The ground appeared beneath Alice and she hit it in a roll, jarring her knees and knocking the breath out of her chest.
She pressed her palms against the pavement to steady herself, breathing hard, and… frowned.
It was daylight suddenly, and the ground beneath her was not the gravel rooftop she'd expected to hit, or… had she been somewhere else? She'd been running, or falling… or had she been singing? Her mind thrummed with an echo, as if she were just rising out of a dream. She shook her head, wincing at a headache that flared to life behind her eyes.
Alice knelt on the ground, bowed over. She wore her white performance dress, though it was torn and dirty at the hem. Diamond jewellery dangled from her ears and neck, and her hair fell loose around her face. She noticed blood on her hands and feet - hers, Otto's, the men she'd killed. Her knee ached from where she'd banged it on the stairs up to the roof of the performance building, and whenever she breathed in her ribs on the right side of her chest lit up with pain: she remembered the Gestapo officer punching her before she'd shoved her knife up under his jaw.
Shaking her head again, Alice put a hand to her forehead to soothe the ache and then got shakily to her feet.
The world seemed to explode around her. Bright lights, a riot of color, soaring buildings and a blur of strange cars and people milling around. Alice stood in the centre of a bustling city square, surrounded by light and sound. Her mouth dropped open and she turned, taking in the massive glaring signs: GAP, Sephora, a big yellow poster for something called The Lion King. Right over her head hung a board with a film of a man singing - in color, as real as if he were standing there.
Alice's heart pounded and her head spun, but as she stared around at her surroundings, the buildings started to make sense. She'd seen a Coca-Cola ad in almost that exact spot before, though it hadn't glowed with colored lights. And if she glanced up… there: the silhouette of a familiar distant spire.
Her stomach dropped. Trying to slow her rapidly-increasing breaths, she cast a wild glance at her immediate surroundings. Others surrounded her, in stranger garbs than the hundreds of other people milling around. A man in a long draping tunic of some kind with gold circlets on his wrists lay on the ground, panting and wild-eyed, a Japanese-appearing man with a strangely shaved hairstyle and an ancient style of dress stood shivering a few feet away, next to a soaking-wet bearded man in a suit who babbled in Russian, and there were dozens of others who looked just as confused as Alice felt. In amongst the strangers were individuals who surely weren't human: a woman who looked to have European features at first glance, until Alice realised she had four arms, and what looked like a blue-skinned man standing behind her.
People walking past stared at them - they looked strange too, but there was a sameness to them: clothes and hairstyles and devices unlike anything Alice had seen, and yet somewhat uniform amongst the crowd.
Alice took one more second to stare around at the utterly strange people around her, at the familiar and yet alien square, at the lights whirling around her.
And then she ran.
She bolted off the sidewalk and into the road, dodging cars, then ran down a side street. With the same rising fear she'd felt running from the Gestapo after her performance in Berlin, she pushed into the thickening crowd and melted away, like Peggy had taught her.
As soon as the Benatar arrived back in Earth's atmosphere, the Avengers began unbuckling their harnesses and standing up in the cockpit, and Tony's watch lit up.
"Boss," came F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s measured voice, "I've got a disturbance in Times Square."
Tony groaned. "Infinity Cult?"
"I don't think so, police reports are only just coming in, but-"
Natasha slid out of her chair and flatly eyed Steve as she addressed F.R.I.D.A.Y.: "It wouldn't happen to be a bunch of abducted musicians who very suddenly appeared in Times Square, would it F.R.I.D.A.Y.?"
"... it would appear to be exactly that, Ms Romanoff."
Everyone turned to stare at Steve, whose ears went red.
"Really, Steve?" Tony asked, twisting in his chair. "Times Square? Of all the places on Earth?"
"It's really not a neutral location," Sam said in a resigned tone.
Steve winced guiltily. He'd had a suspicion that Bragi might have picked that out of his mind. He'd only been thinking about when he'd been dropped into a new world, it hadn't been a suggestion. "I didn't mean-"
But Tony flapped his hand to silence him, and raised his watch. "F.R.I.D.A.Y., liaise with local law enforcement and let them know that we can be there in" - he raised his eyebrows at Rocket, who checked his console and then mouthed fifteen - "fifteen minutes, give or take. Get them to contain and isolate, but keep their distance. Can we get eyes on the situation?"
"Certainly."
The Benatar's engines kicked in and they began hurtling down to Earth, the blue and green surface rising up to meet them, and Steve had to grip the bulkhead to stay steady. A holoscreen emerged from Tony's watch, encompassing the whole centre of the cockpit, displaying multiple angles of Times Square.
"This was ten minutes ago," F.R.I.D.A.Y. said.
