Chapter Text
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves...Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
Dylan Thomas, "Fern Hill"
Berkeley, California: July 1942
A conversation. The air is hot, stirring paper napkins under the palm trees. Dr. Teller holds his hat to his head with one hand, gesticulating with the other. He is young, but Howard's much younger: so young. He felt it in his body more on the East Coast: like the world around him was slowing down, while he was energetic, his own system of heat. All of his cells were super-charged. When he was a child, it took him a long time to learn to speak, but once he got started he took off running. "A mile-a-minute mouth," his teachers said. He thought his mouth was slow; his head went so much faster.
In California, it doesn't matter so much. California is like someone sanded the earth down, just came along with a neat hard edge and wiped out everything out, and started from scratch. A fresh clean world. The sunlight hits the ground at strange angles. The trees smell like trees from the Paleozoic. The sea isn't old like the sea off Long Island. There's no history to it. He saw a campus exhibit on Polynesian navigation. There were maps made out of twigs, maps that look like geometric figures. Wooden maps of ocean swells, from the Marshall Islands. Howard didn't know how to read them. He doesn't like this idea, that some knowledge is secret.
Teller is drawing a plan for plasma confinement. Ink ruins the paper napkin, running out of his pen. The table is cluttered with crusts of toast, dishes. Orange juice cups with pulp on the rim. Howard never liked orange juice before, but his taste is changing. His way of carrying himself, his accent. The sun has burned the East Coast off him. He feels like a blank slate. He sips coffee black. He listens as the physicists carry on.
"You're not a physicist, Eddie," Dr. Serber says. "You're a storyteller."
Teller, with his Hungarian accent like a vampire: "You think so? You think so? I am the only real physicist!"
Teller's theory: fuck plain fission, let's start fusioning atoms. Fusing? Fusioning. They're speaking in tongues, a brand-new language. The verb for fission is to fish. We gotta fish the whole lot. It requires about n = 80 generations to fish a kilogram of uranium-235, Serber will write later. Why stop there, Teller says. With this you waste my time? No, we will make the really big bomb, the Super. This is only the real problem, the really big problem now.
No one else on the project believes this. Oppenheimer's response, invariably: If we may return to the pressing matter...
Serber, to Howard: "Dr. Teller is a danger to organization. Everywhere he goes, he spreads wild ideas."
"Wild?" Teller cries, mock-indignant. "Wild?"
"The Germans don't pay him, but they should."
"Ach, you blacken my name to this child!" Teller throws a straw wrapper at him.
Serber looks at Howard critically. "He's rich. The rich are never really children."
Let us examine this assumption: is Howard a child? Undeniably, Howard is rich. He has a company in his name, a Manhattan brownstone, a fleet of cars, a Cove Neck mansion. He hasn't the slightest idea how money works. Wealth has never really interested him. He's interested in engines and atoms; he's interested in airplanes, and the possibility of solar power. He's interested in cryptography, and the cryptographic potential of quantum entanglement. He's interested in high velocity projectiles. He has a theory of how time travel could work. It's hard for him to believe that there's a war in old, slow Europe. But make no mistake: he's part of that old, slow war now. The U.S. Government said to him, "We could put you in a trench, son, but we've decided not to. Your work is necessary to the national defense." What this means is: Howard can build them weapons. So: a question: does Howard mind? Howard does not mind. You might say Howard is keen for it. He likes to build things that he can see work in the world.
"How odd you are," Teller says, regarding Serber owlishly. "I would have said the opposite." But next he's gone, off already, in pursuit of his Super. "Pfft, this fission, a problem which is— what— two months?"
Serber rolls his eyes. "Yes, very trivial, Edward."
They're building a whole base to solve the trivial problem. They, the Army, the scientists. Howard's not headed there; he's seconded to New Jersey. Still, Teller's urgency is electric, contagious. Howard studies the notes he's scrawled on the napkins. "You'd need," he says. "—You'd need some type of radiation. Like a reflector."
"Don't encourage him," Serber says. "Oppie'll have my head if he drags you down his rabbithole."
"Not rabbits. Not rabbits! A wormhole," Teller protests. "A window which you and Oppenheimer will not look through."
