Chapter 4
“You know, for a guy who has been dead for nearly seventy years, you have a lot of stuff!”
Steve Rogers pointedly ignored the dry wit of Natasha Romanoff and only grunted as he manhandled the armchair into the door with the sort of ease that left the attending professional movers awed and startled. One of them even clapped. Peggy, standing in the shelter of her niece, Sharon Carter’s apartment doorway, only shook her head with a fond roll of her eyes, watching the love of her life stubbornly refuse all assistance in carrying the chair to precisely where he wanted inside of his new apartment, the first he had since his bachelor pad with Bucky Barnes decades ago.
“Did they get that ugly chair in?” Sharon passed her a coffee mug, sipping briefly from her own.
“It’s not so bad,” Peggy defended mildly, having helped to pick out the chair and feeling somewhat nettled by her niece’s criticism of it. “Besides, Steve likes it!”
“This is the man with firmly mid-century taste.” This coming from a woman currently dressed in yoga pants and a t-shirt for some musical group that Peggy, still new to the popular culture of the twenty-first century, was unaware of.
“One could say my tastes are that as well, though I suppose I can’t say I have any one style I like. After all, I hardly decorated the place I have now, that was all SHIELD.” Peggy had been given her high-end, sophisticated, highly technological Manhattan flat had been given to her by SHIELD, the nicest in the building full of agents who lived and worked in the city, or who at least used it for a home base when passing through. While she enjoyed her own home a great deal and had grown rather comfortable with it, it wasn’t one she had picked out, decorated, or had made into her own.
Sharon bobbed her head, her blonde ponytail swinging. “SHIELD does have good taste. I’m jealous of your apartment.”
“I think that was mostly Cassandra. She was the one in charge of those things at the time, and she took me to the place.” Peggy thought of her right hand, Cassandra Kam, the person who kept her sane most days. She had met the young agent on one of her first days in this new time, tasked by Maria Hill to help Peggy acclimate in this new world. She’d made fast friends with the young woman as she learned the ropes and eventually stole Cassandra to work with her on the Avengers. Peggy didn’t know how she could have made it through the last two-and-a-half years without the pragmatic, sensible, efficient Cassandra there to help.
“Is she still basking in that post-engagement glow?” Sharon grinned, waggling her own naked left hand by way of emphasis.
“Honestly she will kill someone with that diamond the way she flings her hand about. She nearly caught Julio’s eye with it the other day.” Peggy was teasing, of course. She couldn’t have been more thrilled that Cassandra had finally officially decided to marry her long-time partner, David. It was a decision that was not wholly unexpected, but was delightful nonetheless. “She’s happy, and I’m happy for her.”
“And you and Steve aren’t…” Sharon’s arched eyebrow finished off the question she had left dangling in the air.
“He’s still adjusting to this world,” Peggy protested, mildly, despite her cheeks flushing with her answer. “After all, cellular phones are still rather new to him.”
“And he’s partnering with Romanoff?” She eyed the pair working in the other apartment. Tall and serum enhanced Steve was easily managing the heavy chair that required two of the movers to get it up the stairs, Romanoff following with the cushions, chattily offering him advice on windows with optimal sunlight and eye lines to see what was coming at you.
Peggy shrugged. “I think it will be good for him. She’s more of this generation, so are you. I certainly am not. The two of us trying to piece together how to maneuver this strange future of yours is rather like the blind leading the blind. At least with him working with Natasha, and you down the hall, he won’t be so alone.”
Sharon was quiet for a long moment beside her. “You’re worried.”
Peggy masked the truth of her niece’s statement behind a chuckle. “Of course I am! After all, I dragged him into all this.”
“Is it that, or is it that you just got him back and you really are terrified that the minute you don’t have eyes on him he will disappear into a puff of smoke?”
If Peggy had any doubt about Sharon’s Carter pedigree, which at this point she didn’t, her on-the-nose observation fully underscored it. “You didn’t have to be that accurate.”
