Chapter 35
Unlike New York and London, whose mass transit systems Peggy knew like the back of her hand, Los Angeles barely had one to speak of. When she’d first visited long ago, they’d had something of one, a system of red trolleys that ran lines up and down the city streets. Between her time and now, those had been phased out, replaced by loud, slow, lumbering busses that blocked traffic on the narrow streets of the city and seemed to be as much nuisance as they were help. However, sometime between that time and this one, they had attempted a subway system, a network of trains that spread out of the city center and connected various pieces of the sprawling landscape. Deep underneath the feet of most people in downtown rumbled a train they called the Red Line, much like the trolley cars of old, that seemed to traverse most of the more important parts of the downtown area and Peggy took it from where she was staying to the area of the city dubbed the Civic Center, one-stop and a several block walk travel away from where she stayed. She emerged on a part of the city that appeared much more official in the sort of stuffy way that Washington, DC had become.
The police headquarters for the city was a glittering building in this complex, concrete and glass, looking rather like a vice holding a crystal cube between its pincers than a proper building. Still, as Peggy was learning with all modern structures, they seemed to be more art than architecture. A large office building, she made her way inside, quickly scanning a directory for the floor she wanted before making her way to the closest lift. It opened to a shining, airy space, with signs directing visitors, one of which read “Records” in bold, black letters. Peggy followed the arrows to a door into a large office, a receptionist sitting behind a counter, her face obscured by the screen in front of her.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes, I’m Director Peggy Carter with SHIELD.” She pulled out the badge she rarely ever used to flash to the young woman whose nameplate proclaimed her as Analisa Flores. “I called regarding a file that would have been in your old records for Daniel Sousa. I have a file number.”
She passed along a sheet of paper from the hotel, the number written in neat numbers as the young woman took it, glanced at Peggy’s badge, then nodded, reaching for a clipboard. “If you could sign and date here, I’ll go get that for you. I can’t let you take the file, but I can make copies of any or all pages you need.”
“Thank you,” Peggy murmured as the young woman moved to the back of the office where file clerks and other office workers all went about their duties, oblivious to the woman in her dark suit. Like as not, Peggy was hardly an uncommon sight, which left her to muse not for the first time on how times had changed. A woman in her role would have been strange enough to elicit surprise not so long ago. Now, a woman with a badge hardly raised an eyebrow.
“It’s an old file, right?” The young woman returned, holding a large, yellow envelope filled with paperwork in her hand.
“Yes, I believe the date is July 1955?”
“That was around when Dad was born,” she noted, conversationally, taking the clipboard Peggy handed back and filling in a number beside Peggy’s name. “That’s kind of old!”
“You have no idea,” Peggy chuckled, her memory rebelling against the idea of Daniel and her former life being old. She glanced at a cluster of cubbies with chairs and tables to spread out. “Might I take this over here to review?”
“Of course, just make a note of what you want or need. No marking the paperwork or altering it in any fashion, no food or drink around it, please.”
“Understood.” Peggy took the packet and wandered over to a spot in the middle of the row, setting herself up comfortably. The packet front was printed and labeled with the case number and Daniel’s name as she flipped it over, unwinding the string that bound the two circular tabs together and allowing her to pull out the official-looking, manila folder, the shield of the Los Angeles Police Department printed on its front. She flipped it open, leafing through the ancient, typewritten files, familiar to her from the cases she had worked on so long ago.
It didn’t take her very long to realize there wasn’t much more there than SHIELD had in their files on the subject. The LAPD had a history of dealing with the SSR and SHIELD and had learned that they would rarely get any new or different information out of the organization, usually even less, as it would all be labeled as classified. There were the same pictures that the SHIELD file contained, some different witness accounts from the Roosevelt Hotel, all sketchy at best. Those who could even claim they heard or saw anything, and they were few, said they merely saw a man in a trench coat get gunned down before falling into the pool. The only descriptions of the man provided were that he was of average height and build, dark-haired, and carrying a cane, all of which were less than helpful. There were no pictures of the body face up, and the only account was that the LA County coroner's office had lost the body somewhere, a fact that had ended up with a full investigation of the department and its practices and several lost jobs once Howard got his hands on it.
There was one interesting tidbit that she did find in the file, however: an account of one guest, an older woman who swore she saw a man fitting Daniel’s very description being shot by a man in a darker suit before being dragged somewhere. That description was also maddeningly vague as it could have been any man at the Roosevelt Hotel in 1955: average height, average build, closely cropped, thinning dark hair. It could have been an assassin or criminal; it was hard to say, but nothing about him screamed unusual. She had hoped, vaguely, that she might find evidence of Scott Lang’s hand in all of this, someone in a strange suit with unusual technology who appeared and disappeared out of nowhere. That was sadly not the case.