Howard squints once more at the notes. The sun is climbing overhead. Soon they will be in the cool white classrooms, the long lab rooms with their narrow desks, scrawling in chalk till the air gets dust-heavy and the smell of it is more than they can stand. But still outside there will be this California, all gold and green and impudence, all start-fresh sky with electric sun. He feel like he's already through some wormhole, though he doesn't know exactly where he's come from.
"I have some ideas," he says. "Radiation's my project. I'll give you my notes."
"Well, well," Serber says. "God bless the child."
Howard's twenty-four years old. He'll be twenty-five in August.
In California till the autumn, he writes letters to New Jersey: notes on setting up his lab, on equipment. The Strategic Scientific Reserve is the name of his new outfit. His liaison's a Englishman named Carter; they send telegrams to one another. [V V IMPORTANT ! ! VAN DE GRAAFF GENERATER MUST ! !! HAVE SOLID GROUND], he sends. [PLS CONFIRM RCPT SPECS FOR EYESHEILDS !! ! NOTE NOT STANDARD! ! ! ]To which Carter's response typically is: [COMM RECEIVED STOP LETTER FOLLOWS.]
The letters followed.
Mr. Stark,You may rest easy at night; the Van de Graaff generator has been installed on solid ground, as opposed to the other kind. I am to inform you that it is capable of producing .5 MeV neutrons, which I assume is a number that has some meaning. We are experiencing some difficulties with our power supply— a political matter, not a technical one, which I am assured will shortly be resolved. I have made arrangements for other laboratory items likely to cause large electrical drains to be temporarily sited at Princeton, a university with which I understand you are somewhat familiar. Perhaps you could inform me prior to your arrival if this arrangement is likely to create as many "political" concerns as it resolves. I trust you understand what I mean; tales of your salad days are, shall we say, notorious.
It is, as ever, my pleasure to assist you:
Agt. Carter
[WHAT TALES DONT KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN HAVENT FOGGIEST ALSO WHAT IS A SALLAD DAY]
Mr. Stark,Allow me to allay your concerns regarding the eyeshields you have requested. As you provided technical specifications for said equipment, rather than indicating the make and manufacture that would best serve your need, I did assume that these specifications were nonstandard. I have dutifully communicated the details of your request via the proper channels, and will personally endeavour, to the best of my ability, to ensure that the equipment thus produced meets your standards.
We have budgeted you for two full-time assistants. You will, of course, be working closely with Dr. Erskine; he has a considerably larger staff. Perhaps he will share them if you play nicely. Please find attached: ten personnel files of suitable candidates. If you could indicate to me your preferences by 12 November at the latest, it would be greatly appreciated.
Salad days: from Antony and Cleopatra, Act One, Scene Five: "...My salad days,/ when I was green in judgment: cold in blood,/To say as I said then!"
It is, as ever, my pleasure to assist you:
Agt. Carter
[I THINK YOULL FIND IM STILL V COLD BLOODED ALSO NEED MORE ASISTANTS ! ! PREF FEMALE. NEGOTIATE]
Mr. Stark,Per your instruction, I proposed to Colonel Phillips the possibility of further assistants. The colonel wished me to communicate to you the following sentiment (lightly censored): "Stark ——s money; he can hire his own godd—n staff. Does he want me to short our boys ——ing guns in Manila so he can pay some floozy to carry his godd—n briefcase?" I suggested that it would be highly irregular for military personnel to be privately employed, and mooted a compromise: the SSR will vet and clear your men (n.b.) as contractors. You yourself will assume the expense. Too, you will carry your own "godd—n" briefcase. I hope this will seem an acceptable solution. If so, please submit the pertinent documents (list attached).
It is, as ever, my pleasure to assist you:
Agt. Carter
[I DONT HAVE A BRIEFCASE IS THIS GOING TO BE A PROBLEM]
Mr. Stark,The colonel beseeches me to enclose this mail-order catalogue, from which, I gather, a gentleman of means might obtain a very satisfactory briefcase model. Further, he instructs me to communicate that "we are in a godd—n war here, not going to geography classes," and that, as such, you may be called upon to transport classified documents. I shall leave it to you to light upon an appropriate course of action, as the colonel's suggestion was both obscene and inappropriately specific.
I shall await your arrival on the 6th of November, and I look forward to embarking on our work together.
