Chapter 11
“So where do we start?”
“With these!” Peggy hauled a box of reports onto the glass-and-wood-topped desk of her New York office, setting it down with a resounding thump.
Sharon eyed it all blandly. “Old reports?”
“And files, newspaper articles, anything that SHIELD had on Stark Industries and Tony in particular.” Peggy was already up and at the glass dry-erase board, marker in hand, as she began making notes. “Tony Stark perhaps is known in the media as a playboy and philanderer, but that doesn’t mean he allows anyone in. How did a group of terrorists from Afghanistan find out where he was going and what he was doing and in enough detail to just pluck him away like that?”
“US Army intelligence isn’t as smart as they think they are,” Sharon retorted, sipping at a cup of coffee like it was a lifeline. She’d arrived on the first flight that morning, sleepy-eyed and curious.
Peggy smirked as she wrote it on the board. “Not outside of the realm of impossibility, having worked with them in the past, but I don’t know if that is all.”
“A vengeful ex-lover?” Sharon booted up her laptop. “Or a plant, someone sent to spy on him, there to seduce and figure out his secrets.”
Peggy doubted both, considering how the younger Stark didn’t seem any more emotionally attached than the elder one to his liaisons and also the fact that Howard had famously been burned that way himself. She added it anyway, on the off chance that Tony had fallen into the same trap as his father. “What about his close associates, people at Stark Industries, those he has had business deals with, rivals?”
“Not that he has many known ones outside of the obvious ones. Stark Industries has known competition with Hammer Industries out in Queens. They’ve bucked for the same military contracts, but thus far, Stark has shut them out. Hammer has taken mostly lower-priced federal work and things for other foreign governments. Tony Stark being out of the picture may loosen up some of those contracts to allow Hammer a chance in.”
Peggy wrote that up on the board. “Anyone else?”
“He doesn’t precisely have a lot of ‘friends.’ He lives in Malibu most of the time, he’s only ever here in the city for business, so most of those who work closely with him would be in the Los Angeles facility. He does have a research team here, too, but Stark is hands-on in his development; he usually tends to go to his teams with fully formed ideas. I’m guessing they aren’t involved in the frontline R&D, but they are in the next phase of it, and he usually works pretty closely with them.”
“Maybe disgruntled workers, people who have worked on his projects for years and never been given credit for it, people who feel he’s stolen their work.” Peggy’s hand flew across the glass as they brainstormed, her handwriting messy as she spilled ideas across the expanse. “A stray comment to any one of them and they may have dropped it into the ear of someone paying for information. Perhaps we should look through payroll records and bank statements, see who might have been getting paid a bit under the table for something like that.”
“That’s not going to be pretty.” Sharon wrinkled her nose. “I will guarantee that there were a lot of engineers doing just that, and probably none of them were trying to sell out Tony Stark.”
“Let’s keep it to just the ones who pose the most threat, shall we?” Peggy was uninterested in doing an audit on Stark Industries employees, though perhaps Tony should. “All right, any other ideas? What about his staff?”
“He has a secretary, Bambi Arbogast, who had worked for his father back in the day, so I think that she is as loyal as the sun when it comes to Starks.” Sharon scanned whatever was on her computer screen. “She has an office staff that works under her, administrative assistants, and the like. There is a legal team that works closely with Stark and his movements, mostly because he’s often doing things that require legal counsel...and that’s just his personal life.”
Peggy could just imagine. “Have there been any major legal cases tied to him of late?
Sharon blinked. “In just the last few months?”
Peggy groaned. “How about anyone who might have been spending any time with him of late, perhaps someone who he had been seeing socially, spending long weekends with, having to one of his...parties. I’m sure the tabloid papers are filled with that sort of thing.”
“That list would be ridiculously long and likely inaccurate.” Sharon considered, thoughtfully. “His personal assistant might know.”
Peggy spun back to the glass board. “What’s her name again?”
“Pepper Potts.” Sharon pulled a file out of one of the boxes and opened it up on the desk between all of them. There wasn’t much to it, but it did have what looked like an employee photograph on the front page, a pretty woman with strawberry blonde hair and a frank, direct expression on her face. “She’s been Stark's PA for seven years. She’s sort of famous for it, I think, just because she has managed to stick with the job and not run off screaming.”
