Point of View

by: Shadow Chaser

Epilogue

"-cember 12th, 1991-"

Howard blinked and looked around the dusty warehouse with its creaking chains and gloomy atmosphere. Had they just- Were they not just- He could have sworn he saw something so futuristic, so gleaming white, clean, and utterly hopeful just a second ago...

The sudden tinkling sound of something metal scuffling on the floor made him look down to see a gleaming wrench lying next to the object that he had found in Rio. He picked it up, turning it over in his hands, feeling an odd warmth of affection rush over him. This...wrench was important, he knew that, but for the life of him, he could not understand why.

Still, he pocketed the wrench. At the same time he felt a slip of paper in his pants. He had not put anything in that pocket before...had he? Howard pulled out the piece of paper and unfolded it, staring at a series of numbers and the words 'There But For the Grace of God, Go I.' "John...Bronson...?" he murmured mostly to himself, staring at the numbers before another slip of paper fell out behind it and he bent over to pick that one up.

This one looked almost exactly like the paper he had just read, but it was encrypted. He turned the paper carefully around, the sense of deja vu and oddness that he had seen it before washing over him. He knew this...encrypted with one of the Commandos' personal encryption codes. He knew it, but somehow could not recall... Howard glanced back at the object, noting the blue glow that surrounded it dimming. There was something about the blue glow he knew was inherently dangerous, that it was not to be touched. That nothing on this thing should be touched except to be handled extremely carefully because bad things would appear...

"Well?" Peggy's sharp tone startled him out of his thoughts as he looked at her and frowned, his brow crinkling in confusion.

"Well, what?"

"How are you going to have me explain this to Dooley-," Peggy gestured to the object and Howard suddenly saw her frown, "huh...somehow the words entropic cascade failure just appeared in my head."

"Entropic...cascade...failure?" those words sounded familiar to Howard, "usually involving potential wormhole theories published by Schwarzchild and also involving the Einstein-Rosen bridge theory. It includes white and black holes, but that usually deals with alternative realities that diverge at a certain point, but since the points of time and space are so convoluted to which there is chaos in each of our actions-"

"Howard," Peggy held up a hand shutting him up as she shook her head.

Howard bit his lip before looking at Peggy who somehow, looked pale and dizzied, as if she had recently suffered something. But...that was not right, was it? Surely she was not that seasick from quick jaunt from the Port Jeff Ferry to Bridgeport and from there the train ride in to New York?

"I...don't think I want to give this to Dooley..." he started hesitantly and saw a flash of irritation pass across her face before it morphed into another frown, this one deeper than the last.

"I don't know why, but part of me really agrees with what you just said," Peggy shook her head, "but I also don't think you should keep it either."

"Yeah..." he agreed, staring at the object whose blue glow was fading, "I...don't like it. I feel like it should be put back where I found it and buried under a ton of rocks. I...don't think I want to see it in my lifetime..."

"September 17th, 2014..." Peggy suddenly murmured as she pressed a hand to her forehead and stumbled a little. Jarvis surged forward, but she waved him away as she straightened, "2014...a whole new century...why...why did I say that?"

Howard could only shake his head. He did not know why she had said that nor why he thought he had heard a vaguely familiar voice tell him what was probably December 12th, 1991. It was at least several decades away and it was only 1946. What would happen on December 12th, 1991?

"I'm going to put it back where I found it..." he belatedly shoved the papers he had back in his pocket before giving Peggy a faint smile. "Customs forms," he lied and saw her arch an eyebrow, but did not press the issue. "Sorry for making you come all this way..."

"It won't be a repeat of the Blitzkrieg Button, that's for sure," she said testily and Howard winced. It had been a couple of weeks since he had last seen her and she had not forgiven him yet for that. "Dooley says that the machine we found in Brandt's rooms activated, so he's got his cryptographers looking at it."

"Be careful," Howard cautioned and Peggy only sniffed in an very unladylike manner, "What? You've been a good friend to me, even though I probably don't deserve it. I just...just...be careful okay Peg?"

