Chapter 26
“For only being in there a month, Romanoff’s found enough dirt on people that it’s a small wonder that there weren’t more efforts to blackmail and extort employees of Stark Industries.” Coulson looked mildly askance at the data he pulled up for Peggy and Barton’s benefit. “Sharon wasn’t wrong in her assessment, Stark may want to consider cleaning the house and removing more than a few employees. We got everything from people charging personal items onto corporate accounts to developers using corporate resources to develop independent projects unlicensed by Stark Industries. To top it off, there are no less than five spies embedded in the company, three for corporate rivals, one from China, and the last one is CIA spying on the one from China.”
“Nice to know the global intelligence system is so active and robust,” Barton snickered as he leaned back in his seat. “I’m guessing none of them made Nat, did they?”
“Not that she indicated, the corporate spies are your average, run-of-the-mill types; disgruntled engineers or people deliberately hired in to report back to Roxxon, AIM, Oscorp, the usual. The other two seemed to be playing their own cat and mouse game all their own, but she’s keeping tabs all the same.”
“What’s her cover,” Peggy asked, curious, having not been in the actual spy game in a while and more than a bit interested in how it ran now at days. As Romanoff was one of the best of the best, she couldn’t help but be intrigued.
It was Barton who spoke up. “Young student at UCLA law working as a paralegal in the Stark Industries office. We used some of her extensive travel background to play up that she’s interested in international law and give her a hefty, diverse background, the type of thing a company like SI would slobber all over to get their hands on.”
“And the photo shoot she did also helps too,” Coulson quipped dryly, earning Peggy’s confused frown. “If we are having her keep an eye on Stark while she’s digging, she needs to be able to see him. An attractive woman with brains, an international flair, and a background in modeling is pretty much Stark’s type.”
“In fairness, I think anything that’s female and in skimpy lingerie is Stark’s type,” Barton muttered, somewhat darkly. Peggy got the distinct feeling he wasn’t too pleased with this being Romanoff’s assignment or her cover. “In any case, I’m working on this for her. I sent the intel you got from Burk off to her, and she’s digging into it. How many people have access to that private network?”
“It’s unclear, as it depends on who Stark has given access. Burk thinks it’s likely that at the very least his most intimate circle has access to it, so that would mean Stark himself, his assistant Potts, his secretary, driver, Stane, his assistant, likely members of the board of trustees, senior-level executives who are always on the move and need to have that level of connectivity, anyone who uses their access, say an assistant.” Peggy could laugh at herself sometimes, listening to the way she sounded like she knew what she was talking about - connectivity indeed! “It’s not a large group, but any one of them would have had the ability to connect to it and according to Burk if you left so much as one portal open to it, say you were logged on your laptop or had an unsecured connection to your phone, someone could log onto it.”
She must have sounded as if she knew what she was talking about because it made sense to Coulson and Barton. It was Barton who grimaced. “That means it could be anybody.”
“Most likely, though, it’s whoever has been dealing under the table with the Ten Rings, likely someone who has some sort of sway to do the sort of transactions needed to get weapons and money moved around, and who knows Stark well enough, or at least who knows someone who knows Stark well enough, to get that sort of information to them.” Coulson considered for long moments. “I’ll have Romanoff look at anyone who has had a sudden rise in rank or pay raise in the last year to six months, perhaps someone who has finagled the system to get into the right position to pull this off.”
Peggy was thoughtful as she considered. “Whoever did it had to be good with computers and programming and knew what they were doing to hide their tracks. Burk said all of this was on the dark web. Whoever is doing it knows how to maneuver there. Either they know how to manage it, or they at least can pay off someone who can. Maybe have her look for someone in the company who is dabbling in that unsavory corner of the world. It could be where she starts, at least. Find it, and they may lead us to our target.”
“She’ll find it.” Coulson did not doubt that. “I suppose this is when I tell you that you were right about Stark. I should have listened to your instincts on this one.”
If Daniel, Dooley, and Thompson had gotten it wrong on Howard, how could she blame Coulson for assuming the worst about his son? “You had good reason to believe what you did, there is nothing wrong with that.”
“Still, you went with your gut, and it was right. I like to think I’m grown up enough to admit when I’m wrong.”
“What he’s saying, Carter, is that, unlike other less magnanimous members of this esteemed organization, Phil Coulson likes to give credit where credit is due,” Barton grinned across the desk at the other man. “Also, he doesn’t want to get on your bad side because he wants an autograph.”
