I find the whole time travel question very unsettling if you take it to its logical extension. I think it might eventually be possible, but then what happens? -William Shatner

The bottom line is that time travel is allowed by the laws of physics. -Brian Greene

~0~0~

It started with a lab accident like many of these stories do. One moment they're in the lab. Jane is running low on sleep, but so sure that her next breakthrough is in sight. No time for food, showering, or sleep. Science awaits! Darcy is with her of course, fiddling with her new StarkPlayer ™ (may her ipod R.I.P wherever it might be) and occasionally typing in data on the spreadsheet open on her computer.

The next moment BAM! CRACK! BOOM! (or something more delicate and mature, but still ominous) would resound through the lab. Then? Hell breaks loose.

And so it begins…

~0~0~

Maria Collins Carbonell was born in South Hampton, New York. A brown eyed, brunette all American bombshell. She's the only child of her late parents and has no other close family members. She's from money but not one of the big last names seen weekly in the papers and discussed on Wall Street. She wouldn't be questioned at parties of a certain caliber, nor would she really be remembered. No one to miss her or search for her. She's the perfect candidate for a newly minted secret government agency.

Margaret 'Peggy' Carter needed more than one identity after all. Maria Carbonell is a good start.

By the end of the week she'd be able to mock up all the official documents to make Miss Carbonell exist.

~0~0~

Darcy blacks out.

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Darcy wakes up.

~0~0~

S.H.I.E.L.D. had put her through their version of basic training after the events of New Mexico. It wasn't fun by any means and she still misses her IPod but she now knew how to respond against an attacker in different situations. Darcy while always fond of being dressed comfortably now made sure that she could always run in her shoes. Her Taser never left her side these days. Aliens, MIB's and Mad Scientists didn't faze her. But waking up surrounded by gun touting men that could have walked out of the pages of one of her history books was unexpected.

"Are you armed?"

"Taser, left back pocket of my jeans."

If anything that made the gun touting men more on guard than they were before.

"Ma'am, you have a what in your pocket?"

"Taser. You know… click click zap… commence painful twitching?"

One of the men, removed one of his hands from his gun and made a signal too quick for Darcy to make out. She soon realized she had much bigger problems when she felt something stick in her neck. Within seconds she lost consciousness.

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White walls, steel table, what she assumed was a two-way mirror taking up half a wall and a complete lack of her possessions and clothing was waiting for her when she woke up. Someone, and she didn't want to think too much about it, had stripped her of her clothes and put her in a hospital gown. Darcy had no idea who or what she was dealing with. But, hey at least they spoke English!

She wasn't much a fan of the handcuffs that linked her to the table though and she was probably going to be even less of a fan of the men opening the door to come question her.

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'What is it?' asked Peggy as she glared at Howard over her desk and lunch.

"I already told you… I don't know. Well, let's amend that, I have a fairly good idea what both these items are. Just that they are far beyond the average technology of our time. And this one…" he held up the small Starkphone™ with the very familiar Stark Logo embossed on the back of it, "was not made by me in any shape or fashion, as I have told you already."

"Interrogation said she called it a 'cellphone' and an 'mp3' player." Howard nodded in agreement.

"Right, so Cooper over at Motorola is working a slow angle that might in his wildest dreams look as sophisticated as this-in 30 to 50 years. But, pal, I gotta tell you my car phone is the best top of the line-custom made work around, and it's got nothing on this."

"Could you get it to work?"

"For calls? No, I'll spare you the technical details for once, Pegs. But not a chance. I can open some of the… 'apps' however."

"I see."

"I think I can fiddle with it in my lab and keep it running long enough to look through it all."

"So we'll have more information to go off of by tomorrow morning."

"Something like that, but you do know how I love to sleep in." Peggy rolled her eyes and turned back to her lunch effectively shutting down anymore comments Howard wanted to throw her way.

But he was still sitting, looking uncomfortable in her opinion, in her office. She sighed and put down her sandwich.

"It bothers you that your logo is on it."

"It's unsettling." He finally stood up, but stayed shifting from foot to foot like he wanted to say something else to her. But whatever was racing through his brain, remained locked up tight. "I'm calling it a day here in the office, gonna head to my personal lab, Peggy."

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Howard hadn't questioned the girl himself. He hadn't even seen her yet. This was definitely going to change after getting a chance to play around with the tech they had removed from her person. He had questions and needed far better answers than what the agents had managed to get out of Darcy Lewis.

Like for example: Who the fucking hell was Anthony Edward Stark. And was there a way to read more of his academic papers on this 'cellphone', because whoever the fucking hell he was, he had some fascinating ideas in the mechanical engineering field and Howard really wanted to read more.

Unfortunately there was only one paper written by the man, most of the other documents had the name Dr. Jane Foster listed as the main author. She didn't seem to know much about mechanical engineering at all. But her theories seemed so outlandish he had a feeling that based off the tone, she seemed to think she was right but had figured out that no one else was ever going to agree with her. She wrote of gods and monsters and science and technology that sounded eerily familiar to Howard from his days with the Strategic Scientific Reserve and from his nightmares where good men never made it home.