She only stared at him for a long moment before she shook her head, "If that'll be all, I have to be getting back. If we do have a lead on Leviathan-"

"Yeah..." Howard glanced at Jarvis who nodded once before the two of them left, Jarvis driving her back to the Griffith Hotel. He glanced back at the object and felt another wave of nostalgia engulf him. Somehow...he knew he should have remembered something regarding this, but also somehow knew that he would never see this object again once he returned it to where he had found it. It was not cursed, he was sure of that, but he could not help but feel like it had allowed him to come to terms with something. What that 'some thing' was, he could not recall.

And that saddened him.

May 8th, 1946

Freedom and the free air had never tasted so sweet as he breathed in the scent of New York's night sky. It felt like a heavy burden had been lifted from him as he ambled down the sidewalks, deftly avoiding the dispersing crowds who had gathered in Times Square to celebrate the first anniversary of V-E Day. The only regret he had was that Steve wasn't here; that Steve did not survive to see the end of the war and it had haunted him just hours earlier. Fenhoff had pulled the painful memories, the longing and love he had felt for Steve too close to the surface that he had instantly retreated behind the facade he always wore whenever someone got too close to the truth.

It was also why he was now walking the streets alone, having brushed Jarvis and Peggy's concerns off, departing with a quick jaunty statement to Agent Thompson and the others that he wanted a woman's company. The truth was far from that and Howard needed some time alone, some time to rebuild the shell that Fenhoff had shattered so brutally. The doctor was right, everything he touched was death. Steve was the only good to come out of it and even then, he had been unable to save him.

He jammed his hands into his pockets and felt the sudden crinkle of paper. He stopped, pulling it out and unfolding it, only to realize that it was the same two pieces he had been carrying around with him since he had put the object back in its original hiding spot outside of Rio. It was a miracle that Dottie, or whatever that dame's name was who had kidnapped him with Fenhoff, had not actually thrown it out. He stared at it as he studied the series of numbers and the words that clearly had been scribbled by his own hand writing.

"When," Steve's voice was steady, even though his expression said otherwise, "when did you write it?"

Howard blinked and looked around. Why did he suddenly hallucinate Steve's voice? He half expected his friend to be standing near him, staring at him with his striking blue eyes, telling him that he was a good person even though he had killed so many with his inventions and weapons. He glanced back down at the pieces of paper. When had he wrote it indeed. He did not remember writing anything of the sort, his eidetic memory not even recalling anything of that nature, but everything on the paper was in his hand writing. He shook his head; Fenhoff's powerful hypnosis was still getting to him even though Peggy had broken through it.

Still, he had a feeling that the pieces of paper was important. That no one else should be able to find it until...until well...something very important happen. He knew that much. He could not stick it in a vault, that much was certain judging by how that Russian lady had stolen his weapons and framed him, and he certainly could not risk carrying it on himself anymore. He needed a place to put the paper, where no one could find it until the right...time. Until it was needed. He did not know why he thought of it like that, not quite understanding what it really meant, but he knew that somehow, it would end up in the right hands at the right time.

Howard glanced up at the street signs he had just passed, his lips pressed into a thin line. He had always long vowed that when he became famous, he would never return to that place. But he also knew that it would be the only place no one would search, because he himself had destroyed everything prior to his involvement with Project Rebirth and the beginnings of Stark Industries. Nothing mattered before that; he was Howard Stark.

He turned and started to walk down Broadway, making his way to his childhood home on the lower east side. The piece of paper with the coding would be safe there. He would burn the other one. No one would know until it was the right time.

1968

If Peggy knew that being Director of a secret paramilitary organization involved this much paperwork, she would have never taken Howard or General Phillips on their offer to be the co-founder of SHIELD. She missed the field, searching for clues, saving people, and though she would never admit it – being a proper lady and all – she kind of missed bashing heads together to get information. Her duties as the Director did allow her to occasionally go into the field, but it seemed like Phillips and even Howard had insisted that she bring a security detail around her. That had irked her to no end and she had decided that her security detail needed more training in finding her whenever she managed to lose them.

