Chapter 10
She found Sharon half-an-hour later, on the top most observation deck of the building, staring of in the distance towards the rolling hills north of where they were, glittering in the darkness, the iconic Hollywood sign faint in the glow of its spotlights. She leaned against the metal framework of the window, but otherwise hid her expression, closing her thoughts off from anyone who happened by. Unfortunately for her, Peggy had long experience getting Carters to open up when they didn’t want to.
“I got off the line with Banner,” she offered into the stillness, coming to lean against the other half of the window’s framework, overlooking the sprawl of the neighborhood of Koreatown and the expanse of greater Los Angeles spreading like a blanket of starlight below. “JARVIS had gone offline after the attack on the house, going to ground, as it were, given that there appeared to be a coordinated attack on Stark’s home and property. It focused on keeping the various Stark Industries sites monitored and secured until they were all evacuated for the day. Bruce is trying to see if he can get JARVIS back up and pinpoint where Stark is.”
“Good,” Sharon mumbled. She had her forehead pressed against the cool glass. Even though Los Angeles was balmy in the daytime in December, the nights could still get quite cold and it was chilly outside. Unspoken in Peggy’s update was the quiet fear that she had that Stark never made it out of the wreckage of his house, that he was still trapped underneath the rubble at the bottom of the bay, that he may not even be alive any more.
“How are you holding up?” Peggy reached a hand to her niece’s shoulder, trying to offer what comfort she could. Sharon at least didn’t shake it off, but she did snort, closing her eyes, exhaling on a long, exhausted sigh.
“You know what the worst part of all of this is,” she finally said, sounding as tired as Peggy had ever heard her. “I almost wish this had been as simple as a terrorist and a bomb. That sounds horrible but…”
“I understand,” Peggy cut in, her smile reassuring. “With a terrorist, it becomes black and white, simple, at least in the public’s perspective. But you and I both know that even a terrorist isn’t simple. One man’s terrorist is…”
“I know, another man’s freedom fighter,” Sharon chuffed, softly rolling her eyes at her own reflection in the glass. “But in this case, this was neither. This was an experiment gone wrong and covered up, and worse, perpetuated for years. And then when it got too big to handle, other people got hurt.”
She turned her forehead against the glass enough for her dark eyes to slide to Peggy’s. “You know, the explosions were so hot, they vaporized most everything, leaving only ash, and sometimes those eery shadows. But, whether it was because of fate or just a freak of architecture, there were always some little baubles that were left behind, untouched. It could be a shoe, or a toy. At the Air Force base, it was a little handmade ornament, construction paper and glitter, with the name 'Noah' on it. At the mall, there was a small bag with makeup and a gift card, only a receipt to tell us who it belonged to. Don’t know if it was meant as a gift or if it was someone treating themselves. Don’t suppose we will ever know.”
“I don’t suppose we will,” Peggy acknowledged, her heart aching as she turned her face to the distance. Here and there in the lights of the city she could see Christmas fairy lights strung along buildings, in windows, on balconies, even around palms. A block away, several apartments had Christmas trees up in their windows, glittering in the night. “It’s hard to believe that Christmas Eve is the day after tomorrow, not after all of this.”
“Yeah,” Sharon agreed, softly, turning to gaze at the city. “I had to break it to Mom and Dad that I wouldn’t likely be home for Christmas and I doubted you would either.”
“Thanks for taking the bullet on that one.” Peggy had rather dreaded telling Sharon’s mother that they wouldn’t be there.
Sharon shrugged. “She was all right with it. It’s an occupational hazard. Still…” She breathed out, the glass misting slightly with condensation. “At least there will be other Christmases, other get-togethers.”
Peggy didn’t often think about just how young Sharon was in the grand scheme of things. From the moment Peggy stepped into the future and entered into her brother’s granddaughter’s life, she had tended to think of Sharon as an equal. Physically, their age difference was not that far apart, only three years, but the experience level was vastly different. Peggy had spent the last decade of her life pushed and pulled between one world-ending fight after another. She was rather used to the insanity of her existence after all of this. It was hard to remember, at times, the everyday tragedy of it all, the painful toll on those who didn’t fight aliens, dictators, and evil scientists, who just went about their days living their lives. Sharon didn’t forget, however, as this was the world she walked in everyday.
They were both quiet for several long moments, allowing each other the mutual space to breathe, to absorb the weight of what Maya Hansen had dropped on them. Peggy shivered as she thought of it again, the truth of what she and Aldrich Killian had been up to. They hadn’t been bombs, they had been people, those who had been hurt and wounded already and who looked to this Extremis treatment as hope, a chance to regain the lives they had once had before the circumstances that took their limbs. Despite her protests that the subjects had all been made aware of the risks and what might possibly happen, it still felt like some sort of horrible betrayal, turning their own bodies against them. Whether they were able to control it or not, eventually they would all succumb to their inability to keep it regulated, and they would all die. If they were lucky, they could die quietly, without bringing death or destruction on anyone. If they weren’t…
“I will have to look at the list of US personnel stationed in Kuwait and their families.” Sharon’s words pulled Peggy from her own, far off, painful thoughts. “I have a feeling that whoever it was that had the Extremis formula was at the chapel. They may not have even known they were going to have that reaction, or if they did, they thought they could control it. It might have just been…innocent, you know, maybe a parent there to see their kid, or one of the military personnel just participating. They had no idea it would all go off.”
