Rhapsody in Blue (Captain America/Avengers) (3/12)
Rhapsody in Blue (3/12)
A Captain America/Avengers story
by mhalachaiswords
At AO3
Summary: Steve Rogers died in the War. For Peggy Carter, the War was just the beginning.
Rating: Mature
Characters: Peggy Carter, Howard Stark, Maria Stark, Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Original Characters
Pairings: Oh boy. Peggy/Howard, Peggy/Steve, Peggy/Natasha, Peggy/Howard/Maria...
Warnings: The usual. Angst.
Words: 2,570 this part
Disclaimer: This is fanfic, I own nothing of the characters/worlds/franchises etc. All recognizable characters belong to their creators etc.
Note: Some angst, some babies, and some truly A+ parenting. We get to meet young Tony Stark in this one.
So it turned out that Maria wasn't inviting Peggy into Howard's bed just for Howard's benefit.
Peggy didn't mind in the least. She'd always been flexible like that - it was what had gotten her into that mess with the Black Widow, after all.
The rather loose arrangement went on for over two years, whenever Peggy was in town from her various assignments. In fact, things were going along swimmingly until Peggy realized that she wasn't feeling poorly from the stress of the job; that this whole debacle had landed on its inevitable conclusion.
"What do you mean, you're pregnant?"
Peggy sighed, letting her head tip back onto the chair's headrest in Howard's office at Stark Industries. "I was unaware that statement had any ambiguity."
Howard cursed. "It's mine?"
"Yes, you idiot."
"What do you want me to do?"
"Absolutely nothing." Peggy got to her feet and rounded the desk to drop a kiss on Howard's head. "I thought you should know."
"What will you do now?" Howard's voice followed her as she moved to leave.
Peggy paused in the doorway, looking back at him, a king alone in his lonely court "Maybe I'll retire, let the youngsters have their chance."
Howard dropped his head into his hands.
"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone it's yours."
"Do you really think that would do my reputation any damage?" he asked without looking up.
Peggy rolled her eyes. "Goodbye, Howard."
In spite of everything, it didn't seem all that final.
Maria was thrilled.
Being pregnant was strange, physically, and Peggy was faintly worried that her long-ago exposure to the Tesseract would cause something to go wrong, but things went along just fine and after the usual amount of time, Peggy gave birth to a baby girl.
The child was rather beautiful, if a mother could be excused a biased opinion. She had strong hints of her father's features, wide eyes and a curving mouth, with hair and eyes as dark as Peggy's.
Maria was the first person to visit Peggy when she brought the baby home, squealing over the infant and caring for her whenever Peggy needed a break. She practically moved in to Peggy's flat for weeks on end.
Howard stopped by. Once. By then, Peggy had already named the girl Sarah.
Because Howard Stark had a competitive streak in him a mile long, Peggy wasn't at all surprised when Maria started showing signs of morning sickness. It was a good thing, Maria reassured Peggy. Maria had always wanted kids and Howard, well, Howard was just stressed out about work.
Sarah was five months old when SHIELD clawed its way back into Peggy's life.
It never occurred to Peggy to leave Sarah with Howard. She dropped the baby off at her brother's house, leaving Sarah in her sister-in-law's capable hands. They had a boy of their own, a few years older than Sarah, and they would take good care of her.
Joshua was ten years younger than Peggy and had been living in America since the end of the War. He'd keep Sarah safe.
It took a long time, too long, for Peggy and her band of misfit associates to stop HYDRA from rearing its head again and crushing Eastern Europe. Seasons passed, they lost far too many good men, but they stopped HYDRA.
When Peggy got home, it was to news that Maria had had a little boy named Anthony, and Peggy's daughter looked at her like she was a stranger.
Peggy and her brother sat down and had a talk about what was best for Sarah, how it was no trouble for them to keep the girl, it would only be confusing and upsetting for Sarah when Peggy had to leave again for SHIELD business, and Peggy had to excuse herself from the conversation once to keep from throwing up.
She hadn't thought that the one thing she would lose in all this was her daughter.
But as much as it tore at Peggy's heart, her brother was right. Sarah didn't know Peggy anymore, wouldn't understand being taken from the only home she'd known for over two years.
