Steve sighs and stares at the ceiling as yet another examination is underway. The nurse gives him the ok and he pulls his white T-shirt back on. He knows he should exit the curtained off space, Fury is waiting to introduce him to an agent that will hopefully catch him up to speed, but for the moment he revels in the safety of being alone.
Everything is different now. The world is so much bigger, so much more confusing than it used to be. If it was up to him… well, he's not too sure if he's glad he survived the crash. Sure, he can do so much good. But can he really make a difference in this world that survives on things he's never heard of before?
With another sigh, one of many to come, he stretches and stands. Sure enough, an agent is waiting outside of the curtains to take him to meet another agent. They don't speak. The agent simply delivers him to another room.
This one makes Steve feel like he's in someone's living room. There's a worn couch and another worn chair facing the couch. A warm beam of sunlight breaks through the window and onto the hardwood floor. It is the warmest room he's been in yet, the only one that makes him less aware of all the eyes watching him.
The agent leaves and with nothing better to do, Steve flops down onto the couch. The material is soft form wear. He brushes him fingers over it a few times, enjoying the small comfort and distraction. The sunlight warming his back comforts him a little more. Thus when Fury walks in, he's forgotten completely where he is. It's 1932. He's at home. Nothing is wrong. Everything makes sense and this brings a smile to Steve's face. Fury coughs and he awakens from the daydream. The smile disappears from his face. He stands and addresses the director. "Sir…"
Fury waves a hand. "Sit Cap." He does as he's told and sits back down on the couch. There's a soft yet firm knock on the door and yet another agent appears. This one is younger. She has dark hair left down unlike most other female agents. She smiles when she walks in and takes a seat on the chair opposite him. "This is Agent Arcilla" Fury says. "She'll be helping you rehabilitate."
When he's gone, the agent slouches down in her chair. "Get comfortable Cap, we'll be here for a while."
He can't help but smile slightly. "Where are we going to start?"
"Where would you like to start?"
That's a tricky question. There's so much that he wants to know. The computer jumps into his mind for a moment. But that seems like a huge topic and he already knows that it will be difficult to understand. Then there of course is the end of the war. He'd like to know how the US won. But something heavier and more urgent weighs on his mind. "Can you tell me what happened to a few of my friends? Would you know that?"
The agent nods and digs through her bag before pulling out a few manila folders. "Sure I can. Who first?"
Bucky pops into his head. Grief immediately floods his veins. Sadly, he knows his best friend's fate. He bows his head shamefully. He should have been grieving. He should be thinking about his best friend more. It wasn't that long ago, at least not in his mind, that he passed. What would his life be like now? Would Bucky have kids? Grandkids? Would Steve be someone's uncle? Would he actually have someone to call his family? He shakes his head; it will do no good to think thoughts of what could be.
"Peggy?"
The agent nods, saying nothing about his moment of obvious inner torment. "Let's see…" She rifles through the stack of folders before pulling one out and handing it to Steve. Steve takes the folder cautiously. Would she hand him this if Peggy was gone as well? No, of course not. Does he want to see what's happened to her though? It will make all of this so much more real. He'll realize all he's missed. If society's changes haven't been enough of a shock, surely his friends' new lives will be.
He opens the folder and smiles seeing that the photo is of the Peggy he knows and remembers. He doesn't know what he would do if he saw Peggy as a little old woman. That would really mess with his head. He'd probably panic again and refuse to see anymore.
"She's doing just fine" the agent says. "In fact she has twelve grandchildren."
Steve smiles at that. It's good. Peggy was able to live her life. He hopes that somehow that was partly his doing, his sacrifice allowed her to live and see her children grow.
The agent hands him folder after folder of the different members of his team. Most are alive still. Only a few have passed away. One of his men, Ricky Argetti, died in the last few days of the war. His death upsets Steve the most. For a while, he just stares at the photo of his friend, hardly a man yet, and wonders if he'd still been around, not frozen in the ocean, would Ricky be alive today.
After he's gone through all of the files, he notices he hasn't seen someone's face. "Ma'am…"
"Just Agent Arcilla is fine."
