Chapter 8

"Hey, uh, where are you going?"

Bismarck's hand was about to turn the doorknob until Steve's voice stopped her. It was the first time he has talked since their 'conversation' last night when it was decided that they should give each other some time to think. Steve was definitely still confused about, well, a lot of things about her world and origin, but he definitely got the broad strokes. Now that the night had passed, Bismarck decided to go and check if Intrepid was doing fine, the last time she checked, the fires on her deck and hangar were under control.

"I'm going to see Intrepid."

"Right now? Manhattan is in lockdown, people can barely get over there, I don't think you'll make it across anytime soon." Steve protested, but his words were true. It had only been one day after the Battle of New York, and rescue operations were still an ongoing affair.

In truth, Bismarck just wanted to get out of Steve's apartment. Don't get her wrong, it was nice, but the awkwardness between the two that continued to the morning was something she could do without. Before she could reply, however, a knock came on the door. Surprised, Steve stood up, ready for any possible attack, the events of yesterday still left him on edge. Bismarck peeked through the door's peephole and found a woman with familiar red hair.

Opening it slowly, the woman behind the door revealed herself to be one Agent Romanoff, slightly bruised from yesterday, but otherwise still looking fine. "Morning, you two sleep well?"

SHIELD must have planted listening devices in Steve's apartment. Now that he had revealed himself as Captain America to her, it would make sense that they would keep tabs on him. Everything she said to him last night was to be considered known to SHIELD. If anything, Agent Romanoff must have been sent to do 'follow-up' work.

"Somewhat. I see you are fine, Agent Romanoff." Bismarck answered dryly.

"I could do better. Anyways, I'd suggest you to not go to Manhattan right now. You wouldn't even get close to the bridge without the army turning you away, they're only letting priority transports through right now."

Bismarck was unfettered, and her plan wasn't even going to go through the bridges anyways. "I have another way. Step aside."

The two women stared at each other, daring each other to make the first move. Though her hands were still to her side, Romanoff's right elbow started bending, making it easier to reach for her gun.

Brave, but against battleship plate armour, that pistol would just be a slight breeze.

Steve decided to step in between the two now, lest it escalate any further and his apartment becomes just like Manhattan Island right now. "How about you and I accompany Bianka, we could use some fresh air, right?"

Romanoff looked between Steve and Bianka for a second, before sighing and placing a hand on her earpiece. "Director, you heard all of that?"

A couple of seconds pass, and she received a reply through her earpiece. "Affirmative, I'll let them know." Looking at the two, she spoke again. "Alright, we can go, but we have to accompany you. Director Fury wants to talk to you afterwards though. If you can promise that we can get you clearance into Manhattan."

Bismarck scoffed, she wouldn't be going through Manhattan, but around it. She was looking forward to their reactions if their faces yesterday were anything to consider.

Standing on a Brooklyn pier, Bianka's request to take the three of them there instead of the bridges to Manhattan was met with some incredulous stares. Steve had changed back into his clothes as Captain America, and Bianka had changed into her…uniform as well. He wouldn't say it out loud, but it definitely reminded him of some HYDRA uniforms during the war. He barely got any sleep last night, still having to process what Bianka-Bismarck-his cousin had said about her 'background'.

With some regret, he did not further ask what she meant by things such as 'Azur Lane' or 'Ironblood'. As far as he was concerned, she described fighting in a similar war, also around the Second World War since she was 'born' in the 1930s. But he was pretty sure there wasn't an organization called the Ironblood during the war, but he was mostly fighting HYDRA when he was active in Europe, so the naval side of the campaign was mostly unknown to him. He had no quarrel with them, but for most of his service, he was seen as an 'Army' soldier, not a Navy sailor.

Bismarck's question from last night still remained unanswered, however, as he wasn't sure what his cousin even was. From what she said, there was an implication she was not just human, but also the actual Bismarck, who at the same time was not the Bismarck from this world. The two needed to talk again, but Steve couldn't find a chance to do so, at least not yet.

In this era, news coverage had become almost instantaneous. With everyone and their phones being a potential source of information, no longer did reporters have to travel back to their agencies to write stories, all they needed was a simple camera. Indeed, aside from the news crews that had covered a large portion of the battle, often in great danger to themselves, videos of the fight had been circulating online and shown on news networks, with the mysterious group of heroes being the core focus.

Regardless, Bismarck's request to head to a pier was met with great confusion from her two other companions. Her insistence eventually won out, and with it being the early morning, there weren't that many people on the pier either. As Steve and Romanoff looked at Bianka walking towards the edge of the pier, where boats usually tied their rope, she decided to finally ask a question.

