N I N E T E E N

19. | meeting the gang.
even the most different
people can band together

steve.

•

THE PLANE'S engine whirls in my ears as we fly towards our destination. After telling Fury that I was in, he sent one of his most trusted to escort me — Agent Coulson. He has taken me on this plane so that we can get on "something much bigger than it," as I was told.

"We're about forty minutes out from home base, sir," one of the two pilots informs Coulson from the front of the plane.

I scroll through the electronic "tablet" I was given in my seat, trying to comprehend the profiles of these people I'm supposed to be teaming up with to stop Loki and retrieve the Tesseract. I stop at one person in particular, one that caught my eye.

"So this Dr. Banner was trying to replicate the serum they used on me?" I ask Coulson.

"A lot of people were. You were the world's first superhero," Agent Coulson tells me, stepping over closer to me as he speaks. "Banner thought gamma radiation might hold the key to unlocking Erskine's original formula."

I force back a scoff as I click on a video that shows Dr. Banner in his green, raging form. Yeah, he tried. "It didn't really go his way, did it?"

"Not so much," Coulson sighs. "When he's not that things though, the guy's like a Stephen Hawking." He ends with a smile, acting as if I know who that is. I glance up at him with raised eyebrows, hoping that will give him a hint. "Oh, he's like a......smart person."

Another thing to research when I have the time. Apparently this Stephen Hawking is revolutionary, yet he's somebody I don't know.

"I-I gotta say, it's an honor to meet you," Agent Coulson smiles awkwardly. It's really just the corners of his mouth turning up in an effort not to burst out with.....something, I'm assuming song after what he just said. "Officially," he adds.

I raise an eyebrow. I halfway want to know what he means by "officially," but at the same time I don't. Anyways, I'm honored by him saying the first part, so I politely smile.

"I sorta met you," he continues, trying to clear up the creepiness, but only making it worse. "I mean, I watched you while you were sleeping."

That's not creepy at all. Definitely not.

I conceal my fading smile by glancing down at the tablet again, trying to erase what the poor man said from my head.

"I mean, I was present while you were unconscious," Coulson stutters, "f-from the ice."

I just stand from my seat and head towards the front of the plane, trying to escape the weirdness for the both of us. Yet he follows me anyways, still trying to make decent conversation.

"Y-You know, it's really— it's really just a huge honor to have you on board." Coulson comes up beside me as I lean again the wall with my hand on the archway leading to the cockpit. He follows my lead, taking the same exact position on the opposite side.

"Well I really hope I'm the man for the job," I mumble quietly.

"Oh, you are. Absolutely," Coulson says almost instantly. He nods quickly, glancing towards the front of the plane. "We, uh, made some modifications to your uniform. I had a little design input."

"The uniform?" I ask him. "What, the stars and stripes a little.....old fashioned?"

Coulson seems to wince. "With everything that's happening, the things that are about to come to light, people might just need a little old fashioned."

[•]

A little while later, we finally land. And Coulson was right — this place is a whole lot bigger than the plane. It's the helicarrier, I was told. It's in the middle of the ocean and is about the size of a few blocks in Manhattan. As Coulson leads me off the plane, I can't help but stare in awe at it. I've never seen anything like this in my times.

"Agent Romanoff," Coulson says to a woman with bright red hair that greets us after we step off the plane, "this is Captain Rogers."

I nod politely to her. "Ma'am."

"Hi," she says in a soft and velvety voice. She looks over at Coulson. "They need you on the bridge. They're starting the face trace."

"See you there," Agent Coulson says. He cuts in between Agent Romanoff and I and heads towards another part of the helicarrier, leaving me with the redhead.

"It's quite the buzz around here, finding you in the ice," Agent Romanoff tells me as we walk. "Thought Coulson was gonna swoon. Did he ask you to sign his Captain America trading cards yet?"

"Trading cards?" I ask her.

Romanoff shrugs. "They're vintage. He's very proud."

