Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Prologue

present time

James Buchanan Barnes's Apartment

Natasha bursts into his flat at precisely 3:17 in the afternoon, just as he is about play another new episode of Rupaul's Drag Race. He's glad he gave her the key, because Bucky doesn't think he wants to get out of his blanket burrito right now to let her in. And an angry Natasha is someone he doesn't want to face. Immortal or not, he doesn't think he'll survive that experience. She'd find a way to kill him somehow. 

"James!" She yells in the vague direction of him, voice radiating excitement and a tone of news to be shared. He sighs and pauses the queue, putting down the bag of chips while he's at it. "Get up!"

"What is it, Tasha?" 

She sits in the chair next to his sofa and then glares at him until he untangles himself from the burrito. "You know how you were supposed to be at the Maria Stark Foundation Gala yesterday? You should have, because the demon from all of our favorite nightmares just resurfaced as his own grandson." 

He jolts up at the news, staring at her in disbelief. There's no way he heard that right, because the alternative is something he doesn't want to think about. "You're kidding me. Just when the angels and demons sorted their shit out up here, you're kidding me. Or I'm not thinking of the same demon you are..." 

"Nope," she says, wrinkling her nose and popping the p. He can tell she's not delighted at the idea, even if she's feigning complete nonchalance and cool. That's Nat, in a nutshell. "And whatever he's planning, he's brought over Carter from the Atlantic to help him." 

The Carters hail from a long line of Parliament members and law-makers, and an even longer line of proud aristocratic nobles and probably royal blood, which makes them a wealthy, influential British family. They are a human family, mostly. 1919 had brought the birth of Margaret Carter, and 1939 had been when everyone in the immortal community realized that she was one of them. Carter had learned everything she could about immortals then, when she herself had been informed, but promptly joined the war effort, shrugging it all off no matter what anyone had told her. 

"So he's pretending to be Richard Carlyle's grandson, his own fucking grandson, and who's Carter, now?" Bucky asks, groaning internally as he starts thinking on what the duo are planning to do. Most immortals stayed out of the angel-demon interference, but a few them (like Bucky and Natasha) aided angels from time to time, though Peggy Carter was the only known immortal to aid a demon. 

"Meet Alexander Carlyle and Rita Carter," Natasha says with a wry smile, faked. "Rita is apparently a dead ringer for her grandmother. Said deceased grandmother is in numerous family photos, now, too." 

"Rita Carter?" Bucky says, blinking. "Damn, I've heard her name recently. A lot, actually, in the past year."

"Establishing cover," Natasha agrees, staring at her pinky nail for a brief second, "Enough so that Rita and Alexander are going to make papers and the news. Because right now, they're the number one topic anyone can talk about. Rita spent the past year playing the media up. Now it's paying off." 

"So we're just going to call her Rita now?" Bucky asks. "Not Peggy?"

Natasha doesn't seem to have heard, typing away at her phone quickly. But she has to have, because she says, "Yes," brusquely and continues on. 

"Who are you—" Natasha holds up a finger to pause him. 

She stops, and then looks up at him. "Get dressed. I didn't come here to chitchat. We have plans." 

"Are we late? Are you in trouble? Are—”

Natasha looks up at him with a murderous look that can only mean yes, so he shuts up and gets up. 

The Beginning

the night before

Maria Stark Foundation Gala

The taste of soft, bubbly champagne is on his lips, mingling with the scent of Peggy's lipstick where she had lightly kissed him, so that the color wouldn't imprint. Champagne does nothing for him but bring back memories of the past times he graced the Earth, but the taste of it is intoxicating, reminding him that he is once again on Earth and free to do as he wishes with the different (well, different from the underworld) pleasures up here. He likes how the bubbles are never harsh and sharp, like they are often in seltzers, but rather how they seem to have a mellow feel to them. 

He would be lying if he said he missed Earth, because it is a place and he has no use for such things, but he has missed this. He's missed the feel of silk suits tailored perfectly to his perfectly sculpted body and the feel of blissfully comfortable dress shoes he knows he can glide across the hall in for hours like the swanlike show-off he's meant to be. He misses the feel of human bodies pressed tight against his as they're dancing or fucking throughout the night, the feel of life all around him enjoying itself immensely, and the feel of a worldly presence around him.

It's been too long, he thinks, as he takes in Peggy in an off-the-shoulders dress that resembles the galaxy for how dark of a purple it's colored, side cut-outs embellished with glittering blue, gold, and white embellishments. She's infinitely so different from last he had seen her—now much more knowledgeable about the world and weary all the while—but then again, so is he. Seventy five years had separated them, and although he's popped onto Earth to check up on Peggy here or there, he knows that there are things small, hidden visits cannot capture. But, what matters most is the fire in her eyes and the witty words that pour out of her lips, wrapped in a British bow. Those haven't changed, not from the war, not through the space of decades, and not now. 

"You don't even need the glamour to look devilishly hot," he compliments with a quirk of his lips, before turning them down into an exaggerated jealous pout. He flicks his eyes up in childish exasperation, "Makes me have to try so hard next to you." 

She doesn't respond to him with anything but a raise of her eyebrows. After all, Peggy had already gone through his song and dance of seduction once. He wasn't going to dare do it twice. It worked with only minimal fruition the first time around, and that was only because Peggy thought he'd be decent in bed. "Really? Well, I must say, you look dreadful despite your effort." 

He knows that's the best compliment he'll get out of her this time around, and decides not to push it. He's here with a few missions, and he's going to need Peggy's help and her connections. Not her compliments.

So instead, he asks, "Howard Stark's son, then? How does one get to be a half-angel with the Sight?" The Sight being the ability to distinguish between angels, demons, humans, and immortals.

"Maria Stark was an exceptionally gifted angel who liked it here enough to stay. I don't know what she ever saw in Howard, especially after the war, when he... let's say he wasn't the best father to Tony," Peggy says, looking away and at the clock. 

Oh. He knew what that meant, knew the effects of exactly what that meant from his own past life. Before he was Made. He didn't think that Howard would be one of those people, but he guesses that he was wrong. Best not to bring up that, then. 

"Tony is one of the only ones to know, then," he says, looking over to Peggy. "That your glamour was a glamour?"

"Yes, he's always known I'm not dead, nor aging," Peggy says. "I don't think I've thanked you yet, for the aging glamour. It made life so much easier." She doesn't wait for him to say it hadn't even made a dent in his magic; she already knows.

She starts walking over to her car, an expensive white Jaguar that he knows must have cost enough, and climbs into the driver's seat. He follows, into the passenger, and marvels the interior, admiring how far cars have come with all of their updates and styles. Leather seats trimmed with dark wood and sleek screens of technology-infused glass comprise the interior and he wants to run his fingers over it all much like how he would lightly caress someone random stranger's skin, tracing edges like he would human-like imperfections that he thinks are cute. He doesn't have them himself, imperfections or a beautiful car like this himself, but he only wants one of them. 

When they get there, she hands the keys to a man dressed in white with a chauffeur's hat and says, "Be careful. I'm Rita Carter, by the way, in case I needed to provide it." 

When they walk into the gala, all he can think is how Stark knows how to throw a gala, or whoever threw the gala for Stark. This is living lavishly, opulently, and he whole-heartedly approves. It's places like this where he can thrive and work his magic. 

Because he knows how eyes already have fallen towards him, and how they'll stay there almost like he's physically glued them onto him. He knows how Pe—Rita's drawing eyes and an interest for how she's brought him. So what if he's going to have to play arm candy only tonight? Doesn't matter, even if he's not going to bed anyone besides Rita tonight. 

"Tony's the only one, right?" he asks Rita. 

"No," she says, frowning slightly as her eyes glide across the room's view. "I see immortals Natasha Romanov, and Wanda Maximoff, but also half-angels James Rhodes and Pepper Potts. There's the few weaker demons mingling as staff, but I don't know their names. You might, if they're higher up than I think. Once Natasha senses you, she's going to warn everyone in the gifted community, and the halfling angels will no doubt spread word to whoever Natasha misses, if anyone. They are protective over Tony, over Maria's child." 

His eyes slide over to her with a teasing smirk, though his question is slightly more probing than his easy delivery. "Did they disapprove of you being Tony's godmother, then?" 

She smiles sharp as the corner of her darkened mauve lipstick. "They think I'm a Sightless immortal. Why else would I keep my company with such a horrendously vile creature?" Her words are said lightly, as if the two of them are talking about nothing about how lovely tonight is. He loves Rita for that, how easy her own art of seduction and intrigue comes to her. 

Easy, easy, easy, that's how this goes, flowing a stream of pretty words and dark plans with no struggle against the current. That's who they are, a perfect duo and a match made in hell for how good they are. He bleeds strongly with a desire that Rita could be just like him, except that she has a better heart not to be sullied with creatures of darkness. And he would never wish demon-kind on anyone, for all that he should.  

"Rita!" A loud, cheerful voice greets a few footsteps away, coming from a man that he can sense to be halfling Tony Stark. 5'9", in exceptionally good health for a man in his forties, stunning brown eyes that come unfortunately matched with a strange van dyke, a striking face... if he weren't Pe-Rita's (he needs to call her Rita when they are here!) godson he would love to see just how Tony Stark would be in bed. In his experience, angels were always the best, though they were much for sex. Halflings on the other hand, especially ones with the rumored experience as Tony Stark on the other hand might just be better. 

"Tony!" Rita smiled warmly, hugging him civilly with just a touch of warmth. "It's so good to see you." 

"It's so good to be seen," Tony says jokingly, and oh, he can appreciate a fellow performer well-versed in veils. "Who's boytoy over here?" 

He knows that Tony is asking out of courtesy, because there really is no mistaking the initial look that Tony had on his face when Steve's wave of power must have hit him strongly. Steve loves that his power intensifies on angels and immortals, because they really feel his power and can get lost in it if they so choose or if he chooses for them. Humans can see charm and seduction pouring off of him, and his good looks, but they can't feel it. Not as well as Tony seems to right now. 

"An old friend, Alexander Carlyle," she lies quick off of her tongue, because all of them know that he's technically Richard Carlyle if his past name isn't considered. All of them also know he's not Richard Carlyle if he can help it. "Just as his grandfather, my grandmother and your father were." 

"Well then, Alex—I can call you Alex, right?—I should be honored that this is your first high society party," Tony says, "Feel free to step out if the magic of it all gets to be a little much, yeah?" 

He hates the look of smugness on Tony's face, fake or not, and he's never not been a trouble-lover, so he politely corrects, "I go by Xander, really, call me that if you would like. But the magic of this place is quaintly charming and lovely, actually." 

Rita talks to Tony more while he can read Tony's surprise at being called quaint, before the billionaire halfling leaves to mingle with other people. 

"Really, darling," she says, a light smirk gracing her face. "I had no idea you preferred the nickname Xander."

"Alex is too close considering that Alexander Pierce is the first in the long line of people to be taken," Steve shrugs casually. "And Xander is 24, let me live." 

"Dance with me then, Xander?" 

The Start

five years before

the underworld

Steve loves the perks that come with being the Devil's Left Hand, the Devil's best demon, the Devil's favorite whore, the Devil's troublemaker and whatever else they call him both down in the upper echelons of hell and on Earth. For one, he's never punished or tortured unless he fails to complete a task, which, he's the best, so it never happens. He usually has free reign over the underworld, which is a powerful power and completely his. He also gets to visit Earth whenever he wants, provided that he has a reason benefitting Lucifer and isn't wanted by Lucifer for pleasurable reasons. 

He hasn't been up there in a duration longer than a week for seventy years, and hasn't had fun among the humans in the same amount of time. As it turns out, that's probably a sign he should be up there again, feeling the sun on his face instead of fucking with Lucifer. He can't let the paltry demons have fun changing Earth, now, can he? Especially when they're doing a piss-poor job of it. Last he had heard, they were actually considering giving in to the angels' demands. The angels. 

The idea is beautiful enough that he almost wishes it hadn't popped in his mind right before Lucifer has called him. Now Lucifer's going to know that there's something on Steve's mind, and he's going to make a game of finding out, wasting time that could be spent on other things that Steve likes better. A small part of him wants to tell him outright, but a larger part of him knows that Lucifer is amenable to things that interest him, that keep him captivated or charm his time. Hell knows that's the only reason why Steve's his favorite; Steve loves games too. Just not before he wants to get fucked. 

"You're wearing too many clothes," is the first thing he hears when he steps into the familiar rooms that comprise whatever Lucifer calls them (Steve generally calls them the fucking rooms in his mind). "Aiming for a modesty you don't have?" 

"Aiming for someone to rip them off of me," Steve says, flickering his eyes upward in a daring smirk, something that no one else would dare do in risk of an eternity of even worse torture. 

Lucifer shifts into a male body that Steve's very well-acquainted with over his seemingly-endless strench of time—dark hair long enough to reach the male's shoulders frame a striking face with green eyes that sparkle with mischief, high cheekbones capable of cutting anything, even that sharp jawline of his, and an ever-present smirk, curled up with just a trace of lust and interest. Steve thinks he looks just like he would expect a god, maybe one of mischief, to look like. This form isn't overly muscled or rippled, like his own is, but rather imbued with the essence of yoga strength, a dancer's grace, a gymnast's flexibility, and a fencer's agility. If Steve is honest, he loves this form. There are also neither of the signature horns on this form. 

