The Soulmate Initiative: Book 2

13. A familiar face

LOCATION: NEW JERSEY 1970

Stacey and Ashley arrive at the United States Army, Camp Lehigh Army Base. The pair of them are in disguises, walking around, Stacey looking like she'd Military, while Ashley's in a pencil skirt, blouse and heels with her hair in a tight bun. It's known as the birthplace of Captain America, so Ashley asks "Clearly you weren't actually born here, right?" "The idea of me was." "Right. Well, imagine you're SHIELD, running a quasi-fascistic intelligence organisation, where do you hide it?" "In plain sight." Ashley looks to where Stacey has her attention directed, what she doesn't know is that when Stacey was on the run she actually found this place already, so knew exactly where to look. Ashley taps her glasses and her vision changes, so that she can see inside the building, where there's an elevator inside.

The pair walk into the building and get into the elevator, a woman with a SHIELD badge hanging from her neck, reading a file, is standing in there with them, keeping an eye on them. As the door opens, Ashley turns to Stacey "Good luck on your mission, Captain." "Good luck on your... project, Doctor." Ashley steps out and the door closes, leaving Stacey with the woman, who asks "You new here?" "Not exactly." She nods, but looks very suspicious of her.

Ashley hurries through a very long room full of machinery, equipment and files, looking for the tesseract "Come on, you bastard." She's using her glasses to analyse everything around her, to make her search quicker and less suspicious. She sees the glowing tesseract through a containment box "Gotcha." She grabs a case from on top of a box, pushing the files off the top of it. She places it down, opens it and pours out the contents. She uses her Iron Woman hand to laser cut through the containment box, as soon as she has it open, she sighs in content "Back in the game." She quickly, but carefully places it in the case and closes it, retracting her Iron Woman hand. She hurries as she hears a voice echo down the room "Arnim, you in there?" Ashley sees a man step in from a side door "Arnim?" The man looks his way as he picks the case up, Ashley immediately recognises him as her Dad. She turns and starts to walk away, but he calls after her "Hey!" She stops and he says "The door is the way, sweetheart." Ashley cringes, then turns back around "Oh, yeah." She walks towards him "Looking for Doctor Zola, have you seen him?" "Yeah Doctor Zola. No, I haven't seen a soul. Pardon me." Ashley has to stop in front of her father, as he's in the way and there's not much room around him, he asks "Do I know you?" "No, Sir. I'm, um..." She takes her glasses off and pull her visitors pass out of her pocket "I'm a visitor for MIT." "Oh. MIT. Got a name?" She hesitates "Maria." "That'll be easy to remember, that's my wife's name." "Maria... Romanoff." "Well, I'm Howard Stark." He holds out a hand, so she shakes it "Hi." "You look a little green around the gills there, Romanoff." "I'm fine. Just long hours." "You wanna get some air?" He steps aside, but she doesn't respond "Hello, Romanoff." Ashley blinks "Yes. That'd be swell." "That way." "Okay." Ashley starts walking past her father, who says "Need your briefcase?" He grabs it and hands it back to Ashley, who chuckles nervously.

Stacey stands outside Hank Pym's lap and calls his phone "Hello?" "Doctor Pym?" "That would be the number that you called, yes." "This is administer Stevens from shipping. We have a package for you." "Oh, bring it up." "Well, that's the thing, Sir. My men can't." "I'm confused. I thought that was your people's job." "Well, it's just... Sir, the box is glowing... and to be honest, some of our mail guys aren't feeling that great." "They didn't open it, did they?" "Uh, yeah, they did. You better get down here." Pym hangs up and runs out the door, almost knocking some people over "Excuse me! Out of the way!" Stacey quickly heads into his office and closed the door behind her. She then searches his lab, finding a containment area, with capsules of particles inside, she grabs just four of them and pockets them.

Howard and Ashley had been making slightly awkward small talk on the way up "So, flowers and sauerkraut. Date night?" "My wife's expecting. And too much time at the office." Ashley then realises, he means that she'll be born soon "Uh, congratulations." "Thanks. Hold this, will ya?" He holds the flowers and food out to Ashley, who takes them "Yeah, sure." Howard does his top button up and fixes his tie, Ashley can't help but ask "How far along is she?" "Uh, I don't know. She's at the point where she can't stand the sound of my chewing." Ashley chuckles "I guess I'll be eating dinner in the pantry again." "I have a little girl." "A girl would be nice. Less of a chance she'd turn out exactly like me." "What'd be so awful about that?" "Let's just say that the greater good has rarely outweighed my own self interest."

Stacey is walking through the corridors, to get back out of the building, trying to not act suspicious. But she sees the woman from the elevator walk out of a different corridor into hers, guards trailing behind her, one asking "And you've never seen these two women before?" "No, I've got an eye for this. The two of them looked fishy. Can you describe them?" Stacey quickly ducks into a side room as they walk by. She's about to head back out, but sees a photograph on a desk of herself and her friend from the war, Peggy Carter. She then looks back to the door, to see the backwards lettering spelling 'Margaret Carter. Director'. Then she hears her voice and sees her walk into the adjoining room "I said bring them in." "They're trying, Ma'am, but Braddock's unit has been stopped by lightning strikes." "Oh for the love of..." Stacey realises she has to get out of there before Peggy can see her. She wants to see Peggy, talk to her, hug her, but she doesn't even know what she could say. She couldn't tell her about everything that's happened to her, and besides, Peggy thinks she's dead.

On the surface, Ashley asks "So, where you at with names?" "Well, if it's a boy, my wife likes Elmonzo." "Huh. Might wanna let that stew awhile. You got time. And if it's a girl?" "I'm thinking something like Ashlyn or Alice or Allie, you know?" "Hm. Some good choices." "Hey." Ashley stops walking and turns to face her father "Let me ask you a question. When your kid was born, were you nervous?" "Wildly. Yeah." "Did you feel qualified? Like you had any idea how to successfully operate that thing?" "I literally pieced it together as I went along. I thought about what my Dad did." Over Howard's shoulder, she sees Stacey give her a thumbs up, to tell her she's got the particles. Howard sighs "My old man, he never met a problem he couldn't solve with a belt." "I thought my Dad was tough on me. And now, looking back on it, I just remember the good stuff, you know? He did drop the odd pearl." "Yeah, like what?" Ashley recites "No amount of money ever bought a second of time." "Smart guy." "He did his best." "I'll tell you, that kid's not even here yet and there's nothing I wouldn't do for them." He walks past her and Stacey raises her hands in question, Ashley quickly points to the case in her hand and turns around. Howard walks back over from having a quick word with his driver "Good to meet you, Romanoff." He takes his belongings back from her "Yeah. Howard, everything gonna be alright." She shakes his hand again, holding herself back from hugging him "Thank you, for everything you've... done for this country." She quickly clears her throat and lets Howard walk over to his driver "Jarvis." He hands him the items and Ashley gives him a smile, which he politely returns. Ashley makes her way over to Stacey, while Howard asks Jarvis "Have you ever met that lady?" "You meet a lot of people, Sir." "Seems very familiar."