Chapter Text
Angie was walking backwards, telling Peggy about her latest, ridiculously terrible, blind date, when she bumped into a side table in the front hall of the Stark house. Really, Howard Stark had so many piles of money he didn't know what to do with, he wasted it on completely pointless furniture. This particular table was always empty.
Except, apparently, for today. A metal sphere with bits sticking out of it started to roll off the edge. She and Peggy both reached to catch it, bumped heads, exclaimed rather loudly, then reached to catch it again at the same time, and –
nothing.
*
Angie woke up somewhere else, obviously, the quality of the light was different, clinical and ugly. She blinked twice before she realized there was a man standing over her – she was apparently lying down – and she startled badly and tried to sit up. The man put a hand on her shoulder and she batted it away hard as she realized he was trying to talk to her. “Ma'am, please, lie down, ma'am, we don't know if you have a head injury.”
“I should hope I'm not old enough to be a ma'am yet, thank you, it's miss. And will be for a good few years yet I imagine,” she snapped. This all felt deeply strange and uncomfortable. “English? Peg? You here?”
There was a groan to her left, and she turned her head. Peggy was lying in a hospital bed – belatedly, Angie realized she was as well – and had a hand to her forehead, just where they had bumped heads earlier. She seemed to be swearing quietly to herself, Angie couldn't blame her. Otherwise she looked fine, still dressed as she had been, and Angie did a quick mental inventory of what she could feel and see of her own. She didn't think anyone had messed with her short sleeved dress and cardigan, but she gave the man who was still trying to touch her left shoulder, the look her grandmother said could boil water anyway.
“Didn't your mother ever teach you not to touch a lady's soulmark, fella? Get your hands off me.” He startled at that and dropped his hands to fold them behind his back. He was wearing glasses, and his tousled salt-and-pepper hair gave him a distracted air.
“Miss, you and your friend appeared half an hour ago in the building's lobby, and when I say appeared, I mean out of thin air. I'm just trying to see if you're all right and ascertain who you are. I am Dr. Banner. Between the retro look and the accent, I'm guessing you're from Brooklyn?”
Retro? What? “Haven't lived in Brooklyn for a few years now, usually I'm better at smoothing away the accent.” And as she spoke, she could hear it dial down again, now that she was getting her bearings. “You say we appeared in the lobby? Where are we?”
“Stark Tower.” Dr. Banner thought for a moment, and added, “Manhattan.”
Angie blinked at him. Stark Tower? What Tower?
At this point Peggy sat up, and this so distracted Dr. Banner Angie was able to as well. Peggy finally left off the cursing and joined in the conversation. “What do you mean Stark Tower, Dr. Banner? We were just at Howard Stark's home, but he doesn't have a tower.”
Dr. Banner clearly mouthed to himself, Howard? Then he blinked once, before saying, “That's a British accent. Those outfits. Your friend called you Peg. I'm sorry, miss, could you tell me your full name please?”
“Agent Margaret Carter of the SSR. Peggy to my friends. You may call me Agent Carter.” And yes, Peggy had her back up now.
Dr. Banner's mouth hung open slightly for a few moments. “Well, Agent Carter, I have good news for you, a friend of yours is here and should be able to explain things to you with the help of a friend of mine. Let me call them and they'll be here in a few moments.” Peggy nodded and Dr. Banner opened his mouth to speak again, before thinking better of it and turning to a phone on the wall, speaking into it very quietly.
It was clearly a telephone, but it didn't look much like one that Angie had ever seen. And now that she took a moment to look around, this was a very strange room indeed. The lighting was cold and terrible, there were instruments and devices all around she didn't recognize, not even the materials they were made from.
“What on earth?” Angie mouthed silently to Peggy as Dr. Banner was still turned away. Peggy shrugged, but was clearly at swim as much as Angie was.
Dr. Banner kept speaking into the telephone for what seemed like quite a long time, but was probably only a couple minutes. He stopped when a very tall, spectacularly good-looking blond man burst into the room at full speed, followed immediately by a slightly shorter man with long brown hair, hand in pocket.
Peggy stared at the blond and Angie was momentarily distracted by that, because she'd never seen her caught that flat footed before. It would have been funny, at least until Peggy shouted, “Steve!” and jumped into the blond man's arms.
And Angie realized, this was Captain America. Peggy's soulmate.
