Marvel One-Shots

15. Frozen In Time - Steggy

A/N: This one-shot takes place after Season 1 of Agent Carter, in 1946.

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PEGGY'S P.O.V.

"You want to go back to the Arctic?"

Howard rubs a hand over his face. "Peg, I've got to. After this mess with Fenhoff, I feel like I owe it to Cap to at least give him a proper burial."

"Howard," I say, "it almost destroyed you when you didn't find him last year. I can't watch you go through that again."

"Peggy, I'm going back to the Arctic. Whether you like it or not." Howard turns toward the door.

I sigh. "Alright. But I'm coming with you. Someone responsible should go." Though he tries to hide it, I catch sight of Howard's grin as he faces me.

"I've got to make a few calls, but I think we can leave in around two days," Howard tells me.

"So soon?" I ask, then lift my chin. "Well, he's waited long enough. I need to make arrangements with the SSR, but I think that should be fine."

Howard nods. "I'd better get calling my contacts, then."

As he leaves the room, I cross to the grand windows that surround the room and pull back the drapes. Two days. It feels too soon, but at the same time too long. The sunlight warms my skin, reminding me of how cold Steve must have been before he died.

I pull the drapes shut. If I want to go to the Arctic, I, too, have to make a few calls. I pick up the telephone and dial the familiar number.

"Hello, Rose," I say. "Could you connect me to Chief Thompson's office?"

~~~~

One week later...

The Arctic is colder than I'd expected. Snow and ice cover everything, including parts of the water. I stand at the rail of the ship, gazing out at the miniature mountains of snow. Any one of them could lead to answers about the Valkyrie.

Howard worries over his inventions, double- and triple-checking that they're working right. I've only ever seem him this serious twice: once when I told him that Steve had died and again when he came back from the Arctic without finding anything.

"Hey, Peg," Howard shouts. "You might want to see this."

I rush to where he's standing. He seems mesmerized by a sort of radar that he invented. "What is it?"

He messes with one of the knobs and flips a switch so that an image comes into focus. "Is that what I think it is?"

My breath catches. "The Valkyrie."

Howard scribbles the coordinates down on a scrap piece of paper, comparing them to our own. "We're close," he says, his voice full of hope. "Less than an hour away."

And then we're both grinning like mad, consumed by the thought that Steve Rogers is so close to being found. But the moment is bittersweet. We might find his body, but Steve is already lost.

The boat lurches to a stop. Howard and I tumble to the ground, along with almost all of his carefully arranged inventions. He scrambles to his feet, picking up as many inventions as he can at one time. I fold the fallen paper with the Valkyrie's coordinates and tuck it carefully into my pants pocket before standing.

A crew member hurries up to us. "Sir," he addresses Howard, "it seems that the water becomes solid ice from here on."

"Can we walk the distance to the Valkyrie?" I ask the crewman. He seems startled that I'd even consider it.

"I suppose," he replies with a slight sneer. "But the journey is not one suitable for a young lady."

I grab my gun off of the table and place it in its holster. "It's a good thing I'm an agent, then."

The crewman looks shocked, but doesn't protest. Howard sends him back to his post and assembles a team to join us on our mission to venture on foot across part of the Arctic to retrieve Steve's body.

The journey is slow and freezing. Several times, the members of our team are blown into the snow by a strong gust of wind. There are a few times where the ice is frighteningly thin, and we have to crawl across it.

After what seems like an eternity, I see it: the only dark spot on a plain of endless white - though it, too, is coated in snow.

At the same moment, Howard and I break into a run. The rest of the team follows, but we reach the wreckage of the Valkyrie long before they do.

The right wing is completely submerged in ice, but the shape of the aeroplane is clearly visible. Howard and a few of his technicians set up a contraption to saw through the brittle metal.

The machine cuts a circular opening in the roof of what I assume to be the cockpit of the aeroplane. I stare down into the darkness, suddenly overwhelmed with grief. Steve's body is in there. He deserved so much more than this.

Howard is standing next to me all of a sudden; like me, he has tears in his eyes. "Let's bring him home," he whispers. I nod, brushing the tears off of my cheeks before they can freeze.

The equipment takes at least a quarter of an hour to strap on, but soon I'm being lowered into the wreckage with Howard just behind me.

Our shoes echo on the frozen floor as we approach the pilot's chair. Howard shines a flashlight around the room, whereas I keep my hand next to the holster for my gun, just in case.

The pilot's chair is empty; the glass front the plane is smashed. On instinct, I lean down and brush a thin layer of snow from an ice block just behind the pilot's chair.

Steve's red, white, and blue shield gleams back at me.

"Howard," I choke. He follows my gaze and catches sight of the shield. With a shaking voice, he calls up to the team. "We found him."

It doesn't take long for them to find his body. Steve looks exactly as he did in life. The team speaks admiringly of Captain America, the war hero; Howard and I, however, remember Steve, the kid from Brooklyn who was a good man until his dying breath.

Journeying back to the boat is harder than the first trip, as this time we have to transport a six foot block of ice with Steve's body in it. The mood is grim to say the least.

"Howard," I say once we're back on the boat, trying for a lighter tone, "do you remember the day Steve first got his shield?"

Howard starts to smile - just a little bit, but that's a start. "Was that the time you were jealous and shot at him four times in a row?"

I laugh, surprising even myself. "It's a good thing your inventions work, then."

He grins. "Never doubt vibranium."

The mood sobers quickly. "Have they started to defrost his body yet?" I ask.

Howard leans back in his seat. "Yeah. We can't take his body back to New York in a block of ice, so he should be completely thawed by this afternoon."

I glance out the tiny window at the pure white terrain beyond. I'm suddenly very glad we'll be back in New York by nightfall.

With a bang, the door slams open. One of the scientists assigned to unfreeze Steve's body stands there, panting as though he's just run a mile. Howard and I jump to our feet. "What's going on?" Howard demands.

"Mr. Stark...Miss Carter...come with me...please," the scientist wheezes.

We rush after him to the lab. Steve's body is on a table still half frozen. My heart squeezes at the sight. "What's happened?" I ask the head scientist.

He looks up from a monitor as though just noticing our prescence. His face has an incredulous expression as he stammers: "This - this guy's alive!"