Chapter 3
Steve wakes up completely and utterly, one moment nothingness and the next, eyes open, mouth open, his own heartbeat so loud it feels like the end of the world.
“He’s awake,” says the man leaning over him.
His body moving on instinct, Steve’s arm is instantly against the doctor’s windpipe—he doesn’t need to see the white lab coat to know what he is, the clinging hospital smell is enough—and he’s sitting up, glaring at the other two armed men across the room.
The one in the suit moves towards his gun holster. Steve’s arm tightens around the doctor.
“Don’t.” He says, voice icy. His head is swimming. “Where am I?”
“Captain—“ The older man begins, the one smart enough not to reach for his weapon. He doesn’t look surprised, or even afraid, just vaguely frustrated. But Steve has never been great at reading facial expressions and the eyepatch is throwing him off.
“Don’t.” Steve warns him. “Where am I?”
With a put-upon sigh, the man answers, “New York City.”
Steve frowns. That doesn’t sound right. Have they won the war already? Is he on leave? The rush of adrenalin is clouding his mind, making it hard to think through what’s happening when his entire body is screaming at him to move. He needs to be somewhere else, it’s pulling at him, under the skin, shredding his nerves, he needs to—they must be drugging me, he realizes.
Steve rips a handful of tubes out from his arm and the doctor reflexively cries out, “Mr. Rogers, please, those are—“
He increases the pressure against the doctor’s neck and he quickly falls silent. They know his name. Are they good guys? Are they HYDRA? There’s something wrong about the room, about the appearance of the men but his mind is moving too quickly, too frantically to isolate what. The pressure to move-move-move pulls him towards the door.
He stands up, dragging the doctor backward with him, unwilling to turn his back even for a moment. Where is his shield?
“Rogers,” The man in the eyepatch says, placating, spreading his empty palms. “I assure you that you are in no danger. We are on your side.”
Steve ignores him, opening the door to peer into the hallway. The coast is clear.
“Boss?” The man in the suit says tentatively.
His superior shakes his head. “Don’t let—“
Steve uses the distraction to shove the doctor at them and ducks out the door. He takes off at a dead sprint down the hallway, deciding for speed over stealth and follows the pull of move-move-move through the building.
The air pressure changes subtly and Steve realizes that he was being held underground but instead of heading in the direction of the ground-level exit, something inexplicable pushes him upward. Mind still clouded by whatever they were injecting into him—and it must have been strong, to be affecting him so much even with the serum—Steve decides to go with his instincts. He encounters nobody, though he can’t shake the feeling of being watched. He suspects the man with the eyepatch has ordered the way cleared.
Good, he thinks and doubles his pace.
When he bursts, full speed, through the last set of doors onto the flat open track of a helicopter landing strip, the sunlight is almost a physical shock.
The rooftop is not cleared of people; men and women in strange fashions are staring open-mouthed at him like he’s some sort of—and the view past them, the buildings, the overwhelming wrongness—it’s New York, it is, he feels it, but unfamiliar—everything is—and in front of him, a sleek black plane the likes of which he’s never seen before hovers a moment before disappearing over the alien skyline.
Abruptly the urge to move lessens, no longer holding him up. His body shudders, his senses overloading.
"Where am I?" Steve asks, voice cracked, falling to his knees.
Behind him, the man with the eye patch approaches, making sure to maintain a careful distance. Steve is too tired, too confused to fight.
“Welcome to the future, Captain.”
Steve sets his bag of Shield-issued clothing down on the bed and takes a look around at his temporary home. The man with the eyepatch—Fury, he reminds himself—had promised they were working on finding him an apartment in his old neighborhood. He’s not sure that’s a good idea. He's coping better okay although maybe it’s just the sheer overwhelming shock but so far what he’s found most disturbing is when the newness of the future gets mixed with the familiar of his past.
Everyone I have ever known is dead, he thinks not for the first time.
Involuntarily, his fingers twitch towards the line of zeroes at his wrist. His inactive timer is faded, like an old scar. Whether you’ve met them or they’ve died, it’s the same. The countdown is simply over. Steve twists his arm up towards the light to throw the numbers into sharper relief. Something hot and painful twists in his gut, forcing him to look away. Of all the losses he has had to endure since waking up, for some reason this one, ineffable and mourned long ago, haunts him the most.