"Is that so? Maybe I should ruin your fun and snap them off," Lucifer says, beckoning Steve over with a lazy hand, until Steve is just a few feet away. Then instead of acting nonchalant, Lucifer teleports so that he is suddenly very close to Steve, in a way that spells trouble. "Or maybe, I should find out what's on your mind." 

"I had a feeling you would say that," Steve murmurs, kissing up the other male's neck and working his way up towards his jawline. He has an a plan spinning in his mind already on how to get them both what they want. "But I don't know if my thoughts are going to make any sort of a challenge, not when I'm preoccupied with better things to think about." 

"You're hiding something," Lucifer counters, though his hands are already beginning to pull at Steve's clothes, testing them teasingly. 

"Can't you read my mind instead?" Steve asks, and oh yeah, there's another reason why Steve's the favorite. Out of all the times that Lucifer has ever peeked in the mind of one Steve Grant Rogers—times that Steve usually has no clue about—he's never voiced complaints or anything in the negative. He's also never worried about what's going to happen to him (mainly, he knows, because he's the best of them all). "If you must know, you can find out yourself." 

He's either going to have his mind read, or he's going to have the information pulled out of him, which he doesn't mind. 

"Such bold words dangle from your mouth, and I've punished people for far less." 

"I think both of us want my mouth to do something else, but punishment doesn't sound bad at all," Steve says, knowing he sounds impatient and risking it anyway. "You could pull it out of me." 

"You want to go back up on Earth," Lucifer says, eyes darker than they were just seconds earlier. "You want to stay there for a while, recruit that woman again, and waste your talents?" 

"Not a waste of my talents if I put them in use, now, isn't it? I've heard that there are certain people, certain leaders that might need their empires toppled," Steve angles for a yes from Lucifer, voice all suggestive and deep, but that's also because he wants to stop talking. 

Lucifer laughs. "And if I say it depends on how good of a whore you are for me?" Steve doesn't even flinch at the term, what use is there denying it? Everyone knows it, even the two of them and even the non-mortals who live above. It's a reputation well-earned and hard-fought, even if no one realizes it or takes it with anything but derision.

"Well then I'd tell you to tell me what you want, except," he pauses dramatically, his hands starting to play with the waistline of Lucifer's pants in a movement that's second nature, "I already know."

The Introduction

one year before

The Carter Villa (England)

"You've done well for yourself," he remarks just as Peggy plops down on her couch, ready to stay in and read a book about the story of a handmaid. 

Peggy, to her credit, reaches for a gun she has cleverly kept on the underside of her couch and doesn't even flinch. What she does though, is glare when she sees that it is him, and still keeps the gun up, though she lowers it so that it is aiming for his dick. He loves this about her, that her hand doesn't waver as she's lightly pressing on the trigger, and that she releases that light pressure a few seconds later. 

"Whoever inspired you to forget your manners?" Peggy asks chidingly, hardly impressed at him. He feels a tad hurt that she's not happy to see him after so long, but he also knows he technically broke in. "I should think that even hell has doors and even perhaps a false illusion of privacy." 

He grins boyishly at her. "Hell's doors are never fully closed." 

She snorts at that, cocking the gun down further before stashing it away again, making sure his eyes on her as she hides it. Peggy then leans back into the sofa, quirking an eyebrow at him. "Look who's crawled back up to see the sun again, Mr. Seventy-Something-Years."

"Aw Pegs," he protests, widening his eyes in innocent sympathy, "Have you missed me?" 

Her lips quirk up slightly in a fraction of a second, before falling in a way that he knows too well. She's trying to hide a yes, trying to mask it with a glare that will never work on him, just like his tricks will never work on her. "I've missed your trouble. Immortal life has its lonesome moments at times." 

"I know you married," he says, "Had a few children, too, right? Michael, Angela, and Colleen. A few grandchildren, nieces, nephews, whatever." 

"You've done your homework. Dare I say you care for me?" she teases, the corners of her eyes crinkling with a smile that's nowhere near her lips. 

He only shrugs carelessly. They will never be a duo of yes and no, but rather one of games. "I care for your love of trouble."

Her eyes flicker to his suspiciously, glaring once more like they're staring right through his non-existent soul and into the depths of his mind. Peggy looks like she's trying to decide something for herself, before she sighs. 

"My name is Rita Carter, this century," she finally says, curiosity rippling off of her. He smirks in triumph.

"In that case, I need you to invent Alexander Carlyle, Richard's grandson. I also need you to make yourself as famous as possible. Alexander and Rita need to be able to be invited to every single high-brow social event out there, from Anaheim to Ankara." 

Her face is blank as she sits there, considering the situation in her mind like she would rotate a Rubik's cube in her hands, before a slow, secretive smile broke out onto her face. The sides are shifting, little cubes spinning as the colors start aligning themselves and—

"Okay," she agrees, knowing something he doesn't—which could be anything considering he knows not too much about this century or this millennia—and flaunting it in her unique way, "But you have to share your goal."

"Alexander Pierce. Brock Rumlow. Jack Rollins. Daniel Whitehall. Octavian Bloom. Gideon Malick. Thaddeus Ross. Marcus Scarlotti. Candace Lee. John Garett. All very influential people across the Western World, all very corrupt empires that need to crumble before, well, they die." 

"Thaddeus Ross is the Secretary of State to the States and Daniel Whitehall is the current PM of England. Pierce is the Speaker of Congress, and I know I've heard most of these names in public contexts," she says, thinking about this. Twist, shuffle, click. She's trying to solve the puzzle.

"And? How about it?" Steve asks, grinning at her expectantly. 

"I reserve the right to add or subtract from this list based on my own intel," she bluntly says. "If there's someone else just as deserving or if someone is a amenable to change or coerced into their empire, I can change it." 

"If you remove some, we find someone else," he counters instead. "Voice for a voice, but if you add, we don't take off." 

"Do you have a quota of ten unfortunate souls?" 

He pretends to dwell on the question, fooling no one, before saying, "Yes." He knows he's exaggerating enough that she will think he's obviously lying, even if yes is the truth. He does have a quota. 

"Well," Peggy says, "When do we start?"

"Next year," he smiles, as he feels the pull of Hell telling him his time is almost up. "See you then." He vanishes from her sight and immediately begins his countdown of days passing.  

The Opening

a week before

The Carlyle Manor

He prowled through the halls of his manor, maintained recently courtesy of Lucifer and filled with staff, also courtesy of Lucifer. They were lesser demons, maybe not even demons at all based on how little magic they were radiating off. Whatever; as long as they looked human to outsiders, he couldn’t care any less. This was basically a slice of home, right?

He knew that this was also a way for Lucifer to remind him where he belonged, and to whom he belonged. These demons were here to show to him that he would never escape the underworld, no matter he begged for a reprieve to live on Earth for a little while. It was clever and cruel simultaneously, and all too like the devil. A signature mark, if he will. Though, Steve supposed, he definitely had it lucky when it came to dealing with the devil. Others did not get privileges like he did. And for that he was thankful. Grateful, even. 

The manor was not an extravagantly rich place; not at all, but it flashed and it flowed at all the right places with mystery lurking in every corner. With mystery, though, came temptation and desire and, well, Steve was excellent at that. The manor was also the last familiar place on Earth he knew of right now, since everything had changed too much and this, at least, had a semblance of familiarity. It was going to have to change soon, but he figured that the changes would be accompanied with a  familiarity of the world. 

Speaking of, he was going to have to get right on that. He'd have to get Peggy's help with everything new this century, but Steve was a fast enough learner that he wasn't too worried about it. What he was more worried about what his plan and his life here would mean. 

Everything needed to work. He needed everything to go off without a hitch, lest his shining reputation be ruined. His record was a perfect 100% for success rate, because he was nothing but ruthless when it came to being the best. But just from that short visit he had made last year, it was obvious that the entire playing field had changed in the time he was in the underworld. Failure just wasn't an option, but it was a possibility. 

And he knew what happened to those who failed missions such as these. Worse, he had asked for this one. 

Standing in front of one of the ornate mirrors of the manor, he took a few minutes to survey himself. Steve's face was currently blank, which it usually was whenever he was thinking too much. He wore and changed expressions on his face like he was trying out clothes, but whenever he wasn't putting on a show for others, he was thinking. He hated how blank his face could get whenever he wasn't smirking or laughing or doing something, but it wasn't like showing real emotion was an option anymore. Not with the 'life' he was leading now. 

So he lightly smirked at his reflection, watching the change occur, and then kept on walking. Steve was well aware of the eyes on him from his servants, but he didn't care. He also knew that they knew exactly who he was, and what he did, but it wasn't exactly they could say anything to his face. There was a reason they were stuck with him. 

Steve quickly banished those thoughts from his mind. Earth always made him think so contrarily, and in circles. Somehow, it was like the atmosphere just made him flip-flop his mind so indecisively. He hated being indecisive too. It was a trait that he didn't really have before he was Made, but also one he didn't really have now. 

Indecision, inconsistency, and wandering thoughts were how he could fail, and how he had almost failed last time he was here. And he wasn't looking to repeat the experience, no matter how much he made it seem like everything went to plan last time. This time, he'd get it right the way he wanted to. 

Sighing internally, he moved on from the mirror, fixing his blank expression again and teleporting over to Peggy's place.

He had a mission to start.

Chapter Text

Scene I

present time

SHIELD HQ

Natasha drags him to SHIELD HQ as soon as he changes into real clothes, and then a specific room inside. And as soon as he steps inside, he sees familiar faces looking less than thrilled (and a little impatient) at him. By that, he means that he sees half of his dream team (he wonders where everyone else is) look a little exasperated at both his ability to make Natasha Romanoff late and their current situation. But he still plops down into the only available seat between Sam and Maria. 

"Couch duty?" Clint smirks, sitting across from him and between both Natasha and Coulson. There's an arrow spinning flawlessly between his fingers, but the way Clint's postured makes it seems like the archer/spy/assassin/agent/immortal isn't really paying any kind of attention to his hand. Honestly, knowing Clint, he might not. 

He flips Clint the bird and then asks, "Alright, what else did I miss? Plans, details, intel, mission, give me everything." 

Maria, who's apparently holding the controls to the holo-desk that they're all seated at, starts off with, "Last night, at Stark's gala, both Romanoff and Maximoff saw Rita Carter with her new friend Alexander Carlyle, who has apparently decided to make his public debut," as she activates the desk. The holo-screen comes alive with footage of the duo laughing, talking, and dancing together. 

"Alexander Carlyle, huh? Damn, it's going to suck having to call them something different than Peggy and Richard," Bucky frowns, watching the footage intently. Both of them have changed so much as individuals and as a duo since the last time, even in these frames. They're both much more lively people, but also much more... synchronized. "Alex and Rita just... no." 

"It's actually Xander," Tony cuts in with an overexaggerated roll of his eyes, "Just because he's a contrary individual who probably didn't even give a shit about his nickname until I called him Alex. Ugh, Xander. Can someone get anymore douche-y? I don't think so." 

"Anyway, while Maximoff and Romanoff did not talk with either two, Stark did, and—" Maria continues to say, uploading pictures that he parses through studiously. 

"Basically he's a major douche and Aunt Peggy—and oh fuck it's going to be weird calling her Rita—usually has the best taste so I don't know what she sees in him to be friends or whatever they are. I just can't believe she's helping a demon, even if she's Sightless. I never really believed it until last night, and I want to go slap him and hurt him for using her like that, and her connections. The bastard knows it, too. He's stringing her along and..." Tony says, talking on about his quick encounter with Carlyle long enough that Bucky loses interest and focuses back on the videos and photos of the duo. 

He notices something strange soon enough, and cuts Tony off a little unapologetically. "What are they doing?" 

"What?" Sam asks. 

"No, look," Bucky says, pointing to every single time he says the duo in everything. "It's strange. The two of them didn't spend longer than a few minutes with any other person, and they didn't spend longer than a few minutes apart. They also didn't approach anyone; they just let people approach them. But otherwise, they stayed in their own little bubble. That's not their standard MO. It's like they just went to be alone. And with hundreds of eyes on them." 

"If it was Carlyle's public debut," Coulson shrugs, looking a little pensive, "Then there's a possibility that they went to just show him off and establish cover." 

"Like Carter's been doing for the past year," Maria says, flicking through press releases and media speculations from that time period on her. Then she pulls up countless articles about last night, all which have speculations on both Carter and Carlyle. "Both of them are all over the news now. Her because they all think they've figured out her love life, and him because of the same reason, plus the fact that he's a brand new toy for them." 

"And Richard Carlyle's grandson," Clint adds. "They're both legacy famous now, and something tells me that both of them will stay there for as long as it takes for whatever they're going to do." 

"He," Tony corrects, stressing Carter's uninvolvement like he's convincing himself about it. "Because there's just no way that Aunt Peggy helped start World War II. Hell, she helped end it once she probably broke out of whatever hold he had on her, and then became Director of MI6 later on. She didn't do that by purposefully aiding a demon. He's done something to her." 

"We don't have definitive proof that he started WWII," Natasha points out. "We actually have more proof that he wanted it to end than that he started it."

