Leave Interrupted

Daniel should probably feel bad that Howard Stark’s car had been sacrificed to buy them some time, but as he watched Jarvis load weapons carefully into a duffle bag – they’d undoubtedly need more than they could carry on their own – he just couldn’t be bothered. Stark had several more cars at his disposal, and the loss of one had probably saved their lives. 

“So, does this happen a lot when you’re with Peggy?” he asked Jarvis, securing weapons about his person. He lifted an altered semi-automatic and looked at it carefully before setting it back down, smart enough to not trust anything that had been modified by Howard Stark.

“As often as it happens to you, I would imagine,” Jarvis replied, startling a surprised chuckle out of him. Across the way, Peggy was pointing at various weapons, demanding explanations from Stark. She had a handful of potentials sitting on a nearby table that she’d cleared off as soon as they’d arrived.  They were on a schedule.

“That often, huh?” he asked wryly.

“Indeed.”

He saw Jarvis hesitate for a moment, as if debating if he wanted to say anything. “Do you have any idea why there are men shooting at us?” he asked.  Jarvis knew about Hydra, of course – being around Howard Stark and Peggy Carter for any length of time guaranteed that he was, at minimum, familiar with their symbol, and the men shooting at them had been wearing it rather prominently on their uniforms.

Daniel shrugged. “Dead bodies are turning up, but they aren’t exactly human,” he explained.  “At least, no human that I’ve ever seen.  Apparently, Hydra is somehow involved with them as well.  They don’t like it when people interfere in their business.”  His voice was wry as he delivered the understatement of the year.

“Ah,” Jarvis replied. “Must be Tuesday.”  Because really, what else could be said?  Peggy had a knack for finding trouble, and the SSR was actively involved in unusual occurrences that happened outside the jurisdiction of local law enforcement, so finding out that Hydra was chasing them because they’d stumbled across the corpses of non-humans was almost normal by this point.

“Must be,” Daniel agreed, looking up as Peggy and Howard made their way over to them. “You do realize that most of these weapons are completely illegal, right?” he asked, unconcerned.

“I think that most of these weapons are too advanced to be illegal,” Peggy retorted, handing a modified rifle to Jarvis, who added it to the duffle bag before zipping it closed. “I also think that we need to get a move on before we have more dead bodies.  Or none at all.  At this point, I’m not sure which would be worse.”

Daniel thought about that. “If Hydra succeeds in cleaning this up, it’ll probably mean a bigger mess down the road,” he admitted as the group of them followed Howard out of the container and towards a nearby street.  He really hoped that Howard’s plan wasn’t to call them a taxi.  That would undoubtedly end with them all being arrested.

Peggy sighed. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

Howard, who had been filled in by Peggy, grinned at them. “You’re assuming that we’ll survive this adventure,” he pointed out cheerfully.  Next to Daniel, Jarvis just sighed resignedly.

“Why, yes, thank you, Howard,” Peggy sniped. “We’re carrying an arsenal because I plan to surrender to Hydra.”

“No need to get snippy with me, Peg,” Howard retorted. “I’m being practical.  This is me being practical.  I’m a scientist, not a soldier.  We’ve been over this before.”  Daniel didn’t hear Peggy’s reply, but judging by Howard’s grimace, she had won the argument.  His mouth twitched upwards in an aborted smile.

They rounded a corner, and Daniel’s eyes were immediately drawn to a brilliant red Chevrolet Coupe. He could tell from just a look that Howard had been tinkering with it.  “That won’t fly or anything, will it?” he asked suspiciously.

Howard grinned at him. “You were at the expo?” he asked, delighted.  He shook his head.  “No, that one’s back at the manor.  Her name’s Lola.”  He looked almost nostalgic.  Daniel didn’t want to know who Lola was, or why Stark had named a flying car after her.  It was probably safer for his sanity that he didn’t know.

“You are not driving, Howard,” Peggy scolded when Stark went to climb into the front seat. She glanced at Jarvis.  “And neither are you.”  Jarvis just blinked at her, nonplussed.  “Well? Go on.  In the back with you,” Peggy urged.  The look of discomfort and confusion on Jarvis’ face was priceless, and Daniel couldn’t help the small part of him that felt a vindictive spike of pleasure at the thought of the other man having to put up with Stark’s incessant babbling.

