May 3, 2012

Steven Capecci strode past the gardeners hard at work clearing weeds from around the nodding tulips at the parish house of St. Patrick's, giving them a friendly nod as he passed. Several of them gave him a cheerful "hello" back; he had lived in Washington, D.C. for several months now and although he was still the newest deacon here, the regular staff now recognized him on sight.

He rang the doorbell, and after a minute it was Father Andreassen himself who answered the door. The priest was in his 60s and already had a full head of silver hair that gave him a distinguished look. It was still strange for Steven to see him here in his role as a serving priest rather than standing at the front of a classroom back at Notre Dame. But Father A was so clearly enjoying his return to service that Steven was glad on his behalf, and not only because it would soon be a blessing for their family personally.

"Come in, come in," Father Andreassen urged him, standing back from the doorway to let him in. They hadn't had an appointment to meet, but Father A had never stood much on ceremony.

They settled down into the cushy chairs by the fireplace in the study, Father Andreassen politely moving the book he had been reading to the desk nearby and giving Steve his full attention.

"How's the family?" he asked. "Everyone getting settled in all right?"

Steven nodded. "Joaquim and Rita have made some friends at school. Their English is getting better, and Beatrisa's too. Plenty of chances for them to practice."

"Good, good. What can I do for you?"

"Actually, Father, it's more what I can do for you." Steven opened the briefcase he had brought and shuffled through it. "I brought you a present."

Father A smiled. "And it isn't even my birthday."

Steven pulled a comic book out of the briefcase and handed it to Father A, whose curiosity instantly turned to puzzlement.

The priest looked at the comic book a little askance. The cover depicted Captain America in the thick of a scuffle with several Chitauri foot soldiers on the streets of New York City, as a terrified family huddled behind a car nearby.

"It's a good one, trust me," Steven said. "Go ahead, give it a read. I'll wait."

Comic books weren't exactly Father A's cup of tea, and Steven knew it. He watched in amusement as the priest struggled to hide a skeptical expression before opening the comic book, politely doing his best to humor Steven.

Steven sat back and stretched his feet out, warming them by the crackling fire while he waited for Father A to read it. Finally, the priest turned the last page and lowered the comic book onto his lap. Steven looked at him expectantly, and Father Andreassen said in a carefully neutral tone: "It's fantastical."

Steven fought to hide a smile. He knew that subtle tone of disapproval in Father Andreassen's voice all too well.

"You say that like it's a bad thing," he said.

"Well..." A wry smile appeared on Father A's face. "I wouldn't exactly call an army of aliens attacking New York a good thing." He shrugged his shoulders a little. "But the idea of Steve Rogers coming back to life isn't half-bad. He was a singular man. They don't make them like that anymore, do they?"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Steven said mildly. It was only that very morning that he had been giving his twins a bath and, studying their faces with half an idea of doing some new sketches this week, he had been struck by the fact that Nicolás most definitely had the Rogers chin, and even though María's eyes were a beautiful chocolate brown like her mother's, they also turned into arches just the same shape as Grandpa's when she smiled.

No, Steve Rogers wasn't nearly as singular as Father A seemed to think. Not anymore.

"You drew this yourself, didn't you?" Father A asked, glancing back down at the panels on the last page.

"I wish I could take credit," Steven said easily. "But no. It isn't mine."

Father A held the comic book out to return it to him, but Steven shook his head and gently pushed it back.

"That's for you to keep," he said. "For your eyes only. We can talk more when I come back."

"Come back?" Father A asked curiously.

"I'm going to New York. Family business. I'll be gone several days. I asked Jonathan to fill in for me, assisting you with Mass."

Father A nodded in understanding.

"I might not be able to answer my phone while I'm gone," Steven added. "But I'll come see you the second I get back. I promise."

"Well, no rush. We should be able to limp along without you. For a few days, anyway." Father A shot him a gently teasing smile.

Steven smiled knowingly. "Father, trust me. By the time I get back, you'll be in a rush to see me."

"Do you realize how long it's been since I've seen you in action?" Peggy asked Steve with a not-so-subtle eagerness lighting up her wrinkled face.