"He could have done both," Sam shrugs, sounding like he's thought about this possibility before. "I mean, the war killed so many people, ruined so many governments and leaderships, devastated everyone, created chaos... the list goes on. There was so much evil that happened during the war, and even barring the Holocaust, which was its own monstrosity, there were the atomic bombs that set off the nuclear weapon craze, the Red Scare, the Cold War... literally everything." 

"Yeah, but why end it?" Tony asks. "If it wasn't so beneficial to him, why end it?" 

"Hitler couldn't win," Sam explains, and okay, yeah, he's definitely explored this possibility before, no question. "If Hitler took over the world and pretty much brainwashed everyone into his own regime, than it would be counterproductive to demons everywhere because there would only be so much evil in the world. With the Nazis and the Nazis alone, because Hitler would get rid of anyone else who so much posed a threat to him. Everyone else would be dissuaded out of it. And despite Carlyle's efforts, the war was already coming to a close. He's clever; he would have known this. Convincing Truman to drop the bombs and 'end' the war while giving Truman the highest presidential ratings was probably child's play after that, and good for him. It was salvage. Right?" 

The room falls quiet at Sam's entire thought process. Bucky blinks and wonders just how much time Sam spent thinking of that, and why. "Damn," he says, "That's deep, Wilson, what did you do to come up with that? Sticky notes, strings and pins?"

"I just—" Sam starts to say, before he breaks off in horror, drawing all of their attentions to where he's staring. 

There, leaning against the door and smirking like he was born with one, is one Alexander Carlyle. Dressed in criminally tight clothes—the white shirt indecent and defining enough that it's almost like he's shirtless—and looking like he stepped off a photoshoot set, he's lazily looking at them all with almost no real thought spared. Or so he wants them to think.

"I'm touched," Carlyle says, breaking into a cocksure grin that seems to radiate from his entire body. He flicks his eyes towards Sam, focusing all that energy into him. "I really am honored that you think I would go through all that trouble just to end it off so pathetically. Hmm, maybe I should have had you help me back then, Samuel."

"You know all of our names," Natasha says, instantly switching herself into her professional agent persona. 

He laughs. "What, you think that Peggy and I don't know that Sharon Carter seems to have found herself on the longer end of a lifespan? It was ever so easy to find this place, considering what it is. SHIELD; cute. Last time, I don't think any of you had a name to go along with the entire angel-aiding crusade." Carlyle says it with a hint of distaste and an exaggerated carelessness, showing what he thinks of it. 

Bucky bristles at his tone. Something about Carylye and his tone is brushing him the wrong way. Something is wrong about this. "Better this side than yours." 

Carlyle merely smirks again. "James Buchanan Barnes, isn't it?" He looks at Bucky with fire burning in his eyes and desire on his lips, sending waves of seduction towards Bucky's direction with knowing looks. And Bucky knows that better angels and immortals have lost against Carlyle's charms, so he prides himself on maintaining the same indifferent expression, even when Carlyle so very obviously rakes his eyes up and down his sitting frame. "I wonder if you live up to his namesake." 

"Incompetent? Sorry, I think you'll find that no one here fits that bill," Bucky finds himself saying, still feeling something off about the demon. 

Carlyle laughs in amusement, making no effort from where he's still leaning against the door, even though it's at this point when Bucky realizes that Carlyle is well aware of all the weapons and cameras on him. "Well then that makes the game much more fun, doesn't it? I love my men competent and powerful. But I wonder: do you?" 

Bucky wants to know how his day went from watching RuPaul in a couch burrito to having the most powerful demon in existence question his sexuality while confirming that America's already had a gay (albeit closeted AF) president. He fully blames Natasha for dragging him here today and right now. Why couldn't she have brought him in later, or even tomorrow? Honestly. He would have avoided this trainwreck. 

"Even if I did, I don't know why you would ask," Bucky retorts a little childishly, trying to figure out what ticked him off about Carlyle. The demon hasn't changed much from last time he was around, not that Bucky can notice from the few brief encounters they had last time. He's not had this much direct contact with—oh. Oh. 

He finds himself smirking as he says, "It's not as if you seem to have your powers with you right now." As soon as the words leave his mouth, he knows it feels right. Because there's no magical presence around Carlyle right now, no glamour or anything that would set him apart from a regular human. The fact that Carlyle still manages to act like himself with powers is a testament to what he can do, though. 

"Just because I don't care to use them where they would surely be unnecessary doesn't mean they aren't there. How do you think I came here? I think I might be changing my mind on your competence, James," Carlyle tsks, somehow still keeping his smirk on his face as he talks. 

"Unnecessary?" Tony asks, seizing on something else.

But Carlyle doesn't take the bait, and doesn't even bother to look away from Bucky as he responds, "I don't need, nor want, to do anything to any of you to get what I need from SHIELD." He arches an eyebrow directly at Bucky. "Well, maybe I want you, but that's inconsequential. I have all the time in the world for that." 

Before anyone can say anything, Carlyle winks lavishly and disappears out of their sight, leaving behind only the scent of his cologne. 

"I didn't meet him last night," Wanda finally says, talking for the first time all of today (he thinks she was rudely awakened from a lax day just the same as him, for how tired she looks). "And I think I am actually a little sorry I met him now." 

"Still a douche," Tony mutters at the same time Natasha—sharp and fast as she is—goes, "We need to re-evaluate how we do everything from right now. He knows who we are, where we are, and what we're going to do. We have to change it enough to surprise him." 

Someone groans. Bucky thinks it's actually him. 

Scene II

present time

The Carter Villa

Steve steps out of the bathroom/bedroom suite and strides over to where she's sitting. His hair is tousled and slightly wet in a way that tells her that he a) took a shower and b) dried it with a towel even though he has magic that lets him not need to do both of those. Even now, he can dry the remaining wet strands of his hair without more than a moment's thought. It's strange to her that he doesn't, but she can't say she doesn't appreciate the look aesthetically. 

"Have you checked the news yet?" he asks, scanning her over as a means of seeing if she's done anything but grab breakfast. 

She smirks. "Yes, and if you'd like tea, the kettle is over to your left." 

He disappears into her kitchen, since he loves tea just as much as her British-born-and-bred self does and doesn't really drink it for the effect-less caffeine (coffee is significantly stronger than tea, but still useless for him and it has the downside of being disgustingly bitter). A few moments, he comes back to her, filling the air with the scent of a jasmine tea that she doesn't have. Peggy splits her mind between wanting to call him out for it, or asking for some. It really does smell lovely. 

Checking his phone, which has materialized into his hand as he sets his tea down on her side table, he says, "Oh, would you look at that; Star, People, InStyle, Us Weekly, Entertainment Weekly, E!, TMZ, Dailymail, Refinery29, and Cosmopolitan have at least one article on us. I'm your delightfully attractive boytoy with a... dorito-shaped waist-to-shoulder ratio. Doritos are those cheesy crisps with the spicy sweet flavoring, right? Oh, wait, they have pictures of—this is kind of hilarious, actually. They've held up a chip to some paparazzi shot of my back. I don't know why they have a picture of that, even if I look...”

She tunes him out, knowing that the moment he asks a question she'll hear it. Otherwise, it'll be minutes upon minutes of absolutely senseless chatter. Chatter that makes her think of him as human, and a nervously young one at that, constantly filled with bright and bubbly enthusiasm. He is none of those things now, even if he had been human a long while ago. No, now, Steve is a blazingly confident demon who knows just how the world ticks, and someone who had traded his innocence for secrets and seduction. Not that it seems like he really minds losing his innocence.

Peggy knows that she's changed and grown during the seventy-five years that had transpired since she last saw him, but she wonders if the change she sees in him is a result of her own maturation, or his. The world has darkened her eyes and bloodied her hands just as much as she has darkened and bloodied herself, but her view isn't tinted anymore. It's perfectly clear, albeit with a little bit of cynicism. Whatever the war hadn't shown had been shown to her (or, she thinks, she had forcefully shown herself) somewhere in the years that followed. And that has made all the difference. 

Now, she knows exactly what she's doing, and what the lines (or lack thereof) between her and Steve are. There's no initial clumsiness, where the two of them danced around each other when it came to trust, expectations, pressures, communications, and truths. There's no naivety on her part, or arrogance on his. But nothing can be categorized by what isn't there, can it? Nothing can be categorized by the shadows of a war that's no longer happening, or categorized by a game of romance that they've both long abandoned of even entertaining. 

She'll just have to wait and see what there is a presence of. 

"...and Pietro Maximoff, right?" Steve asks, having set down his phone a little while ago. 

"Black Widow, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Falcon, Quicksilver, and the Winter Soldier/White Wolf are the ones you have so far and know. The rest of the team has Maria Hill, Phillip Coulson, Dr. Bruce Banner, Dr. Elizabeth Ross, Dr. Helen Cho, Dr. Jane Foster, Scott Lang or Antman, Hope Van Dyne or the Wasp, and Sharon, Agent 13. The Avengers of SHIELD," she answers smoothly, immediately knowing just what he was asking. 

He smirks at her, an idea clearly forming in his mind. "I think I'll go pay them a visit. Drop in, make a dramatic entrance." Steve disappears from her view in seconds, his phone also vanishing with the rest of him. 

In that second, she's now alone again. Peggy smiles, and then lets out a breath she hadn't fully realized she was holding. 

"Tell me everything you know about James Buchanan Barnes," Steve says as soon as he reappears back into her flat. She knows better than to be startled with how many times he's pulled this trick on her, so she sets down her phone and stares at him. Peggy wants to know why he's interested in only James. She'll find out soon enough. 

"He was born... March 10, 1857, I believe, a little while after the inauguration of the president of that time. I believe there was a president named James Buchanan, so maybe it was that. That puts him at 162 years, give or take a few months, and on the younger side of the spectrum, though I certainly can't say anything. He's the only immortal in his family, but not that that had mattered since I believe they were all killed somewhere during his twenties or thirties. He served in the war, actually, in the famous squadron the Howling Commandoes. They worked with us a few time, I believe. Though you wouldn't have met James because he was their sniper. After the war, he joined SHIELD. Now he's an Avenger," she says, racking her brain for anything. "Actually, he didn't join immediately. There was a time after the war that he was captured and brainwashed into an assassin for HYDRA. It's why he has the metal arm. SSR got him out within a few years though, but it was a few years of torture and damage." 

"The current metal arm," Steve repeats, thinking about something. "That Stark?" 

Peggy smiles. "Tony did shut down his father's weapons business a little more than a decade ago, 2008. He went into everything else technologically beneficial to people, though. Prosthetics are something he does, but not often, despite him wanting to." 

Steve looks at her with a knowing smirk. He meets her eyes and raises an eyebrow questioningly. "You're proud." 

"I am," she simply says, not letting Steve read her or give her anything for it. "He's done a lot of good."

He lingers on her face, still smirking as the wheels in his head spin with words she knows he wants to say (but also know she'll deck him for), before he turns away, his gaze sliding over to a framed picture she keeps on a family photo mantel: one where a young Tony Stark is showing off a proud mechanical invention to her as he holds a blue ribbon. She can't see his face right now, but there's something in how his body loosens as he stares (and stares) at that specific photo. It can't be any surprising, him knowing how much she cares for Tony and his life, especially after Howard's awful parenting and Maria's inability to raise a human child properly. Steve knows at the very least the barebones of Tony's relationship with her, even if he doesn't know the particulars. 

"If you've got something to say," she curtly cuts in, causing Steve to throw a curious glance back at her. "Say it." 

He spins to face her again, mantel behind him again. Steve smirks lightly, giving off a air that's all 'who, me?' and easy placation. Not at all like he's judging, which she knows he's doing inside. The entire scene isn't unlike an obnoxious soldier making an off-color joke and then saying he was joking. Except there's something else going on Steve's mind. 

"If he's the man you say he is," Steve starts to say extremely cautiously and slowly, his face taking on the expression of a plan slowly unfurling itself step by step, "Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist with a heart of secret gold, then why doesn't he know about us? You?" 

She doesn't respond, waiting for him to elaborate. 

"You let him believe, all his s... life that although you were this strong, competent woman responsible for—" Steve waves a hand in the air to signify the numerous gaps he can't fill in, trying to find a word or a singular accomplishment he can use, "—everything, you also were swayed by a sleazy, irredeemable demon into this nefariously world-ending plan like a naive child." 

His words bite where they're supposedly to, sting where they're supposed to, lift where they're supposed to, and he knows it. Steve's face is carefully blank, save for his piercing blue eyes boring right into hers as he talks. Even now, when she's familiar with him and used to so many of his tricks, there's an uneasiness when it comes to meeting his hellfire-powered, supposedly-soulless eyes. Ironic as it is, they provoke honesty and straight answers, because this is Steve himself without any of the masks he puts on.

Sharp, calculating, determined, and ruthless. 

The legends are right, in the way that they paint Steve as harbinger of the devil's wishes. But they don't really take Steve as anything more than either a showman or an extension of the devil. If she says to be honest, neither did she at the beginning. 

And then she had looked him straight in the eye, thinking he was like almost every other skirtchasing man out there, starting to sharply tell him to mind his own business when she had noticed the same look in his eyes that was in hers. Then she noticed the delighted smile in them when her realization was clear on her face. Then she noticed the aura around him that signified he was a demon, and an extremely powerful one at that. But she had already told social norms to piss off, and she knew he couldn't be going to hell or heaven anyway, so why not make acquaintances with this demon who seemed to be a kindred spirit? 