“Sorry, didn’t realize you were still in the denial stage of your anxiety.” Sharon was hardly apologetic. “Honestly, the man fought Nazis, HYDRA and aliens, and you think a few spies are going to terrify him?”
“No,” Peggy admitted, wishing things like anxiety had any rhyme or reason. “I just...worry.”
“I know.” Her niece nudged her shoulder gently with her own. “But hey, Mom and Dad are thrilled you will be down more often, though in fairness I think Dad is more excited about Steve. In his seventies and he still worships his childhood action hero. It’s kind of cute.”
“Don’t you have a DVD collection of a TV show based off me?”
Sharon was hardly ashamed of that fact. “I didn’t say I wasn’t a hypocrite, only that Dad was cute. He and Steve can go and be old fogies together!”
Peggy had to admit, the image of her nephew, Harrison, bending Steve’s ear as they discussed things the younger generations couldn’t care less about was rather amusing. “Your father has to despair of you.”
“Sometimes,” she admitted, grinning broadly. It stopped short, however, as she seemed to mull something for the briefest of moments. “If you got a minute, I was wondering if I could have you take a look at something for me.”
Peggy eyed the activity of men carrying boxes of newly purchased housewares and furniture into the apartment. Steve, true to his nature, could be heard marshaling the efforts like they were the Commandos out in the field. She doubted she would be missed. “What do you have?”
Sharon motioned her to follow into her apartment. It was a cozy place, one that Peggy had been to many times, simple in its decor, but no different than any other apartment belonging to a young, female working professional in Washington DC. It was still a far cry from the sort of boarding rooms that women like Sharon would have been expected to live in the 1940s, the time period Peggy had come up through the ranks. Sharon’s entire apartment took up the space of three rooms at the Griffith, which was just as well. Peggy knew about the secret compartments her niece had put into her ceiling, closets, and her spare bedroom containing extra weapons, supplies, and all the tools an operative for SHIELD would need in a pinch. Sharon was, when it was all said and done, still a spy.
“Let me pull it up.” Sharon waved to her soft, pillow covered couch. Peggy settled with easy familiarity as Sharon grabbed her encrypted laptop from off her work area, bringing it over the coffee table and turning on her television to project the images.
“I’ve been working on a case,” she began, pulling up files and images, blowing them up large enough for Peggy to see. They were explosion sites, horrific blast zones littered with charred and twisted metal and broken, blasted concrete, whole buildings crumbling as if hit by bombs. Peggy blinked at the images in horrified curiosity. One appeared to be a random building somewhere in the Middle East or Central Asia. Another was clearly a US military facility. A third was in a more lush, tropical area, perhaps Africa, perhaps South America, perhaps Southeast Asia. All of them looked as if a small localized bomb of magnificent capacity had gone off.
“Terrorists,” she asked, more conversationally than with any certainty.
“Looks like it,” Sharon replied, pulling up dossiers on her computer. “Three separate bombs, three different targets, all the same explosion signature.”
“What type of bomb,” Peggy asked, scanning through the descriptions briefly, stricken by the results.
“That is unknown. The explosions are destructive, very destructive, but relatively self-contained. It has the sort of power we have seen in nuclear bomb sites, and yet it only seems as big as a standard terrorist explosive. And here is where it gets creepy…”
She highlighted a passage of one report from a US military facility. Peggy squinted as she read it, trying to make sense of it.
“What do they mean that the explosive used is unidentifiable?”
“Just that,” Sharon replied, her frown returning. “Now you see why I asked you in. The US Army has run it through every protocol and have found nothing. Whatever it is causing these explosions, it isn’t something that anyone has seen before.”
The idea of an agent in the hands of an unknown terrorist with the capability to unleash it in this way was utterly terrifying. “Has anyone claimed responsibility?”
“For the initial one, at first, no. It was in Afghanistan, out at a base there, and frankly it could have been anyone. It wasn’t till the second one, at a place in the Philippines, that the name of the Mandarin started popping up in connection with both it and the first one. This last one was at a facility in Texas, and in less than three days intelligence chatter already attributed it to him. Now, it’s becoming a thing.”
