The unexpected
We'd been worried about the press from the wedding, but we stayed tight in the compound when we weren't on missions, and after a big initial hoopla, it did die down. There was a brief but intense scavenge for information about me, and some not so pleasant late-night jokes about the age difference, but I stopped paying attention.
Summer moved into autumn, then winter. Steve came back from a mission with an abdominal wound that wasn't healing well. I didn't even have to nag him to get him to go to the doctor; I was worried that somebody had developed some kind of chemical or biological agent to interrupt his augmented healing ability.
The results from the exam were not what I was expecting.
"It looks like the abilities from the serum are starting to wear off," the doctor said gently. "For whatever reason, the enhancements aren't permanent, although everybody thought that they would be." He shook his head and looked at the lab results a moment longer. "There wasn't any way to tell. For this particular ...project, you were the baseline."
"So what does this mean for me?" Steve asked after a desperate moment.
"Your speed, strength, agility, healing, all of it is going to fade away. Is fading. There's no way to precisely predict the speed of the decline, but based on the data points that we have here compared to your last physical, my best guess is that it will be a matter of months." After a moment, he added absurdly, "I'm sorry."
"Isn't there anything that can be done?" I asked.
He shook his head. "If we had the serum, we could try administering it again, but we don't. It would be a long shot anyway; the Captain is almost a hundred years old."
"I saw an earlier version of the formula," I blurted out, and recited the list of reactants that I had seen in the secret lab in Austria.
"The earlier formulas weren't successful," Steve murmured, taking my hand, and the doctor said that the formula couldn't be reconstructed just from what I'd seen.
It took us a couple of days to process the information before we told the others. Now that I was looking, I could see his hair silvering at the temples, some lines developing on his face.
Three weeks later, he had to stop going out on missions.
Not quite two months later, he had hospice care. I was shocked at the speed of his decline. I thought there would be more months.
Two weeks after that, shortly after a last dose of medication, his once vital body wasted and frail, his memory fading, asthma having returned along with other problems that he'd endured pre-serum, he let his last gentle breath leave. They removed his body immediately. Somehow I made it onto campus. They found me outside Loki's cell, where one of the guards had let him out to comfort me. Bucky found me sobbing, curled up on a ball on the floor, Loki stroking my hair.
It had always been understood that his body would be studied after his death, so there was a memorial service in place of the funeral. There was a memorial garden by the visitors center. It was spare but attractive, featuring lots of white marble; the public came in droves to pay their respects.
It was about a month before I went back to work. On top of Steve, it turned out that Sarah had had a heart defect and she died too. It was a very tough month indeed.
Everybody pretty much left me alone, for which I was grateful. I showed up for team meetings and did the work, but I wasn't going out on missions. I cast a couple more engines for motorcycles and cars, and a prototype for one for a quinjet. This one was an entirely different animal, and the enormous challenge was just what I needed. The Paladin officially retired; I'd lost the heart for it, and I sent my costumes to the archives at the visitors center, along with Nike for display. I left the urumi in its belt sheath.
The next time I really looked up, color was edging the trees again.
Shortly before Halloween, I got a call to report to the clinic and was led upstairs. I started to panic. Nothing good ever waited for me in those rooms. Tony saw me coming down the hall and knocked on one of the doors. By the time I arrived, the door was opening and Bucky motioned me in.
The world sort of grayed around the edges when I saw Steve in the bed, looking like he had on that terrible day we'd been told the serum was failing him. The lines on his face were more pronounced, that was the main difference.
"I remember you from the forest," he said pleasantly as he looked at me. "You made my shield."
"Is that all you remember?" I asked faintly, and he nodded. "It's kind of a blur after that," he admitted. "Apparently I got married, though," he said, nodding to his ring on the table. "Where are the kids, Buck?" he said, turning to his friend. "You don't get married and not have kids. They thought the serum would have prevented me from passing my original defects onto any offspring. I always said I'd name my son after you, remember?"