It is, as ever, my pleasure to assist you:
Agt. Carter
Camp Lehigh, New Jersey: 1942
So, now: Imagine Howard's shock when he arrives in New Jersey. He's expecting... what? An Englishman. Not this tall, dark-haired woman, with red lipstick and a profile that Klimt would paint. And yet he looks at her and sees at once the letter-writer. Knows it, even before she says, "Mr. Stark. You bought a briefcase; I'm pleased to see it."
"Agent Carter," he says. "Do I have to salute? If I don't salute, are you going to throw me in the brig?"
"Don't be silly. For civilian contractors, we use torture."
"Good idea; gotta keep us in our place."
And just like that, the shock has passed. They're familiar to one another in these bodies.
She grins at him, unexpectedly. Her eyes are warm. Howard's never had a woman grin at him like that, like they were in some kind of a club together. He likes it. He feels nervous a lot of the time around other people, like he has to perform, but with her it's easy, basic.
She says, "Let me show you to your lab. Your spelling's atrocious, by the way."
"Yeah? Did they tell you I'm a genius?"
"Something along those lines."
"That's what they tell me, too."
"Well, I suppose it can't be helped."
Howard hefts up his briefcase. He shrugs. He says, "Some things can't."
He's working with Erskine, whom he'd met once in Europe. Or rather: the two of them are working in tandem, two separate sides of the same larger project. Howard spends his days thinking about Vita-Rays, the effect of radiation on the body. At night, he thinks about other problems: gravitic reversion, nuclear fusion, vibration-absorbent metals. He's thinking of building a flying car. He's thinking about invisible airplanes. Erskine says, "Perhaps, Mr. Stark, if you could consider the matter at hand...?"
Erskine is a sad, stooped man, a gentle physiologist with a passion for flowers. He takes hikes in the nearby swamps to collect orchids. His office is like a miniature hothouse. Howard, who has little use for plants, is nevertheless amazed when Erskine invites him in. So many flowers, like bright glass baubles, anchored by fragile green wires to their pots. He sees things at the level of machinery, always. But the machinery here is fragile, complex, a living system that he's slightly afraid of.
"Dr. Erskine," he says, "this is amazing."
"Yes, thank you," Erskine says. He has this very wry cool manner, like nothing you say is surprising to him. "In Germany I won prizes for my flowers. People say to me always, there, But what is your secret? Always wanting a secret."
"So what is the secret?" Howard asks.
Erskine shrugs. "There is no secret. Why should there be a secret? It's very simple: I talk to them."
"Seems like there should be more to it than that."
Erskine gives him a long, slightly melancholy look. "You think this because you are so young still. Someday, Mr. Stark, you will be an old man. Like me, an old man. And you will know how few secrets there are in the world. No; don't argue, or I will not share this very fine brandy I have here."
So Howard doesn't argue, and they share the brandy.
New Jersey is wilder than he would have expected. It's close to New York, but the wind blows from the Pine Barrens. It's not the same kind of wild as California. There's a smell of swamp water, white cedar, rotted trees. At night, when the air gets cold, you can smell it more clearly. He goes up to the roof, sometimes, after midnight. He needs to think things through. He needs to not see the numbers. The sheer amount of stars he can see here is vast. On clear nights: the band of the Milky Way. He lies back on the concrete and tar, smoking cigarettes. He hears horned owls hooting in the distance. It's supposed to be a friendly sound, something that little kids learn how to make. Whoo-hoo! goes the owl. But it's not. It's like they're hollow, like their whole bodies are empty, and all that's left is the wind blowing through them.
Carter finds him there, come the first week of November, in a parka— her, not him. She says, "You bloody idiot, you'll freeze to death!"
"Now? Nah, not now. This is my home turf. Don't they have winter in England?"
"Occasionally." She crosses her legs to sit next to him. "We don't actively embrace it. Pass me a fag?"
He does. He hears the lighter, the flame. The stir of her breath.
She says, "One of the boys has told the others that there's a monster in the woods, something horrible coming to get them— which they of course all believed."
By "boys," she means the soldiers-in-training. Some of them have never left home before. It's like summer camp to them.
Howard says, "The Jersey Devil."
"The what?"
"The Jersey Devil. It's supposed to live in the Pine Barrens. It's a big, you know, monster type of thing. I remember stories about it from when I was a kid."
"What's it meant to look like, this Devil?"
