Part Four: Revenants
~ In song you are immortal ~
Steve stumbled to a halt in the middle of the blindingly bright square, his breath heaving in his chest and his heart pounding a mile a minute, like it had when he was young. He wheeled, staring. Everything he'd seen since blearily opening his eyes whirled through his mind: the fake room with the fake nurse and the fake radio broadcast, the glass and metal building full of men in heavy dark uniforms like HYDRA… he didn't understand. Alice would've played along with the charade, he thought, but that was never his style. He'd busted out and ran.
His body ached like it used to after a fever, and he felt sick to his stomach.
Maybe this - these soaring buildings with glowing signs whose brightly-colored images moved, with the strangely-shaped cars and throngs of strange people - maybe all this was a trick, too. HYDRA knew how to play with people's minds.
But as Steve kept turning, trying to absorb all the noise and color, he realized he recognized this place. He read the street signs with dawning horror.
Tires squealed behind him and he turned, lowering his center of gravity as he saw sleek dark cars with more uniformed men inside them pull up.
"At ease, soldier!"
He turned again to see that he'd been surrounded by dark cars, leaving him alone in a circle of vehicles and dark-suited men. The thronging pedestrians in the square were boxed out, staring at the commotion.
The man who'd spoken stood before Steve: a dark-skinned man in a completely black suit, wearing an eyepatch. Steve's brow furrowed. The man strode up to Steve.
"Look," he said, "I'm sorry about that little show back there, but… we thought it best to break it to you slowly."
Steve caught his breath. "Break what?"
The man met his eyes evenly. Around them the square was chaotic, noisy and bright, but the man exuded an aura of calm. "You've been asleep, Cap." Something about the way he said it sent Steve's stomach plunging. "For almost seventy years."
For a moment Steve just stared at him, bewildered. But then he broke eye contact, looking once more around the square - Times Square. He drew in a quick, sharp breath.
No.
But it… it made sense. The way that this place was familiar and yet utterly, utterly different. The charade back in the fake hospital room.
Almost seventy years. He counted: from 1945, almost seventy years would be… sometime before 2015. His heart squeezed. The war, his friends, that last conversation with Peggy, everything he'd meant to do -
"You gonna be okay?" asked the man, and Steve's whirling thoughts coalesced.
"Yeah," he said instinctively. How do I know? "I just…" for some reason, his thoughts turned to a promise: a week, next Saturday, at the Stork Club. Eight o'clock on the dot, don't you dare be late. An impossible promise to dance with his friend at the wedding celebration that could never be. The white, white, world ahead of him.
His hands fell loose by his sides and his eyes fixed on the middle distance. "I had a date."
They put Captain Rogers in one of the sleek dark cars to get him out of the public eye. Fury - after introducing himself - sat in the back seat with the Captain and nodded for the driver to head off.
As they pulled away the Captain looked out the window, his hands in his lap, silent. Fury eyed him. He'd had dozens of discussions with S.H.I.E.L.D. doctors, psychologists, and historians about how the supersoldier might handle waking up in the twenty-first century. No one had predicted that he'd successfully bust out of their carefully-controlled holding facility and end up causing a scene in Times Square.
And Fury was finding it difficult to figure out what was going on in the guy's head. His face was expressive, reacting to each new thing he learned, but he didn't say much. Fury did notice the gleam of intelligence in his eyes, though, and reminded himself not to fall into the trap of treating Rogers like an old man.
After a few minutes of silent driving, Rogers drew a breath. "HYDRA…?"
Fury nodded. "You beat 'em, Cap. When you beat Schmidt and brought down the Valkyrie that put an end to the threat they posed. The SSR spent the rest of the war scouring out the last of them." Seeing the next question on Rogers's face, he continued: "The Allies won the war in 1945. A lot's happened since then of course, but there's never been another war like it since."
Rogers breathed, still looking out the window, absorbing the information. He didn't seem that surprised. Then his eyes tracked down to the clothes they'd put him, particularly the white shirt with the SSR logo. "The SSR?"
Fury nodded again. "In the 50s it became the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division." Rogers shot him a look, and Fury almost smiled. "We call it S.H.I.E.L.D., for short. It was founded by your friends, actually: Chester Phillips, Howard Stark, and Margaret Carter. I'm the current director."
Rogers's brows pinched together at the names of his friends, but then he corralled his expression again. He looked away, but Fury felt every iota of his attention still fixed on him. "And did you… did the SSR…" he swallowed. "Did they ever find Alice Moser?"
Fury cocked an eyebrow. "The Siren?"
"Yes, I… I worked with her."
"I know." Fury had seen all the files relating to Steve Rogers, even the ones that hadn't been declassified. He furrowed his brow again, noting the way Rogers was still looking out the window, as if half-listening. "No, they never found her. MIA, presumed dead."
Fury watched closely as Rogers's shoulders hunched together, making him bow a little in his seat. His eyes went unfocused.
"You knew her well," Fury said, almost a question.
"We were…" Rogers' voice had gone croaky. "Yes. I did."
"They never found her," Fury repeated more slowly, "but… she sure made her mark. Files about Project Odyssey were declassified in the '70s, and the world just about lost its mind when we found out she'd been spying on the Nazis all along."
Rogers's head jumped up and he faced Fury with wide eyes. "Everyone knows what she did?"
"Sure do. She's a war hero."
Rogers turned back to stare out the window, so Fury couldn't see his face. But he did see the Captain's hands twist together in his lap.
After what felt like hours, they pulled into an underground garage.
Fury cleared his throat. "Captain Rogers, we're going to make sure you're alright. We'll get you into medical, but then we'll start getting you set up. All the support you need. I know this must be… difficult, but you're not alone."
Fury tried to keep his tone warm - he wasn't used to comforting people.
"Okay," Rogers said. He straightened his shoulders and climbed out of the car. Fury echoed the movement and they walked together to medical, tailed by half a dozen agents. As they walked, Fury mulled over what he'd learned so far.
I don't know what it is about that Moser woman that cracks the toughest people I know.
That reminded him: now that it was certain Roger was going to live, he had better pay a visit to Carter.
