Chapter 15
“Can I get you a cup of coffee?”
Peggy blinked, wearily, up at Leanne Keener. “Um…yes, please. That would be lovely.”
It was well after dawn on Christmas Eve, the sky in Rose Hill shifting from the silver of pre-dawn to the rich bold of sunrise over the nearby mountains. It was still freezing outside, which is what had finally sent Peggy shivering out of the shed and inside the Keener house to warm up.
The other woman bustled around her tidy kitchen, grabbing a mug from a cabinet and a pot from off her older generation coffee maker, pouring a cup for Peggy. “Cream? Sugar?”
“A bit of both, please.” She was more of a tea person, but spending so much time around Americans over the last decade of her life had her rather addicted to it. Still, while it had been a long time since she had to choke down Dum Dum Dugan’s brew, but it had forever ruined her on just black coffee. She watched as Mrs. Keener added both, stirred the cup briskly with a spoon, then handed it over for Peggy’s approval. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.” The other woman’s smile was tight, her expression closed off. She hadn’t looked as if she had any sleep. Peggy couldn’t blame her, really, between the events of the evening before and the strangers in her shed, it was small wonder that Mrs. Keener hadn’t rested easy.
That led Peggy to consider their youngest helper. “Is Harley still abed this morning?”
“I told him to sleep in,” his mother shrugged, but with a firmness that said she wasn’t about to wake him up. “Since he didn’t get to bed till almost 2 AM.”
Peggy flushed, slightly guilty at that. “He did fight sleep fairly hard last night. But he was useful, Dr. Banner said he was a great help with getting the Iron Man suit’s power system up and running more efficiently.”
“Well, I am glad he could help,” Mrs. Keener replied with the sort of equanimity that said she was not happy with this scenario, but she was at least happy that it turned out for the best. “He has always been good with those sorts of things, mechanics and stuff. I think he likes fiddling with computers in school.”
That his mother didn’t know this for sure was both a statement to how much she missed in her children's lives as a single, working mother, and how little she knew her own son. Peggy couldn’t help but think of Steve again and his lonely childhood, but even Tony as well, often overlooked by the overworked Howards. “It must be hard for you, doing all of this on your own.”
Despite her clear exhaustion, pride and sadness mingled and flared in Leanne Keener’s expression. “I do what I gotta do for my kids. It’s not easy, but I keep a roof over their head and food on the table, even if it means I miss out on things.”
“I know,” Peggy assured her, quickly, wrapping her own hands around her mug of coffee. She was certainly not one to judge. During the war, she had seen so many other brave mothers, ones who had sent off children to relatives or even perfect strangers in the countryside while they stayed in the cities to work and to do their part for the war effort. They too had done what they had to in order to ensure their children's’ safety.
She decided to shift topics, away from the sensitivity of Mrs. Keener and her skills as a mother. “In any case, we got the suit more fully functional. Unfortunately, the power source from the property is just not pulling enough to make the suit fully charged, so Dr. Banner and Thor are going to move it to an open field to charge it up.”
There was a convenience of having the literal Norse god of thunder around when you needed to charge up, Peggy supposed. Mrs. Keener simply stared at her, briefly, before wrapping her arms across the front of her pajamas and wandering to the frost covered window to peek outside. “There’s no thunderclouds in the sky!”
She did rather have a point. Currently, in Rose Hills, it was a clear, crisp Christmas Eve, the sky promising to be a bright blue over the soft fields of white. “Yes, well he does have the special ability to call down lightning.”
Harley’s mother turned to regard her with the sort of arch expression her son employed as well. “You know, it’s the sort of thing you see on TV happening in a big city, like New York or London, and you can’t believe it is happening. And you think to yourself, ‘I’m glad I live in Rose Hills, back in the country, where none of this stuff ever happens.’ And now I’m standing in my kitchen, having this conversation.”
Peggy couldn’t help but wince, the guilt of having intruded on this woman’s very private space acute, especially given the fact that it was not by Peggy’s choice either. “We will be gone, soon, and out of your way.”
