"Now where am I?!" "The question isn't where, but when. The good news is, you won the war. The bad news is, it was 250 years ago. Welcome to the 21st century." -Sleepy Hollow
"I gotta put her in the water!"
"Please don't do this. We still have time. We can still work something out!"
"Right now, I'm in the middle of nowhere. If I wait any longer, a lot of people are going to die...Peggy, this is my choice."
"…"
"Peggy?"
"I'm here."
"I'm gonna need a raincheck on that dance."
"Alright. A week, next Saturday, at the Stork Club."
"You've got it."
"Eight o'clock on the dot, don't you dare be late. Understood?"
"You know, I still don't know how to dance."
"I'll show you how, just be there."
"We'll have the band play something slow. I'd hate to step on your-"
-fzzt!-
"…Steve? Steve? Steve!"
"…he chucks a curveball, high on the side…"
At first, the sounds were nothing more than white noise in the back of his mind. But as the darkness surrounding him began to lift, the noise sharpened until he could make out words.
"…so the Dodgers are tied, four to four and the crowd well knows that one swing of his bat, this fella's capable of making it a brand new game again. Just an absolutely gorgeous day here in Evansfield!"
A radio broadcast?
He opened his eyes.
A pale white ceiling greeted him, devoid of any features except a three-bladed fan that spun slowly. A wary glance around the room revealed that the room, while nice, was almost as featureless; a large window with the curtains drawn to let in light, a heater, a small nightstand next to him and a dresser with a radio atop it. He could hear the sounds of a city outside the window, as people moved and cars drove by, mixing with the noise of the radio.
Was he in a hospital room? He didn't remember ever being taken there…the last thing he remembered was the plane, shaking violently as he steered it towards the ice, the cold wind biting at his skin and the last words he heard from Peggy.
"The Phillies have managed to tie up at four to four, but the Dodgers have three men on…"
His mind was still sluggish, trying to awaken from its unexpected slumber, but it was awake enough for a faint prickle of unease to creep in. Something's not right, it warned him.
The image of Bucky, strapped to a table and helpless under the power of Zola, flashed through his mind. HYDRA…was it possible they had found him when they went looking for Schmidt's plane? He wouldn't put it past them, especially if they had gone looking for their leader or the Tesseract. But this wasn't like what HYDRA normally did; they were more about extreme torture to get answers rather than elaborate mind trickery.
"…this youngster, he'd like to return the favor. He leans in, here's the pitch, swung out…Riker heads to third, Hiroshi's gonna lock him in…"
Bucky…
The radio broadcast…that was from May 1941. And last he remembered, it had been March 1943.
That wasn't right. It wasn't right because he had been there, him and Bucky. He had been sitting in the upper middle seats, Bucky next to him and both of them cheering on the players on that day as they munched on the few goodies they had bought for the game. This game shouldn't have been broadcasting two years later.
"Oh my goodness, the crowd is going absolutely wild as the Dodgers take the lead…!"
His mind jumped into high gear, now wide awake in the face of this new threat. Cautiously, he sat up, watching for any signs of movement or threats. The bed creaked faintly under him, but other than the radio chatter and city noise, nothing moved.
But his senses still screamed he wasn't safe, that something was wrong.
"…here comes the relay, but they won't get it! Oh, oh Dawson…! What a game we've had today, folks!"
A soft click caught his attention, his body tensing as he turned to face the new threat. It was a pretty young woman, gliding quietly into the room. She smiled warmly at him, the dark red lipstick standing out against her pale skin and dark hair, but there was a tenseness to it. It didn't reach her eyes.
She shut the door behind her, a natural movement to any normal person, but she moved with a purpose. She didn't want him leaving. Her brown hair was pulled into an elegant victory curl hairstyle, her white shirt and skirt smoothly pressed. For a moment, staring into her face, he saw Peggy.
Where was Peggy? And Colonel Phillips? Were they safe?
"Morning," she said softly, her voice a low and rich alto. He said nothing, watching her warily. Nothing about her particularly screamed "I am a HYDRA solider" but he could never be sure. "Or should I say afternoon?" She amended, glancing at her watch.
He wasn't going to play this game with her.
"…where am I?" He finally said, his voice rough from lack of use.
