Chapter 4

Fury came to see Steve later, and this time he brought with him a woman in a trim black uniform with her dark hair pinned up in a twist. Fury introduced her as Maria Hill, deputy director.

"Ma'am," he said politely, shaking her hand.

"Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D., Captain Rogers," Hill said. Her hand was cool and firm and she exuded a calm confidence that gave some clue as to why she had a position of authority despite being relatively young. She looked Welsh, he thought: black hair and blue eyes... and pretty. Usually that would make him instantly nervous, but he was so numb right now that he couldn't feel even that. A blessing, he supposed.

"I brought something for you," Hill said, while Fury leaned back against the door jam, watching. She was holding a picture frame in one hand, held in such a way that Steve couldn't see the picture. "It's the original, but I convinced the New-York Historical Society to lend it to us. You can keep it in your room for a while." She turned the picture so he could see. "It's the V-E Day celebration in Times Square," she said.

A large crowd of people faced the camera, all smiles, waving American flags and holding up newspapers that proclaimed: "Nazis Give Up" and "Germany Surrenders." Steve looked at it for a long moment, and then looked back up at Hill. "Thank you," he said.

She smiled, and handed the picture to another agent, who set to work putting it up on the wall.

"Did I hurt anyone?" Steve asked suddenly. "Earlier, when I-" He stopped, feeling sheepish about his earlier panicked escape. He'd never injured anyone on his own side before, not even by accident.

"No," Hill reassured him quickly. "No, everyone's fine. In fact, I think you gave them a good story to tell one day." She smiled in a friendly kind of way, but Steve was too embarrassed to be amused at the thought.

"I know this is a lot to take in right now, but we have a few questions we'd like to ask you, if that's all right," Hill continued. "We promised Dr. Stacey we would only take a few minutes."

"I don't mind," Steve said quickly. Anything to distract him from the thoughts running through his head.

"You said in your final report," Fury said, pushing off the door frame and glancing down at the file he held in his hand, "that Johann Schmidt was dead. There's just one problem: we didn't find his body on that plane. Only yours."

"No, you wouldn't," Steve said slowly, immediately understanding their concern; if he had survived the impossible, then Schmidt might have, too. "He kinda... disintegrated."

Fury looked at him levelly. "Explain that."

Steve took a deep breath. "The Valkyrie was being powered by some kind of energy cube. The same device Hydra used to power their weapons, maybe. While we were fighting, it got knocked out of its housing. Schmidt picked up the cube in his hands. I'm not sure if he was intending to fix the mechanism or what, but he just stood there, holding it. Staring at it. And then there was-" He paused, trying to remember as clearly as possible. "-lightning, I think. Electricity crackling in the air, only it looked strange. And then the top of the plane opened up and I saw stars."

"Stars?" Fury repeated, looking skeptical, while Hill looked at him with a slight frown between her brows. "Soldier, the top of the plane was intact when we found it."

"I know," Steve said quickly, aware of how strange his story sounded. "I know. And it was daylight outside. But I saw stars."

"Go on," Fury said.

"And then the cube started to stream light, a really bright light straight up into the air, and he just... burned up. He disappeared."

"I see," Fury said. He and Hill exchanged an unfathomable glance. "And what happened to the cube? Did you touch it?"

"No. It melted a hole through the deck when he dropped it. It went into the ocean, I guess."

"Is there anything else you can tell us about the cube?" Hill asked. Steve shook his head, and Fury turned and headed toward the door.

"Colonel," Steve said quickly.

"Retired colonel, actually," Fury said, turning back toward him. "Just call me Fury. Everyone does."

"Yes, sir," Steve said. "Fury. Did you find anything on the plane besides me?"

"Such as?"

"Any of my... personal items?"

Fury smiled knowingly. "As a matter of fact, we did. We found your shield. Not a scratch on it, just like you. Maybe when you're feeling a little better, we can put it back in your hands and see what you can do with it."

Crestfallen, Steve paused for a moment before saying, "Thank you." He cleared his throat. "Did you find anything else?"

"You missing something in particular?"

"My compass," Steve said reluctantly. "I put it up on the controls as the plane was going down. It would have been in the cockpit somewhere."

Fury looked over at Agent Hill, who shrugged and shook her head.

"What did this compass look like?" Fury asked, but Steve hardly heard him. He felt as though the floor was dropping out from under him, as though he was the one melting through the floor and plummeting into a free-fall to the icy sea below. It was as he'd feared. His last piece of Peggy... gone. Along with everything else.