"Miss Arcilla," he says, unable to break off from his formalities, "Do you have anything on a Katherine Mueller?" The agent doesn't react to the name. "She wasn't a part of my team but she was a nurse that traveled with us most of the time. We were… well… I don't know what exactly we were," he says thinking back to those nights he spent with her outside the tents, "but we were real close. Did she ever get hitched?"
The agent shakes her head, no smile this time. "No. She didn't."
Steve sighs a little. That would have been a hundred times worse than any news he could have gotten. Sure, he would forgive her and he would be happy that she moved on and didn't spend her whole life mourning him, but she is the one. He knows it. And as crazy as it will be, her being so old and him looking so young, they'll find a way to work it out. She'll always be beautiful in his eyes anyway.
"Do you know where…"
The agent doesn't smile, but stands and tells Steve someone will be in in a moment.
This is a bad sign, Steve decides. Or perhaps he's thinking all wrong and Kat actually works for SHIELD. Wouldn't that be a surprise, to see his girl walk in in one of those agent outfits and greet him all silly like they do.
Fury is the one to walk in, not Kat. He takes the agent's former seat and leans forward so that his elbows rest on his knees. "What do you remember about the moments before you crashed?"
He wonders only for a moment why he hasn't told him about Kat. But his soldier instincts have him reply to Fury. "I was with Schmidt. I was talking to Peggy. And I put the ship in the water."
"Do you remember how massive the ship was?"
He thinks back for a moment and then nods. "It was unlike anything I'd ever seen before."
Fury nods as well, accepting his answer. "It'd be pretty easy to miss something on a ship that size."
Steve doesn't reply. Instead he leans forward unconsciously. "Sir?"
"You asked about Katherine Mueller. I won't sugarcoat this for you Captain…"
Time seems to slow to a stop. Steve's hearing fades out into nothing. He can only see Fury's lips forming the words. His head feels heavy and nausea fills his every sense.
"She was on that ship."
Like a taut rubber band suddenly snapping into place, all of Steve's senses rush back. "What?" he says to be sure he's momentary lapse hasn't fogged his mind.
"She was with you on the ship."
He's not upset at first. He's actually angrier with Fury for saying something like that. Does he not understand the weight of those words? Doesn't he know what they can do to Steve's very heart? "She couldn't have been. She was stationed in…"
"Germany. I know. Except she was reassigned last minute as a field nurse for your team. She caught up to you and your team right before you climbed aboard. And seeing as how you two were romantically involved, she panicked and reacted and chased after you. I'm assuming something happened before to cause this reaction when she never did so before…"
The kiss. His promise.
Steve groans, feeling as if he could throw up everything inside of him. His head throbs so bad he wishes he could take a knife to his skull and dig the pain out. She was on the plane. She was on the plane. He crashed into the ocean and she was onboard, unprotected.
Across the snowy camp, she catches sight of Steve charge in all his Captain America glory up and into the massive plane sitting and waiting. It's a trap. She knows it is. Why else would a plane be waiting to take off? It would be too risky to wait with all these American soldiers around that could sneak on just as Steve did. They want him aboard.
She doesn't think. She just moves.
"How?" he breathes weakly.
There's no way to begin to answer that question so Fury only continues. "We know she had a little trouble boarding…"
A stray bullet cracks through the air. She hears the impact before she feels the sting of metal burrowing in her skin. She stumbles forward, clutching her injured forearm, but only hesitates for a moment. She's more careful now as she runs. Her injury, if anything, pushes her to move faster and to the false safety of the plane.
"She got on too late after you to follow. Based on where we found her," Steve flinches visibly and his skin turns a pale green shade, "she got lost."
The inside of the plane is cold and dark. It takes her eyes a moment to adjust. She must make a choice. Where would Steve have run off to? Most likely he's looking for Schmidt. So where is Schmidt? A loud noise echoes off the metal walls of the plane to Kat's left. Being unarmed, she races off the other way.