She knew about demons, and how they would stoop to nothing to find targets and weak spots. She knew the extremely high chances that the look in his eyes had been faked, and the higher chances that he was doing this to gain an ally. She knew he could be playing into her wish to do something and gain respect. She knew he could be playing her like a fond pastime. 

But damn the world if she hadn't taken that gamble, knowing herself. She was four things too. 

Sharp, calculating, determined, and ruthless. 

So she responds, "I did." 

He accepts the answer for what it is and nods, rolling his eyes and losing the seriousness altogether. It had used to drive her insane how he seemed to change moods like he tried on clothes at stores, before she rolled with the punches. It had helped that she began to read him and what he was really thinking. 

"Would you be open to it?" 

She stills as the words catch her off-guard (and since when had her guard been up?), like he wanted, probably. "What if I'm having too much fun keeping things the way they are?" 

Steve cocks his head slightly to the right, assessing her and backing off like a message received. "Jeez, Peg, didn't think you'd be a damn coward." 

She gives him a look, a smile escaping from her controlled face. "Says you." 

He grins, for real this time, and glances back at the mantel one last time. "I'm hurt that that's what you think about me. Wounded." 

"Oh, darling. I know it." 

And maybe, just maybe, if she changed moods like she was trying on clothes, she really couldn't be blamed, right? Bad influences and all. Where else had she learned how to roll with it and live quite free?

Scene III

present time

the Carlyle penthouse 

SHIELD’s immediate attempt to bug the manor was ridiculous, but also an excellent opportunity to mess with them and manipulate them. He could provide a bountiful of false information like this. And he now had a legitimate excuse to live not in the Devil’s manor, with all of its trappings and servants ready to backstab him at any moment. Never let it be said that he couldn’t make the most of a bad situation. 

Conveniently, the resident rich billionaire’s son of Ruby Tower happened to want to move to Singapore the exact same day, which meant there was now a vacant penthouse that was more than willing to let a Carlyle take up the vacancy. Especially rising socialite Alexander Carlyle. It was almost too easy. He wasn’t complaining. 

Now he had a sprawling penthouse and the sworn secrecy of said penthouse’s manager if they want his money. It just so helps that the actual owner of said penthouse happens to be billionaire mogul Jack Rollins, one of the ten on his list. It’s almost a shame he isn’t starting off with Rollins, but he needs time for Rollins.

John Garrett, on the other hand, billionaire CEO of Garett Pharmaceuticals, is number ten of a list he’s working backwards from. A corrupt businessman to the core, his money is partially inherited, partially ill-earned. His inherited estate was also ill-earned, though, so maybe it was all of it. Either way, there’s no reducing the fact that his money has been earned with human exploitation, murder, torture, and an empire of blackmail into scientific secrets, as well as bribery. 

Just the kind of guy who the Devil loved to toy with. It was apparently fun to hurt the good, but the bad were truly the fun ones to break and hurt. They were the ones who started off cocky and arrogant, the ones who thought they could escape, but ultimately fell. No one better to torture than a sinner. 

And Steve was made to destroy humans and and bring them down. There was no one better than him to run between corrupt empires and pull the threads that brought everything crumbling. He’s known how to con people and put up a fight practically since he was born. He’s known how to play people and beat the odds of failure since forever. He knew how to start from nothing and go up. 

Which brought him to Alfa Knowles and Jade Williams, at the very least. According to Peggy and his own resources, both women had been fucked over by Garrett in two completely different, yet equally life-altering ways. Knowles had lost her life’s work—relating to thyroidal cancers—thanks to having it all stolen. Williams, on the other hand, lost her entire family to the ‘side’ drug business that Garrett ran. And she knew a damning amount of information, enough that she constantly feared for her life. 

Who better than two fiery, silenced voices to help him with Garrett? Who better than those two women to make headlines and sue Garrett’s entire estate to pieces while he took care of exposing every single dirty, nasty detail? 

It wasn’t as if he was going to need help in the intel area. No; Steve had needed help with finding a lawyer that Garrett couldn’t buy off, and an entire system that couldn’t do him wrong. As well as a method to convince both Knowles and Williams to help him. After all, they had no proper reason to trust a wealthy socialite who, for all they knew, ran in the same circles as Garrett. 

Peggy took care of two out of those three: she had an accepted law degree and credibility. As for a system, the answer had completely eluded him, until he had found himself walking down the alleys of Hell’s Kitchen. Ironically, there seemed to be a local hero named Daredevil (Sightless and sightless, though there was something off and non-human about Murdoch he needed to figure out) who doubled as one half of a law firm. They were definitely an underdog firm (and if Steve had a preference for underdogs, he’d never say) but completely worth their salt.

“So?” he asked Peggy when outlining everything about Garrett’s case to her. “Critiques?” 

The puzzle cube was turning in her mind slowly as she considered it. Shuffle, spin, and... click. “You want to take the legal route? Why?” 

“He’s gotten away with small court cases and minor lawsuits for almost a decade,” Steve said. “Why not beat him at his own game? That’s where it’s going to hurt the most, especially with something as big as this.” 

Peggy still didn’t look convinced. “It’s going to draw headlines,” she pointed out. 

“That’s good—” he started to say. 

“No,” she shook her head, “Is it? Because we’ll have lost any element of surprise if we embroil ourselves in the middle of a high profile court case. The other nine on your list will know who we are. They will know that we aren’t in the slightest amenable to their side.” 

She was good. “Well,” Steve paused, running his finger along the red file he had on Alfa Knowles, “That’s why it’s only you who has her name out. And that’s only as a lawyer.” 

“Thanks,” she rolled her eyes, “Your fame is tied to mine. The media will tie my actions and intentions to yours, as will any person with a single brain cell.” 

“You give a lot of people too much credit,” he merely said. 

“And you,” she paused as she flipped a page on the file of Jade Williams, “Give yourself too much credit.” She doesn’t bother asking him where the file in her hand came from. He knows that she knows. 

“Worked like a charm last time,” he brought up, skimming the red file in his hands if only to have something to do while she read. He already knew it by heart though, thanks to an eidetic memory. 

Peggy closed the file shut, sighing. “You’re insane and exceptionally lucky that I bothered to study for a JD simultaneously as an LLB.”

”I’m lucky you often become bored,” Steve grinned, and then hopped off of the kitchen island that was more comfortable than the overly soft chair that Peggy was sitting in. 

“For the moment or this time around?” she asked, clearly biting back a sharp grin. 

He shrugged, plucking the Williams file from her hands. “For always,” he corrected, and then disintegrated the files in his hands dust, which he quickly vanished away. Magic certainly had its benefits, and so did paper. Untraceable, and easily manipulated. Perfect for him.

Scene IV

present time

SHIELD HQ

“If they’re making a big deal out of being public, then chances are that they’re planning a public scandal,” Clint inputs at the beginning, and Bucky immediately knows that Clint isn’t going to talk again, having said his important piece already. 

“As Carlyle and Carter,” Sam says, still slightly subdued after Carlyle’s surprise visit a few days ago. “That makes sense. But what are they going to do?” 

“Carter wouldn’t risk ruining the family name, would she? Before, she joined Carlyle when it seemed like he was fighting with the Allies, but what about now?” Bucky asks, looking at Tony, who knows all about family names. And because he knows Carter the best out of all of them. 

“I don’t know,” Tony shrugs, obviously bothered by it. “I really don’t.”  

“If they leveraged a scandal out of somewhere else and then made themselves look good, it would make sense to leverage a scandal,” Natasha slowly says, her attention elsewhere. And by elsewhere Bucky means her phone, which she’s furiously tapping at. 

“So where do we come in?” Bucky asks, because he seems to be the guy asking questions nowadays. “Why bring us into this mess; why purposefully draw out our attention?” 

Wanda huffs a slow, sardonic laugh that’s conpletely out of place with her otherwise brighter personality—though no one in this room is ever likely to forget how immortality has shaped her. As the resident profiler, since she knows people and how they tick, she’s probably the most qualified out of all of them to say, “He’s going to turn this into a game, a performance. Just his very presence here is causing a stir back up in heaven. Already there’s been an uptick in angels sent here. When angels are too busy stopping him, and humans can’t see it, who better than the immortals to watch? Especially when SHIELD has almost all known immortals.” 

“We’ll be too busy stopping him too, though,” Bucky brings up, blinking at the strange wording of her words. 

Wanda shakes her head. “I don’t know if it’s because every single account of him is horribly wrong and biased, which I would have noticed so it can’t be that, or if something has happened, but whatever Carlyle is here for has changed him. The demon of my profiles should have, at the very least, kept the aura of his power around him. He should have rubbed it in our faces, flaunted it all, but he didn’t. And he should have never flirted with Bucky.” 

“He’s a master at playing different roles,” Natasha tries to say, but Wanda’s brow furrows deeper, and she vehemently shakes her head again. “Maybe he’s just—” 

“Oh god,” Wanda cuts in. “Do none of you see it?” 

Clint takes one hard look at her and immediately breaks his silence. Huh, Bucky thinks. “You think that he’s playing it more cautious?” 

She hesitates. “Well, maybe not the word cautious,” she says, “But unlike the last two times, he isn’t here to start global wars. “He’s subdued for a reason. Profilers’ tip: Even actors carry over a few mannerisms that will always spot them out.” 

“You're saying he’s hiding it inside, for some reason,” Bucky figures out. 

A knock on the door has them all counting the number of weapons on their body, but the people who walk through are none other than Sharon, Maria, and Coulson. None of them look happy. They look... confused.

“Change of plans,” Sharon announces, tapping the holodesk. “Massive change of plans.”

“What’s happened?” Tony asks, dragging the file upwards so that all of it can see it up in front of them.

“You know that law degree that everyone thought my... Rita got as a joke, since she hasn’t touched it ever since she got it?” Sharon rhetorically asks, before tapping a news headline for everyone to see. “Well, turns out being the face of Burberry doesn’t pay well enough, because guess who’s prosecuting a new lawsuit against Garrett Pharmaceuticals?” 

“Carter is working both lawsuits against GP, one from a woman named Alfa Knowles and another from a woman named Jade Williams. One sues for copyright and property infringement, blackmail, unlawful termination, and a breach of contract, the other sues for blackmail, intential harm, and negligence,” Maria continues, scrolling down to show the more in-depth version of her statement. 

“But?” Sam asks. 

“She’s doing it for a dollar from each of them,” Sharon says. “Allegedly.” But the way she rolls her eyes makes Bucky think that the rumor is indeed true. “I mean, it’s not like our family needs the money or anything. But it’s not like she’s doing it out of the goodness of her heart, especially with Carlyle around.” 

“So, what’s the story behind this?” Bucky asks, and damn, he really has to stop it with the questions. 

The next hour is filled with reading headlines that have contradictory statements and absolutely no journalistic integrity. The picture they’re able to put together is muddled, and incredibly vague.

Coulson sighs and then dismisses them all, much to Bucky’s pleasure. Then, to his displeasure, he runs into Carlyle at his favorite tea shop (Bucky’s, not Carlyle’s).

Worst of all, Carlyle is purposefully blocking off the row of tea blends that have some of Bucky’s favorites, goddamnit. 

“Excuse me,” Bucky says, because he can stand to be civil to someone who’s so far innocent... this century. “You’re blocking the peppermint tea.” 

“Apologies, James,” Carlyle says, his voice dipping down and hushed that only he can hear it. He doesn’t move though. Asshole. 

“Can I have the tea, if you’re not going to move?” Bucky asks exasperatedly, because here he is trying to keep himself from fighting Carlyle, the man his team is trying to take down and stop. 

“No,” Carlyle answers. “It’s bad for you anyway.” 

“You know what’s bad for me?” Bucky hisses angrily. “Trying to stop a demon out of his mind. So unless you’re about to tell me what the fuck is wrong with you, move.” 

“My, my,” Carlyle says, and Bucky can easily picture him fanning his fan like a lady from the Elizabethan age. “I’m almost impressed by your anger, if it had been real.” 

“Well,” Bucky tightly says, “Every person, every identity is innocent until proven guilty.” 

“It’s a good thing I’m the picture of innocence,” Carlyle grins at Bucky, and someone lets out a sigh from behind Bucky. Fantastic. Carlyle leaves with those words, and it isn’t until he leaves that Bucky sees the entire ant infestation on the shelf. Goddamn. 

“I don’t care what anyone says,” Bucky says later to Natasha, when he’s at her apartment and down a few shots of vodka. “He is nothing but irritating. He ruined my tea, Tasha!” 

“I’m sure that’s his plan,” Clint consoles, also drunk off of his ass. “To ruin just your tea. There! We’ve got him.”

Bucky can almost swear he hears a laugh, and then a gust of wind out Natasha’s window.

Chapter Text

Scene I

present time

the Carlyle penthouse

“Congratulations,” Peggy flatly tells him from where she’s sitting on his stiff-backed wooden chair. “We’ve made on news from CNN to The Guardian to The Times of India. This is global; there’s no backing out now.” 

