I Loved You First | Not Easily Conquered ▸ [STUCKY]

Ch. 13

1991

Peggy's been retired for years now, passing the mantle on to new directors. She's out this evening, though, staying late to consult on an issue concerning an undercover op in Stalingrad. Steve takes a shower at around 2030, and by the time he gets out there's a message on the landline.

"Rogers, listen to me," it's Stark's voice, sounding tight and panicked in a way that Steve has never before heard. He thinks at first that Stark must be drunk, knows that there was some kind of function tonight - a gala, a fundraiser, something of Maria's? - but his speech isn't slurring and he hasn't started yelling. Steve and Howard haven't spoken past civilities in thirty years. "I was - we were wrong. We fucked up. I need you to phone when you get this. Peggy -"

Steve frowns at the machine. The light blinks; there are no more new messages. He presses the button again to replay, wondering if the recording was cut off somehow.

"Rogers, listen to me. I was - we were wrong. We fucked up. I need you to phone when you get this. Peggy -"

That's it - there's nothing more. Stark is scared, Steve realizes. He's spooked. Steve hits the button one more time to make sure, already digging in the drawer for the address book so he can get the number for Howard's private line.

"Rogers, listen to me."

The phone rings just before Steve can begin to dial.

"Stark?" Steve answers.

"This is Special Agent Alexander Pierce," the man on the other line says. "Colonel Rogers, Margaret Carter has asked for you to come in."

-

The site of the crash is lit up under floodlights and surrounded by police tape. It's past midnight now. Peggy is speaking in low tones to Pierce, a man of maybe Fury's age whose name Steve has heard before in passing. Steve circles the crash. The bodies were removed two hours ago, but the vehicle is still here, too big to take and still in need of being analyzed. The roads are covered in deadly patches of black ice, and it's easy to see how the car could have spun out of Howard's control, especially if he had spent the night at the bar.

Steve hasn't told anyone about the message. SHIELD has marked time of death as being within  the hour of 2000. The message Steve got was timestamped 19:45.

There's nothing wrong with the car that anyone can find. Steve snaps on gloves and checks it over himself. It flipped onto the driver's side but never ran off the road. It didn't impact against anything except the guardrail, and the only way Steve knows it hit there is because of the sizable dent in it. The wreckage itself is right in the middle of the road; Stark hadn't been driving on the highway. And why would Stark take a back alley route home, anyway? Unless he  thought -

There's nothing wrong with the engine of the car, so far as Steve can tell. Buck was always the mechanic between the two of them, though, and Steve really can't differentiate much outside of the very basics. The brakes weren't cut. There are tire tracks on the road like Howard slammed the car to a stop. It makes sense if he had been sliding around on the ice, trying to regain control of the vehicle. It also makes sense if there was something blocking his way forward.

The passenger side door is torn off cleanly at the hinges. The door itself is feet away.

It could have come off when the car flipped.

But how can a closed door come off when a car is flipped?

SHIELD medical declared cause of death to be blunt force trauma. Maria went through the windshield. Or at least the windshield was broken and they found Maria spread out on the road. Howard smashed his head against the steering wheel, which is covered in blood.

Steve tries to map it out in his head. The car hit ice, Stark hit the brakes. The tires skidded across the pavement and the vehicle stopped abruptly. Maria - who must not have been wearing a seatbelt - went through the windshield. Stark's head hit the wheel. And then the car flipped? Or they hit more ice, but that's impossible, if Stark was already dead. Steve tries again: Stark hit the brakes, cracked his head; Maria went through the windshield. Maybe Stark's foot was pressed on the gas; the car hit more ice, flipped. The passenger side door...

There is glass from the windshield inside the remains of the car. Too much glass. So much glass that it looks like the windshield was broken from the outside.

The wind picks up, whipping the snow in flurries around the site of the crash. Maria's blood is all over the asphalt, steadily being covered in white.

The day of the funeral it doesn't snow, but the air is cold like ice and Steve's nose goes numb. Peggy doesn't shed a single tear, but her back is ramrod straight. She'll miss him. Kat doesn't cry either, even though she keeps looking around, worried, through the entire service - it's all for nothing, though, because Tony never shows.

After the wake Steve impulsively deletes Howard's message from the machine before Peggy can hear it. He can't even justify to himself why he does it - he isn't sure. But he does it, and jumps about six feet when an incessant banging starts on the door a moment later.

"I'm really only wondering one thing," says Tony Stark. It's like talking with a ghost, Steve swears to God, the ghost of Howard Stark from 1943. The voice, the face, Christ, even the eyes. Except the Howard Stark of 1943 never got higher than a kite, which Tony definitely is - his pupils are blown and he looks like if he wasn't leaning against the doorframe he'd topple over onto Steve's feet.

"Is it true that she was the mistress?"

Anger boils hotly in Steve and he says, "Now listen here-" just as Peggy sweeps up behind him.

"No," she says. "Astonishingly, it is possible for a high-ranking female operative of the British armed forces to earn a prestigious title at the head of an intelligence agency without fucking anyone to get there. Are you coming in? It's snowing."

Tony blinks wordlessly, opening and then closing his mouth. There isn't much to do when Peggy speaks to you like that, and so he comes in from the cold.

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