The one thing she really hated was the paperwork. Some of it she delegated to her secretaries and assistants, but most of it she took care of only because it felt like she was still reading hard intel, out in the field gathering information. She liked the ones that provided the fullest of detail and it seemed that the ones provided by a neophyte agent named Nicholas J. Fury gave her all of the information she wanted and needed – as if she was still in the field. She had already designated him on a fast track to promotion, assigning him some of the fieldwork in South America and the Caribbean Islands to see how he did in those territories. If he proved himself in that area, her next goal was to move him to the hard one, the Russians.

She sighed and set aside Fury's latest report, picking up another one before she frowned as she read the after action report. It was from Dugan and the other Commandos that were operating out of Europe. The Commandos themselves had expanded to a full-fledged team she codenamed STRIKE Alpha, but to her, they were still the Howling Commandos even though they technically disbanded two years after World War II. He was reporting the aftermath of the failure to save British Ambassador Dalton Graines in Madripoor.

It was a massacre as the dinner party the Ambassador had been at; all guests and even children had been eliminated, their bloody corpses blown to pieces by well-placed bombs. Those that apparently survived had been shot by a high caliber sniper rifle. At first it looked like the Ambassador had survived the bombings only to be shot, but Dugan had reported that an eye-witness who used the bodies scattered around the room to cover her own wounds, said that the Ambassador had been the first to fall from a unknown shooter before the room exploded.

She reported that all she saw was a shadow of someone opposite the building, the glint of a silvery arm with a red star emblazoned on it – like it was the Russian communist star. Dugan's report also said that there was no rifling on the bullets, making it unmarked and untraceable.

Peggy frowned as she held the paper in her hands. The arm with the star seemed so familiar, like she had seen it before, crossing her vision in a fast, furious fist-fight. She knew it... She could have sworn she knew who it belonged to... That it was a male, with a blank look that slowly became clear with recognition. She could have sworn that the owner of the silver arm had brown hair...right? Peggy shook her head, snapping herself out of her thoughts before placing Dugan's report at an angle to Fury's. Whomever had killed the British Ambassador was a ghost, but Peggy could not shake the thought that she knew the ghost.

1979

"Welcome back sir," Jarvis held out a cleaner version of an overcoat as Howard shed the one he had been wearing for the last ten or so days. It was crusted with frosty-salt, the weather turning unexpectedly rough as they were out to sea. It had forced him to prematurely turn the ship back to Boston and he could tell that the Captain was all too grateful for doing so, even for the amount of money Howard had him on retainer every year.

"No luck," he shook his head as he waved a jaunty farewell to the crew who waved back. They knew him and he knew them and while they were all glad to be back in port, he could tell that they were also glad that they were back early, using the time to spend with their families before they went out again to do their actual jobs of deep sea fishing.

"I am sorry to hear that sir," he glanced at Jarvis to whom he looked like had aged a few years in the past ten days.

"You okay, pal?" he asked as he got into the back of the seat, Jarvis taking the front. They drove off.

"Just a bit of a cold sir-"

"You could have told me, I would have just driven back-"

"Do you even know the way back from this pier, sir?" Jarvis asked and Howard smiled thinly.

"Yeah, very funny Jarvis," he shook his head, "no, okay?"

"Very good sir," Jarvis replied, the epitome of politeness, though Howard heard the sarcasm in his tone.

"Well, Maria and Tony should be happy-"

"Your son has declined to return home for the holidays, sir," Jarvis interrupted and Howard frowned as he looked out of the window, watching the small flakes of snow fall down. "He cited something about a project due in the early months of January-"

"I know that's bullshit. Phillips Exeter Academy does not have projects due in early January, at least according to the subjects that he's studying about," Howard frowned as he shook his head. Tony had been living mostly on his own in New Canaan, Connecticut since he was in middle school. Maria usually lived with him during his middle school years, Howard maintaining triple residencies in California where Stark Industries' headquarters was located as well as the second biggest branch of SHIELD, New York City, and Connecticut. Phillips Exeter was his alma mater and Howard wanted the best for his son.

"We're driving to New Hampshire, I'm picking him up-"

"Sir, I believe it is for the best," Jarvis interrupted quietly and Howard stared at the back of his butler's head, noting the seriousness of his voice.

