Time Converges

The next morning arrived, slightly bleary eyed, but none the worse for wear.

“How are you holding up?” Sharon faced the bright light of the day with the sort of resolute constitution of a Carter, stiff upper lip and all. They had perhaps overdone it just a touch the night before.

“Well enough, all things considered.” Peggy sipped out her black coffee in the inn's rather charming dining room, munching on toast. “Yourself?”

“Hmm, it’s been a minute since I’ve had that much to drink, but I think I held it together.” Sharon grasped her own coffee like a lifeline. In truth, she had kept it together rather well, considering the amount of beer their group of Darkmoor employees had put away. Like most operatives, Sharon had been trained in how to pace things, but everyone had limits. “I wonder if that Gareth guy got home okay?”

“He was rather off his face, I will give that to you.” Gareth, the sweet, if gormless, computer engineer had spent much of the evening chatting Peggy up, clearly interested in who he thought was a charming tourist up for the weekend, finding courage to talk to her at the bottom of his glass. He had been rather pleasant, and it had made her feel slightly guilty to lead the poor fellow on.

Still, he had given her quite a bit of information on Darkmoor, their research, what he was working on, and just what they got up to at the facility still in operation on the grounds of the estate. Sadly, not a bit of it led them any closer to anything, save that Siobhan Haldane seemed to be honest so far - Darkmoor was exploring alternative energy sources. All of it, actually, was rather interesting, if Peggy were honest with herself, and she had made a note to tell Stark about it when she returned. She had a feeling he and Lady Siobhan had a lot of ideas in common. It was a pity that she was suspicious of the woman and the research her companies were up to.

“You seemed to do alright with that gang.” Sharon turned Peggy’s attention back to the events of the night before.

Peggy could only laugh. “That is practice, I must admit, and that only came from many embarrassing nights with Michael and his friends. I used to drink most of them under the table. Served me in good stead when I became an operative. I used to run a racket with Bucky Barnes during the war hustling soldiers at drinking games. He would split the winnings with me.”

“Nice,” Sharon laughed, helping herself to toast. “Glad to know my great-aunt knows how to fleece GI’s out of their money.”

“Not information, though, or at least not much.” Peggy made a face, vaguely, at her own breakfast. “So far, Lady Siobhan seems like she is on the up-and-up.”

“My end of the table were project managers, people working on big initiatives for the next few years. It was much the same with them. No military contracts, nothing having to do with weapons development or super soldier serum, no space lasers.” Sharon reached for the jam, frowning in contemplation. “Honestly, most of it isn’t bad stuff. Sustainable sources of energy, how to get it into marginalized areas, the sort of stuff that would turn Stark on. I can see why someone like this Mandarin might be interested in a lot of this sort of thing, but none of it seems nefarious and none of it has anything to do with what they are doing with MST Pharmaceuticals.”

Peggy didn’t see how it added up either. “Maybe we are thinking too big picture.”

Sharon didn’t look as convinced. “Or maybe we are thinking too connectively. After all, not everything has to be related to everything else. Sure, Siobhan Haldane happens to be the CEO of the conglomerate which happens to be tied to Darkmoor Research, MST Pharmaceuticals, and crazy, British fascists who tried to use dark magics to fight their enemies, but does that mean that they are tied to one another? Does it mean that was what this Mandarin was after? Does it even have anything to do with Erskine’s serum, or super soldiers, or anything else?”

It was an angle Peggy admittedly hadn’t thought of. She had been rather focused on the singular notion of this all being tied neatly together, that this Mandarin had targeted the pharmaceutical company because he wanted something nefarious that Haldane’s group was working on, something involving the serum. That she didn’t have much to support that hadn’t seemed to matter as much as pieces began to unwind involving Haldane, Darkmoor, and her own past.

“You think that we are on a wild goose chase,” she asked, honestly, glancing over the rim of her cup at her niece.

Sharon shrugged as she munched thoughtfully on her toast and strawberry jam. “I think that we picked up what we thought were clues and looked them over and maybe they aren’t the clues we were looking for. I mean, sure, it was worth a look, but I have a feeling that when we talk to Haldane today she isn’t going to tell us anything more than what we already know.”

