Brooklyn Gym. New York. Night. Daphne

Daphne smiled to herself as she walked into the building. She had decided to ditch the dress - sorry Phil - in favour of her workout clothes - which consisted of black three-quarter length leggings, a cropped black top and a simple pair of running shoes.

She had thought that the Captain probably wouldn't appreciate some random woman in uniform just barging in on his workout, so she figured she would release some tension in the gym. Where he just happened to be.

The mutant skipped towards a set of double-doors, re-adjusting the duffel bag higher up on shoulder and paused when she heard a distinct thump-ing sound. She slowly pushed the doors open and peered inside. Mother of all things Holy.

Steve Rogers was pummelling a punchbag as if the world depended on it. His blonde hair was plastered to his head and face with sweat, his icy blue eyes filled with cold determination.

Daphne quietly made her way around him, careful not to cause a disturbance, towards the boxing ring. She sat on the rope that travelled along the edge of the ring, watching him pour all of his energy into the poor bag, his muscles rippling underneath his tight, white T-shirt. Definitely swoon-worthy.

He seemed to be teeming with unresolved tension, and she could understand why. From what little she knew about him, she knew that he had been frozen for about seventy years - leaving him smack-bang into the middle of a new century. It would make anyone anxious.

She slid down from the rope and decided to do something productive as she waited for the super-soldier, figuring that Rogers was too far into his workout to even notice her. She ruffled through her bag, muttering to herself about having too much crap.

Daphne pulled out her hand wraps and started to wind the fabric around her wrists, moving up to her knuckles and fingers. Once she was satisfied with her work, she ambled over towards several punch bags that were hazardously scattered along the floor, and picked one up triumphantly. Truth be told, Daphne didn't know she could do that.

Muscles screaming, she lifted the bag up to hang it upon the hooks that were dotted along the ceiling of the gym. Her eyes closed for a brief moment and then her fists were pounding into the bag. Daphne could feel all of the stress that had been building up leave her body. Though, every stupid, small, insignificant - yet oddly hurtful - name that she had been called, popped into her head - goading her to hit with more aggression.

She had never given anyone any reason to hate her, except for being born what she was. She was still human, right? Just with some extra kinks. Her parents were human, so technically she should be considered as the same species. But some people didn't view it that way.

Her parents. That brought a scowl to her face. Her parents paid the price for her being different. They didn't deserve that. No one did. She carried on abusing the bag, morbid thoughts still plaguing her mind, until her hair started sticking to the nape of her neck with sweat.

She was torn out of her sombre reverie by a loud crash, and turned to see Steve's punch bag sliding across the floor. A large tear marred the side of the material, and sand poured out profusely.

The man who had been torturing the poor bag turned in her direction - probably to find another bag - and froze when he saw her. She watched in fascination as a blank facade came across his surprised features.

"Care to spar?" She breathed out, panting slightly from her own small exercise. She secretly wanted to laugh at the shock that re-appeared on his face at her question.

Steve

Steve Rogers relentlessly pounded his fists into the heavy punch bag, flashbacks haunting his mind with every dull thump of each hit. Ever since he had become free of the ice, he couldn't shake the images that plagued his consciousness. Memories of his life before this one.

He remembered sprinting through a dense forest, ducking and weaving to avoid incoming mortar strikes. Gunfire rained and tore through a sea of soldiers. Past-Steve had jumped back as a searing, bright blue light streaked past him and disintegrated the man behind. The soldier's cut-off scream still tormented his dreams.

His mind drifted to Peggy - strong, fearless Peg - and wondered where she'd be in this new world he had yet to navigate.

"There's not enough time! I gotta put her in the water!"

The punch bag beneath his fists rattled with every hit.

"You won't be alone."

The punch bag suddenly tore off its chains, flying across the room and landing with a heavy thud. He winced when he noticed the sanding spilling out of the large split in the material. Steve exhaled a deep sigh and turned towards the row of spare punch bags he'd laid out.

He froze for a second. A woman was standing next to another punch bag, breathing deeply with a layer of sweat covering her skin. Long auburn hair was tied up high and swayed as she moved. He averted his eyes when he saw her workout clothes, which revealed a sliver of her toned stomach. A collection of small, faint scars marred the skin of her abdomen.

"Care to spar?" She offered, though he thought he must have misheard her through her heavy breaths.

"Excuse me?" He asked in bewilderment.

"I asked if you would like to spar," she repeated, much more clearly than before. "I don't know about you, but fighting a moving target seems more effective than a punch bag."

"I don't fight women," he replied simply, the response as innate as breathing. Though, he had known some pretty badass women back in his day.

"Who says you're actually gonna get a hit in?" She jibed, her expression morphing into one of mirth.

Steve smiled a little at the comment, finding her confidence refreshing - if a bit suspicious. He shook his head. "Who are you?"

The woman stuck her hand out in greeting. "I'm Daphne Collins. Agent of SHIELD - well, technically I think I'm on leave."

His smile faltered slightly. Of course, SHIELD wouldn't leave him alone for long. He let out a sigh of resignation but he tried not to let his frustration show to the agent. Steve placed his hand in hers, shaking it firmly. He noticed that, as he got closer, a scar marred the right side of her face - running from the corner of her eyebrow to the middle of her cheek. She also had a few calluses on her hands. Probably from previous battles.

"Steve Rogers. But you already knew that, right?" He questioned, a biting edge to his tone. He hated the fact that everyone seemed to know everything about him.

Daphne sent him an apologetic smile. "Yes, I did know that. But you didn't answer my question. Wanna spar?" She asked again, lightly hitting her punch bag which - he noticed - had a sizeable dent on the side. Maybe he'd misjudged her.

"Why?" He asked, sighing heavily.