“There better not be,” he said. “It took an obscene amount of time to work my way into the federal system and convince the country to take this case on. The United States v. Garrett, prosecuted by Rita Carter, no less. Apparently the fact that you’re British and a celebrity causes more problems than the fact that you’re young and have no experience on paper. It’s fine, you’re in, and D.C. will have a fun time welcoming you. Also, I have Knowles and Williams’s testimonies already on lockdown, and I have both of them currently living in the manor, safe. Ugh, but so much work. Law is no fun; it’s all effort.” He pretends to whine and complain, even adopting a dramatic tone, but she knows he’s joking. 

“It’s going to take me an even greater deal of effort to win,” Peggy says as she rolls her eyes. “Since the time frame seems to be harried.” She doesn’t sound the least bit bothered, either. 

“Yeah well,” he shrugs. “Also, so far I’ve additionally added both Jade’s son’s murder and Alfa’s intellectual property theft to the list of crimes since the media will report in the murder with more enthusiasm than anything else, but do I add everything else I find?” 

“Give me the information,” Peggy says, thinking about it for a second, “And I’ll take it from there.” 

Steve nods, finding no problem with that since a lot of modern law is tripping him up. He jumps to sit on the top of the countertop of his little kitchen island and grins. Steve takes a moment to appreciate how mostly open everything is in the penthouse, and then focuses back on her. He can’t see the TV, but seeing Peggy is just fine. She’s got this. And he has all the faith in Murdock and Nelson’s team to fill in the gaps that they have missed. Steve thinks that there’s more to that firm than they put out to the world (and not just things that the world has missed, but things they’re deliberately hiding) but he knows of a Jessica Jones and a Luke Cage tangentially connected to them (for now, Steve needs more information to put it together) who are most definitely going to help.

There’s somewhat of a New York connection there. But whatever. He isn’t worried. As long as he’s able to find and submit to the court (or have magically appear on the judge’s seat; he’s not sure yet) evidence of every single thing Garret has ever done, he’s good. Steve’s absolutely useless with the law, which considering the fact he’s a demon and he’s technically from a time when law was monarchical-based, is excusable. He trusts Peggy on this, fully. And he knows that she trusts him to back up every point she’ll ever make when she asks. If she doesn’t ask for anything, he’s staying out and remaining unbothered. 

Which, good. Steve has nine other people he has to set plans in motion for. He’s almost excited. Is it bad that he’s also already fully planned out Garrett’s death? Steve has a very particular idea in mind that he thinks is bloody brilliant. Emphasis on the bloody. Well, the blood’s not what’s exciting, because blood’s never exciting these days, but, whatever. That isn’t the point.

“Bloody hell,” Peggy says in awe, catching his attention. Steve teleports right behind her—he knows he could have walked but he’s allowed his fun, okay?—and see the television. 

“Breaking news,” the news reporter is saying on the screen while Peggy turns to him in a silent question, “New information suggests that Jade Williams’s son was not the first of suspicious deaths related to Garrett Pharmaceuticals, nor the last. This information also suggests that the number of deaths may easily surpass one hundred...” 

Steve shakes his head at Peggy. This wasn’t his doing. Actually, he didn’t even think that the number was going to be that high in the timeframe that he was investigating. Steve had predicted that the number was over one hundred, yes, but if early investigations found that many, then there was a problem. For every early discovered body, there were bound to be two or five covered in the woodwork somewhere. And that number is concerning. That was easily a few deaths a year, for decades. Not the kind of information even he can dig out in a week. Well, he thinks, at least he picked the right person and company. 

Nevertheless, Steve needs to find who leaked and found the information. 

“I’m going to go find out...” Steve starts to say when Peggy cuts him off, a gleam in her eye that spells a lot of trouble. 

“You do that,” she smirks, though her eyes are transfixed in the screen, taking in all this information. “Give them an IOU.” 

Steve silently teleports to the inside of Murdock and Nelson, half wondering if they even know, and half wondering if they were responsible. But why hadn’t they called if they were? This, he needed to find out. 

“Who are you?” is what Steve’s promptly greeted with when he sees two men coming up front from somewhere inside their office space. “How did you get in?” 

“Counter-question; was it you guys who leaked information about Garrett’s murders?” Steve bluntly asks, flipping the brusque nature of the questions on them. He gets no answer, and so, he gives no answer. But since he wants to know, he elaborates and says, “I’m here for Rita Carter, by the way.” 

“You’re not the first to say that,” Nelson says, eyeing him warily. Murdock, on the other hand, seems like he’s trying to figure Steve out, or something about Steve. Which is strange, since he knows that Murdock can’t see anything, and shouldn’t have a clue about Steve, or Xander, technically. He’s Xander Carlyle to them, not Steve Rogers.

Steve shrugs. “I can call her. You would recognize her voice on a phone, right? Since she’s talked to you before?” He notices that Nelson gives Murdock a glance when Steve mentions the bit about recognizing voices. And then Steve recalls that people who have a sense missing are thought to have enhanced senses everywhere else. 

See, humans only think that there are only humans on Earth. Those in the ADHI community think that there are only just those: angels, demons, humans, and immortals. That’s wrong. Not just because of the fact that half-angels and quarter-angels exist, because they still fall under the purview of angels, or humans, depending on if they have the Sight. There are those who Steve dubs Miracles and Sensers, because he’s completely fed up with trying to come up with imaginative names. Miracles, he’s defined as people who have some sort of an enhanced, or special gift to them that reeks of magical influence despite the fact that they are not part of the strictly adhered-to ADHI community. Sensers, he’s defined as people who can sense other influence, and can feel angel/demon influence strongly, but have no clue just what they’re feeling. 

Steve has a strong sense that Murdock might happen to be a Senser, which would explain a lot about the feeling that Murdock’s giving him. It also would explain Murdock’s wariness of him. Murdock would have no clue what he’s sensing right now, and for someone who relies on senses to make up for the lack of one, Steve thinks that Murdock’s at somewhat of a complete zero. Steve subtly lessens his presence.

“If you can prove it...” Nelson shrugs. 

So Steve pulls out his phone and calls Peggy, knowing that she’s just as likely to pick it up as opposed to not pick it up. But thankfully, she does. And Steve has to scramble before she says something that might tip everything off, not that she would, he realizes a second later. 

“Hey, Rita. I’m at Nelson and Murdock’s,” he says, “Apparently I’m untrustworthy.” 

They can all hear her laugh ring from the phone. “Darling,” she says, “Did you introduce yourself?” Peggy doesn’t even bother to ask if she’s on speakerphone before she adds on, “He’s the fifth person I was talking about, by the way.” 

Steve raises an eyebrow, thinking what she meant by that, but clearly Nelson and Murdock know. “Thanks, Rita,” he merely says. 

“You’re an idiot,” she says, and hangs up. 

“So,” he says when Nelson looks convinced and Murdock has stopped questioning almost everything, “Did you? It’s pertinent information.” 

“You don’t have a heartbeat,” Murdock says, and Steve would be sure that if Murdock was anyone else, they would be squinting or staring hard at him. Alas, the glasses on his face make it hard for Steve to read his eye expressions. 

“You’re trying to find out what the strange presence around me is,” Steve says to Matt, unfazed by the comment, though Nelson’s eyes go wide and he stammers something about Murdock not being allowed to say things like that. “Encountered something like it before?” 

“Once,” Murdock says in a way that makes Steve wonder if the demon before had made it back to hell. Steve vaguely recalls a scandal involving a demon dying at a halfway point. Hmm. “But that was nothing compared to...” 

“I hope not,” Steve shrugs. 

Nelson just looks confused. “What is happening?” he asks. “What the fuck are you two talking about? Murdock.” 

“Explain,” Murdock asks, though it’s not really a question than a demand or a statement. 

“I will, once I know if it was you guys who leaked the information on Garrett,” Steve says, not budging a second. He’s stubborn as hell, he’s been told, and not patient more often than not. 

The door opens and closes from behind him, and a new lady, reddish hair, walks in with a coffee in her hand. “Hi, I’m Karen,” she says greeting him with a polite smile, “What can we do for you?” 

“He’s Rita’s,” Nelson says, and Karen does a double take on him, blinking fast. 

“You’re Alexander Carlyle, right?” she asks, recovering fast, “For Rita Carter. Okay. What does she need?” 

“If you guys were aware of the released information, and if you were the ones to release said information,” Steve asks for the fourth or fifth time. He’s not counting. He should be counting. Because Steve thinks he’s understood by what Peggy meant by ‘fifth person’. If Peggy is one, and then Murdock and Nelson are two and three, and he is five, then this woman Karen is surely number four. And this is only what Peggy knows of. 

Karen gives a sharp look to Murdock and Nelson. “Why are you hiding it?” she asks them. “He should know, if he’s with Rita. Hell, Rita’s got to know. Wait. Did she... not know?” She freezes. 

This time, Murdock smirks. “Unfortunately, she didn’t leave a phone number for us to get back to. And the stuff that... you found needed to be shared." 

"Well," Karen says. "Great. We're all on the same page now, aren't we?" Steve thinks he hears her mutter something about how it was no thanks to them, but decides to remain silent on her comment. He doesn't need to be involved or anything. 

Turning to face them, now, Steve rattles off a phone number that he knows to be Peggy's. "That's it," he says, "And keep us in the loop. I know nothing about law, but I know a lot about this case to also know that this should have been shared with us first. How did you find everything so quickly, by the way?"

"When you live in Hell's Kitchen," Murdock says, "You learn to build a network." 

That's the closest thing Steve knows he'll get right now, unless he compulses them to spit out information. It's the closest thing to validation about the pieces Steve's already putting together about said network, that he suspects runs throughout all of New York. He's not going to do that to them, not when they don't deserve it. Not when they haven't done a thing wrong or anything. He would have done the exact same thing that they would have and that reaffirms everything. 

"Okay," he shrugs. "And as for my end, well, I think it's better if I use a visual..."  

Scene II

three years ago

SHIELD HQ

"You heard about Hell's Kitchen?" Clint asks him one day, dropping to sit on the countertop right next to the coffee machine. Bucky blinks at him once and then decides that he's going to think about asking after he's had a cup or two of coffee. Something must have happened, more that the usual noise that surrounds that neighborhood. word around the block always talks about a devil in Hell's Kitchen, which is always funny because no demon, angel, or immortal treads foot there. It's just all humans there.

When the first cup of coffee starts to kick in, and Bucky's drinking his second (technically the third he made, since Clint stole the second), he asks, "No, what happened?"

"Someone reported a strange death, and SHIELD thinks that it's actually a demon in halfway," Clint says, "But stuck in halfway. No one's sure what's happened." 

There is no such thing as being stuck in halfway. That is the entire point of the halfway; demons use the halfway to go between earth and hell. They never stay there, because there's no use being in a void of nothingness. Also, what is the devil supposed to do with demons who do absolutely nothing? Bucky stares at Clint, dumbfounded as his mind struggles to come up with even a rational explanation as to how something like that could be possible. He pours another cup of coffee, drinks, thinks, and then pours himself a fourth for-himself cup. 

"Who's investigating it?" Bucky asks, realizing that it's not his problem and that he doesn't have to spend brain cells thinking about it too hard. Word will spread with the answer anyway. It's fine. It's totally fine. He’s not curious about it, and he’s definitely not thinking about the imagery of what a demon would look stuck in halfway. Say what you will about him, but Bucky doesn’t have that kind of a morbid mind. 

“Tasha and Sam,” Clint says. Bucky thinks he’s feels both jealousy and pity for them, but he remembers that he doesn’t want in on this. Clint eyes him speculatively, like he can read Bucky’s mind, and then smirks. 

Bucky finishes this cup of cold coffee under Clint’s eyes, because it’s easier looking down into his mug rather than at Clint. He makes a face at how quickly the drink has fallen cold. “Unlucky bastards,” he merely comments. 

Clint snorts. “Say that to their faces; I want to see what would happen,” he says, and as if by stroke of luck, Natasha and Sam walk in, matching expressions of neutrality on their faces. It couldn’t have been better timing. Bucky has no time to glare at Clint though, because Clint lights up like a Christmas tree at their presences and asks, “You’re back early! What happened?” 

Sam gives Natasha a look and then heads for the coffee machine in a move that Bucky sympathizes with. Especially when Sam spikes it slightly with the small bottle of something Natasha brought back from Russia a few years ago. Natasha, on the other hand, slides into the seat next to Bucky and places down a few files on the table in front of them. Her expression is still carefully blank. Something’s clearly strange, stranger than the possibility of a demon in halfway. 

“Anything you can share?” Bucky casually asks, and Clint smirks at him again. “Neither of you look good.” 

Natasha’s fingernail taps on a photo that has magically appeared in front of Bucky within the last five seconds, and he stares at it. Somehow, he doesn’t blanch at the photo, or get the urge to throw up. He feels like he should, but all his emotions have deserted him besides the shock that makes him whisper, “Oh god,” in a voice he can’t recognize as his own. 

The picture answers Bucky’s question of what a demon stuck in halfway could possibly look like. In the picture, the first thing he notices is that they’ve lost their human form completely. The second thing that he notices is that they seem pale. But all the sickly pallor in the world couldn’t hide the expression of pure pain etched into the demon’s face, and all the lines of tension in their body. The third thing that Bucky notices begins to explain why the demon looks thin and unnaturally transparent. It’s because they probably are. Somehow they’ve been vaporized, and the camera is either crappy or really good with how it snapped the scene, because—and Bucky can’t imagine it even with proof in front of him—it’s almost as if every other atom of this demon has vanished. Half here, and half there. 