The other woman shrugged, shaking her head as she moved to pour her own cup of coffee. “Harley will be sorry to see you go. It’s the most excitement he’s had in a long while.”
Peggy could well imagine it had to be hard for the exceptionally bright boy whose father was nowhere to be seen and whose mother was busy trying to simply provide a living for all of them. “Mrs. Keener…”
“Leanne,” she gently corrected, shooting Peggy a crooked smile. “It’s been six years since I was really Mrs. Keener.”
“Leanne,” she began again, “you’ve been such a help to us, to all of us, you and Harley both. What can we do to repay you?”
She chuffed, startled by Peggy’s question. “Repay? I don’t know, I mean y’all are the Avengers, right, you are the heroes out saving lives. All I did was give you some coffee and snacks. I suppose maybe cover my electric bill for all the work out in the shed?”
“That I think we can manage,” Peggy agreed, feeling at the very least it was some sort of compensation for their imposition.
Leanne nodded, stirring her coffee for a long moment, quietly thinking. When she spoke up, it was with a hint of unease. “One thing you could do, if you think of it, is just…you know, think about Harley? I mean, since he was so useful to you, maybe if you could give him a little something to say thank you, maybe something he’d appreciate and was useful. He likes computers, like I said, and building things. We don’t have a lot of that here, save for the Vo-Tech school and places in Chattanooga. He’s a bright kid, a lot smarter than me and his dad, and I’d like him to get a chance to see what he can do…if that’s all right?”
Peggy had a feeling that wherever Stark was at this moment, he already was making out a mental list of things he was planning to shower the boy with as a thank you. “I think that too can be arranged.”
“I’d appreciate it,” she said simply, coming over to curl up at the well-scrubbed table. “He’s got a big heart, my boy, and he looks up to you guys. A lot of kids do. I know people on the talk shows all worry about things like all the destruction and who is in charge of you all, but I get it, none of that is your fault. I suppose the world is scary out there, and it's nice knowing there are good people out there taking care of us folks here, even if we don’t live in the big city.”
Leanne’s shy confession warmed Peggy’s heart. “Thank you for that. After the week we’ve had, it’s appreciated.”
With a gust of cold air, the front door into the house opened, and the blustering voices of Banner and Thor came ringing through. The pair of them wandered into the Keener family kitchen, Banner in his warm, gray puffer coat, looking decidedly chilled, and Thor unfazed in his Asgardian armor, as sparkling as the Christmas tree in the front room, and decidedly out of place in a rural Tennessee farm house.
“I’m no engineer,” Banner opened, rubbing his hands together in the warmth. “But I think I got a patch to stabilize the energy source on the suit. Typical Tony, flying around in an untested suit before he’s got all the kinks worked out of it.”
While his grumbling was mild, Peggy thought it was pretty rich coming from a man who injected himself with an untested formula and a dubious form of the super soldier serum. “I can’t imagine he had much choice seeing as his house was under a missile attack when he donned it. What do you need now?”
“Well, electricity, which Thor will helpful provide for us,” Banner turned to gesture to Thor, who waved as the wide-eyed Leanne sitting at the table and trying, vainly, to hold her jaw up as she regarded the god of thunder in the full light of day.
“And also, if it’s not too much trouble, Mrs. Keener, maybe a cup of something warm? Not coffee, can’t have that much caffeine.”
It took the other woman a small moment to realize that Banner was talking to her. She blinked and shook herself. “Errr…sure! I don’t know what I’ve got. Tea…hot cocoa packets?”
“Cocoa will do, if I can get some hot water.”
Peggy guessed he was more after the warmth than what was contained in the drink itself. “Jake sent the other quinjet back to New York last night, so we will use his. I got the number for Stark’s burner phone last night, so as soon as we are ready we can call him and take off.”
From upstairs, there was the sound of what Peggy honestly thought might be a herd of angry elephants coming down the stairs, thumping on each carpeted step. It turned out to be, instead, Harley, bleary-eyed, his mop of dark hair in disarray, parts sticking up at odd angles, his round face creased, red and puffy with sleep. “Are they still here? Did they leave?”