“That, and she’s very capable of dealing with Stark shenanigans.” That was something Peggy could empathize with. She glanced through the basic paperwork, noting her given name was Virginia, that she came from a very normal family in California, that she was educated and competent, and that she had worked for another technology industry executive before being snagged by Stark. What was more, it didn’t look like she was the kind who was trying to sleep her way into either a position at his company or half of his fortune as his wife. “Has anyone spoken with her yet?”
“No one has spoken with anyone at Stark Industries yet. Do you want to add her to our list of people to connect with?”
“Yes,” Peggy passed the file back to her. “Who else is close to Stark at SI?”
“He has a driver, Harold Hogan, who goes by Happy, and also serves as Stark’s bodyguard. He’s an ex-boxer, but outside of managing access to Stark when he’s out and about, I don’t know how much actual protection he does.”
“Not enough if he got kidnapped,” Peggy murmured as Sharon passed that file over. Hogan seemed to be harmless enough, someone who had fallen into the employ of Tony and who had never left. Likely, there was a story there, one that seemed to mimic Mr. Jarvis’ relationship with Howard. “I guess that between Potts and Hogan, they are perhaps some of Stark’s most loyal employees, but they may have an idea of who might not be. We should make arrangements to have someone speak to them.”
“Got it,” Sharon typed quickly before scanning through more digital files. “What about Obadiah Stane?”
“Who is he again?” Coulson had mentioned him, but it wasn’t a name that was familiar to Peggy from Howard’s past. He was likely someone who came after.
“Obadiah Stane, COO and second in command at Stark Industries. He runs the company for the most part.” Sharon flipped her laptop around to show a video of a tall, bald man speaking. “He has served as Stark’s mentor since the death of his father.”
“How was he connected to Howard?” Peggy watched the video of the man accepting some sort of award somewhere.
“Business partner.”
“Howard never liked sharing his business with anyone.”
Sharon shrugged, turning her computer back. “In your time, that might have been the case, but by the 70s, he was running his own company, doing massive research, and helping to run SHIELD. Something had to give, so I think Stane came in as the answer to all of that.”
“And is he close to Stark?”
“He did accept this award on Stark’s behalf,” Sharon replied, looking at the video. “It was the night before Stark flew to Afghanistan.”
“Where was Stark at?”
Sharon snorted. “Stane says he was hard at work, but there is video footage of Stark at the craps tables until Rhodes found him later.”
“So Stane covered for him.” Peggy ruminated, wandering to the other side of the board, scribbling down a list of potential Stark allies, ones that would either know who could be out for him or who at least had suspicions. “We may want to consider speaking to this group first. They would know Stark’s movements better, particularly in the days and weeks leading up to his disappearance.”
“Right,” Sharon murmured as she made a note to herself.
Peggy considered the list scribbled on the board. “Has anyone questioned his friend yet, Colonel Rhodes?”
Sharon paused, regarding her notes. “No, not outside of the Department of Defense, I’m sure. Do you want to add him to the list?”
“Yes,” she replied, writing his name. “Is he still in Afghanistan?”
“No, he’s based out of Edward’s Air Force Base in Southern California, but I believe he goes back and forth between the two.”
“I want to talk to him to get a better idea of the series of events that led up to Stark’s disappearance.”
“So I guess this means I’m going to Los Angeles to start poking around.” Sharon offered before Peggy could contemplate the idea. She turned to stare at her niece archly, finding she was offering the same expression back at her. Peggy wasn’t sure she liked that much.
“You are still learning how to function in the modern world,” Sharon argued, making a point that Peggy didn’t like but had to concede. “If you walk into Stark Industries and gape at everything, they will wonder if something is wrong with you. I have no personal connection to the Starks and I’ve had enough field training not to fall on my face. I’m the logical choice.”
Peggy wanted to pull out her stellar war record as a spy and field agent but had to admit Sharon was right. She also had to admit that there was more than a bit of herself in her niece and for a brief moment Peggy empathized with her mother and how she had felt raising her. “Do you think you can get on a flight to Los Angeles tomorrow to talk to them?”
