“Without Evidence, I Just... Know”

“I wouldn’t let her hear you say that.”

Everyone around the lunch table avoids making eye contact with Brian, who looks up to find Howard Stark standing in the doorway of the break room. It’s Brian’s first week with The Division, which is what everyone calls it, and it’s shaping up to be the shortest career in history.

But Stark just nods, as if in agreement with himself, and moves on.

Once he’s out of earshot, everyone speaks at once, overlapping one another like a Greek chorus:

“What the hell is wrong with you, man?”

“Don’t ever–”

“Don’t you know about the–”

“–during the war–”

“–the last person to talk to–”

“Okay, okay,” says Brian, throwing up his hands. “It was just an observation.”

*

Later that afternoon, Brian draws the short straw and has to take some requisitions to Hank Pym to get him to fill them out correctly. Pym has a famously short memory and an even shorter fuse.

Brian is standing outside the door to the lab, psyching himself up, when he happens to glance down the hall.

The director’s husband is propping up the wall outside of her office. He’s casually dressed for the time of day, but that’s not unusual. No one’s exactly sure what it is Grant Carter does for a living, but he doesn’t seem to do it very often or for very long. Word around the office is that he’s a whiz with investments, but that doesn’t explain why he’d have the clearance to come down to the lower level Division offices as often as he does.

He’s still mulling it over when she steps into the hall. It’s a myth that expectant wives are more beautiful than the ordinary type, but it clearly agrees with Carter: she’s fresh-faced and glowing, her smile radiant. She links her arm through her husband’s and they breeze down the hall, presumably on their way to lunch. As they pass, Brian nods amiably, trying for a closer look. The director seems amused, which makes him wonder if Stark told her.

Brian actually met Captain America once, in ‘44. They didn’t speak, but he saw the guy’s face. And there’s a definite resemblance: the height is right, the broad shoulders, the blue eyes. But up close, Brian can tell that this guy is older than Cap would have been, even if he’d somehow miraculously survived.