nightcathedral | Put one foot wrong and I'm gonna fall...

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Put one foot wrong and I'm gonna fall...

It's nearly three in the morning when Olivia slips out of her room and heads down to the lab where Tony Stark had a sensory deprivation tank set up for her. She moves quickly and quietly, and doesn't bother switching on the lights when she enters the lab, leaving the blue glow of the monitors around the room to light her way - she's hoping that the less she does, the less JARVIS will take notice of her, and maybe he won't wake anyone to tell them what she's doing before it's too late. There are letters on her bed to Steve, to Jane, to Tony and Bruce, and between that and her absence, and whatever security cameras she's sure are monitoring this room, that'll have to do to explain where she's gone.

She eases the door quietly shut behind her, and crosses the room to the bright steel table where the syringes full of Cortexiphan Dr. Banner managed to synthesize are already laid out. Olivia picks one up, grimaces a little, and slides the needle into the big veins just below her wrist. Maybe this is what went wrong the last time. Maybe she needs a dose of the drug to get her to the right place. She's praying that's what it is, because otherwise, she's running out of ideas or other plans.

The empty syringe makes a soft ringing sound as she tosses it back into the tray. Olivia's already all but running up the stairs to access the tank. There's a breathing apparatus dangling over the top, just like in Walternate's lab. She grabs it, fits it into her mouth and takes a breath, and slides into the water with hardly a ripple.

For a minute, nothing happens. Olivia floats in the tank, eyes closed, just breathing and thinking of letting the universe pass through her, just like Walter told her the first time. Thinking of home.

Between one breath and the next, she vanishes, with only a swirling disturbance in the water of the tank to mark that she was there at all. The room stays silent, the tank empty, for another minute or two.

Then the tank explodes in a roar of heat and light, a ring of fire spreading outward and taking hold anywhere it can, blackening what it can't. Olivia tumbles out of the tank along with the water and lands with a crunch in the shattered glass from the tank, choking and gasping while the fire that wasn't put out by the flood dances up the walls.

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Steve nods, slowly. If in seventy years, with samples of his blood, his own government couldn't work out what Erskine had done-

Different world, different rules.

"Once it's done, I'd like it destroyed. Once I'm home. The samples, the notes, everything." He drags in a deep breath and goes back, coffee in hand, to hold the door for her again. "I've seen what Dr. Erskine's work can do. I've seen what abusing it can do. And I won't let that happen, not to y- Your. World."

He takes a too-long drink of coffee and ends up burning and choking himself at once.

"Of course," she says, and starts out the door as he holds it open for her. "I'll make sure of it myself."

She was about to lead the way down to the car, but she doesn't get far before the sound of him choking makes her turn back around, frowning. "...are you alright?"

He nods, wordlessly, recovering as he shuts the door and follows her down the hall. "Fine, thank you."

It's not a wheeze. Not quite.

By the time they get to the lab, Steve is almost happy to face a clinical eye and tests rather than the clothing store help and college girls who kept smiling and laughing when he acted embarrassed taking off his shirt or stopped to hold the door.

Girls. Women. He doesn't. Can't- Just can't.

Peter is there already, staring into space and tapping out a rhythm that almost sounds familiar, or would if he were playing the notes that went with it. He gives Steve a little nod and bypasses the man, heading straight for Olivia. "Did the research you asked me about."

Olivia had been smiling when she walked in - the moment Peter says that, her expression goes carefully neutral. "Thank you, Peter. Steve, can you give us just a minute? We'll be in the office just over there if Walter gives you any trouble."

She assumes Astrid will step in before then, but sometimes Peter really is the only one who can handle his father.

"Oh- of course." He's a little alarmed by the request - with the last encounter he had with the scientist, he's not exactly looking forward to being alone with him for any length of time, but...

Peter closes the door behind them when they slip into the office and drags a hand through his hair. "Okay, I was wrong. Sort of. It's a lot more complicated than Iron Man killing Captain America."

He's not sure where to even start. "Stark didn't pull the trigger, but he's..." Screw comics, honestly. "There was a sort of civil war over this superhero registration act - Stark was for it, Cap was against it. When Cap saw how much collateral damage they were causing..." Peter sighs. "His exact words were 'we're not fighting for the people any more, we're just fighting'. He turned himself in, and got shot climbing the steps of the courthouse for his trial. Well, he took a bullet for a cop, just like his assassins knew he would. ...How much do you know about Captain America? The whole thing."

Put that way... It doesn't sound so unbelievable. Sounds all too likely, honestly, and the idea of sending him back to that... She swallows hard and focuses on the question. One thing at a time.