It didn't take Steve long to figure out the internet. Though that didn't stop every single person (mostly S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, since they were the only people who he really spoke to) in the next few days asking him if he'd been having trouble. From what he'd seen, most babies nowadays could use the internet to some extent. It was all set up to be intuitive. Of course he'd figured it out.
His search history told a very sad story:
Alice Moser
Bucky Barnes
Steve Rogers
Peggy Carter
Tom Johnson
Howard Stark
The 107th Tactical Team
He was pretty sure S.H.I.E.L.D. could tell what he looked up on the tablet they'd given him, but he didn't care.
Everything he learned overwhelmed him. Not only was there sixty six years of history and culture and life that he had no understanding of, but he also had to deal with those sudden losses he'd been dealt before he went down on the Valkyrie. To the world, it had been decades since Bucky fell and Alice went missing. To Steve, it had been days. And they still hadn't recovered Bucky's body, still hadn't figured out what exactly had happened to Alice. The vast amount of information suddenly at his fingertips was almost too much.
And there was so much death.
Tom had died five years ago, an old man surrounded by his family. Steve was too overwhelmed to cry for him. It was just… more death, on top of all of it. When he dreamed, he dreamed of Alice and Tom on stage, bright eyed and breathless with laughter, singing together. He read a little about Tom's life before it hurt too much and he had to close the search window.
He spent a long time researching Alice. They might not have figured out why she'd gone missing, but the world sure knew a whole lot more about her. He read memorials and articles, overwhelmed and proud and grieving.
It seemed Peggy had been right: Alice really was dead. And if she hadn't died in '45, she was almost certainly dead by now. He spent a few hours reading about different people's investigations into her disappearance, before he decided it hurt too much. Everything he'd ever known had come to an end, like a well rounded story - except her. And it seemed most everybody had given up trying to find out the ending. How can they still not know?
The first night after his explosive awakening, Steve had sat on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands, unmoving. Unsleeping.
His suspicions about S.H.I.E.L.D. monitoring his search history were confirmed when an agent named Maria Hill visited him in his room in the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters and started asking him very targeted questions: about his team (which he'd learned had since been called the Howling Commandos), about his impression of the SSR when he'd been alive, and then...
"And what do you know about the disappearance of the Siren?" Hill asked, glancing down at her tablet as if the question didn't matter all that much.
Steve remained relaxed and loose-limbed where he sat on his cot. "Why?" he asked.
She looked up. "I'm sorry?"
"Why are you asking?"
She blinked once. "We thought that maybe you might have more information than what made its way into written records," she said lightly.
He fought off a scowl. Right. They'd seen him searching for information about her disappearance, and they wanted to know why. Maybe they thought he'd had something to do with it.
He took a measured breath. "I don't know anything about it," he said truthfully, and met her eyes. "I was hoping that after almost seventy years, you lot would know more about it than me."
She held his gaze for a few more moments, measuring his honesty. Finally she nodded incrementally, and moved on to the next question.
The months that followed were objectively busy, though Steve felt as if he were gliding through them, detached from the people around him. S.H.I.E.L.D. kept him on base for the first few months, measuring his vitals, getting him 'adjusted'. This mostly consisted of various meetings with all kinds of S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel - doctors, agents, psychologists, scientists, soldiers, even human resources. They soon realized that he wouldn't be left with any lasting damage from his time in the ice. He was whole and alive, untouched by the years.
He didn't see Fury much after that first day, which he found himself disappointed by - Fury was one of the few who didn't walk on tenterhooks around him.
After a few months they got him an apartment in Manhattan. They kept saying that they didn't want to rush him or overwhelm him. Steve didn't like being babied, but he didn't really care.
He didn't know how to fill the hours of each day. Every purpose that had driven him before was decades old; pointless. In Brooklyn he used to work all kinds of jobs to make rent and pay for his medication - now, he had S.H.I.E.L.D. footing the bill for everything. Then in the war there was HYDRA, and the Nazis, and Alice.
He hadn't been sure what his post-war life would look like, but he sure hadn't expected this: himself, alone, with nothing to do and no one he knew. A whole government division watching his every move - and it became increasingly clear that S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't know what to do with him either.
So he sank hours into reading. Some of it about his time, but mostly about what he'd missed. He turned it into a task: dutifully studying the history that had passed him by.
He watched a few old film reels about Captain America. It was the stuff he would've laughed at with his team once upon a time ("When tough times turn tougher, when hope's on the ropes, here's the man to knock the Axis on their backs-es!") but now… when he couldn't stand it a second longer, he turned off the screen, and was met with his own blank expression.
He slept a lot, when his brain would let him. He didn't get a lot of sleep in the war.
He tried not to think about Alice and Bucky too much. Sometimes he caught himself sitting, unseeing, thinking about the look in Bucky's eyes before he'd fallen from the train, or the way Alice had smelled that last time they'd parted ways in the Alps, and he'd have to give himself a shake and find some distraction.
S.H.I.E.L.D. had given him files on most of the people he'd once known, on thick cardboard with typewritten lines, as if the sight of modern printing would give him a heart attack. Morita, Falsworth, Dugan, Gabe, Dernier, Stark… all gone. Most of them had had kids since, lived full lives. As he read about all their accomplishments he felt so proud… and also alienated. He didn't know the men they'd become.
He'd learned that some of the people he'd once known were still alive, but he wasn't ready to see them. Whenever he thought about facing them… his skin crawled and his gut churned with fear.
S.H.I.E.L.D. had done up his apartment like the apartments he was used to seeing back in the forties, with modern appliances, but that didn't stop the place from looking stark. He didn't have any real belongings anymore. All of his stuff was gone or in museums. S.H.I.E.L.D. had said they'd try to track it all down, but they said that getting it back might be legally tricky.
Steve didn't really care: it was just stuff. He'd lost people.
He started going for walks.
He still hadn't decided if New York was more familiar, or more alien. He supposed it might be both, and it might also be that he'd come back different too. In the war, when he saw himself coming back, it was with Alice and Bucky. But maybe if he'd had the chance to go back to his New York in 1945, he would still have walked the streets like a stranger.
Bucky would be excited by all the changes, Steve thought. He'd run his eyes over the sleek, shiny cars, and goggle up at the colorful changing billboards (they were digital, he'd learned). Alice would have pointed out the parts that hadn't changed: the familiar shape of the Empire State soaring above it all, the old sandstone buildings, the way people scowled when you got in their way. The subway was still gross.
