KillSwitch ─ s. rogers ✓

nineteen

STEVE was a bit of a minimalist, Alex learned. She figured that they would spend a lot more time packing, but in total, they had about six cardboard boxes. He apparently rented the apartment with furniture in it, so that wasn't their problem. The biggest hassle was renting a car, seeing as going from DC to Brooklyn wasn't really a motorcycle-appropriate trip. Alex guessed that it wouldn't be a hassle for most people, but most people were not Steve Rogers. It took him two hours and three calls to customer service to arrange it. Luckily, actually getting the car only took a half hour. Steve wasn't great with credit cards or keypads.

Alex picked up one of the boxes and carefully put it in the trunk of the car.

"How far is it again?" she asked. Steve put another box in.

"Two-hundred-thirty miles." He pulled a folded road map out of his pocket. Tony always made cracks at the fact that he refused to use a GPS, but newfangled technology just wasn't his style. Alex stared at him.

"Can't you find directions online? That's what I did when I found Michael's house. That Google Maps thing."

"You can." Steve closed the trunk. "But that's not really my thing."

"I am not at all surprised by that."

The two of them got in the car. Alex wasn't too familiar with the concept of seatbelts in cars, and until today, she'd never sat in a front seat. Most of her travel via vehicle had entailed being locked in the back of a truck.

Even though plenty of things about society were the same as they'd been before she disappeared, and even though she'd been alive in the 21st century already, 2014 blew her mind. To her, cross-body seatbelts and sleek, compact cars were the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Steve pulled out of his parking space and started on his way to the nursing home. Before they left, they needed to visit Peggy. Alex already stopped off at Michael's to say goodbye, so visiting Peggy was the very last step before their voyage to New York City.

About ten minutes later, Steve and Alex walked into the nursing home. The person behind the counter was new.

"Hi, how can I help you?" he said with a very large, uncomfortably friendly grin. Steve stepped up to the counter.

"We're here to visit Peggy Carter."

Counter Guy examined something hidden behind the desk. He looked up and handed them a clipboard

"Just sign in with your names, who you're here to visit, the numbers on..." He handed them two visitors' badges, "these, and the time you're signing in." He paused, studying Steve. "Are you...?"

Steve just smiled at him and wrote down the information for himself and Alex. He handed it back to the guy.

"Thanks," he said, grabbing the badges. "We, uh, we know where we're going."

Counter Guy read the name on the page, nodding absentmindedly.

"I just got Captain America's autograph," they heard him whisper. Alex tried to mask her giggle, but Steve could see it in her glimmering blue eyes. He'd really grown quite fond of her in this short time. His brain couldn't wrap itself around the fact that someone turned this sweet little girl into a murderer, tortured her, and kept her captive for nearly seventy years. Very few things actually set him on fire with rage. That was one of them.

Being missing for seventy years without growing up past age thirteen/fourteen/? (Alex heard through the grapevine that Sasha was a mathematical genius, so hopefully Sasha would be willing to do those calculations for her based on the Hydra files) and returning to find your mother in her nineties was a lot in itself. Finding your mother in her nineties with dwindling health and severe Alzheimer's was terrifying. Thinking that made Alex feel even worse. If it made her feel so scared and lost, she couldn't imagine what it did to Peggy herself, or to Michael, who witnessed and handled it all, or to this elusive Sarah character, who was presumably aware of the situation.

Her heart pounded.

Alex hoped Peggy was lucid. Something about the idea of finding her mother in a dementia spell made her feel guilty. She didn't want to say goodbye to her mother when Peggy was out of it. At least if she was lucid, she would remember that Alex said goodbye before leaving DC in some capacity. If she wasn't lucid, when she eventually came back to lucidity, she would be waiting for Alex and Steve to return to see her.

One of Peggy's nurses stood just outside the door, staring at his phone. When he noticed Steve and Alex coming towards him, he hastily slipped the phone into his pocket.

"She's been having a good day so far," he told them. "She knows where she is and what's going on, and she appears to be lucid."

"Can we go inside?" Alex asked. The nurse nodded and stepped aside, allowing the two of them to enter.

Peggy perked up the second she saw them. She still didn't quite understand what was going on, but she wasn't unhappy to see it.

"Alexandra," she rasped. "Steve. You came back."

"We did." Alex smiled. "We, um...we...we..." She felt so guilty. "We came to say goodbye for a while."

Her eyes welled up with tears. She'd finally returned to her family after almost seventy years, and now she was abandoning them again.

"We're moving back to New York City," Steve explained, sitting down in the chair beside the bed. "DC doesn't need Captain America anymore, and..." He'd managed to avoid telling Peggy that Hydra was in S.H.I.E.L.D. from the beginning, and he, Nat, and Sasha had laid waste to both organizations. "We need to start over."

Peggy looked at him with sad eyes.

"I've already lived my life. It's time for you to live yours." She coughed and reached for Alex's hand. "You never had a—" Another cough. "A chance to live. Now you do. I won't stand in your way."

Her hand felt so weak and bony in Alex's. Alex was afraid to move, scared Peggy's limbs would shatter or something.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure." Peggy coughed again. "Both of you."

There was a pause as the switch flipped. Peggy's eyes went wide.

"Steve?"

★★★

A half hour later, Steve and Alex were officially on the road. Alex let her head fall against the window, watching the city she barely knew fly past. In the background, the "oldies" station blasted from the radio. None of the music was old enough to be from Steve's time, but he wasn't a big fan of "popular music." Alex didn't know popular music, so it was fine with her. Occasionally, a song from her own time came on, hitting her with a wave of nostalgia.

Three hours in, Steve glanced over at Alex, who he found fast asleep. He smiled and turned off the radio.