Steve, as it turns out, is not quite as dead as he thought he was...
Steve's senses came online slowly, and for a long time, he drifted, pleasantly drowsy. Eventually, awareness returned enough for him to hear sounds, someone talking, but distant, staticky. Maybe a radio? His eyelids fluttered open heavily, the colors above him coalescing into the clearer lines of a slowly moving ceiling fan. He felt his eyebrows furrow slightly as sounds became a little clearer—it was a radio, and a baseball game, but something…something was off about it.
He rolled his head a little to the side, taking in the room around him warily. Drab colors, small, not much in it but the bed he was in. Not the infirmary at school, which is where he would have expected to wake up. Wait a minute, why was he waking up at all? Hadn't he…He'd, he'd crashed the Valkyrie, he remembered ice and pain and…well, not much else, actually. Had he survived somehow? Or was this…Was he dead? Was this Heaven?
He sat up experimentally, testing his limbs. He didn't hurt like he'd gotten the snot beat out of him by an evil super-soldier and then crashed into a wall of ice, but everything definitely ached. So, maybe he wasn't dead, then. If it was Heaven, nothing should be hurting, and if it was Hell, well, he imagined it would hurt a lot more. So, he was alive. Okay. But where was he?
He sat the rest of the way up, swinging his legs off the side of the bed. He was dressed, but in clothes he'd never seen before, and why was he wearing his shoes in bed? And why was he on the bed instead of in it? And what…That game on the radio was wrong, what was that? Wait, he knew this game! It was the Dodgers and the Phillies and…He'd been at that game! The summer after his ma died, this was the game Mr. Barnes had bought tickets to! They'd watched the game and run into Gabe's family in the parking lot, and…Why was a game that was nearly four years old on the radio? What the hell was going on?!
Steve's head snapped around at the sound of the door opposite the bed opening, and though the woman who walked through was wearing what looked like a standard S.S.R. uniform, Steve didn't relax. The game was wrong, and as he looked at her…She was wrong too. Something about the way her tie hung—that was, that was a man's tie, and her shirt… Steve's eyes darted back up to her face quickly as he realized he could see the edge of her bra through her shirt—no, that was, that was, no, that was wrong too. Her hair too, her hair was down around her shoulders, not pinned up the way the girls on duty always wore it, and…No. Something was definitely wrong here.
"Good morning," she said, stepping into the room and closing the door behind her. She glanced down at her watch, then back up again with a smile. "Or should I say 'afternoon'?"
"Where am I?" Steve asked.
"You're in a recovery room in New York City," she said, still smiling pleasantly, but she was a little bit too stiff. A knot twisted in Steve's stomach. She was lying.
Steve glanced over at the radio again, another play being called that he could see like he was back in the stands. She wanted him to think that he was home and safe, but the details were wrong. What was the charade for, unless…He'd clearly survived the crash, and this was clearly not the S.S.R. he knew. Had…Had Hydra somehow found him instead?
"Where am I really?" Steve demanded, looking back at her.
"I'm afraid I don't understand," she said, and oh, she knew. She could tell he'd figured it out and it worried her.
"The game," Steve said. "It's from 1941. I know because I was there." The smile dropped completely from her face, and was that fear in her eyes? Good. If she was Hydra, she'd better be afraid of him. Steve pushed himself to his feet, stepping forward and drawing himself up to his full six-foot-two to tower over her. "So, I'm gonna ask you again," he said, slow and dangerous. "Where am I?"
"Captain Rogers," she began, as though she was trying to calm him down.
"Who are you?!" Steve demanded.
The door behind her opened, and two men in all-black with heavy guns stepped in behind her. Steve backed up, drawing in a quick breath. It was Hydra. Their guns were at their sides, not trained on him yet, and he didn't give them the chance to get them up. No wand and no shield, but he still had his fists, and he lunged forward and took them down with two solid punches, flinging them back into the wall. To Steve's great surprise, instead of hitting the wall and sliding down to the floor, they sailed right through it, landing in a pile of plywood shards on a slick tile floor.
Steve jumped out the hole they'd created, pausing only momentarily in surprise at the room he landed in—large and empty, save for the plywood shell of the 'recovery room' he'd been in and a large screen projecting the image of apartments he'd seen out the window. No time to think about the oddly convoluted deception now, though—those two guards had evidently been the only ones, and he made for the door before more could show up.
"Captain Rogers, wait!" the woman called behind him, but Steve ran faster, shoving his way through the double doors. He found himself in a curving hallway, and it looked more like he was in an upscale bank than a Hydra base, what with the slick tile, floor-to-ceiling windows, and people in suits. "Code Thirteen!" came the woman's voice through speakers somewhere up in the ceiling. "Repeat, all agents, Code Thirteen!" and Steve shoved his mounting questions out of his mind and kept running.
Some of the people in suits started moving toward him, and Steve shoved them away as they approached, wishing he had his shield or his wand and hoping Hydra hadn't done anything to them. He kept running, shoving aside pursuers who had clearly not been expecting to chase down a fleeing super-soldier today, and he took that advantage and ran faster.
