Chapter 5
Because of the principle of it all, Peggy delayed her return to the office till the next day, choosing to make her way back to New York and getting settled at home after his disrupted weekend away with Steve. Never mind that she would see him in days, or that she would be spending the entire week between Christmas Eve and New Years Day with him, or that she would have the joy of spending the holidays with him again after six years, her time had been cut off. She spent her evening sulking at home as she ordered take-out and read a book, occasionally having JARVIS check her messages to see if anything had come through from Steve. No message was forthcoming, and while she could worry, she didn’t, assuming whatever operation he and Romanoff were on, it had to be dark, thus cutting him off from communicating with her.
But when Peggy woke up the next morning, harsh reality made an appearance, and she regretted having been so petty about it all.
“I assume you heard about the air base in Kuwait, then?” Cassandra met Peggy as she marched into her office at the New York SHIELD headquarters.
“Sharon called me first thing this morning,” she affirmed, unwinding her scarf. “She is en route as we speak.”
Cassandra nodded, already having turned the news on the screen in Peggy’s office. “Does she think it was the Mandarin?”
“They aren’t sure, yet,” Peggy replied, unbuttoning her long wool coat and hanging that just behind her office door, along with her scarf and her trusty, old red Stetson. Today had been a day for it and the fortitude it provided. “What is the news saying about it?”
“No one has claimed responsibility. All the military is releasing is that there was an explosion at a chapel on base. They’ve not released numbers or information on the dead.”
“Families,” Peggy replied, her expression grim as she moved towards her desk, glancing up at the news coverage of grainy video and a building burning in the distance. “It was in a chapel on base, mostly for the families of American service people stationed there. It wasn’t very big at all, but they were having a Christmas program.”
Cassandra looked as if she were going to be ill. “Any survivors?”
Peggy only shook her head. Cassandra pailed, visibly, clutching the tablet in her hand. “Jesus!”
“That hasn’t been announced by the Pentagon, yet, so keep that quiet,” Peggy warned, collapsing into her desk chair. “Everyone inside and several people caught outside in the ensuing blast, including members of the Kuwaiti military who happened to be near the blast zone. They are still working on numbers.”
“How?”
Peggy shook her head. “Unknown at this time. It’s not the first attack on a base, but it is the first attack on a base to involve civilians. The one in London a few months ago was in a civilian area, but no one was seriously hurt.”
“Shit,” she breathed, glancing back to the screen. “If this is the Mandarin, this just escalated quickly.”
“Yes,” Peggy confirmed, shivering not from the cold outside, but at the thought of what that could mean. “Keep an eye on the situation through the day, if you could. I promised Sharon I wouldn’t get involved, but I also want to keep tabs on this.”
“What if it does get worse,” she pressed.
“Well…then that is a different discussion, because then the Avengers may have to be involved if he becomes a big enough threat. For now, however, he’s targeted US service people and their families and the Kuwaiti government, and they will be handling their own responses. SHIELD will have to wait for Sharon’s report.”
Cassandra nodded, tapping on her tablet. “Well, when you are ready, Juan would like to meet with you and me on several matters for the mayor’s office, including Stark’s suggested renovation plans for the tower that he registered with the city.”
“I warned him he’d get into hot water with the city over that, but did he listen?”
“Yeah, I brought it up to Pepper when I saw her on Saturday and she said she’ll have the lawyers on it, but I am sure Juan is getting grief. It’s one thing that Stark is putting a quinjet hanger in there, which, let’s be honest, isn’t that different from a helipad on any other building, but the mad-scientist level labs he has set up on the top floors…”
“He swears he’s got the proper safety precautions set up in the building to prevent catastrophic failure,” Peggy replied, unclear of what those safety precautions even could possibly be.
“Including ones for Dr. Banner?”
Peggy stiffened at the implication. “Do we need one for Dr. Banner?”
Cassandra shrugged. “I don’t know, but they are asking those questions. And to be fair to Juan, he’s just the messenger here, he’s being asked this by the mayor, city-council, and various other city directors who are approving these. In fairness, the Hulk has torn through the city twice, now.”
"The first time he was provoked and the second time he was trying to save the city from an alien invasion!" These were the things that Peggy hated in regards to being in charge, knowing it was a necessary component of it, but vaguely wanting to beat her head in that this would be the type of hill people would die on. “Let’s meet and discuss, and see if we can get the SI legal team involved…”
She trailed off as a knock on her door had her turning to see the shocking sight of Alexander Pierce standing at her door, looking expectant. “May I come in?”
Peggy blinked for several long seconds, stunned, before turning to an equally shocked Cassandra. “Uh…of course, Mr. Secretary! Um…Agent Kam and I were just…”
“Finishing up,” Cassandra filled in, neatly. “I’ll just…make some phone calls. We can connect later.”
Before Peggy could form the words to ask her to leave, Cassandra was up, politely waiting till Pierce had moved inside and made his way to where Peggy stood behind her desk before she dipped out of the door, closing it behind her. Peggy took the secretary’s firm handshake, gesturing to the seat Cassandra had just exited, waiting for him to settle in before she slipped back into her own.