With a sigh, she put the file back in its envelope, wrapping the tab once more before walking it back up to the waiting receptionist. “Thank you for this.”
“Of course,” she smiled, bidding Peggy a good day as she made it out the door. That led precisely nowhere. She was being frustrated at every corner, first with Stark and Stane, then with Steve, and now with Sousa. Guilt gnawed on her as she wandered back through the hall to the elevator, thinking of that night only months ago, and yet decades ago. Had she stayed there, faced up to the mess she made and the heart she had broken, maybe they could have still been friends. At the very least, she could have been heading up SHIELD when he went missing. Perhaps she could have found out more, discovered more, done...something? She wasn’t sure what.
She wasn’t even sure why the guilt was talking. She had turned down his proposal, yes, and she meant it now as much as she meant it then, but she had hurt him. She hadn’t wanted to, hadn’t meant to do it. It was only when he kneeled there on Howard’s balcony that she realized she couldn’t be with him, not the way he wanted, not the way he deserved. They would never have made each other happy, not for the long term anyway. She never felt as if he made heads or tails of who she was as a person, alternately admiring her and trying to protect her. All she ever wanted was an equal, a man who was happy just letting her be herself, who didn’t feel the need to define who he was with her.
A small, dark voice in the back of her mind pointed out that all she had ever wanted was Steve Rogers. As much as she didn’t want to listen to it, she knew it was right. It was the same desire that had listened to Scott Lang in the first place, the same one that had agreed to head up Fury’s insane plan for the Avengers Initiative, the part of her that waited breathlessly for word from the Arctic on whether the Valkyrie had been found. She had wanted Steve. The man she did want to be with, to tie herself to, was a man who currently was buried beneath feet of ice. She had given up everything - her family, her friends, the agency she had started - for that chance to be with him. She had barely hesitated in saying yes. She had hesitated with Daniel, a man who was good and honest and kind and wonderful. And she felt guilty that she felt that way. And now he was gone, possibly dead, but wherever he was, she felt that she had let him down, had failed him by not saying yes, by not staying.
It was a long walk back to the subway platform.
She spent the trip lost in thought, watching a woman reading a book across from a pair of teenagers displaying the sort of affection that would have been called scandalous in her day, at least on a subway car. She rode the single stop to Pershing Square, alighting in the middle of the high rises of the city, her mind anywhere and everywhere but the buzzing sound coming from her purse.
She frowned, glancing down at the bag before pulling it open and grabbing her phone from inside. Waiting for her were half a dozen calls from a SHIELD number and one text message from Coulson saying, “We got it, and this has gotten bigger. Where are you?”
She didn’t blink as she called him back, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. Coulson answered on the first ring. “Pershing Square, downtown, not far from the hotel.”
“Got it. I’m sending a team to you right now.”
“How hot is it?”
“Potts has what we need, but Stane’s on the move. He knows she has figured it out.”
“Which means Stark will know.” The domino effect of that left Peggy’s head spinning. “He will need to act now rather than wait.”
“It gets much worse than that. You know the suit Stark made in Afghanistan to get out? He got it and has been working on a model of it for weeks. If it is half of what Stark thought of...this is bigger than even we imagined.”
“I don’t know, I am well aware of how big Starks think and just how dangerous that can be sometimes.” Around a corner a dark SUV came tearing up the street, stopping in front of Peggy with tires screeching. “Here is my ride.”
“See you in a bit.”
Agent Solarzano was behind the wheel as she climbed in. “You spoke with Coulson?”
“Just now. We headed to Stark Industries?”
“Yeah, in rush hour.” Solarzano did not look thrilled with this idea. “Thank God for the HOV lane.”
Peggy, unaware of what that was, silently agreed as he took off into traffic. Behind her sat two more agents whose names she hadn’t caught, but who introduced themselves as Agent Cargill and Agent Lewis. Both seemed slightly stunned to see Peggy Carter in the seat in front of them.
“Right, did Coulson brief you all on the situation?”
“Yes, ma’am,” they said in unison in a way that should have been disturbing when Peggy thought about it. She at least was saved from having to explain it herself.
“Do we know if Stane is aware of what is happening.”
Solarzano shook his large head as he capably weaved through traffic to a wide open lane on the highway, picking up speed as he did. “Didn’t say, but he’s with Miss Potts right now just in case.”
That caught Peggy’s attention. “Was she threatened?”
