A/N: Just a quick one shot about Captain America and his dealings with a new time period. Just written for a bit of fun.
The Man Out of Time
Punching a bag was at least familiar. The weight behind his fist, the resistance of the canvas, it all made sense. The exercise of it wore him out. The practice helped his muscles. It was, in his mind, an all around positive activity. Then when the memories started to swarm he could just punch harder. And when he heard their voices and saw their smiles, he could just punch even harder. And when he saw her, he could punch harder still and the bag would smash against the strain and then he could breathe.
He would select another from the floor. A positive, but unproductive way to spend his time, yet he didn't know what else to do with all he'd accumulated. Time was something he'd never really cared about before. It came and it went and you lived. Now he was forced to think about it. He had so much of it wasted and that makes a person think. What do I do with it now?
When his energy was mostly spent and the bags mostly destroyed he began to pack up his duffel bag. He'd unwind the wraps around his knuckles and run a towel over the back of his neck. Sometimes he'd take a shower, since the place was rarely full of any soul besides his. Other days he'd just want to get out of there, sweat or no. And every time he let that door swing closed behind him, he'd pause and blink against the light.
It wasn't right for night to be so bright. Or so noisy and busy, for that matter. His city, the New York he remembered, wasn't quiet by any standards. It had always been a city of activity and hustle. But now, it wasn't the same kind of activity or the right kind of hustle. There were a lot more people here now. People that weren't just content to stride down a sidewalk, head downcast and oblivious, now they shouted at other people who weren't even there. They talked on phones without wires. They listened to music on tiny headsets. And there were standards that he had, at one time, believed would never die.
So after blinking in the surroundings, he would head for home. He wasn't the type to walk with his head down, so he would walk and concentrate on the buildings. Thankfully, most had not been altered. Some were taller, but most were the same array of brown brick and grated windows. He remembered some of them, though he had avoided his old neighborhood. He wasn't ready to go to a place that he, at one time in his life, had known intimately. So he rounded a corner and headed for his new apartment in an old building. Much of the fixtures had been left from previous decades, though there had been inevitable upgrades. Still, he liked that the stove was of a kind he could work. He had missed the microwave by only a few years and found it the least alien. At least the concept was in his grasp. Unlike the cell phone he had been given by S.H.I.E.L.D. or the tablet computer that, apparently, did anything he wanted. When he had asked if it could throw a baseball, the Agent just blinked at him.
Once inside he set his bag down and sat on his sofa. The television that had come with the apartment provided little comfort. He didn't get many channels and the ones he did weren't entertaining. Soap operas and reality shows. He would only ever watch the news, which was how he had come to learn that all that fighting, all the chaos that the war had caused, none of it was over.
And what was he to do now? Near every night he would come home. He would shut his door, lock it, set is bag down, and sit on the sofa. Then he would look around at an apartment that might have been decorated back in the fifties, but was still a decade ahead of where he had left off. So little had survived seventy years of time erosion, why'd one of the few have to be him?
He had been ready to sacrifice himself. That was the point of it. Not that he wasn't grateful for life or looking for acknowledgement, nothing so selfish. It was simply that he had figured on that being his end, expected it to be his end. But it wasn't and now he was here, in a time he didn't understand. In a time he didn't belong.
Here he would pull at his hair and fall backward onto the cushions. Because he knew that he couldn't really think that. He might not feel he belonged, but that didn't mean he didn't. He wasn't a pious man, but he liked to think he was raised right and he knew that when God spared you it was for a reason. To what end he was spared, that was a mystery. Surely this world didn't need a mascot in a spangled outfit to give them hope. That time was passed. They didn't need a hero like him anymore. They had Stark now, Howard's son. He had seen the interviews, a rock star with a mechanized suit of armor. That's what the world wanted now. Flash. Bang. Style. And that he could never be.
He could only wallow for so long before he chastised himself. Then he would get up and get his leather jacket and go for a walk. Usually to Central Park, a place that had maintained all its essence even after time had trampled everything else. The people though, were something to see. New York had never been remiss of the peculiar or, for lack of a better word, crazy. All kinds settled there and one learned to let them meld with the rest of the scenery. Still, he had always liked to drop spare change into a cup or hat, if only because he didn't see how he could benefit from keeping a few cents that someone else might make use of.