"You're in a recovery room in New York City." She told him, never losing her smile under his suspicious gaze. Her voice was too even, her gaze too steady. And she had left a lot of space in between them, as if giving herself a cushion to protect herself or react in time to whatever he did.
He glanced out the windows, taking in the New York skyline and listening to the noise of the people in the streets below.
They're not getting anything from me.
"…where am I really?"
There was no mistaking the minor double take the nurse did, the way her smile wavered for just a moment and her small but sharp inhale of breath. A second later, she covered it up with a faint laugh. She was good, but not good enough.
"I'm afraid I don't understand." She told him, her voice still soft. But her body became tense, like she was prepared to flee or fight. The smile was gone and she fiddled with something in her hand, something he couldn't recognize but wasn't eager to find out about. Especially if it was some kind of new weapon.
"The game. It's from May 1941. I know because I was there."
A stab of grief, sharp as an arrow, flashed through him at the thought of Bucky and that game they went to together. His best friend, gone forever…he quickly pushed that thought away. Now was not the time for that. He needed to get out of here, to find Peggy and the others.
He stood, equally as tense as he approached her. To her credit, she did not back down or break eye contact with him, even if he was nearly a head and a half taller than her and could easily hurt her.
"Now I'm going to ask you again," he said, a threatening tone entering his voice. "Where am I?"
The next words out of her mouth weren't a location but a soft "…Captain Rogers…" like she was going to try and explain away the entire situation and calm him down. He didn't want to have the situation explained. He wanted answers, and it appeared she wasn't going to give them to him.
"Who are you?!" He shouted. A tiny part of him felt bad as she jumped slightly at his sudden fury, but he ignored it. He saw her hand move a tiny bit, a flash of light between her fingers, and then the door was opening. Two large men dressed in strange black uniforms and carrying large, impressive guns stepped into the room, flanking the woman from behind. Their faces were stern and unyielding, promising pain to whoever tried to get past them.
This was definitely not a hospital room in New York.
It hadn't taken much to catch them off guard and chuck them at the wall. Perhaps they hadn't been expecting their sleeping prisoner to be so strong; either way, he had expected them to hit the wall and then fall to the ground. But instead, they flew straight through it and out into the area beyond the wall.
The gaping hole in the wall revealed a dark, metallic wall beyond the room. He stood there for a moment, shocked at the unexpected scene, before realizing he was free now. He bolted for the opening, surprised to find that his "room" was a box with the image of the New York skyline on a screen near the window. He stared around for a moment before the lady began to walk towards him, startling him back into action.
Run, run, gotta get away from here. Gotta find Peggy…
"Captain Rogers, wait…!" He could hear the nurse, or whatever she was, calling for him, but he kept going, his boots pounding on the floor.
He burst through the door, startling a few people who were close to it. They looked at him in surprise, not quite sure what to make of him for a moment. Well, at least no one was trying to stop him.
"All agents, code 13! I repeat, all agents, code 13!" Her announcement was like a switch flipped in them, their gazes turning hostile as they focused on him.
Never mind.
He heard them shouting orders to each other as they converged on him, some in suits and others in the strange uniforms the other two guards had been wearing. Turning as fast as he could on his heel, he bolted down the corridor, relentlessly slamming his shoulders into the brave few who tried to stop his flight down the hallway. They hit the ground hard, grunting as the air whooshed out of them.
There, up ahead. The large glass doors revealed an opening out into the world, a way out. He sprinted towards those doors, nearly shattering one of them as he flung it open and ran into the cool air.
His sudden flight into the outside was brought to a screeching halt as he narrowly dodged a car coming his direction. Its horn blared at him as it drove by, the driver glaring angrily at him from within its confines. He had never seen a car like that before. Had Stark designed a new car recently…?
He kept sprinting, running as fast as his feet would take him down the wet street and away from the building behind him. He wasn't safe yet, he had to keep going…
He glanced up at the buildings around him, trying to get his bearings, and stuttered to a halt.
He knew the buildings; anyone from New York could recognize them in a heartbeat. But…at the same time they weren't the same buildings he knew. Several of them had moving pictures on them, like someone had put a movie screen on the side of the building and put the projector nearby. There were new buildings, buildings he had never seen before where there had once been holes in the skyline, taller than any skyscraper he had ever seen.