He swallowed, hard. "It was just a compass," he said quietly. "Probably got lost a long time ago."

"World Security Council," Fury told the elevator, and it began to ascend. He looked over at Hill. "I'll speak to the Council. You make sure the P.E.G.A.S.U.S. team gets a copy of that report. And make damn sure they know not to pick that thing up with their bare hands."

"I doubt we need to tell them that," Hill said. "They're being extremely careful." She tucked a stray wisp of hair back behind her ear. "Dr. Selvig will be excited to hear about the stars. You know he keeps insisting there's enough power in that thing to open an Einstein-Rosen bridge."

"He's obsessed with helping Foster make contact with Thor again," Fury said dismissively. "But the Council has other priorities for the Tesseract. Make sure he keeps his eye on the goal."

"Yes, sir," Hill said. "I'll make sure Barton's in the loop." A puzzled frown crossed her face, and she looked over at Fury.

"Was it just my imagination, or was Rogers more worried about his compass than his shield?" she asked.

Fury didn't respond. He was looking down, dialing a number on his phone. He held it up to his ear. "Redman? You still sifting through that wreckage? Did you find a compass? No, not in the instrumentation. A small one, pocket-sized, rattling around somewhere in the cockpit." He paused for a moment. "Well, find it. I need it." There was a longer pause. "I'm well aware of how much ice is in that plane, Agent. I don't care if you have to get down on your hands and knees and chip it out with a screwdriver. I want that compass, I want it yesterday, and I want it undamaged. Got it?" He hung up.

They rode the elevator in silence. Finally, Hill stirred again.

"You didn't tell Rogers we found the Tesseract," she said.

"Need-to-know basis, Hill," Fury said. The elevator doors opened. "Need-to-know basis."

Night came. The room they put Steve in didn't have a window, but a new shift for the medical team had come on and they had gotten him everything he needed to stay overnight and then left him alone in the darkened room. He'd caught a glimpse of armed soldiers outside his door as the last nurse left, having shown him what button to press if he needed anything. The nurses had tried to get him to eat something earlier, but he couldn't even think of eating right now. In the end they had persuaded him to drink some hot broth, and he had done his best to choke it down.

Alone at last, and having nothing better to do, Steve laid down on the bed, but didn't bother switching off the lamp. Sleep was far from his eyes.

They had shown him a photograph of the wreckage of the Valkyrie, with the fuselage jutting out of a massive block of ice and snow. That's where he'd been for 70 years. Alive. He hadn't taken any permanent harm. He apparently hadn't aged. Even his hair hadn't grown. He couldn't understand it, and the medical team seemed equally amazed. Steve knew he should be grateful for their care, should be grateful that his life had been preserved against all odds in what could only be described as a miracle, and yet he felt more like a victim of a freak accident. He was ashamed to realize that he didn't want their congratulations... he wanted condolences.

He shouldn't have survived that. No one should. To be buried in the cold and the silence for years upon years upon years, and then to wake up to find that everyone and everything from his life had vanished except for him. The worst part was, he felt fine. Young and healthy and strong. After a childhood filled with so many illnesses, when his mother in desperation had done anything and everything in her power to nurse him back to health, the ease of his recovery mocked him now. He should have died in that plane. Anyone else would have.

He lifted up his hands and stared at them, so much bigger and stronger than they used to be. He'd had a few years now to get used to being in his new skin, and in all that time, not a day had gone by that he hadn't thanked God and Dr. Erskine for the miracle of the serum that had transformed him. He'd been able to do so much good with this gift.

And now, for the first time, he hated what he'd become.

Steve laid back on the bed. Time seemed to crawl, while the room around him spun. He longed for the oblivion of sleep, but it wouldn't come. His pulse pounded in his ears, and from time to time he couldn't stop a sudden trembling from sweeping over him. He stared up at the ceiling, dry-eyed, and waited for the night to end, but it didn't. A nurse came in to check on him and tried to give him a sleeping pill, but he refused. He already knew it wouldn't work; he couldn't be sedated anymore than he could get drunk. He'd found that out long ago. Finally she left him alone, and he rolled over onto his side. The bed was too soft - like sleeping on a marshmallow - and he contemplated moving to the floor, but he didn't move a muscle. The same dark thoughts swirled around in his brain in an unending cycle he could not break out of. Flashes of faces he'd known. Dugan and Morita. Ramirez and Falsworth. All the Howling Commandos. He hadn't asked about any of their fates, but he hardly needed to. He'd done the math. In his heart, he knew they were all gone. Even Howard and Peggy.

Peggy...