Before Bucky can say anything else, Natasha places another photo on top of this one, and it’s just a little worse. The angle of this shot makes it seem like someone could just stick their hand inside this demon and pull it away unscathed, without the feeling of touching innards. They are layers missing. They’re too small to make out, but it’s easy to tell that there is something missing. Too much missing, actually. 

“Look familiar?” Natasha asks dryly, but now that she asks, it does. It sounds too familiar, actually, this exact scenario of halfway. He’s heard something about this, from someone a long time ago. 

“Yeah, actually,” Bucky says. “This is... This is how you kill an angel or a demon. Or an immortal. The process is, was, theoretical, but you trap them in halfway points or convergence areas and then you wait for their body to fully vaporize. If the body doesn’t vaporize, you can finish the job by assuming they’re human after that and killing them like you would a normal person. But it was all theoretical and it wasn’t...” 

He breaks off, because he doesn’t know how to explain that he had never paid much attention to when he learned this particular fact. 

Natasha’s eyes darken instantly, as she asks, “Wasn’t what?” 

Bucky shakes his head. “Once, during World War II, I overheard a conversation between DLH as Carlyle and Margaret Carter. DLH was jokingly explaining to her how you kill a demon, but he also said that since being stuck in halfway points is the sticking point for killing angels and demons, the process is invalidated. Can’t happen, unless you’re apparently the Devil or God themselves, apparently. To even achieve something like that, someone would need to be able to sense the seams and tears of a demon who’s teleporting, and then manipulate them to rip them apart. No one in the ADHI community can do that. And that covers everyone but God and the Devil. So who can sense the fabric of magic?” 

“I don’t know about you,” Sam says, plunking down in between Clint and Natasha, “But I don’t know if I’m glad or not that you overheard that conversation.” 

“He was supposed to be joking,” Bucky hisses, only realizing now, after his two mini-lectures, that he’s become invested in this when he said he wouldn’t be. Fuck his curiosity. He weakly smiles, and then takes the file from the table, deciding that if he’s going to jump in, he might as well do it with both feet.  

Scene III

present time

Rita Carter’s (temporary) New York office

“So,” Peggy says after he’s done recounting his edited version of the encounter with Murdock and Nelson, “Clearly we’ve underestimated them. Or their network.” She frowns down at the papers in front of her for a second, thinking, but looks back up at him expectantly. 

Steve shrugs. “I didn’t ask. Or make an attempt to find out.” 

She stares at him, reading his silence like an eagerly-written book. “From them,” she corrects, “But you’ve found something else about how they’ve discovered this trove of information.” 

“I have a few leads,” Steve offers, and blatantly changes the subject. “Do you think everything released is compelling evidence for not even Garett to worm out of?” 

“Yes,” Peggy says, rolling her eyes, “But don’t let that stop you from searching. There are several easily identifiable holes and gaps in this information. The more the better to let him rot in jail.” 

Steve doesn’t say anything. He hums and nods, focusing elsewhere. Yes, he is aware of the fact that Peggy is sharply eyeing him, more pieces of the puzzle clicking in her head. When he hears a sharp intake of breath come from her, Steve closes his eyes and braces himself for the inevitable chastisement. In the meantime, he triple-checks that no one or nothing can pick up on their words. 

“How?” she asks. “You have a precise plan, don’t bullshit me. You know exactly how you’re killing the bastard. How?” 

Steve smiles mirthlessly, opening his eyes and lazily watching her. His fingers and hands know better than to fidget, and they don’t, but for once he wishes that he wants to say he was still a nervous human with a conscience, if only to lie and say he has no plan. “Poison,” he says. 

“Bullshit,” she called out, her voice adopting almost a musical lilt to it. “It’s not that easy with you.”  

“Does poisoning someone’s mind count as poison?” Steve asks, leaning into the sudden surge of hell that floods him. “I want to make him see all the horrors of the world just as they are not. I want to make him hallucinate all the blood on his hands until he goes insane and he begs for it all to end. And then, I think I want to watch him fall and send a message to everyone else that they should be worried.” 

She doesn’t say anything for a long while. 

“If he starts to raise any kind of a commotion while inside of a jail during the trial,” Peggy slowly says, “He’ll be placed within a tighter cell, and on suicide prevention. After, too.” 

Steve laughs softly. “He’s going to spend time incarcerated, don’t worry. Maybe that time will only be a week or two, since Garrett keeps a lot of people on his payroll, and he’s bound to escape soon. But it’s from that point when I have a plan.” 

“What about all his victims?” Peggy asks, frowning as she gestures to all the paper on her desk. “They deserve more than a quick death, or an apparent suicide.” 

“Won’t be quick,” Steve shrugs, his mind already thinking of how it could go, “And it will be very public. Besides, both of us know that Garrett wouldn’t suffer in a small public jail. He’d be sent to an institution-type jail no matter what we do. Wheels of justice turn slowly, and I’ve never been a candidate for either justice or slowness.” He quirks a half-smile. 

“I don’t think you—oh,” she says, trailing off mid-sentence. “Ten souls. Ten damned souls. This isn’t personal, is it?”

She’s had his number since day one, a dangerous thing to a demon like him. He turns away sharply. No, he wants to tell her, a double underline underneath the word, it’s never personal. Instead, he turns away from her, not quite ready to see the face she always makes when she thinks he can be redeemed, or when she think his compass’s grey is a lighter shade than a demon’s would be. Steve can’t have her sympathize for him. He darkly says, “Don’t make me out to be a better person, Peggy. I’m not either one of those.” Steve instantly teleports from her office to the front door of his manor. 

He presses the doorbell, finding the motion to be oddly unsettling when he hasn’t done it quite often before. After that, when no one immediately answers, he lets himself inside, double-checking that he won’t scare either Jade or Alfa by teleporting. They have enough as it is on their plate; learning the existence of the ADHI community would be frightening.

Sensing their presences in the living room, or the informal living room, he walks over there. Soon enough, he can hear their voices and the television currently playing. It’s not a coincidence that he can hear the all-too familiar broadcast of Garrett’s case playing as the two women are hushedly discussing it. 

“Hey,” he pleasantly smiles as he enters the room, his eyes doing a cursory sweep of the room. “I’m guessing you’ve heard the news?” Steve gestures over to the television with a flick of his wrist, though his eyes are still searching to see if anything has changed. 

“Was this you?” Alfa asks, her eyes narrowing at him like she’s suspicious. “Any of it?” 

He laughs softly, especially at Jade’s expression, which looks a lot like Peggy’s when she first heard about the news. “No, I wish, but I’m trying to find out exactly who is.” 

“Did you... suspect anything like this?” Jade’s voice is a little quieter, a little less brighter than Alfa’s and Steve can only imagine the pain she’s going through that several dozens of others have faced the same that she has. Jade’s probably known, realistically, that the numbers and the horrors would be high, but no one wants to believe. 

Steve isn’t going to waste the breath to lie. “Based on your experience alone, I could have guessed something like this,” he says, leaving out the fact he now believes the number is much, much higher than the numbers currently projected on the screen. At least splitting the difference between lying and telling the truth comes to a nicer balance like this. 

“But did you?” Jade presses on, a tinge of worry and desperation in her voice, almost like she needs to know his answer. 

“Yeah,” he says, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. At least like this, he cold hypothetically look straight and catch both the television and the two women in his peripheral vision. Hypothetically, because he would be an idiot to look straight and miss both of the important sights. “I did. That’s why the two of you are here. And possibly more witnesses and testifiers.” 

“More people?” Alfa asks, now regarding him with a curiousity Steve’s only ever seen in scientists. “Where are they coming from?”

Good question, he thinks, good fucking question. How am I supposed to explain how I found the two of you? Magic?

Steve shrugs casually, a smile on his face. “I don’t know, you’d have to ask Rita on that. I have no clue how this works.” 

Scene IV

present time

James Buchanan Barnes’s Apartment

“Think it’s a coincidence that all this information about Garett gets leaked five days after Rita Carter announces she is not actually prosecuting two lawsuits, but instead prosecuting for the United States against Garrett?” Bucky asks, slumping onto his sofa and watching the TV with a strange feeling settling inside him. 

Natasha—who’s a showoff of the epic sorts since no one needs to see her balance perfectly on Bucky’s uncomfortable rocking chair that never balances evenly for anyone else without giving the illusion that they might be falling ass backwards—frowns momentarily, but her eyes remain transfixed on the screen. Bucky can tell she’s cataloguing every piece of information the news is willing to slip. She’s also probably expanding on the shitshow that is Garrett Pharmaceuticals’s rap list in her brain. 

“How do you think they got Carter to worm her way into the federal system? She’s British,” Sam says, and he’s also frowning instead of answering Bucky’s question. Or maybe no one wants to admit that for some reason, it almost looks like Carter and Carlyle (by extension) are doing the world a public favor. 

“Carlyle,” Bucky answers, because there’s no question about that. Carlyle’s the kind of being that could sell a blind man a telescope to look at the stars above, the kind of demon to get someone to thank him for sucking their soul out. Bucky’s guessing that Carlyle batted a few eyelashes, pulled a few magic tricks, and got Carter right where she needed to be for this scheme. Which happened to be the center of the federal law system of the United States. 

Wait. 

“What if it’s all a cover?” Bucky asks, gesturing to the screen, suddenly sitting up and hyperfocusing on the news. “We’ve been so focused on Garrett and Carter, but what their plan has nothing to do with this court case? Carter has a shit ton of resources right now, and a lot of pull in the legal and federal world.” 

“She already did, though,” Sam refutes, shaking his head just as the news caster announces the details of another murder tied to Garrett. Apparently someone is releasing these details on a timer or something. It’s almost as if they’re making a game out of it, and if that doesn’t scream Carlyle, Bucky doesn’t know what does. 

But why the game? Why Garrett, why this particular hill to die on? Why play a game like this, and not save it all for the trial? 

“She got involved because of Carlyle,” Natasha says. “Most people didn’t even know Carter went to college before Carlyle popped up. I’m guessing one of two things happened. Either Carlyle’s come up before and suggested that Carter brushes up on law, or Carlyle used the fact Carter studied law to his advantage.” 

Bucky pales. “If it’s the first, we’re fucked. That’s years of planning right there, and we all know what a perfectionist Carlyle is. If it’s the second, then Carlyle’s probably still working out the kinks in his plan.“ 

“Add in the fact that the world has changed by seventy-five years, give or take,” Sam says, catching onto Bucky and Natasha’s  theory, “And things just got challenging for Carlyle.” 

“Here’s hoping?” Bucky asks, glancing over to Sam next to him and Natasha in the stupid rocking chair that might as well be hers by now. Chairs aren’t sentient, but if they were, then that chair would be a clingy cat that only likes Natasha and hisses at everyone else. 

“Did Garrett Pharmaceuticals exist when Carlyle was last up here?” Natasha suddenly asks, getting up out of the chair and grabbing the remote to switch the channel out of nowhere. She flips to another news station, and when Bucky stares at her, says, “The other one was more into sob-stories. I’m in no mood to cry.” 

Bucky snorts at that but dutifully looks up GP on his phone. “Apparently not,” he says, frowning at his phone and making sure he read that right. “They popped up after World War Two.” 

“Much after, or recently after?” Natasha asks, her eyebrow raised at whatever the reporter is saying now. Something about investigating the source of the leaks? Bucky wanted to wish whoever was on the mission for that; Carlyle was a bastard, but he was a clever bastard who could cover up his tracks well. And even if he couldn’t this century around, Carter was more than capable enough to do so. 

“Uh, recently after,” Bucky says, “But still at least a year after Carlyle disappeared.” 

“Either Carlyle picked Garrett randomly, or we have a bigger problem of Carlyle apparently popping up here way more than we can detect,” Sam says, summing up what neither Bucky nor Natasha have said out loud. “As much as I want it to be the first one, the chances of Carlyle somehow randomly picking out a bastard’s life to ruin doesn’t sit well with me. It feels... wrong. Especially since there’s no way Carlyle’s done all of this in the short timeframe he’s been up here, no mafter how fast he is. Information like this takes time and dirty work.” 

“Dirty work,” Natasha repeats. “What if someone else did the work?” 

“You think Carlyle trusts anyone else?” Bucky asks. 

“Last time he trusted Carter,” Natasha says. “And it’s not about trust, just about parceling out work in pieces. Compartmentalization. Nobody spills the secrets because nobody knows them all. Except Carlyle.” 

“So you’re thinking that Carlyle somehow found someone or a group of people already planning on taking Garrett down and thought that this would be the perfect cover story to infiltrate the American legal system?” Sam sums up. 

“Fuck.” Bucky thinks he said that too. 

Chapter Text

Scene I

seventy-four years earlier (1945)

classified

She knew he was there even before he had said anything, because she could feel the sudden air of darkness and a demon or presence. But, more worryingly, she heard his footsteps and his uneven breaths, as if something had shaken him throughly enough to throw his balance. For the first time, he sounded winded, like something knocked the breath out of him, good or bad. Combining this with the fact that no one had seen Carlyle in a week, and Peggy had reason to be worried. 