I swayed out the door as he continued to chatter at Bucky about how much he wanted kids. A son, especially.
Tony was looking distinctly nervous. "How did this happen?" I said quietly. "Who knew? Talk fast."
"The last couple months, there was a geneticist and a biochemist who thought they had the serum figured out. Apparently you told Steve's doctor a list of what went into another version, and between that and my dad's notes from the last batch of serum, there was a formula. The doctors found that the original serum was still present in his cells, it just needed a boost. Not the original serum, something to boost cell production again. I got a letter from a bank in California; my dad had a safe deposit box there, he'd paid for a hundred years, but the bank was being closed. The schematics were there for the Vita Ray, which was the big missing component. Steve wanted to go ahead. He didn't want to die. It was him and me and Barnes and the doctors, I made the Vita Ray generator. The nurse gave him a preparatory injection when he was failing at the end and he was put into cryo until the testing was as done as it could be." He swallowed. "Natasha knew because of Barnes. Barton knew because of Natasha. T'Challa knew because we consulted with his people who treated Barnes. Wanda knew because she was snooping around in people's heads.--"
"Who didn't know?" I whispered. "Besides me, of course."
"Thor, Sif, Peter, that kid can't keep a secret from you, but I think he knows something's up.--" Thor and Sif were back on Asgard, had been for the past few months. So, basically everybody.
"Why didn't anybody tell me?" I whispered.
"Uh--" Tony looked panicked.
"Because we were afraid you'd put a halt to it," Bucky said, stepping out of the room and closing the door.
"We thought that if it went wrong, you'd never have to know," Tony babbled. "But then you'd be so glad to see Steve again." His voice faltered. "No?" I balled up my fist and hit him as hard as I could. His head hit the wall and he slumped to the floor.
"He doesn't remember me, asshole," I hissed. "Not past when I made the shield."
Tony tested his eye first, then the back of the head. "Con didn't say you'd hit. I thought you'd gotten past the hitting."
"Con? My friend, Constance? What does she have to do with this?" I asked, bewildered.
"We've been dating these past five, six months," Tony muttered. "I mentioned that to her in therapy though." I looked at Bucky, silent and dark between me and the door. There was not point in trying to slap him, as much as I wanted to. He'd have gone along with whatever Steve wanted, just as Steve would have done the same for him. I stared up at the ceiling and took a couple of breaths. Then I turned and strode down the hall to the door. When I hit the outside door, I was running. I holed up in the house in one of the guest rooms where I'd been sleeping since Steve...well, I guess died wasn't quite what happened. I ignored the periodic pounding on the door and kept the lights off. Around midnight, having checked details on my phone--which I'd also ignored--I had finished my plan.
I woke up around six, pressed tightly by the dogs. I showered and went back to the clinic, where I demanded to speak to Steve's doctor. He wasn't able to assure me that Steve's memory would return. The brain is very delicate, and dying and cryo and whatever else they'd done might have erased them for good. He'd been awake for close to a week already and his memories were holding steady. I thought of Bucky and his memory problems. I went upstairs. There was nobody on the door or in the room with Steve, who was asleep. I watched the man I had loved for a moment, then placed my rings on the table with a note. I'd boxed up his things after he...whatevered, and they were in storage in the complex. I couldn't bear to throw them away, but I needed space from them too, so I'd put them in his old room in the residence. The note also included the account number for an escrow account; I'd inherited his assets as well as a life insurance payout. I'd placed that amount of money in the escrow account, plus a sum for half of what our house had been worth (the title was back in just my name since I'd thought my husband was dead), plus a year's worth of interest. We hadn't had a lot of time to acquire things together. I went to my workshop, put a letter of resignation in the inter-office mail for Nick, and took all my personal items. I didn't want the weapons or the framed photos or the costume design sketches Steve had done for me, but I didn't want anybody else to have them, either. I went back to the house. By then, the businesses I needed were open, and I arranged for movers to pack up the house and put everything into storage. The realtors I'd bought the house from would be delighted to sell it for me.
