Steve's first thought when he began to notice all the little incongruous details around him—the smell, the old ball game, the girl's hair and, well, shape—was that he had woken up in some kind of Hydra compound and they were trying to manipulate him. After running out into an almost completely unfamiliar Times Square, there was nothing for him to do but accept that this couldn't be Hydra's doing.
The truth was worse. He had been frozen for sixty-six years. An entire lifetime had passed him by, the world had changed, his country had changed, the war was long over, and nearly everyone he had known and loved was gone.
Director Fury brought him from New York to D.C. in a helicopter that barely resembled the ones Steve was used to. On the way, he told him about the end of the war and gave him an abbreviated history of SHIELD. It had been founded by Howard Stark, Colonel Phillips, and Peggy Carter. Fury had a very knowing look in his eye when he mentioned those names, especially the third one. It was a pretty transparent way of trying to make Steve feel like he was already connected to the organization, but that didn't mean it wasn't effective. How could he not want to be part of what they had built? Where else was he supposed to go anyway? He wasn't going to make it too easy for Fury, though. He asked to see the files of everyone he'd fought alongside in the war before he made any decisions. Fury agreed.
Steve had pictured some kind of bunker or disguised building for SHIELD's headquarters, like the way things had been with the SSR, but the Triskelion was huge, obvious, and impressive. After getting him a lanyard to wear with a plastic card that had a large 3 on it, Fury showed him around a little. He concluded the partial tour in a room that looked like it was made entirely out of polished, unpainted steel. He said it was the medical lab, and they were soon joined there by a clipboard-carrying brunette in a white coat who looked like she was barely in her twenties.
"The doctors in New York said there were no signs of lasting damage from the crash or the ice," said Fury, "but I'd like Dr. Simmons to have a look now that you're awake." He turned to the brunette, who Steve guessed was probably a nurse. "You need anything from me?"
"No, thank you, Director," she said. "I've already read everything Coulson sent over." She was English. Steve wondered if it was time, distance, or education that accounted for the small differences between her accent and Peggy's. Or maybe there wasn't really much of a difference, and the sharp contrast of current hair, makeup, and clothing styles to what he was used to just made it seem like there should be one.
Fury nodded and left. Steve glanced around for any signs of the Dr. Simmons he had mentioned, but it was just him and the Englishwoman. "Well, if you'll just have a seat over here, Captain Rogers," she said, gesturing to a cushioned exam table that actually did look similar to ones he'd seen in doctor's offices before. "I suppose Director Fury thought the usual medical staff might be a little out of their depth on this. I spend most of my time in the R&D lab, not working with patients directly."
Steve stared at her. "You're Dr. Simmons?" he blurted.
She frowned and looked at him with professional concern. "There wasn't anything in your file about trouble with short-term memory. It could be a concussion. Have you been experiencing any headaches, dizziness, nausea...?"
Steve's cheeks and ears began heating up. "Oh, no, ma'am, I just…I thought you were the nurse." The way her face fell made him feel like he was 5'4" again. Wonderful. Now he got to pile decades of cultural change on top of the standard awkwardness he already felt when talking to women. "I'm sorry. I should'a realized."
There was a brief, uncomfortable pause, but then she offered a smile far kinder than what he felt like he deserved at the moment. "I suppose you have a better excuse than most for making that assumption. Welcome to the 21st century, where a twenty-two-year-old woman can be one of the top scientists in a major intelligence organization." She finished off with a curtsey that nearly made her stumble.
Steve felt a little better. "I'd tip my hat, but it seems like nobody wears them anymore." Her smile widened at that, and he sat down on the exam table. He thought of how hard Peggy had fought to get where she was and decided that maybe some good had come out of those sixty-six years. He just wished he could've gotten here the long way. A little of what was going through his head must've shown on his face, because her smile faded.
"Are you alright?" she asked. "This must all be such a shock."
"It doesn't feel real," he admitted.
"You probably have so many questions."
"Starting with the fifty gadgets in this room that I've never seen before? Yeah."
"I'm sure you'll have no shortage of people eager to help you acclimate. And there's no need to rush."