“Easy! There are a zillion direct flights to Los Angeles from here every day. I can let the LA field office know and then set up a time to chat with people at Stark Industries. The main offices are in El Segundo, right by the airport, I could be there and back in a day or two.”
Peggy remembered a time when there wasn’t even a Stark Industries office in the city. “I was there only once, years ago.”
“The Whitney Ford case,” Sharon piped up, much to Peggy’s surprise. She shouldn’t have been, given Sharon had already admitted her fondness for that kind of story at bedtime. “You were on that case, weren’t you? The one with the girl who was found frozen solid in Echo Park?”
“In the summer!” Peggy could well recall just how beastly hot it had been. “I didn’t know those case files were still around. That’s from the SSR days, before SHIELD. I was sent to assist Sousa with it. It was a bit too strange for even the LAPD. It turned out that the movie star, Whitney Ford, had tapped into something that physics couldn’t even explain. She was a rather brilliant mind underneath the movie star facade and had investigated an angle that cracked open energy even she couldn’t control, called 'zero matter' as I recalled. It could tear through everything and threaten to destroy reality itself. It ended badly for everyone involved in that incident, but most especially for Whitney, who ended up going insane. Last I heard she had been committed and all her notes had been confiscated by the SSR.”
That had only been two years ago for Peggy. It had been decades for everyone else, especially Sharon, who now gaped at her as if she had said she’d gone to Mars, just like her father’s ridiculous stories. Peggy shrugged, clearing her throat. “I’m sure the old files are around in the records somewhere.”
“They are, it’s just you rattled that off like it was just a normal day in the office,” Sharon murmured faintly.
“It was for me,” Peggy replied, primly, feeling a tad unsettled by the clear awe on both of their faces. “It was a case no different from any other one.”
“I don’t know why any of us should be shocked you time traveled,” Sharon muttered, closing her laptop. “Seriously, between Captain America and now extra-dimensional movie stars, time travel is perhaps the least crazy thing about you I’ve heard about.”
Peggy snorted, eyeing her niece with mild asperity. “I had perfectly normal work during the war.”
“In which you fought against a man who could peel his face off to reveal a red skull underneath all of that,” Sharon retorted, pointedly, only underscoring her argument.
“I didn’t fight him, I merely helped Steve and the Howling Commandos fight him. I may have helped destroy the suspension on his car after chasing after him, however.”
“You call Captain America ‘Steve’?”
“Because I knew him! I’m hardly a mythical character,” Peggy retorted, snagging a pen to twiddle in agitation at the idea of it. “Everyone acts as if I’m some sort of god from high on the mountain come down to them. I’m not! I’m just a normal person caught up in insane circumstances, much like most of the world at any given time.”
It was unsettling enough, having made the choices she had, arriving in this strange place, trying to find her footing in this world, to add to it this notion that she was some sort of heroic figure on the level of Captain America felt overwhelming. It was as if she stepped into one of Sharon’s fairy tale stories about her life, finding herself portrayed as some sort of epic figure and not the flesh and blood person she was, the kind who had faults and problems, the kind who made mistakes often, the kind who had hair-brained schemes, like jumping decades in the future just because someone asked her to. The more agents in SHIELD looked at her as if she was some sort of faultless heroine from some mythic past, the more removed from herself she felt.
“You asked me, Sharon when you first came to meet me about how I could just leave everything...leave the family. I have to admit, when I decided to come forward, I didn’t even reconsider it. I was like a hound on the scent, and in all honesty, my friends and my family were secondary to the idea that I had to go and save the world. It’s like...from the moment I heard of Michael’s death I’ve been running full tilt into all the adventure and madness he told me I should seek. I never think at the moment about who I get hurt in the process. People I care for, people who meant a lot to me, have died or been hurt because of the decisions I made because I threw myself into the case. There is nothing heroic in that. I try, God knows I try, to do what is good and right in the world, to be a good person, but that hardly makes me heroic. I’m not Steve Rogers, I’m not this perfect human being who just is good all the time. I have made mistakes, I’ve hurt people greatly, including our family - my friends - all in the actions I’ve taken.”
