Disclaimer: The Avengers belong to Marvel. This is just for fun.
A/N: Edited version of my first chapter. No change in the plot.
Chapter One: The Arrival
He should never have listened to the experts. In his defense, there really hadn't been a lot of time to do anything else. Normally, SHIELD had plans for everything, carefully choreographed procedures for dealing with every possible scenario. Naturally, the top people in their respective fields were always consulted, but he almost never let them have the final say. That was because the only way most people became experts these days was through tunnel vision, and the best solutions in his experience were those that considered the problem from a number of different viewpoints. None of which really mattered right now, because SHIELD was up against something which they had never really anticipated. Fury didn't really have any choice other then to listen to the experts, since there were not any plans on how to deal with a man literally frozen in ice for seventy years.
That being said, it was no excuse for not taking control after things went FUBAR about two minutes after Rogers woke up. Fury doesn't expect any operation to go perfectly (not that he ever tells his agents that), but that clusterfuck with the phony recovery room was a warning he never should have ignored. When an operation goes sideways right from the start, it rarely ever gets back on track. He should have thrown the whole plan out the window at that point, but his brief conversation with Rogers went well enough that he decided to stick with the script. The man had been subdued and cooperative, if not exactly forthcoming concerning how he was handling the time shift. Not really a big surprise that. Rogers came of age in a time when men didn't really talk about how they felt, especially to people they didn't know. Which as things turned out, was something Fury should have thought harder about, because he was totally that guy himself. Emotions could paralyze you if you let them, especially in his business. Almost all his agents would have sworn Nick Fury didn't have feelings, and that was the way he wanted it. Not because it was true, but because it was the only way he could make what he did work.
Seventy years. That one thought he holds in his mind as they bundle him into one of the black cars. His first thought when he realized that the recovery room was a setup was he had fallen into the hands of his bitter enemies. Somehow HYDRA had found the wrecked plane, had gotten to him before the SSR. The phony room with the pretty girl was a diversion, something they had dreamed up to keep him from realizing this. It doesn't take long after he broke out of the building to figure out that even HYDRA couldn't dream this up. After the bald guy gave him a heads up, he could see it, the ghost of his New York, even if it was buried under the garish display of enormous color movie screens and theatre marquises. Looking around, he saw that there are literally thousands of men and women jammed together moving past each other. None of the men had hats, while the women were dressed in ways that he would have never imagined.
"Are you alright sir?" Asked a voice to his right. A voice that he was startled to realize was a woman's.
"I'm fine," he muttered glancing around the strange vehicle, taking in the soft leather seats, the multi-colored displays arrayed along the front, and the seven other people that he was sharing the space with.
These people might not be HYDRA, but right now Steve can't help but feel he was still a prisoner. It's not something he liked. If he indented to make a move, this was the time to do it. He could see another car like this one in front of him, and he thought there was a third trailing behind. Still doable he decided, or least better then the alternative of waiting until they got him into that building he'd escaped from earlier. He had the advantage of surprise before, and that wouldn't be available to him again. So he took a peek out the side window, just to orient himself before he made his play, and all his assumptions collapse.
This place is supposed to be New York, but he knew it wasn't home. What the hell was he going to do after he got away? He didn't know anyone, didn't really know the city any more, and while he had no doubt that he can take on his escort, there was no way he can fight off an entire city. He remembers Dugan tell him during their first mission that if he wanted to live to the next one then he was going to have to learn to slow down and think. He's got to have a plan beyond just getting away. He settled back in the seat and tried to relax. The Red Skull was dead and America safe, but his mission wasn't over yet.
In the hours that follow Steve learned a few things. The most important was that while SHIELD might not be his enemy, he didn't think they are exactly his friends either. They wanted something from him. He not certain what, a conversation he had with Fury suggests some possibilities. The man assured him they have a plan, a blueprint for introducing him to the modern world. That Fury believed that there is still an important role for Captain America to play. Steve thinks the other man was trying to reassure him, but that's not exactly how it feels. First of all no mention is made of what that role would be. The other impression that bothered him is that it didn't sound like these people are giving him a choice. He also found it significant that there was no mention of his last mission, no attempt to find out what exactly happened on that plane, and especially what happened to the cube. The other impression that came across was that he was not free to come and go. Of course no one comes out and said this, but Steve doesn't think that they would react favorably if he told them he wanted to get out and see what this world was like for himself.
As things stood, it's not something he really wanted to do. That didn't mean that he was happy that he didn't have the option if (when) he wanted it. Of all the outcomes Steve had envisioned for himself, being a prisoner wasn't one he had thought much about. At the moment there was one thing he wanted desperately. The chance to be alone, so he could try to come to grips with this place and how he felt about what happened. What he got instead were hurried introductions to different people by Fury. He remembered the names and faces, but he tuned out most of the rest. Eventually Fury noticed his inattention, and after one of the best meals he'd ever had, they showed him to his room.