“If I wanted that, Barton, I’d hand her a Post-It note,” Coulson grumbled, lightly.
Peggy leaned in conspiratorially to Barton with a wicked smile. “He’s promised me a karaoke night. I’m not sure what that is, but he says they do it in LA, and it involves being drunk and singing loudly.”
“Has he now!” Barton was delighted at this. “How come I never get invited to the cool things, Coulson?”
“Do you even sing?” He replied evenly.
“Well, you won’t know, now, because you never invited me.”
Coulson only sighed in that weary way that said there was no way he could win this. Instead, he turned his attention back to Stark. “So you are going to pursue him for the Avengers?”
“Yes,” Peggy confirmed, noting he felt free to discuss it in front of Barton. In fairness, judging from Barton’s nonchalance and involvement as Romanoff’s partner, he already knew. “I think the reason none of us have heard from him is he’s been developing the technology he used to get out of that cave. I think he’s building a suit, and once he does, it will be powerful. Whose side will we want him to be on then?”
Coulson took a deep breath, grimaced, and nodded. “Honestly, I’m a bit shocked he hasn’t tried it before now.”
“He didn’t have a reason,” Barton chimed in pointedly. “I mean, till this point of time in his life, he’s been living the dream. He’s been protected, king of the world, the man who ran everything and had it all under control. This is probably the first time in his life, or at least the first time since his parents died, that he’s had anyone challenge that and push him. What happens when someone hurts us and wounds us?”
“We try to build things to make us safe so it doesn’t happen again,” Peggy murmured, surprised at just how perceptive Barton was. “He’s building something so he doesn’t get hurt again, doesn’t get taken again.”
“PTSD works in all sorts of strange ways. Some of us learn how to take care of ourselves so we can stop the fight and protect those who can’t protect themselves. Some of us build walls around ourselves and keep other people out so they can’t see where we are hurt. Sounds like Stark’s doing a little bit of all the above.”
Peggy had to wonder if Barton was speaking about Stark or himself...or perhaps even Romanoff. She pondered that as Coulson picked up the thread of their dropped conversation. “As to the Avengers and Stark, what do you want me to do to help with that?”
“The biggest piece right now is finding out who is dealing under the table at SI and who set Stark up. Chances are high they will try to have another go at him. If we can neutralize it before we approach him, it may make him amenable to listening to our offer. At the very least, he will owe us, and that may convince him to at least consider it.”
“And what if it doesn’t? He has a right to say no.”
“He’d be smart not to. Even in my time, they didn’t appreciate the sort of weapons Stark could make in the hands of a private citizen. If the SSR had discovered his bad babies, Phillips would have had them out of Howard’s control faster than he could have squawked. It just so happened that Leviathan got them first, forcing Howard’s hand. It may have been 60 years, but I know the military’s memory is long and they haven’t forgotten. If Tony is flashing an armored suit around they will want to control it too, and they won’t be as forgiving about it as they were to Howard.”
“Didn’t they have Senate hearings about his father’s weapons?” Coulson, ever the historian, of course, would know that.
“Only because they thought he sold them to the enemy, had they known about them beforehand they would have taken them outright.”
Coulson’s gaze sharpened, narrowed in rueful mirth. “That’s how you knew Stark wasn’t the arms dealer. He’d have grown up with Howard’s story.”
“I did try telling you,” Peggy smiled, shrugging. “Now, will you help me find who is trying to kill him so we can help convince him to join our cause?”
Coulson’s smile twitched up slowly. “I’ll do my best. How long are you in town for?”
“I don’t know yet,” Peggy had come down to Washington mostly to discuss the matter with Coulson and to connect person-to-person and not just over the dratted video cameras. “I plan to take a later train back to New York. Why?”
“I owe you a night of karaoke,” Coulson teased, glancing at Barton. “And I need to see if he can sing.”
Barton shrugged. “Want to lay money on it?”
“Hmmm, sounds like a sucker's bet,” Peggy teased. “I am hoping to find the engineering staff here anyway. Cassandra and I have dug up some of Howard’s old notes, particularly on the arc reactor. I’m curious about some of its capabilities. I’m hoping they can help.”
“Hey, Sitwell knows a place, I’m sure we can get a crowd,” Barton joked. Peggy could see they were already formulating a plan and she chuckled.
“Well, you two work out the details and let me know. In the meantime,” she sighed, reaching for her bag. “Duty calls.”