"I dunno. Big wings, flaming eyes. The usual." Howard flicks his cigarette butt off the roof. He feels suddenly sad. He is the type of person who stumbles into emotions. They start as physical sensations: a pain in his chest, a nerve-twitch, a sudden lethargy. Only later does he know the meaning of these clues. His body is a locked-room mystery. Even now he doesn't know why he's sad; why be sad? He says, "It's supposed to have lived there since the Indians lived there. I guess maybe it was one of their things."
Carter looks at him. He can't see her eyes in the darkness. She says, "When I came to America, I thought there would be Red Indians all over. Like the pictures, you know, Destry Rides Again. But there aren't. In fact, I don't think I've seen any."
"No." A horned owl calls again. Howard imagines the Devil, out there in the forest: a big, wild, ancient lumbering thing; maybe with wings, maybe without; maybe without hands or eyes. It doesn't have to look human. It could be older than humans. Unkillable, like the bogs themselves. Are they unkillable? He remembers tales of farmland, swallowed up by the encroachment. Now beetles and ghost moths come to bat against the base's lightbulbs. He says, "You should come up to the City. Sometime. For the holidays. It's not like this."
"All right."
"I mean, if you're not going home."
A gently exasperated look.
"Oh. Right. There's a war on."
"It's all right."
"Don't you miss it?"
"What, England?" She breaths out puffs of smoke. "I don't know. Home, maybe. It's odd to consider that once you lose it, you've lost it. You can't go back and do it over again. Being a child, I mean. Growing up somewhere."
"Thank God," Howard says, harsher than he meant.
Carter looks at him sharply. Her eyes are always so sharp. He doesn't know what she sees. They sit in silence for a while. At one point, a meteor streaks by overhead. Howard doesn't as a rule go so long without talking. But he thinks to himself: this isn't bad. This, right here, isn't more than he can handle. He lets himself relax into it.
Around this time he thinks he might marry Carter. She's the type of girl you marry, not the type you bed. He hasn't thought of marrying before, hasn't wanted to think about it. One of the physicists at Berkeley had had a wife who was dying. A guy about Howard's age. Tuberculosis, Serber'd said. Howard hadn't known them well. Imagine, because Howard can't: other people marry, settle down; they start families. They get sick and die. All of this feels removed from Howard's life. When he sleeps with a girl, he wants her gone the next morning. By that point, she's exhausted her usefulness to him. Cold, but there it is: most people don't have much to offer. Not to a mind like Howard's, and women less than others.
Imagine Howard marrying. Imagine him bringing someone home, to his inherited house, to any of the houses he lives in. Already it seems impossible. A house that he shares will never be a house he lives in. But here, now, he entertains the fantasy. He'll marry Carter, he thinks. After the war. Later. Who knows who he'll have become after the war, who any of them will have become by then.
He finds time to send a batch of papers to Teller. X-Rays??? See notes on other posible fixes. Solved that triveal problem yet??? Have a look at this and see what you think. Yrs sincerely, THE CHILD.
1943
January. Snow. Happy New Year, Howard.
He wakes up, still pretty drunk, in the lab. How did he get there from New York? He remembers a party at the St. Regis, then El Morocco, someplace in Brooklyn, maybe? The Cafe Rouge, later? He doesn't remember driving. He's still wearing a tuxedo. Erskine's sleeping on a bench, smelling of schnapps. Jesus, what a holiday season. The serum still isn't working. He bought Carter rubies for Christmas. Now she isn't speaking to him.
He makes coffee on a Bunsen burner. He thinks absently about gravitic reversors. God, his head hurts. The smell of the coffee seems to wake up Erskine, who groans. Howard asks, "Did we blow anything up last night?
"I am a scientist, Mr. Stark. I do not blow things up. I do science."
"Yeah, yeah. Potayto, potahto." He pours the coffee. "You want some of this?"
"Please." Erskine accepts the cup.
They drink their coffee in silence. After a while, Howard says, "I'm thinking about building a flying car."
"Yes? And what use do you foresee for this?"
"It just seems like an interesting problem. I guess: making money."
"You do seem to spend a great deal of money."
"She told you about the rubies, didn't she?"
Erskine looks amused. "No, you did."
"I was pretty drunk, huh." Howard runs a hand through his hair.
Erskine shrugs mildly. "Why not celebrate? It's a new year. The world hasn't ended."
"It never seems to. No matter how much I fuck things up."