Peggy would own she didn’t quite have all the nuances of the current global political situation, not like Sharon would, but she did understand enough to know the basic contours of what appeared to be an ongoing political and cultural conflict, the fall out of the Cold War and decades of Western policy in countries big and small. “Who is the Mandarin?”
“You remember the Ten Rings, right? The group who kidnapped Stark?”
Peggy remembered well. “Barton dug into them in Afghanistan. He seemed confident they were one of several local groups all vying to fill the power vacuum in the area.”
Sharon nodded, setting aside her laptop on her coffee table and leaning into the cushions of her couch. “He wasn’t wrong, but the Ten Rings are more complex than that. They are more of a terrorism collective, if you will, part network, part franchise, almost. People can tap into the organization and get training, recruit followers, get assistance and funding, and then create their own cells where they wish. The one in Afghanistan was one such, but there are others. We only know of a few cells, most are way deeper underground. The Mandarin is the name of the man who supposedly controls all of them.”
“Supposedly?” Peggy quirked an eyebrow, intrigued. “Who is he?”
“We don’t know much. He was a myth and legend, really, before this. When he turned up, he was still more a mystery figure than anything substantive. The only way he even came up through chatter was almost through a viral campaign on known deep web sites used by organizations like the Ten Rings. Even then it’s even odds if this man is real or if this is just part of a marketing strategy on the Ten Rings part.”
“Terrorists marketing themselves?”
Sharon snorted. “Everyone does now, even terrorism. Anyway, this got kicked around and landed on my desk. No one else has ideas, so, I thought I’d check it out.”
“Really,” Peggy eyed the television screen and the dossiers on it, briefly. “And you just...happened to want to ask me about it?”
“Well, you were here, and you have a brain for investigating things…”
Peggy could sense her nice hedging. “You said no one identified the explosive material used.”
Sharon at least had enough grace to look somewhat guilty. “Yeah…”
“You suspect it is Stark’s?”
Sharon held up a defensive hand at Peggy’s stormy expression. “I’m not saying it is, but it is odd that the very organization that kidnapped him, tortured him, and then tried to force him into making weapons for them would then turn around and develop a weapon no one understands.”
“He isn’t making weapons now.”
“No, but he was making them for a long time and Obadiah Stane was selling them to the Ten Rings for a long time. I am just wondering if it was possible his company developed something that got out, maybe something he doesn’t remember or that he didn’t know about.”
“Sharon…” Peggy’s sigh was long and pained.
“Give me some credit, Peggy, I wouldn’t have jumped to this out of nowhere!”
She was right, of course she was, it was a logical conclusion to leap to. Sharon had no way of knowing just now touchy of a subject that was, especially with Stark’s most recent snappish behavior. “You know how he feels about these things.”
“I know, but it’s a part of his past. Everyone has to reckon with theirs.”
She wasn’t wrong. “You and I both know that isn’t Stark’s style.”
Sharon shrugged. “Who else can I ask?”
The obvious answer hit Peggy about the same time as Natasha Romanoff’s booted toe hit the front of Sharon’s door. “Hey, hiding in here to avoid Steve Roger’s strategic planning meeting on where to put the coffee table or just avoiding having to put together Ikea flat packs of furniture?”
“Yes,” Sharon responded, unapologetic and grinning at Romanoff's eye roll and smirk.
Peggy frowned thoughtfully at the petite, red-haired woman. She knew Stark Industries almost better than Pepper Potts did, having spied on the company for a year while SHIELD investigated who had kidnapped Stark and why. “Come in for a second and close the door.”
Romanoff didn’t even hesitate as she did so, brushing off dust onto her dark jeans as she wandered down the small hallway to the living area where they sat. She glanced briefly at Sharon’s screen, scanning it quickly, nodding to herself. “You got the Mandarin case?”
“We were just discussing it,” Sharon replied, casting a speculative gaze at the other operative. “Any ideas?”