The first real, true, unnecessary thing Peggy had ever told Angie about herself was that her soulmate had died in the war, his body never found. Women tended to open up to one another about things like that – they certainly couldn't discuss it with men, the taboo was too strong still, even in modern times. Of course, Angie hadn't learned the soulmate in question was Captain America until much later.
Which meant the brunet man would be – Angie turned to stare at him, in shock. “Oh, shit. You're James Barnes.” He gave her a quizzical look.
On second thought, that was not actually what she'd wanted her first words to him to be, after their separation of almost ten years.
*
A lovely woman with the improbable name of Pepper Potts, and a Tony Stark who claimed to be Howard's son – and to look at him, Angie believed it was possible – arrived somewhere in the middle of Steve and Dr. Banner's – Bruce's – joint attempted explanation of when they were, frequently interrupted by Peggy's attempted explanation of what had happened to her and Angie.
When. Not so much where, but when. 2014. Angie started to wonder where she could find a drink in this place. Finally she spoke up. “But how did we get here? What caused it? Was it that metal thing?” She looked at Peggy, but it was Tony who spoke.
“Well, that sounds like my Pop. I know he spent some time just after the war looking into soulmarks and soulmates. He didn't talk about it much because he never had a soulmark himself, but he was fascinated by them. I know he mentioned once he'd tried to work out a device that could reunite separated soulmates, but that there was an accident that, um, killed two friends of his, and he destroyed it and all his notes.” Tony looked guilty. “He was usually careful enough not to leave things like that on hall tables.”
There's a couple beats of silence, until Bruce asked, “All right, that explains Peggy, she's reunited with Steve, but why did it bring, um, Angie, with her? Was it because she touched the device too?”
Angie swallowed. She'd really hoped not to have an audience for this. First time in her life, probably. “I'm afraid I can explain that.” All eyes turned to her. “My full name is Angela Martinelli, and my soulmate is James Barnes.”
This time, only one beat of silence, before Steve shouted, “What!?” and general pandemonium followed. It took Pepper a good four minutes to restore order and ask Angie to tell the story.
*
Angie Martinelli was in a strange mood as her Latin class began on the first day of 9th grade. For one thing, Father O'Donnell was notoriously irritable. For another, she was not exactly delighted to be sitting behind Angela Marcus in yet another class. The process of one or the other of them being called on always turned into a farce, and Angela's resemblance to a very young Veronica Lake had gotten her the role of Lady Macbeth in the school play the year before, despite her complete lack of acting talent or skill. But thanks to the alphabet, they kept getting thrown together, despite the fact that they were on opposite ends of the popularity spectrum. Angela's family had plenty of money and respectability, Angie's had little to none of either. But Angie appreciated the chance to keep an eye on Angela anyway, it wasn't that often two people had absolutely identical soulmarks. It had to mean something.
Looking around the room so she wouldn't have to make conversation with Angela, Angie rubbed her left shoulder gently. Her grandfather had always said she was one of the lucky ones – her soulmark meant she had a pretty good idea of when she would meet her soulmate. “salve mihi nomen iacobi est” was fairly obvious, and if she didn't meet him today she had three more chances until she finished high school. Jacob Vecchi had been in her class last year, and he'd said the same phrase, but the full-body tingle that was the tell-tale sign of meeting your soulmate had been missing. Maybe this year she'd have another chance – Jacobus was also the Latin version of James. Angie listened carefully as Father O'Donnell took attendance.
There were two James' in the class – and Jacob Vecchi, but she wasn't paying attention to him. James Barnes and James Beattie sat one in front of the other on the other side of the room, Angie hadn't met either of them before. They must have gone to St. Francis, while she and Angela had been at St. Gregory's. She couldn't see Barnes' face from where she sat, but she liked the line of his shoulders, and he looked fairly tall. Beattie shared a smile with the boy sitting on his right, and it was a nice smile, very friendly and kind, but he wasn't particularly good looking and was rather shabbily dressed – though likely he'd grow out of being spotty.
Father O'Donnell – she should start thinking of him as Dominus O'Donnell now before she misspoke – stood them all up and got the usual introduction line going. They stood in alphabetical order, and Gabrielle Abate turned and introduced herself to Francis Abruzzino, and the line folded in on itself so everyone could meet. It was standard for the first day of school, and got some soulmarks out of the way.
Eventually James Barnes reached Angela Marcus, and Angie kept a very close watch on them out of the corner of her eye – she knew full well that Angela had been doing exactly the same soulmark-math in her head that Angie had.
