Music is "Lies" by Marina & The Diamonds.

Picture is Tatiana Maslany as Emma Barnes.

·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·

CHAPTER NINE: Ruby Slippers

{December 25, 1951 - Sixty-One Years Ago}

Christmas Day gets easier as the years pass. Christmas of '45 was the absolute worst. I barely got out of bed, and Rose had to drag me to Howard's annual Christmas party. But in the six years since, each holiday gets a little more bearable. I find myself thinking of things other than my diseased husband and best friend. Sometimes they're even enjoyable.

This year has been the easiest since the War ended. Rose and Dum Dum are expecting their first child next month. Peggy and Daniel are married. S.H.I.E.L.D. up and running. We have much to celebrate this Yuletide season. Even Howard and Maria are getting married next Spring. Occasionally the love in the air makes me miss my Bucky, but as I said. It gets easier as time goes by.

This year, I'm hosting the Christmas party. With Howard helping Peggy on the technical side of S.H.I.E.L.D., he hasn't had the time to plan an extravagant fiesta. So I took the liberty of planning one in my own home. The the Dugans, the Carters, and the Starks are coming. It will be small, but a lot of fun.

As I pull the roast out of the oven, the phone rings. I pull off my oven mitts, hurrying over to pick up. "Hello?"

"You'd better hurry to the hospital, little lady," Dum Dum's southern accent says, worry in his voice.

I start to panic. "Why? What's wrong?"

"Somethin's wrong with the baby. We were gettin' ready to head over to your place, and Rose started bleedin'." I hear his voice get shaky. "Emma, I don't know anythin' about medical stuff, but it doesn't look right at all."

As he talks, I pull the apron off my body. "Which hospital is nearest?"

"St. Mary's."

"Okay. Drive safely, and I'm on my way right now."

Over the phone, I hear Rose cry out in pain. "Damn it, Timothy! Something is very, very wrong!"

"I'm comin', darlin'!" He then talks into the phone again. "Just hurry, Emma."

We both hang up our phones, and I make a run for the car. The drive to St. Mary's doesn't take very long. As the darkness sets in over Brooklyn, I get a feeling of dread in my chest. I park the car on the curb, throwing myself into the hospital. I look around in a panic. A nurse walks up to me, asking, "Miss, are you hurt? What's wrong?"

I turn to look at her after not seeing Rose or Dum Dum. "My sister-in-law is pregnant and she started bleeding. Her husband was supposed to bring her here. Her name is Rose Dugan. She's short, very curly blonde hair, blue eyes. Her husband is a southerner with a huge mustache. Have you seen them?"

The nurse shakes her head, stuttering, "I--I haven't, Miss. Maybe if you sit down and try to relax--"

I push her hand off my arm. "Do not tell me to calm down, damn it! Something is wrong with my Rose's baby!"

The doors to the emergency entrance open, and Rose is rolled in on a stretcher. Nurses are surrounding her, and Dum Dum is by her side. He's grasping her hand, telling her everything will be all right. I run over and take her other hand. "Rose, I'm here."

Her frantic eyes look up at mine. Her Barnes' blue orbs start to tear up, and she whimpers, "The baby... Something's wrong with my baby!"

I brush her hair back as the doctors wheel her into an operating room. "I know, Rosie darling. I know. Just breathe, all right? Everything's going to be fine."

The stretcher is pulled away, and a nurse stops both Dum Dum and I from following. "Get out of our way, punk!" Dum Dum shouts, both angry and terrified.

The nurse shakes his head, keeping us from following. Rose turns her face over the edge of the stretcher, exclaiming, "Emma! Dum!"

I grit my teeth through angry tears, using all my willpower not to shove the nurse out of my way. "That's my sister! That's his wife! We need to be there for her!"

"You have to stay outside while they're operating!"

"Operating?" Dum Dum asks. "Why the hell would they need to operate?! She's eight months pregnant! It's too soon!"

"From what the doctor saw, if we don't operate now, she's going to miscarry." The nurse starts to walk towards the operating room. "Please, if you love Rose, stay out here so we can work!"

The doors close, and the nurse disappears into the operation room. In the split second that the door is open, we hear Rose whimpering and crying. I turn to Dum Dum, and he instantly takes me into his teddy-bear embrace. "Oh my god," I whisper. "This isn't happening."

Dum Dum hugs me close, his voice trembling as he replies, "I should've done somethin'. She'd been complaining all day 'bout how her stomach hurt. I thought it was the baby kicking somethin'. I should've taken her here hours ago."

"You can't blame yourself, Timothy," I reply.

"Like hell I can't. Some dad I'll be."