Actually, it was a suite. At least that's what they called it. The rooms were large, expensively furnished, and equipped with things that were incomprehensible to him. The bathroom alone was bigger then the bedroom he had shared with Bucky when he'd moved in with his friend's family after his mother had died. In another room there was an enormous bed, and the moment he saw it, Steve felt the exhaustion of dealing with the last few hours hit him like a punch to his gut. What the hell he thought, hadn't he slept enough already? Pausing only long enough to shed is shoes and socks, he slid between the sheets.
Late in the night, when the building settled into a low hum, he tried to make sense of how he felt, and failed miserably. It was just too much to take in all at once. Or at least too much for him. So instead he just focused on the thing that bothered him the most, the one idea that made him want to break things, starting with himself. It wasn't the seventy year jump in time. Part of him actually liked that, at least the part that used to read dime store sci-fi journals to escape what for most of his short life had been a pretty drab existence. Of course there was an even bigger part of him that was a little bit frightened by what he'd seen during his brief escape into the 21st Century streets of New York. Balancing that fear was excitement for an opportunity he could never have imagined. Besides, fear was something that he could work with, a feeling that he was used to fighting against. Nearly every mission he'd undertaken for the Strategic Scientific Reserve had been an exercise in overcoming fear. It wasn't where he was, or even when that made his chest feel tight, or caused that painful knot in the pit of his stomach. What really bothered him was that he was alive.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. Colonel Phillips, Howard, Dum Dum, Gabe, Jim, Jacques, and Falsworth. Peggy. They were all supposed to be alive, and he was the one who was supposed to be dead. Steve had known from the moment he'd gotten on the damned plane that it was how things would play out. Right after she had kissed him. No he corrected himself, that wasn't really true. He'd been pretty damned certain since that first real operation he'd run for Phillips that he wouldn't make it all the way to the end. It wasn't something he thought about a lot, but it was probably the biggest reason he'd held himself back with Peggy. It was for her own good. At least that was the excuse he used. She didn't deserve to fall for a guy who wasn't going to see the end of the war. It was something he told himself every time he thought about how good it would feel to grab Peggy by the waist and kiss those tempting lips. Only one problem; it was a lie.
Not all of it certainly. Steve certainly wanted to shield Peggy, but there was also the desire to protect himself. What he did was hard enough without being distracted because he was mooning over a woman. When he thought about that now, Steve had trouble believing how he could have been so stupid. She had been a tremendous asset to him and his men, providing crucial intelligence that contributed to the success of his missions, and valuable critiques of their operations, especially the early missions, when Steve didn't really know what the hell he was doing. When it can right down to, the truth was more complicated. It was more then just the fear of distraction, or his concern that he'd break her heart by getting himself killed. Steve Rogers just didn't think he was good enough for a classy dame like Peggy.
At the bottom of it all, beneath all the excuses that he made in the eighteen months he had known her was that lack of confidence Steve always felt when he was with an attractive woman. The undeniable fact that he'd never been able to talk to one without sounding like an idiot didn't help matters either, and Peggy was a lot more then just a pretty face. She was smart, and tough, as well as beautiful, the perfect woman of his dreams really, but someone that he never would have had a chance with before the serum. Doctor Erskine's experiment had altered him physically almost beyond recognition, but it didn't change who he was on the inside. Erskine seemed to think that was for the best, had told Steve with his dying breath that he was a good man, and Steve wanted to believe that sometimes it might even be true. But there was nothing good about what he had done to Peggy.
It wasn't until those final desperate weeks of their long war with HYDRA that Steve let himself believe that he could live to see the end of it, and that there might be the possibility of a future for him and Peggy. He couldn't think of anyone he would rather share the rest of his life with, and she'd been giving cues that she might feel the same way. So why the hell did he wait? There were plenty of chances during that time, and even during those last horrible days. How could have failed to say anything when she came to comfort him after Bucky died? Or after the final briefing when she walked him to his bike and wished him luck. Or in the corridor after she'd taken out the HYDRA goon with the flame throwers. Or when she'd grabbed his collar and laid one on him right before he'd jumped onto Schmidt's damned plane.
And then there was that last chance, as he forced the monstrous machine toward that gleaming sheet of ice. The last chance he'd ever have to tell her, and all he could talk about was a dance they both knew was never going to happen. Steve couldn't believe how stupid he was. How gutless. Part him wanted to believe that Peggy knew. She was smart, and he wasn't exactly trying to hide his feelings at the end. But even if she did, it's no damned excuse at all. When he needed to step up and be a man, to tell her how much he loved her, he just didn't do it. It was something he was going to have to live with for the rest of his life.