"Another lead in that other matter?"

"Possibly. However, it requires your attention to be in California. I've already arranged some fund raising gala of sorts. Your contact is of the feminine persuasion who claims to have information regarding an incident about a soviet star on an assassin's arm and something about a red room."

"All right, get us to Logan then," he shook his head, "Maria know about this?"

"I've told her the usual, aside from the fund raising gala. She understands," Jarvis replied and Howard sighed, scrubbing his face a little.

"Jarvis, after we land, make sure I call Maria and apologize for ruining her Christmas. Maybe call Peg to see if she'd be willing to keep her company? I know she has her own family and stuff, but-"

"I will sir," Jarvis turned his head a little and Howard saw the small smile on his ever-faithful butler's face. He returned the smile with a tired one of his own. There would always been next year to search for Steve, or maybe in a couple of months if the weather was good. They had found the Tesseract just two years previous, so he knew he was probably close to the area where the Valkyrie must have crashed. He did not know why, but he wanted to see Steve, wanted to see him at least one more time before he got too old – because a part of him did not want to face the growing possibility that he would never see his friend ever again, never tell him the truth.

The gala he had flown out to never occurred as Howard had arrived well before the guests, but in time to see his long time-friend and former Howling Commando, Jim Morita shot dead in front of him. His face was sprayed with the flecks of blood by the bullets entering and exiting Jim's chest and head, and had barely caught his friend as he fell to the ground, dead. Howard only looked up towards the source of the bullets to see the flash of what looked like a silver arm with a red Soviet star emblazoned on the shoulder muscle fleeing from the building across before he stared numbly back down at Jim.

It was a warning. He knew that very well. A clear warning for him to stop digging around into the origins of the mysterious silver-armed man Peggy had mentioned in an offhand report years earlier. To stop what he was doing or else people close to him would die like Jim Morita had.

1989

Howard visited Peggy as she laid in the hospital bed, her grey-white hair falling in soft cascades around her, forming a halo of sorts. "Forever a dame after my own heart," he cracked as he set the large vase of flowers on her end table before pulling up a chair as she smiled at him.

"Flirt," she croaked, coughing lightly before closing her eyes to breathe.

"We are two of a kind, Peg," he grasped her weathered hands into his own, feeling the wrinkles of years on them, similar to his own. His were far more calloused than hers, years of working on projects, writing things, running Stark Industries. Obadiah was handling most of it now, Tony wanting nothing to do with the company even though Howard wanted him to at least take over some of the more important things. His son was stubborn, he had to give him that, brilliant too, but stubborn. It was his only legacy left, after what he had just learned from one of his contacts a few weeks ago.

It was also why he was here, visiting her in the hospital. To tell her that her accident was not really an accident, but rather an assassination attempt. She had only survived by the skin of her teeth and bandages still covered parts of her, requiring skin grafts after her burns healed. But he also knew that he had to tell her carefully, not knowing who to trust. The last person he had carelessly told was Dum-Dum Dugan and he had paid for it with his life, found drowned in his pool a week after he had visited. Everyone called it a suicide, Dugan having revealed to have some mental problems after his service in the war, the SSR, and then SHIELD. The coroners had diagnosed his mind to have gaping holes during the autopsy, but Howard did not believe that.

She sighed, shifting a little before a wince crossed her face. "Howard-"

"Peg-" he started at the same time before pausing and gesturing with his chin for her to continue.

"Doctors say it's dementia, of a sort," she gestured with her free hand and Howard blinked, not comprehending the words for a second before he realized that she was referring to her mind.

"A-what? Excuse me?"

"Dementia. I've been having some memory problems lately and this accident only triggered the worst parts of it," she shook her head, "pretty soon...maybe in a few years or so I won't remember certain things or details. I'm retiring soon, so-"

"But..." Howard trailed off as he realized he could not tell her what he knew now. Not when she could possibly forget after a few years or even a few months. He could not endanger her life, her retirement when they only killed those who knew. Maybe it was for the better that she retired, that she left SHIELD and all, before they got to her like they had gotten to Morita, Dugan, and the other commandos. Falsworth was the only one left of the Commandos to survive and he had sensibly retired just months ago from active service. They had not touched him nor had Howard notified him of his discoveries.