He's startled by the hand that settles on his shoulder: a heavy comfort, warm and gentle. Erskine's face suggests he's laughing at Howard a little bit, but it's not unsympathetic, that expression. "Fear not," Erskine says. "Your, how do you say? Fuck-ups. Are very much minor, so far. At any rate, this is what the work is for, yes? We break things, and then we put them back together."
Erskine doesn't, really. He works with living bodies. You can't do that with living bodies; you can't just put them back together again. But Howard appreciates the words, anyways.
"Okay," he says. "Okay, yes. Back to work."
"Tomorrow," Erskine says, making a face. "We put them back together tomorrow. When neither of us feels like blowing things up."
Howard sees Carter, of course. They have to work together. And it's not like he proposed marriage to her. He just wanted to give her something pretty. Something she'd like. And the money doesn't matter to him. He should be able to use his money to do whatever he wants. But Carter had refused to take the jewelry.
"Mr. Stark," she'd said, "I can't accept this. We work together."
"But I want you to have it.
"I'm sorry."
"It's not— I'm not expecting anything. I just want you to have it. Honestly, I swear. It's just a gift."
She'd looked at him like he was ten years old, rather pityingly. "Surely you know better than that. Howard."
"What? It's just a gift. What— if you're so smart, explain it to me."
"Do you know what kings used to do, when they wanted to ruin their rivals?" She pushed her heavy hair behind her ears, looking for a moment quite fierce, and beautiful, and strange. "They would give their rivals the most lavish gift they could afford, and they would ruin themselves— their rivals, I mean. Trying to pay the gift back. Because a gift is a debt, and an unpaid debt is a dangerous thing."
"You're not my rival," Howard said. "And I'm not trying to— Jesus."
"I know. I know, and I'm sorry. I am."
"You think, what, I'm trying to buy you? I don't need to buy you. I can buy any woman I want. I've got millions of dollars. I've got a PhD from Princeton. I don't even have to pay for it. I go to expos, I've got dames throwing themselves at me, practically lining up to— dames lining up to jump in bed."
He'd stopped himself from saying fuck, but it didn't help. He could tell by the way she was looking at him.
"If you were any other man," she said, "I'd slap you across the face. I suppose that's more insulting, that I want to and won't do it. Because you're Howard Stark, because you're rich. Because you could have my job, and I wouldn't put it past you."
"Hit me," he said. "You want to hit me? Go on. Do it."
But Carter hadn't. She'd just walked out on him.
So they don't talk for a while, and it's fine. It's all fine.
Anyhow, Howard's got a thousand projects to finish. He's building the flying car, and there's Teller's superbomb— a constant, tantalizing, phantasmic presence— and the Vita-Rays, and the guns, and a new metallic alloy, and for the love of Christ, there's a war on, there's a war on; don't people have something better to do? Doesn't anyone else care about this?
"All right," says Erskine mildly. "I was only asking."
"I don't have time for..." Howard waves his hand, short-tempered.
"Other people?" Erskine suggests. "Friends?"
Howard ignores him. He says, "These are my new estimates, as close as I can get them. I can give you 95% power, at capacity."
"You should have given her an orchid," Erskine tells him.
Howard snorts. He can't help himself; he's picturing it: Carter trying to keep an orchid alive. It would die immediately, probably withered by scorn. "That's a terrible idea," he says. "No offense, Doc."
"Ah well," Erskine says. "Woman is an unknowable creature. And there are so few connoisseurs of orchids, these days."
He heads up to the house on Long Island. Yes: the inherited house. The house that he spent his early childhood in. He doesn't like to talk about his parents, but it's not what you think, all right? He'd never really known them. He thought that they had not been clever people. They'd been managers, managers of large sums of money; they had inherited all the wealth they possessed, and then left it to him in turn: his mother dead of Spanish influenza, his father a suicide by the time Howard was ten. (Two uncles, as well, Rudy and Conrad. People talked; the papers talked: hereditary madness. Cosmopolitan lifestyles. European background.) So: an orphan. Already, he'd apprehended his place in this world: the brain that would not stop; the inexhaustible voice, the old slow handlers who'd try to handle him. "Poor Howard," they said, "poor little Howard." "May I have my money, please," poor little Howard said, and proceeded to do exactly as he liked.
