S I X T E E N

16. | the legend's awakening.
heroes always get remembered
but you know legends never die

steve.

•

MY HEAD pangs. Through the ringing in my ears, I hear the sound of a radio and the honking of car horns outside. My eyelids are heavy over my closed eyes, but I still force them open because I don't have a clue to where I am. I am greeted by a low natural light, like the morning sun shining through the windows. I take a deep breath as I survey the room.

It is quite small, like a hospital room. From my twin-sized bed, I stare up at the slowly rotating ceiling fan that continuously whirls around in a circle. The thin curtains are pulled to the sides of the window on the wall to my right, allowing the bright sunlight to shine across my bed, that and a small lamp on the nightstand being the only sources of light. Underneath it is a air conditioning unit that sends cool air through the room. Excluding the green paint of the walls, everything is either white or tan colored, like the sheets that are tucked in underneath me.

I start to move myself off the creaky bed, slowly and carefully swinging my legs over the side. As I look down at my feet, I notice that I'm no longer wearing my Captain America uniform — I have on an SSR white short sleeved shirt, tan pants, and brown boots, not exactly what a patient would be wearing.

I try to piece everything together. I was last on that Hydra plane, where Schmidt had died and the cube had fallen into the ocean after sinking right through the metal floor. I had gone to pilot when I connected the radio to the base I had left everyone at. I was speaking to Gen over it before I had hit the ice, about to tell her that I l—

Gen.

Where is she?

My heart hammers inside my chest as I glance over my shoulder at the radio. It rests on a small vanity table with a vase of white roses next to it. It is playing someone commentating a baseball game. It sounds awfully familiar, but I can't place my finger on it.....

I'm drawn out of my thoughts by the door quietly opening. There is a woman there. Not the one I was hoping for, but still someone. At first glance, she would look like a normal nurse you would pass in the compound in London, but then I take a closer look. Her hair is the first thing I notice. It is curled, but very loose and long. Not even Gen, who couldn't care any less of what people think of her, would have been caught dead with curls that loose. The brown tie she wears is a lot thicker and longer than the ones I've seen female soldiers around the compound wear, too. Then I see the outline of something around her chest under her shirt. I immediately take my eyes back to her hair, but I can't help but notice how odd it looks. I can see the bra that she's wearing, and it's like one I've never seen before. I know that all women around here have a specific wardrobe cut when it comes to that stuff, and this dame would certainly be shamed if they saw. That alone tells me something.

Something's not right here.

Her red lips give me a quick smile.

"Morning," she greets, shutting the door quietly behind her. She glances down at her watch, correcting herself as she steps towards me with her heels clicking behind her. "Or should I say afternoon."

"Where am I?" I ask in a deep and serious voice.

At just watching the nurse hesitate for a second makes me want to completely abandon this room and bolt to see where I am and what the hell is going on.

"You're in a recovery room in New York City," she answer, interwinding her fingers together in front of her.

I look over her again, just to make sure that I wasn't hallucinating the first time. But sure enough, all of the weird things are still there. I glance back at the radio, and then at her again.

"Where am I really?" I ask her loudly.

The nurse laughs nervously. "I'm afraid I don't understand."

"The game," I growl. "It's from May 1941. I know because I was there."

The woman's face falls.

I slowly stand from the bed, eyeing her closely as I step towards her. "So I'm gonna ask you again, where am I?"

"Captain Rogers—" I hear something click faintly, but I'm too blinded by rage and confusion to notice.

"Who are you?" I shout.

The door reopens. There are two men in black clothes that stand there behind her, ready to attack. Before they can though, I bash them both against the wall. The green and white painted walls crumble down to reveal something outside, like a whole other room. I glance over at where one of the windows was to see a projection of a city that acted as the outside world.

"Captain Rogers! Wait!" the "nurse" shouts, but it's too late. I'm already sprinting towards the actual door.

I swing the doors open, rushing out into a hallway. There are many people dressed in fancy black suits, sipping coffee and chatting to coworkers. I notice the paper cups they use have inked words on the sides telling what they're drinking. That must've taken forever to type and paste on there.

The woman have their hair in buns or straight down to their shoulders. Men have clean cut hair, some with stubble or beards or are clean shaven. They're all different in this bright room lined with windows.