No one recognized Steve. S.H.I.E.L.D. had been worried about him going out by himself (not that he imagined he was ever truly alone), but their fears had been unfounded: it hadn't been publicised that he was still alive, after all, and no one expected to bump into Captain America on a New York sidewalk.
A week after moving into the apartment he started drawing. He started slow, like he had after the serum - he had to adjust to all the changes. They had better art supplies nowadays.
He started drawing the city: things that had stayed the same, things that had changed. He found himself drawing old landscapes in an effort to keep the memory of them from slipping away. He drew the new and strange shapes that caught his eye.
He had a cafe he liked sitting at to draw. It was quiet, for Manhattan, and the waitress was nice (if she reminded him a little bit of Alice, he tried his best to ignore that fact).
He'd taken up boxing, too. He hadn't boxed since basic training, and before that, when Bucky used to teach him. He liked the numbing repetition of it, how it let him feel as if he was doing something. The owner of the gym was good to him, too - let him train by himself once the gym was closed, and let him bring the extra bags since he kept breaking them.
He mostly tried not to break them, but it was hard. On a late night when he couldn't sleep, restraint went out the window as hundreds of images flickered behind his eyes. All the awful things he'd seen in the war, real scenes and imagined ones: Bucky falling. A white expanse of nothing rushing up to meet him. Peggy telling him that Alice was dead. A dozen imagined deaths for Alice, each more sickening than the last.
One good thing about the future was modern psychology; the various doctors and psychologists he'd seen had shown him some good tactics for dealing with the things that haunted him. They'd been helping with his PTSD, which was something they didn't have a name for in his day, but which he'd apparently brought with him to the twenty first century.
But sometimes all he could bring himself to work on was to drag himself down to the gym in the dead of night and take out his shivery imaginations on the boxing bag; until it inevitably flew across the room. Oops.
And that was where, one night in May, Nick Fury found him.
"Is there anything you can tell us about the Tesseract that we ought to know now?"
"Yeah." In truth he'd never understood any of the science behind the thing. Howard hadn't really understood either (though apparently that hadn't stopped him dredging it up). Steve had seen the Tesseract open up a window to the universe inside the Valkyrie: star systems and nebulae glittering right before his eyes. He'd seen it absorb the Red Skull in a beam of rainbow light. When the cube had fallen through the floor and disappeared, he'd been glad.
It's back. So am I.
Steve trudged away across the gym floor.
"You should've left it in the ocean."
When Steve arrived on the S.H.I.E.L.D. aircraft carrier, it almost made him smile: the design hadn't changed all that much from his day. Just a slab of concrete in the ocean buzzing with activity. After his night reading up on the information packet S.H.I.E.L.D. had given him, which had sent his head spinning, and then the hero worship (tempered by seventy years of legend) from Agent Coulson on the bizarre-looking Quinjet, he'd felt a little out of step.
He met the others. Agent Romanoff, who Steve would've recognised as a dangerous woman even without the brief in the S.H.I.E.L.D. packet; she had that glint in her eyes like Peggy. Like Alice. Then Banner, whose mild manners and soft speech reminded him of Erskine. Steve almost shook his head - he couldn't keep comparing this world to the world he knew before. He had to take the measure of these people and get to know them as themselves.
Then the aircraft carrier started flying. Well well. Future indeed.
He thought back to Stark's flying car presentation as he followed Romanoff and Banner inside. Bucky, if you could'a seen this… he shook his head.
And then the ship went invisible.
He gave Fury ten bucks.
Steve had been trying to catch up with modern technology, but pretty quickly the talk on the helicarrier turned to spectrometers and worldwide camera surveillance, and the scope of it boggled his mind. He kept quiet, listening. Watching.
He got the sense that S.H.I.E.L.D. still didn't really know what to do with him. He stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the hustle and bustle of the helicarrier. It almost reminded him of the landing craft waiting in the ocean before D-Day, when he'd had to shake hands and smile for the cameras. But at least then, he'd had a purpose beyond being a symbol for the troops. He'd marched off that craft along with the rest of the men and onto the treacherous beachfront.
But then they got word in that Loki had been sighted in Stuttgart, Germany.
"Captain?" Fury called, and Steve looked over. "You're up."
Steve drew in a breath and his shoulders straightened. This is what they needed him for. He could handle that.
The new uniform pinched. But it was good to see his shield again. It had a fresh coat of paint and a new harness, but under it all he sensed that impenetrable, thrumming metal. He'd gone down in the Valkyrie with this shield, brought it with him into every battle. He could still see how it looked in Bucky's hands before he was knocked out of the train, still remembered how his heart had pounded when he watched Alice hoist it on her arm in an Italian forest.
He shook away the thoughts.
The art auction in Stuttgart was just the sort of place Alice would've thrived in, Steve thought. In fact she might have even attended a party in this building once for all he knew. Half the old performance halls and cultural centres in Europe apparently claimed they'd hosted the Siren at one time or another.
Steve didn't get a chance to go inside. He arrived as Loki - in green robes and with big golden horns on his head - brandished his scepter at an old man.
"There are always men like you," the man said in his German accent, with derision in his eyes.
Moments later Steve leaped in to save him. "Y'know, last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing over everybody else," Steve said, eyeing down the sharp-eyed alien, "we ended up disagreeing." Because he'd barely been in Loki's presence a minute, but he recognised a tyrant when he saw one.
"The soldier," Loki taunted.
It was almost a relief when Steve was able to start beating him up.
They tussled a few minutes, and Steve found himself surprised at Loki's strength; he was much stronger than even the Red Skull. But it all came to an end when a man in red and gold metal armor dropped out of the sky and helped Steve corner Loki. They stood together as if they'd planned it, and Loki raised his hands.
"Mr Stark," Steve panted.
"Captain."
Steve wasn't exactly sure why Stark wanted to press his buttons so much. One thing was certain, Stark junior definitely had a sharper edge than his father.
