01:26, Brooklyn Heights, New York, 2012
There was something soothing about the sound of shoes hitting the pavement during a run. It was peaceful and was a surefire way to bring him back to reality. He thought moving back to his old neighborhood would bring back the sense of home and peace he once had, but it hadn't. Unfortunately his life, both past and present, was fuel for nightmares. Sleep never came easy for him anymore.
And so Steve ran.
He didn't know if he was running to hide from the ghosts that were always with him or from a new world he didn't understand. These modern cars were sleek and looked smaller than what he was used to seeing – the old model 40B Fords, Chevrolets, and the occasional Duesenburg if someone real rich was going through the area.
He felt silly when he realized he was elated to see that not everything had changed. The old brownstones were still there, Loews was still in business, Coca-Cola was still a thing (although these days, so was Pepsi), and people still used the subway. Even the punks that hung around on the streets late at night were a welcome sight to Steve. Not everything had changed.
Still, life was hard to adjust to. Everything was bigger, faster, more complicated. Steve began to think about the man with the eye patch. Nick Fury. He made Steve an offer that was hard to refuse. Join a group of people called the Avengers. Save the world. Captain America was ready to leap at the chance to get back into action. Steve Rogers however, was hesitant. Everything was so different. What if he wasn't up to snuff?
Steve pushed these thoughts out of his head as he sprinted down the street. He could run far and fast, but he wasn't superhuman. He had his limits. He could feel the muscles in his body burning. Steve slowed down and then came to a stop, trying to slow his breathing while wiping the sweat off his forehead that was dripping from his short blond hair.
He looked up and saw the Brooklyn Bridge over top of him. He was standing on a large wooden pier and could see the lights from Manhattan glittering back at him. It was then that Steve realized he had run all the way from Brooklyn Heights to Fulton Ferry Landing in Dumbo.
He caught his breath and was turned to jog back home when something strange caught his eye. It was gold and black and looked like a giant telescope imbedded in the wood of the pier. Not far from it was a gigantic drill bit that was coming through the boards. There was dirt on it and rocks and broken planks from the pier surrounding it.
Steve was hesitant to approach it but his curiosity won out after a moment of staring at the odd device. The pier was empty as he slowly made his way up to the huge contraption. He stopped when he noticed a small placard close by.
Ever wanted to see what was happening on the other side of the water? Well now you can with The Telectroscope – a telescope that lets you see all the way to London, England. This is made possible by using two cameras linked together to form a 'virtual tunnel' across the Atlantic. When you look into the lens, you can see London in real time. It's open 24 hours a day and is free of charge. Come and say hi, make friends, or just see what it's like on the other side.
This project was first brought to New York and London in 2008 and was intended to run for a month only. But, through the donations and requests of thousands who were touched in a special way by the telectroscope, it was decided that it would be brought back to stay this time.
This device is the brainchild of artist Paul St. George who wanted to fulfill the vision of his great-grandfather, Alexander Stanhope St. George who had tried to bring this project to light during the 1800's by digging a tunnel from New York to London. His great-grandson succeeded where he unfortunately, had failed. Be part of the victory and a part of history.
Steve finished reading and shook his head. A telescope that could allow people to see from New York to London. He had never heard of anything so fantastical in his life. But then again he was 70 years in the future. He walked towards the lens and peeked into it hesitantly. He wasn't sure what he would see but was immediately in awe when he realized he was looking at the Tower Bridge on the Thames.
There weren't any people in the lens as he stared at the sky above the Tower Bridge, which was rapidly changing colors with the sunrise. London was five hours ahead of New York so it was a bit strange watching the sunrise in the lens while it was still completely dark around him. He stood in admiration of the colors of the sky. It quickly went from indigo, to a light purple, and then faded to a pinkish orange color.
'I wish I had my sketchpad,' Steve thought as he kept his eyes on the lens. 'Maybe another time.'