His fingers twitched, longing to reach for a compass that wasn't there. With a terrible effort, he forced himself to turn his thoughts elsewhere. He couldn't let himself think of Peggy. But then his thoughts grew darker instead. In his mind he could see the faceless masks of the Hydra fanatics. The skeletal head of the Red Skull glowing in the unearthly light of the cube. Once he had thought there was nothing worse than such nightmares, but now he would rather face them all again than this.

As he wrestled with his thoughts and the minutes slipped by in slow-motion, he began to feel strange inside. Like his stomach was twisting itself in knots. Maybe he wasn't as healthy as he thought.

The sensation in his middle worsened. Pretty soon, he felt truly awful in a way he hadn't felt since he'd had scarlet fever. He curled up into a ball on the bed and bit his lip hard, but the waves of nausea intensified. Suddenly, he jumped up from the bed and ran over to the garbage can and threw up. It was every bit as unpleasant as throwing up always was. When it was over, he sat back shakily on his heels, panting for breath. His hands, clutching the garbage can, had gone totally white.

Almost immediately there was a knock on the door and the nurse came back in, followed by the girl from earlier, the one in the dummy hospital room who had lied to him. She was dressed in a medical coat and slacks now, but her hair was still curled like she had just stepped out of the 1940s. Steve felt an irrational surge of anger at that. It was like she was playing dress-up with his past. Like it was all a joke.

They felt his forehead and the back of his neck. Made him sit on the bed and brought him water. Listened to his heart and lungs. Checked his blood pressure. Finally, the two women left him sitting on the edge of the bed, head in hands, and held a hastily whispered conference at the other end of the room. The nurse left and the curly-haired girl walked over to the bed and sat down next to him.

"Captain Rogers? My name is Olivia," she said. "I'm a therapist who specializes in post-traumatic stress disorder." She paused. "What I mean is, shell shock. We call it PTSD now. I'm sorry about what happened earlier today. We intended to break the news to you gently, but I guess... well, you're a pretty observant guy. We weren't trying to fool you, really, but it must have looked that way, and I'm sorry."

"I know," he said stiffly. "Fury explained."

She put her hand on his back and rubbed it a little. It was all he could do not to pull away from her touch.

"Am I sick?" he asked, trying not to sound hopeful.

"You're having a panic attack," Olivia said. She rubbed his back again. "It might help if you talked about it," she said softly. "We're here to help, you know."

"I want to sleep now," he said, although he knew by now that wasn't going to happen tonight.

"It's a normal reaction, considering what's happened to-" she began.

"I can't sleep if you're in the room," he said.

Olivia took a deep breath. "Captain Rogers-"

"Go," he said briefly. After a long hesitation, she did just that. Alone again, Steve laid back on the too-soft bed and stared at the ceiling, feeling limp and defeated.

There was a knock, and the door opened again. Steve sat up, irritated, ready to tell the nurses to go away in more forceful tones this time, but it was someone new who came through the door: a young black man in coveralls, pushing a cleaning cart into the room.

"Hey, man," he said, glancing at Steve casually. "I'm just here to clean up."

Steve watched as the man put on gloves and crouched to remove the bag from the garbage can. The light from the lamp in the corner glinted off his name tag, which read "Gabe."

Steve watched him silently for a moment, and then said, "I had a friend named Gabe."

"Oh yeah?" Gabe said, glancing up from his work. "Was he a devilishly handsome fellow with plenty of smooth moves for the ladies, like me?"

Against his will, Steve smiled slightly, remembering Gabe Jones and his enthusiasm for pretty French girls. "Yeah, he was," he admitted.

"That's what I thought." Gabe chuckled. "Goes along with the name, I guess." He tossed the tied-up bag into his garbage can and pulled out a new liner.

Steve hadn't been able to get the nurses out of the room fast enough, but now, he found he suddenly wanted to talk. Not to have anyone make a fuss over him or ask him how he was feeling, but just to talk to him like a normal human being.

"Been working here long?" Steve asked.

"Two years. I moved here from California."

"Like it here?"

Gabe shrugged. "It's not too bad. Pays better than most janitorial jobs, because of all the security clearances you have to get. I'm saving up to go to school. And I make enough to get me tickets to the ballpark sometimes."

"You're a baseball fan?" Steve asked.

"Sure am. You too?"

"Yeah."

"What's your team?" Gabe asked.

"Dodgers."

Gabe grinned broadly. "I knew I liked you. Everyone around here only ever wants to talk about the Yankees." His work was done, but he leaned back against the nurses' hand-washing station, getting comfortable. "Did you catch their last game of the season?"