“Harley,” his mother sighed, as the boy came up short when standing next to Thor, his slumber-crusted eyes widening at the sight of a giant god in his kitchen doorway. “I told you to stay in bed this morning.”
“But the suit…”
“It’s all done, kid,” Banner called, cheerfully, as he poured a packet of what Peggy supposed was a mix for hot chocolate into a ceramic mug with the name of a cafe on it, presumably the one that Leanne worked at. “We got it finished this morning, thanks in no small part to your help.”
“But…” He trailed off, helplessly, looking pleadingly at his mother. He reminded Peggy in the moment that he was indeed just a child of ten. “I wanted to be there to make sure it works.”
Banner chuckled, taking pity on poor Harley’s distress. “We haven’t tested it out yet. I needed to get something warm in me first.”
While still only half-awake, Harley turned on his mother, who was bustling, filling a kettle to place on the electric range top. “Can I go help them? Please?”
Leanne eyed Thor half warily, blushing as she did. “I don’t know if that is a good idea, Harl. I mean, lightning can kill a person.”
It took him less than a second to guess what she meant by that, whipping around to the bemused god. “You are going to charge it up with lightning?”
“Errr…well…” Thor frowned with an uneasy glance to Harley’s mother, treading around these mother-son negotiations carefully. “I mean, yes, I know from the past that Stark’s suits tend to respond well to a direct hit of electrical current.”
“But it’s not like you will be hitting me or anything, right,” Harley asked, his mind already calculating the scenario.
“Well…no, I guess not,” Thor offered, half lamely, looking to Peggy and Banner for support and finding no succor at that quarter. Bruce shrugged, pretending to be busy himself with his chocolate powder as he waited for the kettle to come to a boil, while Peggy desperately looked for a way not to involve herself any further in this woman’s home life.
“See, Mom, I’ll be okay! Let me go out and watch it, at least!”
Leanne pursed her mouth, but they could all see the woman’s resolve crumbling. “Where y’all doing it?”
They all looked to Banner, who flushed, seemingly surprised he was being drawn into this. “Errr, the back forty out there, behind the house, away from the road and main power lines.”
Leanne looked out of the back kitchen window, where the fields lay covered in snow. “All right, fine, but you are going to stay well away from everything. Last thing I need is to take you to the ER on Christmas Eve. Get upstairs and get some warmer clothes on, first.”
With a whoop loud enough to wake the dead, Harley tore off back upstairs, calling to his sister, Lexi, who he likely woke up in the process. Leanne’s shoulders slumped somewhat.
“I better do the same. I am not going to leave you all responsible for those two when you got work to do.” She waved to the kettle which hummed on the range. “Help yourself when it gets warm.”
With that she slipped off, around Thor, who stood respectfully as the other woman flushed beet red and then followed her son up the creaking wooden steps. Banner watched her go, shaking her head. “She’s going to have trouble on her hands with that one. He’s either going to be a mad scientist or a charming con man.”
“As we know from the Starks those two are necessarily mutually exclusive,” Peggy snorted, finishing her coffee.
“I was just like him at that age,” Thor reminisced, fondly, with just the hint of sadness. “My brother and I were always begging Mother to allow us to do something foolish and possibly dangerous. Children rarely think of the consequences or dangers of such actions.”
“Neither does Tony,” Banner replied, just as the kettle came to its boil. “What the hell was he doing involving a kid in all of this anyway?”
“Happenstance, I am guessing.” Peggy couldn’t imagine a circumstance where even the notoriously reckless Stark would willingly endanger a child’s life in such a way. “Given the circumstances I wouldn’t want to involve him either, but he’s here and he’s helped.”
Banner put the kettle back on the hob, stirring his drink. “Yeah, well, we will at least get the suit powered up, how it performs is another matter. I understand his stuff only because I’ve been in the lab with him for months now, but Tony’s work is next level. No one else in the world does the things I see him do on his suits just for fun. Worse, I have just enough engineering to make me dangerous and not enough to really fix the problem itself. That will have to be all on Tony.”