Steve was feeling tranquil and decided it was time to head home when he stopped in his tracks. Someone had walked into the middle of the lens. She was looked towards the sunrise before turning to face the huge glass lens in front of her.
She was a petite but curvy woman, wearing a black shirt, dark blue shorts and running shoes. She looked strong and athletic, had red hair and what looked to be either blue or green eyes. It was hard to tell, since it wasn't completely light out yet.
She was beautiful, but that's not what held Steve's attention. The telectroscope didn't have audio capabilities but it was as if he could hear her thoughts.
The woman lifted an eyebrow at Steve.
'Like what you see?'
He could be wrong, but that seemed to be the question she was asking, all with the raise of an eyebrow. He could feel his face getting hot with what she was implying.
Steve quickly shook his head no.
She peered closer into the lens to study him while raising both eyebrows and shaking her head minutely. 'No? I hope you don't respond like that with every woman you encounter.'
He realized what he sounded like and put his hands up in apology while saying sorry out loud.
The woman smirked at him and shook her head in pity. 'You don't know much about talking to women, do you?'
He knew that head shake and the question that came with it. And seventy years later, the answer was still no. Steve Rogers still could not talk to women and knew nothing about them. He slowly shook his head no while shrugging his shoulders, which earned another smile from the red headed woman.
Steve watched as the woman looked down at her watch and then up at him. He knew their time was up. She gave a small smile and disappeared from view. He walked away from the lens and sat down at a nearby bench, thinking about their interaction.
The woman didn't strike Steve as real talkative but she seemed pretty bold. His mother would've called her cheeky while Bucky would probably have referred to her as sassy. No matter what anyone called her, she had moxie and he liked that a lot. She reminded him of someone he knew.
Steve's face was beginning to hurt and it took a moment to realize it was because he was smiling. And not one of those tight, superficial smiles that didn't reach the eyes. His whole face hurt from how wide he was grinning. He was surprised how naturally it came to him. It was the first time he had genuinely smiled since he had come out of the ice.
He began to jog back home with a spring in his step, and even after he got home, showered and laid down to sleep, he was still smiling. As he was falling asleep, he realized that the woman in London reminded him a little bit of Peggy. But he didn't feel as sad as he usually did whenever he thought of the beautiful brunette. He was strangely happy as he drifted off.
Steve woke up the next morning in a pretty good mood. He showered, ate, and went to the store to pick up a few things. He grabbed several loaves of bread, 3 cartons of eggs, milk, and a few other food items before wandering to the other side of the store. Several minutes later he found himself in the stationary section, standing in front of different sized dry erase boards. He couldn't believe he was doing this.
'My God, I need friends. This is sad. I'm buying a dry erase board so I can talk to someone I don't know. It was one night talking to a complete stranger for less than five minutes. You'll probably never see her again - get over it.'
Steve picked out a large board, ignoring his own thoughts, grabbed a few black dry erase markers and went to the front of the store to check out his items. He refuse to think about how desperate he would look if anyone were to ever find out why he had the dry erase board with him
After getting home and putting his groceries away, Steve brought out his sketchpad so he could draw. He didn't have anything in mind so he just started to move his pencil and let his imagination take over.
An hour later he looked down and saw what was on the paper. It was the telectroscope with the silhouette of the woman he had met last night. He sighed and put the pad away. He really did need to make some friends.
01:15, Fulton Ferry Landing, New York
He couldn't believe he was doing this. Steve had his dry erase board propped up against the side of the telectroscope and was standing in front of the lens.
'I'm just here to watch the sun rise in London.' That was what he planned to tell her if she came back.
He shook his head. His reasoning was flimsy at best and just downright pathetic at worst. Still, he waited. Fifteen minutes later, the woman slid into view. Steve smiled and waved at her, ignoring the pounding in his chest. She didn't wave but she gave him a slight smile.
Steve watched her eyebrows rise as he pulled his dry erase board into view.
'Really,' she gestured to the board.
