Nick Fury
Chapter 1: Nick Fury
It couldn't be true, it wasn't allowed to be true.
Around him stood the strangest buildings he had ever seen. Tall they were, shimmering and not a piece like the familiar brickhouses.
Where the hell was he? The roads were about three times as wide as he had knew and the cars were too strange, as far as someone could still called that cars.
Why was that so?
Why didn't there be the old NY anymore?
Was this New York at all?
All around, everything seemed blurry to him. Thoughts buzzed through his head uninterrupted. All at one moment, floating like water from a broken dam. He ran aimlessly through people and then on the street. Cars honked, people screamed messed up and the hissing sound of passing cars and squeaky tyres filled his ears.
It was horrible. Just like a nightmare.
He kept an eye out for anything familiar, but he couldn't find anything while he was running and overtaking a yellow cab.
He just heard his own rushed breath.
Steve thought back.
The last he could remember was that he had fallen from the red skull into the ice with the Valkyrie and then his memory had stopped working. Shouldn't he be dead long ago?
Why, then, was he still alive?
He ran on the street to get at least a tiny little overview. To no avail.
Disappointment rose in him and the feeling of being absolutely out of place and time. That was him indeed.
Steve hadn't believed in parallel universes, but lately, he strongly doubts that, after the incidents with Schmidt, the thing with the Tesseract and what was happening right here.
Were they even lately incidents?
Something had been changed here. Just staying in the unknown made it much worse.
A pile of human beings assembled around him. With cameras and speakers. Everyone was talking messed up. The panic in Steve grew incredibly quickly and his breath shook while he looked around for help searching.
Suddently black cars parked awry on the street and he felt quite surrounded. Some people in black uniforms stormed out of the SUVs and drove the excited people from TV, newspapers and spectators back, who all wanted to catch a view.
A dark-skinned man came straight towards him but stopped 5 metres behind Steve, who was still frantically searching in the distance .
He looked dangerous. He had no hair on his head and one of his eyes covered up an eye patch.
Some feeling tempted him to trust the man, although he didn't look like that at all. Despite all this, he was calm, watching Steve patiently with his sharp gaze.
The man with the eye-patch waited until Steve turned to him to looked at him.
Who are you?
Hey, soldier. I'm Colonel Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD, which you would have known as the strategic scientific reserve
His voice was serene and Steve tried to listen to him.
Where am I?
46th of Broadway.
I'm sorry about that little show back there, cause we didn’t know what you mental state might be so we thought it best to break it to you slow.
Steve tried to calm down a bit but the surroundings around him were too foreign, too different. Instead, he asked:
Break what?
Fury blinked with his dark eye and answered directly:
You’ve been asleep, cap, for almost 70 years.
Steve breathed in. He didn't felt the rain on his bare feet. Not a bit. 70 years. In the ice. He had missed everything. He had thought he was dead. Instead, he couldn't imagine what was going on right now.
How am I alive?
Being honest with you, we don't really know. My docs said it was the suspended animation could be Doctor Erskines formula, the extreme cold. No no no.
Steve inhaled loudly and asked something else: What about the war? Did we win?
You know, yes. Unconditional surrender. Turning out Hydra was a big part of that but the world hasn't changed all that much. There is still a lot of work to be done. A soldiers work.
The world can still use a man like you, Cap.
Fury reached out his hand and waited for a reaction. Steve watched his opposite suspiciously before reaching out his hand.
The movement hurted a bit. He grabbed the director's hand and held it.
There's a place here for you.
He said that, before releasing Steve's hand.
Steve slowly turned again, looking painfully behind him.
So, you’re alright?
Steve wanted to say something, but something blocked his neck and left his blood cold.
He thought of someone very special.
Peggy.
Where was she?
Was she dead? Steve didn't want to think any further.
He had missed his first chance at a woman. He had just kissed her once. He had planned to dance with her. He remembered again: Saturday night. He had heard her crying just before he flew into the cold water. How she had quietly asked for Steve's name. Until he dived into the freezing depth of the North Pole and thought he would be dead ...
He recalled that Fury was still there.
Steve thought about what he wanted to say. He wanted to make it clear to him that he was fine. Steve felt Fury's eagle vision in his neck.
There was no more rain. And the wet on his feet became uncomfortable.
He chose to respond.
Yeah, yeah, it`s just… I had a date ...