Punch, punch, punch.

"Run! She's gonna blow!"

Bam, bam, bam.

"Then what are we waiting for?"

"The right partner."

Smack, smack, smack.

"I gotta put her in the water!"

"Steve, don't do this."

"Peggy, this is my choice."

The punching bag went sliding across the gym floor in the basement of the apartment building I lived in. I had busted yet another one. I paused for a minute to catch my breath and try to clear my head of the flashbacks that kept running through it and glanced at my watch. 2:42 AM. Leaning over to pick up yet another punching bag from the pile of them on the floor beside me, I hooked it onto the chain that hung from the wall and began punching again, perspiration steadily forming.

Punch, punch, punch.

"Trouble sleeping?"

Throwing a glance around the old, musty room, I caught sight of a dark figure. Nick Fury, dressed in a black trench coat and looking just as he did that day I first discovered I had been sleeping. I took a deep breath and ran a hand through my blond hair.

"I slept for seventy years, sir. I think I've got my fill," I said as I went back to punching furiously.

"Then you should be out. Celebrating," he replied in his deep voice, his hands clasped behind his back, walking toward me. "Seeing the world."

I stopped, realizing he wasn't going to leave me alone. Breathing deeply, I walked toward my bag, taking the bandages off my hands.

"I've been under. The world was at war," I said, bitterness rising in my voice, "I wake up, they say we won. They didn't say what we lost."

Images of my friends-Bucky, Dum Dum, Jim Morita, Gabe...and my Peggy-flashed through my mind. Some, like Bucky, had died fighting, while some had simply passed away...while I was sleeping.

I thought yet again of the goodness, the innocence, the friendliness and hospitality the world had lost. America had lost.

"We've made some mistakes along the way," Fury replied. "Some very recently."

I stuffed my bandages inside my bag.

"You here with a mission, sir?"

"I am," he said matter-of-factly.

"Trying to get me back in the world?"

"Trying to save it," he replied, handing me a folder.

I sank to a bench and stared at the picture before me. The Tessaract.

"HYDRA's secret weapon."

"Howard Stark fished that out of the ocean when he was looking for you."

I frowned, looking up at him.

"He thought-" he stopped. "We think the Tessaract could be the key to unlimited sustainable energy." He eyed me. "That's something the world sorely needs."

I looked at the picture in silence, then handed it back to him.

"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." He paused. "The world has gotten even stranger than you already know."

I shook my head. "At this point I doubt anything would surprise me." I stood up and hoisted my bag onto my shoulder.

Fury raised an eyebrow. "Ten bucks says you're wrong."

Without a reply, I picked up a punching bag and started for the door.

"There's debriefing package waiting for you back at your apartment."

I was getting closer and closer to the door. Just leave me be, I thought.

I could hear Fury's foot steps behind me.

"Is there anything you can tell us about the Tessaract that we ought to know now?"

"You should've left it in the ocean," I replied as I passed through the door.

And so it begins, I thought.