Dr. Simmons ran a few basic tests on things like his blood pressure, eyesight, and reflexes, drew a small amount of blood, asked him questions about how he felt now compared to before the ice, and wrote a lot of things down on the clipboard. She quickly determined that he appeared to show no side-effects from being frozen so long and was very intrigued by the implications that could have for research into cryogenics. Barring any unexpected results from the tests she was going to run on the blood sample, she was giving him a clean bill of health. He was sorry to part company with her; she was probably the most comforting person he'd interacted with so far.
Next, he was shown to the mess hall, where he was stunned by the variety of food available, and even more by the glum attitudes all the SHIELD agents seemed to view it with. He didn't even know what some of the food was, but nobody batted an eye when he loaded his tray with portions of as many different things as he could fit. He barely remembered what sugar tasted like after years of war rations, but it didn't take many bites of chocolate pudding before he decided that people must have gotten overexcited about being able to use it freely again and overdid it. It wasn't only in the pudding, either. It seemed like it was in almost everything baked or mixed. He made a mental note to stick more to the meats, produce, and dairy next time. None of that had come out of a can and it looked pretty good.
Steve's (hopefully temporary) accommodations on the dormitory level were extremely off-putting. The walls, floor, ceiling, and all the furniture were flat white and didn't have a smell, and the window didn't open. Fury had already made good on his promise, however. The desk was stacked with and surrounded by boxes of files stamped with the SHIELD emblem. He pulled off the lid of the nearest one and dug in.
X
Not counting his second tour in Vietnam, General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross had never had a worse month in his military career. After five years of searching, he finally had Banner in his grasp, only for him to seemingly vanish off the face of the Earth, along with every scrap of Samuel Sterns's research and the top third of Emil Blonsky.
With Banner, Blonsky, and Sterns all dead or missing and his daughter (who was back to not speaking to him) publishing op-eds in several papers about the consequences of military overreach, Ross was the most convenient figure for Congress and the press to blame. He'd been dragged before the Senate Ethics, Armed Forces, Homeland Security, Intelligence, and Judiciary committees over the destruction in Harlem and his handling of the failed Bio-Tech Force Enhancement Project while the media dragged his name and career through the mud.
He also had reason to believe that SHIELD had interfered in his operations, which was infuriating, because as long as he was standing in this shit pile, he lacked the leverage to do anything about it. He needed a win, the bigger the better.
So when word reached him that Captain America was alive and well and at SHIELD's D.C. headquarters, he knew exactly what he had to do.
X
Fury hadn't skimped on the files. Steve spent the bulk of the afternoon poring over what was in the first couple of boxes—mostly the service records of the Howling Commandos and information about the lives they had lived after the war, all the way up to their obituaries, which were spread out over the last couple of decades, except for Junior, who was killed in action on a mission in '46. Among the Commandos' kids were two Stevens and a Stephanie. Dugan, Pinky, Morita, and Gabe all had grandkids who were now older than they'd been what felt like a couple of days ago to Steve. It made for bittersweet reading material. Steve was happy that so many of his brothers-in-arms had led such fulfilling lives. Really, he was. No one deserved it more. But he hadn't gotten to see any of it. They, like Bucky, were gone.
Next was the box of files on Stark. It came as no surprise to learn that it had taken him much longer to settle down and start a family than the others, but it was good to know that he did stop breaking hearts and get around to it eventually. Entire folders contained nothing but partially redacted schematics and patents for some of his inventions. He'd put a lot of his ingenuity towards weapons technology even after the war ended.
A big chunk of Stark's research had revolved around that glowing blue cube Steve had knocked out of its setting on the Hydra plane. There was a page of notes in Stark's writing from the day he found it. It hadn't been long after Steve's crash, and Stark sounded torn between excitement at the possibilities the cube offered and frustration that there was no longer a trail he could follow in his search of the downed plane. The small, blotched, "What the hell am I supposed to tell Carter?" at the bottom of the page was like a knife in the heart, but Steve allowed himself to hope that maybe Stark was still alive. After everything he'd missed, maybe he could at least remove this one regret from him.
But then he came, abruptly, to a full front page of the Washington Times.
New York, Friday, December 17, 1991.
HOWARD AND MARIA STARK DIE IN CAR ACCIDENT ON LONG ISLAND
He dropped the folder back into the box like it was a poisonous snake.