"Howard...I've had a good run..." Peggy looked at him, her brown eyes soft and full of understanding and Howard could only nod.

"Yeah...yeah you did," he swallowed back the urge to tell her what he had found. Steve would never forgive him if he got his best girl killed like this. And if he died before Peggy, he could never meet Steve in Heaven or wherever he was and tell him that Peggy died because he could not keep his mouth shut. He forced himself to smile widely, to adopt the jovial and playboy attitude everyone knew him for. "We're gonna throw you the best retirement party Peg."

December 12th, 1991

This day was important. He did not know why, but it was important. Something niggled at him that it would be a day long remembered, but what it was, he did not know. All he knew was that it might have been shouted long ago, by some voice he did not quite recognize, but wondered if it was Tony's. But that would be absurd, right? Howard shrugged as he waited outside for Maria to finish. Jarvis was bringing the car around, his ninety-year-old body still hale and healthy as if he had not served for all those years. Technically Jarvis had retired as his butler back in the 1980s, but Howard had allowed him and his wife to stay in one of the many properties he owned. After all, why have that much room when you did not have people to share it with.

If there was anything, it would be tomorrow, December 13th that would be the day of reckoning. He was going to leak a press release later in the night about whistle-blowing the lid off of SHIELD that HYDRA was growing within. He did not want to leak it earlier because it would tip off those in SHIELD who were sympathetic to the terrorist Nazi organization. Jarvis had helped with the preparation and he had made sure that all of his assets, even his will was updated in case something happened. Tony had refused to talk to him all year since last Christmas when it had passed in relative peace until he had come home with two girls, claiming to be on the Playboy calendar for the months of August and November. Howard could not stand that; he wanted his son to not be like him, not put on airs in such a way that was idiotic, but Tony had refused to listen to all reason, screaming that he was an adult now and made his own decisions.

"Ready?" he called back to the open front door and just as he finished speaking Maria stepped out, a smile on her aged face, but still as beautiful as ever. At the same time, he heard the crunch of gravel as Jarvis brought the Bentley around and got out, opening the door for him and Maria like old habits.

"A perfect old-fashion date for Mister Howard Stark and Missus Maria Stark," Maria said and Howard nodded.

"I just want this day to never end," he said quietly as he settled into his seat and Jarvis drove off.

Two hours and forty minutes later, Tony Stark received a phone call that would change his life. His parents, Maria and Howard Stark had died in a car accident along with their faithful butler Edwin Jarvis. It would only be years later, when SHIELD's files were released along with HYDRA's that Tony would learn that his parents did not die in an accident, but were assassinated by HYDRA.

Present Day

Tony absently stared at the hard-light projection of the 0-8-4 that had been the time traveling alternate reality device. The object itself had immediately shut down with a whine and rendered inert by JARVIS' scans as soon as Howard, Peggy, and Jarvis had left. JARVIS's calculations were correct – there was enough 'juice' so to speak for one more activation. If another reality's Steve had come through right then and there, it would have been a death sentence for himself and Peggy; his father unable to wed his mother and have him, Peggy dying from entropic cascade failure. Who knew what the laws of time, space, and physics would have been altered if it had happened.

There was also something he had discovered in the aftermath of what had happened – a disturbing sort that he had quickly buried under quadruple layers of encryption regarding the whole thing. It had not even made it into the report he had filed with Coulson before returning the inert object to him.

He had discovered that somehow, the object was seemingly attuned to Steve, not to Peggy as he had originally thought. It was Peggy who had suffered the entropic cascade failures; each time she had one, things...came through. So he had gone with that, but somewhere in that, he had discovered that the object seemingly was encoded, for the lack of a better word, in a weird sort of way that it was focused on Steve instead. That was when he realized, the versions of Steve coming through the object – those were because somehow the object had pulled Steve's desire to see Peggy and Howard again through – Jarvis arriving as an added bonus. It had also started to pull at different alternate versions of Steve; akin to a more physical manifestation of entropic cascade failure. Except it materialized as the variety of Steve Rogers that had arrived. Peggy exhibited the classic symptoms of entropic cascade failure on her self, Steve's presence had shown the more dangerous, the more physical side. Including ones that came with armies.