She was ten steps out of Coulson’s office when Barton’s voice paused her in mid-stride. She turned to look at him as he caught up to her. “How can I help you, Agent Barton?”
“Well, you’ve helped already. I’m about to win $20 off of Coulson tonight, which always makes me happy.”
“Ahhh, you have hidden talents!”
“On top of having a mean fastball and the ability to hit threes all day from the field on the court, I also may or may not have been in a band in high school where I was the drummer and lead singer. Dave Grohl was my idol. I’m a ringer.”
“Sneaky,” she laughed, brightly. “Conned your way past a senior agent.”
“Ehh, Coulson suspects, else he’d never agree to it. He wants to see me do it.” Barton shrugged, shoving his hands into the pocket of his jeans. “Look, I wanted to apologize to you in regards to Romanoff.”
That brought her short. They had wandered down a hallway of bright glass, shaded enough to keep the glare out, overlooking the wide sweep of the Potomac River. Had she not been startled by Barton’s statement, she would have found it lovely. “Why are you apologizing for her?”
“I’m not apologizing for her...more on her behalf.” He was hedging. Peggy narrowed her gaze at him. Barton shrugged, scuffing a steel-toe boot against the carpet. “It’s just I know she’s been less than ideal to work with and I wanted you to be aware I knew.”
“She still can apologize if she wishes, when she wishes.”
“She can, but Nat has had a very hard life, Carter. Harder than you could imagine. Things like apologies, and normal human emotions, really are difficult for her. She’s got her reasons for it.”
“Which I’m sure she will tell me in due time.” Peggy softened, seeing Barton’s fumbling attempts to cover for his partner and somehow explain away her cool behavior and blatant distrust. “You are protective of her.”
“Yeah,” he admitted, gruffly, not even apologetic about it. “She’s got nothing in this world, but she has me. Sometimes, that means I help translate Natasha to everyone else.”
Peggy wondered if he was implying they were lovers. “You two seem quite...close.”
That was certainly not her most smooth, double-meaning leading statement, but it had the effect of conveying the silent question she was asking. Barton only rolled his eyes, clearly having had this question asked before. “Not like that we aren’t. Nat...there is a lot there, and there are many reasons why that is a horrible idea. Natasha is the most beautiful and broken thing I’ve ever known. Sometimes, that means she’s going to not make sense. I’m just saying that I know it’s not been easy for you, especially with, you know, learning a whole new century, what computers were, whether or not crap television is worth the bother. I get that putting up with that probably wasn’t ideal.”
Barton was a good egg, Peggy decided, for all that he handled this poorly. He at least was trying. “Perhaps when next our paths cross I will reach out to her and see why it is that she bites my head off.”
That seemed to mollify him a little. “Thanks. She’s a good person, Carter, even if she doesn’t see it. She has a good heart. She wouldn’t be here doing this if she wasn’t.”
Romanoff was lucky she had him for a partner. “Well then, I’ll see you tonight and watch you take Agent Coulson’s money.”
He grinned. “You got it.”
She waited as he wandered off in his direction, briefcase in hand. She knew next to nothing about Barton and less about Romanoff. Still, it gave her a brief insight into Coulson’s favorite pair. Given their closeness, it would be easy to assume a romantic relationship between them, but she believed Barton when he said otherwise. That didn’t stop him from looking out for her well-being, which perhaps was more of a sibling bond. Considering what Coulson said about Barton’s troubled upbringing and Romanoff’s horrific one it was perhaps natural that an older brother would look out for a lone wolf without a pack to call her own. What was it that Angie had told her once? Sometimes, family was what you made it.
Which was a pointed reminder of her own family in the building at the moment.
With a sigh, she made her way to the elevators, hitting the button for Sharon’s floor. When the doors opened again she wended her way through the warren of cubicle desks, ignoring curious looks as she wandered up to the space she knew was her niece's. Sharon was behind a large screen, frowning at whatever was on there, her blonde hair piled on top of her head and held in place with two wooden pencils. She only looked up at Peggy’s soft knock against the cubicle frame.
“Hey,” Sharon’s eyes went wide, her smile broad. “You didn’t tell me you’d be in town.”
“I hadn’t planned on it,” Peggy replied, spying on the extra seat in her space. “May I sit?”
“Sure,” she kicked a toe underneath the chair to roll it out a bit closer to her desk. “Everyone asked about you over the 4th.”