"I just thought this would be an easier way to communicate," Steve wrote out.
The woman had a thoughtful look on her face as she nodded her agreement.
"Easier than trying to translate hand gestures and body language, right?"
She nodded and gave a small smile. The woman then looked down at her watch and up at him again. She had to go. Steve smiled back, trying to hide his disappointment as the woman waived at him and left. He was hoping to talk to her. Well, if she had to go, she had to go. Steve would return the next night and maybe she'd come back.
The next night he was at Fulton Ferry Landing waiting. 1:30 came.
And then 1:45.
2:00.
2:10.
2:30.
2:45.
She wasn't coming.
Steve tried not to feel completely crushed as he slowly stood up. He had been looking forward to seeing her. He picked up his board and gathered up his markers to go when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He looked up and realized it was coming from the lens.
It was her.
He smiled widely and sat back down.
"I thought you weren't coming," he wrote out as fast as he could.
She held up a finger and disappeared for a moment. When she came back into view, he saw her with a dry erase board of her own.
"Sorry," she wrote back. "I was trying to find a board to write with and had to go to a few different stores."
"It's ok," Steve scribbled. "This is a strange way to talk to someone, isn't it?"
The woman shrugged. "This is more fun than using the phone or Skype."
Steve wasn't really sure what Skype was, so he just smiled and agreed.
From then on, they met every night, when there were no people around and no lines to wait in. He couldn't see the stars from all the city lights around him, but it didn't matter. She had become the brightest star for him. She lit up his life in a way that made him feel as though he had been living in the dark since Peggy.
The woman wasn't overly friendly in the beginning. She didn't smile much but she had a sense of humor, dry as it was. It was awhile before her walls started to come down. She started to smile more and even laughed once, but even then, she retained her serious, somewhat prickly nature.
Steve learned that the woman was in London for work. He also learned things like her favorite color, foods, movies, and books. She didn't say too much about her family but she did mention her closest friend who was like family to her and that she liked to dance a lot.
Steve wasn't the best dancer himself but told her about how much he loved to draw. It wasn't something he talked about with people, but with her, he felt like he could share anything. Well, almost everything. He left out WWII, Peggy and Captain America. He wanted to keep things as simple as possible, although he briefly mentioned Bucky since she had talked about her best friend.
He tried to show her some of his work but the paper was too small to see through the lens, so he began using his board as a canvas. He would draw all sorts of pictures for the woman – flowers, houses, people, and once, he even drew her face.
She just stared at the drawing for a full minute with an odd expression on her face. Steve was starting to wonder if she didn't like it.
"You made me look so beautiful in that picture," she wrote after blinking and bringing herself back to reality. "I look like an angel."
"I just draw what I see," Steve answered.
The woman looked downwards trying to fight a blush. Neither of them realized it, but they were beginning to fall for one another and it was happening hard and fast. They communicated this way every night, learning a lot about each other.
Six months later
"I've given you time to think about this, Cap. There are things happening right now that the world is unprepared to deal with and we need you. Are you in?"
Steve sighed inwardly. He wasn't in the mood to talk to Fury and would've said no to his offer but there was something in the man's voice that wasn't right. He sounded uptight - something one usually never heard from Fury.
It was fear, plain and simple.
He knew fear. Steve had felt twinges of it standing up to bullies after school. He'd felt it when he was injected with Erskine's serum, and even while fighting Hydra. But he knew it was alright to feel fear. It was a human thing – everyone felt it at least once in their lives. The trick was to move forward and not act on it. Not to let it rule you. Steve had mastered that very early on. It was how he kept standing up after being beaten down.
And that's why he knew that he had to take Fury's offer, whether he wanted to or not. His country needed him and as a soldier, Captain Rogers was never one to shirk from his duty.
"I'm in." Steve practically had to force the words from his mouth
"Good man." Fury still sounded disturbed, but relief laced his voice. "We need you up at SHIELD headquarters in two days. Be here at 0700. You'll be meeting the rest of the team. Bring your uniform. You're gonna need it."