After a while he would find a bench and sit, hands in his jacket pockets. He would listen and observe, trying to make sense of it, but little of what he heard did. The slang was different, the social lines blurred, the references unclear. Occasionally, he would try and address someone. Just offer a simple nod of 'hello' or a greeting. More often than not he was ignored. Some answered, but briskly and just as quickly shuffled past him. New York hadn't ever been particularly friendly by his memory, but there had always been a standard that was expected of people and while he had been an oddity in the 40's, now he was a relic. Manners and respect had once been the standard people were expected to live up to, but that didn't appear the case anymore. The status quo was less formal now and called for a more blurred line of classes and position. While this idea left him frowning, he couldn't forget to appreciate the positives in the change. A blurring line between upper classes and poor classes wasn't a bad thing. It was just that when he talked, he realized more than ever how different he was perceived. He spoke candidly and always held a tone of respect no matter who he addressed. And he couldn't help the slump in his shoulders when he received a raised eyebrow or an odd look.
Giving up his seat to a woman or the elderly wasn't always thought of as kindness. Women didn't need someone to hold open a door because they could do it themselves. And it was all so very not the world he had believed they were heading for. He still looked for positives where he could. The bright side, that's where he liked to look. No point in living if you're only going to focus on what you don't like about it. But the transition had been hard going and he was still fighting to adjust.
Punching a bag was at least familiar. And when the memories came he boxed through them. He punched his way through the war, through the flight that should have killed him, and then when he heard Peggy's voice in his head the bag broke from its chain. He caught his breath and then grabbed the next one, hooking it in place.
"Trouble sleeping?"
He glanced up at the voice, returning his attention to boxing as he answered. "Slept for seventy years, sir. Think I've had my fill."
"Then you should be out. Celebrating. Seeing the world."
He stopped, still breathing heavily. "I went under, the world was at war." He started to unbind his hands. Suddenly, that empty gym felt crowded. "I wake up they say we won. They didn't say what we lost."
"We made some mistakes along the way." Fury said, tapping a folder into his palm, "Some very recently."
"You here with a mission, sir?"
"I am."
"Trying to get me back in the world." He wasn't trying to sound bitter, and he sounded more callus than he wanted. Built up frustration that he couldn't be there for the people that mattered, couldn't be there as the world grew but instead happened to stumble in so many years later. Time was supposed to weather you down slowly, not break you all at once. Then there was Fury himself. His first meeting with the director had been a lie. Didn't matter what era you're from, that's not how you make a good first impression.
"Trying to save it." Fury held out the folder.
There was a familiar picture in the front. An object that he wanted to think had vanished along with him. "Hydra's secret weapon."
"Howard Stark fished that out of the ocean when he was looking for you." Fury continued. Rogers was only half listening, his main focus was skimming the pages in the folder. "He thought what we think. The Tesseract could be the key to unlimited sustainable energy. That's something the world sorely needs."
Rogers shut the folder briskly, respectfully disagreeing with Fury, though he didn't say out loud. What the world sorely needed was probably something a bit simpler than more power, electrical or otherwise. He handed the folder back, cutting past any more rationalizations about why they wanted the Tesseract back. Whatever Fury wanted him to believe about why S.H.I.E.L.D. would have it, Rogers knew that he was only bringing it up for one reason. "Who took it from you?"
"He's called Loki. He's…not from around here. There's a lot we'll have to bring you up to speed on if you're in. The world has gotten even stranger than you already know."
"At this point I doubt anything would surprise me." He picked up his duffel bag and one of the punching bags, securing it easily on his shoulder.
"Ten bucks says you're wrong." Fury paused and hung back as Rogers began to exit the gym. "There's a debriefing packet waiting for you back at your apartment. Is there anything you can tell us about the Tesseract that we ought to know now?"
"You should have left it in the ocean."
He headed out into the night air, this time not pausing or adjusting his eyes. The Tesseract attracted trouble. Whatever reason S.H.I.E.L.D. had for keeping it all this time, he doubted it could be worth it. It was the type of thing no good came from, no matter how pure the intentions might be. And he doubted S.H.I.E.L.D.'s intentions were wholly without malice.
When he arrived home and set down his bag and shut his door, Rogers didn't sit on his couch. He went and picked up the packet and began to read. As he skimmed the pages he brought his duffel bag to his room. Then he emptied it into a hamper before packing some fresh clothes. He grabbed an apple from his kitchen counter. And not once did he sit on his couch and stare at the ceiling.