Steve couldn't help but smile back. "Even longer than it's been since I saw myself in action," he replied.

They were both sitting comfortably in their living room in Winchester, the TV turned on to a 24-hour news channel with the sound muted until the expected breaking news occurred. It wouldn't be long now; Germany's time zone was only an hour later than theirs.

"Are you going to have the shield and the uniform and everything?" their great-grandson Roger asked eagerly from where he sat on the couch beside them. He rubbed his hands up and down his thighs again with a faintly nervous air, almost as if he thought he himself was about to be called up to fight Loki too. It had been only a few days since Natty and Quyen had sat Roger down to tell him the full truth about who his great-grandfather was... and who and what Roger himself was, by extension. He had responded in much the same way his mother Natty had back in her day: an unabashed pride, along with an eagerness to find out what he could do with the gift he had been given.

Shuri and Jim were here to watch the big moment, too. Since Steve and Peggy's three oldest great-grandchildren were only a few months apart in age, their parents had decided to bring them onboard at the same time, knowing how much more meaningful the coming events would be to them if they knew what it was their parents would shortly face in New York. Shuri was more soft-spoken than Roger and hadn't said much about what she thought of the Prevengers, or the revelation that her parents Bram and Aliyah used magic and not just medicine to treat patients at their clinic, but her appearance alone seemed to reveal what she thought of the Wakandan princess she now knew herself to be named after: She had tiny dots of paint neatly circling her eyes and radiating across her forehead, the traditional Wakandan patterns gleaming white against her ebony skin.

"I know I can't wear this to school," she had admitted to Steve and Peggy when she had first arrived at the cottage, looking a little embarrassed when they commented on her paint... and yet proud of it, too. "The other kids wouldn't get it. And I wouldn't be able to explain. All my friends know my mom was born in Kenya before she immigrated to America, but I doubt they've even heard of Wakanda."

Her cousin Jim walked back into the living room holding the well-worn striped afghan Peggy's late mother had knitted for them long ago as a wedding present, and tucked it around Peggy carefully.

"Warm enough, Gran?" he asked solicitously. Like all of Maggie's children, he had lived in England his whole life and had the accent to prove it. He'd taken after his father Henry more than anyone else, at least in looks, and often had a sober demeanor, but every so often something would amuse him and abruptly light up his face in a disarmingly open smile. Somehow no one ever forgot he was in a room, even when he fell quiet. Steve had often noted the way the other great-grandchildren all instinctively looked to Jim for advice anytime they were making plans during a family gathering. They knew he could be counted on to make sure everyone got included in a way they were comfortable with.

"Grandpa?" Roger prompted as Jim settled down on the couch beside him.

"Oh. Yeah. I had the whole costume, head to toe," Steve answered him at last. "Phil Coulson saw to that." He smiled in fond remembrance.

"Here it comes," Peggy said, reaching over to touch Steve's elbow. She hadn't taken her eyes off the TV this whole time, and now it was in fact scrolling a banner across the bottom of the screen reading: "Breaking news: Hostage crisis in Germany." Steve unmuted the TV.

"-bring you a news report from our affiliate in Stuttgart, which captured this footage from their own newsroom windows overlooking the Palace Square plaza," the news anchor said, "where a black-tie gala appears to have been disrupted by a man who, we are told, attacked one of the guests before exiting the building and setting off some type of explosive in the plaza outside. This footage was captured moments later."

The screen switched to a shot captured from high above Stuttgart's plaza, zooming in rapidly to show Loki in full battle armor, strolling casually into a crowd of terrified civilians as an upside-down police car skidded to a stop in the road behind him. He was holding his scepter loosely in one hand, chin up and expression deeply satisfied as the people around him began to fall to their knees. Steve felt a familiar rush of heat wash over him. Loki was in his element here: making an entrance, inspiring abject fear in his new subjects, supremely confident he could handle what was coming next.

Because he knew exactly what was coming. Under the influence of the Mind Stone, Hawkeye had already warned Loki about all his potential challengers, drawing on the top-secret S.H.I.E.L.D. intel he was privy to: The billionaire inventor with his weaponized armor. The KGB-trained assassin with an ugly past. The scientist who'd made himself into a monster. And, of course, the recently revived super soldier, a man out of time, too shattered and lost to be entrusted with missions just yet.