The phone went dead after Fury finished giving instructions. The man was never really one for goodbyes. Or proper phone etiquette. Steve put the phone down, suddenly feeling sad. He had to report to Washington DC. He would have to leave her.
Steve sat in his usual spot waiting for her. He absently doodled on his board while thinking of a way to break the news. After a few minutes, he shook his head. There would be no easy way. He would just have to tell her he was leaving.
He looked up and saw her sitting down. He frowned when he realized how sad she looked. Did she have a feeling they would have to part ways? She was first to speak.
"You look like your wife left you and your dog died," she wrote out.
He could see the right corner of her mouth twitch minutely whenever she made a joke but he didn't see the joke. Steve looked up at her confused. He still wasn't up on country music references.
"Never mind. What's wrong?"
Steve suddenly felt like crying. She was always very astute when it came to his moods.
"Nothing, I'm ok," he wrote, adding a smiley face at the end. "But you look pretty down yourself."
He watched her intently. Her shoulders were slumped forward slightly. She looked the way he felt. She looked up at Steve.
"I don't want to lie to you. I haven't so far and I don't intend to start now," she scrawled out with her marker.
"What's wrong," he asked.
"I have to leave in a few hours." Her eyes looked empty but he could see a sadness in them. "My job is taking me away from London and I can't even tell you where I'm going."
Steve felt even sadder than he did when he first saw her.
"I have something to tell you too," he jotted down. "I have to leave also. I'll be leaving tomorrow night."
"Why," she asked, eyes suddenly very bright looking and suspiciously watery.
"For work. That's all I can say."
She looked up trying to contain her tears but couldn't stop them as they began to fall. She roughly wiped her hands over her eyes.
"I hate crying," she scribbled out in messy handwriting. "It makes me look weak and makes my eyes puffy."
"Stop. You look beautiful."
"I'm going to miss this. I'm going to miss you."
He cursed himself inwardly as he began to cry. His time with her lifted him up and made him the happiest he'd been since Peggy. He waited too long and never got to tell her exactly how he felt aside from that last kiss before he jumped from the car to Red Skull's plane. This might've been goodbye, but Steve wouldn't make the same mistake again.
"I'm going to miss you too," he wrote. "This has all been new, strange and exciting to me and I've enjoyed our time together but there's just one more thing I want you to know."
"What is it," she asked.
"I love you."
"What?" She sat up straighter, brow furrowed in concentration as she stared at Steve through the lens.
"I LOVE YOU." He wrote those words again in big, bold letters so there was no mistaking them. "I don't know when it happened, but you've made me so happy these last few months. I just had to let you know. I love you. I'm in love with you."
She grabbed her board and began to write furiously.
"All this time and now when we both have to leave you tell me you love me?" She glared at him for a moment before violently swiping her hand across the board.
Steve swallowed hard. Maybe he hadn't thought this through all the way. He looked up and saw her face settle into a soft expression. It was strange to see. She wasn't one to show a lot of emotion.
"I've never been one to do the whole romance thing," she wrote.
Steve deflated, eyes drifting towards the ground. He stared down for a moment before finding the courage to look back up. He was surprised to find her gazing back at him, eyes still very watery. She pointed to her board and he looked down at it.
"But I want you to know that I love you too."
It was the first time he had ever seen her smile the way she was smiling at him in that moment. Steve put down his board and moved closer to the lens. He put his hand on the lens and she followed suit, placing her hand in the same spot as his. They just stared at one another for a moment before she moved back. The area behind her was getting bright and there were people beginning to walk by.
He moved back as well and picked up his board. "It's ironic, isn't it? We both finally find someone to love and we can't even be with each other."
She smiled sadly. "Yeah it is. I can't leave it like this. I can't not ever see you again."
