Chapter 6
Sleep eluded Steve these days. Given how long he had slept in the ice, he was a bit shocked he needed it at all, and as quick and remarkable as his recovery had been, at least to Dr. Ross and Dr. Young, he still hadn’t found a good rhythm to his rest. Like everything else in his life, it too was out of step.
He’d rediscovered Goldie’s while showing Peggy around Brooklyn, but hadn’t gone in. He did so on one of his rambles through the old neighborhood, more out of curiosity than anything. He’d been delightfully surprised - and perhaps a bit dismayed - to find it hadn’t really changed all that much from the days he and Bucky used to work there; Steve doing basic janitorial and clean up, Bucky teaching young kids coming in how to throw their first punch. Everything Steve had ever learned of boxing he’d learned from Goldie Goldberg, a rough and tumble Jewish ex-fighter with a squashed tomato of a nose and fists the size of small hams. Back in the day he’d been a champion, but he’d gotten out of the game after one hit too many and had settled down to build a gym and raise a family. He and Bucky had known his kids growing up, and Goldie had always looked out for the two of them, despite them being a couple of Irish Catholic altar boys. He was always slipping them an extra $10 or $20 when he could, bidding them to go to church on Sundays and see Mrs. Barnes, '‘cause a mother worries."
Goldie had died long ago, but his place remained, now managed by a great-grandson, Sammy, a bald, tattooed version of his grandfather, who took one look at Steve when he entered and recognized who he was. Of course Captain America was known in the Goldberg household! Goldie had photos of him up in his office! After all, he’d trained at Goldie’s Gym, hadn’t he? He’d taken Steve’s half-baked explanations of the serum and being frozen in ice with more grace than Steve through anyone would, and simply shrugged and said he was welcome there any time, day or night, the gym was his. It was a small step to regaining a piece of normalcy, but Steve took it.
So on nights like this, when he lay in the too soft bed in Peggy’s spare bedroom, he would creep out of his room, dressed for the gym, and make his way over to Brooklyn in the darkness. Even then, the city was busy, the early hours of the deep night teaming with people on the trains, all of whom minded their own business as he sat in silence, watching Brooklyn approach across the East River. Few people tended to bother him, even this late at night, a change from his pre-serum days when he’d been a target to anyone big enough they thought they could make him an easy target.
Goldie’s was open, even at this ungodly hour, a change from the old days when Goldie would send everyone home so he could close up shop and leave for his family. In 21st century New York, physical fitness was a thing, and people from all walks of life flocked to gyms of all sorts, many of them in the wee hours after late night shifts or before early ones, and so Goldie’s stayed open, allowing night owls in. Steve had run across a few who frequented it at the same times he did. There was a cop who was in every night meeting with an ex-con he knew, the pair often working out and sparring together. Steve guessed one was keeping tabs on the other. He’d met a kid from Puerto Rico who moved there as a child, looking no bigger than Steve had, who had started coming to learn how to protect himself on his nights coming home from his hospital job. There were other characters who wandered in and out of the gym on late nights he knew less well. They would occasionally chat him up, even ask for a bout, which he usually tried to get out of gracefully, and lacking that, he’d at least go easy on them for fear of causing real damage. For the most part, everyone tended to keep to themselves, using this space as their quiet time to think and ruminate. Steve was glad he wasn’t alone in that.
Tonight, however, the place was empty, save for D’Anthony sitting at the front desk. Tall and heavy, he reminded Steve of Goldie in his elder years, an ex-boxer gone to seed, but still powerful if he wanted to be. Right now he clearly didn’t want to be, as he hid his nose behind an actual printed paper, a sight that Steve rarely saw people doing anymore.
“Anything good in there,” he asked, conversationally.
D’Anthony lowered one corner of the paper, long enough to snort and eye Steve skeptically. “Shiiiit, nah, everything is going to hell in a handbasket, same as always.” He snorted, setting it down enough to push over the sign in and take Steve’s $20 for some time at the bag. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“Nope,” he muttered, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “Got the heavy bags in the back?”
“Yep, do what you got to do, boss. Place is all yours tonight.”