That somehow made it all the worse, knowing that it was as simple as an accident. There was no crime, save for what Killian had done to them, and the lies he told to the public afterwards. “What about the others, then?”
“I am guessing most of the others were probably the same, either soldiers who didn’t know what was going on and were trying to seek help, or people who thought that Killian had given them a cure and that they could control it until they couldn’t anymore. Whatever the case, they were all lied to, and so were we. All this terror, all this fear, and it was all a lie, to everyone, and for what?”
Peggy sighed, crossing her arms as if to ward off the chill of the window in front of them. “I will give Hansen this, she came at this with good intentions. I don’t believe she started this journey out to create monsters or ruin lives.”
“Yeah, that sounds like the origin story of many of the inventor of a new and horrific weapon.”
Peggy couldn’t argue with Sharon on that. “You aren’t wrong. I suppose it’s sort of the Frankensteinian moral of it all; just because we can use science to apply to something we see as a problem doesn’t mean that we should.”
“And yet you worked on Project: Rebirth back in the day. You didn’t have any of these qualms when you were preparing to put chemicals in Steve’s body?”
Her niece was a mind-reader, Peggy thought, ruefully. “We did, I absolutely did. We ran it around a lot, the group of us. You know, Erskine didn’t make the serum to create soldiers, not originally. He was trying to do what Maya Hansen was doing, to create a formula to help promote growth and regeneration, to strengthen the sickly who were prone to illness and death. In an age before the sort of medicines you have now, he thought he would be saving lives and doing something good in the world. It was Hitler, Schmidt and the war that changed everything. And yet, out of it, he created a monster of his own. There was fear, genuine fear, that whatever we attempted to do, it would backfire, that we could be creating a man as horrible as Schmidt. Even if he didn’t turn out to be a madman, he may still have had problems, crippling illness or deformities, or he may not have survived the procedure at all. We had no way of knowing.”
“So you’re saying Steve turning out the way he did was down to luck?”
Peggy winced at the accusation in Sharon’s voice. “No, I am saying that Steve was a special person, a good person. Erskine happened to find him and fought for him. I can’t say we would have had the same result with anyone else at Camp Lehigh, certainly not with Gilmore Hodge. He was Phillips’ favorite. Any or all of it could have backfired.”
Sharon stared back at her for long moments, vague disbelief lurking in her expression. “Why did you do it, then?”
“We were desperate,” Peggy said, simply, recalling the clawing fear and endless anxiety that marked the early years of the war, especially for her. “Things were not looking good then. We were on a war on all fronts, and we were desperate for some sort of foothold. The SSR had long known about Schmidt and the serum and his efforts to create an army of super soldiers. They felt they couldn’t fall behind, because just one small contingency of them could spell defeat. Desperation sometimes means compromise, it sometimes means foregoing what is right out of fear of failing.”
Sharon silently studied her, before dropping her gaze to the window again. “Honestly, even that sounds better than what they did here. She knew there was a problem and let him give it to people anyway.”
“She did, though, playing devil’s advocate for a moment, she may not have had much choice in the matter, not if it was Killian calling the shots, which it sounded like he was.”
“She could have blown the whistle a lot sooner than she did, before people had to die for it, before Stark’s house got blown to kingdom come.”
That was all very, very true.
“I need to figure out where Killian is at now,” Sharon sighed, scrubbing at her face. “And just who this guy he’s been parading around as the Mandarin even is.”
“If the Mandarin is a lie, the Ten Rings aren’t,” Peggy offered. “Clint Barton went to Afghanistan when Stark was kidnapped, he did a work up on them. He might be on leave, but a phone call to him may give you direction.”
“I don’t think so,” Sharon replied, straightening, slowly pulling herself back together. “I mean, no more than what we already know. This Mandarin character isn’t any more tied to the Ten Rings than I am, and I’m a bit surprised no one has spoken out about it yet. Maybe Killian paid them off or promised them Extremis super soldiers if they went along with it.”
“Maybe,” Peggy conceded. “So where do we start looking for him?”
Sharon ran her hand across her pulled back hair, tugging at her now frizzy ponytail. “AIM has offices here in Los Angeles, I suppose we can start there. I need some warrants, but we can start pulling their files, see what we got. Maybe I can pull some other offices in to hit their other locations.”
“That is a start.” Peggy was pleased to see Sharon coming back to more of herself. “Now that JARVIS is up, I can put a call into Banner and see what he…
Peggy’s pocket buzzed, insistently, catching both of their attentions. She fumbled to pull it out, flipping it to see Pepper’s number on the screen. Hastily, she thumbed it on not even bothering to pull away from Sharon to take the call. “Pepper, are you all right?”