“He may just have to deal with this after this is all settled and done,” Peggy replied. “I called Sharon last night with the location of the signal. Turns out there is a mansion in Coral Gables, right outside of Miami, that is off of AIM’s books. It belongs to a shell corporation that Killian has been funneling money to. If Stark hadn’t hacked the signal, I doubt we would have found it in a timely manner.”
“Or at all,” Banner pulled from his mug, wincing at the flavor, but drinking it anyway. “So is SHIELD going to bring in the army?”
“Sharon’s working on that now. The field office in Miami is small, but she’s calling in reinforcements and applying to federal authorities for search warrants.”
“And what are we supposed to do, wait till it’s all official?”
Peggy lifted a shoulder, lazily. “The Avengers are not technically on this case. We are merely following up on the whereabouts of one of our own members, one who was attacked in broad daylight, on television no less. We are merely following him as he is assessing a threat to his own person.”
Banner’s eyebrows rose at that. “Man, the ways we skirt around the law sometimes.”
“We do what we must,” Peggy replied, glancing to Thor. “The complexities of Earth’s law can be tricky.”
“Darcy has been explaining it to me, but I have to admit, it’s all still confusing. She’s quite good at it, though. Jane says she’d have made a very good…what is it called, lawyer…if she hadn’t decided to go into physics.”
“She’ll make a good scientist too,” Banner added. “Probably for the same reasons she’d make a good lawyer.”
“In any case,” Peggy turned their conversation more on topic. “The plan is to fetch Stark, visit this mansion and lock it down enough so SHIELD can come in and take over the investigation. Once it is in their hands, we are done with it, and we can all head home and allow the judicial process to take its course.”
“Good, because Jane is already sad I will be missing Christmas Eve with her. In truth, I am sad as well, as I have never experienced this particular human holiday and was looking forward to it. Which reminds me, Peggy, you are of the nationality of Jane’s mother, she is intent on attending something called a ‘carol service’, which Jane is equally refusing to attend on account of her not ascribing to the religion associated with it. What is the purpose of this?”
That brought both Peggy and Banner up short as they looked wildly at each other. How did one begin to explain the intricacies of human religion and philosophical belief to an alien considered to be a deity by their ancestors? Blessedly, for them both, Harley chose that time to storm down the stairs once again in a flurry of winter woolies and his puffer coat, shoving them all on at once. “How are you going to do this? Just hit the suit with lightning?”
“Pretty much,” Thor shrugged, reaching out a hand to grab the boy before he could race past, stopping down to look at him. “We will wait on your mother, however, so we can ensure you are behaving yourself while out there.”
Some of Harley’s enthusiasm waned. “But…”
“No ‘buts’, your safety is paramount. If you are to aid us in this venture, you stand where I tell you to stand, and you do not venture any closer till I tell you to. Mortal bodies are far too fragile to handle that sort of power, most especially your own.”
He didn’t like it, but he understood. “Sure, I get it.”
“Good,” he nodded, standing up and patting him on the shoulder. “We would not want to get you in trouble the day before the flying man in his red suit arrives with gifts!”
In a world where Thor was personal friends with the likes of Tony Stark in his flying red suit, perhaps Peggy could forgive Harley for his momentary confusion at Thor’s words. “Uhhh…do you mean Santa?”
Thor, in response, looked equally as puzzled. “Errr…yes. Who else would I mean?”
“Errr…nevermind,” Harley shook his head, as his mother came down the stairs herself with his younger sister, both of them kitted out in their winter weather gear. “Okay, Mom, let’s go!”
“We’re coming, Harley, hold your horses,” she snapped back, as Lexi ran into the room and stopped dead at seeing all the strangers, most especially Thor. He smiled and waved at the little girl.
“All right, Harley,” his mother ordered, turning him to face her. “You do what the adults tell you to do and do not get in the way.”
“I know, Mom, gees, Thor already told me.”