Peggy already had orders for her next assignment, so she swallowed the pain, sat talking with her brother and his wife over dinner while Sarah stared at her mother with wide brown eyes, silent and contemplative.
Peggy stayed with her brother for a week, watching her daughter and her nephew play, hoping that if the next mission was the one she didn't come back from, Sarah might somehow remember some fragment of her mother.
Joseph gave Peggy a photograph of Sarah to take with her. Peggy stopped at the closest post office and mailed the photo to Howard.
Three days later, she was in Geneva.
The bullet wounds were slow to heal, and her strength even slower to return. When Peggy was back on her feet, SHIELD shipped her to America with a firm warning that she was on leave until further notice.
Peggy knew the way the winds were blowing. They'd be back for her in no time.
She went to San Diego to see Sarah. By now, the girl was old enough to understand that Peggy was her mother and yes, it was perfectly all right that she call Peggy mama, and Peggy's sister-in-law would always be Sarah's mommy too, and the touchy-feely nature of the conversation made Peggy grit her teeth. No one had treated children like that when Peggy was a child in the twenties - children were expected to just deal with things.
Although, Peggy had to admit after Sarah confidently slipped her little hand into Peggy's, perhaps there was something to be said for some of the modern child-rearing techniques after all.
"We gonna go to the park?" Sarah asked as they walked down the sidewalk, just like any mother and daughter might.
"Yes, love, we're going to the park," Peggy said. She couldn't stop scanning the surroundings for dangers, for snipers or suspicious packages or lingering operatives. It was no way for a child to live. "Do you like the park?"
Sarah gave a little skip. "I like swings but only when Daddy pushes me high."
"Well," Peggy said, wondering what Howard might say if he heard his daughter call someone else daddy. He probably wouldn't care; he'd never shown the slightest interest in the girl. "You can show me how high you want to go."
Once they got to the playground, Sarah let go of Peggy's hand and dashed for the swing set, her long brown hair streaming behind her. Peggy's breath caught in her throat as she watched her little girl, Howard's little girl, run across a quiet park in a quiet neighborhood in an unassuming corner of America.
Peggy was nearly fifty-five, didn't look a day over twenty-eighty. This wasn't her world any more. She might walk on its surface, fight for its right to exist, but this wasn't hers anymore.
Then Sarah turned around, spotted Peggy, and waved her arms wildly. "Come push me, Mama Peggy!"
Peggy blinked back the sudden wetness in her eyes. "I'll be right there, darling."
Maybe it didn't matter if Peggy was the one out of time, stretched thin along the strands of history. Children like Sarah would soon have a chance.
Four months later, Peggy took Sarah on a trip to New York to see Howard.
It was a bad idea, probably one of the worst she'd ever had, but Peggy figured Howard had a right to see his daughter at least once more, even if the girl didn't know who he was.
And besides, Peggy wanted to see Maria and her little boy, Tony.
Sarah was quiet on the car ride from the airport, her nose pressed against the window looking out at the New York skyline. Peggy kept one hand on the girl's back to keep her from coming to grief in the event of a sudden stop, and wished she had something for her headache.
The taxi let them off in front of Howard's upscale mansion, a new addition to his property portfolio. Sarah hid behind Peggy, staring at the house in wonder. "Are we going to see the president?" she asked in a whisper.
"Heavens, no," Peggy said, pulling the girl along up the walk. "We're going to see my friends Howard and Maria."
"They have a little boy?"
"Yes, a little boy named Tony." Peggy rang the bell and waited. "He's a year younger than you."
"Is he nice?" Sarah asked.
"I don't know, I've never met him."
Sarah tugged on Peggy's sleeve until she looked down. "Do you like me more than him?"
There was worry in Sarah's eyes, so child-like and tremulous, that Peggy lifted the girl up to give her a hug. "I will always like you best," Peggy told her daughter, as the door opened and the very proper butler looked out at them.
"Miss Carter," the man said, stepping out of the way to let them in. "You are expected."
"I should hope so," Peggy said, making Sarah giggle. "Our bags are in the taxi."
She barely had a chance to step inside the foyer when she caught sight of Maria running down the stairs. "Peggy!" Maria exclaimed. "I'm so glad you could make it!"