Loki had known them all, and hadn't feared them. Hawkeye must have told him they hadn't worked together as a team before. That every single one of them had a huge, glaring flaw that would be all too easy to exploit. Especially for someone with hundreds of years of experience in the arts of deception and manipulation. Someone with a vast army waiting in the wings to back him up. Someone who held one of the most powerful devices in the universe to help him enforce his will in any way he saw fit.

The smug smile on Loki's face made it all too plain that he sensed victory was already in his grasp before a single blow had even been landed.

"I really hate that guy," Steve muttered, and Peggy silently squeezed his hand in response.

And yet his familiar disgust was colored by something new, something he hadn't known about Loki the first time around. This was the same man who would one day die defying Thanos. Trying to redirect a genocidal tyrant's murderous intentions onto himself instead of his brother Thor. Trying to save his people from annihilation.

He finally had come to think of Asgard as his people. Not a kingdom he ruled over, but a kingdom deserving of his protection. His sacrifice. Even his own life.

Like the Avengers, Loki too had a huge, glaring flaw.

Like the Avengers, he would one day rise above it.

But today wasn't that day.

On the TV screen, Loki was pointing his scepter at an old man, the only one in the crowd standing tall in defiance of his orders. The weapon crackled with energy, and a blue bolt shot out, straight toward the old man's heart.

It bounced off a shield instead.

Sitting beside Steve on the couch, Roger sucked in a breath loudly through his teeth. Next to him, Jim was sitting up more alertly, eyes fixed on the screen. Shuri was sitting on a parlor chair, leaning forward with elbows on knees and her back straight as a rod, her forehead creased so deeply so that it distorted her Wakandan paint dots.

On the TV, the camera man or perhaps a reporter off-screen was attempting to narrate what he was seeing unfold in the plaza below.

"Da ist ein man, der wie Captain America gekleidet ist!" he said in astonishment. "Ein man ist gekleidet wie Captain America!"

"Grandpa?" Shuri said tensely without taking her eyes off the screen, but Peggy was the one who answered first.

"He says there's a man dressed up like Captain America," she said, and both pride and amusement colored her voice. The public response to Steve's appearance in Stuttgart had largely been one of confusion, and who could blame them? Captain America had long been dead and hardly even thought of after all these years, especially once Iron Man had arrived to captivate the attention of the world. No one had been sure what to make of Captain America's sudden reappearance, and many observers had assumed he was a copycat or successor of some kind, maybe a new super soldier created for a new age.

But the terrified crowd in Stuttgart had seen it differently. All they knew was that one moment they were held hostage by a cruel and dangerous man with unknown motivations, and the next, there was someone offering unflinching resistance to him.

On the TV screen, people were beginning to get up off their knees.

A woman's voice reverberated across the plaza, amplified enough that the camera's mic managed to pick it up: "Loki, drop the weapon and stand down!" Abruptly the camera panned to reveal a Quinjet hovering over the plaza, its machine gun trained on Loki.

A second later, the Quinjet tilted to the left, narrowly avoiding a preemptive bolt of blue energy shot from Loki's staff. There was a flash of reflective light on the ground below, and a spinning shield bounced off Loki's chest in response.

As if a spell was broken, the crowd in the plaza began screaming and fleeing in all directions.

Already Captain Rogers was dashing in close to trade blows with Loki, and abruptly Shuri scrambled off the chair and onto her hands and knees to get closer to the screen, keeping low so that she didn't block the others' views, her dark eyes intent on the action.

"Come on, come on," Roger muttered under his breath, gaze riveted to the screen. Jim said nothing, but his fists were clenched tightly. He seemed unaware he was tapping them against his thighs with rhythmic vehemence.

The combatants tangled, and seconds later Captain Rogers went flying like a rag doll. Gritting his teeth with determination, he scrambled back onto his feet and went back for more. A second brief tussle, and Captain Rogers took another spill. Loki pressed the butt of his staff against the back of his helmet, trying to make him kneel.

But Captain Rogers wasn't having it. Launching into a flying kick, he managed to knock Loki off balance for the first time.

