Chapter Text
“Do you think a boat with a propulsion system would work? Something like those new steam engines that are being invented, though coal might weigh down the ship.”
The sailor Antonia was talking with looked around for his fellows, who were all doing their own work. He’d been perfectly willing to answer her questions until the moment she got theoretical about them, so she wasn’t surprised when his answer was a stuttered “perhaps, ma’am. I couldn’t tell you.”
Antonia continued regardless, since thinking out loud was one of the easiest ways to work through a problem. “It’s simply that this mode of travel may be the fastest across the ocean, but it seems so inefficient.”
There was a laugh from behind Antonia, and she spun around to find Steve standing on the deck. “I should have known that the moment you were over being seasick you would teach yourself everything there is to know about boats.”
“Thank you,” said Antonia to the sailor, who vanished with every appearance of relief, and walked over to her husband standing by the rails. “I like traveling, but the time spent in transit is dull. And I refuse to admit I was seasick, I merely felt a bit green.”
If he’d been anyone else, he would have reminded her of the three days she’d spent shut in their cabin refusing to eat anything but broth. Instead, he just smiled indulgently and didn’t mention it. “More time to read and work on your experiments, though. I think the captain would appreciate it if you refrained from making anything explode, however.”
“I never have.” That was a blatant lie, possibly worse than the seasickness, so she relented when he raised his eyebrows. “Fine, I won’t while on board the ship, I have no desire to drown.” She leaned her elbows on the railing and looked up at the sky, clear and blue in the middle of the ocean. “I think someday people will fly across this ocean like it’s nothing, maybe in a matter of hours from London to New York.”
“Fly?” Steve looked skeptical. “We aren’t birds.”
“Nor are we fish, but look where we are.” She gestured around them. “I think we’ll fly, though perhaps not soon.” She grinned. “Maybe I should see if I could arrange for my armor to fly.”
He laughed, but more in delight than derision. “If anyone could manage it, Antonia, it would be you. By the time you finish designing that armor, you will have changed the face of modern technology.”
Antonia grinned. “That’s my intention, if it ever gets built. At the very least it gives me ideas for a few other things.” And now that she was married, she could wrest her father’s company out of trust and take over the handling of what it produced and its designs, which she was looking forward to doing the moment they returned to London from their belated honeymoon in New York. Steve had, to her pleasure but not her surprise, made it clear that her company was hers, and was to remain Stark Industries indefinitely so far as he was concerned, and while it wouldn’t be quite that simple in practice, it did give her some freedom. Perhaps she could even talk Lucy into helping her somehow, as time went on.
Steve laughed. “Things are never going to be boring.”
“Of course not. Next Season will be quite an adventure. Lord Loki will be back and undoubtedly trying to land an heiress, Lucy will have to restrain herself from killing him, Lady Darcy will take the ton by storm, the Fury undoubtedly has nefarious plans to orchestrate things to her satisfaction …”
His shudder, she suspected, was not entirely feigned. “At least we have New York first. That will give us some time to just be us.”
Antonia shook off her plans for the future and gave her husband a quick kiss. “I think I’ll like that very much. We’ve got time to take over the ton, after all.” A look around proved that a few of the sailors were watching them with too much interest. “Now, I think, Captain Rogers, that we ought to retire to our cabin for a while. I find myself seasick and in need of a rest.”
His momentary look of concern smoothed out when she winked at him, and he offered his arm like they were in a London ballroom and not the middle of the Atlantic. “By all means, Mrs. Rogers, let’s go take a rest. The view will still be here tomorrow.”
THE END
(Until Antonia brings on the Age of Steampunk, but that's a different story.)