Peggy put Sarah down and let Maria catch her up in a hug. The woman had changed in the years since Peggy had last seen her - thinner, paler, sharper around the edges. Peggy hoped it was just stress and not drugs or illness.
"I missed you," Maria whispered in Peggy's ear, holding her for a moment longer than strictly proper. Peggy gave Maria a quick kiss, pulling back to put her hand on Sarah's shoulder. "And this must be Sarah," Maria went on, smiling down at the girl. "I haven't seen you since you were a baby."
"What do we say?" Peggy prompted when Sarah tried to hide behind her leg.
Sarah poked her head out. "Hi, Mrs. Maria."
Maria smiled, going down on her knee to look Sarah in the eye. "You can just call me Maria." She held out her hands. "Come here, darling, let me look at you."
Sarah looked up at Peggy, then slowly walked over to Maria. The woman touched Sarah's cheek, and her smile dimmed slightly.
Peggy knew what Maria saw, how the girl resembled Howard Stark. It still surprised Peggy whenever she saw Sarah.
A loud rush approached them down the hall, and from around a corner burst a small boy, all wild hair and dirty clothes. This boy looked so much like Howard that Peggy's breath caught in her throat.
The boy stopped dead in the hall, staring at Sarah. "Who're you?" he demanded, walking over and draping himself over Maria's knee.
"I'm Sarah Carter," said Sarah. "Who are you and why are you so messy?"
"I'm building a robot," the boy said. "I'm Tony Stark and I live here. You wanna go build robots?"
Sarah's eyes went wide, and she nodded furiously. She turned around to look beseechingly up at Peggy. "Can we, Mama Peggy?"
"Of course," Peggy said, only slightly uneasy at sending Howard Stark's children off to play amongst the heavy machinery. "Try not to get too dirty."
Tony grabbed Sarah's hand and hauled her off down the hall. "Bye Mom!" Tony shrieked at the top of his lungs before the children disappeared around a corner.
Peggy raised her eyebrows at Maria. "So that's Anthony," she said.
Maria stood slowly, shaking her head. "He's such a strange child," Maria said. She linked her arm through Peggy's and guided her deeper into the house. "He's not kidding about building a robot, you know. I saw him installing a motor yesterday."
"How do you like being a mother?" Peggy asked.
Maria didn't answer at first. She led Peggy into a sun-lit parlor, took a seat on a wide sofa, and reached for a cigarette. Her hand shook as she held up the lighter.
Peggy sat across from Maria, folding her hands on her lap, and waited.
Finally, Maria blew out a mouthful of smoke. "Tony is an odd child," she said. "He's so very smart and I just don't know what to do with him."
"What about Howard?" Peggy asked.
Maria let out a sharp laugh. "Howard doesn't know what to do with him either. We got Tony a mechanical toy for Christmas last year, and do you know what that boy did? He built a functioning computer. A computer, Peggy. What kind of four-year-old can do something like that?"
There was a shiver in Maria's voice, one that pulled Peggy up off the couch and over to Maria's side. She put her arm around Maria's shoulders. "A child of Howard Stark," she murmured, breathing against Maria's hair.
A throat cleared discreetly. The butler stood in the parlor doorway. "Would you care for refreshments, madam?" he asked. "Early drinks, perhaps?"
Before Maria could say anything, Peggy put on a bright smile. "A pot of tea, if you would."
Maria sat up straighter. "Yes, Malcolm, and some sandwiches. Make sure the children have something to eat as well."
The butler nodded, and vanished as quickly as he had appeared.
Maria rubbed her forehead. "Does Sarah get up to such strange things?" she asked, getting back to the conversation.
Peggy shrugged. "My brother tells me that she's doing her older cousin's science homework. Matthew hates that, mostly because she's better at it than he is."
"Maybe she gets that from you," Maria pointed out.
"Doubtful," Peggy said. She curled up on the couch beside Maria, wondering how it was possible for this to feel so familiar and yet so very strange. "How is Howard?"
Maria fell silent for a long time, lighting another cigarette. Once the butler had returned with the tea and sandwiches, she finally said, "I don't know how Howard is, anymore."