Times Square looked busy: people milling in and out of frame, rushing up and down the sidewalk, road traffic backed up on either side. Then there was a sudden blinding gold flash, right in the centre of the Square, and once it had subsided Steve saw that a small crowd of people had appeared. They immediately stuck out in the crowded square since most of them wore bizarre outfits, and about half of them stumbled or collapsed to the ground. The other pedestrians stared.
"Isolate and identify if you can, Fri." Tony murmured.
F.R.I.D.A.Y. froze the footage and zoomed in on the newly-arrived group, finding their faces and splitting up the screen into a different profile for each.
"Captain Rogers-" F.R.I.D.A.Y. said in a suddenly urgent tone.
But Steve had already seen.
Mjolnir dropped to the ship floor with a metallic thud. Steve would have followed, his legs completely useless all of a sudden, if Bucky hadn't lurched forward to grab him.
"It's Alice," Steve croaked, his eyes wide and desperate as he stared at the image of the woman in a white dress with a stunned and bloody face, staring up at her surroundings. "Buck, it's-"
"I see her," Bucky breathed, his voice equally wrecked. "I didn't want to hope, but…"
Steve understood. He'd pressed down on his hope the moment it had risen in Bragi's world, hadn't allowed himself to imagine…
He realized that a flurry of activity had erupted in the cockpit, half the Avengers exclaiming or shoving to get a better look at the holoscreen. Steve could only stare at Alice's frozen face.
"Holy shit," Tony muttered, somehow the only voice Steve could hear in the rush of talking.
"F.R.I.D.A.Y.?" Natasha clipped out. "Give us an update on the current situation."
The holoscreen shifted, sending the individual profiles to a smaller screen on the side, and bringing up the current footage of Times Square. It was chaos; flashing police lights and shoving pedestrians.
"The NYPD have put up cordons and are isolating forty two musicians as we speak. Nineteen appear to be aliens of some kind. I am coordinating with law enforcement now."
"Forty two?" Natasha asked sharply, her eyes on the screen of individual profiles. "I count forty three."
"I am afraid that Ms Moser has fled the scene."
Steve felt like he was having a protracted heart attack. His chest clenched as if elastic bands were tightening around his ribs, and he couldn't draw in a full breath. "Fled?" he managed to echo. "Where did she go?"
There was a pause before F.R.I.D.A.Y. answered him. "I'm afraid I don't know."
The New York Times (nytimes) Tweet:
Video: See chaos in #timessquare after a "mass teleportation". Seen in the footage is Hale Holloway, who disappeared four weeks ago in a similar flash of gold light. Other individuals are being identified. Emergency services and Avengers on scene.
liberaceselbow reply to nytimes Tweet:
nytimes, I've been going over the #timessquare footage. Does anyone else think that the woman in white toward the bottom right of the screen at 1:24 (just before the cops arrive) looks a lot like Alice Moser?
After several panicked moments of flat-out sprinting, Alice forced herself to think. She was running on pure instinct, barefoot and wounded, and she could tell she was drawing looks. Even without the blood on her hands, her white performance gown was out of place on these streets.
She turned a corner, still running, and saw a cafe with sidewalk seating coming up. On her way past she spotted a jacket draped over the back of someone's chair and seized it. She was at the other end of the block by the time her victim had fully stood out of his chair, shouting after her. She slung the jacket around her shoulders to hide her torn and bloody dress, then swerved onto another street, pressing into the crowd. Her eyes darted, and as she walked past a woman distracted talking to her friend, Alice reached up and snatched the woman's woolen hat right off her head. The woman turned, but Alice was already lost in the crowd.
Alice jammed the hat on her own head and buttoned up the jacket, surreptitiously trying to wipe the blood on her hands onto her skirt. Her left knee throbbed with every step. She remembered falling on it on her way up the stone stairwell toward the roof, where -
Alice's breath caught and she pushed away the memory. She had to think ahead, not behind. She kept weaving and zigzagging, losing herself in the city streets. And she knew these streets, which made it easy. Everything had changed, though. The buildings were different than she remembered. And the people around her were strange, most of them carrying sleek devices that reminded her of the radios HYDRA worked with, though she knew these must be for another purpose. She overheard snatches of conversations as she moved through the crowds, noticing how these people talked in strange ways, with strange accents and words.
Think ahead.
Alice spotted a green newspaper stand on the other side of the street and darted across, narrowly avoiding collision with a bright yellow taxi (they looked so strange) which blared its horn at her.