Natasha shrugged a shoulder under the loose dark-green jumper she wore. “We know so little about the group. Their name keeps popping up in Central and East Asia, but nothing definitive. Am a bit surprised that anyone of them is stepping up in public, they tend to keep a lower profile for the most part, don’t like advertising.”
It was a fair point. Peggy, who was out of practice in the world of espionage in this day and age, had to concur. Sharon nodded, taking note, before jumping to the real question they had at hand for Romanoff. “The signature of the bombs, we can’t tell the explosive used. No one can identify it. Given Stark’s history with the Ten Rings, do you know of anything his company might have been working on that got into their hands? Maybe something that Stane was selling under the table to them?”
Romanoff considered, her expression still in the way she had as she parsed through whatever mental data she was sifting through. “No, not that I ran across. Stark tends to run towards high tech over quick and dirty in terms of weapons, and nothing he ever built was as powerful or compact as that. He was building for armies, not terrorists, though admittedly sometimes those are one and the same thing. Whatever those bombs are would be too small stakes for that and I don’t think anyone in his company was developing anything like it before Stark shut it all down.”
“Well, that answers that question.” Sharon looked at Peggy apologetically. “I had to ask, you know. Cover every base.”
“I know.” Still, Peggy rather wished she didn’t. “If it’s all right by you, I think I will avoid mentioning it to Tony. I don’t really relish the idea of arguing with him over it.”
“Understood,” Sharon looked to Romanoff hopefully. “Any further insight you might have with any of this?”
“Only that it’s weird.” Not the most eloquent Romanoff had ever been, but she apparently didn’t have much more to add. “I mean, think about it, most of the time when a bomb like this goes off it's meant to cause maximum damage and instill maximum fear in a populace. There is a reason suicide bombers chose tourist spots or places with restaurants and shops, they are high traffic areas that will get people’s attention. Out of the way army bases don’t seem big enough.”
“Duly noted.” Sharon scribbled a note to herself. “Seriously, I should have you helping me out on this. We only got it because the CIA was stumped and and someone at the White House had it kicked it over to SHIELD.”
“The CIA being stumped sounds about on par for the situation,” Romanoff snorted without heat, but clearly unimpressed with American intelligence. “Anything like this that pops up, they immediate start assuming it is terrorists and start turning over every rock and tree in Central Asia.”
“And you don’t think it is?”
“Could be, but you don’t have enough information yet to determine that.”
Peggy sensed what was unspoken. “We don’t really have the luxury of allowing it to continue long enough to see a pattern.”
“No,” agreed Romanoff. “Anyway, I’d help if I could, but I’m on Captain America training duty.” This she said with a cheery smirk in Peggy’s direction. “I can’t wait to take him to the Farm and see how that blows his mind.”
Peggy had a feeling that Steve wouldn’t be the only one whose mind would be blown. Very few people knew just how the serum had enhanced his reflexes, mental acuity, and overall speed, and that was alongside the strategic and tactical thinking that had been his gift before the serum. “I have a feeling he might just surprise everyone when it is all said and done.”
“Likely,” Romanoff agreed, glancing in the direction of Steve’s apartment down the hall. “We should probably get in there and see what he’s up to before he manages to turn a group of movers into a tactical team.”
Peggy could sense a gentle prod when it was given. “I was rather hoping he’d convince them to put some of the furniture together.”
“He might. Actually, not the worst plan in the world.” Romanoff snorted, leading the way out of Sharon’s place. “Few things are as anger inducing as figuring out why you have ten screws for one step of a project and there are only six holes.”
“Spoken like someone who has had to put together furniture,” Sharon sympathized, trailing behind Peggy.
“I am not saying I have, but I am saying that I have a handler who nearly lost an eye over it once.”
It spoke to Peggy’s life experience that Romanoff’s matter-of-fact statement barely earned an eyebrow raise of shock or disapproval. “Well, let’s try not to pull knives on each other while doing this?”
“I can promise nothing,” Sharon whispered behind her as they made their way into Steve’s apartment.