James Barnes was – well, he was certainly very good looking. Perfectly dressed, if not expensively so. Tall, with a movie-star smile and blue eyes that would burn through the cellulose of a filmstrip. One lock of his hair just threatened to fall into his eyes, and she had a feeling it was always just threatening and never fell. She had the impulse to push it back out of his face anyway, he had such magnetism.
She saw Angela introduce herself, and glance to the left at James Beattie, and James Barnes was clearly taken in by her beauty. And Angie saw Angela make the decision. And damn, there was nothing she could do about it.
“Oh my goodness, you're my soulmate!” Angela exclaimed to James Barnes, looking up at him through her lashes. And that was it, he'd be feeling the tingle Angela wanted him to, looking into her eyes, no matter the reason. Dominus O'Donnell called out for the line to move on, soulmates could chat later, and Angie got a nasty feeling in her stomach just before James Barnes took a step towards her.
He introduced himself, barely glancing at Angie, staring back at Angela instead. And while both he and Angie felt that tell-tale tingle as Angie repeated her half of the introductions, he must have chalked it up to a continuation from his meeting Angela. Angie watched as James Beattie met Angela for the first time, saw his eyes go wide at the tingle – but Angela's didn't, she knew perfectly well what was going on. If either James Beattie or Angie said anything, she and Barnes, both obviously the same kind of popular, would simply claim they must be imagining it, and they'd get laughed at for the rest of their years in school. Confused, James Beattie looked around, his eyes caught Angie's, and he came to the same realization Angie had.
Angie and James Beattie both looked at the ground as they met. There was no tell-tale tingle for them. Angela Marcus, in a moment of selfishness, ruined the chances of two sets of soulmates.
Two weeks later Angela Marcus's father got a job in Albany and they moved away, with no forwarding address. But it was too late, the damage was done. Angie Martinelli avoided James Barnes as much as she could for the rest of high school.
*
As Angie finished her story, Bucky tilted his head a bit, trying to remember. The others in the room remained silent for a few beats. It fell to Steve to ask the obvious question.
“But Angie, why didn't you ever tell Bucky? Not right away, all right, I understand that, but – ever?”
Angie swallowed. “It was the spring of that year that my father joined the Temptation League.” Steve, Peggy, and Bucky all pulled faces, and Pepper and Bruce nodded.
Tony was still lost. “What the hell is a Temptation League?”
“It was a group founded in the late twenties that claimed soulmates were sent to tempt people to evil. The group had religious origins to start with but left them behind quickly,” Pepper explained. “Eventually they became a hate group, and public backlash was rather harsh. They disbanded a few years after World War II ended.”
Now Tony just looked irritated. “Who the hell would think that?” He saw Steve glare at him, and added, “Language, yes, sorry.”
Angie spoke quietly. “My parents were soulmates, and blissfully happy by all accounts. I was their first child – and my mother died giving birth to me. My father's grief, it twisted him over the years. Eventually he came to see her death as a punishment for having given in to the temptation of his soulmate.”
She looked up at James. “If he'd known, he never would have allowed me to speak to you again. He never actually asked me if I'd found my soulmate – I was going to wait until I could move out, after graduation, and then try to find you and tell you. But it took me too long to save up to move out, and by the time I could, the war had started, and I'd heard you enlisted and were gone. And then,” Angie swallowed again and looked down, “I heard you had died. And my soulmark faded. And that was that.”
Finally, James spoke up for the first time, haltingly. “May I? See?”
Angie nodded, and Pepper and Steve tugged Bruce and Tony away. In 2014, the idea of men seeing the soulmarks of women other than their own soulmates, without specific invitation or a medical reason, was acceptable enough, but in 1946, the rules Angie would still be working by, it was an incredible invasion of privacy. Angie turned so her left shoulder was facing away from the knot of people near the room's door, and James came around to her other side as she shrugged off one shoulder of her cardigan, and lifted the short sleeve of her dress.
It was only thanks to years of acting practice that she didn't blush as James Barnes, still a very handsome man even with the frankly bizarre hair, bent to look at her soulmark. He reached up to touch it with his right hand, left still in his pocket, but stopped himself at the last moment.
“That's my writing.” He stopped, and stood up again, looking first to Steve and then back to Angie, and into her eyes, possibly for the first time in their lives. “You're my soulmate.”