Steve had an idea. "Why don't we plan to meet here in six months," he wrote. "Six months, on this day." Six months was the soonest he might be able to get a small break.
She nodded and smiled broadly before writing on her board. "Six months it is. Don't be late."
"Wouldn't miss it for the world," he wrote. "I love you."
The woman stood up slowly and lightly touched the lens, staring at Steve as if to memorize his face. She didn't pick up her board, but Steve wasn't surprised by that. She wasn't very sentimental and certainly wasn't someone who wore her heart on her sleeve. With her, it wasn't so much what she said but the small things she did that told him volumes about her.
'I love you.'
He didn't need the board to know what she was saying. The woman took one last long look at him before walking away from the lens.
Steve watched with a heavy heart as she disappeared. 'Well, at least I know Fury'll be keeping me busy until I can see her again,' he thought.
As he began his walk home, it suddenly dawned on him that he didn't even know her name. They had talked every night for six months and he never asked what her name was. But then, as much as they knew about each other, there were so many things they didn't know. Where was she from? Where did she work? Was she actually British? He felt sad thinking about that fact that the first woman he's loved in seventy years is known to him simply as "her."
"Rogers – glad you could make it."
It didn't matter what time of day or night it was, Nick Fury was always on. Steve, however, was still reeling from the day before. He missed her. He shook his head and focused on Fury.
They walked through the Triskelion, Fury pointing rooms and people out to him, showing him where he would be working while he was in the building. An hour and a half later, Fury brought Steve up to his office. He had already met Maria Hill and gave her a nod.
Fury frowned at the empty area. "Agent Hill – where is the rest of the team?"
"They're all waiting in your office," was her reply.
He sighed. "Alright, follow me Rogers."
Fury pushed open the glass doors to his office with Steve right behind him. There were five other people in the room. One of them Steve recognized as Iron Man.
"Tony Stark, genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist." The dark haired man shook Steve's hand briskly before Fury ushered him along.
Beside him was a very large, muscular man holding a hammer with blond hair pooled around his shoulders. Steve's eyes went wide at the sight of Thor. The man looked as though he could take on at least 15 men with no help. He beamed at Steve and shook his hand as Fury introduced him as Thor, an alien prince, "from Asgard. It is good to make your acquaintance. With you finally joining us, we will be an unstoppable force. We will teach our enemies the meaning of fear." He oozed joviality despite the apparent bloodlust in his words.
Next was Dr. Bruce Banner who was standing closest to the door, eager to get back to work. He was an averaged sized man with glasses, a lab coat, soft brown eyes, a mop of dark curly hair streaked with grey, and a shy demeanor but Steve wasn't fooled by the good doctor one bit. He knew what Banner was hiding and made a mental note to never make him angry as he shook his hand.
Leaning against Fury's desk was a man with short blond hair and sharp eyes. He had a quiver at his back and a bow leaning up against Fury's desk.
"This is Clint Barton, also known as Hawkeye."
He studied Steve as he twirled an arrow between his fingers. Steve offered his hand for a handshake but Hawkeye stayed where he was, leaving Steve with his hand awkwardly in midair. He stood up straight after a moment after being told by Fury to get off his desk. Barton's stance was casual but protective, with his legs shoulder width apart and hand still twirling his arrow. Steve didn't understand why until he noticed the small, curvaceous woman with shoulder length red hair in a black catsuit behind him staring out the window. She turned as the two men looked towards her.
"And here's the last of the group. This is Natasha Romanov, codename: Black Widow."
Steve looked past Barton to see his new teammate. His breath hitched and his heart began to pound hard as the woman scrutinized him with beautiful green eyes.
It was her.
A/N: Hi, I hope you enjoyed reading this one-shot. I put this author's note at the end so I wouldn't spoil anything for you all. But since you've read to the end of this one-shot, I will say that I didn't put "her" (knowing that you all know by this time who "she" is) in the characters section because that would've ruined the surprise. :D Anyway, let me know what you think!