Title: Waking Up

Rating: K+ (mild language, no sexual content, a few fight scenes)

Background: I set out to write a single scene depicting how Steve Rogers was revived from the ice, thinking I'd dramatize that brief shot we see in "Avengers" where he is encased in ice and someone realizes he's still alive, as well as have some fun with Coulson's awkward "I watched you while you were sleeping" comment. Well, that single scene became Chapter 2 of a 20-chapter-plus saga that now stretches from Steve Rogers' awakening in the modern day all the way past "The Avengers" - and I may not be done yet. :-D

For those of you who are reading my story "The Third Life of Steve Rogers" depicting Steve's life with Peggy after he returns to 1945 at the end of "Avengers: Endgame," this story basically fits with that one like a puzzle piece. Feel free to enjoy either story, or both!

Description: When Steve Rogers wakes up after spending 66 years buried in ice, he believes he has lost everything - his friends, his purpose as a soldier and even his peace of mind. Can he overcome his symptoms of PTSD and make connections with new friends as he battles to find his place in a strange time? Fills in the gap between "Captain America: The First Avenger" and "The Avengers" and imagines missing scenes from "The Avengers." Steve POV with Nick Fury, Phil Coulson, Maria Hill and Sharon Carter, and eventually all the OG Avengers.


Chapter 1

Steve Rogers groaned as he slowly came back to consciousness.

The first thing he became aware of was that it was bitterly cold. He opened his eyes and saw nothing at all; it was pitch black. Steve stretched out his hands and felt only empty space above him. Then he put his hands down and felt the surface he was lying on. It was hard, and covered with raised lines at regular intervals. He slid his gloved hand along one of the lines, and just as he found a break in the line, he heard and felt the crunch of broken glass.

In that moment, he realized where he was. He was lying on the panes of windows that spanned the front of the Valkyrie, just in front of the pilot's chair where he'd been sitting when he forced the plane down. He must have been thrown over the controls and onto the windows, which had stretched from the roof of the plane down to the deck. His gloved hands scrabbled among the broken glass, and he came up with handfuls of snow. His heart nearly stopped. Had he missed the water? It had been his intention to bury Johann Schmidt's bomber plane as deep in the ocean as he could, so that if its remaining bomb went off in the uncontrolled landing, no one would be harmed. More importantly, if it didn't go off, no one would be able to recover the weapon from the wreckage. With the strange and powerful technology Hydra had been developing, even a single missile could level an entire city and maybe beyond. It was better to let it sit at the bottom of the ocean than tempt anyone, even the Allies, into using it.

Steve slowly sat up, wincing from the stiffness in his joints. He was sure of it now; there was no water at all coming in through the broken windows underneath him. He had missed the water. The plane was mostly level, too; it must have skidded to a stop on the surface of a snow field, throwing up waves of snow until all the windows were covered. Steve tried to comfort himself that it would still be difficult, if not impossible, for Hydra to recover the plane here in the desolation of the Arctic. The weapon had obviously not gone off, or he wouldn't still be in one piece, but it was as good as lost.

He hadn't expected to survive that landing.

Shivering, Steve pushed away his questions for another time. The question was, what to do now?

Leaving the plane would be certain death. He knew that. There was nothing out here, nowhere to walk to reach warmth or safety. Even here in the plane, sheltered from the wind, it was frigid. The serum that had transformed him didn't make him indestructible, and if he exposed himself to the elements it would only be a matter of time before he froze to death. Already he was beginning to lose feeling in his extremities.

Gingerly, he got to his feet. He stretched out his hands into the darkness again and was able to find the controls by touch. His gloved hands roamed over the dials and switches until he found the radio. He toggled it on and off and fiddled with the dial. Silence. The radio was broken. He wasn't sure if he should be glad about that or not. He hadn't counted on being rescued, and it was better that the weapon remain lost. But a little ache rose up in his throat anyway, because of Peggy. He had been prepared for his death - every soldier had to be - but she had not been.

