It's Been A Long, Long Time // Steve Rogers

Chapter 19

"Good morning, Jarvis!" I smiled as I opened the door. "Miss Barnes." He smiled back. I waved at Steve as Jarvis led me out to the car and he gave me a smile back.

Jarvis opened the town car door and Howard smiled as I slid in next to him. "Morning, Becca. How was your night?" Howard asked. "Uh good...my boyfriend almost set our apartment on fire. Thankfully only the stove was damaged and of course the pot..." I laughed. "Were you both okay?" Howard asked. "Yes! Thankfully."

Howard and I continued to make small talk until Jarvis pulled up in front of another building. The car door opened and Howard got out first and offered his hand to me. I accepted and we walked into the building. "Before we go in here, I have to tell you something." I nodded and he continued, "after Steve took down Hydra...Peggy, Phillips, and I started an organization. It's called the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division. Or SHIELD. You'll be helping me at Stark and here...but this...this has to remain top secret, okay?"

SHIELD. Steve told me about SHIELD. How it was founded by Howard, Peggy, and Colonel Phillips. But also how it was taken over by Hydra slowly. Shit. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe I shouldn't have accepted Howard's offer. This would be too hard.

"Becca?" My attention refocused on Howard and I realized that I hadn't given him an answer. "Of course." I replied. Howard smiled and scanned a key card that unlocked a set of doors in front of an elevator. "I'll be sure you have a key card as well." We stepped into the elevator and Howard pressed a button that took us down into the basement.

"Welcome to SHIELD." He said. I looked around at the desks and saw someone sitting at each one. I followed him through the hall until he arrived at his office. "This is my office, you can take the desk here in front of it." I nodded and sat at the desk.

"If you could go through these files and sort them by date for me, that would be great." Howard said, setting a few file boxes down next to the desk. "Of course." "Great, if anyone needs me, call me first...I'll be downstairs in my lab." He said.

I nodded once more and he walked away. I got started sorting the files and made good progress until a shadow loomed over me. "What are you doing here?" That voice was unmistakable. I looked up and saw Peggy looking down at me. "I'm Howard's assistant...do you need him?"

She looked around for a moment and grabbed my arm, pulling me into a nearby office. It must be her office. She shut the door behind us and closed the blinds. "You can't be here." She said. "What?" I raised my eyebrows and crossed my arms across my chest. "Look, Rebecca. You're too close to Steve. You can't be here." I huffed and my eyes drifted to her desk where a photo of him, pre-serum, sat in a frame. She cleared her throat and placed the photo face down on her desk. "Howard can't find out he's alive. No one can."

"I wasn't planning on telling anyone. His secret is safe with me." I replied. "I just don't think it's smart for you to be here."

"Look, Mrs. Carter, if you don't want me here because you're jealous or simply just don't like me, then you can take it up with Howard." I snapped.

"Jealous??" She scoffed like it was the most ridiculous thing she has ever heard. "I'm married. Did you forget he came back for me and I turned him down. You were simply the second option and more available." She snapped back. I glared at her and opened her office door, storming out of it. Bitch. I wasn't Steve's second option. He didn't even know I was alive until I told him who I was. He also has told me many times he feels he wasn't meant to come back for Peggy. Steve loves me. I sat back down on the desk and continued sorting the papers. Peggy walked past me and into Howard's office.

"Where is he?" She asked. "His lab. He asked to not be bothered." I mumbled. "I don't care." She said, walking in the direction of his lab. I quickly called him to let him know she was on the way. It was in that instant that I already knew this would be insufferable. Maybe I shouldn't have taken this job...

I followed after her, at Howards request, and walked in on her yelling at him. She huffed the minute she saw me and straightened out her blouse. "If that's all Peggy, you can go." Howard said, motioning towards the door. She glared at me once more before brushing past me and exiting the lab. "Sorry about her. I think when she sees you she sees Bucky and Steve and how they..." He cleared his throat, "...died. She and Rogers had a thing...if you could call it that." He cleared his throat once more as an awkwardness filled the air.

"Anyway, now that you're here...could you help me take notes on some of these weapons?" He pointed at a table next to him.

I looked at the items in front of him and sure enough they were the Hydra weapons that were confiscated on each Hydra raid. I remember reading about the raids in the paper. Howard handed me a notebook, "I need you to write down these observations for each weapon."

I looked at the page and saw that each weapon had some sort of name along with certain metrics that Howard would be measuring. "Here, for safety." Howard handed me some sunglass like goggles and put on a pair of his own. "Um, Howard..." "Don't worry, these are perfectly-" He was cut off by a loud blast causing us both to scream and duck for cover. "Safe..." He mumbled, giving me a sheepish smile. "Be sure you write that down..."

I did as he said and we both stood back up. Howard cleared his throat and looked over the weapon, asking me to fill in any open details in the notebook about it. Size, weight, a description of what it does...and more. He even tested most of them except for the ones labeled 'DO NOT USE INSIDE'. In my opinion none of these should be used inside. We got through a few before Howard took my notes and looked over them.

"What do you need these for?" I asked.

"We're seeing what Hydra was able to develop in hopes that we can counteract their weapons. Defend ourselves if they ever show up again." He explained. Well they do, so I guess he's not wrong. "These are pretty sophisticated weapons made with energy from what we call the 'Tesseract'." Howard passed me a file on the blue cube that I knew to be the 'space stone' from Steve's stories.

"There's nothing like it..." Howard mumbled, "and it's lost in the ocean with Rogers."

He stared off into space for a few moments before shaking his head and looking back at me, "sorry. Anyway, I'm hoping to find a way to replicate this technology into something we can use here at SHIELD." I nodded, still looking over the files on the cube.

"Did you know him well?" Howard asked, softly, after a few minutes of comfortable silence. "Very well." I smiled. Howard doesn't know just how well but that's just for me to know. "I'm sorry I couldn't do more to save him."

"Howard..." I trailed off but he shook his head. "I should have been there. In that control room. Talked him through disarming the bombs or found him a place to land. I don't know. I just feel like I could have done more." He sat down in a chair and put his head in his hands. "And your brother..." "Howard don't." I walked closer to him and put my hand on his shoulder. "We should have done more before they ever got on that train." He whispered. "Howard, you have to let the guilt go. You did everything you could and I know Bucky and Steve...I know they wouldn't change a thing." I took a deep breath and pulled a chair up to sit next to him.

"What was he like? Before the serum?" Howard asked me. "Well, for starters he was always sick, but despite that he was hard headed, stubborn...Steve didn't like bullies and would always fight for what was right. Even if he got hurt doing so. It pissed Bucky off to no end because he always ended up in the fight protecting Steve." I laughed slightly, "But trust me. What Steve did for the world...he wouldn't change anything."

"I'm just sorry you lost time with your brother and even Steve." He said, giving me a sympathetic look. "Me too...but you know what, they were heroes. And I'm proud that James Barnes was my annoying older brother and Steve was his slightly less annoying but sweet best friend." That pulled a laugh from Howard who gave me another smile.

I picked up one of the weapons on the table and held it up. "Come on, Howard. We have more of these to test."