Chapter 1
“There’s not much more we can do for him.”
The doctor doesn’t meet their eyes and Coulson doesn’t blame him. Who wants to be the one to tell the Director that Captain America, miraculously recovered and somehow alive, will not be waking up in time to participate in Fury’s carefully laid plans? Besides him, his boss radiates displeasure like a nuclear reactor in meltdown. He hates going back to the drawing board.
“Not much more, doctor? That’s not nothing more.” Fury has a habit of stating everything like a God-given fact. It makes it very hard to disagree with him. “Do you like your job, Richard?”
The doctor splutters. Fury makes vague threats. Coulson says nothing.
All in all, not much different than their last few visits.
Coulson sighs, smoothing one hand down across his suit jacket where the rectangular bump of his plastic-encased trading cards made a slight bump in the fabric of his inner pocket. He’d spent his first Shield paycheck on an engraved special silver issue Steve Rogers card, more years ago now than he'd like to admit. It was one of only 50 similar prints that depicted a pre-serum Captain America.
The body of the man on the bed before them now couldn’t have been more different physically. Even hooked to multiple whirring machines, his presence seemed to fill the space with an easy confidence. A perfect human specimen. And yet, he thinks to himself. There was something fragile about his face. Not a weakness, but a delicacy. A thoughtfulness not usually found in ones born strong.
He knows what it’s like to struggle, Coulson decides. Let’s hope he continues to fight.
“Is he or is he not perfectly healthy?” Fury demands to know.
“Of course sir, but please understand—“ The doctor is trying to reason with Fury, who’s got that stubborn look in his good eye that usually means Coulson is about to be doing a lot of paperwork.
Coulson moves closer to the bed and takes a seat in the only chair. He studies the quiet face of his childhood hero, watches the minute flaring of his nostrils as the man on the table breathes out, and compares the real thing to the likenesses he has been collecting over the years. With the slack expression of unconsciousness, the Captain looks younger. Younger than me, Coulson realizes suddenly and it makes him feel tired.
A sudden ding makes him look up. Unlike all the other hospital machinery, that is a sound every person of every age would recognize. Before the doctor can stop him, Coulson folds back the white sheet covering Steve Roger’s right arm and turns his wrist to reveal a string of glowing numbers against his pale wrist.
00. 24. 00.
As Coulson stares as the numbers continue to tick down. A frown creases his forehead as he looks to Fury who seems equally nonplussed.
“I thought Rogers zero-ed out the year before he enlisted?” He asks his boss, a little annoyed to have one of the facts on the back of his trading cards be proven wrong. “It was never disclosed to the public, but Shield kept—“
“Shield did.” Fury says.
At the dark look Fury shoots him, Coulson forces himself to swallow back his questions for a more ideal time. Usually that means the secretly successful toppling of a rival government agency and a lot of authentic vodka. He makes a mental note on his calendar for Thursday night.
“But how?” Coulson asks the doctor, who looks like he’d rather be dangling over a pit of lava than facing the increasingly irate-looking Director. “I thought timers couldn’t reset. Can a person have more than one soulmate?”
The doctor shakes his head vehemently.
“It’s not possible.” The harassed-looking man spreads his hands in a gesture of frustration. “We don’t know what’s happening. It could be that being frozen for so long is causing a malfunction or that we’re dealing with an unidentified virus, which could also be keeping the patient dormant. We just don’t have enough information. We’ve been running tests but, as you can see, Rogers is in perfect health.”
The doctor almost looks annoyed about this fact. Then the irritation faded and he added, carefully, "Still, there's a chance..."
Fury twitches towards him slightly, as if fighting the urge to slap the information out of him.
“What?” His boss demands, baring his teeth.
“We’re hopeful that when the timer zeroes out, it could jolt him out of his coma.”
Slowly, terrifying, Fury starts to smile. The doctor takes a prudent step backward, showing a healthy sense of self-preservation in Coulson's private opinion, but the Director ignores him, dismissing his presence now that he has the answers he wants. He checks his watch.
“Coulson,” Fury says, sweeping out of the room, “Push our plan back by half an hour.”
Getting to his feet reluctantly, Coulson pulls the bed sheets back into place and follows his boss back to work with an internal sigh. So much paperwork.