"JARVIS," he called out as he pushed the projections to the side and used his touchpen to open up a new holographic blueprint, "new project, save to secure servers as usual, double the encryption."

"Double sir?" JARVIS sounded puzzled and Tony nodded.

"Yeah," he brought up a window for the files he kept on hand and did a functional search of them before he found what he was looking for. It was labeled under the Chitauri folders. It had been something his suit had scanned and picked up as well as what he had studied in the aftermath of the invasion with the leviathan and insect-hive mind mentality of the Chitauri themselves.

"Don't want this falling into the wrong hands, even if they try to break into the servers," he commented absently as he dragged the relevant files over and moved them into the new project folder. Task done, he opened several of the files and started to make adjustments with another programming window.

"What shall I label this?" JARVIS asked politely.

"Hmm..." Tony tapped his cheek for a second as he stared at the files. "How about...Ultron?"

"Ultron sir?" JARVIS asked.

"Got a problem with that?" he pulled another file and merged it, giving himself an exploded view of the workings of the hive mind.

"No sir, but I must forewarn you that Captain Rogers did mention Ultron in relation to an apparent vision he had when he was fighting the Winter Soldier version of himself. It was related to the context of Sergeant Barnes and it alluded to the fact that Ultron was attacking."

Tony had not heard that part. His comm with Steve had only been reactivated after the Winter Soldier version of Steve had been killed. Steve had turned his comm off when he had ran from the corner of Grand Street all the way back up to 42nd Street. It was because he did not want to create a horrific feedback due to the speed he was running.

He shrugged, "Well, I can safely say that this Ultron won't be attacking anyone except those who are a threat to humanity." He tapped and made a few more lines, "You're going to get a brother J, how does that sound? Hopefully if the 0-8-4 activates again or if something like the Chitauri come through, Ultron can help us out in case Steve or I aren't around."

"Yes sir," JARVIS replied and Tony smiled briefly. The events of the past two days told him that they needed more defenders against unknown objects that could randomly activate. With Natasha was looking for Clint, Bruce with Betty, if he or Steve were incapacitated...then the world would truly be in danger. Ultron would fix that. It had to.

Steve had just shut off the engine to his motorcycle when his phone buzzed and he glanced at it, seeing a number he did not recognize. When he had moved to the Tower, Tony had given him a phone with heavy encryption and a bunch of other tech and gizmos that was supposed to prevent him from getting any unwanted calls, especially from telemarketers and also from enemies looking to pinpoint him during phone calls. So receiving a call with the word [Unknown Number] listed always made him curious. He answered the call, "Hello?"

"Hey soldier," the sultry purr of Natasha's voice was a bit electronically distorted, but Steve caught the gist of it and smiled.

"Been a long time since we've last talked," he answered, leaning back against his seat as he kicked the kickstand and let himself relax a bit.

"Been a bit busy," Natasha replied, "heard things got a little hot back a few days ago."

"Yeah, some 0-8-4 Coulson found," Steve replied, "it's been handled."

"But..." Natasha dragged out her next words, "you wished I or Clint was there, right?"

"I know you're looking for him-"

"Tell Cap thank you fucking very much for blowing my cover!" he heard the tinned voice of Clint Barton faintly and his smile grew wider.

"Hey Clint," he called out before he heard a change from the phone to speaker mode.

"Hey yourself Cap," Clint sounded healthy, but Steve was not sure what condition Natasha found him in. And the fact that he said that he had been blown out of cover meant that Clint had been undercover somewhere when the whole thing with HYDRA went down. "Tony had an experiment gone rogue?"

"Nah, something Coulson found and gave to Tony to work on," Steve answered, "it's been handled."

"Sounds like a story," Clint replied, but there was a hint of finality in his statement. They all knew that while Tony's technology had the strongest encryption on them; there were still those out there who could easily tap in and record their conversations.