I went to a sporting goods store and made some purchases, then the dogs and I put the car into long-term parking. I laced up my old hiking boots and we started walking south along the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail.
It was a shitty time of year to be doing the hike, but that was ok, the cold and stormy weather matched my heart and mind. It was a matter of literally putting one foot in front of the other, day after day, and gradually my mind cleared and brightened. The start had been difficult, I hadn't done backpacking for years, but I'd kept up with my cardio, so at least I wasn't out of shape. By the time we fetched up at the base of the Sierra Nevadas, where snow had already made the trail impassable, I'd done enough. I no longer wanted to scream at the heavens for answers or try to make people explain why I hadn't been in the loop. I still really couldn't figure that one out. I'd once given seventy-ish years of my life to a guy I'd never met. And if the scientists had explained what they wanted to do, given me a plan, most likely it would have been ok. Science never fails me. My understanding and capability to do the science are sometimes insufficient, but I blame myself for those failures, not the science. People do. People for whom I'd laid down my life, trusted as completely as I was capable... oh, people will fail you. Peter was the only one I kept in contact with. I deleted voicemail and email from the others unread, unheard. And I wrote sporadic letters to Loki, sent him boxes of books and DVDs when I had WiFi.
In the small town where we quit the trail was an old-fashioned library that still had a globe. One morning I spun the globe to find my next destination. I had to do it a couple of times, actually; the first time put me in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and once in Africa. I wanted to stay in the continental US, so for the third time, I just closed my eyes and poked my finger at the stationary globe.
The dogs and I took the train back up to Seattle, where we picked up the car and headed southeast. I bought a charming fieldstone house in Breckenridge, Colorado that had been renovated to provide a very modern interior, pretty much the antithesis of the house in Seattle. It was at the end of the ski season and the snow wasn't very good, but I took a few lessons anyway, and the dogs and I settled in. One spring day, we were hiking along a muddy trail when a ridiculously tall man stopped me. I looked into his face and recognized Baldur. The dogs whined when they saw him.
"The dogs must be returned now," he said implacably.
"I thought they were mine for my lifetime," I said numbly. "Thor told me--"
"They are warriors, companions for those in battle. You are no longer a warrior," he said. "They must return where they belong." He allowed me to say goodbye and this time I swear I heard my heart crumble and felt my spirit fade.
That fall, I went to Estes Park for the annual Highland Festival and came home with three rescue dogs--two black Scotty pups and a corgi. They had been rescued from a puppy mill.
That winter I planned a garden and began studying to become a consulting rosarian. I started learning botany. As soon as the yard cleared its snow, I was out digging up flower beds to supplement the one at the front of the house. I planted more roses, and columbines, irises (although they wouldn't bloom this year) delphinium, foxglove, monkshood, poppies, gladiolus, lavender, pansies, snapdragons, and petunias, and planned to plant crocus, tulip, and daffodil bulbs in the fall. I'd seen a lawn that had crocus flowers pushing up in the early spring and wanted that beauty for myself. I made a container garden for kitchen herbs.
I took a break from the weeding and ate a sandwich on the porch, deriving satisfaction from the view. The garden was going to look great in a few years. The few roses that had come with the house were prospering. I finished my sandwich and started over to inspect them when I heard a car coming up the drive. Odd. Nobody really visited me. I knelt and started flipping leaves over. Sure enough, there were aphids. My mortal enemy. I stood, considering my options. I heard car doors close and footsteps come up behind me.
"Nice place."
I let the comment hang in the air. Let it fall flat and die. Maybe long enough for grass to start growing over it. "Stark," I finally said flatly. "Why are you here? Did you not get the hint that I was done with you, with all of you?"
"I did manage to decode the meaning of you not returning phone calls or emails," he said, jittery energy in his voice. "Need to talk to you."
