Chapter Text
When she woke up, nothing about her had changed. She crashed into the ice, she was talking to Peggy and Howard, and now she was in a pale bright room with the radio playing. A baseball game she attended in 1941. With Bucky.
She almost closed her eyes and tried to pretend it wasn’t happening. Maybe she could sleep through…everything. But instead, she sat up, and looked around the room. It looked like a hospital room, but a private room seemed strange. Or even the fact that there was a window overlooking New York. It was definitely New York though, she had drawn that skyline from enough different angles to be sure.
It was then that a woman came in. She probably thought she was subtle. But she wasn’t quite comfortable in her clothes, she had probably never worn that outfit before. That all meant that although she looked like a part of the US Army, she wasn’t really.
“Good morning,” the woman said with a little smile. Steve wondered if she was acting, or if she genuinely meant Steve no harm.
“Where am I?” Steve asked as she stood and made herself as aggressive as possible. It wasn’t hard. She was huge and muscular, as much as she might rather be small the way Peggy was.
God, Peggy. Steve hoped she was alright, it seemed like she and Howard and whoever they had working with them, didn’t find Steve, it was someone else, the Germans maybe.
“You’re in a recovery room in New York City,” the woman replied. Steve paused and listened again to the radio. That was definitely the game from May 1941, she remembered the whole thing. She and Bucky went together to the game, and afterwards they had gone back to their apartment and Steve had shown off the dress she had been working on for weeks. It had been almost, but not quite finished. Just a couple seams to finish, but it had looked so good on her, and Bucky had been impressed at least.
“Where am I really?” Steve said. For once she was really appreciating the extra height she gained with the serum.
“I'm afraid I don't understand,” the woman’s voice was soft and hesitant. She really was a terrible actress.
“The game. It's from May, 1941. I know, 'cause I was there. Now I'm going to ask you again. Where am I?” Steve said as she loomed over the woman. Steve almost didn’t see the door opening behind the woman.
“Captain Rogers –” she said, but Steve didn’t really feel like sticking around, but she needed answers.
“Who are you?” The woman didn’t seem inclined to answer and the men rushing into the room behind her looked like they were about to try and take her down. So Steve did what she could, she threw the men through the wall and rushed through after them.
Steve expected to be in another recovery room, or a hallway or something, but the fake room was inside a much larger room. She didn’t stop to examine it all, just ran for the door as fast as she could.
“Captain Rogers, wait!” The woman called after Steve, but she didn’t stop. As Steve flung open the door she heard the woman speaking again. She was calling for a “code 13”, but that meant nothing to Steve, so she decided to keep going.
In the hallway, it was full of people in dark suits, Steve glanced around as fast as she could, and continued running in the direction which seemed less congested. She seemed to be on an upper floor of a building, so she ran around looking for stairs, and once she found them, she ran all the way to the bottom.
Before she knew it she was somehow in the middle of what looked like Times Square, but couldn’t be. The shapes of some the buildings was right, the position of the roads was right, but everything else was wrong. She drew herself to a stop as automobiles surrounded her.
And they were weird looking automobiles too. The lines of them were all wrong, no curves the way she was used to. Well, they had curves, but in all different places.
People were staring at her, and she was officially surrounded by an obscene number of vehicles. It must have been twenty or thirty of them.
A man walked out of one of the vehicles. He was a bigger guy, he was dressed in leather, and he had an eyepatch across one eye. He looked menacing, but no more than Gabe when he was serious, and less menacing than Schmidt. But then, everyone was less menacing than Schmidt when his mask was off.
“At ease, soldier,” the man commanded. Steve didn’t snap to parade pose, which she thought the man probably expected, but also didn’t try to go anywhere.
“Look I'm sorry about that little show back there, but. We thought it best to break it to you slowly,” the man continued after a short pause. Steve looked from the square around her to the man’s face.
“Break what?”
“You've been asleep, Cap,” he said, “For almost seventy years.”
There was a long pause as the man seemed to wait for Steve to speak. She couldn’t seem to find her voice.
70 years, Peggy and Howard were probably dead now too. Probably most of the Howlies too. Certainly any of Steve’s friends from before the war, not that she had many besides Bucky.
Of course, 70 years did explain what had happened to Times Square. Technology, time, and invention it seemed.
“You gonna be okay?” the man eventually asked.
“Yeah,” Steve said slowly, she was still trying to process this information. “Yeah, just...I had a date.”
God that date. Peggy would help her get ready, and Howard would take her out onto the floor. Steve would wear a dress like Peggy’s dress from the bar, she almost swallowed her tongue that night in envy. Maybe she and Peggy would dance too, that would be nice if Steve could wear a dress and have her hair done up and wear some lipstick.
Steve closed her eyes sadly before looking back at the man in front of her.
“I, uh, I guess I’m gonna need a place to stay then, won’t I?” Steve said wrapping the masculine persona more tightly around herself. If she could get a couple of cocky lines out, she could pretend to be the alpha male that she looked like.