On the other pavement, Alice walked at a snail's pace past the newsstand, as if unsure of her direction. The newsstand, at least, was sort of familiar to her: a compact structure filled to the brim with newspapers, snacks, and cigarettes, with a bored-looking man sat behind the counter. But half the snacks she didn't recognise, and as she grew close she noticed a screen hanging above the vendor's counter. Alice's eyebrows rose. This screen was like the television sets she'd seen in the homes of the filthy rich in Berlin, but so much smaller and sleeker. There was no sound, but full-color images as real as life flickered across the screen. A banner at the bottom read: Infinity Cult makes history as first interdimensional terror group added to Homeland Security's terror watch list.
Alice read the words twice before giving up on any hope of understanding them.
She glanced down at the paper and ink newspapers arrayed at the front of the newsstand, and found the New York Times, only put off for a moment by the fact it had color pictures. She scanned the front page and found, just under the headline:
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2023
Alice stumbled to a halt so abruptly that the person walking behind her swore and veered around, muttering. Foot traffic streamed around her as she stood in front of the newsstand, staring.
She felt as if everything inside her had turned to stone.
Steve. Tom. Bucky. Peggy.
Even as the enormity of it hit her, Alice knew that she couldn't let this paralyse her. She read the date once more, as if to convince herself, then drew in a shaking breath and pressed on into the crowd.
Times Square had devolved into chaos. The Avengers had touched down in the Benatar just a couple of minutes ago, causing people to scream out of fear of another alien invasion, and now they were just trying to contain the insanity. Half of them were dealing with the confused and alarmed victims of Bragi ("Thor I've got another one, can you get over here with your Allspeak?"). Sirens wailed in the air, curious New Yorkers and tourists pressed around the police cordons trying to get a look, and the musicians themselves were naturally freaking out.
The other half of the Avengers were huddled around Tony's watch, liaising with F.R.I.D.A.Y. and looking through CCTV footage. Steve fidgeted where he stood, shifting his weight from foot to foot and glancing around at the square as if he might spot Alice. Bucky, Natasha, Sam, and Wanda stood around Tony, grave faced. Natasha's fingers danced over her phone screen.
"Well she can't have just vanished," Tony shouted over the noise in the square. "What have you got?"
The screen emanating from his watch shifted, displaying dozens of CCTV images of the streets around Times Square. "I have her here" - a screen magnified itself, and Steve's heart leaped as he saw Alice running down a sidewalk, her hand pressed to the side of her chest and a look of utter terror on her face - "leaving the square on 46th, it seems she's heading east-"
Steve's muscles bunched and his head jerked up to look in the direction of the street in question-
"But then she goes left on 5th, I found that one," Natasha said, still staring at her phone. Steve could see her swiping through camera feeds. "But then after East 49th, what have you got? There's a-"
"A gap in the coverage," F.R.I.D.A.Y. acknowledged. "Boss, not all of New York is covered by cameras I can access, and Moser is changing direction too rapidly for me to predict-"
"She's using alleyways," Natasha said grimly.
"Where's the last place you saw her?" Steve said desperately. "I'll go there now-"
"Wanda, see if you can commandeer a vehicle," Natasha murmured.
"I'll run," Steve urged.
"Last known location is 3rd and 57th."
"Could be heading to the bridge," Bucky suggested, his flesh hand clenched so tight that his muscles had gone white.
The noise in the Square suddenly peaked in a loud shout, and they all looked up to see a dark-skinned woman in a finely made purple tunic shouting in Wakandan at a police officer who was trying to corral her toward one of the emergency med tents. Princess Shuri looked up from where she'd been tending to a hyperventilating musician and ran over.
"We need to get these people out of here," Bruce called. "Strange? How do you feel about going to your place?"
"Say no more," Strange said, and with a flick of his hand began opening portals under the feet of musicians and Avengers alike.
Sam reached out to grab Steve's shoulder, and Steve realized he was so tense that his muscles were aching. "We'll find her, Steve," he said reassuringly. "She can't get far."
Steve drew in a breath and tried to hold it, but it rushed out a moment later. "Yes," he said. "She can."
Excerpt from CNN Live News Alert:
"We have a breaking news update on the Times Square teleportation story: it's been confirmed that among the newly-appeared musicians is none other than Alice Moser, AKA 'the Siren'."
bodkinss1 Tweet:
Yo, my brother's got a police scanner and they just put out an APB for THE SIREN.
Alice had run thirty blocks, but it had taken her over an hour thanks to the side cuts, backtracks and diversion she had taken. She didn't know if she was being chased (she didn't know anything) but her last memories were of running for her life, and her instincts told her to hide and find the time to assess her new situation.
She got a few askance looks since she was barefoot, in a knee-length men's jacket with a woolen hat, but mostly no one spared her a second glance. There were plenty of other strange-looking people on the streets.