Steve has known, has always known that the chances of his living long enough to meet his soulmate were slim.
Back before the serum, before the war even, when he was tiny sickly little Steve Rogers, his timer had manifested overnight a few weeks after his fourteenth birthday. That was pretty late for a timer, but he’d always lagged behind his peers. He’s woken up, his wrist burning hot, not painful, just an overstimulation of sensation and he’d known what it was immediately from Bucky’s description and he’d been so excited, so excited until—he’d cried himself sick that night.
He closes his eyes briefly, remembering the warm press of his mother’s hand against his forehead. She knew how to hold him properly so that she could take most of his weight without getting the sick all over herself. Usually, she hummed half-lullabies in his ear but that night she was too sad, just whispering oh Steve in that voice he will later come to associate with her deathbed. It hurts, still.
Seventy years little Stevie had cried miserably into her hair, every sob making his stick-figure ribs rattle like a box of matches, I don’t even know anybody that old, mama.
Steve shakes away the whisper of ohsteveohsteveoh and tugs his sleeve back down over his wrist, forcing himself to ignore it and continue unpacking. He needs to be doing something, the faint hum, the need to move still under his skin, less now than before. More a dull throbbing, the constant beginning of a headache, and he knows the minute he stops to think, he’ll fall apart. It was like that in the war too.
But despite himself, his thoughts drift back to the line of zeroes. Steve has gotten used to the sight since the serum but there’s a difference now that he knows it’s real.
As if to mock him, his fingers brush against a folder at the bottom of the small duffel bag. He pulls it out before he can decide otherwise and flips it open to read “Howard Stark: Deceased”.
His eyes automatically scroll down, looking for the line he hopes will not be there but finds anyway: “Soulmate: Steve Rogers”.
Steve sighs, tossing the file aside. He allows himself to lie back on the bed and look up at the ceiling. It looks freshly painted. Only the best for Captain America, he thinks a little bitterly. He closes his eyes but it doesn’t help. He knows logically that there is no reason for Howard to have come forward with the truth after he was presumed dead but it bothers him, has always bothered him to lie about something so personal. But it had been necessary at the time.
Sick little Stevie Rogers hadn’t shown anyone else his timer but Bucky. That was the first time his friend had gotten him drunk. It didn’t help, and he’ll remember the spanking Miss Barnes gave them even if he sleeps another fifty years away, but at least he knew he’d always have Bucky. Nobody else bothered to find out and Steve was so prone to illness that he was usually bundled up in long sleeves and jackets most of the time anyway. So he’d scooped up all his secret daydreams into a little box in the back of his mind and made a life for himself without it.
He’d tried to enlist over and over again, tried to take the place of someone who had a soulmate who would miss them but nobody would bother looking at him twice.
And then he’d met Howard.
“Look, kid.”
Steve straightens indignantly at the words despite being naked from the waist up and feeling mighty uncomfortable with his odd, too-big countdown at his wrist. Steve narrows his eyes at the young man across from him. Though he was smaller, they were probably the same age.
He just wants this to be over. Medical examinations have always been humiliating.
“My name’s Steve, not kid.” He grits his teeth. He might be weak but nobody who says it to his face will be able to do so without a fight.
The man shrugs, looking impatient. “Howard Stark.”
He taps Steve’s medical file, the large stack of forms that all have DENIED stamped in red across them before glancing at the timer on Steve’s wrist with such shrewd calculation that he finds himself inching backwards, covering the numbers with his other hand.
Howard sighs, like Steve is being childish.
“I requested to be the one to do your physical evaluation, Steve.”
“Why?” Steve asks, utterly confused.
“Because Erskine admires you.” Howard states, like this explains everything. Steve is still confused but a hot spark of something like hope begins to unfurl in the pit of his stomach. Maybe it will not matter that he is weak and under-developed and doesn’t always follow orders and doesn’t always get along with the other boys and—
“But,” Howard continues and the unfolding hope abruptly hardens and becomes stone. “He refuses to conduct the experiment unless the subject has either lost their soulmate or their soulmate consents to the experiment.”