Just as we pass by another plane, someone familiar catches my eye. He's hunched over shyly as he looks over the plane, taking off his thin glasses. He's nothing like the green man I saw tearing things apart on the tablet.

"Dr. Banner!" I call.

He looks around nervously for a moment, wondering who's called his name. His eyes finally lock with mine, quickly darting away to my hand as he shakes it. "Oh yeah, hi," he says. "They told me you'd be coming."

"Where'd you even find the cube?" I ask him, referring to the blue Tesseract.

"Is that the only word on me?" he questions worriedly. I'm not Genevieve, but I can pretty much deduce that this man doesn't enjoy being in the limelight.

"The only word I care about," I say.

Banner glances around the helicarrier for a moment, desperately changing the subject. "Must be strange for you, all this." I look back over all the things here — the people, the technology, the buzz.

"Well," I confess as I catch a gaggle of soldiers running as a commander orders them, "it's not all that different."

"Gentlemen, you might want to step inside a minute. It's gonna get a little hard to breathe," Romanoff pipes up, deepening her voice in a mocking yet seductive-like tone. And I don't get it. I'm about to ask her why until I hear things start churning.

Metal against metal grinds towards the bottom of the helicarrier, causing the ocean waves to crash against it. It sounds awfully familiar, but I can't place my finger on it.

"Is this a submarine?" I ask, still not quite sure what this place actually is.

"Really?" Banner laughs. "They want me in a submerged, pressurized metal container?" He leads me towards the edge of the drop-off. Around a metal core, waves surge like the center is the eye of a hurricane. The wind rips through my hair as the circular disks on the outside of the helicarrier whirl around, making us hover above the water. So I guess this place is exactly the opposite of what I thought.

"No, no, this is much worse," Dr. Banner remarks with a sarcastic smile as I realize.

A while after the show of the helicarrier flying, Agent Romanoff leads Banner and I inside. My jaw is dropped from the moment we do. There are other agents everywhere, all seeming to have a particular job that they are working on. They all rush around, type at computers, spectate someone at a computer, all doing their jobs as they are in a flying aircraft. I smile at it all. Bucky would've loved this.

I spot Director Fury amongst the organized chaos, who seems to be leading it all. After all, this is SHIELD's aircraft. Just before he can walk by me, I dig in my pocket for some cash. After finding a ten dollar bill, I hand it over to Fury. He takes it in between his calloused fingertips, smirking in satisfaction.

I'm drawn from my thoughts by hearing Agent Coulson's voice again. "We're sweeping every assessable camera on the planet — cell phones, laptops, if it's connected to a satellite it's eyes and ears for us."

That alone impresses me.

I hear more conversation between Fury and Banner, Banner asking for a lab and Fury sending Romanoff to take him to one available. They leave me with Coulson, which makes me want to groan.

"I mean, if it's not too much trouble," he says.

"No, no, it's fine," I reply.

"It's a vintage set," Coulson chimes proudly. "Took me a couple years to collect them all. They're mint, a bit foxing around the edges but—"

Coulson is interrupted from his talk about vintage Captain America trading card sets by an agent at a beeping computer. "We got a head. Sixty-seven percent match. Wait, crossed matched, seventy-nine percent," the agent says.

Agent Coulson steps up to the computer behind him, completely forgetting about the cards. "Location," he orders.

"Stuttgart, Germany, 28 Konigstarsse," the agent replies. "He's not exactly hiding."

"Captain."

I turn around to see Fury looking down at me with all seriousness, saying, "you're up."

I gulp. Time to do what I came here for — to fight.

I'm led to a room inside the helicarrier that holds my new uniform and my freshly painted shield. They are both in a display case at the end of the corridor, beautifully and carefully made with the most color I've ever seen in my life. Vibrant reds and blues pop against the whites, showing that Coulson wasn't lying when he said it was patriotic. I like it though, despite being able to see it from a mile away. It gives it that old fashioned sense of hope, like the one Gen always told me I have to the people during the war times when I sold war bonds in their towns. I just tell myself that I'm doing that again: giving people hope during the darkest of times.