From The Ice || a Marvel Studios Fanfic

14 - Visiting Mum

Liberty's P.O.V

I said very quick farewells to my sister and my childhood best friend, promising to call them later or come back to see them again as soon as was humanly possible, and I hope they understood, I just needed to see my mother.

Naturally, I assumed that she had passed away whilst I was in the ice, she was over 30 years old the year I was taken, and I had been gone for over 60 years, so it wasn't entirely an illogical assumption. But finding out from Lizzie, the sister whom I also thought I had lost whilst I was under the ice, that the woman who brought me into this world was still alive and breathing in the same oxygen I was was huge.

We got back in the car, I didn't talk to dad, I didn't even look at him. He had known all this time that my mother, Margaret 'Peggy' Carter, was still alive and he hadn't told me, of course, I was going to be angry at him.

"Liberty..." he said, breaking the silence, keeping his eyes on the road, obviously feeling genuinely bad about not telling me about mum. I kept silent, my eyes staring out the window, thinking of what I'll say to her when I see her. Will I even recognise her? By how much Lizzie grew up whilst I wasn't around, I could judge that mum must've changed too. How would I explain everything, I couldn't just repeat the same story that I had told everyone else, even if that was what was true, I feel like I owe her something; an explanation? An apology? I wasn't entirely sure, but I needed this car journey to decide.

We pulled up outside a large building, a hospital, and parked up the car in the carpark. Steve walked ahead of me, the staff of the hospital greeting him as we walked by, he must be a frequent visitor. We turned down hallway after hallway and through door after door until we reached a corridor which was a pathway to lots of smaller hospital rooms, they were the types of rooms that I had seen on television, on movies and such. Small, only one single bed in the centre, quite dull and empty but yet really bright as the artificial lights bounce off the crisp white of the walls. We walked down this corridor past a few doors until we reached the 12th door down when dad stopped to look at me and we opened to door and walked through.

The room was very much the same as all of the other ones we had passed on our walk down; the walls were crisp white, the lights artificial, and the single bed was centred near the middle. But the thing that was different about this room was that there was a person, a lady, in the small single bed fast asleep. A somewhat familiar lady.

"Hey Steve," the hospital warden in the room greeted us, smiling first at dad, then down at me.

"How is she?" Dad asked, trying to be quiet, as I suspected, as to not wake the lady in the bed.

"She's eating a little bit better than before, but her health is still deteriorating slowly," The warden replied, smiling sadly, "but you've always known Peggy better than me, and you know that she won't give up her fights that easily," and with that the warden began to pick up her things, putting them on a trolley and left, saying she'd be back in about an hour or so to check up on her again.

Wait. Did she just call the lady... Peggy? That woman in the bed was... my mother?!

Steve's P.O.V

The door shut behind the warden as she walked out, of course, Peggy's eyes began to flutter open. Her brown eyes looked around the room until they met my blue ones.

"Steve?" I heard her say quietly, I walked towards her bedside, past Liberty who was stood at the end of the bed where we had entered when we first walked into the room.

"Hey Peg," I replied, sitting by her side. She moved her hand to touch my hand and I held that hand like it was the world.

"You're alive," Peggy whispered to me, I smiled.

"I wouldn't leave my best girl," I replied, a sad smile still spread across my face, "plus, you still owe me that dance," It was then that her relaxed gazed broke from mine and she looked down to the foot of her bed towards where Liberty was stood.

"Liberty?" I heard Peggy say under her breath in disbelief, she looked like she'd seen a ghost of sorts.

Liberty lifted her head at hearing her name, her ears pricking up. I gestured for her to come round to her mother's bedside.

"H-how? Steve?" Peggy half gasped-half whispered.

"Liberty is really here, she was found by S.H.I.E.L.D, Director Fury brought her to me as soon as he found out," I told her, her eyes not leaving Liberty all the while. Liberty and Peggy just sat and stared at each other for a minute or so before Liberty brought herself to speak.

"M-mum I-" Liberty stuttered before letting tears fall down her cheeks, her voice cracking slightly as she tried to speak.

"Liberty was found by Romanoff and Barton, she was being kept in an unknown H.Y.D.R.A base. They somehow knew that she was... erm... mine, and they froze her in ice. Fury found out from one of his spies that the base was known for taking kids about Liberty's age, Romanoff was insistent that she was sent on the mission. Liberty was the only one who managed to get out alive."

"I'm- I'm sorry- I should- I should've tried harder to escape-" Liberty muttered, trying to hold the tears in, "It-it's all my f-fault," she managed to say before floods of tears began pouring out of her. I felt completely powerless. I wanted so hard to help her understand that none of this was her own fault, she could've done nothing to prevent what happened, but I could do nothing to help her feel differently about the situation. Peggy began to speak then, despite her weak figure, her voice was still as authoritarian as it had always been, yet it was quieter than I remembered.

"No, no, n-none of this was your fault, my brave little sparrow," I watched Peggy as she spoke, the motherly tone evident in her voice, a small smile across her face, tears filling up her eyes. They embraced then, weakly, and I saw the world I wanted right in front of me, my two best girls.

Liberty's P.O.V

It felt amazing having one of mums hugs again after 60 years. After I'd wiped away my tears and mum had wiped away hers, we caught up on... well... everything. I told her how I'd seen Lizzie already, I'd seen the wedding photo album and caught up with Lizzie and Arthur, I told her how I'd met Tony Stark and she told me all about Maria Stark and how Howard met her, she asked me if Tony was okay, I nodded, saying yes that he seemed okay.

Once we'd caught up for a bit, the warden came back through the door with her trolley again and we began to say our farewells. Just as we began to walk towards the door and away from my mum's hospital bedside, her eyes seemed to gloss over for a few seconds before she seemed to snap back to reality, looking at us strangely.

"Steve?" She said, just as she had earlier.

"Hey Peg," Dad turned around and said, a smile across his face.

"You're alive!"

"Of course, I wouldn't leave my best girl," I looked at my dad, confusion spread across my features. Then, suddenly, I understood, and I could see his heart breaking slowly through the smile.

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AUTHORS NOTE
Hi guys! Sorry for taking ages to upload (yet again) but I just wanted to let you guys know that there are many new chapters coming your way as I have decided to write the rest of this fan fiction for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) 2018! This means I will have to complete a 50,000 word manuscript of something (that something being this fanfic) in order to complete the challenge!

This means that there will be much MUCH more of this story heading your way very soon. And I shall try to upload more chapters maybe once or twice a week hopefully, once this fanfic is going again.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter and look forward to more!

- C