After tea, Maria took Peggy down to the workshop in the basement where Sarah and Tony were covered in grease and having the time of their lives.
"What are you making?" Peggy asked, stepping carefully across the floor to the children.
"A robot!" Tony said scornfully. Sarah rolled her eyes at the attitude of the boy a year her junior. "It rolls."
"It could roll before," Sarah said. "Now it can turn."
"Can it?" came a deep familiar voice. Peggy turned around, and saw Howard Stark standing in the doorway.
He'd aged since she last saw him, and the distance of years from that first meeting in London in the middle of the War fell away, and Peggy found herself wondering when exactly it was that Howard had grown old.
"Daddy!" Tony shouted, jumping to his feet and running over. "Daddy, I made a robot that can turn!"
"Did not!" Sarah exclaimed hotly. "We both did!"
Tony was unrepentant. "We both did," he admitted, grabbing Howard's hand and pulling him across the floor. "Daddy, this is Sarah, she's really smart and she's my best friend and we're going to get married when we grow up!"
Howard ruffled Tony's hair. "That so, junior?" he said. "Okay, show me this robot you both built."
Tony immediately went off, talking a mile a minute, with Sarah interjecting forcefully every few words to correct Tony. Howard watched the girl more than the robot.
This was the first time that Howard had seen his daughter in nearly five years.
Peggy found Howard on the roof after midnight. The children were in bed, Sarah bunking in the nursery with Tony. Maria had disappeared soon after dinner, claiming she had a migraine.
It wasn't hard for Peggy to figure out where Howard had hidden himself; in war-time he'd been the one most likely to find his way up to the roof after the bombing raids. And sure enough, there he was, perched on a chair in the rooftop garden overlooking the city.
"Nice view," Peggy said, crossing the roof on silent feet.
"It's bought and paid for," Howard said without turning around. "So that's Sarah."
There was no need for an answer, so Peggy remained silent as she leaned over the low stone wall, looking out at the city. Quicksilver whispers drifted on the breeze, teasing Peggy in fragments and slivers.
"She's taller than I would have thought."
"My father was tall," Peggy said. She pushed off the wall and went back over to Howard. "What's going on?"
Howard let out a sigh, tilting his head back to look up at the stars. After a moment, he held out his hand to Peggy, who took it, sitting on his lap and curling up against his chest.
"Just like old times," Howard murmured, putting one hand on her thigh and the other around her waist. "I missed you."
"Howard, what happened? Why is everything so strange in your house?"
He kissed her softly, once, twice. "I should have married you right after the war," he said quietly. "Back in forty-six, when you moved to New York. I should have married you and we could have settled down, just have been done with it."
"Getting married doesn't end anything, Howard," Peggy pointed out. She sat up in his lap and made him look her in the eye. "And you didn't marry me, Howard, you married Maria. Now will you tell me what is going on?"
Howard kept her level gaze for a long moment. "You know, after you gave Sarah to your brother's family instead of me and Maria, I spent months thinking I hated you," he said, reaching up to brush his fingers over Peggy's throat. She let him. "But it was probably the best thing you could have done."
"Howard."
"Maria had a miscarriage," Howard blurted out. His hand clenched into a fist, and he lowered it to his lap. "A few months ago."
"Oh, Howard..."
"It was... it was pretty bad," he went on, looking out at the city. "She was so excited about another baby, but she went into labor when she was only five months along and the baby just... couldn't make it."
Peggy covered his hand with hers.
"Maria, she can't... the doctors said that something went wrong, that she can't have any more children." He cleared his throat. "It was going to be a girl."
"I'm so sorry, love," Peggy murmured, her stomach clenching. She remembered being pregnant, feeling every twitch of the child inside her belly. "How's Maria handling that?"
"I don't know," Howard said. "She doesn't talk to me anymore."
Peggy ran her thumb over his hand, wishing she could do something to help. She would have taken being in the field, facing down Hydra agents, over this - at least in battle she had some illusion of control.
"And Tony... maybe if he was normal it wouldn't be so bad, but I don't know what to do with him."
"He's a child, Howard, it's not that difficult."
Howard snorted. "It's 1974, Peggs. I was born in 1914. Do you remember how they treated kids back then?"