"No, I missed that one."

Gabe started telling him about one of the plays that had happened during the game. Steve was able to follow most of his story, although Gabe sometimes sprinkled in phrases that meant nothing to him. Instant replay? It was something that had made the umpires change their minds about a call, apparently.

"Must have been exciting," he said when Gabe finished. "Sounds kinda like something that happened in 1939, versus the Red Sox. Guess the ump saw something no one else on the field did. Everyone in the bleachers hollered, but he ruled it an out."

Gabe whistled between his teeth in surprise. "1939? You know your Dodgers history. I can't tell you much about anything that happened before the 90s. That's when my dad started taking me to the games."

Up until this moment, Steve had had half an idea that Gabe, like Olivia, was merely a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent playing a role to keep him calm. Suddenly, he felt certain this was not the case. But just to be sure he asked, not caring how strange it would sound: "Do you... know who I am?"

Gabe laughed out loud. "Are you kidding me? This is S.H.I.E.L.D., and I'm a janitor. They don't tell me nothin'." He threw Steve an amused look. "And you better not tell me nothin' neither, or we'll both be in trouble."

Steve felt the tension in his shoulders relax ever so slightly. "So... who's your favorite player?"

"Clayton Kershaw."

"How come?"

Gabe snorted. "Isn't it obvious?"

Steve smiled wanly. "Humor me."

Gabe started telling him all about Kershaw. Steve listened to him chatter, relieved to have something other than his own thoughts to concentrate on. After a while, though, Gabe's monologue was interrupted by a chiming sound. The janitor pulled a slim device out of his pocket and looked at it. It was glowing in the dim light of the hospital room.

"What is that?" Steve asked curiously. The light the device was emitting was as bright and steady as any of the devices Hydra had built, and yet it didn't really look like a weapon.

"Nokia C6," Gabe said, not looking up. Steve opened his mouth to ask what that meant, but then Gabe made a face. "Ah, man. My supervisor's looking for me. I gotta go." He shoved the device back in his pocket, grabbed his cart and started wheeling it toward the door. "Hope you feel better, man," he called out over his shoulder as he left.

"How did he do last night?" Fury asked when everyone had assembled in the conference room.

"He didn't sleep at all," Dr. Stacey said. "And my nurses couldn't get him to eat more than a few bites this morning."

"Is it a medical problem?" Hill asked, concerned.

Stacey shook her head. "He's healthy, overall. Maybe it will take a day or two before all his systems kick back into gear. I don't know. It's really all guesswork at this point; it's not like we have any precedents to study. But no, missing a few meals isn't likely to hurt him much. I'd be more worried about his mental state, honestly."

"He had a panic attack last night," Olivia put in. "Not very surprising, considering everything, but it was rough on him."

"How can you help him?" Hill asked.

"I'm not sure I can," Olivia said bluntly. In response to Hill's surprised look, she continued reluctantly: "The first words out of my mouth to him were a deception. I lost his trust before I even had a chance to earn it. Now he's associated me with the trauma of what's happened. I can practically see the panic rising in his eyes every time he looks at me. You may have to find another therapist for him. He wouldn't respond to me at all last night, or this morning either."

"This is the Greatest Generation we're talking about," Fury said, tipping back in his chair. "My grandfather's generation. They didn't see therapists. They pulled themselves up by the bootstraps."

"We have an obligation to provide care for him," Olivia shot back, looking shocked. "He's been traumatized. I don't care what generation-"

Fury held up a hand. "I'm not saying we shouldn't provide care for him. I'm just saying, making him kick back on a couch and talk to Sigmund Freud may not be the only way to handle it."

Hill was deep in thought. "Isn't there anyone he would have known who's still alive? Maybe just seeing a familiar face would put him at ease."

"All his Howling Commandos are dead," Fury said. "I already checked. And he didn't have any family to begin with."

"I think you're on the right track, though," Olivia said unexpectedly, glancing at Hill. "Having a friend to help them through a situation is just as important for a patient's recovery as talk therapy."

"Let me see what I can do with him," Hill said to Fury, her blue eyes intent. "I'll try to build some trust."

"Be cautious," Fury said. "If his head gets muddled, he'll be more of a liability than an asset to us."

"Olivia can advise me." Hill glanced over at her. "Anything I should know to start with?"

"It's pretty simple, really," Olivia said, leaning forward over the table and clasping her hands together. "Find out what he needs to keep him psychologically stable, and make sure he gets it."

TO BE CONTINUED

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