Nearly 70 Years Later
Steve was confused, lost, scared. In some of the buildings around him he recognized the shape of his New York but it was buried under flashing lights and advertisements and posters. The spirit of the place lingered in the people but they were not the people he knew. They had wild clothes and carried devices he'd never seen before and used words he didn't know. They drove cars the likes of which he had never considered. This was a New York seen through some sort of horrible nightmarish filter.
He turned, helpless, in the middle of what should have been Times Square and it was and it wasn't.
Black cars pulled up around him and men in suits piled out, forcing back the curious crowd. A black man with an eye patch and a long leather coat stepped out. He was a fighter; Steve recognized the set of his shoulders and the look in his eyes.
"At ease, soldier," the man said, approaching him. "Sorry about that little show back there, but we thought it best to break it to you… slowly."
Steve's heart was racing like he was in a firefight but he was just facing down one man.
"Break what?" he asked, both terrified and desperate for the answer.
"Fury!"
The familiar voice made Steve whip around. Black, leathery wings flared as Yori dropped into the circle of men holding back the crowd. He noticed immediately that she was walking openly as he'd never seen her before, showing her face, her wings, her tail in a crowd of people. She wore baggy black cargo pants shoved into combat boots and a red top that showed her stomach. Over that was a black sleeveless coat that touched her ankles. Her sword was at her hip.
"Y-Yori?" Steve said, hating how helpless he sounded. Yori's face softened when she beheld him and hardened the moment her eyes flicked to the black man behind him.
"Fury," she said again coldly. "I told you that I didn't approve of your plan."
"With all due respect, retired director," Fury replied coolly. "That's not your call anymore."
"Anything relating to Steve Rogers is my call," Yori said in a tone that brooked no argument. "Even if SHIELD doesn't think it is."
Steve clutched his head. "What's going on?" he demanded, completely lost. SHIELD? Director?
"Steve?" Yori moved forwards, her boots making heavy steps. She reached up and placed a hand on his shoulder. Her other hand cupped his chin and made him look at her. "Your plane went into the ocean."
"I-I know," Steve stammered. "I remember that but after it's all… it's all blank until I woke up in that room."
"You were frozen," Yori said slowly. "You survived because of the serum. We only recently found you. Steve, we…" She blinked back tears as her eyes went misty. "We've been looking for you for nearly seventy years."
"Seventy… years?"
Much as he didn't want to believe it the evidence was blinking at him from the screens all around him, from the cars, the people, the devices in their hands, from every possible surface.
"Are you alright?" Yori asked him slowly. "Taichō?"
The title hit him like a punch in the gut. "Yeah," he breathed. "I just… I had a date."
He looked around at Fury in time to miss the pain that flashed across Yori's face at that. Seventy years, and not one bit of her feelings for him had gone. And those seventy years had been a moment for him. In his mind, he had only said his goodbyes to Peggy Carter a moment ago.
"Come on, Steve. I need to take you to see someone else," Yori said, pulling him away from the rest of the men. "She'll want to see you."
"Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters," Steve read as they drove up the long path leading to the manor house in upstate New York. It looked less like a place children would go to school and more like a place that would throw a gala.
"She's a teacher now," Yori explained as she parked in front of the building. She climbed out of the car and Steve followed her lead. Yori seemed completely comfortable as she walked up the stairs. Steve trailed after her uncertainly, not quite sure what was going on despite the fact that he now at least knew where – or rather when – he was.
Yori pushed the door open and stepped inside. Steve followed her in and reared back as a bamf and the smell of sulfur hit his nose. He gaped as a fuzzy blue man with a prehensile tail like Yori's and fangs appeared out of thin air.
"Mein Kolleginnen Dämon!" he exclaimed, embracing her. "It's been too long."
"Kurt," Yori greeted warmly, embracing him back. "It has been a while. Kurt, I'd like you to meet Steve Rogers. Steve, Kurt Wagner, aka Nightcrawler."
"Steve…" Kurt's eyes widened. "Oh. Oh mein Gott!" And with another bamf and whiff of sulfur he was gone.
"He's like you," Steve said slowly.
"Exactly. Xavier's School is a place for mutants to safely learn to how and when to use their abilities."