When she'd made it down to Chelsea, she spotted a glassfront store with the sign 'GOODWILL' over it. She wondered if it was the same kind of Goodwill that she knew. She peered in through the windows, and spotted racks of clothes.
Taking a chance, Alice strode inside. A sign just inside the door read THIS STORE IS MONITORED BY CCTV. She wasn't sure what that meant, but there was a picture of something that looked like a film camera. She peered around, frowning, and saw cameras swivelling in the corners of the shop. It reminded her of HYDRA technology. Her eyes widened and she ducked her head to avoid the camera's eye.
It was cool inside the shop, and quieter than the rush and noise outside. Alice cast a glance at the single employee at the counter, then strode down the racks, staring at the unfamiliar fabrics and styles. There was far more colour here than Alice could ever have expected: a riotous mix of glitter, satin, nylon, leather, canvas, and fabrics she didn't have a name for. She was reminded of the limited range of clothes Matthias's tailor shop had had on offer, and her chest ached.
She eventually chose an amalgamation of what she'd noticed on the streets outside: a pair of strange tightly fitted denim waist overalls, boots, a brightly colored T-shirt style top, and sunglasses. She would keep her stolen jacket and hat. She took the clothes (as well as an armful of extra clothes as a decoy) into one of the changing rooms and quickly got dressed, struggling with the unusual fits and fastenings. She left her ruined dress and the other things in a pile on the floor of the changing room, and then strode out again.
She walked leisurely toward the exit, outwardly calm. The cashier was helping another customer at the desk. But then as Alice reached the doors, two plastic structures on either side of the exit lit up red and blared a high-pitched alarm. Alice nearly jumped out of her skin, shrinking as a few other customers glanced around, and bunched her muscles to run, but then-
"Oh, that thing always goes off," said the cashier, looking up from his customer. He flapped a hand. "Don't worry about it."
Round eyed, Alice strode out the doors and into the sunlight.
After an alert from F.R.I.D.A.Y., the search team rushed to the Goodwill on West 25th street, questioning the wide-eyed cashier and double checking the footage. Wanda emerged from the changing room, pale-faced, with a bloodied and torn white dress in her hand.
Natasha reviewed the footage on her phone, frowning. Steve looked over her shoulder. The footage was laggy, but the Alice on screen was the one Steve recognised: her eyes were shrewd, calculating, and she walked with utter confidence.
"She's wearing jeans and a green tee in the footage," Clint said after he'd interviewed the cashier. "We can update the APB right away." His brow lowered. "But if she's this good, she'll keep changing up her appearance."
"She's always been good at disguises," Bucky said, his low tone belying the tight, strained note in his voice.
Steve let out a breath and pushed through the Goodwill doors onto the street again, looking up and down. F.R.I.D.A.Y. had lost Alice again when she'd ducked down another side alley. Steve wanted to run, but he didn't know where.
The others followed a few moments later, deep in discussion.
"I can't imagine what's going through her head," Natasha said. "The other musicians are confused, the last thing they remember is the moments before Bragi kidnapped them." She turned to Steve. "What did you think, when you first woke up in the future?"
His fingers clenched and unclenched. "It was all explained to me pretty quickly, but even before that I just… I knew it was wrong. I thought I was a POW at first, but then I broke out and I recognized New York. But the city is… completely different. It's hard to describe."
"It is really weird," Bucky acknowledged. "Alice has to know something's up."
Steve reached up and ran a hand through his hair. "She's quick, she'll have figured out she's in the future. But she probably doesn't know that I - that Bucky and I are alive." His face crumpled. "She thinks she's alone."
Buzzfeed News Article: 'The Times Square Teleportation: Live Updates'
1:24PM CONFIRMED: After about an hour of speculation, an NYPD press officer has confirmed that the individuals who appeared in Times Square earlier today are all musicians from "various points throughout history". The reported sightings of aliens has also been confirmed, in connection with the musicians. The press officer neither confirmed nor denied the rumors that Alice Moser was among the newly-returned musicians, stating "In order to protect the individuals in this incident, we won't be giving specific personal information at this time."
paxlings Tweet:
Uh, so despite what the NYPD says, THE SIREN IS ALIVE! Does Captain America know? #timessquare
Excerpt from NBC Newscast:
"... authorities are still declining to provide personal details about the returned historical musicians, but the internet has made pretty quick work of identifying them from the publicly-available footage, Sally."
"That's right, and there are some famous faces in there, aren't there?"