There had always been, you know, people around. A lot of affectedly genteel East Coast affection. He'd been a little prince; he'd lacked for nothing. In fact, he'd grown up rather spoiled, some opined. He thinks of his childhood as largely happy. And now, now, at twenty-five, he has everything he wants: he's rich and he's famous, he runs his company; he works with science's brightest minds; he's saving the world. Winning the war, at the very least. Right, Howard? Right? He's going to build a flying car. He's going to reach inside an atom. He's going to be the man who throws the switch on the first super soldier.
He ends up breaking a window. He just can't stand it; he has to let some air in. This whole house is like a mausoleum. Every quiet room perfect, a perfect doll's room, high-ceilinged and oddly echo-infested. There's a reason why he doesn't live here. But he comes sometimes and raids the stocked liquor cabinet, gets fantastically loaded and stumbles out to the terrace-edge, where he sits on the ground and watches the seagulls: circling restless and hungry in from the ocean, then— crying, unsatisfied— back out again.
New York in March. The snow is melting. He sends a telegram from the office. Silly to do it, silly, but he does—
[ERSKINE SAYS SHOUD HAVE GIVEN YOU ORCHIDS THINK HIS MINDS GONE FROM TO MUCH TIME IN THE SWAMPS HA HA DONT WORRY NO FLOWERS FOURTHCOMING]
He debates adding more but can't figure out what. He still doesn't know why she's angry with him.
So he sends it, and then goes to meet a girl from the Follies. She thinks she's going to be a Broadway star. She's vapid-eyed but very tender, and he thinks about the bomb while they're in bed, touching the animal musculature of her body. It's something physical to do, and he's grateful for it. Afterwards, he jots down a quick note on plasma cooling— he always has a lot of ideas during sex— and kisses her shoulder. She really is very pretty. He loves these girls, the simplicity of them. It's a human level he can't exist at. Like rabbits, but not rabbits. Rabbit-humans. Their lives are full of feeling, and go by so fast. There's an emptiness to them he envies a lot. He'd like to stop thinking. Sometimes. Sometimes. He'd like to just lie there, not thinking, not talking, with somebody's lips against his skin.
Mr. Stark,I appreciate your self-restraint in re: the flowers. I have very little time for them. As it happens, there is a service you could do me. I believe you know that I carry a Walther PPK pistol. This is the standard sidearm for agents of the SSR; however, as a blowback firearm, it is designed for heavy hands. This is less than ideal, as my hands are not heavy, and firing consecutive shots takes a toll on them. If a simple modification could resolve this problem, I would already have attempted it. I wonder if you might have some alternative thoughts.
My sincere thanks in advance,
Agt. Carter
Carter—
Made some mods give it a shot Let me know if trigger pull to lite now, Can fix no prob. HS
Mr. Stark,An upcoming operation necessitates that I be able to conceal a weapon while wearing a green floral rayon dress. The sleeves will be short (approx. 17 centimeters from shoulder to seam) and as the night may not be chilly, I cannot rely on a coat's camouflage. A thigh holster seems the most likely option; however, I would prefer something with a bit more accuracy (and potentially a higher capacity) than the .38 snub nose pistol. Have you any alternatives to suggest? Two weeks' advance should allow me to familiarize myself with a new firearm.
My sincere thanks in advance,
Agt. Carter
Carter—
if wishes were horses begars woud &c But have a look at this mod .38 cant stick more ammo in it Sweetheart but if you can hit em 1st time you wont need it xx HS
He's working late when she comes in from the mission. He hears her heels on the concrete: click, click, click. He stops soldering circuits and lifts up his goggles. Turns, his eyes adjusting to the new light of the lab, and all at once, there she is: oddly ungraceful in the fashionable shoes, gawky in the made-to-wear rayon dress, with ashes on her knees and the outside of her elbows. She ties her hair back impatiently as he watches, with a tsking noise.
"Did you give 'em hell?" he says.
"I got knocked down," she tells him, sounding offended. "In an alley. By a Nazi. But then I shot him."
"Gun hold up?"
"It's serviceable."
"Well, that'll do the trick," he says.
"That'll do the trick," she echoes.
He strips off his gloves and wipes his forehead. He doesn't really know what time it is. His shirt is damp with sweat; his eyes are tired. She looks exhausted. "Should probably knock off work," he says.