“Thanks,” he murmured, wandering to the far corner of the gym, where the heavy bags lay. Until his return to life in the 21st century, he hadn’t been back to the musty old gym with its creaking floorboards and faded artwork since before the war, and certainly not since he had taken the serum. That first night he’d returned, he’d busted the bag he had been working over within an hour, sending sand everywhere. D'Anthony merely shrugged as Steve had sheepishly handed over enough money to buy several, all of which D'Anthony now kept on rotation for him. One-by-one he would hang them on the hook, one by one he’d eventually slap them against the wall, sending a spray of course grains all across the scuffed floor. He’d take it down, set it aside, grab the next, until he was exhausted. As hospitable as his great-grandfather, Sammy would then send the busted ones for repair and Steve would start the cycle again. It wasn’t as if he meant to send them flying, far from it. He should be using these for control in his punches, but when he got into it, lost in the swirl of his thoughts and memories, it happened. A memory of a horror from the war, or Bucky’s voice, or even what he could recall of those final moments before he plunged to Earth, and suddenly he was somewhere else, somewhen else, and not in the dusty gym that had existed since he was a boy decades ago.
So it was tonight as he considered the quandary he was in. Peggy had made no bones about it, she wanted him and the shield back for the Avengers team she was putting together. Alright, then, he supposed, that made it clear what she wanted out of him. She needed the soldier, the leader of the Howling Commandos, the strong arm to lead this crazy group of weirdos into battle against whatever was coming. That was what she wanted more than just Steve Rogers. It had not been surprising, he supposed, that Peggy would put duty in front of personal relationships. He had that habit himself, when it came down to it, and frankly it was one of the things he admired about her, her sense of doing what was right and needed, no matter what the cost. He had just hoped that somewhere in there was space for just him, just Steve, no shield, no suit, no “Star-Spangled Man with a Plan.” He had hoped she would want him just as himself. Perhaps she did, after all, she had let him kiss her, and had seemed receptive to the idea of something between them. Yet here they were here again, just like they had been during the war, caught between their duty and their personal desires. Peggy had made it clear she loved her job, loved this work, and he didn’t want to stand in her way. The truth was that he too loved this work, helping people, doing something real in the world, being a leader. That didn’t leave a lot of room for anything else, especially not as a couple. It was the same old problem he and Peggy had - there was always something bigger and more important than figuring this thing out between them.
Steve was certain that somewhere Bucky was rolling his eyes and telling him he was an idiot.
Predictably, the bag he’d been working over for the past hour went flying, sailing on the chain it was attached to and slamming against the brick wall, sending a cascade of silica flying everywhere. He watched it, sweat dripping from his hair and into his eyes, breathing heavy, his cloth covered knuckles pleasantly aching. He waited long enough for the chain to swing back in its arc before grabbing another bag, hefting it over his shoulder to attach it once again and start over, jabbing the bag in its middle, fists meeting the leather with firm, sharp snaps, just like Goldie and Bucky taught him years ago.
“You still drop your right shoulder!”
He’d know her voice in his sleep. Steve turned, regarding her, dressed already in one of her modern suits, dark hair pulled back, eyeing him with wry and sad bemusement. It shouldn’t surprise him that Peggy had sussed out where he went on these sorts of nights, but it somehow did. Still, he couldn’t help but shrug and shoot her a dry, tight smile, remembering their first conversation years ago on his first day at Camp Lehigh. “Bad habit, I guess.”
“It’s better than it used to be, I will admit." She eyed the broken bag lying crumpled against the far wall, its inside leaking out. “Barnes finally get it through your skull?”
Steve grunted, too winded for real words just yet and in no mood to bring up that ghost from his past. Perhaps Peggy caught on, as her expression turned to concern and sympathy. “Couldn’t sleep?”
Steve shrugged as he turned back to the back, back to punching something rather than having to deal with the complex and confusing nature of his relationship with Peggy. “I slept for seventy years, I think I had my fill.”
“At least some things don’t change,” Peggy teased, wandering behind him. “The first time I spoke to you was you doing this. Do you remember?”
How could he forget? She’d been on her evening jog that night, running along the same footpath they were forced to jog along until they puked. It was that golden hour during sunset, and he’d watched her, her dark hair pinned up, as studious at that as she was with everything, but there had been something else to it besides. Peggy loved doing things, acting rather than sitting and looking pretty. Peggy Carter was a creature who wasn’t going to wait on some man to come around and wait on her hand and foot. She was going to take the world on herself, and if you wanted her, you better keep up. Back then, he’d admired it, longing for something like that with the quiet ache of a guy who hadn’t known yet he’d just fallen head over heels for this dame. Now, he knew, and desperately wanted to be the sort of man she wanted and needed. He just wasn’t sure he fit that.