“Don’t think so. I think it’s just a precaution.”
This case kept getting better and better. “Right, do we know where Stane is now?”
“Last eyes saw him on the Stark Industries campus. His car is still there, so he likely is as well.”
Maybe this would make apprehending him easier. Somewhere, she thought she could hear Jack Thompson laughing at her.
It took them nearly thirty minutes through traffic to make it to the Stark Industries campus, tearing into the area where Coulson already stood with a cluster of other agents and Miss Potts. Stark’s personal assistant stared at them all with a pointedly polite smile despite the worry and doubt hiding beneath her poise. She looked decidedly out of place in her neat, black pencil skirt and top, in heels so thin that Peggy wondered how she didn’t fall over in them.
Coulson quickly made the introductions. “Miss Potts, allow me to introduce Director Peggy Carter. She’s been heading up this investigation and was the one instrumental in finding Mr. Stark in Afghanistan.”
That lit up the other woman’s face somewhat as she took Peggy’s hand. “Oh my God, thank you so much. If it weren’t for you…” She trailed off, a troubled look rising to the fore. “There are a lot of people here who care for Tony a lot. You gave him back to us.”
“We aren’t out of the woods yet,” Peggy looked to Coulson. “You told her what we found out on those files.”
“Everything about Stane’s arms deals over the years and his efforts to get Stark killed.”
“I have more evidence on my side,” the other woman hopped in. “Agent Coulson said you all had the information but couldn’t link it to Obadiah, but I have it...the proof that is. He was hiding it on secret servers. Tony figured out how to crack into them, that’s was why I was in the office, downloading it all.”
Coulson held up a key fob which he passed to another agent, who sealed it in a plastic bag and went to tuck it safely inside the vehicle he had used. “It’s enough to put him away for a while and then some. I have a feeling that the FBI and CIA are going to want to have a chat with Stane on some of his activities.”
“I’ll say,” Peggy muttered. “So where is he?”
“Unclear, we have agents looking for him now. In the meantime, Miss Potts found out about Stane and Stark’s prototype suit.”
“It’s in the files,” Potts waved at the car the agent had walked away to. “Tony used the suit to escape in Afghanistan. Obadiah used it as the basis for blueprints of a prototype all of his own, a bigger machine he hoped to profit off of once Tony was out of the picture. He’s been working on it for a while, but just recently set up shop under the Arc Reactor.”
Peggy looked to the large building she knew held the generator. “Why?”
“No one goes down there, mostly,” she replied. “Also, the reactor itself tends to mask any major detection. No one could hear what you are doing down there and he could build near the lab if he needed.”
“The one problem he had was how to power it,” Coulson explained. “Looking at his schematics, something with the computation and firepower that thing has would need to have a large power source, which isn't conducive to mobility. He’d need several car batteries just to make it go. So, he went to Afghanistan to grab the original and see how Tony did it.”
“How?” Peggy looked to Potts, who glanced at Coulson, worriedly.
Coulson nodded encouragingly at her. “She’s good people. Trust her.”
Potts slumped somewhat but finally gave in. “When he was captured, Tony was hit with shrapnel from an improvised version of a Stark Industries bomb. It tore through his body armor and was boring through his chest. When his captors took him in, they patched him up but couldn’t get all the shrapnel out, so they figured out a way to put an electromagnet in his chest to prevent the shrapnel from burrowing in further and killing him.”
The horror of a weapon like that left Peggy feeling cold. “How did he survive at all?”
“Pure stubbornness,” she shot back in mild exasperation, which melted almost immediately into worry. “He shouldn’t have, frankly, but he did. To power the electromagnet, they hooked it up to a car battery, but that was cumbersome, so he created a miniature version of that thing to put into his chest to run it all.”
Peggy followed Potts’ pointing finger to the large building that housed Howard’s generator. “The Arc Reactor?”
“Tony built it from the weapons stores that they had there, small enough to slip it inside his chest. It was powerful enough that he could use it to run the suit.”
“And ultimately escape.” The pieces started to fit together now, clicking so loud Peggy could practically hear them. “Stane can’t figure out how he did it, making a smaller version of the Arc Reactor.”
“No,” she shook her head, shining, strawberry blonde hair swinging. “I think he’s been searching Tony’s files, but it’s not there.”
Where it was, Potts wasn’t about to give away, though Peggy assumed it was likely all in his head. “And I am guessing Mr. Stark has the only working version of it on his person.”
She nodded, hesitantly. “The only one functioning, yes.”
Peggy cut her eyes immediately to Coulson. “Did you send anyone up to Stark’s home?”