“You know, many people don’t even know you are here in this building,” Pierce opened with a chuckle.
That didn’t shock Peggy over much, as her work was rather cut off from the rest of SHIELD. “How did you find my office?”
“Chief Braxton was helpful.”
“Ahh,” Peggy vocalized, sitting primly on the edge of her chair. “To what do I owe this unexpected visit?”
His smile was affable on his weathered face. “I was in town for some meetings and last minute Christmas shopping for the grandkids. Thought I would stop in.”
“Since I’ve not seen you here before, I assume it is for some purpose.”
He inclined his head. “The plan you and Stark gave me.”
She and Steve had just been discussing that together, and the idea that Pierce independently brought it up was rather fortuitous. “You read through it?”
“And I’ve discussed it with the council,” he confirmed. “Would you be surprised if I said they agreed to your idea?”
She would as a matter-of-fact. “I…am a bit shocked, yes.”
“I am, too, to be honest, but there has been quite a bit of shuffling on the board after Malick’s departure. Given certain circumstances, and the bad feelings that were created out of that, I think the board in its current configuration is eager to move forward on any initiative that will show they take the security of the world and its interests seriously, including the Avengers.’
“And they would rather have Tony Stark foot the bill for it than foot the bill themselves?” Peggy couldn’t help but see the irony in that.
“Whatever saves money for bigger projects,” he shrugged, unapologetic and rueful. “In the grand scheme of things, the Avengers is a fairly low stakes sort of project for funding, and they have bigger ones they are interested in investing in.”
“The ones that are so classified that even I don’t know about them?”
“You know how the game is played, Peggy,” he cajoled, with a sort of grandfatherly paternalism. “But hey, you won this battle! You can tell Stark he can finish up his renovations on his tower, now, as the Avengers are setting up shop.”
“If the city allows him to go through with his renovation plans,” Peggy replied. “Why do I get the feeling this was all a bit too easy, getting them to agree to all of this?”
“I won’t say a few arms weren’t twisted. Hawley balked the loudest, but when I reminded her that she was part of the bombing of New York fiasco, she reluctantly agreed.”
“Why? She has never supported the Avengers, which is why she agreed to sending the war head.”
“She may not like them, but numbers don’t lie. The Avengers are good PR, they are something that SHIELD can point to and show works and is effective. We need those kind of points now, and even she can see that.”
It was a cynical way to look at the situation, and Peggy wasn’t sure she liked it. “So it’s a PR scheme?”
“You better than anyone understand how this works.” Pierce arched one grizzled, gray eyebrow at her, his bright blue eyes pointed. “We have a mandate, signed in that initial charter. SHIELD only operates at the level it does because everyone understands the threat and sees the need for it, and they see that SHIELD can stand against it. If they lose faith, then what’s the point?”
Peggy thought of Rhodes’ comments over the weekend, as well as her conversation with Steve, and the mysterious list she had passed on to Romanoff, the one that had Pierce’s name on it. “There seems to be a lot of mistrust against SHIELD of late.’
“It was bound to happen. After the end of the Cold War, I will admit, the idea of a group like SHIELD seemed antiquated to many, but with the new terrors and threats that are rising, and not just the homegrown, Earth-bound ones, I feel we are needed now more than ever. SHIELD has to adjust as the world changes.”
“And does SHIELD adjust the world too?” Her question was a bit reckless, she admitted that, but she couldn’t help but think of Steve concerns, of the level of control he saw SHIELD wielding in the world.
If Pierce was offended by her question, he didn’t show it. “Things have changed a whole lot since 1945, you do realize that, right? This is a far more interconnected world than it was even back then, and the threats aren’t as simple as dictators on foreign soil. The enemies now hide in plain sight, in caves, on the internet, in rural areas, in suburban neighborhoods. It’s not as simple as picking out the lone bad guy and ganging up on him. SHIELD has to be able to address that and meet the level of aggression with an equal amount of force. Ideally, I would love it if we never had to pull the trigger on anything, just for us to sit back and allow the knowledge that any threat that is out there will be pursued without question simply speak for itself, but sometimes we don’t get that choice.”
It was amazing that for all that Pierce talked about how the world had changed, his policy clearly had not. She could hear the echoes of similar statements she remembered being uttered decades before, from different men in different positions of power.
“Howard used to have a saying,” she murmured. “Peace means having a bigger stick than the other guy.”
“I remember that one well,” Pierce chuckled, as if reminiscing. “Tony uses it a lot.”
“I always thought he was wrong,” she shot back, quietly, recalling their many arguments on the subject. “Howard always believed that enough ingenuity, know-how, and physical weaponry could keep the enemy at bay, serve as a deterrent. I always pushed back that the problem with that way of thinking is that it only pushes the other guy into a corner, makes them desperate, and makes them creative. We can’t just force our will on others by wielding bigger sticks and making them do what we want. We have to listen to them, come to common cause, and work mutually for our benefit. A shield is about protection, not about caging people in with fear and force.”