I ignored him and moved to the next flowerbed. Yep, aphids here too. Hmm. A problem. I wanted to avoid pesticides as much as possible. I ran through some potential solutions, thinking of blasting them off with water from the hose.
"Emma?" I heard the concern in his voice. "Are you ok?"
"Not especially, and especially not now that you've shown up." I stuck my fingers in the soil. A little dry. "I don't care about your needs or wants any more. If I did, I would have asked."
"Where's Sigurd and Torburn?" he said, evidently to change the subject, or maybe it was a blatant attempt to demonstrate that he cared. "I'd like to say hi. They're great dogs."
I bowed my head and didn't speak until the stab of sorrow faded enough to control. "Baldur showed up and took them back. Said they only belonged to warriors." But I smiled as three young dogs charged around the corner of the house, stopping dead and surveying the scene. Then they started to growl at the sight before the Scotties charged Stark, snapping their teeth. I heard cloth tear and grinned a little vindictively. Stark yipped a little, but he didn't do anything else.
"Fergal, baby, come here," I said blandly, extending my hand behind me and wiggling my fingers. "Wallace, stop." The corgi stayed put until I heard movement behind me and then she got in motion, growling. She was more serious than the boys, and I stood and turned around. The Scotties were enthusiastically pulling and tearing at Tony's slacks, but my Corgi was dead set on taking on Captain America.
"Daf," I said sternly. She didn't pause. "Daffodil! Come here!" Reluctantly, she slowed, then trudged over to me. I picked her up with a grunt. "Thank you, baby," I told her, and she licked my face. "You're very brave." I let her down when I sat on the porch and reluctantly called off the boys. Their bright eyes surveyed me and they did, for once, do as they were bid. They sat between me and the intruders, bless their hearts. "So where's Barnes?" I asked.
"What makes you think anybody's here with us?" Steve asked, and I rolled my eyes.
"There were three heat signatures in the car when you drove in, dumbass. Heat vision, remember? Or did that slip your mind too?" My voice was hostile. My sweet, happy girl started to growl. I soothed her with a few strokes over her shoulders and patted her. Rogers colored. "Where is he?" I repeated sharply.
"Here," he said, stepping from around the other side of my house. Reflexively, I threw a knife at him. I had the mean satisfaction of seeing his eyes go big and a little alarmed before he dodged it. "You kept up your training," he said.
"Never know what's going to turn up on my doorstep," I said. I had the concern in the back of my head that somebody would figure out that I'd been Paladin, and Paladin had enemies. And now there were these guys. "So I'll ask one more time. Why are you here? Make your answers concise and clear or I'll have the cops come and arrest you for trespass. This is posted private property."
"We need you to come back," Stark said. I sneered at him. "It's falling apart. Fury had a stroke earlier in the year and has to retire. Wanda's...touch with reality is a little fluid sometimes. We're arguing and we can't get any traction. Sif's pregnant again, that's good news, though. Pietro has a girlfriend, Barton's family is doing well. Pepper got married last year, they're very happy, Con and I aren't getting married, but we're doing pretty well overall, considering she's with me. Barnes and Natasha broke up--" Barnes glowered at him--"Sam and Scott and Rhodey are good, Pete's getting reckless, though, he won't listen to me. Dropped his internship and everything."
"I know about that. I told him not to. He needs to think of his future."
"Errr--but the team itself isn't doing very well--"
"So you think that you can just show up and I'll come running back?" I couldn't believe my ears. "In what universe do you think that would actually happen? If you need a metalsmith, go find the one who worked for Silvermane."
"Come on, Emma, you gotta work with me here. You've had your walkabout to get your perspective back, but now it's time to come home," Tony said, trying to get the upper hand.
Rogers came over and started to sit beside me. "I didn't say you could sit," I barked at him. He stopped, stood, and faced me.
