Chapter Two

"The Mandarin's actually real!"

The next night, after undertaking a mission to defuse a hostile hostage situation in San Francisco, I headed down to the local bar. Even though the serum prevented the possibility of getting drunk after consuming stuff like beer, it didn't stop a guy like the famous Captain America from visiting a bar or a restaurant. Plus, the nearest bar was in downtown Brooklyn.

I entered the bar, dressed like a normal guy. The place looked very lively, music played over a jukebox and a couple folks gathered around a TV to watch a ball game. Back in the 1940s, something like this was very unthinkable. But when it came to changing times, many things had to change as well.

"And what'll it be, Captain Rogers?" The bartender asked. He was an elderly man with a grey-white hair comb mustache and seemed to be old enough to have served in the United States army during the war, the man had glasses over his eyes and decent wrinkles on his face. Many people referred to him as Stan, they even said that he was the nicest guy around.

"Some fine Brooklyn Bourbon, please." I replied.

"Excellent choice, true believer."

I sat down at the nearest table and Stan delivered the bourbon, which he poured into a wine glass. Before helping myself to the drink, I ordered some bread and a waiter went to get it. All around, people were talking and sharing drinks while they swapped stories. A few talked about what they did during the holidays and some talked about aliens.

Who could blame anybody for wanting to discuss aliens? The Battle of New York was the event that made the world aware of alien life beyond the planet. Thor was practically an alien since Asgard was another world in a distant galaxy. After what happened with Loki, everything wasn't going to be the same now that we knew we weren't alone in the universe.

Plus, at this point, the existence of Thor and Loki proved there was truth to the Norse legends of Asgard. To even think that our planet Earth was Midgard, one of the nine realms, was insane as well. But it would probably be a while before I even got to see Asgard, assuming that Odin didn't have a ridiculous rule stating that nobody from Midgard could visit his realm.

Bells frequently chimed whenever the door opened and customers walked into the bar or left after they had their drinks, Stan prepared whatever drinks that were ordered while other waiters did their part in serving the customers their meals. My waiter soon arrived at my table with the ordered bread on a silver plate and put it down next to the bourbon glass.

The waiter left to take care of another bar patron's order, leaving me at the table to help myself to my meal without having to worry about any issues whatsoever. Every now and then, the bartender would change the channel on the TV whenever somebody wanted to know about what was going on in the world instead of watching sports.

However, there were still people who wanted to see the ongoing football game and, after playing the news for a while, Stan switched back to the sports channel. The jukeboxes switched between playing old songs from the 30s and 40s to entirely new songs that had been produced during the 1980s and the decade leading up to my unfreezing.

I began to drink the bourbon and dug into the bread at my table, not wishing to hold back on eating or drinking as it wouldn't be fair to not eat and drink what I'd just ordered. The bourbon tasted decent for a nicely made beverage and the bread didn't taste stale, it tasted very crunchy and perfectly sliced enough for consumption without any issue.

The event of choking on food was very rare, unless you were eating too fast or forgot to decently cut up a piece of your own food. I hadn't choked on anything in my life, sure I swallowed a piece of meat the wrong way once, but that didn't count as choking. I ate slowly and made sure to taste some bourbon after swallowing a piece of bread. Darn, it really did taste good.

A couple guys walked past my table and sat down at the nearest table across from mine, one of them was a Hispanic-looking guy with a mustache and a nice smile. They'd just ordered up some wine and were about to share their drinks together with not even a care in the world. "Hey." A black man accompanying the Mexican had spotted me, "You're Captain America, right?"

"Yup." I replied, "That's me, Captain Steve Rogers."

"Quite the debacle over the holidays, huh?" An Asian man asked.

"It sure was. Thank goodness the crisis was settled."

"Just remarkable." The black man added, "I never believed the Mandarin existed anyway."

"Oh, dude." The Hispanic said with a crazed look, "The Mandarin's actually real!"

"The Mandarin's actually real?!" A customer cried aloud.