Pierce regarded her for long moments, nodding, his gaze flickering to the side, where the television news still ran, silently, the images of destruction in Kuwait running non-stop. “Somehow I think that those US and Kuwaiti families trying to make sense of what just happened to them would disagree.”
“Maybe they would,” she conceded, her heart aching for them and the horrific tragedy they had just faced. “But this Mandarin would not be striking the way he is if he wasn’t playing into the very real desperation of many who feel that they are being left without options. I am not saying I agree with their methods, of course I don’t, but when put in that light carrying a bigger stick isn’t going to help the situation, it may even hurt it and lead to something worse.”
Pierce’s inscrutable expression remained fixed as he continued to study her, then nodded. “Duly noted, you have a point, I won’t lie, and it is something perhaps we tend to forget when we are reacting in the moment.”
Peggy couldn’t tell if he was listening to her earnestly or if he was simply placating her for the moment. Still, she could at least give him the benefit of the doubt for now. She understood the various voices and constituencies that likely were all vying for Pierce’s attention in all of this.
“In any case,” Pierce finally continued. “After the New Year, we can begin the transition, work with Stark’s lawyers to decide how this is all going to work. My guess is Stark’s company will be treated as a private contractor specializing in working exclusively with the Avengers, but I will let them work out the details.”
“I will let him know,” Peggy assured him, not that Stark would be involved in the details. He rarely ever was, often to Pepper’s consternation.
“You don’t have to worry him with it just yet,” Pierce waved it off. “With the holidays coming up, no one will touch it till after then. Besides, I know this time of year is probably tough. Hard to believe it’s been over twenty years now.”
It took Peggy an embarrassingly long moment to think about what Pierce even meant by that, and when it did, it hit like a sledgehammer to her middle. The anniversary of Howard and Maria’s deaths had been that last weekend…the day of their get together, as a matter-of-fact. Stark hadn’t said anything, hadn’t even commented on it. And Peggy…she hadn’t remembered.
“I’d forgotten,” she murmured out loud, half in dismay, half in embarrassment. “We just saw him this weekend.”
He hadn’t said anything! Why hadn't he said anything? Perhaps he hadn’t wanted to or chose not to. Still, it bothered her that she hadn’t remembered. Howard had been her friend, one of her closest…
“I wouldn’t have remembered it myself, but I caught his picture downstairs.” Pierce pushed himself forward in his chair, preparing to rise. “It hardly seems as if he has been gone that long.”
“No, it doesn’t.” For Peggy, who had leapt across time with Scott Lang, it didn’t feel as if any time had gone at all.
“He always spoke highly of you,” Pierce said, pushing himself up to stand, slowly. “We are lucky to have you back.”
“I thought the world of him as well,” she replied, quietly, rising herself. “And I am sad he passed before I could see him again.”
“I think he would be pleased to see the Avengers in your hands, as well as Tony’s. He said you were the moral compass that kept him straight. I’ll take your advice to heart, maybe remind the council that speaking softly can be just as effective sometimes as carrying the big stick.”
“I wish you luck with that,” she offered as he gathered his overcoat and scarf laying over his briefcase, slipping into the former as he pulled the latter over his shoulders. “Are you returning to Washington, then?”
“My flight leaves later this afternoon! My eldest granddaughter, she’s a student at NYU, I’m picking her up to take her home with me, then off to do some shopping.” His smile shifted from political and polite to grandfatherly and warm, smiling fondly. “You know, maybe Stark can work on merchandising opportunities, all my youngest grandkids are obsessed with Iron Man. He’d make a killing off of it.”
“I am sure,” she replied, quite certain Stark already had his team set on creating a toy line, knowing him. “When he does, I’ll have him send some over.”
“Make sure it has lights and makes a lot of noise,” he offered. “What is the good of being a grandpa if you can’t give the grandkids toys that will annoy their parents?”
It was the sort of sentiment that her own father would have had about young Harry and Maggie, Michael's children, when they were little. “Enjoy your shopping trip, then, sir, and Merry Christmas.”
“The same to you, Director!” With a handshake to her, he left. Peggy watched him exit, thoughtful, even as Cassandra slowly crept around the door to peek in, curiosity clear on her face.
“So…what was that?”
“We are clear to openly begin moving the Avengers operations to Stark Tower and work with Stark Industries to outfit the team.”
“Just like that?” Cassandra was surprised, and frankly, so was Peggy. She had expected much more of a fight.
“Just like that,” she confirmed, leaning against her desk.
“What…no strings attached?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” Something told Peggy there were likely many strings attached by the World Security Council, she didn’t see them yet. “They will likely hold the ends of those strings to pull when we least expect it.”
“Wonderful,” the other woman grumbled. “Who knew working for the super spy agency would be so political?”
“Cheer up,” Peggy offered, brightly, settling back behind her desk once more. “At least knowing there are strings out there means we won’t be caught as much by surprise.”
“I don’t know if that is something I would be optimistic about,” she shot back, grumpily.