Leanne let her eyes slip sideways to Thor, who nodded in approval at Harley. “Well, then, thank you. All right, we best let these folks get their things together so they can head out.”
It was underneath it all a polite request for them to leave. “Right, Banner and Thor, if you can get the suit out to the field. Let me find out where Jake is with the quinjet.”
No sooner had the words left her mouth than there was a quiet woosh outside, and out of the window she could see the hovering shadow of the quinjet up above, moving to land in a patch of the large field. Both Harley and Lexi gasped, running to the window in delight, before both storming to the door to rush outside.
“What did I just…kids!” Leanne’s protests were lost in their exuberance, and before any of them could blink they were out of the house and around the back, hollering as they watched the flying aircraft softly sink into the snow. “Lord, they will be the death of me,” she sighed.
“Well, if they aren’t giving you gray hair, they aren’t doing it right,” Banner smiled in understanding, finishing up his drink before rinsing out the mug and placing it in the sink. “Ready when you are, Thor.”
“Right!” Cheerfully, he too made for the door, followed by Banner. Peggy waited long enough for Leanne to grab her phone from the kitchen counter, tucking it in her coat pocket.
“So this is a normal, everyday for you?” The other woman walked beside Peggy as they made their way around the house and towards the back field.
Peggy hedged. “Not normal, no, but not unusual either.” Best not to mention the time travel bit to her, Peggy decided.
“It’s just…super heroes, fighting evil bad guys, stopping alien invasions, seems like it is out of a comic book!”
“I can assure you, as real as it is, there are days I find it just as fantastical,” Peggy replied, glancing back to see Thor carrying the Mark XLII suit handily over one shoulder as if it were no heavier than Lexi.
Beside her, Leanne Keener snorted. “I don’t know, the strangest thing I have to deal with in my day is the occasional drunk. I wouldn’t know what to do in a situation like y’all face.”
There was a note of awe and perhaps a hint of longing in the woman’s voice. “You ever get tired of dealing with drunks, slinging coffee?”
“Sometimes,” she acknowledged, with a shrug. “But not much else to get out here without either having some sort of business or ag degree, or knowing someone who knows someone. I don’t got that, so I do what I have to.”
“And you don’t want to move?”
Another shrug. “To be honest, I like it out here. It’s quiet. We tried living in Chattanooga when Harley was small. That’s…where his dad started getting in trouble.”
It didn’t take much reading between the lines to realize just what sort of “trouble” Leanne Keener’s ex-husband got into. “I suppose it isn’t a bad place to be with your family.”
“Like I said, my only worry is Harley. I want him to use his gift. Lexi too when she figures out what she wants to be. Right now, she wants to travel and explore things, because she likes that show with Dora in it. I want them to have the chances I didn’t.”
Peggy thought of Steve, wherever he was, and her heart ached. “My…well, I don’t know what to call him, we aren’t engaged, yet, but my…partner, I suppose is the term everyone uses?” Peggy’s 1940’s sensibilities stumbled on that, realizing she had never formally vocalized her relationship with Steve, not in modern terms.
“Err, anyway, my partner grew up with a single mother, no father. His father died. He was military.” It was vague enough without having to explain Steve to her. “He said it was hard, making ends meet, paying for bills, having a place to stay. But he said his mother never complained and never stopped trying to do what was right, trying to help people, and trying to make sure he grew up to be a good, honorable man. She died when he was just eighteen, but to this day he thinks of her and admires her.”
She paused, turning to Leanne. “All that to say that you are doing the best you can, amazing as a matter-of-fact. You raised a wonderful boy who didn’t think twice at helping us. You are doing all right. And anything you need, let us know.”
They were words that Leanne Keener hadn’t expected, and perhaps hadn’t known she needed to hear. Her eyes misted as her lip trembled, and she bit it to hold back tears as she took in a slow, steady breath of cold air. It took her a long moment to compose herself, staring into the distance as she pulled herself together, nodding at Peggy. “Thank you…for that. It’s hard to remember sometimes when I got deputies calling my work telling me my kids have been up to something.”