"Coming back soon?" he asked.

"Probably, taking the slow way back," Natasha answered which was her way of telling Steve that they were coming back within a day or two. He did not know spy talk that well, even when Maria had tried to teach him when he had moved into the tower, but he had learned what she meant by those words when he had first discovered Bucky in Odessa.

"See you then," Steve replied, "it's good to hear you guys are all right."

"Aww, I think Cap misses us," Clint groused with a small laugh before the quiet beep-beep told him that Natasha had disconnected the line.

He glanced at the phone's screen as it displayed how long the call was, but did not quite catch the numbers as he pondered the most recent events. Peggy had asked that he visit a few days after what had happened and it was where he was sitting outside right now. He finally understood what she meant during his visit with her before everything with the 0-8-4 had gone down. She more than likely remembered a vague sense of certain things and events, retaining only a handful of keywords and phrases to help her past self get back in time.

But she had also given him a chance to properly say his goodbye to her, to set her free like she had for him. He knew that she had no regrets at all. He got off of his motorcycle and squared his shoulders, feeling a lot lighter than when he had first woken up from the ice. She had set him free, now it was his turn to set her free – to let her know that while he would always love her, he belonged in the here and now. In the present, not the past.

~THE END~

Author's Final Notes:

First things first: I would love to thank all of you, the readers, for reading this fic. I've enjoyed your comments even though I was not able to fulfill the wishes of a few of them. I've also been shocked by the sheer amount of support and kudos this fic has gotten since it's initial posting – you've made me a very happy author. I can't express how happy it's made me, but know that you have my gratitude.

Onward to the nitty gritty details:

Congratulations for making it to the end of this short story. This was always outlined and written with a mind towards being Steve and Tony centric and their relationships with Peggy and Howard respectively. I originally got the concept when I was watching some random Stargate SG-1 episodes about the quantum mirror and alternate realities as well as Stargate Atlantis' Daedalus Variations episode before it really came to fruition with the premiere of "Agent Carter" in early January. Seeing Peggy, Howard, and the others who had survived the war mourn for those lost in it tugged at my heart strings to the point where I wanted to do something about it.

However, as readers of my other stories know, I am not one of those who revels or celebrates happy endings. Don't get me wrong, I love a happy ending as much as the next person, I just feel the characters need to work for it – and sometimes, they might not get the one they were expecting, but they will get an ending. I just primarly wanted to explore the nature of Peggy and Steve's relationship in context of what Steve had just faced with the downfall of HYDRA and Peggy just losing Steve. Then Tony decided to muscle his way in (he has a tendency to do that in all of my stories) and Howard came along for the ride as did Jarvis.

I decided to set this story right after Episode 4 instead of Episode 5 where the elements of the Red Room is first discovered because I wanted to keep the character list down and also keep it as a magnified look at Steve's relationships with the others. Plus, after Episode 5, Peggy's relationship with her co-workers as well as with the others put the plot on a course I did not want to interrupt, so I set it right after Episode 4. And also, like many other viewers, I was a bit surprised at Howard's confession to Peggy during that episode so I needed to write something regarding that.

A bit about how I planned the whole thing – I basically wanted certain scenes to happen and certain discussions to happen. Namely, I wanted the first instance of Tony having a good conversation with his Dad that turns abruptly angry and it was supposed to happen in Part 3, but Steve decided to wax a lot of poetic about Peggy and vice versa so, Tony's POV had to be compressed and some of it punted to Part 6. Tony got his 'revenge' by a majority of that POV in Part 6, with Howard's POV coming in second. Bucky was always at the forefront of this story because truth be told, I absolutely love writing about him and had to somehow stick him in somewhere in any story where I have Steve involved.

The fights were written with my background in karate in mind, using some of the shadow sparring and katas I've learned over the years as well as mixed in with some of what was used from the CA:TWS movie for Steve and Bucky's fighting styles (which are pretty similar, except Bucky uses more knives, Steve, more his shield). For Red Skull!Steve, I based it more on how Steve and the Red Skull fought in CA:TFA.

Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed reading and see you in my next story!