Peggy never did like admitting defeat. “Let’s at least talk to her and see what she says. I hate to think we did all of this for no reason at all.”

“I’m here for the country manor house,” Sharon teased, glancing out of the window to the street outside. “And to see the village where my father was born. That’s kind of cool.”

A car arrived for them from the manor at eleven, a simple SUV, without fuss or ornamentation. The driver, named Greg, one of the workers at the house, greeted them affably, chatting with them breezily on the short drive outside of the village to the large, Darkmoor estate.

“How old is it,” Sharon asked, openly friendly and talkative, though Peggy could see she was fishing for any information the gregarious, middle-aged fellow could give her.

“Oh, the estate itself is ancient! Folks around these parts say that the Haldane’s have held it since King Arthur himself ruled.” He laughed, a knowing chuckle that said he thought the story was rubbish himself, but found it too amusing not to share. “Don’t know about Merlin and Arthur, but I do know that this family has been here since before the Normans. But the house itself isn’t that old, only a couple of centuries. The castle that was on the property burned down and they tore most of it down to make the manor.”

Sharon pretended to pout at the very idea. “I was hoping to see an old castle! Out here on the moors it would be so romantic!”

Peggy just did manage not to snort, pretending to be very interested in a herd of sheep on the other side of the fencing.

Greg, their driver, only grinned. “Ah, well, I hate to disappoint you. The research lab is where the castle used to be, all fancy and modern. Only ancient thing the land has anymore is the old stone circle!”

“Stone circle?” That did get a spark of curiosity out of Sharon. “Like a henge?”

“Not like a henge, it is one. Been a part of the land since before the Haldane’s had it. I suppose it got used in pagan rituals or what not, but now at days it’s just a tourist attraction. When her ladyship is away in the summer she lets people tour the house and grounds, and so people like to go there in midsummer, things like that.”

Sharon eyed Peggy, who shrugged. She had seen the stone circle with Howard decades ago, and while Howard with his American reverence and awe at all things older than a skyscraper had been loudly impressed, she had frankly found it all too...disquieting. Peggy was not a superstitious person by nature, but she had seen things both in this world and from out of this world, and something had not settled right with her about the place. Perhaps it was her own prejudice against Lord Ranulph Haldane and the work he had been doing that was talking.

All of that said, the manor house was a different story altogether.

It crept on one, if you weren’t expecting it. Around a bend and a copse of trees along the fencerows, it appeared in the distance, an Italianate confection of honeyed stone. It looked just as it had in 1947, and indeed as it had since the house was built early in the 1700s, a bit of Tuscan Italy scooped out and plopped on the Yorkshire moors. It was a lovely house, all that said, with baroque artistic flourishes and a manicured lawn that seemed to stretch for miles.

“Wow,” Sharon breathed as they came up the drive, past well manicured lombardy poplars, turned golden at this time of year, up to a circular drive that ran in front of the main portico of the house. “It looks like a palace.”

“I don’t know if it’s that fancy, miss, but it is quite grand,” Greg the driver agreed. He pulled their vehicle to a stop, and blessedly didn’t seem so eager to stand on ceremony as to try and help them out. It wouldn’t have done him any good in any case, as Sharon was already out of her door, eyeing the Roman-style carvings high above them, as Peggy stepped out, giving the whole place a once over again. The last time she had been here it had been with a contingency of British officers. That had been long ago. Just how much had Darkmoor - and the Haldanes for that matter - changed?

To Peggy’s surprise it wasn’t a member of the servant staff, but Siobhan Haldane herself who came to greet them. “Hello, Carters! Welcome to Darkmoor!”

The other woman was the picture of modern country elegance, a far cry from the sort of dress and manner that Peggy had grown up with in the period between the two wars. A woman of Siobhan Haldane’s status would not have been caught out in the denim she wore, paired with a thick cable knit sweater. Her auburn hair was caught up elegantly, and by the way she moved you would have thought she was dressed for tea with the royal family. By comparison, Peggy felt rather overdressed in her far more business-like suit.