The top folder in the fourth box had a photograph of Peggy paperclipped to the front. He stood there staring at it as if he had frozen solid again. What was he going to find in there? Was it going to end with another obituary, or a dramatic newspaper article? He didn't know if he could stand seeing that after everything else. He was starting to wish he hadn't asked for these files so soon. He owed it to all of them to read every last word, and it seemed wrong to make them wait even longer on him, but...
The muffled sound of rapidly approaching voices in the hall outside his room broke him out of his thoughts.
"Sir, it's not agency protocol, you can't just—"
"You people can play your secret agent games with someone else. He's Army. If anyone should have the first shot at offering that soldier a future in modern America, it's us, not SHIELD."
The door flew open, revealing a man somewhere around his late fifties, taller than Steve but not quite as broad. His slightly disheveled salt-and-pepper hair and mustache were at odds with the crisp, heavily decorated Army greens that identified him as a three-star general. The much shorter, slightly chubby man who had given Steve his lanyard when he first arrived was trailing in the general's wake, huffing in exasperation.
Steve had rarely worked with anyone higher up than Colonel Phillips, and he had to make a conscious effort not to immediately snap to attention, though he did stand up straighter and turn to face the general fully.
"Captain Rogers," he said, striding into the room. "It's an honor to meet you." He stuck out a large, square hand. "I'm General Ross."
"Sir," said Steve, shaking it.
"It might not be much of a thank you for everything you've done for this country, but I'd like to buy you a drink," said Ross. He said it in that tone superior officers used whenever they were giving you an order but didn't want to explicitly phrase it as one. Given that Steve was not one of this man's soldiers, he wasn't sure how he felt about that, but he'd take just about any excuse to postpone looking at the rest of those files right now.
"I'd appreciate it."
"Fine," said the agent, arms folded and chin jutting out, "but you'll at least have to sign out!"
X
Ross drove him from the Triskelion a few miles to his favorite bar. Steve found it more reassuring than it probably should have been, considering that he wasn't going to be able to get drunk anyway, when the bartender knew what he meant when he asked for a Manhattan. Ross ordered straight whiskey and lit a cigar while they waited for their drinks. He asked Steve a little about his service in World War II and told him some of what his father had done as an officer in the Pacific theater, but he spent a lot more time telling stories about his own experience in the Vietnam War (which Steve had a vague idea of after some of the stuff in the files he'd read).
By about the third whiskey, Ross had developed a habit of calling Steve "son" and slapping him on the shoulder, and he brought the topic around to some of the work he'd done in more recent years. "What Howard Stark and Abraham Erskine pulled off with Project Rebirth was incredible," he said as Steve finished the last of his second drink. "It's a damn shame neither of them lived to see that dream fully realized. In seventy years, the US military has never been able to duplicate it. But now that we have you back," he reached for Steve's shoulder again, "we can finally change that."
Erskine had been one of the few people in Steve's pre-serum life who hadn't dismissed him after a single glance, and he'd had to watch him die. Stark had worked with him and the Commandos for over a year. But the way Ross said their names, they were just faceless men whose only relevance came from achievements he wanted to outdo. Steve had seen ambition and greed before, and it seemed that time hadn't changed much about the way they looked in a person's eye. In Ross's, they were mixed with bitterness and maybe even a little desperation. There couldn't be many people who already knew that Captain America was miraculously still alive, let alone where to find him, and yet this general had shown up in person the first day he was awake, and he was already talking about Project Rebirth.
"You have a lot of experience with attempts to duplicate the super-soldier serum, General?" said Steve, keeping his tone bland. "I get the feeling they didn't go too well."
Ross's grip on his glass tumbler visibly tightened, and he let out a laugh that contained a lot more anger than humor. "You could say that."
"Worse than a Hydra agent blowing up the place, shooting Erskine, and almost escaping with the last vial of serum?"
Ross had enough tact to dial the anger back at the reminder that he wasn't the only one this was personal for. "Our best scientist insisted on being the first test subject."
"Did it kill him?"
"No," said Ross. "It changed him. He destroyed the lab with his bare hands in seconds, and a lot of good people died. Instead of taking responsibility and turning himself in, he went on the run."
He looked like he could go on for quite a while about the fugitive scientist, but that wasn't what Steve was most interested in. "That wasn't the only attempt, was it?" he said. "Were the others before or after that one? How did those go?"
Ross's eyes narrowed and he said nothing, which made Steve suspect that the other attempts had come after and gone even worse. Ross obviously hadn't expected Steve to be this sharp and just as obviously would have preferred it if he wasn't—or at least that the steady flow of drinks might make up the difference.