An icy tingle moved down his spine that had nothing to do with the cold. He had never told Peggy that he loved her. She had to know - she had to - how could she not? He had a feeling it was all too obvious. And she had kissed him, there at the last. She had to have known that he was only waiting for the end of the war. Waiting until he had fulfilled his duty before he was free to turn to thoughts of his own happiness. For the first time, he questioned the rightness of that approach. Why hadn't it occurred to him that there might not be a future?

And now here he was, a man out of time. Only a few more hours, and that was it. He was going to die on this plane. Steve took in a deep breath of cold air and slowly let it out again, accepting the fact.

There was a deep rumble under his feet, and suddenly the deck dropped out from under him, making his stomach swoop sickeningly. It stopped just as suddenly a few seconds later, and Steve had to grab a bulkhead to steady himself as the plane came to rest at a crazy tilt toward the port side. He held still for a long moment, but the plane didn't move again.

Maybe the ground underneath the plane wasn't as stable as he thought. He might just be on a thick sheet of ice over the water. Or maybe he really was on a snowfield, covered in many feet of snow. Either way, he suspected the hull of the plane, superheated from its burning engines and the rapid descent through the atmosphere, was melting whatever was beneath.

Even if he was on solid ground, there was a very real chance the plane was going to sink down deep into the snow. After that, even a little snowfall would blanket the top of the plane and hide it. Like a drift of snow over a tomb: cold, silent and solitary.

He sat down on the pilot's chair, shivering, and waited for the end.

His thoughts wandered far and wide. Thinking of his mother, and all the times she had nursed him through one illness after another with perfect steadfastness and love. His childhood, too: playing stickball in the streets with the other children. Falling asleep in his bed looking at the photograph of the father he'd never met, looking so tall and broad-shouldered in his Army uniform from the Great War. His school days, and the long, tedious workdays that came afterward, standing alongside other grim-faced factory workers working until dusk. The satisfaction of getting the pay he'd earned at the end of the week, even though it was meager. He remembered, too, Bucky making him ride the Cyclone on Coney Island, and laughing when he threw up. Bucky giving him money, and refusing to let him pay it back. Bucky and the countless times he had sailed into a fight with both fists to save Steve from yet another bully he hadn't had the sense to run away from. His mother's funeral, and the loneliness that followed. The gratification he'd felt when he finally saved up enough to buy himself one precious year of schooling at Auburndale. The peace he'd felt as he sketched in the studio or alone in his bedroom, focusing on lines and shapes until everything else seemed to fade into nothingness.

While he thought, the minutes and hours slipped past in an unending succession. His violent shivering was beginning to ease, and the tight knot in his middle began to relax. The plane rocked gently beneath him, gradually settling down deeper and deeper into the snow, and Steve tipped his head back and stared up into the blackness, briefly wishing that the brilliant stars he had seen Schmidt's cube project onto the curved roof of the Valkyrie would come back. It had been beautiful.

He thought, too, of the war. They had just taken down Hydra's last base. Schmidt was dead and Zola was captured. There would be no more Hydra weapons. Maybe the tide would finally turn. Maybe it would be just a few more months to tie up the loose ends, and they would be able to extract a surrender from the Axis. Then the boys could go home. He liked that thought and he lingered on it, imagining Jaques and Dum Dum and all the other Howling Commandos returning to their parents and their siblings and the pretty girls waiting for them, going back to school or to work, all the ordinary things that should have made up their lives if not for this great and bloody struggle that had torn them from their homes for unending years.

There was a jarring thump, and a sudden bloom of pain managed to penetrate his cold-numbed body. Steve realized he had dozed off and fallen off the chair. He lay there on his back, too weary to try to get back up. The cold from the deck seeped deeper and deeper into his bones. He was getting sleepy again. No reason to fight it. Slowly his eyes fluttered closed.

In his mind's eye, he could see Peggy pulling him down for that kiss, and he felt the warmth of her lips against his. Steve let out a long, slow breath, and didn't take in another one.

His heart gave one last throb, and went still.

TO BE CONTINUED