“It’s a pleasure to see you again Miss...I mean Lady Haldane,” Sharon stumbled, uncharacteristically, holding out a hand to the woman. “Darkmoor is lovely.”

“It is a rather nice old pile, isn’t it?” She glanced up at the honey-colored stone. “I always thought they would rename it when the manor house was built, seeing as it’s not particularly dark, but I suppose that was the name of the castle and lands, so they were stuck with it, I suppose. Director, lovely to see you.”

Peggy took the woman’s well-manicured hand. “Your ladyship.”

“Enough with that." She waved that away almost immediately. “I never did like the title. You can call me Siobhan as everyone else does. Come along, my hunting party is out and about this morning looking for something to shoot, so we have the house to ourselves. I can give you a tour.”

It wasn’t what they were there for, but Sharon agreed, at least appeasing the woman as they wandered through the house that made Peggy’s childhood home look shabby and well-worn by comparison. The entire place was filled with rooms and rooms of the sort of glittering splendor of a bygone age in Britain, when they had once held an empire that afforded them the wealth and ability to prolong the romance of country manor living. Here were the relics of a long ago age, when lords and ladies still could escape to such large mansions, away from the heat and smoke of the city, where the better set would hunt, wine, and dine and live magical lives far removed from the rest of the everyday citizens. Peggy’s mother had always admired people who lived such lives. In truth, while Peggy didn’t resent them, she just never found much use for it. What good was it to sit about, learning French and piano, if all that was ever expected of you was to look pretty and pour a good cup of tea?

“The man who drove us up here said the Haldane’s have held this land for centuries,” Sharon broached as they wandered through a formal sitting room. Up on the wall hung a portrait of an ancient lord of the land, another Ranulph Haldane, dark and imposing, watching them as they stood there, as if judging them for their modern ways and poor manners.

“Since before the Norman Conquest, or so I’ve been told. The story goes that the Haldane’s actually descend from Roman legionnaires stationed at Hadrian’s Wall, but I think that’s the sort of legend someone invented to make us sound far more important than we actually were. Still, there has been a Haldane on this spot for well over a thousand years.”

Her smile became somewhat bittersweet with that. “Pity, then, I should be the last. Feels rather like I am letting them all down. A thousand years of overseeing this place and protecting its people and I will be it. But, I suppose there isn’t a need for it anymore. That sort of thing is all well and truly gone. The old life of the provincial lord of the manor has been done for nearly a hundred years. There’s only a few of us hold outs left, clinging on to it for the last bits of the old world. I suppose it’s time to let it die, though. Things change, and children don’t have to do things the same way that their parents did, right?”

Her gaze flickered to Peggy then, inquisitive. It was a bit unnerving. “No, I don’t suppose they do.”

“Hmm, in any case, my father didn’t precisely leave a legacy I was keen on carrying on, so it’s perhaps good I let the old ways go with me. In any case, let me show you the formal dining room!”

For the next hour they wandered, Sharon occasionally attempting to ask pointed questions on Darkmoor, Lord Ranulph's work, and the research facility, all of which were skillfully evaded by Siobhan, who gave polite, patented answers as she turned their attention to the fine portrait hanging over the fireplace, or the well-manicured lawn that had initially been designed by Capability Brown, only to have it all turned over by the next generation who preferred to continue the Italian romantic theme. Sharon listened, polite and attentive, attempting to find small chinks in which to lob her next attack.

Peggy, who cared little for such things, waited patiently, even as the great house tour made her want to gouge her own eyes out.

“I am sure I’ve bored you both to tears with the descriptions of silk wall hanging and 19th century crystal,” Haldane finally offered, apologetically, but clearly not sorry, as she led them to a glass covered conservatory, snug and warm from the cold elements of the outside. “The least I can offer you is lunch while we discuss why you are really here.”

“The attack on MST Pharmaceuticals and why one of your companies might have been targeted.” Sharon cut to the chase, clearly tired of being skillfully maneuvered around this whole time.