But then a lightning god showed up and stole Loki, and Steve jumped out of the Quinjet. About ten minutes later Steve held his Vibranium shield up against Thor's crackling hammer and he had a moment before it connected in which he realized that this was one of those things that someone - Alice or Bucky or anyone else in his team - would have once yelled at him for. He wondered if someone would yell at him for this. He wondered if he'd live to be yelled at.
The hammer connected with an ear-splitting sound like a gonging bell and the forest went flat. But Steve stood, the sole unmoved thing, and allowed himself a self-satisfied smile.
The talk about unintelligible scientific things and outer space armies got worse once Stark was on the helicarrier, and Steve was really goddamn tired. He couldn't make heads or tails of Stark. He didn't understand half the things he said.
(When Fury made a reference to flying monkeys Steve remembered seeing that movie in a Brooklyn theatre with Bucky. He'd written to Alice about it right after. Bucky had said that Steve was like the scarecrow without a brain, Bucky was the Wizard, and Alice was Dorothy).
So Steve watched, and listened. He might never get to Stark and Banner's level, but he was sick of feeling two steps behind.
In the lab, Stark started pushing all Steve's buttons again and it was starting to work. Stark admitted to hacking S.H.I.E.L.D., which incensed Steve. This wasn't how SSR's successor was supposed to work, and who were they if they couldn't trust their own team? But Stark was purposefully abrasive. Steve didn't know what his problem was.
But then: "Steve," Banner said quietly. "Tell me none of this smells a little funky to you."
And he realized he'd been watching, and listening, but maybe not in the right direction. He'd been so taken in by the future with its bright lights and flying helicarriers and head-spinning science speak. He hadn't felt useful anywhere. He might have the serum, but nowadays they had unimaginable power and weaponry, and men in flying suits of armor. He'd forgotten that he hadn't always been so focused on orders, on following the plan.
"Just find the cube," he grit out. And then… he made himself useful.
When he flipped open the 'Phase 2' crate to see the HYDRA weaponry, Steve understood what it meant when people said they saw red. He wondered how Banner could control rage like this, the kind that seared through your veins and made your hands shake.
This was all his, Bucky, and Alice's efforts down the drain.
He took a minute to manage the anger - thanks, modern psychology - before he grabbed a HYDRA blaster and went upstairs again.
He might've done the breathing and the calming down, but still. He was mad. He yelled at Fury, and when Stark got up on his high horse he snapped at him, too. In the bright lights of the lab they all started yelling at each other and the tension in the air crackled around them.
Steve knew he'd gone too far when he told Stark to 'stop pretending to be a hero', but he couldn't help the anger running through him. It felt like finally, finally, he had an excuse to let it all out. At Stark, at this whole mess he'd found himself flailing in the middle of. He wasn't a soldier any longer, he was a symbol. And what use was that?
But then Stark said 'the only thing special about you came out of a bottle' and his anger flared right up again. So he challenged Stark to a fight.
Put on the suit.
Bruce told them all about how he'd tried to kill himself, and then the computers went wild, then Steve challenged Tony to another fight-
The lab blew up.
Steve and Tony found themselves on the floor of the smoking lab entrance, open-mouthed.
"Put on the suit," Steve urged.
"Yeah," Tony agreed.
It felt good to work together with Stark on the engine. Like he was useful again. Stark seemed remarkably good-natured to him all of a sudden, and Steve wondered if he too had realized that the anger between them didn't belong to them. It had been a product of other people, other times.
When Steve heard about Coulson, his heart dropped.
No, he thought, still panting from his encounter with the gunmen on the outside of the helicarrier. It wasn't supposed to be like this anymore.
Why did everyone around him die?
Fury tossed a handful of blood-stained trading cards on the glass Helicarrier table.
"Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea. In heroes."
When he and Stark argued about it later, in the cold silence of the containment room with the dark stain on the wall, Steve asked: "Is this the first time you lost a soldier?" Because that's the only way this made sense. He, Tony, Coulson… Bucky, Alice… they were all soldiers. They died, but it was for a purpose. There had to be a purpose.
But then Stark turned on him with rage in his eyes and spat: "We are not soldiers."
Steve eyed him evenly. We. Stark had said we.
Who am I, Steve thought, if I'm not a soldier?
The answer came: a husband. A friend. But those… those were gone.
Stark looked a little embarrassed by his vehement outburst, then swallowed. "I'm not marching to Fury's fife."
"Neither am I," Steve realized. "He's got the same blood on his hands that Loki does." His heart pounded, even though disobeying his CO wasn't exactly new territory for him. "But right now we've got to put that behind us and get this done."
They started getting back to the point, bouncing ideas off each other, and it really didn't take Stark long: within a minute, he'd figured it all out. Stark Tower.
As they marched off to find Stark's suit and a Quinjet, Steve thought: Alice would've liked him. He questioned the thought, but realized it was true. Tony wasn't his father. This sharp man with a hundred different faces who'd been so torn up over Coulson's loss, Alice would've liked him. That made Steve smile.
Maybe I don't need to forget about Alice and Bucky. I can… I can take them with me.
Bolstered by that realization he retrieved his shield, drew himself tall, and got his team together. He walked with Romanoff on his left and Barton on his right and it wasn't the same, not at all, but it felt for the first time like he was where he was supposed to be.
It was strange fighting in New York. The aliens poured out over streets familiar and strange to Steve, making his heart stop in his chest. If any place was home to him, this was it. And they were tearing it apart. So he stepped up, and started leading.
"Call it, Cap," Stark told him.
So he did. He knew this city like the back of his hand, could see the map of it in his head. And he'd seen all these people fight (he'd spent all that time watching, after all) so he could see how it'd all come together, if only they'd trust him. He realized that he trusted them.
He gave them their orders. And they followed.
They came together as a team and started listening to each other and… oh. This is how it's meant to be.
The battle, when he remembered it later, existed in moments.
He saw Thor on top of the Empire State building and remembered visiting the top when he was twelve, with Alice and Bucky. Alice had said then that New York was her home. Can't get a view like this anywhere else in the world.
Steve's fist had clenched behind his shield.
Natasha spiralling up to grab an alien aircraft speeding past - she might be crazier than me.
The civilians in the bank with their tear-streaked faces, the relentless wave of aliens… he'd thought HYDRA was hard, but this… he didn't know he was up for this job.