The nurse's voice rings through the building, talking about a code thirteen. The people in the hallways seem to drop everything — their fancy cups of coffee, their conversations, everything — to chase after me. I shove through them, trying to find the front door of this odd and alien-like place. I eventually find it after I push the large glass doors open.

I shove through the people outside of the building, running into the street. A car that looks boxy and new honks its horn at me as I stand in the middle of the cement street. I look up at the tall new buildings in the city, all of which seem to have risen overnight. I sprint alongside the cars once I see some people emerge from the building I just escaped from.

I wind through the street, finding my way to what seems to be a hotspot of the city. There are people everywhere, all wearing obscure things that I would have never even dreamed of, and colorful shining lights everywhere I look. Just those seem magical, the automatically changing digital boards on the sides of buildings, that show advertising for things that I've never even heard of, like something called an "American Eagle Outfitters." There are cars and people and all sorts of things that add to the chaos near the place called "Bank of America," but my mind is what is the craziest right now. I don't know where I am, and I seem to have left Earth altogether.

Once I turn around again, big shining black cars form a barricade in the street around me.

"At ease, soldier!" I hear a voice shout over the sounds of guns cocking towards me. I turn back around to see where the voice came from only to see a man wearing all black and an eyepatch over his left eye. He steps towards me, and I have to fight the urge to attack or start backing away.

My heart feels like a hammer inside my chest, tearing at the insides of me. My head swims in confusion and fear, but I just have to listen to this man. Yeah, that's all I have to do so he can take me back home.

"Who are you?" I ask him defensively.

"Colonel Nick Fury," the man replies snarkily. "Director of SHIELD. You would have known us as the Strategic Scientific Reserve."

"Where am I?" I question Fury next.

"Forty-sixth and Broadway," Fury answers, glancing down the streets. "Look, I'm sorry about that little show back there," the man apologizes. "We didn't know what your mental state might be, so we thought it best to......break it to you slowly."

"Break what?" I ask him, still panting heavily.

Fury blinks. "You've been asleep, Cap, for almost seventy years."

Asleep? For seventy years? How is that even possible? No, seventy years. That means it must be in the 2010s. I've skipped seventy years of my life. If I've been gone for seventy years, that means everyone I know is either in a nursing home or dead.

Gen.

Where is she? What's happened to her? Did she have a life after I "died"? Did she marry someone and have a family? Or did she........ No, I can't afford to think like that. But if she had a life, everything I wanted, everything I was about to have, just sped by me while I was rooted to the ground. While everyone lived their lives, I was stuck somewhere not aging. Now they're ninety years old or dead while I'm still twenty-seven. I just lost my whole life.

I now have nothing.

I breathe heavily, trying not to pass out. The corners of my vision seem to go black, but then I can see again. It's like unconsciousness is playing a sick game with my tortured mind.

"H-H-How am I alive?" I ask Director Fury in less than a whisper.

Fury sighs. "Well, to be honest with you, we don't really know. The docs say it was suspended animation. Coulda been Dr. Erskine's formula, the extreme cold, I don't know."

I take a deep breath. They don't even know how I'm not a popsicle in the Arctic? What kind of division is this?

"W-What about the war?" I ask him to lighten the mood for myself a bit. "Did we win?"

"Hell yes, unconditional surrender and taking down Hydra was a big part of that," Fury says. "But the world hasn't changed all that much. There's still a lot of work to be done, a soldier's work. The world could still use a man like you, Cap."

I clench my jaw, still trying to keep myself together. I look down at Fury's outstretched hand that is reaching towards me, reluctantly taking it and shaking his hand in polite greeting.

"There's a place here for you," he reassures me.

I release his calloused and worn hand, not saying anything back. There is no place for me because I have no place. The only place that I might have is back in the forties, where I belong.

I turn around away from Fury, trying not to let him see my emotions.

"You sure you're okay?" he asks me.

I want to just scream at the tops of my lungs, "The hell I'm not okay! I just woke up seven decades from when I died. How the hell would you think that feels?" but I can't do that. I can't tell him the truth because I'll just seem like some batty old man and he'll put me in a mental ward. So I just say, "Yeah. Yeah, I just.....I had a date."