“I can imagine,” Peggy replied, as they cut through an opening in some of the fencing towards where the quinjet was. Already, Peggy could see Harley and Lexi running up and down the gangplank as Jake waited, waving at them as they finally wandered up.
“Harley! Lexi! Don’t mess around in there,” Leanne barked, rushing forward to attempt to snag her wayward children, even as they merrily danced out of her way, giggling.
“They are fine,” Jake waved off their antics. “I have the jet in a mode where they can’t start anything.”
“Yeah, well I don’t trust Harley.” She glared at her son, who wandered inside the aircraft. “Harley!”
Leanne went after her wayward children as Peggy and Jake watched, both chuckling as Lexi’s excited voice rang from the inside. The excitement of the children fed Peggy’s spirit, which after a night of little sleep and sitting up with Banner, Peggy found she sorely needed.
“How are things in town,’ she asked, as Jake pulled from a paper cup of coffee, steaming in the cold.
“Bewildered, a bit scared, sad.” His good mood faded into a sad frown. “Got word from Deputy Richardson. The sheriff passed away at the hospital last night.”
Peggy’s heart sank at that, churning uncomfortably in her gut with the coffee that Leanne had poured for her earlier. Aldrich Killian already had a long list of people whose lives he was responsible for. Now a small town sheriff and his deputy in Tennessee could be added to it. She nodded, quietly, at Jake as Leanne herded her children out of the air craft. On the other side of the field, she could see Thor and Banner hiking out into the clearing, shielded off from the next field over by a line of trees.
“Thor is going to try and charge the suit up,” she explained, beginning to walk towards where the two men were surveying the land and deciding where to put Stark’s suit.
“Does that work?”
“Apparently,” Peggy returned, as they found a spot to place the suit. “Once that’s done, we can go fetch Stark.”
Jake nodded as they watched Thor settle the suit down in the snow, Banner surveying the sky as he did. Conversation passed between them as Leanne and the children walked up, Harley and Lexi red cheeked and smiling in the sparkling early-morning sunshine. Banner nodded, patted Thor on his armored shoulder, and turned to where they stood in the middle of the snowy field, making his way through in the undisturbed snow.
“I think this is a good spot to stand,” he called, making his way towards them. “Just don’t get any further till you are told, okay kids.”
Harley nodded, solemnly, before giving side-eye to Lexi, who was firm in Leanne’s grip.
“Right,” he glanced at Jake and Peggy. “You all may want to shield your eyes.”
Peggy took Banner’s advice, shading her eyes with her hand as the other man gave a wave towards Thor. The Asgardian prince waved back, then held his arm up and back, in a gesture that Peggy had now come to recognize as one he used when calling Mjölnier to him. For long moments, there was nothing, only the stillness of early morning: the breeze in the trees, the passing of a car on the distant road, the sound of their feet squeaking in the snow. The, with an almost mystical humming, coupled with the sound of its passing, Thor’s magic hammer made its way through the clearing and into his open palm. No sooner had his fingers closed around the hammer than he had raised it to the clear, still bluing sky, calling down a bolt of white lightning from above. It crackled and snapped, flashing through the field, making Peggy and the others squint their eyes as they shielded them. The energy wreathed around Mjölnier, as Thor whipped it down, hitting Stark’s robotic suit, jolting it in the snow, creating a halo of glowing brightness. Peggy closed her eyelids, but even from behind them she could see the brightness as it burned for long seconds, and then was gone.
It took her several moments before she could open her eyes again, blinking, into the brightening sky. Spots danced as she adjusted to the regular light of the early-morning sun, the dazzle of whiteness around them, and the darkness of the trees that lined the field. In the middle of it all in the distance sat the suit in a puddle of melted snow and slightly charred and muddy sere grass, looking rather sad and pathetic after such a display. But the eyes in the metallic face were glowing, almost pulsing with energy.
“Well, that likely did the trick,” Banner called, genially, already beginning his way over to Thor and the suit. Thor moved to bend over the machine, checking it out.
“Can I come too,” Harley eagerly called after Banner.