“You said you had a lead you were following in regards to the company and this Mandarin.” She settled into a padded chair, covered in a floral print, sitting before a set table with lovely, if plain, china on a coppery, fall-colored table cloth. Peggy and Sharon did the same, as a server came to set plates of food before them. “By the way, I had the chef prepare something simple. I couldn’t tell you what it is in French, but it is nothing more fancy than roasted venison and vegetables, all from the estate.”

Sharon, who had been preparing to continue her line of questioning, paused, her mouth open in the act of forming words. Panicked, dark eyes flickered to Peggy, who was caught short by whatever was upsetting her.

“Err...venison? Like...deer?”

“Yes,” Siobhan responded, her own questions flickering briefly. “We raise a herd here on the property, it’s one of the money-making venture on the estate. It helps us keep going. This one isn’t hunted, those are strictly controlled.”

“I...just haven’t had it before,” Sharon admitted, gamely prodding it with a fork. Peggy resisted the urge to do what Mrs. Jenkins had when she was a child and admonish her to try it, she would like it.

“What Agent Carter was getting at,” Peggy continued on Sharon’s behalf, trying desperately to finally push this conversation into happening, “is that we believe the Mandarin was after research that was being done by MST Pharmaceutical.”

The other woman nodded as the servant poured red wine and water for each of them, thanking him before sending him away, unobtrusively. She waited till he was gone before speaking. “MST is involved in a great deal of research, as is everyone working under the various companies and banners we are under. As I am sure you both discovered while chatting up scientists from the the research facility, I have nothing to hide.”

So she clearly had heard about their escapades the night before. “Alternative energy sources, that is what you do at the Darkmoor facility now?”

“Mostly, though I do believe they are also experimenting with other things, such as global warming and environmental protection and rescue. You’ll find, Director Carter, that most of the companies and facilities under the Mys-Tech banner are all doing different things, but with the same purpose, to help as many people as possible and leave this world slightly better than how we found it. Haldane Financial group works with small businesses and individuals in developing countries to allow them to build up sustainability and secure businesses ventures that benefit their lives and their communities. We are currently funding a joint venture with an online platform to start sharing stories from people who never get a voice in media. And as for MST Pharmaceutical, their entire goal has been to improve the lives of others through medical research and making as much healthcare possible available for those who need it most, either through preventative care, medication, or funding doctors and hospitals. Everything this company is committed to is to do good in this world, not to destroy it or cause terror.”

Her last words rang with a sort of quiet righteousness, the only hint in their entire visit of the noblewoman beneath the friendly, genteel facade. And yet, her father had displayed the same sort of behavior once, the same certainty in his cause. Despite Haldane’s assurances, Sharon pressed on.

“No one is saying that MST itself is doing anything particular or directly nefarious. That said, by your own admission, research is happening, some of which may seem innocent in nature on its surface, but which might hold an interest to someone like this Mandarin. Is there anything that comes to mind that you know of?”

The woman paused, considering, holding one of her silver forks over her untouched plate of food. After several long moments she shook her head, setting aside her unused utensil. “There are any number of projects that they are working on at any given point in time. It could be anything. Is there any evidence of a break in or tampering?”

“Not so far,” Sharon conceded. “But it could simply be because the plan didn’t work out, or because they used a method that wasn’t particularly obvious.”

“What about Abraham Erskine’s serum?”

To her surprise, the woman looked politely confused. “I beg your pardon?”

“Super soldier serum,” Sharon provided by way of explanation. “It’s what made Captain America into what he is.”

Confusion, understanding, and surprise all played across Siobhan’s face, all of which looked dishearteningly genuine. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about it. I know of Captain America, I believe. He is one of those Avengers that saved New York, isn’t he?”

She wouldn’t have been alive during the war to remember Steve Rogers, Peggy supposed, and she really shouldn’t hold it against her that she didn’t recall that. Still, it grated, somewhat, that she wouldn’t know Steve’s sacrifice immediately. “He is a hero on many levels, the least of which is for taking that serum. Many have tried to recreate it over the years, with mixed results. That said, you could see why a man like the Mandarin would be interested in it.”

From the grim setting of Siobhan’s expression, she could. “I see. Yes, of course that would be dangerous and worrisome, but surely you don’t believe we were doing anything to warrant that sort of interest.”