“He’s alive!” It was all the other woman managed over the line, her voice thick with tears of relief. “He’s alive, he’s okay!”
“Tony?” Peggy’s heart soared with relief as Sharon perked up with interest.
“I found one of his suit helmets and I saw the message light on his display blinking. He left a message for me. I don’t know where he is, but he’s alive.”
Peggy released the breath she had been holding, every fiber in her being suddenly aching with the weight of everything this awful day. “You don’t know where he is? He didn’t say?”
“No, I don’t know. He kept saying he was sorry for everything, and that he couldn’t come home, but he wanted me safe. It didn’t make a ton of sense. He mentioned he stole a poncho from a wooden Indian.” Her voice trailed off, half questioning, half wondering.
That explained precisely nothing. “Okay, well, that is something, I suppose. He’s alive, and that’s what matters. Where are you?”
“I am still at the house, I couldn’t leave, not till I knew he was okay.”
The poor thing, everything she owned was likely either in Tony’s mansion or at the tower in New York, both of which had been hit by madmen in the course of a few months. “Do you have somewhere to go, someplace to stay while we sort this out?”
“I can get a hotel nearby. I want to stay close, just in case Tony comes back here.”
Peggy wasn’t as certain her staying nearby was as good of an idea as Pepper did. “You can come stay at SHIELD headquarters here. It’s secure, more so than a hotel somewhere.”
“Thank you, but no, I need a bed and a shower and to sleep forever. I can begin figuring out what to do tomorrow.”
Peggy didn’t like it, but she couldn’t force Pepper into it if she didn’t want to. The woman’s day had been harrowing enough. “Where will you be staying?”
“I’m not sure, I’m having Bambi, my secretary, figure it out. I’ll let you know when I get it all settled. How is Maya doing?”
Peggy pursed her lips. Pepper wasn’t aware of what Maya had confessed to them. “She’s safe here. We are going to keep her in custody for now, given the threat to her.”
The white lie was acceptable enough, or Pepper might have been too exhausted to really question it. “Do you really think Killian is that much of a threat?”
“He’s tied to the Mandarin, Pepper, yes.” Peggy wished she could imprint on the other woman the threat they were facing. “If he reaches out to you…”
“I know, I won’t respond.”
Peggy still didn’t like it. “When you get settled, let me know, I’ll send SHIELD agents over to keep an eye on you.”
“Do you think that’s necessary? I promise, I will keep my profile down.”
“Pepper, this man just blew up your house with missiles, I think this is very necessary.” It was not a level of protection and security that the other woman was used to, and she knew she resented it, but she had to see reason! “Pepper, if I let anything happen to you, Tony will never forgive me.”
“I know,” she agreed, morosely, but too tired to argue it any further. “I’ll let you know as soon as I know.”
“Thank you,” Peggy said, breathing a small sigh of relief. “Let me work with JARVIS and Bruce to see if we can pinpoint Tony.”
“Okay,” the other woman agreed, sounding small, wrung out, and drained. “Thank you, Peggy, for all of this.”
She couldn’t help her small, soft smile. “I suppose we are practically family at this point, you know. Tony does insist on calling me his “aunt” just to be spiteful.”
Pepper at least could find the humor in that. “You know, he thinks the world of you, right? Not just for your connection to his father, but you as a person. He’s an easy person to like, but he’s not an easy person to love, and he’s very protective of the people who can do the latter.”
“I know,” Peggy admitted. “And that is why I want to make sure you are safe. He needs you, you know.”
“I know,” she said, her voice so soft the phone almost didn’t pick it up. “But I’m not a fragile flower, here. I’m also not the one who is God knows where after having someone shoot missiles at me. He’s the one always flying into danger.”
“This is true, but all the same…”
“I promise,” Pepper huffed. “Look, I got to put in some calls to Bambi and get someplace safe for the night.”
Peggy let her go at that, turning back to Sharon’s openly curious expression. “Stark’s alive, but Pepper doesn’t know where he is. He left a message, something about being sorry and needing a poncho.”
“That’s informative,” Sharon grumbled. “Didn’t bother happening to mention where he is at?”
“I am guessing he’s trying to lay low for the moment, perhaps to let his attackers think he is dead.”
“And why did he not call you or the Avengers in on this?”
Peggy had a feeling she knew why, and if it was true, she likely was going to kill him. “Why else?’
Sharon scrubbed her purpled eyes, exhaling in a low and exasperated sigh. “Look, I know Stark is a member of your team and his safety is paramount, but Killian is my priority at the moment. He is who we need to track down, and he could be anywhere.”
Peggy understood what her niece was getting at without her saying it. “You focus on finding Killian, then. I’ll have my team on Stark. Maybe if I go high and you go low, we will meet somewhere in the middle.”
“Hopefully it will be wherever Killian is at!”
And hopefully before anyone else had to die, Peggy thought, wearily.