“You had doubts I’d even make it,” he countered her, turning from the bag, sweat dripping from the fringe of hair plastered to the front of his head.
“In defense of my position you could barely even move the bag then!” She glanced at the split one again. “You’ve shown marked improvement.”
That earned a chuckle as he turned back towards the benches where he’d set his duffle bag, The wood creaked as he settled by his bag, unwinding the fabric strips he’d wrapped his hands in. “Bucky used to work here when we were kids. It’s where he taught me how to first throw a punch.”
Peggy nodded, sadly, glancing about the dim, ancient space as if she could see the ghosts of the boys he and Bucky had been. “I thought as much.”
“How did you find me?” It was a foolish question, but he felt he had to ask.
“JARVIS, though I will say he kept your secret for a while before I demanded it.”
Steve was surprised the artificial intelligence had hid it this long. “I didn’t want to worry you.”
Peggy frowned at that. “I got a call from SHIELD.”
That would explain why she was looking for him, then. “So is it starting?”
“It appears so.” She reached into her handbag, pulling out the strange devices they called tablets, larger versions of the phones everyone used now. With no effort she turned it on, calling up the information she needed before handing it over to him. “A SHIELD base in New Mexico was destroyed just over an hour ago. Apparently they were working on this.”
He took the slim device of metal and glass and studied it. Glowing in the middle of all of the data sat the shimmering, ghostly blue box that had haunted him since that fateful day in 1945.
Son of a bitch!
“How,” he grated out, a harsh whisper that he was surprised he managed at all. Steve felt his fingers tighten on the metal and forced himself not to crush it.
Peggy didn’t need any more clarification. “Howard found it decades ago while searching for you in the Arctic. He thought that if he found it, he could find you, but that didn’t work out. He brought it back and kept it in a vault until we founded SHIELD. I ordered it be kept under lock and key, but clearly Howard had other plans.”
Of course Stark would! He always seemed to like to play with the sort of stuff that was probably best left alone, just to see what would happen if he did. “What was Stark doing with it?”
“From what I understand he thought it could be used as a source of unlimited, sustainable energy, at least that was how he was using it. What the World Security Council and Fury were doing with it I can’t say. I wasn’t given clearance to know about this project.”
Her anger and bitterness caught his attention. They’d kept this from Peggy and that was guaranteed to annoy the hell out of her. She never liked being kept out of the room. “Did they destroy the base accidentally?”
“No, someone took it.” She reached over to pull up a new picture of a man standing in the middle of the lab, pale and disturbed, with long dark hair, dressed in some sort of leather costume. In his hand he carried an elaborate weapon that looked as if it were some sort of shortened spear with a glowing light source in it, shining with the same sort of unearthly color as the Tesseract.
“His name is Loki,” Peggy provided with a mostly straight face.
Steve blinked at her, processing that for a moment. “Like the Norse God?”
“Exactly him,” she clarified, wincing as she did. “It turns out Asgardians are aliens.”
“Of course they are!” Norse Gods were real, and what was more they were aliens. Why not?
Peggy’s sympathetic look said she understood all too well the madness he was trying to wrap his head around, but she forged ahead anyway. “Loki has a history of trying to make life difficult, from what I understand. A year ago he tried to overthrow his father’s throne and assassinate his brother, Thor.”
Of course, if there was a Loki, there must be an Odin and a Thor. “And he destroyed an entire facility to steal the Tesseract?”
“I don’t know the particulars yet. When Coulson gets in he will brief me further.”
“Hence why you are up and why you are looking for me.”
She looked guilty at that, even as she fell into her practical, focused Agent Carter mode. “Steve, you know I want to give you space to consider your next moves, on whether you want to keep carrying the shield. I can’t say you haven’t earned your respite and more.”
And yet…
“But you need the guy with the shield more at the moment.” He gathered the wrappings he’d removed from his hands and shoved them into his duffle bag, zipping it up without bothering to roll them.