Thor helping him up. "Ready for another bout?"
"What, you getting sleepy?" Because he didn't know how to do anything other than get up, keep going. Thor saw the truth of his exhaustion in his eyes, but didn't comment.
Stark disappearing into the darkly shimmering portal with a nuclear missile on his back.
When the aliens collapsed around them and a starburst erupted in that strange black window into space, Thor looked to Steve. Steve's heart had shriveled. We are not soldiers.
"Close it," he'd said.
Natasha was a soldier, and she didn't question him. Steve watched the edges of the portal shiver and shrink.
And then at the last possible second Stark made the most dramatic entrance that Steve had ever seen.
"Son of a gun," he grinned as he watched the red and gold armor flashing in the sunlight, and realized he couldn't remember the last time he'd smiled.
His sharp spike of sudden fear eased when the Hulk plucked Stark out of the sky.
Not five seconds after being awoken from what looked like death, Tony had them all laughing. That's a guy I need on my team.
After Loki, and S.H.I.E.L.D., they went to get Schwarma. They didn't talk. It was nice.
When Thor and Loki disappeared a day later with the Tesseract, Steve felt genuine sorrow at farewelling a new friend. But if this was the last time he ever saw that glowing blue cube, it'd be too soon. He shook hands and clasped shoulders with his friends, surprised at the genuine affection he felt for each of them. They'd made something special, the six of them.
When he got on his bike and switched on the engine, the others were already leaving. They were returning to their various homes and jobs: Stark Tower, S.H.I.E.L.D., Asgard. Steve wasn't going with them - he wasn't even going back to his apartment in Manhattan.
He was going off alone. But, for the first time in a while, he didn't feel alone.
Three days later, Steve found himself standing before a closed door inside a D.C. retirement home, his hands loose by his sides and the sound of the retreating nurse's footsteps echoing in his ears.
Oh, I'm not ready for this.
He drew in a breath. Too bad. I'm here now. He lifted one hand and knocked on the door.
"Come in," called a soft, accented voice. Steve felt his guts twist.
He pushed open the door.
The space beyond was nice. The nurse who'd escorted him had told him all about the facility, how each resident had their own apartment space complete with gardens. The room before him appeared to be a living and dining room, with soft off-white carpet, bookshelves lining the walls, a round table, and windows in the far wall overlooking the green garden, the view obscured by gently fluttering curtains. Photos and art hung on the walls. The place looked lived in.
And at the table, wearing a neat knitted cardigan and a shawl, sat Peggy Carter.
Steve could not move. He stood fixed in the doorway, staring, and Peggy stared back.
He'd been worried that he wouldn't recognize his old friend. But, to his great relief, he did: those dark, intelligent eyes peering out of the weathered face were Peggy's, alright, as was the poise she held herself with even though her shoulders were bent and her posture somehow more withered. Her silver hair hung in soft waves, and she sat with a steaming cup of tea before her.
Peggy eyed him back evenly for a few long, silent moments. Steve wondered - they said she's sick, does she… does she recognize me?
Then she opened her mouth to speak. Her lips seemed to wobble. "You're late," she said in a familiar voice weathered by age.
Steve still could not move, but he felt as if his insides had dissolved. His throat closed up and his vision blurred. "I…" he croaked. Swallowed. "I'm sorry-"
Seeing the tears in his eyes, Peggy's expression seemed to crumble. "Oh, Steve. Come here."
As if unstuck by her words, Steve stumbled through the doorway and almost ran to her side. She stood, unsteadily and shakily, and by the time she'd fully straightened he had put his arms around her.
Peggy felt paper thin under his hands, a little shaky from weakness and emotion, but he knew better than to see her as weak. She patted him softly on the back as he shook even more violently than her, and he knew that under the lined skin and silver hair was the same strong Peggy he'd known in the war.
After a moment, she gently plucked at the back of his shirt to get him to give her a bit of distance. She looked up into his face, her gleaming eyes searching.
She let out a shaky breath. "You look just like you did when you left."
Steve shrugged one shoulder awkwardly. "I think my face is the one thing that hasn't changed since then."
A small, sad smile lifted her lips. "You may be right about that, my dear." She drew in a breath. "Come, let's sit. We've got a lot to talk about. Thank you for saving the world again, by the way."
As the nurses had warned him, Peggy was a little forgetful, but still pretty sharp. They sat together at her table with a pot of tea.
One of the first things she did was to lay her hand on his. "Steve, I… I know you must have found out by now, but I wanted to apologise. We… never found her. Alice."
Steve felt alarmed to see the tears glittering in her eyes. "Peg, that's… it's alright, I'm not angry."
She shook her head. "I knew you wouldn't be. You're too decent for that." Her lip quirked, even though her eyes still gleamed with tears. "But I promised you we'd keep looking. We did, but… after twenty years, thirty, forty - the trail went cold."
His heart wrenched. He didn't know what to say. More than anything else he wanted answers, but he knew Peggy couldn't give him that. He didn't blame her at all, though he could see this weighed heavy on her.
Peggy cleared her throat. "I can tell you all about it, when you like, though maybe I'm not the one to ask."
"That's alright," Steve said, his throat clogged. "I just…" he shook his head and looked away to the small glimpse he had of Peggy's garden. "I haven't really talked about Alice since I woke up. No one knows I even knew her, really, and this world… everyone accepts that she's gone. Which I know she is, one way or another, but I guess…" he hung his head. "I guess I'm not ready to let her go so easily."
Peggy sighed, and he looked up at her face. "I wish I could offer you advice. I've spent almost seventy years going from one day to the next without knowing what happened to Alice. Feeling like I failed her. I suppose…" her eyes drifted away. "I suppose I found it easier after a while to accept that she was…" she looked back almost guiltily.
"That she's dead," Steve finished gently. "It's okay, Peg. I knew before I went down in the Valkyrie that she probably was. I don't think I" - his eyes burned with tears again - "I don't think I'd have been able to do it if I thought there was a chance she was still out there. Maybe even then, I knew she was gone." He looked down into his own lap again. A silence passed. "I guess I don't really know how to go on without knowing what happened."
"I'm sorry," Peggy said softly.
For a few long moments, neither of them spoke.