"Exactly. Let's go over those we know so far - we've got Bailey Wilson, a country singer and songwriter whose private airplane went down in 1973, but whose body was never recovered. We've got Russian composer Dmitri Mager-Loginov who was lost at sea in 1868, a gentleman who looks to be from Ancient Rome, several others who historians have identified as Ancient Norse poets-"
"A real legacy here of historical people associated with music, Phil."
"Absolutely, and music does seem to be the main connection between them all. And last but not least, of course, is none other than the famous world war two performer and spy the Siren, Alice Moser, also known for the modern revelations that she was married to the Avengers' own Captain America."
"That must've been a shock!"
"Well here's even more of a shocker, Sally, let's review the footage. You see here… yes, there's the big flash of light and now we have all our musicians… now look there, see the Siren?"
"I see her, Phil, she's looking around like the rest of them - I must say, she doesn't look in good shape. And then - oh! She's running!"
"That's right. Sources within the NYPD who've requested not to be identified have confirmed that Alice Moser is actually missing right now, as we speak. We understand the other musicians are in the care and custody of Avengers staff, with the notable exception of the Siren. It seems that though we don't fully understand the Times Square Teleportation yet, Alice Moser has appeared perhaps due to the fact that she shares a talent for music along with these other newly-arrived people. But she has a quality it seems most of them don't have: she is a spy, and she's now on the loose."
Alice moved differently once she'd changed clothes. She kept pace with the crowds instead of running through them: walking like the other people on the street, talking like them. She had no particular destination (Brooklyn, came a stray thought, but she brushed it aside. There was nothing for her there). So she watched, and listened.
She began to focus on the devices everyone carried around with them. She quickly figured out they were wireless telephones of some kind, but she knew it had to be more than that. So she spied on every single one she could, peering at their bright, clear screens and the way their owners interacted with them.
People looked at photos and films on their phones, took photographs, plugged in cords and began listening to them. She saw someone walk past with what looked like a map of New York on their phone, though it was unlike any other map she'd ever seen.
As she paused for a moment, leaning against an old sandstone building in the shade, a couple came to a stop nearby.
The man was waiting for his girlfriend to fix her shoe, and Alice saw his eyes alight on one of the large green street signs. "I wonder how old the Lincoln Tunnel is?"
"I don't know, look it up," said his girlfriend, sounding bored.
The man pulled his phone out of his pocket and began tapping away. Alice tried not to stare. She'd had to go to classes just to be allowed to use a typewriter, and now everyone seemed able to type on tiny little screens with no problem.
The man raised his eyebrows. "Says it was built in 1937" - Alice remembered them finishing the tunnel, actually - "so that's what… eighty six years old."
Alice simultaneously felt a sinking feeling at that information, and wonder at how quickly the information had come to the man's fingertips.
"You'd hope they've refurbished it by now," chuckled the woman.
Alice straightened her shoulders and marched over to the couple. "Excuse me?" she said in one of the most common accents she'd heard on the street. Like the New York accent she was used to hearing, but… different.
The couple looked up, eyebrows raised.
Alice nodded at the man's phone. "Where can I get one of those? So I can…" she thought of the way the woman had said it. "Look information up?"
He looked at her like she was crazy. "I don't know, the Apple store?"
Alice stared back. Apple store? Is the thing edible?
The man rolled his eyes. "Look, if you really need the internet just head to the library, they've got free shit there." His girlfriend tugged on his elbow, and they walked away, very pointedly not looking back at Alice.
"I hate New York," Alice heard the woman say through laughter.
Alice rubbed her chin. She hoped the library hadn't moved.
After hours of searching, the Avengers reconvened at Natasha's headquarters in Manhattan. Steve hadn't wanted to go - he was determined to circumnavigate the island of Manhattan if necessary - but Bucky had convinced him to rest for a few moments, and make a plan.
Thor and Dr Strange stood at the front of the Operations Room, updating them on the situation with Bragi's musicians.
"... Forty three skaldi in total," Thor said, looking exhausted, "Twenty four from Earth - one, er, unaccounted for - and the rest were kidnapped from various other planets. We think Bragi paid the most attention to Earth because it was the main focus of the Asgardian Empire while he was a part of it, and Iðunn was known for her love of Earth."
Shuri stood up and faced the room. "Some of the musicians are wounded or ill, but I am happy to report that all will make a full recovery."
Strange nodded. "Valkyrie and the Guardians are making arrangements for the offworlders to be returned to their cultures. As for those from Earth, about half are from times recent enough that they speak the modern versions of their languages. We're tracking down descendants and getting in touch with local governments, as we think it's best for them to reassimilate in their home countries with as much familiarity as possible."
"The other half speak old variants of existing languages or completely lost languages," Thor said. "I will stay with them to assist them through Allspeak." He quirked a brow. "The Roman fellow is proving particularly talkative."