Steve looked up. On the landing above was a bald man with a rather large nose, sitting in a wheelchair.
"Charles," Yori greeted. "Steve, this is Charles Xavier, founder of the Xavier School and the X-men.
"X-men?" Steve repeated blankly. This was all too much at once.
"Be calm, Steve Rogers. Much has happened to you but you must understand that you are not as helpless and alone as you feel. You have Yori… and you have another old friend."
It was Xavier's voice, but he hadn't opened his mouth. Steve had heard his words in his mind. His mouth dropped open and he stared at the older man incredulously.
"Charles is a telepath," Yori explained, recognizing the look on his face. Xavier inclined his head in acknowledgement.
"She's upstairs in her office," Xavier said, before turning around and vanishing down a hallway.
"Come on," Yori said, moving toward the stairs and gesturing for Steve to follow her. Steve did so, still not sure of who they were going to see. He had his suspicions however. They were confirmed when they arrived at a door labeled Dr. Josephine Ealum – Genetics, History, and Biology.
"She's a teacher," Steve said slowly. Somehow it fit, that Josie would have become a teacher in a place like this.
"Josie?" Yori called, knocking on the door.
"Ah, Yori? Come in!"
Yori pushed open the door and stepped inside. Steve followed her in and gasped.
Josie hadn't changed. She still wore pencils skirts and blazers. The chain of her mother's pocket watch was still draped across her front. Her locket still decorated her neck and her ring was on her finger. Her hair was in a low bun and her lips were slicked red.
Thank god. Something was still the same.
Josie looked up at the gasp and froze when she saw Steve standing in the doorway.
"S-Steve?" she said slowly, rising shakily.
"Yeah," Steve said, shifting uncertainly. "It's… it's me."
"I didn't… I don't…" She looked to Yori helplessly.
"We found him about four days ago. We weren't sure if he was still okay and if he'd wake up so we didn't want to tell you until we knew."
"I take it you know," Josie said faintly, stepping out from behind her desk. She approached Steve slowly and looked up at him. She reached up, touching his cheek. "Steve?"
"Josie," he greeted, smiling ever so slightly. Josie gave a delighted cry and threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. Steve wrapped his around her as well, burying his face in her shoulder. Over her he could see a wall of photographs.
There was Josie in her mother's arms, then her sitting with Nevade. Her standing beside Abraham Erskine. Her sitting at Camp Lehigh with Bucky, them dancing at the Christmas party. That same night, lifting Peggy aloft. A team picture all of the Howling Commandoes had taken and one that had been snapped of Yori and Josie looking up in surprise in the midst of cleaning guns. Josie standing by an older Howard and holding a baby in her arms, smiling down at him fondly. Josie sitting between a much younger Charles and a semi-familiar looking man with shark-like eyes. Josie standing by an altar with Yori, the pair of them watching fondly as a woman with white hair and a blue, furry beast of a man kissed. The white-haired woman was in the next picture as well, her arms wrapped around the waist of the same blue, hairy man. With a jolt, Steve realized it was little baby Guinevere all grown up. Josie with years and years worth of students.
There were over a hundred pictures. The wall was a monument to a life lived and lived well. Steve saw the decades he had missed in the clothes, the backgrounds, the faces of the people in those pictures. He saw Josie and Yori living and moving through those years he'd had slip through his fingers. Perhaps he hadn't seen them but he had two of the three women who had always had his back to walk him through those years.
Steve crushed Josie to him tighter.
"It's good to see you," he said, looking over at Yori so she knew he meant her too.
Yori smirked. "You took the easy way here, taichō. Didn't even have to witness disco."
Steve looked at her blankly as Josie pulled back and laughed. "What's disco?"
Yori winked and Josie patted him on the shoulder. "Don't worry," she said comfortingly. "We'll explain."
People have been asking if I'm going to take this farther and originally I had planned to but the answer now is - no. I'm going to completely scrap this and start again. We'll still have Bucky and romance and mutants and lots of fluff and fight scenes, but I feel like I did Josie an injustice by not giving her time to develop as a character before adding in Bucky and I feel like Yori came out far more one-dimensional than she's meant to be. So give me a month, check back in, and hopefully I'll have up the first chapter of something new and even better!