Daphne just shrugged, turning playful despite his uninviting mood, and skipped towards him. "Why not? Scared I'll beat you?"

Steve fought the urge to crack a grin. Despite the woman's small stature, he figured that she could pack quite a punch.

When he didn't answer, she carried on. "Come on. I'll go easy on you," she laughed, slipping through two ropes that ran across the perimeter of the boxing ring.

The super-soldier felt his mood lighten minutely at the eccentric woman and decided to give in, walking over to the ring. "Fine. But don't be too sad when I win."

A laugh escaped her lips. "I don't think I have to worry about that," she retorted immediately.

The two squared off inside the ring, both of them swiftly adopting their fighting stances. Steve approached the woman with caution, scrutinising her posture for any indication of her fighting style.

She suddenly rushed towards him, catching him off-guard. The agent lashed out at Steve, forcing him into a defensive position to block her hits as he threw his own. They sparred back and forth for a while before Steve asked the question that had been preying on his mind.

"So, what does SHIELD want?" Steve panted out between punches.

"Who said SHIELD wants anything?" She replied, breathing heavily as she paused for a moment, her fists up.

He just stopped and looked at her with a deadpan expression, raising an eyebrow in disbelief.

She used his distraction to her advantage, managing to hook her leg around Steve's and throw him to the ground. He was temporarily disorientated, taken aback by the move, before he regained his composure and sprang back up.

"Sneaky," he muttered.

Daphne just smirked slyly, shrugging her shoulders. "What else did you expect?"

The pair continued fighting, both on an equal footing and getting more annoyed - with no-one in a clear lead - until Steve had managed to knock Daphne off-balance, allowing him to pin her to the ground. He smirked triumphantly.

She laughed from underneath him. "I went easy on you."

"Sure you did," he teased.

She raised an eyebrow at him and shifted her weight quickly so that the soldier was now pinned down. "Hah!"

Steve's eyes widened and he felt his face heat up at the compromising position that they found themselves in. He cleared his throat awkwardly.

Daphne rolled off of him quickly and held out a hand, offering her help. Steve shook off the odd feeling he had previously experienced when she was on top of him and chuckled, allowing her to pull him up. He ran a hand through his sweaty hair and watched as she walked towards her bag, pulling out two bottles of water. She threw one towards him - which he caught with ease, thanks to his enhanced reflexes. Though, how she had managed to catch him off guard more than once was completely another thing.

"Thank you," he told her after taking a large gulp of the water.

"You're welcome."

They stayed in silence for a few moments. Steve's head was filled with questions, wondering what was so important that SHIELD needed him.

"So?" He trailed off. When she gave him a look of perplexity at his vague question, he elaborated. "Why does SHIELD want me?"

Daphne exhaled lightly, going through her duffel bag and pulling out a thick brown file. "In recent years, SHIELD has been working on something that you probably recognise," she stated, holding out the file towards him.

Steve took it from her hands and opened it up, his jaw clenching once he saw a picture of a blue, glowing cube. "HYDRA's secret weapon."

"The Tesseract. Howard Stark found it in the ocean while he was searching for you. He and SHIELD believe it could be an unlimited sustainable power source - so they decided to be oh-so-clever and mess with it."

Steve didn't miss the way that she excluded herself from her own organisation - instead of saying 'we', she said 'SHIELD' and 'they'. He wondered why that was but chose to ignore it for now, making a note to himself to ask her another time.

"Who took it from you?" He asked, looking up at her once he had read information about the weapon. Not that he needed to, he had experienced its power before. And that wasn't even its full potential.

Daphne winced. "His name is Loki. He's not from around here. To put it simply, he's a crazy-ass, mythological, Norse God."

Steve wanted to laugh at her choice of words, but decided that perhaps it wasn't the best time for that. Only then did he seem to realise what she had just told him. "Norse God?"

Daphne chuckled, presumably at his puzzled expression. "The world has reached a whole new level of 'crazy' since you've been under. You have a lot to catch up on, if you're in."

The soldier scoffed quietly. "At this point, I doubt anything would surprise me."

Daphne's eyebrows raised with a smirk. "Really?" She challenged, a mischievous glint in her eyes.

He nodded, not believing that the world could have gotten that much more crazy than he already knew it to be.

"Ten bucks says you're wrong. I'll collect up on that bet once we reach the Helicarrier." She seemed awfully confident in herself.

Steve was about to ask what a 'Helicarrier' was but then decided that it was best not to. He had no idea how advanced technology could possibly be, and he didn't want to confuse himself anymore than he was.

"There's a debriefing package waiting for you at your apartment, by the way. Some SHIELD agents are way too enthusiastic about breaking into your home," she warned him with a scowl.

He nodded distractedly, turned, and started to walk out of the gym, file in hand.

"What? No goodbye hug?" Daphne's voice joked from behind him. A smile broke out across his lips, his head shaking in amusement as he reached the exit.

"I'll see you again soon, ma'am," he called over his shoulder.

A scoff answered him. "Don't call me ma'am!"

"Okay, ma'am," he laughed out, feeling better than when he had first entered the gym.

"Wait!" She called out to him. The tone of her voice made him stop. "Is there anything you can tell us about the Tesseract that we ought to know now?". She spoke grimly, surprising the soldier at the sudden change from the excitable woman he had just met.

He paused and looked over his shoulder at the agent before continuing to walk out. "You should have left it in the ocean."

"Couldn't agree more, Cap," she muttered, somewhat morosely.

Steve had decided there and then that he would help SHIELD against Loki. He had seen the destruction that the Tesseract had caused - he wouldn't wish that on anybody, and he was determined to make sure that no-one would suffer from the Tesseract again.

A/N: Edited - 24.12.22 :)