And just like that, all activity in the bar seemed to cease. Almost everyone in the room looked at each other, one guy coughed and took a drink. I raised an eyebrow, unable to completely comprehend what I had just heard. Just when it looked like "The Mandarin" had been only a legend and was played by some British actor, something just had to come up.

"How the hell do you know that, Luis?" The Asian asked.

Luis, the Hispanic, became wide-eyed and looked at his pals as I became curious about where this was going. "I met a guy who knows a dude who ran into another guy working for the Ten Rings." Luis said, "It was the other day at the mall, I was out shopping when I bumped into a guy as he was looking for a gift to give his girlfriend.

"We started talking about what happened over the holidays and he said that 'The Mandarin' was actually real. 'I know this guy.' He said and then started talking about the Ten Rings agent he ran into during New Year's. Thankfully, the man was civil enough to speak with the guy I was talking to and spilled the beans on everything about The Mandarin' existence.

"Now, in the months prior to the Fake Mandarin deal, the Ten Rings had been inactive after one of their operations went south and the real Mandarin was planning something big. When the fake Mandarin deal came up, one of the Ten Rings agents told the Mandarin about this and the Mandarin's all like, 'How dare someone impersonate me, I'll make 'em pay.'

"So, the agent tells the guy, who tells the other fella at the mall, who tells me that The Mandarin's followers are getting ready for something big and now the Ten Rings are resuming their infamous worldwide terrorist operations. They have plans for an attack on a French museum, an Austrian apartment bombing and an attack in Brooklyn."

After hearing everything from Louis, everyone in the room felt uneasy. Me, I was just taking my time to process the whole story. The idea that a madman would use an actor to impersonate a terrorist leader was already crazy, but to think that the impersonated terrorist was real was something else entirely. If The Mandarin was out there, that meant trouble for the world.

"When are the terrorist attacks gonna take place?" Luis' Asian pal asked.

"They're happening this week, Kezu." Luis replied, "From what I heard."

"If those crooks attack Brooklyn," A nearby customer commented, "It better not be nearby."

I finished drinking my bourbon and eating every last piece of bread at the table, still processing everything that I'd just heard. It took time to think of something to say in regards to everything. But before anything could come to the surface, the sound of a loud explosion rattled the windows and shook the bar. "Sounds like it came from across the street." A bar customer commented.

Just then, gunfire started going off and people screamed. Everyone in the bar took cover as somebody yelled outside and more explosions took place. I ducked just in case any bombs were thrown at the bar. If I had my shield with me, the situation wouldn't be much of an issue. However, tonight was supposed to be refreshing and not a time to be Captain America.

"Well, Luis. It sounds like a terrorist attack is in progress." Kezu remarked, "Nice job on giving us all a heads-up ahead of time in regards to the fact that The Mandarin exists." The window shattered and a cylinder-shaped object landed on the floor, emitting smoke throughout the entire room and I instantly recognized it as a smoke grenade.

"BOMB!" A customer shouted in alarm.

'Nothing to worry about.' My super soldier instincts kicked in and I dove towards the smoke grenade, grabbed it and threw it out the window right before it exploded. "Nice job there, Cap!" A customer wearing a Yankee cap shouted encouragingly. We all lay low until the sounds of gunfire and explosions stopped, then we raised our heads and looked around.

The TV and the jukeboxes had deactivated and an uneasy silence filled the bar, I left a tab on the table for the bartender and stepped outside. Sirens were wailing and the cops were on the scene, trying to calm down a couple bystanders while many injured people were carried away in ambulances on stretchers. Firefighters arrived on the site and were working to put out fires.

Luis stepped outside, completely shocked. "Whoa." He said, "I'll tell ya, this was no domestic terrorism attack. It was the Ten Rings, after all, the Ten Rings agent did say that the Rings would be attacking Brooklyn. There's no doubt that the other attacks probably happened too."

My blood turned ice-cold in my veins, but this wasn't due to fear, this was the feeling that something had to be done. While Tony and the other Avengers were probably not too worried about dealing with terrorists at this time, I was. If The Mandarin was at large, someone had to take care of him just as Red Skull had been dealt with years before.

'Time to gear up.' I thought...