"Not a lot. Just what he's told me. I know... some of how they made him what he is. He was part the Strategic Science Reserve during World War II, and he ended up frozen for seventy years when he crashed a plane to save... a lot of lives." She takes a breath, hands pressed together in front of her mouth while she thinks. "Peter... when is this supposed to happen? It was 2011 back there. He's been out of the ice for... a year, at most."

That actually gets some surprise. "It ended in 2007. They just pulled him out?"

That's provides a very, very different timetable. He's already remapping it in his head, following the various possibilities that could lead to the same conclusion - and it all adds up to one simple truth: they need more information.

"We have to tell him. The people who organized his murder have been his enemies since the beginning, the very beginning. There's no way to determine if the same events apply in his reality as do in the continuity of the comics. Besides, in the comics they bring him back to life."

He massages his temples. "Who knows if that's even possible where he's from."YY

"I don't know," she says quietly, spreading her hands for a moment before she laces them together again in her usual 'thinking' pose. "He's going to want to go back either way, I know that much. Who knows if we even can get him back, and if we can't..."

She glances toward the main lab, though she can't see Steve from where they are. "Is it even fair to tell him about something he can't change?" More fair than keeping information about his own universe and possible future from him, anyway. Nothing about this is really fair.

He wants to go over to her, to put his arms around her, to somehow make this easier - but he doesn't. Instead he says, "You would want to know."

It's gentle. Of course it is. But it's also firm. "If some version of you, somewhere, had gone through all of the things you've been through, and could have warned you beforehand- you would want to know, even if it didn't change anything."

She doesn't say anything at first, just stands there quietly, looking frustrated because she knows he's right. She already knew, but having it pointed out to her makes it impossible to ignore. Finally, she nods, drops her hands, and takes a breath.

"Okay. So we tell him. Maybe he can tell us something we don't know about... all of this." She eyes the door to the lab again, then glances back to Peter. "Do you have the comic here? So we can show him?"

He goes over to his desk - clears away a few food wrappers Walter left there - and fishes a stack of comic trades from one of the drawers. "Do you want to read them first? I can hold Walter off until you're done."

"Could you, please?" she says, looking a little relieved as she reaches out to take the books from him. "I'd rather know exactly what we are showing him before we spring this on him."

Peter hesitates before handing them over. "It's not going to be easy for you, either, if you're... friends."

Still weird to say, even silently, Captain America is in my father's lab. He starts for the door.

She smiles tightly at that comment. "I'll be fine." She knows Peter won't believe it, but she can't stop herself from saying it anyway. Maybe she can actually convince herself it's not a big deal, just a story that happens to be about a friend, one that doesn't have to come true.

She's still eyeing the books when Peter starts out the door, but lifts her head at the last second and says before he can actually leave, "Peter?"

That part's in a normal tone for her, but the next is almost tentative as she asks, "Do you think- When we get a chance, whenever that is, we could... talk? About us?"

She hesitates for a second, and then barrels on quickly, "It's just- In the hotel room, when I went to find you in the other universe, that was... I know it's been months and you thought I was dead, but I meant what I said. I still... mean it."

Olivia doesn't often feel really nervous, never mind awkward. She's feeling both now, pretty overwhelmingly.

"I didn't." It's the first thing that comes to mind after a silence that's probably too long. "I didn't think you were dead. I'd... I would never give up on you, not like that."

He puts his hand to the doorknob, realizes he hasn't answered her question, and drops it again. No expression, no expression, nothing that can give it away, not now when Captain America is in his father's lab and Olivia is about to read his fall and death - not now. "Yes. We can. We... I never doubted... We can."

She smiles at him, the brightness a little muted by her worry about Steve and the nervousness that hasn't quite faded given Peter's slightly awkward response, but happy nevertheless.

"Thank you. I know this isn't really the best time to bring it up, but..." She shrugs a little. In their life, when the hell is a good time?

Olivia waits until Peter's been gone for a minute or so to start reading - first to get the conversation with him out of her head, and then to work herself up to actually opening the book. And then she does, and she reads.

It takes a while. And it takes some time after that to just sit there and shove all her personal feelings about this to the back of her mind, make absolutely certain she's calm and nothing but professional when she finally opens the door and calls, "Captain?"

Peter and Walter have been arguing for the past five minutes about something that sounds either extremely scientific or like a debate over breakfast food- Steve isn't sure which. Either way, he's made himself as scarce as possible, talking quietly to Gene about nothing in particular while he rubs her ears and she looks at him like he's the only insane biped in the room.

Steve doesn't quite bolt for the office when Olivia calls, but it's a close thing. He stops just before he reaches her. "Yes ma'am?"