Peggy broke the silence. "About what you said before you… went down," she began.
Steve looked up to see something lighter than grief in her eyes. Despite himself, he felt his lips quirk. "Which part?"
She mock-scowled at him. "Don't you start that with me, young man-"
"I'm older than you," he pointed out, smiling now.
She leaned back in her chair, squinting at him, before reaching for a manila folder on the far edge of the table. "When I heard you were back, I thought I had better get this out of storage." She opened the folder and slid it across the table.
Steve looked down, and instantly recognized the piece of creased paper before him. It was much more faded than the last time he'd seen it, but he knew it well. The tightly-printed French, the scrawled signatures. He let out a long breath and reached out for the paper, his fingers shaking. When he felt the paper and ink under his fingers, his heart skipped. He traced Alice's name.
Even though for him it had only been a matter of months, that night already felt like a hundred years ago. "I suppose you figured out most of the details by now," he said to Peggy. "The night we liberated Soives, we ended up at a little village church with a few hours to spare, and…" he smiled. "I don't even know whose idea it was. We were talking, and then all of a sudden we were talking about getting married. It took us a while to convince the pastor, but when he understood what we were asking he was all for it." Steve tapped the table absentmindedly. "Didn't have rings, or clothes other than our uniforms, and only the pastor's wife to be our witness, but it actually turned out… pretty great." His voice trailed away. No matter where you are, or where I am, I love you. I always will.
Peggy shook her head, smiling. "Totally against mission protocol."
"Well, you know me. I was never much of a one for the rules."
She laughed, a pleasant rasping sound. He looked up to see her giving him a contemplative look. "Steve, you mentioned earlier that no one knows you and Alice knew each other. This" - she nodded at the marriage certificate - "is something I've agonized over for years."
Steve cocked his head.
Peggy went on. "For years I never told anyone what you'd confided in me. Alice's work had to remain confidential for a time, so I saw it as part of the secret. And when we declassified her files I told Tom, and the Howlies, and some others. Tom actually held onto the certificate for a while, but when he passed" - Steve felt another stab of pain - "his daughter returned it to me." Peggy met his eyes. "I'm sorry if you've felt isolated by it remaining a secret. We weren't sure if it was something you and Alice would have wanted spread about, and-"
Steve smiled, and Peggy abruptly stopped talking. "Gee, Peg. When I realized how long it'd been, I thought every aspect of my life would've been written in a book by now. It's… it's nice to know I've still got some secrets." That made her smile. "Alice and I wanted to tell you all one day, but we…" his throat clogged. "It wasn't supposed to be some grand reveal. All we ever wanted was to live together."
Peggy's eyes gleamed. "I'm so sorry, Steve."
A silence passed.
"I'm just glad," Steve said heavily, "that she didn't have to hear about Bucky. And me. Whatever happened to her… she didn't lose us."
"No," Peggy said softly. "We lost her."
They spoke for the rest of the afternoon. Peggy told him all about Tom: his life of service and revolution, stepping in to tell his sister's story. Steve had found out most of it from the internet already, but Peggy told him about Tom's family and all they'd achieved and become. When Peggy told him the name of Tom's eldest daughter, Steve broke down in tears.
Peggy made more tea.
He learned all about the life Peggy had led: founding S.H.I.E.L.D. and the triumphs and lows that had come with that. She showed him photos of her children and grandchildren. Then the topic turned to the Battle of New York, and Steve told her about his team - the Avengers.
Late in the afternoon Peggy was growing tired, but she propped her chin on her hand and gave him a searching look. "You were so determined to be in the Army when I first met you. Why was that?"
Steve shrugged. "At first because my dad had been a soldier. But then… because I saw what was going on in Europe, and I knew I had to get over there. To help put a stop to it."
Peggy smiled. "You've always been good at finding solutions that no one else sees. Good at recognizing the capabilities of the people around you and leading them in a way that makes them shine. You are a leader at heart, Steve. The world might not be so much in need of a man who can outrun a car and lift it over his head, but the world is always in need of leaders with kind hearts."
Steve nodded slowly. "The night before Project Rebirth, Erskine made me promise him that I'd stay who I was: not a good soldier, he said, but a good man."
"Exactly. He might have given you the serum to help fight a very specific problem at the time, but I think he knew that given the chance, you could do so much more than fight. You could build."
Unbidden, Steve thought of the team he'd fought with in New York. It had felt like between the six of them they had built something, that day. Something with potential.
As if sensing his thoughts, Peggy said: "So what now, Steve?"
He looked up into her face. "I'm not sure. I was thinking of… traveling a little. Hitting the road, clearing my head. Then… I don't know."
She nodded slowly. "Do you think you might end up on the west coast?"
The question made him frown. "Maybe. Why?"
"Well…" she said slyly. "There's an old friend of mine that I'd like you to meet."
As far as S.H.I.E.L.D. knew, Steve was off finding himself. Fury had said he wasn't keeping tabs on him, which Steve half believed. He rode from one state to the next, an echo of his USO tour in '44, but without the screaming crowds and kissing babies. And without that godawful song.
Unlike when he'd been living in New York before the battle, he did occasionally get recognized. His face was all over the news these days along with the rest of the Avengers, after all. Though not that many people in small town Colorado expected to see Captain America cruise through on a motorbike.
But his wandering had an end goal. A few weeks after leaving D.C., he found himself driving between the soaring red pylons of the Golden Gate Bridge. He half-smiled to himself as he eyed the bridge, admiring the flashes of deep blue ocean to the side. He remembered when they finished building this bridge. He'd been nineteen at the time.
From the bridge he had about a fifteen minute drive until he pulled up outside a narrow-fronted Victorian townhouse just outside the city center. When he turned off his bike's engine the street seemed relatively quiet. He stretched his arms, eyeing the house before him. It was beautiful, with a soft blue facade and pot plants on either side of the door.
He set his hands on his hips and glanced up and down the street. Well, you've come this far.
He strode up the steps to the front door and knocked three times.
Steve spotted movement behind the frosted glass a few moments before the door swung open to reveal a twenty-something year old kid wearing tight jeans and glasses. The kid's eyes went comically wide as he took in the sight of Captain America on his doorstep.