Peggy climbed behind the wheel, and Daniel slid into the front passenger seat, relishing the chance to stretch his bum leg out. Behind him, Jarvis gave a resigned sigh, looking about as uncomfortable as the man ever got.  Howard, for his part, seemed just fine with the seating arrangements. “So, fill me in,” he said, sprawling out comfortably in the back seat.  Jarvis just shifted to accommodate him.

Glancing at him in the rearview mirror, Peggy sighed. “We’ve been over this already, Howard. Dead bodies, Hydra. Any of this ringing a bell? And why are you here, anyhow?” she demanded.

“Aw, Peg, don’t be like that,” Howard teased gently. “I told you, I just happened to be passing the office when I saw you and Jarvis, here. It looked like you were up to something, and I was bored.” 

Daniel didn’t even bother to hide his grin. He knew there was a reason he liked Howard; the man was completely off his rocker, and he didn’t even care.

“Somehow, I don’t believe that,” Peggy told him. “So why were you really there?”

Howard sighed. “Look, Peggy, I really was just passing by.  I just got word that the last expedition failed, so I went for a walk to clear my head.  I may have also heard from Mr. Dugan regarding your little conflict with Hydra,” he admitted.

Peggy’s expression turned sad for a moment, and Daniel realized that Howard had been talking about the hunt for Captain Steve Rogers. He knew that Howard had funded several expeditions dedicated to the retrieval of the national icon.  He also knew that Peggy had loved Steve Carter, for all the good it had done her.

He scoffed. “I’m surprised you’re bored already.  Don’t you have inventing to do or something?”

Howard shrugged, reclining back in his seat with his hands behind his head. “Probably,” he agreed easily enough.  “But I blew up the lab about three hours ago, and it’ll be at least two days before I can get new equipment in there.  And Laila was not quite what I had in mind for killing time,” he added.  “She – “

“We don’t care,” three voices chorused at once. Howard just grin, reclining back and closing his eyes, completely unperturbed at their apparent lack of interest.

Daniel looked over at his co-worker, and the woman he hoped would maybe someday be his wife, and asked, “Don’t you think we’re a bit obvious?”

Peggy considered that for a moment, but then shook her head. “No. Well, yes, but that’s kind of the point.  They’ll be looking for us trying to be sneaky.  Black car, blacked-out windows, that sort of thing.  I don’t think they’ll be expecting a bright red car with Howard Stark’s name on the license plate.  Of course,” she added, as a suspicious-looking car turned left ahead of them, “I could be wrong.”  But she didn’t seem terribly concerned, and Daniel settled his hand on his pistol, watching out the window for anybody tailing them.

Peggy navigated them through the streets of Los Angeles, heading for the port while somehow managing to look like they weren’t heading for the port. “Are you sure this is the best plan?” she asked as she pulled down a side street by the dock where the last two bodies had washed up.  “I would imagine that the bodies would be long gone, and Hydra is good at covering their tracks, if nothing else.”

Daniel stared at her incredulously, but it was Howard who spoke up. “And you couldn’t have told us this before we got here?” he demanded.

Daniel held up a hand. “Nobody asked you to come, Stark,” he said.  “And this is still the only lead we’ve got.  I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard of people who could live underwater.”

“I am fairly certain that it is indeed a relatively new concept,” Jarvis agreed. “However, I feel that I must point out that the corpses would seem to indicate that we have not actually found any such creature.”

They all mulled over that for a moment. “True,” Daniel admitted. “But they were definitely up to something.  Just because it didn’t work doesn’t mean that there’s no value in it,” he pointed out.  He really didn’t like the idea that these were just experiments.  He had heard about the fate that befell some members of the 107th – they all had.  Now that the war was over, he’d hoped that Hydra would lay low with the fall of their Nazi counterparts.  He should have known he couldn’t be that lucky.  Between Russian assassins, Stark’s weapons of mass destruction, Whitney Frost and her mystical portals, and now what was starting to look like human experiments, his luck had gone to hell ever since he had gotten involved with Peggy Carter and her friends.