“MST was doing advanced work on regeneration and regrowth. The company even admitted as much.”

“I am sure they did, but if they had made any breakthroughs using this serum, certainly I don’t know about it and we haven’t announced that to anyone. Believe me, it is the type of thing we normally would announce as investors like to hear that.”

“And you don’t know of any work in regards to it?” Sharon was the one who spoke up with a small frown.

“Not personally, though that isn’t to say it wasn’t done. One of my guests is president of MST, Sir Kyle Donohue. I’m sure he would be more than able to answer your more pertinent questions on what they were doing with that research or if it ties to your serum, but I am sure I don’t know.”

Peggy had a feeling that was a lie. Somehow, she suspected that Siobhan Haldane knew everything happening under the auspices of her company. Whether she understood it or paid attention was a different matter. Still, she sensed that the woman was being honest in part. Perhaps she truly didn’t know.

They fell into a silent truce as they finished their meal, Sharon making small talk about the research facility, which clearly was a pride and joy for the other woman, and they work they were doing. Peggy listened, but made no comment, finding little actual fault in their work. Still, she couldn’t help but think of the things that had once been done at that place, the lives taken because of it, and the ways they were all justified. It had been for the good of people back then, too. Hadn’t that been what Ranulph Haldane had expressed? They were simply trying to protect Britain, to stop the threat of groups like HYDRA and Leviathan. The ends had justified the means.

Their lunch came to an end, blessedly. As the hunting party had yet to return, and there seemed little reason to take up any more time. Sharon smiled, apologetically, asking for the ladies' room.

“The closest one is down the hallway again, to your left. If you can’t find it one of the staff can help get you there.”

Sharon nodded, briefly meeting Peggy’s eye before slipping out with her handbag. Peggy watched her go before turning to their hostess with the most polite smile her mother had trained into her.

Siobhan Haldane was clearly not buying it. “You don’t like me overmuch, do you, Director Carter?”

Peggy was surprised by that, but managed to hide her response as she pulled out a diplomatic answer. “I can’t say I know you enough to form that opinion, Lady Siobhan.”

“You don’t have to know someone to dislike them, I think we all have seen enough of the world to know that is how it works.”

She wasn’t wrong. “I am not here to pass judgement on you one way or the other.”

“No, you are here to know if we are doing something nefarious with this serum of which you are so concerned about.” Haldane seemed rather nonplussed by it all. “You are rather protective of it.”

“Yes,” Peggy agreed, seeing no reason to lie. “I’ve seen what people will do to get it. I’ve also seen what happens when people try to recreate it and do so badly.”

“A fair point,” Haldane acknowledged. “But I’m not here to profit off of war or other people’s misery. I hope that your visit this weekend has shown you that.”

“From what I have seen so far, yes.” Peggy stepped carefully as she spoke.

“But you don’t believe that completely, do you?”

“I find that in my line of work it is best to never take anything at face value.”

Haldane’s calm facade flickered a moment with a hint of sadness. “As much as I wish you would, I understand why you don’t.”

“Do you?” Peggy highly doubted she understood the full reason as to why.

“I do. After all, I am my father’s daughter, I do know exactly what he did.” A certain heavy weariness fell about the woman, like a mantle, weighing down the elegant pride she seemed to always carry herself with. “And I know just what he threatened to do with all of his work. How could I not be? I didn’t just inherit his lands and estates, you know, but all the other baggage as well. That’s rather how it works, though, isn’t it? We don’t just have to live with our own choices, we are also forced to live with the decisions of those who went before us, the ones we loved and looked up to.”

Peggy thought of Michael, of his decisions, and the ramifications they had for Peggy, for his son, for Sharon. “It must have been difficult for you then, as a child, living with the knowledge of the scandal and the legacy of it.”

“Not at first, but eventually, yes, when I was old enough to understand what had happened. I was a late-in-life child for him, you see. My parents had me after it had all come out and my father had ‘retired to a private life’ as they said. When I knew him as a girl, he wouldn’t talk about it, never discussed it. Mother wouldn’t ever let it be brought up in my presence. I only learned about it in school later. Some girls taunted me with it and I looked it up. That was a lovely letter home.”