"Uh, hi," Steve said with an attempt at a polite smile. "I think… I'm here to see your grandmother?"
The kid nodded, still wide eyed, and stepped aside. "She's in the kitchen," he said in a strained voice.
"Thanks," Steve said. He stepped inside the home, which was more modern than its exterior but with touches of history: black and white photographs on the wall, a glimpse of a record player in the sitting room to his right. Steve looked around, trying to figure out where the kitchen was (since the kid was still standing by the door). He heard a soft clink behind one door at the far end of the corridor, and decided to give that a try.
The door creaked slightly as he opened it, and he silently congratulated himself at the sight of an oven and fridge. But where was… he stepped inside and turned until he spotted the small table at the far end of the kitchen, backlit by a window with paisley drapes. An old woman sat at the table, her hair a shade of burnished silver and her eyes sharp and dark in her lined face. She'd been doing something on an iPad resting on the table, but at the sound of his entry she looked up and her eyes locked on him.
Steve swallowed under her gaze.
Finally, the woman spoke. "I was wondering when you'd show up."
That made Steve smile. "It's nice to finally meet you, Jilí."
She smiled in reply. "Thought you'd be smaller."
He shrugged. "I grew."
"So I hear." Then, faster than he would have expected for a woman of her age, she slapped the seat across from her. "Sit down, Steve. I think we've got a lot to discuss."
"Yes, ma'am."
Jilí (or Agent Kreisky, as she had been known professionally) was just as old as Peggy, but either by luck or chance had hung onto her health a little longer. When Peggy had told Steve about her, she had confided I think death is afraid of her, and after just a few minutes in Jilí's company Steve thought he knew what Peggy meant.
Jilí was a kind host, having her grandson make tea and asking after Steve's wellbeing after that alien business, but there was a sharpness to her, unfaded by years, that he took note of. He'd only ever known of Jilí through Alice's letters, but he'd known then that she was what his ma used to call a self-assured woman. More importantly, she had been Alice's friend and confidant, the woman who had taken it upon herself to break into Alice's uncle's house after Alice hadn't been heard from for a few days, the woman who had not only risen to meet Alice's growing resistance, but had actively encouraged it.
She didn't beat around the bush much, either. Once she'd shooed away her round-eyed grandson and settled creakily in her chair, she fixed her gaze on Steve.
"Now, you'll see all sorts of rot on the internet," she began. "Hundreds of young and ambitious would-be-detectives have put their minds to Alice's disappearance, and you'll find their work all over the message boards and forums. But there's nothing on the internet that can hold a candle to what's in here." She tapped her head.
Peggy had told him some of it, but the assuredness in Jilí's eyes made Steve pause. "You looked for her," he said softly.
"Of course I did! I looked for her for thirteen years." Jilí's eyes went sad. "I'm sorry I had to stop."
He shook his head. "No, you… thirteen years." He blew out a breath. "I don't know how to thank you."
"Thank me by listening. I don't expect you to continue the investigation - there's not much to continue, I'm afraid, but I'm old. If anyone can be relied upon to remember, to do justice to Alice and her story, then it's you. So listen up."
Steve pulled in his chair, straightened his shoulders, and listened.
Jilí went over each painstaking detail of her thirteen-year-long investigation, the small scraps of information she'd uncovered and the lattice of guesswork she'd framed over it all. She'd compiled it all in a digital file complete with detailed timeline, scans of all relevant documents, and videoed interviews.
Alice's last witnessed sighting was the evening of January 20th, at her performance in Tiergarten. There were unconfirmed rumors of a disturbance that night. Four Gestapo officers who'd been based in Berlin that month were also allegedly killed on the eastern front that same month. There was a single Gestapo order to Detain the Siren (Alice Moser), alive, for questioning. Otto's body turned up days later in his apartment, with signs of staging. Jilí described her lengthy trawl through prison records and execution documents, searching for any hint of Alice, and her interviews with the worst of Nazis.
Steve was startled by Jilí's recall - all of it seemed to be as clear in her mind as when she'd first learned it.
He was also struck by the deep undercurrent of frustration he sensed in her. He didn't know of anyone who'd looked so hard into anything for so long, and the thing Jilí had come up against most was just… nothing. Where Alice should be, somewhere, was a vacuum. No body, no word, no trace. Steve tried hard not to let his own frustration well up, but it was difficult. How could he resign himself to accept her death when instead of death, all he saw was nothing?
Somehow, the talk turned to before Alice's disappearance. Steve asked about how Jilí came to be alive, and she told him about her early-morning arrest in Vienna, the sickening journey east, and her years in a concentration camp. She showed him the faded numbers on her forearm. They talked about her husband Franz, and Steve gave Jilí a drawing he'd worked on in rest stops and motels on his cross-country journey; when Franz had been killed in 1939, Alice had asked Steve to draw a portrait of him based on a wedding photograph she'd sent him two years earlier. That portrait had been lost to the years, so Steve had drawn another one from memory of Franz and Jilí on their wedding day.
Jilí held that drawing for a long time, unmoving, her dark eyes fixed. She didn't cry, but when she looked up at him Steve saw a feeling so powerful in her eyes that it almost moved him to tears.
"I don't have any photographs of him," she said, her voice perfectly even. "Thank you."
Then their talk turned back to Alice. Jilí asked about their wedding day, so Steve told her all of it. It made her smile.
They talked about Vienna, and all that had changed since the war. Jilí told him about her children, then about Tom's.
"Alice - Alice Johnson," she clarified, since she had an Alice of her own, "ended up in S.H.I.E.L.D., you know. She's still working for them as far as I know. I last saw her for Thanksgiving last year."
Steve paused. "How… how is that, for her?"
"Classified," Jilí winked. She cocked her head. "Why, are you looking for something to do?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. S.H.I.E.L.D. was good to me when I first woke up, but then I found out about the Tesseract, and…"
Jilí's face darkened. "I was sorry to hear about that project. I understand why they did it, but…" she shook her head. "It was ill advised."
Steve said nothing.
Jilí steepled her fingers. "I can understand your caution, Steve. I was cautious too, back when Peggy asked me to join the fledgling agency she'd set up with two of her old war buddies. But in the end I trusted her, so I signed up. You have to decide if you trust the people you'd be working with."