Carter nods. She takes her high-heeled shoes off and stands in her nylons, holding one shoe in each hand— as though weighing an option, a hard decision. "Do you want a cigarette?" she asks him.
So. The two of them on a rooftop, in the springtime of New Jersey, facing out against the wilderness; smoking cigarettes as ghost moths batter the base lanterns. There's a war on. Nothing changes.
Queens, NY: 14 June 1943
Howard lures Erskine out to the Expo, really. Erskine lives in Queens, but he's more of a stay-at-home man. Still, the Expo has a recruiting booth, so: serum candidates, always an exciting potential, and: "Fireworks like you've never seen 'em," Howard promises. "A full-on light show. New York's finest."
"And your flying car," Erskine says. There's laughter in his eyes. "Or am I mistaken?"
"And my flying car." Howard shrugs. "Trust me, pal, I'm not the main attraction." Truthfully, he's been killing himself on the gravitic reversors. Reversors: ha. There's no reversing gravity. You can't just break the natural laws of the universe. But people want to hear that you can, that you've done it. The world of tomorrow; that's what Howard's selling them: a world with no laws, only marvels and wonders. When in fact, if you want to conquer nature, you have to step on its neck. He can feel it every time he powers the reversors: his metaphorical boot, the muscles tensed in the struggle, the earth pushing back, as he says, Stay down, stay down, stay down. The thought isn't pleasant.
Still, it's true that he'd wanted Erskine to see it. So he's pleased when Erskine says yes.
After, after the demo's gone wonky, he tears his bow tie off his shirt. He still feels invincible; he always does, onstage, and it lingers, like he's wired into a circuit, like he's charged. Out there, in the lights, he wears a god-mask. I'll make you immortal; I'll give you wings; I can see into the future. God. God. And they turn to him, eager, with enraptured faces, and they feel that they know him, they feel they can trust him, and he loves it, loves it until it makes his skin crawl.
He could stay in New York, probably should; but for some reason right now he can't stand the thought. So instead he drives back out to Jersey, headlights cutting through the sticky June darkness, engine roaring as loud as it can. He loves driving. He likes being one more component, an inner part of the machine, consciousless, like he can just be a body. He forgets about the Expo, the gravitic reversors. When he gets to Camp Lehigh, he feels half-human again.
He heads to the lab, still in his tuxedo. He can't think about what he'll say to Erskine tomorrow, in the face of his sympathy. So he finishes the Vita-Ray chamber instead. He'd told Erskine he could get it up to 95%; he can theoretically get it above that now— as close to one hundred as it's possible to get. Untested, but he has immaculate numbers. It'll work, he thinks. At least that's something, something he can do right.
Around 6 AM, Carter comes by with coffee. She says, "Jesus Christ, Stark, have you been in here all night?"
"You know, you sound like a soldier."
"Good: I am a soldier."
"I didn't say I was complaining about it." He takes the coffee. It's half-chicory, but very hot. "Felt like working."
"Oh? I'll just bet you did. How's the flying car?"
"Let's not talk about it."
They share a look, and then they share a cigarette, and then they go inside for an SSR briefing. Halfway through the order of business, late, looking wild, Erskine comes in, and that's how they hear about his wunderkind, Rogers. Steve Rogers, the miracle boy.
Howard himself doesn't want to meet Rogers. He's not so used to working with human flesh. Better, he thinks, not to get too attached— just in case— So he works on moving the lab to Brooklyn (Brandt, of course, having denied their generator request). It's a week of work, then, checking the machines, hooking up the cables, praying the electrics work.
He tells Erskine, "Assuming, of course, we don't black out Manhattan, we might get more power. I have a tweak that I think we can try. I just want to make sure we don't fry the Chrysler Building first."
Erskine is harried, slightly distracted. He says, "Ah, yes, the power. Tell me, Mr. Stark: can we get to one hundred percent?"
"I can't promise it, but if the numbers hold up— I don't know if we can sustain it, though, through more than three, four runs— if all goes as planned, and we're turning out soldiers, we might have to make do with a little less."
"And this is the circuits themselves, the physical machine?"
They fall into plotting out modifications: what they'll do if this happens, and that, and does Howard think that Brandt will ease up on requisitions, and should they move the lab upstate, and then one of the lab techs starts waving a clipboard, and Erskine says apologetically, "Excuse me for a moment," and when Howard looks up again, Erskine is gone.