“Steve…”
“I know SHIELD got me out of the ice for a reason, Peggy.” He might as well address the elephant in the room. “They need Captain America. It’s why you’ve been holding on to the shield.”
His words were harsh and not entirely fair, he knew that, but it hurt. Perhaps it shouldn’t, after all he’d been created as a weapon, not as a person who might want to have a life after everything was said and done. It had never occurred to him that perhaps the SSR would not have allowed him that choice. SHIELD was a less known entity to him, but he couldn’t imagine they would have spent the resources they did looking for him in the Arctic if they didn’t want him to lead their Avengers team. In a way he expected that and even understood. But for the request to come from Peggy…he knew he meant far more to her, but still, it bothered him that she toed the SHIELD party line on this. Never mind the fact that he’d probably have done it anyway, it was…what was it? He’d have said yes in any case. She had his number, Peggy knew he would never walk away from a fight like this, not when lives were on the line. He just wanted to know that she’d still want him in her life even if he wasn’t Captain America, the super soldier with the star-spangled shield. If he had never taken the serum, if he had never taken up that mantle, would she still want him in her life, by her side, with her? It was the one question he’d not been brave enough to ask her, and it was the one he desperately wanted an answer to.
“That’s not all of why I wanted to find you, Steve, and you know that!” Her glare blazed, and he immediately felt guilty for implying it. Peggy had never been as cold as that. “I’m not the one whose been dancing around this.”
“No, but you’ve had six years to move on. You’ve had two years in this world alone!” He waved at the tablet in her hand. “Hell, you whipped that thing out and used it like it was second nature.”
Peggy rolled her eyes at his outburst. “In fairness it's not difficult to use.”
“The point is that you have had a chance to get used to all of this. I had hoped I would have a bit more time to work it out, to accept it, to mourn, I guess, I don’t know.” Steve leaned his elbows on his knees, staring down at his feet, unsure why he was so angry over all of this. “A few weeks ago I was fighting Nazis, watching good men die for a war where I at least knew the stakes. Here it’s me and a few people with little to no training for this trying to stop a literal god!”
“Yes, but when has that ever stopped you before?” She uttered it so matter of factly, as if he had always faced off with gods and aliens. “People are in danger, Steve, and that is something you do understand, and I know you’ve never backed down from that kind of fight.”
Peggy could read him like a book.
“I never said I was backing down.” He allowed a ghost of a smile to flicker to life, even as he knew she was right. He wouldn’t walk away from this either. “You’re right, you know, I wasn’t planning on standing by. Truth is I had my mind made up a few days ago.”
Steve rarely ever got one over on Peggy Carter, and relished the look of confused surprise on her expression. “You did? When?”
He was amused to see her so puzzled. At least he could still keep Peggy Carter on her toes. “When you convinced me in your office.”
That confounded her further. “You didn’t say anything!”
“I know.” He reached for his bag. “You always said I was meant for more than this. You were one of the few who believed in me back then. Phillips saw me as a lab experiment, Howard saw me as some construct, and I always thought you of all people saw me for who I really was.”
Peggy stilled, then, utterly perplexed. “What do you mean?”
Steve thought she had always seen him as something more than just a super soldier, the weapon to aim at their enemies. Sighing, he stood up, hefting the bag with him. “Where and when do we leave?”
Peggy looked as if she wanted to say something, but bit it off. With her never failing British sense of decorum and stiff upper lip, she shifted instead to the mission at hand. “Coulson will be here in a few hours. We will debrief and give you a chance to read up on files. The goal is to be at the rendezvous point in twenty-four hours.”
It wasn’t much time, but enough to scan the files and get a shower in. “That will give me time to prep. I assume you have my gear ready?”
“It will go with us,” she assured him, eyeing him with anxious concern. “Are you all right with this?”
Strangely, now that he was committed to it, he was. “I’m a soldier after all, right? It’s the only thing I know how to do.”
He hated that as even as he said it, it felt good, familiar, like slipping on a familiar sweater. This had been his world for the last two years, and whether he liked it or not there was a sense of relief taking up that duty once again. In all of the strangeness of this new world, with its computers and internet, AI and aliens, this one thing was the only thing he could grasp onto that felt grounded, that was something he could make sense of. He didn’t have to like it, but there it was.
After all this, maybe he was just a weapon waiting for his purpose.