"You're my wife," he said quietly. "I--"
"I was. I checked with a lawyer. Once you were declared dead, the marriage ended," I said crisply. "I've seen pictures of you on covers of periodicals at the supermarket. They're impossible to avoid, and sometimes people enjoy pointing them out. So I know you've been with other women. We went through this once before. So no, you don't get to say I'm your wife anymore. I gave you back your stuff and the value of your assets at the time of your death. That's all you get from me." Venom dripped from my voice.
"You can come to New York, work from there--" Stark tried.
"Damned near all of you knew what was going on. And every single person kept the knowledge of the big experiment from me. I don't buy that you thought I'd shut it down." I glared at Rogers. "You're the one who had a cow when the windows of the workshop were tested while I was inside, who didn't want me to use a tissue speed healer because it was experimental. If you'd really wanted it and the science was reasonable, I wouldn't have stood in your way. Because I thought our marriage was based on love and trust. But instead I had to lose my husband twice. I've lost pretty much everything that mattered to me and you have the nerve to show up here and expect my help. The answer is not only no, but go fuck yourselves. All you people do is use other people up while you indulge yourselves with your goals and desires. I'm done. Get out. Now." I stood up, gestured to the dogs, and we went inside the house. I snapped the lock closed behind me.
I stayed inside for the rest of the afternoon; I took a little nap partway through and woke up at twilight. I went along my usual routine and went upstairs to read in bed for awhile. I woke up around two in the morning to hear a sharp noise. It repeated, and I realized that somebody was throwing things against one of the windows. I thought for a moment. I bet it was Barnes. Wearily, I pulled on a robe and opened the window. "You by yourself, Barnes?" I asked, and after a moment, he said that he was. I shut the window and went downstairs. Reluctantly, I let him in the back door. I poured myself a glass of water, and set the pitcher and an empty glass on the table.
"Talk," I said before sipping the water.
"I'm here on my own," he said, toying with his glass. "You need to know some things. First, I admit we didn't handle this right. And I'm really sorry for it and what you've been through. Stark went to Steve with this hare-brained idea of recreating the serum. He'd found a couple of doctors--PhD ones-- who were willing to work on it. But they had a lucky accident in the lab that made them realize they didn't have to recreate the serum, just figure a way to reestablish the cells' production. Or something." He frowned and shook his head soberly. "I told Steve not to fuck around and to bring you in on it, but he wouldn't. I should have pressed harder. Or done it myself. Stark needs Steve to balance him out. And Steve didn't want to die, he wanted more time with you and to do his job. He'd asked me at one point to become Captain America when he dies. To give him peace, I said I would. He didn't really think it was going to work. He didn't want to give you false hope, and he wanted you with him for as long as he had. He thought that if you knew, you'd dive in with your usual...thoroughness. Stark felt sure that you'd pick the procedure apart, expose all the flaws, get the plug pulled, apparently there are limits to human experimentation, even on a volunteer, and he convinced Steve. The doctors worked hard and came up with a protocol. The vitamin shots he was getting had drugs to prepare him and as soon as he died they ran the new treatment through his veins and put him on ice. They needed to test the Vita Ray thing and they would only get one chance, they had to test it more.
"So they zapped him and he was alive again, but he was in a coma. It took a week for him to come out of it. And more than a week to see if he was going to recover. They called you as soon as they found out he was going to be ok. I wanted to see what he remembered first, fill in the gaps before you saw him. It would have spared you the scene at the hospital, at least. And yeah, he did want kids at one point, but he was sincere when he told you he didn't think it was possible for him later. He didn't lie to you. About that."
I rubbed my temple. I had a headache and a heartache and I wanted to make a list to nail the doctors who went along with Stark to the wall and get their licenses pulled along with their intestines and exact bloody revenge on...everyone. And I didn't think any of it would help; I'd still have the headache and the heartache and a bonus bunch of bloodstains to clean up. I had a dangerous man sitting at my kitchen table and I felt too betrayed by my friend/therapist to call for help.