"And the Norse skaldi keep treating him like he's god's gift to mankind," muttered Loki in the back row. Wanda laughed under her breath.
"In the meantime," Vision continued, "I will be collaborating with various historians and linguists to facilitate more long-term communication."
"And I think they're all going to need a hell of a lot of therapy," Natasha added.
Shuri tipped her head. "On it."
"Well, good work team," Tony said, eyebrows raised. As distracted as he was, Steve had to agree - this new group, be they Avengers or not, worked remarkably well together.
"And what of Alice?" Thor asked, his face grave.
"She fricking rabbited," Tony exclaimed. "Not even F.R.I.D.A.Y. can find her, she-"
"Tony," Natasha said, shooting him a look.
Tony glanced back at Steve and Bucky's drawn faces, and shut his mouth. "Sorry."
"We're still looking," Steve said in answer to Thor. "If we could get to her we'd explain what's going on, but we've got no idea what she's thinking. We're going to head back out there soon."
"We've had a few reports about her from the first hour or two after she ran," Bucky added, "but those are getting few and far between. She's learning."
"Well hopefully she'll figure out she's got nothing to run from," Clint said encouragingly.
"Except a city-wide manhunt," Loki said, then held up his hands when half a dozen people spun to glare at him.
"And the PR, F.R.I.D.A.Y.?" Natasha asked.
"Predictably the Times Square arrival caused somewhat of a sensation. Most of the musicians have already been publicly identified, including Ms Moser, and the public is aware that she's missing."
"Maybe that'll help us, get public eyes looking for her," Rhodey said.
Steve ran a hand over his face. What a mess. He felt hundreds of years old.
Carol cleared her throat. "I'm going to help resituate the off worlders soon, but I've got some time until then." She glanced at Steve. "I'll head out to the streets, join the search."
"Me too," piped up Spider-Man, who had joined them about an hour ago when he'd heard about the Times Square incident. He fired off an enthusiastic salute, making Tony chuckle under his breath.
"Thanks," Steve offered a weak smile. He checked the time, then looked back at the holographic map of New York City they'd put up, with blue pins for where Alice had been sighted. She'd last been seen at the Goodwill two hours ago. She could be anywhere by now.
Steve had barrelled through New York City like a bull in a china shop when he first woke up in the future. Alice had slipped beneath its surface like a raindrop in a pond. He wished he could just tell her: You don't have to run. But he understood the instinct. He'd had the same one, after all. Alice was just better at not getting caught.
Bucky's metal hand landed on his shoulder, and Steve looked up. Everyone else was standing, beginning preparations for the next stages of their various plans. Bucky's face was drawn, and he looked just as anxious as Steve felt.
Bucky drew in a breath, and then squeezed Steve's shoulder. "She's alive." His eyes were wide and disbelieving, and there was a hint of… excitement in them.
Steve let out a rush of breath. And, alarmingly, tears prickled at his eyes. He hadn't had a chance to really think about it since landing in Times Square. "She's alive," he echoed, his voice a croak. He hadn't missed her in Berlin, she hadn't died an awful death.
Bucky grinned. "Alice is alive, Steve. She's alive, and she's in New York City."
Steve opened and closed his mouth as his vision went blurry. "We gotta find her."
"We will," Bucky said resolutely. "Steve, Alice is good, but she's not all-the-Avengers-and-New-York-looking-for-her good. We'll find her."
Steve nodded and looked down. He let out a breath and realised he was shaking suddenly, all of it hitting him at once. Most of the others had turned away, focused on their own conversations, but Sam, Nat, and Tony were watching them silently.
"We'll find her," Steve echoed.
The certainty of it swelled in his chest, and he instantly knew that this was a purpose unlike anything he'd ever had: not even winning the war or stopping Thanos had felt so sure. Alice might be traumatised, might not recognize the man Steve had become, might never want to see him again. But he was going to find her, if only once, and nothing would stand in his way.
Steve rose to his feet. "Let's get back out there."
The library hadn't moved.
Alice strode up the steps to the grand marble building, casting a glance at the stone lions. Patience and Fortitude, were their names. Alice had spent plenty of her childhood here, since the library was one of the only publicly accessible buildings where it was acceptable to stay for hours and not buy anything.
In the cool shade of the building Alice floundered for a moment, overwhelmed by the completely different interior, and then strode toward the wooden desk manned by a woman wearing glasses.
"Hello, how can I help you this afternoon?" the woman asked with a pleasant smile.
"I need the internet," Alice told her.
The librarian raised her eyebrows, smiled, and then pointed to several rows of desks, each with its own sleek silver screen. Alice's brow furrowed. These weren't the small devices that everyone seemed to have in their pocket, they looked more like the larger screen she'd seen at the newsstand.
