Forward to the Past [Steggy] ✔

Chapter One

"Peggy!"

Howard's voice beckons me from the room down the hall, and I sigh, abandoning my paper creation to look up for a moment.

"What now, Howard?" I call back in annoyance. "Haven't you already had enough snacks for the day?"

"No..." Howard starts slowly, "but that's not the point. I've got it!" His voice sounds breathless and excited, but I force down the rising hope in my chest. He's probably only gotten a screw to work.

"What have you got?" I ask, still slightly miffed.

"It works, Peggy," Howard says, poking his head around the door. There are bags under his eyes, and his hair sticks up in tufts, but his lips are drawn into a huge grin and he's practically dancing with excitement. "The machine works!"

"What?" I push my chair back, my eyebrows feeling like they're shooting into my hairline. "Show me."

For weeks, Howard has been laboring away at a machine he thinks will literally "take us to the future." A time machine. We'd seen the powers of the Tesseract. After fishing it out of the ocean, we knew that it could create portals through space. Howard wanted to know whether or not it could simultaneously create a portal through time.

I follow Howard into the lab, ready to do anything, but Howard throws an arm across my chest right before I can walk straight into a churning mass of purple energy.

"Watch out, Carter. Don't want you accidentally tripping and fallin' into the age of the dinosaurs."

"Dinosaurs, you say?" I grin, slightly out of breath from surprise. "Too bad you aren't there. You'd be among family."

"Nice one," Howard says, smirking. "But I bet I'd meet some of your cousins there as well."

"How does it work?" I say, abruptly switching topics.

"See, you got the Tesseract over there, hooked up to this generator, which I had to tamper with a little bit so it would hook up with the cord I've got over there, by the way don't step on that or it'll blow up...." Howard launches into a stream of talking about how the machine works exactly, and I have to mentally scold myself for asking such an absurd question to which I don't know nor care about the answer.

"Okay, okay, I didn't need to know all that," I say after a minute or two, and Howard clamps his mouth shut, looking a bit peeved.

"Well, I've tested it, would you like to try?" He asks after a moment of glaring at me a little.

"Is it... safe?" I ask, eyeing the machine with apprehension.

"'Course it's safe, Peg. You know me." Howard frowns, looking a bit put off by my question.

"Unfortunately, Stark, I do know you," I say, putting a hand on my hip. "And this better not be one of your 'of-course-it's-safe-I-tested-it-once-or-twice-and-the-potato-came-through-okay-even-though-it-was-chopped-in-half' type experiments."

"Of course not!" Howard says indignantly. "I used a rat."

"Oh, so the rat got chopped in half," I retort, and Howard scowls, making his way to the other end of the lab and holding up a squeaking rat.

"Bill is very much intact," Howard snaps. "I sent him a minute into the future. A minute after I did that, he reappeared in the middle of the floor, which is exactly where I sent him. Poof. Time travel."

"Alright, alright," I say. "I admit, I'm impressed."

Howard grins. "Thanks. So do you want to try it?"

"Are you allowed to?" I query, remembering a time S.H.I.E.L.D. had gotten angry at Howard for accidentally blowing up a table while testing one of his experiments.

"It's safe, Peggy," Howard insists. "And with it, just imagine the things we could do."

"I could see Steve," I whisper to myself inaudibly.

"Sorry, what was that?" Howard frowns in confusion, and my face turns slightly red.

"Nothing," I snap, and Howard flinches slightly. "Sorry." I apologize immediately. "I'm just.... a little out of sorts at the moment."

"Understandably," Howard says, reaching across my arm and tweaking a loose screw. "So. You want to try it?"

"Yes," I murmur, making up my mind for once and for all. "But I don't want to go to the past," I say a little more loudly. "I don't need to... relive it." I don't want to have to see Steve. Yes, the prospect of it excites me, but it would only reopen the emptiness that could only be filled by one person. But I could never bring him back. I know that much. Steve's death was meant to be. He had to save us. There were bombs in the plane. He had to put it in the water. That doesn't make me miss him any less. No, the heartbreak can be covered up, but it can never be healed. I'd loved him. The last time we'd seen each other, we'd kissed, for the first time. And that was it. There would be nothing past that. No matter how hard I wished there could be.

"..... Peggy?" A voice filters into my thoughts, and I lift my head to see Howard string at me in concern. "Are you alright?"

"I- yeah," I say, blinking. "Yeah, I'm alright."

"Okay," Howard says, not looking convinced. "Well, I was asking what year you'd like to go to."

"I'd like to visit the twenty first century," I muse. "But not 2000. Too original. What about 2017?"

"2017?" Howard queries. "What's the significance of that?"

"There isn't one," I say, shrugging. "I just randomly chose it."

Howard turns a dial on the generator, then presses a big red button (.....seriously. How original) and the mass of purple energy spins, taking on a bluish hue. "Ah.... it should be ready to go," Howard announces, looking at the portal with a small amount of apprehension, which I pretend to ignore.

"The question is, are you?" I say seriously, and Howard nods, confidence swamping the tinge of fear in his eyes.

"Yes," he says, grabbing my hand. I blink, because that is definitely un Howard like, but when I look up at him, I only see excitement. "Let's go." And with those words, Howard and I step into the churning mass of purple energy.