Steve feels dizzy. And more than anything he wants Fury to shut up but he can't open his mouth to say so. This isn't what he wants to hear. He never wants to hear this sort of thing. And he especially doesn't want to hear about Kat's last moments. His stomach does a flip at the thought and he swallows the bile that rushes up his throat.
She just can't be…
"We've run the numbers hundreds of times Cap" Fury's voice calls him back. The two men lock eyes for a moment and there's the slightest glimmer of pity and sadness in the stern director's. "There's nothing you could have done. Even if someone saw, you never would have got the message in time. And even if you knew… You had to do what you did. She would have understood."
But doesn't he see? That's the worst part. Because for Kat it wasn't a sacrifice she was aware of. She didn't get to choose to die that day. She didn't chose to never marry. To never have kids. Her life was stolen. And he was the one that took it.
"If I'd have known…" he sobs, hiding his face in his hands.
"You couldn't have landed that thing" Fury says with a hint of finality in his voice. "She would have died in a crash no matter what."
I could have shielded her, Steve thinks. My body would have protected her.
"I know it's impossible…" he gets out after he's bitten back the sobs that are making him shake in tremors. "But is there any way…?"
Fury frowns, deep and sad for once in his life. "She didn't have the serum, Cap."
His forehead creases and he can no longer push all his emotions down. Grief rains down like a hurricane and sucks up all the sunlight once in the room. The couch is suddenly itchy, not at all comfortable. The air is humid, stifling. Tears roll down his cheeks in endless torrents. Sobs rack his whole body and they pierce the silence like knifes.
Fury places a thin folder on the couch beside Steve before leaving the grief stricken captain alone.
He knows what it is. It's her history. Just like all the others. Hers will be like Ricky's though, with a brief description of her death. And her picture… He can't bear to see her face now. He's killed her. He killed the one person he wanted to live for.
It's silent for a moment. Everything is eerie, the way the earth feels before lightning strikes. Kat opens her mouth, about to call for Steve, giving up hope of ever finding him herself. Then suddenly the plane begins to nose dive. Kat's feet slip off the floor and she is weightless for one frightening second. Then, like a vacuum, she is sucked backwards.
Her head collides with a metal railing in her pull back. Spots cloud her vision briefly. Her mouth tastes like iron and she can't hear at all. Where the hallway makes a sharp turn, Kat stops as her body slams into the wall with enough force to make her want to throw up. She's trapped against the wall from the force of the plane going down.
Where is Steve?
Her heart hammers in her chest. She has to find him. She has to know he's ok. There's a way out of this. She can't think of it but he'll know. She just needs to find him. But when she tries to move, she can't. The force holding her against the wall is too strong.
Tears stream down her cheeks. She'll never see him again. His eyes, those beautiful blue eyes. They will be lost forever. "Steve!" she cries out but air rushes into her throat and she hardly makes a sound. "Steve!"
She hears it all. It's all simultaneous. The crash of glass shattering, the pop of the vacuum breaking…
Her body burns. The pressure pushes her in at all corners. She can't breathe. She can't…
"I killed you" he whispers to the empty room. "I loved you more than anything."
He wishes that she can hear him. Could she ever forgive him? He took her life. He took her dreams. He took all that she could be. She would have been a wonderful mother. Maybe she would have even been the mother of his children. He'd thought about it. He would have loved that. Not anymore. He took that away. It's all his fault.
"I killed you" he sobs, tearing at the hair that his fingers can reach. "Me."
"How?" he suddenly screams to the ceiling.
He opens the folder when he thinks he can breathe. There's a sharp ache in his chest whenever he breathes but he doesn't think that will ever go away. He doesn't read any of it. He simply plucks her picture out from the clutches of the paperclip.
His index finger traces the curve of her chocolate hair. His jaw quivers at the sight of her smile. This is the girl he betrayed. The girl he killed.
"I was supposed to protect you" he says to the photo. A small drop of saltwater lands on the crown of her head. "I would have married you. I was going to… when I landed."
He takes in a shaky breathe. "Don't ever forgive me, alright. 'Cause I don't ever want you to."