"You can access the internet at any of our computers there," the librarian smiled. "Let me know if you have any issues!"
Steeling herself, Alice strode over to a desk, stared down at the computer for a second, and then took a seat. She made sure to keep her head low, since she'd noticed the CCTV signs on the way in.
The computer, she found, was fairly intuitive. At first the black screen stared blankly back at her, but then her hand brushed the round device connected by a cord to it, and the whole screen lit up with information. She was instantly presented with a simple white screen with a colorful logo: GOOGLE. Below the logo was a bar that indicated it wanted her to search for something.
Alice hummed under her breath, moving the round device around with her hand for a while to give herself time - a little arrow moved around on screen in parallel to her movements.
Search, said the bar. Search for what? Alice wondered. Information. She'd come here on a search for information, but now she was here and she… didn't know what to do.
Biting the inside of her cheek, she used the device in her hand to select the bar. Then she moved to the keyboard and typed, with the precision learned from her typist classes at school:
Where am I?
Half a dozen guesses unfolded beneath her words as she typed, rather disorientingly. At first, nothing happened. Then, as she'd been taught in class, she hit return.
Instantly the screen flashed again, moving her search bar to the top and then under that:
About 6,210,000,000 results (0.66 seconds)
Below that, there was a small picture of a map with a red arrow over "New York Public Library". Alice's eyes widened. No wonder everyone wanted this in their pockets.
She returned to the search bar and typed When am I? But this time there was a confusing mixture of blue headlines after the screen flashed. There was something that looked like a song, and then some kind of information blurb about pregnancy. The internet doesn't answer me directly, then. It's guessing.
Alice narrowed her eyes, her fingers hovering over the keyboard.
She'd come here for a reason, but suddenly the enormity of her situation overwhelmed her again. She most wanted to look up… but no, she wasn't ready to type in Steve's name. She wasn't ready to be confronted with his death.
Instead she looked around, at the peace and normalcy in the library. When she looked back at her computer, she typed in:
Who won the war?
As soon as she hit enter she realized it was a silly question - if this internet could access all information then it would have hundreds of wars to tell her about.
When the screen flashed and changed, the first blue headline read:
World War II - Wikipedia.
She frowned at the unfamiliar last word, but then noticed a date under the headline: 1939. She hovered over the blue headline and then clicked the button.
This brought her to a new, completely different screen. This is dizzying. Her trusty search bar was gone, replaced by a strange jigsaw globe in the corner titled Wikipedia, and the biggest headline she saw read: World War II.
Her eyes flicked over the screen until she found: Date: 1 September 1939 - 2 September 1945 (6 years and 1 day).
Alice's breath skipped. It ended on my birthday, she realized. She last remembered January of 1945. Her eyes kept darting. There was so much information before her, half of it lit up blue, but none of it mattered.
Did we win? she wanted to ask it. She eventually figured out that if she pressed the down arrow on the keyboard, the whole page would go down, providing more information. And then - there, on the side:
Result: Allied victory.
Alice's hand flew to her mouth and she could barely suppress the whoop that she almost let out right there in the library. She looked around, a little embarrassed, but no one was looking her way. She realized a tear had spilled down her cheek. We really did it.
Under "Allied victory" there was a whole mess of information:
Collapse of Nazi Germany
Fall of the Japanese and Italian Empires
Allied military occupations of Germany, Japan, Austria, and foundation of the Italian Republic
Beginning of the Nuclear Age
Dissolution of the League of Nations and creation of the United Nations
Emergence of the United States and the Soviet Union as rival superpowers and beginning of the Cold War (more…)
Alice couldn't begin to comprehend half of that, though the beginning of another war felt like a heavy blow raining down on her victory. She shook her head to clear it, and scanned the screen until she found an arrow at the top. She hovered her movable arrow over it, thinking, and then a little sign popped up saying 'click to go back, hold to see history'. She clicked it, then found herself at the same GOOGLE search bar.
She still wasn't ready to see Steve (every time she thought of him her mind skidded away, as if afraid of the oncoming damage), so instead she looked up:
Who is Alice Moser?
Her heart pounded as she realized she had a whole long article on that same Wikipedia place. She clicked on it, and a photograph (black and white like she was used to, not this world of color like technicolor gone mad) of her own face popped up. She glanced around, to make sure no one could see her screen, before looking back. A table on the side of the screen listed her basic information. Her birth date and place, followed by:
Disappeared: January 1945 (date unknown).
Alice's heart thudded. I'm MIA. Eighty years ago.