I pull back, wiping my eyes. "You're going to be a wonderful father, Dum Dum."

We it down on the floor, our backs against the wall as we wait for a sign. Silence passes for hours, and still there's no word of Rose or the baby. I used the hospital phone to call Peggy and Howard. I told them that the party was off, why, and they showed up at the hospital minutes later. Howard even sent in his own personal doctor. For now, all we can do is wait.

Suddenly, Dum Dum speaks up. "We picked the names."

I turn to look at his exhausted face. "May I ask what you picked?"

A small smile covers his face. "If it's a boy, we picked James Steven Dugan."

Peggy, who sits beside me, looks over to Dum Dum with a soft smile. "It's beautiful."

"If it's a girl," Dum Dum continues, turning to the two of us, "we're going to name her Emma Margaret, after the two bravest women we know."

"Oh, Timothy," I sigh, hugging him tightly.

Moments later, the doctor emerges from the operating room. His face is solemn as he walks over to us. We all stand, waiting silently for a word of Rose and the baby. The doctor sighs, "I'm so sorry. I did all I could. Rose miscarried minutes ago."

We stare at the doctor with black expressions. I'm the first to turn to Peggy to cry into her shoulder. I hear Dum Dum softly sniffle as well. "Is she okay?" he asks. "Is my Rose okay?"

The doctor nods. "She will be. She was so frantic, we had to sedate her after she miscarried. She's resting."

"Can we go and see her?" Peggy asks, patting my back.

"You may." He pauses, and I pull myself together. "I am so, so sorry for your loss."

Dum Dum hurries down the hall towards the room. I wave Peggy, Daniel, Howard, and Maria off towards the room as I turn towards the doctor. "Thank you for doing everything you could," I say, my voice breaking.

The doctor smiles sadly. "She fought hard."

"Rose is a fighter," I agree as I start to turn towards the room.

"She is, but I didn't mean her."

I turn to glance over my shoulder at the doctor with a puzzled expression. "What?"

"The baby. She was a girl."

·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·•·

{May 7, 2012 - Present Day}

When we get Loki back to the Helicarrier, he's marched down the hallways between half a dozen guards. At the end of that hallway is a large room with a glass cage inside. Fury puts him inside, and the rest of us watch through the security feeds from the Bridge. Steve sits across from me, only listening. Bruce paces to the side of him. Thor stands by the window, his back to us. I'm perched, looking over a sitting Natasha's shoulder. Grant is to my left.

"It case it's unclear," Fury warns the mischief god, "if you try to escape, if you so much as scratch that glass..." Fury hits a button, and an opening forms underneath the glass case. Loki looks down, amused. "It's thirty thousand feet, straight down in a steel trap. You get how that works?" Fury closes the opening, motioning from Loki to the console. "Ant, boot."

Loki chuckles as he waltzes around the glass cage. "It's an impressive cage. Not built, I think, for me."

"Built for something a lot stronger than you."

"Oh, I've heard." Loki turns towards the camera with a wicked smirk. "A mindless beast."

I look over towards Bruce from glancing over Natasha's shoulder at the video feed.

"Makes play he's still a man."

Bruce crosses his arms, shifting his weight from one foot to the other in discomfort.

"How desperate are you," Loki continues, "that you call on such lost creatures to defend you?

"How desperate am I?" Fury replies. "You threaten my world with war. You steal a force you can't hope to control. You talk about peace, and you kill because it's fun." Fury walks closer to a caged Loki with every point me makes. "You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did."

"Oooh," Loki says with an expression of false hurt. "It burns you to have come so close. To have the Tesseract, to have power, unlimited power, and for what? A warm light for all mankind to share? And then to be reminded what real power is."

Fury smirks, walking towards the exit. "Well, let me know if 'real power' wants a magazine or something."

The session ends, and the video screen goes black. Bruce is the first to speak. "He really grows on you, doesn't he?"

Steve adds, "Loki's gonna drag this out. So, Thor, what's his play?" We all turn towards the god of thunder.

Thor keeps his back turned. "He has an army called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard, nor any world known." Thor turns towards us. "He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth, in turn, I suspect, for the Tesseract."

Maria Hill joins the conversation as Steve begins to speak. "An army." He turns to look at me with an expression that can only be described as one-hundred percent done. "From outer space."

I shrug my shoulders. "Are you finished being surprised for the week?"

"So, he's building another portal," Bruce concludes, hands playing with his glasses. "That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."

Thor's head perks up. "Selvig?"

"He's an astrophysicist."

"He's a friend."

Natasha pipes up, "Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours." Her eyes drift away for a moment.

"I wanna know why Loki let us take him," Steve inquires. "He's not leading an army from here."