She had caught her niece off guard. Truth be told, Peggy had caught herself off as well in her tirade. Sharon sat still, watching her in quiet shock over her laptop, clearly not expecting this melt-down from Peggy and looking a little shell-shocked at the vociferousness of it. Her surprise withered the worst of Peggy’s agitation, leaving her feeling empty and guilty at having unloaded on the other woman so unexpectedly.
“My apologies, Sharon, I just..I don’t know what I expected on the other side of this. I hadn’t thought of it. In 1948 I was fighting tooth and nail for every inch of respect I could get. In 2010 I'm treated as if I hung the moon. Everyone acts as if I founded SHIELD all by myself, and it’s not true. If it weren’t for Phillips agreeing and applying the right political pressure in the right sort of measure, it would have never happened. I wouldn’t have been anywhere without his years of experience and unflappability in the face of insane odds. Howard...if he hadn’t had faith in me I wouldn’t have done it. For all the times I wanted to punch him in the face for his arrogance and short-sightedness, he was the only one who stood up and said out loud that I could do it. If I hadn’t had people like Edwin...or Ana, Daniel, Angie, Michael, Steve, all of whom believed in me all along the way, I would have been a mess. All those pieces are what made me who I am. I’m not some superhero, I’m just a person like everyone else.”
Sharon was quiet for a long moment, her expression inscrutable. When she did speak, she did so carefully, reaching for the half-finished drink by her computer. “I suppose it is a bit hard to come through time and find history has made you out to be a paragon when you thought you were just the world’s most messed up human.”
Peggy chuckled softly, tossing the pen aside. “You know half the stories people believe are amazing are because I was incredibly stubborn and surprisingly foolish, and got myself in trouble I didn’t need to get myself into.” She thought of all the times she had been patched up from wounds that should have killed her but didn’t.
“What, a member of the Carter family doing something foolhardy that puts them in mortal danger? You don’t say?” Sharon’s deadpan expression had a flicker of a smile as she sipped from her cup. “Peggy...look, I can’t say I understand what you are going through. I couldn’t in a million years. This is all strange for you, I get it. But despite what you may think of all this, what you did, you left behind something special that meant a lot to people. Between you and Steve Rogers, you two made everyone want to be better, to do things better, and to stand up for the oppressed, and that’s good. I’m certain that you both were flawed, but that doesn’t mean that what you came to represent was any less for it.”
“And if I can’t live up to people’s expectations?”
Sharon shrugged. “Then that’s on them. We are the ones who made them. Just...be true to you and patient with us. I’m still getting used to the idea you are flesh and blood and not just a figure from my father’s bedtime stories. Maybe I can try to be better about remembering that, too.”
“Now I feel horrible for blowing up about it.” Peggy had a feeling this would spiral into self-recriminations rather quickly. “Perhaps this is a bit more overwhelming than I bargained for.”
“I don’t know why you feel that way,” Sharon snorted dryly, sarcasm thick as she closed her computer. “I’m going to stake out an empty office and start making travel plans. Are you going to loop Coulson in?”
“By email even,” Peggy replied, somewhat proud she had learned the art form. “In the meantime, I will work on the files we have and see what we glean from them. We will have to work quickly. The US military has suppressed it for now, but it will break sooner or later unless we find Stark first.”
“And the global security community will lose their minds knowing the man who builds their weapons is missing - not to mention the hit to Stark Industry shares.”
“Let’s hope we can find him before it comes to that.” Peggy knew that was a fool’s hope at best. The minute it all broke looks there would be a firestorm exploding and most of it directed at the US government and their handling of the situation, and justifiably so, but it would complicate their efforts even further. “For all the insanity I did have to put up with from Howard, at least he never got captured in a war zone.
Sharon rose, gathering her things. “I think you will find that despite the surface resemblance to the man you knew, Tony Stark is very much his own person. Just saying, don’t rely on your memories of Howard to judge his son.”
Peggy pondered that bit of advice as Sharon left, realizing not only how sound it was, but that she may have underestimated her niece.