"I'm only four years younger than you, old man," Peggy reminded him, shifting off his lap to squeeze in at his side. "Seen, not heard, and don't bother the adults at any time."
"Beatings delivered on a daily schedule," Howard added. "Now it's all feelings and talking. Tony has a time-out corner for when he's bad, Maria doesn't even spank the boy."
"Do you think it's going to make them weak?" Peggy asked, resting her head on Howard's shoulder. "If they don't get ‘toughened up' when they're young?"
Howard kissed the top of Peggy's head. "Ten years ago, I'd have said yes, but.... Jesus. You've seen Tony. He's just so small, how could anyone hurt someone that small?"
"Happened to me all the time," Peggy admitted.
"Same." Howard exhaled. "Sure as hell didn't toughen me up, all it did was make me hate my old man every day of my life."
"What does Maria think about Tony?" Peggy asked.
"I don't know," Howard confessed. "Since the miscarriage, she's been taking these pills the doctor gave her for the pain, they make her a little confused sometimes."
Peggy pulled back. Suddenly, everything about Maria's manner made sense. "You idiot," she said, standing up.
"What?"
Peggy shook her head. "Your wife is drugged up, she's grieving, and you're not helping matters by hiding up here-"
"How the hell can I make her talk to me?" Howard demanded, climbing to his feet.
"I don't know, how about trying?" Peggy snapped. "Howard, Maria is so young-"
"She's told me on several occasions that she doesn't need me-"
"Is that your idea of marriage?" Peggy demanded. "Just giving up? Because that doesn't sound like the Howard Stark I know-"
"How much could you possibly know about me?" Howard asked, his voice nearly in a yell. "You run away from me at every opportunity, you took my daughter away and gave her to strangers-"
Peggy slapped him as hard as she could.
"It has been thirty-four years," she snapped, hands balled up into fists because she wanted to hit him again, he was being so stupid. "I've known you for thirty-four years, so don't tell me I don't know you, because I know you better than anyone else alive."
Howard rubbed his cheek. "Like you said, Peggs, thirty-four years is one hell of a long time. Maybe you're just forgetting what I used to be like."
"You think I've forgotten what you were like?" Peggy demanded, incredulous. "What any of this was like? You have no idea what I remember about you, about our time together, any of it!"
Howard looked up sharply. "Peggy..."
"It doesn't matter," Peggy said, making herself unclench her fists. "It's in the past."
"It does matter," Howard said. He took Peggy's hands in his. "What happened to you, with the Tesseract, with everything-"
"-Is over," Peggy finished for him. "Howard, my darling idiot, listen to me. What happened with you and me, all of it, that's over now. You have to take care of your wife and your son, because that's what's happening for you here and now." She folded his hands together. "Go to bed."
Howard let out a long breath. "You are still as bossy as you were when we first met," he said.
"And don't you forget it," Peggy said with a faint smile. "Go to bed."
"Maria won't wake up," Howard said. He retrieved his glass, still half-full of amber liquid. "She won't know I'm there."
"She'll know when she wakes up," Peggy pointed out.
"Yeah." Howard knocked back the rest of his drink and made a face at the glass. "I just can't help but think that every time she looks at me, she thinks about the baby."
"Does she blame you?"
Howard looked up at Peggy, and the expression on his face was not a comfortable one. "I don't know. Maybe I don't want to know."
Peggy took the glass out of Howard's hand and went up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. "Ask her," Peggy instructed. "Because if there's another thing I've noticed about you, Howard Stark, is that you always need to know the answer to every question, even if that answer hurts."
Howard sighed, rubbing his eyes. "You're terrifying sometimes, do you know that?"
"Go to bed."
"Fine," he muttered. He was halfway across the roof before he stopped and turned back to Peggy. A spasm of grief crossed his face in the faint light from the moon. "We were going to name the baby Margaret, you know."
Then he walked away.
Head aching and stomach churning, Peggy reached for the bottle of whisky beside Howard's abandoned chair. She didn't bother with a glass, just drank directly from the bottle, as her thoughts chased each other like ghosts in her head, sitting on the rooftop of the House of Stark, waiting for the sun to rise.