"Alright, you've known her longer Cap. What is she doing right now? Why are we even here-"

Bright blue cubes suddenly shot out of Bianka's back, surprising both of them immediately. Steve's eyes widened at the familiar-looking blue cubes, if he wasn't mistaken, they should currently have been in secure storage inside Stark tower, but now there were multiple of them flying through the air, all in different sizes as well. They all started forming on the East River, just directly next to the parks of Brooklyn heights, the piers that existed there once had been turned into recreational areas for the community.

The Cubes stretched out, taking different shapes, and not before long, a massive ship's hull could be seen, completely covered in blue light. As the light died down, Steve could not believe what he saw before his eyes, the same Battleship from yesterday's battle appeared from thin air right before his eyes. Looking at Romanoff for just a second, they ran to where Bianka stood at the edge of the pier.

"Bian-Bismarck! How did you-what?!"

Since they were technically in costume right now, they had to be known by their aliases. Not everyone was like Iron Man giving out their secret identities willy-nilly after all.

"We need to get around Manhattan. My vessel has tenders we can use to do so."

True to her words, looking at Bismarck's ship again, a crane on its superstructure started moving by itself, before picking up one of the many tender ships that it carried. Similar to how carriers could control planes, every aspect of a ship is able to be controlled by Kansen, and just like her display of the Arado floatplanes yesterday, ship tenders also counted. Steve and Romanoff watched as the tender that was lowered down slowly make its way across to the pier where they were. Though that particular part was not known to Steve, so to him it seemed like an actual ghost was piloting the thing. As it arrived, their faces shifted into varying degrees of confusion as they watched it arrive, with no one piloting it.

"Come on, this will be the fastest way across."

Bianka showed no hesitation in boarding what was seemingly a ghost ship. When she turned back to look at her two other travelling companions, they hesitated in boarding. Steve to his credit, was the first one to relent, then quickly followed by Romanoff. Together, the three set off to the Hudson River, where Intrepid was. Unbeknownst to the three of them, however, a SHIELD agent had recorded the entire process and had just sent the recording up the chain to Maria Hill.

Natasha Romanoff, or just Nat, usually did not let herself be surprised by certain things. In her time as a SHIELD agent, she had seen many things, often putting the stuff that was said by conspiracy theorists out there to shame. Having just seen a quite literal Second World War battleship appear from thin air was probably among the top three weirdest things she has ever seen. Though the ghost tender that she boarded not long ago probably ranked highly in terms of weirdness as well.

Another blow to her expectations about this 'Bismarck', as was her codename at SHIELD currently, was that she spent the entire time talking to Steve and herself. While the boat seemingly steered itself. Self-driving boats weren't uncommon of course, but seeing it come from a battleship that materialized from thin air was pretty unnerving. Especially one that apparently should have sunk seventy years ago. After the battle, she spent some time looking up the Wikipedia page of Bismarck the battleship, though she wished she hadn't, since that only added more questions to the already huge pile. Never mind the fact that she had what appeared to be Tesseracts of all shapes and sizes, that was another one such burning question she didn't ask yet.

Resigning herself to just shadowing her for now, Fury's orders were not to antagonize her. All things considered, it was a really good idea, as skilled as she was, her targets usually did not carry giant naval guns capable of levelling entire buildings in a single shot.

Though now she did something else that was another oddity to her, Bismarck was seemingly talking to no one, as the three of them stood on Intrepid's deck. SHIELD had quickly secured the area once they knew Bismarck wanted to go there, thus allowing them easy access to the vessel.

"I see. Your damages will be repaired easily, I presume?"

Watching her talk to no one at all became a little worrisome. For both Steve and herself, since she was already going through psychological issues she might have. A combination of her powers with something that made her hallucinate that heavily was going to make Fury's blood pressure spike even harder than it already was.

Bismarck nodded along every so often during her conversation as if she was actually talking to someone. Steve finally decided to step in from their cover behind a broken exhibit, and she followed along with him.

Though Bismarck was still 'talking' with someone, her head quickly turned to see the two of them approach. "Finally decided to come out?"

"Yeah, uh, who exactly are you talking to?" Steve asked skeptically.

Just as she was about to respond, however, she turned her head back toward the direction where she was talking for just a second, before turning back to the two of them.

"Intrepid wants you to know that she knew you were there the entire time. Also, she says hello to the both of you as well."

Intrepid? USS Intrepid?!

Natasha managed to keep her thoughts to herself, but Steve couldn't, his mouth hanging open as he too realized who she was apparently talking to.

"The ship?! USS Intrepid?!"

She was just about to call bullshit on that, but considering all that she has seen so far, maybe it was best to keep quiet on that for now. If Bismarck was an example to build off of, then she didn't want to antagonize a carrier with dive-bombers either. Probably the safest move for someone with her skillset.

AN:

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