She chuckled, darkly, sipping from her wine, quietly thoughtful, lost for a moment in her own memories. “My parents sent for me and we hashed it all out that weekend. Even nearly twenty years later he was declaring his innocence, the misunderstanding of it all, how he was right in what he did. I don’t know that he ever said he was sorry for it, that he ever publicly apologized. I remember being so angry with him over it. In truth, I don’t know what I was the more angry about, the fact that he did it or the fact that he wasn’t sorry. Perhaps I was actually really the most angry that my father, this man I had looked up to and adored, was in fact a monster who had happily and willingly killed innocent people whose only crime had been to live on the wrong side of a war line. Of course, this was during the sixties and it was all about peace and not war then, and you can well imagine where my father fell in that argument. He accused the school of filling my head with liberal, hippy idealism. Perhaps he wasn’t wrong. After that argument, however, the two of us never really spoke again, not while he was alive. I went back to school and then to university, arranged it so I didn’t have to be near him much on holidays or breaks. He died just before I finished university.”

Her matter-of-fact statement might have just as well have been about the weather as discussing the breach with her own father. It hit Peggy, that familiarity of a hurt and disappointment so profound that you had to put distance between you and it else it would threaten to swallow you. Whether she liked it or not, a small part of her could relate to Siobhan Haldane.

“Once I inherited the titles, lands, and most of Mys-Tech, I made a decision to do something he didn’t, to make a good choice and stand up for all lives, not just some. I recreated the Darkmoor Research Facility, this time with an eye to doing something good with the world. They reached out to the foremost scientists, looking for the biggest questions the world was facing and asking how they could begin fixing them. We formed MST to address healthcare disparities. I’ve spent my lifetime devoting myself to this work, to trying to fix the wrongs my father created, that so many others like him created, to leave a different legacy behind. I hoped that by doing so the name of Darkmoor would be remembered for something better than a scandal and the murder of innocents.”

Her sad words, quietly spoken, might as well have been shouted at Peggy. In her own mind she replayed that argument with Michael, her angry words, and Michael’s own, defeated, small voice. I thought I was doing something heroic, Peggy! I thought I was winning a war. Didn’t you think that with Captain America?

“I suppose so many of them thought they were doing the right thing,” Peggy finally murmured, an anger she didn’t really think about easing somewhat inside of her. “It was a war, they were just trying to survive, to defeat someone they saw as a threat, to do whatever it took. That meant a lot of dirt on a lot of hands, and many people allowing their fear to rule them in the end. Perhaps your father was no different?”

“Perhaps.” It didn’t seem to mollify her.

She knew her next question would be treading dangerous territory, but Peggy found herself asking it all the same. “You said you never spoke to him again. Did you never clear the air, then?”

“No,” she said, simply, without anger, only with a trace of regret. “Perhaps I should have. Mother said I should, but I never could bring myself to do it. I was young and prideful too, and I thought I knew better than he did. Maybe I thought I had time. In our youth, we always think we do. He had a heart attack one day. He was quite old by then. There was nothing anyone could do.”

Sharon appeared at the doorway to the conservatory once more, eyeing Peggy. “We better get back.”

“I’ll have the driver sent for,” Siobhan assured them, rising in one motion from the table, her polite facade returning. “Perhaps, if you wish to speak with my party before you return we can arrange for you to do so before they leave?”

“We will keep in touch,” Sharon assured her as she left to see to having the vehicle ready. She waited till the other woman was gone before she spoke. “It took me ten minutes to find that bathroom. How does anyone live in a place like this?”

“It was done back in those days.” Peggy was infinitely glad this had never been her destiny.

“Did you learn anything interesting while I was gone?”

“Only that I think I might have grossly misjudged Siobhan Haldane,” Peggy muttered, already feeling guilt clawing at her uncomfortably. “And maybe your grandfather as well.”

That hadn’t been where Sharon had expected Peggy to go with the conversation. “About Darkmoor?”

“Not about Darkmoor, no, but other things.” She rose from the elegant table and her half-eaten meal. “Come along, I’ll explain more when we get back to town.”