“Let’s go,” Peggy said, impatient. The three men looked at each other, then turned to follow her, keeping their weapons concealed.  It was unlikely that Hydra would be waiting to ambush them, but walking out in broad daylight with their weapons in their hands would cause a stir. 

Daniel moved to take the lead, playing up his injury. Peggy walked by his side, one arm linked through his.  They garnered a few looks, but nobody looked twice, far too busy with their jobs to care about a wounded man and his sister.  Howard had been left with the car, and Jarvis had been sent to visit the port office, mostly to keep him out of sight.  A tall, well-dressed Englishman would attract far too much attention from a bunch of grimy dock workers, and that was attention they didn’t need.

Peggy didn’t have to ask where they were headed; she had memorized enough of the report from the office to be fairly confident of their destination. Still, they had several blocks to go, and Daniel couldn’t help feeling like they were being watched.  “Peggy,” he started.

“I know,” Peggy replied. “We’re being followed.”  So it wasn’t just his imagination; it was good to know that his instincts hadn’t yet failed him.  He was beginning to worry that he was becoming paranoid.

Daniel allowed Peggy to lead him through a narrow path between rows of cargo that reeked of fish, dodging men hauling nets and lumber and who-knew-what-else. They got a handful of curses for their trouble, and they made their way back out quickly.  Daniel glanced at the dock number; three more to go.

He stopped moving, pulling Peggy to a stop alongside him. “Daniel?” she asked, intelligent enough to realize that he wouldn’t have stopped unless he’d seen something, or come up with a plan.  Fortunately for her, it was the latter.

“See that truck?” he asked, nodding his head towards the one he was talking about. It was a flatbed truck covered in canvas, similar to a military truck.

“Yes,” Peggy answered, taking another look. “Oh,” she said softly.  “Well, yes, I suppose that would work.”  The side of the truck was imprinted with a number – the pier they were headed for.  Nobody was guarding it, so Daniel was really hoping that meant it was empty, and that it would remain that way.  It would provide them with cover, and allow them to move at least a little faster.

“There is a security breach in the rear containment corridor. I repeat, there is a security breach in the rear containment corridor.”  The alert came from behind them, and Peggy and Daniel pressed themselves up against a container as four men walked past, heading for the opposite end of the shipping yard.  Where they had left Howard and the car.

“I’m going to kill him,” Peggy said calmly as the men disappeared amongst the shipping containers. “Just as soon as we get what we came here for.”

Daniel shrugged. “Well, at least it means we get to drive,” he pointed out, trying to repress the glee in his voice.  Judging by the knowing look Peggy shot him, he hadn’t succeeded.

After verifying that the back of the truck was, indeed, empty, Daniel struggled into the cab of the truck, grimacing as his leg made the climb a bit difficult. Peggy didn’t offer to help him, which he appreciated, and he settled his crutch next to him as she started up the engine with a loud rumble.  Nobody came running, and within moments, they were rumbling their way down the port.

As they drew closer to their destination, they saw a ship pulling away from the port, empty of cargo. At the same time, an alert came across the truck’s radio.  It was delivered in Russian, but they’d both served in the war, and recognized enough words to realize that their cover had been blown, the truck reported as missing. 

Men ran in their direction, pulling out weapons, and Peggy gripped the steering wheel tightly. “Can you swim?” she asked Daniel.

The agent had a sinking feeling about the direction this was taking. “I can tread water, but that’s about it,” he admitted.  “You’d do better to drop me off here and let me hold them off.”

Peggy looked over at him worriedly, but slammed on the brakes. The truck skidded to a stop, and Daniel grabbed the duffle bag and more or less tumbled out of the vehicle, hitting the ground with a grunt and rolling behind a stack of empty pallets.  He watched as Peggy hit the gas, the bullet-ridden truck rumbling down the pier before running off the edge with a loud groan, followed by an even bigger splash.  A moment later, her head popped up above the water, and Daniel breathed a sigh of relief.

Bullets hit the water around her, and Daniel pushed himself to his feet with a tired groan. Time to cause a ruckus.