She closed her eyes, frowning. She remembered Otto's mangled face and his blood on her hands, running, killing, jumping -
She remembered a warm, golden embrace, that grew tighter and tighter until all she saw was gold and her own voice was squeezed out of her in song.
Alice gasped and opened her eyes, her heart pounding. She pressed a hand to her chest and looked around again, but she'd thankfully gone unheard.
Shakily, Alice returned to her own Wikipedia article.
Battles/Wars: Second World War
Awards:
Presidential Medal of Freedom (United States)
Righteous Among the Nations (Israel)
Officer of the Legion of Honour (France)
Croix de guerre (France)
Médaille de la Résistance (France)
Decoration for Services to the Liberation of Austria (Austria)
German Order of Merit (Germany)
(more…)
Alice's heart stopped. She didn't understand that list, not at all. America and Germany? What's more, what was she being awarded for? Had… her stomach churned. Had the world found out about what she'd done? And they didn't despise her? Was this Peggy's doing? Steve's?
She stared at the list for a few long moments, trying to understand.
But then her eyes snagged on a detail she'd missed.
Allegiance: Allies
Alice's hand rose to her mouth. Seeing that in print made her want to cry. They know.
Then, at the bottom of the table, there was a final heading:
Spouse: Steve Rogers
Alice went still.
How...? She went all the way up to the top right of the screen and closed the whole thing, leaving her with a blue background and a few icons. She could just see her reflection in the screen: wide-eyed, mouth open, white as a sheet.
She clicked on the GOOGLE icon to open it up again, typed in her name again, and the same page popped up again. She clicked it, and saw Spouse: Steve Rogers again.
This was public knowledge. Alice ran her hands through her hair. How could anyone know this? How could the world know this?
She realized Steve's name was lit up blue. She brought her little arrow over it, and clicked.
The screen flashed. This time there was a photograph of Steve, but it wasn't black and white. It was full, bright color, of Steve wearing a uniform Alice had never seen before, looking somehow different. Alice's eyes blurred with tears. Her eyes darted, lost.
There's no death date.
She couldn't take anything in, she didn't know where to look first. It had his service record below his photo too, with names of wars and battles Alice had never heard of, and there at the bottom:
Spouse: Alice Moser
Alice closed down the whole screen and shoved herself back from the computer. Several people looked over at the squeak of her chair, but Alice paid them no notice. She just stared at her own reflection in the computer screen: a terrified, lost woman in stolen clothes who'd been hurled into the future, where nothing, nothing, made sense.
Text message from: Amaya
Steve, I just heard - oh my god, is it true?
Reply from: Steve
Yes. Busy looking for her now, can't talk sry.
Reply from: Amaya
Of course, let me know if there's anything I can do to help. I don't know what to say.
(14 Missed Calls from: Jilí Kreisky)
Reunion who?
Ding ding ding for FandomHoarder, who guessed correctly where Bragi would drop the musicians ;)
Also history note: Alice's 'waist overalls' are jeans - they were around in her day, but weren't called jeans until the 1960s. Also, Goodwill's been around since the early 1900s!
We hit 1000 reviews and 400 followers last chapter, thank you all so much ❤️️
Reviews
Sprout (from chapter 44/35): You must be in the great state of Victoria ;) So sorry to hear about how things are going down there. Thinking of you and I hope things get better! But if reading this story helps even a little bit I'm glad :) And I'm glad you're enjoying the history side of things! I'm all about google/youtube research blackholes haha.
(from chapter 49/40): Yep, things get a bit heart-hurty at the end of part 2
(from chapter 57/48): Haha you really zipped through those chapters! I was so excited to share the last chapter and this one, let me know what you think!
Teaanddoctorwho: keyboard smashing reviews is the mark of success for me!
AceCookie: Excellent, blubbing is also the mark of success for me. Did you read it? What did you think!
Guest: Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Yes I really wanted to update early and then a few people asked for it so I figured why not haha. I had a lot of fun writing about Bragi/the tree, it's a bit different from what the rest of this story has been but I've been hinting at it since chapter one. I'm also loving the idea of Bragi being asked about Alice and just going "yeah man haha". Sorry you didn't get your reunion this chapter!
MakayWha: As you can see, Steve is not in the best headspace haha.
Wolf: It did indeed come true! Alice is back! Here's another cliffhanger for you ;)
Guest: thank you for rereading! Yes, there's been a few moments in Alice's life where she has contemplated having a 'fall', most prominently in her opera career. She played Tosca, who was thwarted in love and jumped from a towertop, and wanted to become Brunnhilde, who is involved in a complicated tussle with the gods, loses her lover, and sacrifices herself to purify a golden ring. I hope you enjoyed this chapter!