Neutrality is considerably more difficult when she's actually face to face with him. She tightens her jaw a little and motions him inside the office, closing the door gently behind him.

"I wanted to talk to you about... Well, Peter mentioned last night that there were comics about you in this universe. And he remembered something about those comics that concerned us. I didn't want to tell you if it wasn't really an issue, if he was remembering it wrong or it was different enough from your world that I could be sure it's not about you, but..."

She takes a breath, and swallows hard before going on. "Under the circumstances, I- we- didn't think it was fair to keep the information from you."

That wasn't what he expected. Granted, he didn't know what to expect, when Peter came back and she didn't and the former didn't say a word about it. It takes a bit to get his thoughts together - fear, curiosity, the general nerves of a soldier about to be handed a file of new information on the enemy.

"Agent Dunham... Olivia." He looks down. "I'm not sure..."

Why does he want to say no?

"Do the other Avengers get hurt? Is it about something that happens, something big, I mean? Because if it's just about me- I don't know if I should know. Should I?"

It doesn't even occur to him whether the information itself is valid or not. It's Olivia, and he knows her well enough by now to know if she thinks it's important, it is.

And the neutral expression vanishes like it was never there at all. She's scared - scared for him. Guilty for dragging him here, for wanting to keep it from him, for wanting to keep him here. A moment ago, this was so simple. She'd want to know, so she'd tell him. Now she has a choice, and she doesn't want it.

"I... Yes. It's something big. And I couldn't... Steve, I can't let you go back without telling you. I just can't. If you want, I can wait until we think we'll be able to send you back. If you don't go back, then it doesn't matter. But if you do, you need to know."

Whether he should is another matter, and she's not sure about that, but she can't keep this from him. If he knows, even if it's true... maybe he can change it.

"All right. Okay. It's all right." He automatically reaches out, rests his hands on her shoulders. It's no different than the gesture he's used too many times with the mothers of dead soldiers, the sisters and friends. It's harder to be nervous when a person is this kind of upset.

He gives one shoulder a gentle squeeze. "I'll listen. But I am going back."

She laughs softly at that, no trace of humor in the sound. "I know you will." She can't not sound a little frustrated, even though she knows she'd do the same, under the same circumstances.

She sighs, pulls away from his hands, and picks the first book up off the desk to hand it to him. She doesn't know if he'll want to read it, and it'll take him a while to get through it if he does, but she wants to at least show it to him while she explains. "This is what Peter told me about. There are differences from your world - for one thing, the timeline's off - but it's not enough for me to be sure."

Olivia takes a breath, steadying herself, and goes on, "There was something called the Superhuman Registration Act, which is... exactly what it sounds like. Stark supported registration, you and a lot of other people opposed it, and he tried to hunt you down because of it. In the end, you turned yourself in, and on the way to your trial, you were shot and killed. And I know it's just a comic book from a universe that isn't even closely parallel to yours, but there are things in here that are true that aren't public knowledge where you're from, and... I think this is important."

Steve takes it automatically, almost not hearing her once the book is in his hands. He turns it over, back again, not recognizing a single face except his own and the Iron Man mask. It's a little like being told he's a central figure in some religious text in a language he's never heard of. The circumstances all sound plausible. Plausible. But Tony turning on him like that - Tony supporting something like that. He can't wrap his head around it.

"Who..." A frown. The words are wrong, the question is wrong, everything about all of this is wrong. "Who killed me? According to these."

Olivia watches his face carefully, trying to read his reaction, but she glances away at the question, so quickly it's almost a flinch. God, she doesn't want to be the one telling him this.

"A sniper shot you at the courthouse, and then a woman called Sharon Carter - you were... together, but she was under mind control at the time, and..." She takes a breath, knowing this next revelation is going to be bad. "It all leads back to HYDRA and Red Skull. According to this, they still exist."

"Sharon Carter?" He jerks slightly, tearing the cover. Steve winces. He smoothes it as best he can, tries to remember if he ever mentioned Peggy to Olivia as more than a woman he knew, trying to figure out if he ever actually said her name. He doesn't think so.

HYDRA. Red Skull. His grip on the book tightens again. "That isn't possible. We destroyed them. I saw him-"

Die?

No.

Get dragged into space by a weapon Loki later used after escaping the same situation. Steve tries to keep his breathing even, but he can't look at Olivia. Truth be told he's half-forgotten she's in the room. He opens the book. Scans the first pages. Closes it again.

It takes him almost a minute to open it back up and read on.

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Yes I'm still in Steve's journal shh.

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I HAVE NO FACES OF NEUTRAL PAIN APPROPRIATE FOR THIS MOMENT.

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