“Thor?” Banner called out by way of gaining the Asgardian’s attention.
“Hmmm….oh, yes, it should be fine.” He waved his hand around the suit before actually touching it. “I don’t think it is conducting anything.”
“Whoohoo,” Harley hollered, running after Banner and catching up. “That was so cool! Oh my God, do you think it worked? How?”
Banner began his explanation to the boy as they made their way over, but Peggy hung back with Jake, Leanne and Lexi. The little girl was glaring enviously at her brother, but her mother held her hand tightly to keep her from running off. “Mom!”
“You stay here. Harley is older and knows more about this!”
“But…”
“Do as I say, Alexis, or Santa Claus may get a call from me this afternoon saying some little girl doesn’t deserve presents.”
That was enough to quell her daughter’s protests, if not her mutiny. Lexi chose to sulk instead.
“Are you both all right,” Peggy inquired, checking in at least, even if both of them looked healthy enough.
“Yeah, just…that was kind of showy.”
“Thor has a habit of doing that.” Everything about him was rather over the top, honestly, but endearingly so.
“So he’s…really an alien,” Leanne asked, curiously.
“Yes,” Peggy confirmed.
“And he’s…really some sort of thunder god?”
“Well, he’s at least the man they based the Norse god of thunder on, yes.”
“Huh,” Leanne mused, shaking her head. “This was not how I expected my day to go.”
Peggy chuckled, watching as Thor picked up the suit once more, slinging it across his shoulders and hiking across the field. Banner came behind, while Harley practically danced beside them both, a constant stream of questions being shot at both parties, Banner answering with curious patience, Thor with outward charmed bemusement.
“Harley, leave those men alone,” his mother called when they got close enough. “Let them get loaded up, hon, they have to head out.”
That dimmed the boy’s enthusiasm somewhat. “But I got so many questions!”
“I know, sweetie, but they got to go do their job.”
He looked resigned at that. “Saving the world without me, I guess.”
“Not totally without you,” Peggy offered, dryly, recognizing a childish ploy to play on their guilt when she saw it. “If you hadn’t helped Tony, he would have been in a tough spot and we wouldn’t have been able to find the Mandarin’s headquarters.”
That seemed to mollify him somewhat. “You’re right. You couldn’t have done it without me.”
“Good work, kid.” Banner clapped Harley on his shoulder as Thor went inside the quinjet with Jake to store Stark’s suit. “You got a future at this, if you keep it up.”
“Thanks,” he blushed, shoving his gloved hands in his pockets and beaming.
With that, Peggy turned to his mother, smiling gratefully as she reached out a hand. “Leanne, thank you for your hospitality and understanding. If you need anything from us, let me know.”
“Thanks,” she said, simply, shaking Peggy’s hand firmly, then Banner’s, before wrapping her arm around Harley’s shoulder. “Good luck out there. For all the people’s hurt, including folks here, I hope you catch him.”
“We will,” she assured, firmly. They would find Killian, and he would be held responsible for every life he ruined in the effort to create his own super soldier army. She glanced to Banner. “Are we ready to load up?”
“I think so.” He bent down to shake Lexi’s hand. “Thanks for your help, too.”
The little girl giggled and grinned, nodding.
“Let’s go,” Peggy muttered by way of moving them along.
With a wave, she turned her steps to the gangplank, but not before Harley’s voice called out, briefly stopping her. “When you see Tony, tell him don’t forget who he is!”
It was a strangely deep statement coming from a boy Harley’s age, but Peggy supposed it meant something between the two of them. “I will. Happy Christmas!”
They returned the sentiment as she and Bruce made it inside the quinjet, out of the cold of the snow. “If the suit all loaded up?”
“It is secure,” Thor assured her.
“Let me call Stark then,” she said, pulling out her phone as she settled into one of the seats, buckling herself in. “If we are lucky, we can pinpoint Killian in his home base and this will be done with and we can get home.”
“You know, that’s the one thing I like about you, Carter,” Banner called as he also settled himself in. “You are always so optimistic!”