He burst through a set of glass doors—and what the hell kind of security was this, because he shouldn't have been able to get out so easily—and in a few steps found himself on the street and staggering and twisting awkwardly to avoid being run over by a taxi. A taxi? Wait, that was a New York Yellow Cab, although it sure was a weird make of a car. What the hell was going on here? There were still people behind him, though, so he kept running, keeping pace with the taxi and coming out a side lane into a busy street and…
What the actual hell was going on?! This was…He was in Times Square, but this was Times Square like he'd never seen it. There were lights, lights everywhere, bright and gaudy and flashing images and words and advertisements for things he had no idea what they were, and he was surrounded by sleek, unfamiliar cars, and the people milling around were wearing clothes like he'd never seen before. He slowed his run, both to try to figure out what he was seeing, and because several of those unfamiliar cars, sleek and black and flashing sirens, were pulling up to block the road in front of him. He spun around, looking for an escape behind him, but more cars pulled up there, blocking his way, men in suits spilling out from the cars to bar the spaces in between. Pedestrians started leaning in to look, curious murmurs running through the crowd. What was…Where was…What was happening?
"At ease, soldier," came a deep voice from behind him. Steve spun around to see a tall black man approaching between the cars. He was wearing a long, black leather coat, had a patch over his left eye, and had his hands down at his side in a stance that said he wasn't looking for a fight.
"Who are you?" Steve asked, eyeing him warily.
"Colonel Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.," the man replied. "You would have known us as the Strategic Scientific Reserve."
"Where am I?" Steve asked.
"Forty-sixth and Broadway," Fury replied. Okay, so this was Times Square. "I'm sorry about that little show back there," Fury went on, nodding in the direction of the building Steve had escaped from. He sounded genuinely apologetic. "But we didn't know what your mental state might be," he continued, as if he was still waiting on an answer to that one. "So, we thought it best to break it to you slowly."
Steve still wasn't entirely convinced this wasn't some Hydra ruse, but Fury did seem genuine, and the uncomfortable churning that had started in Steve's gut backed him up—this didn't feel like Hydra, but something was definitely wrong. "Break what?"
Fury sighed. "You've been asleep, Cap," he said. "For almost seventy years. Right now, it's the year 2012."
Seventy…seventy years? Steve was…he was in the future? He looked around the square, then back at Fury. "How…How am I alive?"
"Well," Fury said, looking apologetic again. "To be honest with you, we don't really know. My docs say it was suspended animation—could be Doctor Erskine's formula, the extreme cold…I don't know."
This could all still be some sort of elaborate hoax, but something in Fury's tone, his willingness to admit he didn't have answers, made it hard for Steve to disbelieve him. "What about the war?" he asked. "Did we win?" He'd taken down Schmidt, and, hopefully Hydra along with him, but Grindelwald and Hitler had still been out there.
"Hell, yes. Unconditional surrender," Fury said. "Grindelwald folded like a house of cards, and Hitler and his boys…" He snapped his fingers. "Taking down Hydra was a big part of that," he added, and though his expression didn't change, there was something that wasn't really but was almost a smile in his voice that kind of reminded Steve of Phillips. "But the world hasn't changed all that much," Fury went on. "There's still a lot of work to be done. A soldier's work. The world could still use a man like you, Captain." He held out a hand. "There's a place here for you."
Steve's mind was reeling. He was in the future. He was sixty-seven years in the future, and the war was over, and Fury wanted him to keep fighting, and…sixty-seven years. Sixty…That was such a long time. A lifetime. Everyone he knew…Their lives would have gone on, stretched on without him, maybe…maybe even ended. Was anyone he knew even still alive?
The squirming in his gut kicked up a notch, and he swallowed down a wave of nausea. Everyone was gone. All he'd wanted was to come home and quit fighting after the war, but now there was no home to come to. And Fury wanted him to jump into some new fight, and with nothing left, well, what else was there for him to do? But the thought of a new war settled a weight into the bottom of his soul. He didn't think he could do it again.
He looked at Fury, evaluating, and Fury didn't seem put off by the scrutiny. All Steve's senses, everything was telling him that this was real, that Fury was telling the truth, but, on the off-chance that this was still some elaborate Hydra hoax…He narrowed his eyes. "How do I know I can trust you?"
Fury kept his hand extended toward Steve, but reached up with his other hand and clicked his fingers. A woman in a suit and heels rushed forward from one of the cars and held something out to Steve. His mouth fell open. His shield and his wand. He reached out and took them from her, his hands suddenly aching as if they were missing pieces, relief settling into his soul as he wrapped his hands around them. The weight of his shield hung just as he remembered it on his arm, and the maple and eagle feather wand fit into his hand, the soft hum of its magic still there inside, warm and familiar.
The woman reached into her pocket then, and handed him something else. Steve reached out to accept the battered metal disc, unsure of what it was until he thumbed it open. His compass. Peggy's picture was still there, though it was faded and warped around the edges, the damage of ice and time.
He looked back up at Fury who was waiting, hand still extended. He really could trust him. Hydra never would have given him his shield and his wand back, knowing he could have taken out everyone in the circle around him with them. Okay. Steve swallowed hard, slipped the compass into his pocket, then stepped forward and shook Fury's hand. He wasn't committing to whatever Fury's fight was, and the look in the other man's eye told him he knew that, but he was going to trust him. That much, he could do.
He stepped back, his face falling as he looked around again at a world that should have been familiar, but was now something alien and strange.
"You gonna be okay?" Fury asked.
Steve sighed. "Yeah." He had no idea how, but, well, what else was he going to be? Fury sounded like he cared, but Steve had known him for all of two minutes, he was hardly going to fall apart in front of the man. "Yeah, I just…" Everyone was gone. Everyone he knew, everyone he loved, his whole, entire world... He felt the weight of his compass in his pocket, and he swallowed down the rising surge of emotions in his throat.
"I had a date," he said sadly.
Cue the Captain America theme song and roll the credits...