“I have a unit en route, but Miss Potts already called Colonel Rhodes earlier. He should be there soon to warn him while SHIELD agents make their way there. In the meantime, Miss Potts is going to get us access to the sub-basement under the Arc Reactor so we can see what Stane has been up to.”
The fact they didn’t know where Stane was bothered her. “Are you sure he isn’t down there?”
“No,” Coulson replied, frankly, nodding to the other agents. “That’s why I got backup.”
Peggy wasn’t certain they would be enough backup for what Stane had built. “You have a point.”
Coulson was curt as he regarded the other agents. “Cargill, Hsu, I want you flanking. Rosby, take point with me. Lewis, Roberts, and Specht cover our backs. Solarzano, you run comms and be our eyes and ears on this.”
All the agents nodded as hands went to weapons and earpieces, checking that they were ready. Peggy felt a tap on her shoulder as the large, beefy hand of Solarzano handed her an earpiece with a dryly chiding look.
“You too, Director.” He tapped his ear as she did as he said, slipping in an earpiece and clipping on a microphone onto her lapel.
“Miss Potts, if you will?”
Potts eyed them all nervously before nodding, turning towards the Arc Reactor building, her long legs leading the way, even in her ridiculous shoes. She pulled out a card that she used to key their way into the building, closed for the night, holding the door for Coulson to lead them in.
“It will be downstairs,” she explained, moving for a set by the door that led down underneath the massive reactor. Peggy glanced at it, still just as awed by it now as she was months ago when she first saw it. She carefully picked her way down the steps behind Coulson and Potts, the other agents following suit. They came down to a single, white-painted door that opened into a sub-basement, a dark area with different dim, dingy spaces, most of them either ignored or used for what seemed to be storage.
“It’s this one,” Potts indicated as they came to one door, painted with "16" in yellow and red. Peggy waited as she swiped her plastic card, noting the sound from up above and the relative abandonment of the area. Small wonder, then, that Stane had chosen it. She doubted anyone would ever think to come down here to do anything.
“My key is not working,” she heard Potts mutter, “it’s not opening the door.”
Coulson, prepared for this, gently moved her aside, placing some device on the magnetic lock of the door.
“Oh wow! What’s that?” Potts marveled at the little device that lit up after Coulson pressed it. “It’s, like, a little device! It’s, like, a thing to pick a lock?”
“You might want to take a few steps back.”
Potts did just that, scuttling to stand beside Peggy as they both held hands over their ears. Peggy hadn’t known the device but had guessed readily as it caused a minor explosion, blowing the lock and accessing the door. It opened as Coulson led the team inside, Potts sticking close to him as she led the way through it.
“Be careful, it’s dark,” she called, something like a kindergarten schoolmarm. Peggy supposed when one was the personal assistant to Tony Stark it likely came as second nature. The space was a clutter, the sub-basement where only pipes and wiring were, a perfect warren for activities you didn’t want to be found. Peggy kicked a toe against a box of spare parts and eyed a poorly lit cooling pipe above them.
“Over here!” One of the other agents spotted their quarry, half hidden in darkness. A suit of metal stood there, something like a robot, bulky and solid, more like a man-shaped tank than anything else.
“Looks like you were right,” Coulson muttered to Potts, glancing back at Peggy.
Potts didn’t look as convinced. “I thought it would be bigger.”
Peggy wanted to comment that it looked plenty big enough to her, but held her tongue. The other agents moved towards it as Coulson pulled back. Potts wandered to the side as the SHIELD team moved to take custody of the item.
“Stane improved on Stark’s model from the desert.”
“Well, he only built it to get out. He’s been working on it since then.”
In the distance, something rumbled in the darkness, a creaking, groaning sound of metal and hydraulics. Peggy spun, hand immediately moving to the holster at her back as she pulled her weapon, Coulson and the other agents doing the same. For long moments, nothing happened, until Potts gave a startled, strangled gasp as the noise became a cacophony. Potts tore off towards them and away, as fast as her ridiculous shoes allowed, as something from a nightmare came straight at them.
“What the hell,” Coulson managed as the terror charged, a robot tearing through the pipes, wires, and metal as if they were little more than nuisances. Peggy didn’t bother to comment. She simply fired.
It did little good, in the end, as they barely phased the thing. Falling bits of girders and debris followed in its wake as explosions rocked the building, sending them all flying, like pinballs. Peggy only had time to blink, dazed on the concrete floor, before from up above, the metal sheeting of the air conditioning vent pulled away with a screech from the ceiling. It fell, fell...right to where she already lay.