“Everyone?” Peggy had a feeling Harry didn’t. Sharon’s quick flush and shrug confirmed that. “I’m glad that I was missed.”
Sharon sighed as Peggy settled, clicking out of whatever work she was in, ever a spy. “It’s not that Dad doesn’t care.”
“I know.” Peggy knew that better than anyone. She’d grown up with her mother’s habit of cold, polite anger. “Your father has reasons to be angry with me.”
“Not great ones,” Sharon muttered, crossing her arms as she glared at the photo of her family on her desk as if silently rebuking her father through the frame.
“Good or no, they are real to him. He isn’t wrong, you know. I walked away from a lot, I hurt a lot of people - your grandfather and father included. That isn’t something I can take back, and I made that choice. All he knows is I went on a mission and didn’t come back. If he knew the truth, that might be even worse.”
“That you came through time to save the world? That is practically one of his own stories come to life!” Sharon’s hero worship stood so firm, that Peggy wondered if she could do anything to shock her out of it.
“There is more to the story than just that.” Peggy sighed, realizing now was as good as any to lay the truth before her. “That night...God, has it been months now...anyway, when Lang came to see me he said I had to help put the Avengers back together and save the world.”
“Fury’s initiative.” Sharon had heard of it in bits and pieces over their work together on Stark’s case. “You said it was why you came forward.”
“That wasn’t all of it.” She’d held on to this piece, unwilling to look like a foolish, lovesick schoolgirl to her niece whom she barely knew at the time. “The team, from what Lang told me, is a group of people with special and unique talents. One of the main anchor points for the team as I understand it is Stark.”
That piece clicked for Sharon as she nodded. “That was why you were asked to be on the case then.”
“Well, that and my unique Stark handling capabilities, as Romanoff not so delicately put it, but yes, that was a reason for it. The other…”
She paused, biting her lip nervously. It was the first time she had mentioned the possibility to anyone who wasn’t Fury. “Lang told me the other person who is a key figure in this group is Steve Rogers.”
It took Sharon a long moment before it hit her who Peggy meant. “Captain America?”
“Yes,” Peggy affirmed, quietly.
Sharon’s messy bun cocked sideways as she mulled that, puzzled. “But I thought he crashed a HYDRA supercarrier into the ocean.”
“He did. I was there, so I can confirm that.” The words snagged at a not-quite-healed wound, aching as they tumbled out. Funny, she would have thought four years - or sixty-five, depending on how you looked at it - that she could just say it easily. Perhaps it was the fact she had held it back from her niece, who had been nothing but accepting of her. That guilt niggled more than Peggy cared to think about.
Sharon's arched expression told Peggy she’d caught on to that, sympathy stirring in her dark eyes. “I heard that you were the one on the radio with him when he went down.”
“I was.” She fought against the telltale burn at the corners of her eyes. “Which is why I knew that he crashed, but he never gave the coordinates as to where. Our best guess, judging from the coordinates and notes left behind by Johann Schmidt was that it was somewhere in the North Atlantic off the coast of Canada. Considering how fast the ship got there, much faster even than anything I’ve seen even today, we had no way of guessing with any accuracy where he could be. Howard tried, and he looked. He spent years doing it, manning expeditions every summer, following every lead from every fishing vessel and sailing ship from Newfoundland to Greenland, but found nothing. Even then, I don’t believe any of us believed anything other than he was dead, killed in the crash, buried beneath the ice.”
“But you’re saying now he’s not?”
Sharon’s shocked dubiousness left Peggy chuckling darkly. “I show up on New Year’s Day after six decades missing and somehow the idea of a super soldier who has been genetically engineered to be able to heal and survive some of the worst sorts of conditions of battle surviving an icy plane crash is what is the most shocking and unbelievable to you?”
“Believe me, you didn’t see me in Fury’s office when he told me you had shown up on his doorstep. I didn’t believe that then.” She shook her head, setting the pencils in her hair and waving. “I just forget, maybe that some of the crazy things I’ve heard are true.”
“I’ve still not managed to get to Mars,” Peggy deadpanned, earning a snort from her niece.
“There’s time yet, I suppose.” She eyed Peggy knowingly. “You’re trying to find him, aren’t you?”
“I’m not, no. Fury is. That was our agreement. He would find Steve if I agreed to take on the Avengers Initiative. That’s what I have been working on all these months when not trying to find Howard’s wayward progeny. I think I have the solid workings to get started. I asked Cassie if she’d work with me. She’s wanted to do something else other than interior decorating, so I’ve brought her on to assist me, and I poach Burk sometimes when it’s convenient.”