Shuri clasped her hands together and pressed them against her mouth, her eagerness to see the next move plain to see.

But suddenly the camera swerved away from the fight and focused on the night sky near a skyscraper. In the distance, a golden streak of light cut across the black, headed straight for the scuffle. Rock music inexplicably blared across the plaza.

"Iron Man! Iron Man ist da!" the reporter blurted out off-screen. The excitement in his voice was palpable. New Yorkers caught glimpses of Iron Man flying overhead often enough to pretend to be blase about it, but elsewhere in the world it was a different story. Everyone had heard of Tony Stark. The richest of the rich. Celebrity of celebrities. A showman to put all others to shame.

Twin pulses of light shot out from Iron Man's palms, and struck Loki square in the chest. Flying back through the air, he landed hard on his back just as Iron Man landed solidly on the pavement, his armor fairly bristling with armaments ready to deploy.

"Er hat ihn!" a voice off screen exclaimed jubilantly.

Loki did, in fact, appear to be "gotten." He laid there on the cement steps helplessly, his hands up in a clear surrender. Slowly, his weapon faded into nothingness, along with his battle helmet.

"Wait a minute!" Jim blurted out, sitting back a little, his tone vaguely indignant.

"But- but he didn't hit him any harder than you did!" Roger objected more loudly, glancing at Steve in disbelief.

Steve didn't bother answering. The TV was now showing Iron Man marching his captor, pale and subdued, toward the Quinjet. The camera focused on Captain Rogers as he stood beside the ramp, blue eyes intently scanning his surroundings. He'd been looking for some sign of Hawkeye, Steve recalled. Romanoff had asked him to do that. He hadn't known any of the history between those two yet, but it hadn't been hard to recognize the genuine fear Romanoff had felt for Hawkeye, and Steve had promised to capture him if he could. But by the time Loki was in custody, Hawkeye and his newly recruited mercenary squad had already slipped away.

"Oh, come on!" Rogers ground out, flinging his hands up in annoyance as Loki disappeared into the depths of the Quinjet. "It was just getting good!"

"But isn't Loki faking?" Shuri demanded anxiously.

"Grandpa's comic says he was," Jim answered crisply, turning his copy over and over in his hands.

Curious to see how Peggy was reacting, Steve turned to see with surprise that she was giving him such a look - the kind she usually reserved for the bedroom, in fact - her eyes glowing with admiration and her lips curved up into a lopsided smile.

"You were magnificent," she said in the kind of deliberately low and slow tone she knew perfectly well he found shiver-inducing, even after all these years.

Steve fought to maintain his cool, and shot her a puzzled look in return. "What fight were you watching?" he murmured back. "He kicked my can."

Peggy considered this for a moment. "Well, it's a very nice can."

Steve couldn't help but smile, even as his eyes darted over to make sure Roger, Shuri and Jim weren't paying attention to this conversation. Lovey-dovey talk might not seem so cute to a trio of kids when it's your elderly great-grandparents engaging in it. Fortunately, the three of them were once again intent on the screen, where the action was currently being replayed.

"I only wish I could personally thank Agent Coulson for showcasing it so nicely," Peggy continued archly.

Steve laughed, shaking his head. "Peggy, you just might be the only other person on the planet who liked that particular costume as much as its creator did."

Peggy was genuinely surprised. "People didn't like it?"

"Tony didn't."

She looked scandalized. "He told you so?"

"To my face."

Peggy raised her eyebrows. "Well, perhaps he was jealous."

Steve snorted. "Yeah, sure. Deep down inside - real deep down inside - Tony Stark wished he could turn in his Tom Ford three-piece for a skintight spangled onesie. Then he really would have made a splash on the cover of GQ."

He was about to say more - about some of the things Tony had said in his GQ interview that had shocked Steve at the time but in retrospect seemed pretty funny, and very, very Tony - but quickly buttoned his lip when he realized that Shuri and Jim and Roger were turning to give him and Peggy their full attention. The news broadcast had just paused for a commercial break.

"So what did you kids think?" Steve asked them.

"It was over so fast!" Roger exclaimed. He sounded disappointed.