“Peggy,” he said, his voice holding a note of urgency and excitement in it. She looked up, and had even more reason to be worried. His eyes were glowing, but contrary to popular belief, they weren’t red or black. Steve’s eyes were pure golden light and they were radiating power that was at odds with the rest of his disheveled body. His clothes—dirty and in tatters from whatever he had been doing—were oddly reminiscent of Italian uniforms, though she couldn’t piece much out by how filthy they were. It was a rarity to see Steve like this, especially since no one could ever even catch him looking anything less than an immaculate gentlemen, even in the middle of wartime. So for him to look like this, even when he had his magic to easily change his clothes—the same magic, mind you, that enabled him to teleport to her—was unnerving.

“Mr. Carlyle,” she said, giving him a sharp look. Whatever was going on was still not an excuse to drop propriety when they weren’t in complete privacy. “What is the meaning of your appearance?” 

Steve shook his head, half in relief and exhaustion. “Peggy, Mussolini’s dead. I have to—I have to go. But. Mussolini’s dead, spread the word before the papers do, I just—Peggy,” he said, words incoherently pouring out of him like a radio stuck between channels and playing two alternatively. He sounded rather happy about it all, which was good. But why the urgency? Where did he have to go? 

“Mr. Carlyle,” she warned, but he shook his head. 

“No one’s listening. I swear, just. You’ve gotta quietly tell everyone before the papers do, at least here. Word’ll get out. Peggy, listen to me, this isn’t going to make any sense, but you have to stay out of the Manhattan Project. I know that, I know that Stark is talking to all these scientists and helping, but you’ve got to tell Stark that he’s gotta stay out of it. They need him more than they’ll ever admit but he’s gotta stay out. Both of you. Don’t get involved. Tell him to stay quiet about it. I gotta, I gotta go, but stay safe. I’ll be back,” he frantically said, his eyes still glowing. 

“Steve,” she said, trying to hide the questions running through her mind. “Who else?” 

Steve shook his head again, “I have to go, I’ll be back.” Peggy didn’t miss the quietly whispered, “I hope,” that punctuated his disappearance. But just like that, he was gone. 

She didn’t even have a second to feel his absence before Howard stormed in, looking absolutely exasperated. Peggy braces herself for whatever Howard was about to say, not that anything could possibly shake her now that Steve had come and left in a rather peculiar fashion. When this was all over, she was finding out what he had done. 

“That bastard!” he hissed, throwing his hands up in the air. “I don’t even know how he does it; his sneaky spy tricks. He’s built like the dreams of both American and Nazi propaganda, how the fuck is he stealthy? It’s maddening, that’s what it is!” 

“Howard,” she said very calmly, just like anyone with years of experience working with him would. “Is this about Carlyle?” 

“Richard,” Howard groused, “Is a pain in everybody’s asses, the bastard. He stole all my information and notes for an idea that doesn’t exist!” 

Peggy’s mind flashed a warning at her. Manhattan. An idea that probably does, but should not, exist. Manhattan. “Howard,” she repeated in a tone that would catch his attention and keep it focused what she was saying. “If this is about the Manhattan Project, you should drop it.” 

Howard’s eyes widened comically, and Peggy idly wondered if she had managed the near impossible; to shut Howard Stark up for once in his life. “Peggy,” he suspiciously said, “You’re not supposed to know about that. Hell, no one here is supposed to—” 

“I don’t,” she freely admitted, wondering why she had done so. “I don’t know what it is, but if you came to tell me that Carlyle somehow snuck onto and off base, I already know. He—he said two things. One, both of us stay out of the Manhattan Project, whatever it may be, whatever it, or they, might do with it or as it. Two, Mussolini has died. Don’t tell anyone this came from him, or me.” 

Howard gaped. “How does he know about the Manhattan Project? Nothing else was touched besides those and they were buried under stacks of other ideas and inventions. How?” He looked as though he was simultaneously cursing Steve and the project itself, which Peggy was starting to believe was a weapon of sorts if Howard was involved. And if it had been buried, then it was a top-secret, advanced sort of weapon that she believed would cause a lot of damage. Possibly as a last-measure to end the war considering where they were in it. But a last measure unnecessary, she hoped, not that hope was for people like her nowadays.

“Howard,” she repeated one last time. “Stay out of it. If you’ve already accepted to work on the project, tell them you won’t. Now, we can pretend this conversation never happened and talk about Mussolini.” 

His eyes focused on her, pulled out of his own head. “Mussolini. What about him?” 

Peggy sighed. “I need a smoke.” She stood up from her work of studying recent intelligence on where borders were shifting between France and Germany, knowing she’d get back to it when the excitement and tension that these two brought would leave her. “Or tea.” 

“Peggy,” he said, much more affectionately. She rolled her eyes. “Wait. Wait. Did you say he died?” 

Two days later, just when her stress and tension had died down from the panic and confirmation that indeed, Mussolini had died, Steve appeared again. He was still giving off just as much energy, his eyes were still glowing, and his clothes fared no better. The only difference was—

“You somehow look worse this time,” she dryly said, eyeing him with a frown. “Carlyle.” 

Steve weakly smiled, not taking offense to the remark though he would have. Even if it was to pretend, Steve would have made a big show of looking like a kicked puppy if she had said that at any other time. But not today. Not today. Instead, she was met with a, “Peggy,” that was no less desperate, no less exhilarated. 

“Am I to assume no one is listening?” she asked. 

“Peggy, he’s dead, Hitler’s dead. He just, he and Eva, the wife, married yesterday, both of them, cyanide, extra shot to the head, Hitler—they’re dead.” Steve sounded as though he had run all the way from Germany to tell her this and swum the extra distance. “I—I tipped off all the papers, they’ll confirm it soon, but, Peggy.” 

She felt her breath catch in her throat at the news. Even though she had a feeling that the story wasn’t as simple as Hitler and his apparent wife (who?) killing themselves, they were still dead. It almost stung, that they hadn’t faced justice and seen the true end of the war. She couldn’t manage words for a while, and in that time, Steve’s eyes had returned to their normal brilliant blue, and his clothes had restored themselves to their usual standard. He’s much more relaxed, much more grounded, and here in the when and where. Any remaining traces of the man stammering and gasping out information had vanished, leaving behind Steve, just as he is, with one jarring physical change. 

“Oh,” she said, quite lamely. “Really? That’s... that’s amazing.” 

Steve nodded, about to say something else, before realizing that he was in her tent that no one else could quite peek into because of whatever magic that Steve had surrounded them with. He grinned and said, “We should celebrate.” 

Peggy scoffed, might as well state the obvious NO that was repeating in a loop in her mind. “You’re wearing an SS uniform, and that was a miserable attempt.” 

He raised an eyebrow at her, and then nodded with a heavy sigh that suddenly transformed him into a tired shell of a being that no demon (least of all Steve) should ever be. “Yeah, I am, and yes, it was. I have to go, anyway, even if either of us had wanted to...” Steve weakly smiled and shrugged. Brilliant blue eyes had faded into clouded ones that were no less stunning but still weary. 

“Where in Germany?” Peggy asked. The damned SS uniform that Steve was apparently unwilling to explain for was still very off-putting, especially when Steve was in it. 

“Take care, Carter,” he said wearily, “I’ll be back.” 

Two days later, German news confirmed what she knew all along: Hitler had died by his own hand. Surpringly, she also learned that Goebbels had also died by his own hand. A day after, news spread that Generals Burgdorf and Krebs had killed themselves. The deaths kept on coming in, as Nazis were seemingly following Hitler to their literal deaths. 

But Steve came back just as promised after the Generals died. Neither of them bring up how Steve will eventually vanish near the 23rd, and come back with the news that Himmler had killed himself as well. 

Scene II

eighty years earlier (1939)

London

Twenty-one years later and the world had changed so much already. A world on the cusp of war again, but Steve could already tell that this war would be like no others. This war was going to be bloody, and personal to every other family who lived in a country directly involved. This war was going to be a dark, dark time in all of history and the survivors were going to be left with pieces of a world that wasn’t ever quite whole. Already there was a presence of evil and taint from a strong portion of Europe; strong enough that Steve had been sent Earthwards to deliver back poor, unfortunate souls (not that the movie would come out for another fifty years).

Steve had the timeframe of this entire war (start to finish, whenever that may be) to stay on Earth, to stay up here and do whatever he wanted as long as he accomplished his goals. Which, there were a lot of them, but he didn’t particularly care. Steve had all the time in the world, running to his own pace. But, he digressed. 

Steve wasn’t Steve right now, he was Richard Carlyle, up-and-coming businessman who was making a lot more money to not be noticed by everyone. And, to top it all off, he was a financer, a bank broker, a stock market type of gentleman who played all his cards right and now had nothing to do but profit. As far as personalities went, Steve felt that the Devil was playing a long, elaborate joke on him. Finances. Apparently he was also now British. 

As any self-respecting British man, he had a permanent residence in proper London, and then a separate manor in the States (because of course). Currently he was in London, strolling the streets and reacquainting himself with the world, picking up dialectical changes and lifestyle changes. Steve knew he had missed the entirety of Great Depression, of which everyone was only now barely starting to recover from. Truthfully, he had influence and input on how to steer it, but he hadn’t exactly been up to see it personally. But he could see the shadows of it now, everywhere that he looked. 

Steve was in the middle of nitpicking a rather wealthy man’s appearance when he felt the presence of two immortals, both of whom had commanding presences for completely different reasons. One, he could tell, was an older immortal with an established command, but the other was an immortal in shift, settling into an immortal life and body. Young, and therefore easy to convince into helping him. Especially if they were eager to join the war effort, especially if they were just as he was when...

Well. He wasn’t about to think about that now. He dismissed the thought from his head and focused on following the immortals’ auras to reach them. As he walked further and further, one thing was for sure. The young immortal would be powerful and strong, and they already had a presence that’s builds the closer he steps. He was fairly sure that though they are in mid-shift, they could have probably sensed him had he not shut his magic off. And anyways, the older, more experienced one could have, so it wasn’t as if he could take any chances. Right now, even to anyone with the Sight, he was a harmless human. Nothing to feel here. Goodbye. 

Soon enough, after he’s far off the beaten path, he reached a medium-sized library/bookstore that had a decent number of people in it. He walked in barely noticed, and immediately spotted the two immortals. He vaguely recognized one of them, which meant he had to subtly focus his attention on the other, the female brunette. 

“Right,” she was saying, “Auras. Presences. They indicate the strength and character of a being in the ADHI realm. Those who can perceive the differences have the Sight, and I’m guessing that those who cannot are Sightless.” She waited for confirmation. 

“Humans are always Sightless,” the other immortal whose name was on the tip of Steve’s memory added, “Angels and demons always have the Sight. Immortals can fall on either end of the spectrum. As for half-angels and quarter-angels, most typically don’t have it. For a quarter angel to have the Sight, their angel grandparent must be a very powerful one.” 

The younger one frowned, a contemplative expression combing across her face. “And the Sight is only to distinguish auras? Nothing else?” 

“It varies on the immortal. Do you feel anything else with your Sight?” 

The brunette didn’t respond for a while. “I’m not quite certain that I can feel anything. I should, at the very least be able to sense you if I have understood correctly and I... cannot. There doesn’t seem to be any change in my surroundings.” 

The elder immortal seemed shocked, because such a powerful immortal being unable to have the Sight was impossible to believe. Somehow, the immortal believed it, though, while Steve did not. There wasn’t a chance that she could be Sightless. He decided to keep listening in. 

“Something must be changed,” the other one said, “Are you sure?” 

“My eyes are sharper, my hearing is clearer, and my nose can smell stronger. Otherwise, no,” she said, lying through her teeth. Now Steve was certain that she wasn’t telling the truth, because everything she had been saying indicated stronger senses. She must have been able to feel presences, but she was lying to this immortal who had been nothing but friendly to her. Why was she lying to the immortal community that had helped her? 

They didn’t look convinced at her words, as they rightfully shouldn’t have. “Are those the only changes?” 

She paused, closing her eyes for a brief moment. “No,” she said, “There’s a pulsing sensation in my mind.”

Steve blinked. That pulsing sensation was the weakest form of the Sight, where individuals only gained headaches whenever they were around angels, demons, or other immortals. There wasn’t a possible way that she could have known that, unless it was true, or she somehow knew the trick beforehand. 

At any rate, the elder immortal seemed to believe this, though they still had a frown on their face. “Oh. That is due to your shifting. For now, do you have any questions?” 

“Just a request,” she said, pleasant smiling. “I would like to end any further conversations about my status as belonging to your community. At least for now. Admittedly, this has been quite enlightening but also too much to handle when I have no frame of reference for life itself.” 

“Miss Carter,” the other immortal declared. So that was her surname, Steve thought. “This may be a lot, but there is still more to—” 

“I truly am sorry,” she said. “But I would like to live at least one lifetime without this complicating matters. Please.” She got up and left, confidently walking out of the bookstore without a thought to spare. Steve was rethinking everything he thought her, as a new immortal. This Carter lady was shaping up to be truly impressive. 