She knew it would hurt Sharon that she hadn’t asked. She saw it, despite her attempts to hide it. Sharon was a Carter, after all, and pride always did go before the fall with them. “Wow, sounds like you have a group starting to gel.”
“Sharon,” Peggy sighed, wondering how to navigate this. “I wanted to ask, but first I didn’t want to assume. You have a career down here, a position you’ve carved for yourself, far removed from either myself or Michael’s reputation. If I had you come up to New York, the optics wouldn’t be ideal. We both know that.”
She was smart enough to see that and didn’t appear to disagree. “True, I acknowledge that. It does smack of a dollop of nepotism when one leaves to go work with their legendary, just-returned-from-the-dead great-aunt who is working on a big project for Nick Fury. But it would have at least been nice to have the conversation, Peggy. You sort of assumed. What am I supposed to think?”
Bugger it all, she did have the worst way of handling delicate, interpersonal situations. “You’re right, I own that. A phone call would have been in order, a conversation, but, you know, part of the reason your father is angry with me, Sharon, isn’t just that I disappeared. He’s angry because of you.”
“Me?” If the news of Steve Rogers had stunned her, this idea floored her. “What do you mean? What do I have to do with any of it?”
Why were families ever so complicated, Peggy privately bemoaned. “Simple! For all of the mad stories, Sharon, there is a lot of hurt and fear. To them, I just disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again. You work for SHIELD, for the very organization I started and created, that your grandfather worked for. Notice your father doesn’t, nor does Maggie. He didn’t want to have anything to do with it, and who could blame him? After all, I went off on a mission and never came home again. What is to say that won’t happen to you or perhaps even worse.”
Unsurprisingly, mutiny immediately sprang up in her niece. “I’m not some idiot who throws herself in danger left and right.”
“No, you’re not, but I was.” Peggy might as well own up to her flaws. “And let’s be honest, so was your grandfather. Michael and I did a lot of very unwise things in the course of our careers. And you follow in those footsteps, I can see why your father worries. Will he get a call from Fury one day saying that you went off on a mission and are never coming home?”
That only mollified her niece slightly. “It’s my life and my choice. I’m here at SHIELD to do good work, to do something meaningful, just like you.”
Her words, so casually, if angrily, said, hit Peggy heavily. Like it or not, she had been the person Sharon had spent all of her life looking up to. How could Peggy expect Sharon to be anything less than what she was? Pride rose within her and a bit of respect. She couldn’t help the smile that floated upward even in the face of Sharon’s ire. “My mother would have despaired of the likes of you.”
That cooled the edge off of Sharon’s aggravation. “I take that as a compliment.”
What a pair the two of them made, aunt and niece, both determined to run into danger and hang anyone who tried to stop them. “I suppose if there is anyone who questions our relationship, that proved it right there. I will say this, I won’t ask for you to come and work with me on the Avengers. If you wish and if proper paperwork is put through, you are always welcome, but between you and me, Sharon, I think politically and experientially you should stay here. You are closer to your family, you are in the center of SHIELD politics here, and what’s more, you can find your path in the organization not working for your aunt.”
“The aunt who has the cool project,” Sharon retorted. “I’m going through the streaming video records of a person of interest in a car bombing last week and if I have to see any more of his adult video preferences I may need to pluck the eyeballs out of my head.”
Peggy cringed, too afraid to ask what and sure it was awful. “I leave the decision up to you. In the meantime, I’m in town for the day and I may have gotten suckered into witnessing your colleagues drink and sing badly. You can come if you like.”
“Sounds like a blackmailing opportunity if ever there was one.” Sharon, ever the spy it seemed, clearly was intrigued.
“Good! I'll come by after I swing by the engineers, and see what they have to say on some pieces I'm working on.”
“Regarding Stark?” Sharon eyed her briefcase speculatively.
“About what he’s up to, yes.” Already, Peggy felt she had spoken a bit too freely in an open space. “I have a feeling he’s figured out something big. If he has then we will see what he will do with it.”
Sharon considered that in equal parts work and surprise. “Will it be dangerous?”
“Possibly, but not for us.” Peggy shrugged, pulling herself up. “I’ll come find you when I’m done.”
“None of this makes me feel any better,” she heard Sharon mutter behind her as she returned to the elevators. Frankly, Peggy agreed with her.