
"Everything, including about Victoria Houseman," she said.
"She gave me a message for you, mainly that working with you was a joy. She was so proud of you, of the woman you became, at growing to become the daughter she envisioned."
"I admired her as well," admitted Ariel. "I wish I had met her daughters and could tell them what a wonderful mother she was."
"Maybe they're still alive," said Bucky, then he chuckled. "You know, I had come to the decision to lead a more or less celibate life, thinking that not finding someone in 2024 was my penance for what I did to you." Ariel tried to speak but he shook his head. "Sam and I tried to find out what happened to you on one of those ancestry websites. You didn't exist and we looked at some secure websites but there was only one entry; an Ariel Anne Black that was born on your birthday, in 1998."
"That's odd," she said.
"Then Sam's laptop suddenly shut down and Merton and Peri appeared in the doorway, telling us that person didn't exist, yet. They told us they needed our help to convince you to come back to 2024. They didn't tell me they were your parents, but I could tell you meant a lot to them because they were both shaken by how you destroyed all your records on me. Why didn't you publish?"
"Because the observations weren't objective," she answered. "Even the video files were coloured by the relationship between us and to me it was obvious there was a relationship. It made me feel like a fraud, like I had tricked you into loving me so that I could get all of your secrets." She stopped but he kept looking at her, knowing there was more. "I didn't want the guild to know that I fell in love with you, on my first assignment, and that I was totally destroyed by what happened between us. How would it look for the great Peri Wayne's protégé to violate the line between researcher and subject?"
"Except she knew you would," he replied. "I met one of our descendants from this time. Her name was also Peri, but she went by the name Patricia Warden, and she was 19 years old. She went back to 1943 to kill Mason and Weatherly. I intercepted her and convinced her to leave vengeance to someone else. Paulina knew about her so that meant she knew you would cross that line and that we would get married, be fruitful, and multiply."
"Peri helped me destroy the notebooks and the diary once I made the decision," said Ariel, shaking her head. "She allowed me to burn my bridges so that I could choose to go back with you. I should stay, just to screw around with her." Bucky tilted his head at those words, making her smile and kiss him. "I'm not staying. For all my attempts to keep on task when you were my assignment, I wanted to be with you more than anything. Now that I can be with you, I won't look back. I want to marry you, James Buchanan Barnes. I want to have your children and I want us to be happy."
This time their kiss was more passionate, as they both realized the opportunity for them as a couple. Ariel, already adept in living out of her own time, knew that she could easily adjust to living in the 2020s, especially if she was with Bucky. For the super soldier, it brought the same feeling he had when he asked Ariel to marry him. Being with her was what he wanted, more than anything.
"So, where do you live now? Still in Brooklyn?"
"No, in Louisiana, near Delacroix, which isn't far from New Orleans," he replied. "I have a nice house that I've been fixing up. Sam and his sister and her kids live just down the road. There will be times I'm on a mission but in between I'm quite the homebody. Do you still bake apple pie?"
She smiled. "Not since I got back but I do like baking. When I was researching the 1940s, I practiced cooking with the other historians. We shared recipes and critiqued each other's efforts. I got pretty good at it."
"I don't expect you to be the wife I thought I wanted in 1943," said Bucky, looking intently at her. "I've picked up some cooking skills, and I've done my own research on attempting to be more in tune with what a modern woman wants. If I ever let that old controlling guy out, don't be afraid to tell me. I don't want to ever lose you again."
"Deal," she said, then she looked at the bed. "Am I staying here tonight?"
"Please. As much as I would like to be with you this instant, I think we should make a combined appearance right now. I can imagine they're waiting to see if we've kissed and made up."
"Even when the future seems set it's always in flux." She stood up, looking up at him, suddenly realizing how much bigger he was than in 1943. "How tall were you in the 1940s?"
"Almost six feet," he replied. "I'm 6 foot 2 inches now, and about 50 pounds heavier. I've bulked up in the chest, shoulders, and thighs, mostly. My life span is unknown."
She nodded. "Paulina said I would retain the longer lifespan of this future. The oldest person alive right now is 152 years old but most people live until they're about 120 or 130 years old." She smiled. "Before I leave, I have to get my birth control implant out. It's not something that will be available in the 21st century. It will take a few days for the effects to wear off." Gently, she placed her palms on his chest and looked up at him. "I'm in no rush to get another one."
"I'm still old fashioned enough to want to be married first," he replied. "Are you alright with that?"
She nodded and moved one hand up to his cheek. With Ariel on her tip toes and Bucky bending over they crushed their lips together somewhere in the middle. Picking her up completely he held her tight against his chest as they kissed for several minutes before slowly letting her down. Together they went to the bedroom door and opened it. Rosie sped out the door ahead of them, her tail upright as she ran ahead, looking back every so often until they arrived at the solarium, where Peri, Merton and Sam were sitting.
"Hey, here they are," said Sam, standing up. "Everything settled between you two?"
"Ariel's coming back with me," replied Bucky, holding her hand. "It's been over 80 years since I lost her. Now that I have her back, I don't want to be without her ever again."
"We'll get married in 2024," added Ariel. "Bucky said there is a record of me but born in 1998. Does that mean there's identification for me as well?"
"We'll contact the resident historian," replied Merton. "He's quite good at getting official documents."
"For tonight, we'll celebrate," said Peri. "I understand there are several historians who want to send you off in style. If you're okay with that. They were all concerned about you after your return. I think once Bucky came here with us and agreed to help, they figured you would go back with him."
"Well, we'll make it a party to remember, won't we?" stated Ariel, looking at all of them.
It was a memorable party as they took over a restaurant in New York. Even Bucky had a good time, surprising Sam who worried that being among that many strangers would trigger his anxiety but with Ariel by his side the super soldier seemed more like the Bucky Barnes of old, charming, confident, and able to hold his own as the subject of many questions. Will Greening made sure the music at the restaurant was all from the 20th and early 21st century, even cajoling Peri to dance with him. At the end of the evening, after Ariel had hugged many of her colleagues and they were in a large air car with the others headed back to Peri's apartment, she looked with love at Bucky.
"You finally got to ride in a flying car," she said.
"I did," he smiled. "More than once. We have quinjets and the Wakandans have Talon fighters, but there's something about being in a vehicle that looks like a car from the inside but flies through the air. I dreamed of them when I was a boy and I'll always remember what it felt like to be in one."
He thought of Howard Stark's dream of building a flying car, feeling regret at his part in the man's demise. Ariel touched his hand then and smiled, almost as if she could read where his mind was at. Raising her hand to his lips he focused on the here and now, especially at the prospect of the physical reunion between them that was imminent. Bucky felt like he was 23 again at the prospect of Ariel being in his arms. Regaining Ariel was reclaiming his good past, when he was a young man in love, on the cusp of his whole life. Now, after a long interruption, it could go on like it should have in 1943 before everything changed.
Author's note: Two more chapters.