Unfamiliar cars and people passed him, dressed strangely. Women in pants, the men not in suits, most of them carrying small rectangular objects in their hands. A few glanced at him as he stared around him but most didn't give him a second look.
What the…?
The screech of tires and the cocking of guns behind him immediately caught his attention and he whirled around, ready to fight whoever was after him. Several armored men were hopping out of large black cars, their guns trained on him as they circled around him.
No escape. Well, at least he'd go down fighting.
"At ease, soldier." Looking over his shoulder, he spotted the man addressing him. He was tall, well-built and looked to be in his late forties; his dark eyes stared unflinchingly back at him from under a military beret. Emblazoned on his black body armor was a glaring gold eagle, one he wasn't familiar with. He was flanked by a strangely-dressed man in a full body black suit and a young dark-haired woman in military dress. The woman had her gaze locked on him as well, and though he couldn't see the man's gaze behind his visor, he could feel it.
He said nothing, cautiously watching the man as he confidently walked towards him. The man and woman followed in suit.
"Look, I'm sorry about that little show back there, but we thought it best to break it to you slowly." He said. Unlike the nurse, he seemed to making no effort to fool him about who he was or what was going on.
Wait, what?
"Break what?" He said, his voice coming out harshly. The two bodyguards shifted their weight a little, as if readying themselves for an attack, but the beret-wearing man simply watched him, like a hawk watching its prey struggle with the situation.
That wasn't a comforting thought.
Finally, he spoke. "You've been asleep, Cap. For almost seventy years."
There was no comforting tone to the blunt words, no explanations at the end to try and help him make sense of the entire situation. Just brutally honest words, delivered in the shortest, cleanest way possible.
He appreciated that for just a moment, staring into the other man's eyes, before the implications of those words hit him.
Asleep?
How was I asleep?
The plane crash…it should've killed me, not put me to sleep.
Seventy years?
Seventy?
No…no, that wasn't possible. Maybe a few days, or even a few months at the most, but years? Peggy and Howard would have found him before then…shouldn't he be old? Graying hair and wrinkled skin? But he was still the same as he was when he crashed into the ice…
He took a second look at his surroundings, dread growing deep in stomach. The unfamiliar world around him, the strange dresses and cars and technology and smells and sounds…a world nothing like his own. A world seventy years in the future.
Oh, God.
This was impossible. This was completely insane and impossible in every way, shape and form…this had to be a dream, maybe a hallucination from some new weapon…
But it wasn't a dream. The burning in his lungs, the adrenaline in his blood, the smell of rain on the street…it was all real.
Deep breaths, Steve.
"You gonna be okay?"
He turned back to the man, who watched him calmly as he tried to take in the new situation. There was a small measure of pity in his eyes, but he made no efforts to console or ask him if he was okay. He simply waited, waited for him to take it all in.
"Yeah, yeah…" He heard himself say, as if from a distance. No, he wasn't okay, he wasn't even close to okay, but he felt some measure of calm as his mind removed the full brunt of the panic and shock. It reminded him of when he had been on the battlefields, shoving the emotions aside until he could deal with them later.
Could he deal with this? Seventy years…
Where was Peggy? Was she still here? Or had she…?
"I just…I had a date."
He missed the looks of confusion from the soldiers and the look the bodyguards behind the man shared with each other, but he was brought back into the present when the man's hand clapped him on his shoulder, firm but not harsh. He tensed, watching him warily.
"Welcome to 21st century New York City, Captain Rogers. We have quite the story to tell you." A faint smile graced the other man's features, the smile of someone in on the joke.
"'We'?" He echoed in confusion. Who was we?
"We'll explain that later, away from the eye of the public. Will you come with us?" In it, he could hear the unspoken question of Will you come quietly and not cause a ruckus?
For a moment, he didn't answer. Yes, he could go with them, but he wasn't completely sure that they weren't foes or members of a division of HYDRA. He didn't know if he wanted to step into a situation where he could easily be killed or locked away again. But, if he resisted…those guns looked awfully unfriendly. And the super-soldier serum didn't make him bulletproof, as he had discovered before.
Locking his jaw, he nodded.
It was time to get some answers.
Written literally from the ending of Captain America: the First Avenger. Hope you enjoy :)