"Or maybe he is," I comment, and everyone looks to me for an explanation. "Loki is not the first to think that surrender would lead him into the heart of enemy territory. I did it on multiple occasions in Germany, Russia, Yugoslavia, Austria, you get the idea. When I knew I couldn't infiltrate by force, I infiltrated by surrender."

"Was that during your Liberty or Justice days?" Natasha asks. When I raise an eyebrow, she rolls her eyes. "I'm Level 7, and I grew up in the Soviet Union in the 80s and 90s. I heard about you before I joined S.H.I.E.L.D. You even took down a Red R--"

Natasha is cut off by an impatient Thor. "--What does any of this have to do with my brother?"

With a pause, I turn from Natasha to the Norse demigod. "All I'm saying is that we should keep an eye on Loki. He might be exactly where he wants to be. It's strategy."

"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki," Bruce admits. "That guy's brain is a bag full of cats. You could smell the crazy on him."

Thor raises his voice slightly. "Have care you how speak. Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard. And he is my brother."

"He killed eighty people in two days," Natasha reminds him.

Thor hesitates. "He's adopted."

"I think it's about the mechanics," Bruce says, bringing the conversation back on course. "Iridium. What do they need the iridium for?"

"It's a stabilizing agent," a new voice answers. We all turn to see Tony Stark entering the Bridge. He's not in his Iron Man suit any longer. Now he wears a black suit and blue dress shirt. He turns to his companion, Agent Coulson, and says, "I'm just saying, pick a weekend. I'll fly you to Portland. Keep love alive."

Agent Coulson excuses himself in another direction, and Tony walks over towards us. "It means the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at S.H.I.E.L.D." Tony walks over to Thor, patting his bicep with the back of his hand. "No hard feelings, Point Break. You've got a mean swing. Also, it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants."

Tony makes his way over to the circle of screens where either Fury or Maria usually are. I starts motioning randomly with his hands. "Raise the mizzenmast. Jib the topsails." Everyone below gives him a strange look. Tony suddenly points towards an agent to his right. "That man is playing Galaga! He thought we wouldn't notice, but we did."

Tony places a hand over his eye as he looks towards the screens, trying to imitate Fury. I hear a chuckle from Grant beside me. "How does Fury even see these?"

Maria replies bluntly, "He turns."

Tony spins around. "Sounds exhausting." He taps the screens. "The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. The only major component he still needs is a power source of high-energy density." Subtly, I spot Tony run his hand along the underside of the console. Then he raises then, snapping with both fingers. "Something to kick-start the Cube."

"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" Agent Hill inquires.

Tony shoves his hands into his pockets. "Last night." When Hill tilts her head in surprise, Tony adds, "The packet, Selvig's notes, the extraction theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?"

Steve interrupts with a question, "Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?"

Bruce paces back and forth as he replies, "He would have to heat the Cube to 120 million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier."

"Unless," Tony adds, "Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect."

"Well, if he could do that, he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor on the planet," Bruce counters.

Tony walks over to Bruce with a smile on his face. "Finally, someone who speaks English."

Steve turns to me in surprise. "Is that what just happened?"

Tony shakes Bruce's hand as I chuckle at Steve's reaction. "It's good to meet you, Doctor Banner," Tony says. "Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage-monster."

Bruce looks around awkwardly. "Thanks."

Fury enters the room. "Doctor Banner is only here to track the Cube. I was hoping you might join him."

"I would start with that stick of his," Steve suggests. "It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon."

I nod my head. "Peggy and the Commandos and I found some pretty odd things in the remnants of HYDRA. Maybe Loki found something there as well."

"I don't know about that," Fury says, "but it is powered by the Cube. And I would like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."

Thor mumbles, "Monkeys? I do not understand--"

"--I do," Steve interrupts, looking proud of himself for understanding a pop culture reference. Tony rolls his eyes. "I understood that reference."

Tony turns to Bruce, asking, "Shall we play, Doctor?"

Bruce offers a motion towards the hallway. "This way, sir."

The rest of the team spreads out to follow their own leads. Grant tells me he wants to shadow Agent Hill and Coulson since they offered to show him how S.H.I.E.L.D. works. I walk over towards Steve, patting him on the shoulder. "Come along, Dorothy. There's something I want to show you."

Steve shakes his head as he stands to his feet, following after me. "'Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.'"

"Why? You went into the ice and everything was in black and white? Now you wake up, and everything's in color?" I tease with a grin.

"Don't suppose you have a pair of ruby slippers, do you?"

I shake my head, and the two of us make our way into the heart of the Helicarrier.

END CHAPTER NINE: Ruby Slippers.