Steve thought about it: Fury, Maria, Natasha. Trust was a strong word, but judging by their actions… they were good people. Plus, S.H.I.E.L.D. had been home to so many of the people he trusted: Peggy, Phillips, Stark… also Jilí and Alice's niece.
Jilí smiled. "You're thinking about it."
He frowned. "Maybe."
"For what it's worth… plenty of people might think you're an old war symbol they dug up out of the ice" - Steve almost flinched at her brutal honesty - "but I know more about you than you know. You could do good here. You're more than a soldier with a bit of speed and strength, and I think you know that."
Steve thought about it on the whole road trip back. He realized that while things were better these days, there were still so many threats out there. Jilí knew better than most people, after all - she'd been with S.H.I.E.L.D. since the beginning. These modern threats were complex, and dangerous beyond belief, and he didn't really know how he'd go about fixing them. But maybe Jilí was right. Maybe he could still be useful.
When he got back to New York he went to his S.H.I.E.L.D. appointed apartment. He stepped one foot in the door, looked around, and realized he was done with the place. He closed the door and turned around. Outside once more, he looked up and down the street before deciding: he was going for a walk.
He knew it'd be there. He'd read about it on the internet after all.
Brooklyn Bridge Park had changed. In his day it had been little more than a patch of grass and trees, but nowadays it had picnic tables and cultivated gardens and a playground. The view of the bridge was the same, though the skyline of Manhattan beyond it had grown taller and denser, like a forest growing thick with age. He smiled at the sight of the Empire State building.
He didn't have to walk long before he found it.
In the leafy shade of a grove of trees, a metal statue stood tall. The figure of the statue wore a dress which appeared to shift in a passing wind. Her chin was lifted, and a half-smile lifted her lips. She was made of bronze, but Steve could see more than that dark burnished shade: he saw pale hair, piercing green eyes, a white sweeping dress.
When he could drag his eyes away from the statue's face, he realized there was a plaque at the base:
The Siren
Alice Moser, who sang so beautifully that they never heard her chipping away at the foundation beneath their feet.
Steve almost couldn't make out the last line. He realized why when he reached up to his face to wipe away tears. This is the statue of a war hero, he realized. This was everything Alice deserved, and she never got to see it. He let out a rushing breath and had to set his hand on the base of the statue, to keep from falling to his knees.
That evening, Steve drew Alice for the first time since she'd forbidden him from doing so that day in France. He drew the scene at Brooklyn Bridge Park. But when he was done with the statue he drew two figures standing before it, looking up at it. He drew himself. And he drew Alice standing by his side.
When he was done he looked at the drawing for a long time. Then he picked up his phone and dialed.
"Captain," came Romanoff's smooth voice. "What's wrong?"
"Why does something have to be wrong?"
"Well the last time we spoke, New York was on fire…"
"Right." He'd gone radio silent, journeying into his past. "Sorry, I had some… stuff, to figure out."
"As did most of us. Did you figure it out?"
"I think so. Do you know if S.H.I.E.L.D. is hiring?"
I call the first half of this chapter Avengers: Speed Run. I know some of you guys are going to be disappointed by the quick pace/lack of Alice, but trust me, my loves! This version of the MCU is going to be more of an AU than in the Wyvern.
I want to thank lea_sommerregen of AO3 once more for her unfailingly wonderful help with all my German translation mistakes. I couldn't ask for more wonderful readers!
ALSO the ever-wonderful thenumbertwentyseven not only made herself HARD COPY VERSIONS of The Wyvern, but she did a photoshoot with them - in Alice cosplay! I definitely cried when I saw it. Check it out on tumblr, her handle is thenumbertwentyseven and I also shared it from my handle princesszorldo.
Reviews:
AceCookie: Omg you two are friends! I love that so much. Sorry to make you both cry haha, hopefully they were happy tears! Have a wonderful week, you two x
Reviewer: I'm so so glad you liked it! Sorry to make you cry, but it's good to have happy tears for once!
Dustcatching: Oh my goodness, thank you so much for your wonderful, wonderful review. Thank you for your kind words! I'm very touched to hear that you appreciate the historical fiction here - I was most hesitant to start writing this story because I did not want to get anything wrong/treat anything insensitively. As for my translations - thank you so much! But they are actually the product of a really wonderful reader of mine over on AO3, lea_sommerregen who when I post my broken Google Translate, is kind enough to help me fix it every time. As for 'ruhig', yes I've changed it to 'stillen' now! Thank you so much for pointing that out. My native language is indeed English (I'm from Australia). I can get by in Japanese, but other than that I am sadly monolingual.
Thank you once again, it's always a pleasure to hear from my wonderful readers (particularly the German ones! Danke!). I hope you enjoyed this chapter :)
Guest: I'm so glad you liked the early update! And that you enjoyed the chapter with all it's new meetings and interacting characters. I felt that Alice deserved a memorial of some kind, so I thought I'd get together all the characters that I could :) Alice would be touched to know about her worldwide recognition, but most importantly she would be happy that the people she loves finally know the 'real' her. I hope you liked this chapter too! (PS thank you for saying you don't mind waiting in suspense about Alice, I've been a bit worried that I'd lose readers - but you reminded me how wonderful you all are!)
Teaanddoctorwho: Sorry to make you cry, lovely x Hope you had an excellent week, and that you enjoyed this chapter :)
CaptainLoki (from chapter 42): Hopefully you enjoyed last chapter then! I can't wait to show you what comes next :)
Guest: You might have to live in suspense a little longer with your questions about Alice! I love your ideas though :)
GuestPrime: Sorry for the trickery! If you do end up rereading, let me know what you think :) Don't worry, Peggy took care of her friend's memory. And I'm glad so many people agree that Alice deserves to be a hero in her own right for a while, instead of 'Captain America's wife'. Fury is indeed a bad mutha and he's got SHIELD in good hands (for a while).
Pandere: Hello and welcome! Congratulations on catching up, and I'm so beyond pleased you're enjoying this story! I can't wait to see how your theories turn out ;) If you're interested in checking out my other stories, definitely go check out The Wyvern! It's super duper long, but my goodness I loved writing it. Thank you so much!