"Fights are like that," Steve explained. "Feels like they go on forever when you're in one. But most of 'em don't take long."

"Someone makes one mistake, and that's it," Peggy put in. "They're down for the count."

"It's a lesson for us," Jim said quietly. "Once it's our turn, we can't be the ones to make the mistake." Roger shot him a startled look, as if the possibility hadn't even occurred to him. Shuri seemed to be lost in thought, but when Steve looked at her expectantly she only shook her head slightly, her beaded braids rattling together, and said nothing further.

Peggy was looking across to Steve with a tender smile. The lamplight shone on her iron-gray curls and turned them nearly white.

"Wish I could have been there afterwards to kiss your bumps and bruises," she said in a teasing tone.

Steve suppressed a smile. "You never did that before," he pointed out.

"I wanted to." Her brown eyes had a glint of mischief. "But the Howling Commandos were always hanging 'round, waiting for you to offer to pay for their post-battle pub crawl. Which you always did, of course. And then you'd be out drinking with them for hours and hours. It was really very aggravating."

"Boy, if only I'd known. I'd have sent them off."

"I'm sure you would have." Peggy gave him a knowing look. "But you loved it. Being accepted into the group. The other recruits at Camp Lehigh weren't like that with you. They never could see past your stature." She paused. "How was it with the Avengers?" Judging by the curious expressions on their great-grandchildren's faces, they were wondering the same thing.

"You know how it was." But a little jolt went through him. Had she forgotten?

"I like to hear you tell it," she said calmly. There didn't seem to be confusion in her expression, only a little carefully suppressed anxiety, and Steve made himself relax. Peggy had just spent the last several months watching his younger self through the Mirror Dimension, after all. She'd seen how miserable he was. How lonely. She must have been looking forward to the creation of the Avengers as much as he had been, not only for the protection they'd provide the world, but also for the good it would do for Captain Rogers himself.

"We were all weird," he said wryly in answer to her question. "So we got to be weird together. That was new. Before, it was only Johann Schmidt and me who were weird. And we didn't exactly get along."

Peggy was holding his hand on her lap, fiddling with the wedding band around his finger, twisting it around and around, something she often did without really noticing what she was doing. "You went on a pub crawl after it was all over? You and the other Avengers?"

"A shawarma run." His smile deepened. "Tony's idea."

"I would have thought he'd want to drink. Being Howard's son and all."

"Yeah. I think Pepper had been trying to get him to lay off. Sometimes he managed to listen."

Peggy's eyes went distant. "She was good for him."

"We were both better with our women around." Steve gave her hand a squeeze.

"You got me there," he continued, locking eyes with her. "I didn't know it, but you helped me get there. You and everyone else in the family, watching over me from the other side of the Mirror." He looked around at Shuri and Jim and Roger. "Your parents all helped with that."

He was gratified to see chins lifting with pride. More than anything else, he wanted the rising generation of their family to know that Prevenging didn't have to be a vicarious thrill for them, that one day they too could take part in it, in whatever form they chose to make their contribution. There was much to do over the next several decades and maybe beyond, past the point at which he could no longer see the future. The world needed good men and good women. If he and Peggy had done enough to ensure that their work continued even after the two of them were gone...

Once he had believed thoughts like that were morbid. But the older he got, the less he was disturbed by thoughts of his death. If anything, it was a comfort to think of what would remain after he was gone. And not only this family. His other family, too.

Unbidden, Sam Wilson's face rose in his memory. The details of his features were beginning to get a little fuzzy. That fact brought a throb of sadness, but it was okay. He'd see Sam again. He was determined to make it that long. He'd left his shield behind, back in the future, and it would wait there as long it needed to. To make sure both of his legacies were passed on.

Peggy squeezed Steve's hand, pulling him back to the present.

"You would have done as much for me, if I had stood in your place," she said. "For any one of us."

"Yeah," Steve admitted, "but it feels kinda nice to be on the receiving end."

Father Andreassen stood stock-still in the center of the study in his parish house, mouth agape, eyes locked on the small TV in the corner.

On the endlessly replaying footage of a man dressed in red, white and blue trading blows with a man in a green cape as terrified German civilians fled the area.