So they don't finish the conversation. Howard shrugs, and jots a reminder: power tweek lower max but long sustained sub-max??? generater time use issue (BRANDT) ask AE subject indurance—
Brooklyn, NY: 22 June 1943
What is it he thinks will happen in that lab? What is it that Erskine thinks? They don't talk at all, the night before the test, so Howard never knows. He knows Erskine wanted something. Not money or power, not success or fame. Not what Howard wants, which is— he can feel it at the very back of his heart, the way he knows a new design is forming in his head. But it never seems to grow the skeleton that he can draw.
What he dreads most is that flying-car sensation: the flesh of the old world straining in his grip, as he forces it down. Be a wonder, he commands. Who was it that wrestled the angel? Jacob, he thinks. Starks are nominally Catholic— at least, Howard was christened— but now he can't recall much more than the name. Did he win? What does it mean, to win against an angel? It's an angel: you can't ever really defeat it. Either it comes back to get its revenge in the night, or else you have to go on making it submit, your whole life holding down this one angel. Maybe he should have thought of that before he got started, Howard thinks— Jacob. Maybe he should have asked: Is there another way to do this?
This is what's in his head, approaching the test.
So when he sees the chamber lit up with Rogers inside it, this large electric thing that doesn't look like a man, he thinks, Fuck, oh fuck, what have we done?
But when he hits the lever to make the machine open, when he puts his hand to Rogers' side— touches the sweat-wet flesh of his shoulder— he feels that what he's been selling is true, that maybe the world could be filled with marvels, and they could be beautiful, an endless springing-up of life. It's like Erskine had said: there is no secret. It's so easy, and he's bewildered, overjoyed.
And then—
A nurse pulls a sliver of glass from his palm. Like— he thinks, amazed— a magic trick.
At some point, someone says that he should go back to New Jersey. He thinks: why not. No point being here.
Carter comes to New Jersey also, and the shivering wunderkind. So that's how he knows they're still alive.
Also: a Hydra submarine has been acquired. This is an interesting object. He buries himself in its innards at once. After a while, Carter shows up (sans wunderkind) and says Mr. Stark maybe you should rest. A good suggestion, but Howard's got other plans. He tries to shoo her from the lab. Busy now, sweetheart. She tries to give him an order. The situation deteriorates after that. Eventually she convinces him to at least change his clothes, since— wouldn't you know it— there's blood on his shirt. His own, he thinks. A smear on the cuff from the cut on his hand.
About ten hours later, Carter returns. This time, she asks, "Are you all right, Howard?"
He's up to his waist in quantum wiring. He can't look at her right now. "I'm tired, I'm just, I'm really... just really tired," he says.
"I know," she says quietly. "I know. Me too."
So: boxing up the labs for a new adventure. Packing up all of their traveling bags. By the time that Howard thinks to ask, someone has cleared out Erskine's office. And the orchids, what's become of them? —Gone. Because: what use, to a martial endeavor...?
The wunderkind gone, Howard gets drunk with Carter. They pass a bottle back and forth on the laboratory rooftop. Spring has sprung and now they're in the loose coils of summer. It's evening, and the last light sags over them. Carter kicks her shoes off. Howard admires her arches.
"You have excellent feet," he says. "From an engineer's perspective."
Carter sighs. "Can you not stare at my feet, please, Stark."
"All right." He tips his head up towards the sky instead. "So. Going home."
"London. Yes. England. Blighty. I will not cease from mental fight, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand..." She trails off, staring into the shadows. The stars are appearing overhead. So many stars, out this far into the boondocks. They remind Howard of the huge distance between other parts of the universe and him.
Eventually, Carter asks, "What will you do? About your company, I mean?"
Howard shrugs. "There's a war on. We'll postpone the flying cars."
"Won't you lose money?"
"I don't give a damn about money."
"Oh, Mr. Stark," Carter says wryly, "I know that's not true."
"All right, I do; but I don't just want, you know." His throat's tight abruptly. He doesn't know why. "This was supposed to be," he says, "different, I don't know, I don't know, I thought— He was just so— "
Carter watches him silently as he struggles to swallow.
"You know," she says, "his family were shot by the Nazis. Before he left Germany. He never talked about it. I only know from the file."
Howard puts his hands over his face. It's a helpless reaction. He thinks: What next, what next...?