Scene III

seventy-seven years earlier (1942)

classified

“I’ll do it,” Steve volunteered, listening in as soon as Italy was involved. All heads swiveled to him like he suddenly sprouted another head and declared his allegiance to Hitler. He shrugged matter-of-factory when he was met with several incredulous stares and said, “Why not? Physically, I’m Hitler’s ideal, am I not? That would make me perfect, if I went to Italy disguised as an SS officer of some sorts.” 

“You and a hundred thousand men in this army fit Hitler’s perfect model,” Colonel Phillips grunted, “What makes you capable when you’re running all the cushy, bureaucratic nonsense for this division?” 

Steve smirked and pulled out a few pieces of identification papers that hadn’t existed until the very moment when Phillips announced the need for someone to infiltrate a base in Italy. “But you can’t deny that I’m stealthier than what any of you could aspire to be. You can’t deny that I’m damn good at collecting intelligence and information. And for the record, since when have I failed to do anything I’ve been asked of?” He tossed them into the table carefully enough that they were still together and lined up neatly. 

Phillips took the topmost paper off the table, and it was actually a birth certificate that Steve wished into accurate existence. He waited for Phillips, and the remaining people at the ‘table’ to view the papers. Peggy examined the papers second, after Phillips, and then passed them to what Steve knew to be the human special operations squadron: the Howling Commandos. He also knew that there was an immortal sniper that joined them time to time, but seeing how Steve hadn’t met the angel/immortal special operations squadron SOS of whom the sniper was truly a part of, he hadn’t met the sniper even during his time with the Howlies. 

It was ironic, planing operations and playing tactician for a team that he hadn’t ever met and had no plans to meet, but whatever worked, he supposed. It was also slightly ironic that they had no idea that it was him in charge of the skeletons of their missions, and that’s was how he was keeping it. 

“Where did you get these?” Jones asked, eyebrows raised at the papers. He sounded impressed, and Steve tried not to preen. 

Steve shrugged, and instantly thought of a way to spin the narrative. “Cushy bureaucratic nonsense. Better question is how I knew about the plan before Colonel Phillips announced it.” He didn’t, but no one needed to know that; it would lead to further questions of he had papers on such short notice as opposed to where he got them from. 

“Damned son of a bitch,” Phillips muttered. “You’re worse than Stark most days.” 

“At least I don’t flirt with anyone with two legs,” Steve responded, but he’ll take it as a compliment that he’s more insufferable. 

Dugan grinned. “That’s right, at least he won’t chat up a table lamp or a chair with legs.” 

Steve glared at Dugan, though there was no heat behind it and the bastard knew it. Looking elsewhere, he neutrally commented, “If Dugan dies mysteriously anytime soon, just remember that I will be in Italy and therefore innocent of any and all crimes which may be foisted onto my name.” 

Colonel Phillips sighed and pinched his temples. “Everyone is dismissed, Carlyle, collect your damn papers and get out of here. You’ll be leaving soon.” 

Steve grinned. “Of course.” He walked out of the tent last, having needed to manually collect the papers that were strewed. But when he did leave, Peggy was waiting for him, an expectant expression leaving no leeway for him to wiggle out of. Not that he still wouldn’t try. 

“Why a sanctioned operation in Italy now?” she simply asked, not beating around the bush about it. 

“Italy’s a liability to Germany, not good for anything but hindering them and derailing them. Hitler’s planning on launching Operation Blue, to invade Russia again. If Italy fucks this up, if Mussolini messes the operation up, then chances are that Hitler’s going to either conquer Italy and suddenly make a lot of enemies we can turn, or, he’ll drop Italy and hopefully I can work the minds of some of the people at the top to come join the Allied. If Hitler’s grasp weakens, then I can try and use my own,” Steve said. Most of this Peggy knew, or could at the very least piece together by herself, but she frowned near the end. 

“Why do you need Hitler’s influence to be less? It’s not as if he has magic,” she said. 

Steve looked away momentarily, not wanting to admit weakness but knowing that he might owe her this if he really did want to continue vaguely holding onto this allies concept with Peggy. “Well,” he responded, “Even I don’t have the kind of power to completely sway an entire country over to a side that it completely against their own beliefs if they didn’t have beginning roots of doubt or sympathy. One person, one town, maybe even one million people, fine. Forty three million people? Just a little out of my realm.” 

“Why ask Colonel Phillips about it?” she asked. “Why do it like this?” 

“I live to confuse everyone. Including myself,” Steve said with a grin, as they went inside Peggy’s tent. “Also because I need an excuse to be out of... town for a few days.” 

“This wouldn’t have to do with a certain distress signal, would it?” Of course she had caught on. He hasn’t expected any less, but maybe he had hoped. Hope was for fools. 

“Absolutely not,” he said, raising his voice higher to be flightier and silly, the exact opposite to deepened stoicism, “What kind of person do you take me for? Oh, Miss Margaret Carter, why would would question my honor in that manner?”  

“The kind who is not a person,” she flatly responded. “Saying nonsensical things while in hysterics.” 

“Impugning my good name,” Steve continued, “Nothing but the sweet release of death could save it!” 

“You really are not helping your case; not in the slightest,” Peggy said. “If you start repeating lines from literature, I’m afraid I will start throwing heavy objects at you or resort to shooting you.” 

“At least I shall be granted a merciful ending,” he quoted from something that he couldn’t remember because he didn’t care enough. Also because it could have been a line from quite literally anywhere. “Kind and graceful.” 

“Phillips really was right,” Peggy says, apropos of nothing. “You really can be insufferable when you try.” 

“Thank you,” Steve sniffed haughtily, committed to the act just to make her smile like a war wasn’t going on.

Scene IV

seventy-six years earlier (1943)

classified

“Project Rebirth,” Steve said, popping into Peggy’s working area at the SSR base in London. “Explain.” 

“There is nothing to explain,” she responded just as curtly, turning away from him by adjusting her chair around, which proved futile because teleported right in front of her again. “What do you want?” 

“Project Rebirth. What is it, why is there nothing on it, why am I involved in it?” he asks, firing off the questions that had seized his mind from the beginning. “Peggy, come on, Peggy, Peggy. It involves me. Why?” 

She looked up from her intelligence work at him with a sharp glare. “Everything involves you nowadays,” she coldly said, snapping her gaze down to her work not a second later than when her last word had been said. It wasn’t for show either; Peggy could ignore people and reduce them down to nothing without having to fake it. Dismissal from her was good as dismissal from God or the Devil themselves. 

“Peggy,” he repeated. “There’s four names on that file and two of them belong to us. One belongs to Colonel Phillips and the other Stark. Something about a super-soldier serum that doesn’t exist. Discovered by apparently no one. What is Project Rebirth?” 

She inhaled sharply; the only sign that she had even been listening to him. “Why don’t you read my mind and find out?” she snapped, not looking up at him again. “Or Howard’s. Or Colonel Phillips’s. Do whatever the bloody hell you want to find out.” 

Steve deserved that harsh of a response. “Peggy,” he tried again. “I’ll leave you alone. After.” 

To anyone else, it would again, seem like she hadn’t heard. But after a minute—Steve counts it out second by second—she set her pen down and coolly stared at him, rising from her chair briskly. She stepped around him and wordlessly marched out, fully expecting him to follow. So he did.

He followed her down corridors and hallways and even a corridor that she opened a door for, and then down a flight of stairs. Steve tracked every change, twist, and turn so that he wouldn’t have to resort to following her on the way out of wherever she was taking him. 

Finally, they reached a final door, and she took him in, closing it behind them. They were at the top of an open metal staircase that oversaw the view of the entire mechanical lab/workshop/contraption area. It was enormous. Engineers and scientists bustled all about, checking power levels and vials of what seemed to be a blue liquid and... penicillin? At the center of it all was Howard Stark, the man of the hour that had tipped Steve off to the existence of this Project Rebirth in the first place. He was inspecting what seemed to be called a Vita-Ray Chamber. 

“Welcome,” she said flatly, “To Project Rebirth.” 

“They’re planning to give someone a serum to turn them into a super-soldier? Someone who needs the rays to enlarge their body for the serum to define it and turn it into whatever super-soldiers looks like?” Steve asked, his questions more rhetoric than anything. She didn’t say anything, which Steve took as both a confirmation that he was right and an invitation to keep talking and asking. “What do I do with this?”

”Well,” Peggy said, “When the Project works, you’re in charge of formally and informally training the serum recipients of how to use their bodies in espionage and war.” 

Steve narrowed his eyes, replaying what she said in his mind and... oh. The serum must put humans on a level of inhumanly strength and abilities. Close, he thought, to him as humans could ever get. “I know you know why I’m good for this, but what about everyone else?” 

“Everyone else on this base knows your uncanny ability of stealth and intelligence given your musculature,” Peggy deadpanned. “Perhaps everyone thought to assign you this to be rid of you in their way. Speaking of being rid of you, are you satisfied or shall I pull Howard’s attention from the Vita-Rays?” 

Steve glanced at Howard, and immediately thought of the last time he had attempted to talk to Howard when the man was in the middle of inventing or building something. The next thing Steve knew, he had been pulled in with doing grunt work. 

“No,” he said, “I’m good. But shouldn’t I have known about this earlier?” 

Peggy glared again at him. “You’re a nosy son of a bastard,” she said. “If you hadn’t shown up here tomorrow to watch the transformation happen, Colonel Phillips and Howard decided to dump them on you in surprise after.” 

“O-kay,” Steve said, drawing the word out. But it was interesting, that the first transformation was happening tomorrow. He definitely wanted to watch the process of people trying to cheat humanity. 

And he was. The first person was a man named Isaiah Bradley, a man with darkened skin that immediately clued Steve on why he had been selected. Leave it the American government to test highly dangerous and unverifiable experiments on black people before they let the successes go to the white people. Of course. That wasn’t surprising at all.

But he kept his mouth shut and watched as Bradley stripped his shirt off and climbed into the chamber which looked too much like a coffin for Steve to be comfortable with the imagery. A round of penicillin was injected into Bradley’s skin. The doctor leading the experiment—who was real, and apparently rescued from the inner lines of a German prison camp, which explained the lack of paper details on him—confirmed that Bradley was okay with the man himself, who nodded. 

Steve watched, transfixed, as the serum was pumped into Bradley’s body and the chamber closed in around the other man. Howard was counting off power percentage numbers, and when the numbers hit thirty to forty percent, Steve knew something was wrong. Yes, Bradley was screaming in pain as expected, but something was wrong. Something was definitely wrong. 

That sounded exactly like the scream of hellfire. Liquid hellfire, pulsing and burning through sinners’ bodies over and over again until bodies broke and reformed only to be subjected to hellfire again. Steve knew what that felt like. He was determined not to let another innocent being suffer through the same fate. He was going to do something about it, especially when he could now take the pain better than any human. 

From where he was sitting in the backmost row of the viewing area, Steve looked around to see if anyone would notice him. They wouldn’t. So Steve took a deep breath and projected himself from his body to Bradley’s. Instantly, his mind flashed back to hellfire again and the feeling of being burned alive from within. Bradley's body was ripping into itself and expanding, as serum pulsed in and out, trying to restore the rips in skin before they ripped because of the Vita-Rays again. 

No living human was supposed to go through pain like this and still remain alive, science or not, serum or not. Steve focused on creating a barrier between pain, pain receptors, and the serum itself. He used his magic to slowly weave endurance and strength and the serum into the fabric of Bradley’s cells themselves. He sped up the process, trying to cushion Bradley’s body from as much of the pain as possible and push it into his own mind, his own tolerance. Thankfully Bradley’s consciousness was suppressed, so the unlucky man would wake up when this was all over and not have to remember it, or have his body remember it. 

Steve also realized that this serum wasn’t going to work the way it was intended to soon enough, when Howard had said he was going to shut it off once the government officials had finally let him state that (too late, too late now that Steve was running the show, where was this response when Bradley was screaming his head off, huh?). Using Bradley’s voice, he had shouted something about how he could take this. Hopefully Howard would keep everything on now, or else Steve was going to amp up his magic to help Bradley out. 

He finished infusing the serum with Bradley’s cells, finished letting the Vita-Rays expand Bradley's body, and then hoped that he hadn’t messed it up. As a finishing gesture, to keep the serum from expelling itself out of Bradley’s body now or in the future, he left a little of his energy in Bradley’s cells, ensuring that the serum now would work like it was intended to. Best of all, it would be untraceable to any other scientists who wanted to analyze Bradley’s new cells. Wnen Steve was done, and the chamber started to click open, he released the suppression on Bradley’s mind and then projected himself back into his own body. 

It was a disorienting experience, viewing Bradley step out of the chamber from his seat all the way up in the viewing station with all these senators when he had been there. The lack of hellfire and Vita-Rays took a second to adjust to. A second that Steve shouldn’t have taken, because someone pulled a gun on the project’s doctor—Erskine—and killed him. Before Steve could begin to even plausibly formulate an excuse for leaving and chasing after the shooter, Bradley began to run after them. 

Peggy ran too, and the remaining people in the room all raced about and tried to save Erskine, while Howard was rushing outside as well. In the midst of all the panic, Steve merely teleported down to the transformation area and stole the remaining vial of serum. He made sure that no one or nothing could catch him, and instead made it seem like the vial had never existed in the first place. 

This serum couldn’t be replicated. No one could be trusted with it, certainly not the American government.