His eyes slowly slid down to the comic book in his hand. To a full-page panel depicting a scene that was identical down to the last detail.

He stared at the TV once more, mind racing to try to explain the juxtaposition of those two simple facts in some way, any other way, than the obvious one.

He wracked his brain for several long minutes, his heart thumping wildly and his knees oddly jelly-like beneath him, but in the end he admitted defeat.

Occam's razor. Like Professor Mulcahey was always saying, the simplest explanation was the most likely. Somehow, for reasons he couldn't even begin to guess at, one of his deacons had just successfully predicted the future.

Not a vague prediction, either. No fuzzy Nostradamus-style prophecy that any number of real events might appear to line up with, once the mind had been primed to see it that way. Nor could it have been a lucky guess.

No, Steven Capecci had just predicted an event so wildly improbable that it hadn't occurred to Father A for even one moment that it could possibly be real. A man dressed up like an old Norse god, using a strange weapon to commit an act of terror against a crowd of civilians, only to be stopped by a man who was supposed to be long dead? The most imaginative mind in the world could never have guessed at this turn of events. Especially not in such detail.

How had he known?

"Can't be," he whispered to himself in shock, eyes still fixed on the TV. "Can't be."

And yet, why should he be surprised? Hadn't he believed in miracles since he was a small boy? Hadn't he made it his life's work to study the many prophecies of the Old Testament that had been fulfilled in the New? Why shouldn't he be one of the lucky few to witness the phenomenon for himself?

But he wouldn't have expected it to happen this way. Steven had been so matter-of-fact during his visit. He'd put his prediction in a comic book, of all things! No theatrics, no solemn "thus sayeth the Lord," no warnings or calls for repentance, like the prophets of old. It didn't fit the pattern at all.

Father A's grip tightened on the comic book, although his hand still shook. Why did Steven show him this at all? What purpose did it serve? What was he supposed to do with this? Who could he possibly tell, and what good would it do?

Steven had said it was a gift for him. Not for anyone else. Just him.

He showed me this for a reason.

No telling what that reason was. He could only ask. And it would have to wait, because Steven had left on a trip. He'd be gone several days. Where was it he said he was going?

Oh, yes. New York. Steven had said he was going to New York. Family business of some kind.

A sudden chill rushed down Father Andreassen's spine. New York? But-

As quickly as he could manage with shaking fingers, he flipped forward in the comic book he held, to the second half of the story.

God in heaven above.

The comic slipped out of his fingers and landed on the floor, pages askew.

New York City. Alien army. Explosions in the streets.

Death and destruction.

It was happening tomorrow. As surely as this was happening now, the Chitauri attack was going to happen tomorrow.

With a herculean effort, Father A shoved aside the dizzying implications of the truths that had just been dropped on him like a ton of bricks, and forced himself to focus on the most urgent need of the moment.

I have to warn him.

Father A abruptly laughed out loud at the thought, but there was no humor behind it. Warn Steven? He already knew what was going to happen. He knew, and he'd gone to New York anyway.

"I have family business to take care of."

In the middle of a war zone?

What kind of business was his deacon's family in?

His fingers itched to pick up his phone, to dial Steven's number; whether to demand explanations or to make him come home to D.C. where it was safe, Father Andreassen was not sure.

But instinctively he knew he mustn't do it. Steven had said he'd be out of reach for the next few days. And he'd promised to come visit again as soon as he could. His protegee might be quiet and unassuming on the surface, but underneath that he also had a rock-hard will and an unwavering sense of right and wrong. He clearly had a plan, and he was going to do whatever he had set his mind on. There was no stopping it now. No sense in distracting him with questions or concerns, either. All Father A could do was wait. As hard as it was going to be, he would have to wait.

Slowly, awkwardly, Father Andreassen got down on his knees - wincing a little at the hardness of the floor in his study - and offered up a long and fiercely devout prayer for Steven's safety, and the safety of his family, and the safety of everyone in New York City.

And when he finally, stiffly got back onto his feet again, he pulled out his phone and sent a text to Steven consisting of a single, carefully restrained sentence:

"Be careful, my son."

There was a short pause, and then came the succinct reply:

"I will."

TO BE CONTINUED