Steve’s limbs feel heavy. His eyelids itch, like he’s about to cry. He swallows the feeling down, returning Howard’s even stare.
“Well, that disqualifies me.” Steve tries to lift his wrist up but can’t. “Clearly.”
Howard pauses a moment, as if rolling the words in his mouth before speaking.
“It doesn’t have to.”
Steve just stares at him, uncomprehending. With an annoyed grunt, Howard yanks the sleeve of his white lab coat up to elbow and brandishes his wrist. The line of faded zeroes are hard to distinguish against his tanned skin.
“I lost mine, couple years ago.” Howard says, shortly. It makes him angry to talk about it. “Never met, but I tracked her down after.”
Howard pulls his sleeve back into place before Steve can think what to say. It’s not uncommon, especially with the war now. Girls all over the country wake up in the middle of the night, wrists burning with a line of zeroes where they once had glowing numbers, knowing somewhere out there someone isn’t making it home to them. Those with active timers have been flocking to the port cities, desperate for a chance to meet their other half for even just a moment before the men are sent out to the front.
Howard is looking at him like he’s expecting a response. Steve shakes himself.
“You want to pretend to be my soulmate then?” There’s no point beating around the bush. There isn’t time.
Howard nods, expression flickering for a second. Steve can’t tell with what, he’s never been very good at reading people.
“How?” Steve tries again and succeeds in lifting his wrist to show off the freakishly large number. The biggest he’s ever heard of. The heaviness in his limbs has dissipated, replaced by a strange tension, nervous but determined. It’s the way he feels before a fight he knows he’s going to lose. So, the way he feels before a fight. “It’s clear you ain’t mine.”
His expression still edged with something Steve can’t identify, Howard reaches into the pocket of his lab coat and withdraws a small rectangular patch of what looks like human skin. Steve’s face contorts in disgust.
“It’s synthetic,” Howard tells him, annoyed. “The British developed them for espionage, to hide the identities of their agents or help them assume new ones.”
Steve nods, slowly, inching forward. He takes the strange patch from Howard and examines it, holds it up to the light. His artist’s eye informs him that it’s not an exact match for his skin color but it’s pretty close.
“How long does it last?” He asks finally.
“Up to three months. I’ll provide you with a fresh one when the time comes.” Howard answers, studying him closely. He changes tact abruptly. “You seem remarkably calm about this.”
Steve blinks up at the other man and realizes that it’s true.
“I—“ Steve takes a deep breath, trying to get his thoughts in order. “I need this.”
He tries to say more, to explain the utter agony of watching everyone around him going out to fight, to die, and him sitting useless and alone at home as the apartment falls apart around him. How frustrating it is to be born with the urge to protect and have no ability to do so. Steve has been fighting since the day he was born, too early and too small and too sick. The doctor had advised his mother not to name him so that she wouldn’t get attached. But he’s still here, heart beating through sheer will.
His throat closes suddenly and none of the words come out but Howard seems to understand anyway. He nods once and steps back towards the door.
“I’ll inform Dr. Erskine that I give my consent,” Howard says over his shoulder and gestures towards the patch of skin in his hand. “You should make sure that’s in place before you leave here, just in case.”
“Wait!” Steve says, jumping to his feet. Howard pauses, looking irritated.
“What are you getting out of this?”
Howard tilts his head, considering the question for so long that Steve thinks he’s not going to answer. But then, with a drawn-out sigh, the other man replies.
“If you survive, it will help speed up my plans considerably to have a super soldier as my soulmate. The default clearance level alone, well.” Howard shrugs, sweeping him with a look both incredibly impersonal and deeply bitter. It’s as if he’s been cut open like a science experiment and found disappointing. Steve doesn’t flinch. He’s been getting that look for years.
Howard turns away and whispers, almost to himself. “Her name was Ruth Carbonell.”
And then Steve is alone again, half-naked and uncomfortable with the weight of his countdown at his wrist heavy as a shackle as he holds the promise of the future in his hand and wonders if he’s stupid enough to grab it and run.