"We're getting a little far into the weeds," said Ross coldly. He turned to the bartender. "Get him another Manhattan. I'll be back in a minute." Getting up off his stool, he leaned a little closer to Steve. "I hope you'll realize the good we could do for this country by working together."
"Yes sir," said Steve.
Ross made his way down the bar towards the bathroom, and the bartender slid Steve his Manhattan.
"Well if it isn't the American legend in the flesh," said a voice from his right. Steve turned to face the speaker and had to stop himself from staring. The facial hair was wrong and so was the suit, but it was almost like he was looking at an older Howard Stark. "Got a tip you might be up and about. Fury tell you about the Avengers Initiative yet?"
X
The stealth operative was good at her job, but she didn't enjoy it. It was true that there weren't many other professions that would make such effective use of her skills—not respectable ones, at least—, and she couldn't really imagine doing anything else with herself. And yet, the longer she spied and sabotaged and infiltrated and assassinated for SHIELD, the louder the little voice in the back of her mind grew.
"They're only using you," it whispered. "Just ask about their progress again and it'll be the same answer as always. Why would they keep a promise that would only make you useless to them?"
She hadn't given up hope yet, though there were starting to be days when she came very close to it.
Instead of getting a briefing packet on her next mission, she received a personal call from Secretary Pierce. That it was from Pierce wasn't too unusual. She might only be clearance level 5, but her missions never came from anyone lower than level 8. She hated the little thrill of excitement that shot through her, though. If Pierce was personally giving her an assignment, maybe it meant they were making progress.
He met her at a pizza parlor a few miles from the Triskelion, dressed like he was about to go to a baseball game. The place was busy and loud—just hectic enough that no one would pay them any attention. This was lucky, because when Pierce informed her that a couple of mythological figures who turned out to be thousand-year-old aliens had turned up on Earth a few weeks ago, she nearly choked on her root beer in spite of her spy training. She always had to be very careful when she ate or drank anything, because there were a lot of ways it could go wrong, most of them painful. She barely managed not to make a scene.
"It's been less than a month since these Asgardians first showed up, and two of our best assets already trust them. That wouldn't worry me if I could be sure it was mutual. Even the Director isn't being as cautious as I'd like him to be on this. Before we get in any deeper, we need to learn more."
And so of course she was the one for the job. She nodded.
"They'll be back on Earth in a matter of hours. Your assignment is to shadow them and report back directly to me. The intelligence you collect could determine whether we have a viable interplanetary alliance on our hands or an extraterrestrial enemy we need to prepare for, and our best weapon will be that they don't know we suspect anything."
"Understood."
Wasn't expecting to do an entire chapter without any Asgard characters, but given that Steve is kind of in the opposite of Thor's situation (i.e. Thor got to rewind but Steve was fast-forwarded) and I'm about to make it even more insane for him, I felt like I owed him that much. Especially after I realized that the position Thor and Loki's previous adventures on Earth would have left General Ross in would have made Steve look like the perfect thing to save his career, creating an excellent opportunity for intrigue. (In canon, Bruce ended up being the scapegoat, but I feel like Blonsky's and Sterns's deaths would have made that come back around to Ross in this version.)
Ross almost made it out of this timeline with his favorite bar intact, but then he had to go and bring Steve there just when Tony was looking for him. Whoops. Side-note, while I was discussing all these possibilities with my brother, he asked if Tony built the Stark Tower on top of the site where that bar used to be. I could find nothing official to support it, but it's totally my headcanon. (Except in this fic I decided the bar needed to be within easy driving distance of the Triskelion, so it's not canon here.)
Fitzsimmons didn't get to go to Asgard, but at least I found a good cameo for Simmons eventually! Maybe Fitz will get one too at some point. I mean, Eric Koenig got a cameo before he did, and that's just silly.
I'm interested to see if the identity of the stealth operative is easy to guess.
Thanks for all the well-wishes last chapter; the job is safe for now and the higher-ups seem reasonably confident it will stay that way. I hope you're all doing okay, and I hope I can continue to provide good escapism in the form of more chapters. The Lord of the Rings quarantine reread is still going strong. We're in the second chapter of book 2 of Fellowship now, if anyone wants to join in.