I Know You’re Missing Home
There’s a picture in my room
Lightens many an hour of gloom—
Cheers me under fortune’s frown
And the drudgery of town.
Many and many a winter day
When my soul sees all things gray.
—“A Watercolor” by Bliss Carman
Steve was grabbed roughly and shoved against the brick wall of the alley. He tried to kick his attacker, but his legs were too short. “Get ahff me!”
“Stupid little mucker.” The Alpha grabbed his face.
Steve kicked him with his full strength which wasn’t much. “Dis ain’t a fair fight!”
“Who said anything about fighting, sweetheart.” The Alpha forced his disgusting mouth on him.
Steve bit him. “I ain’t some whore!”
The Alpha slapped him hard across the face.
Steve blinked back tears. He wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction of his tears.
No one cared. No one was coming. No one would save him.
He could feel his mind shutting down, trying to block out what was happening.
It didn’t work. It never did...
Phil Coulson was Captain America’s biggest fan. He had admired the Alpha since he was a little boy, and he couldn’t believe that the Valkyrie had finally been recovered.
Shocking still, Captain America had survived!
Phill had a million questions. He wondered if the captain would be willing to sign his training cards?
Unfortunately, the captain was still unconscious.
“Should we be worried?” Fury asked the team of doctors and specialists.
Dr. Helen Cho sighed. “There's no way to tell without doing a proper workup.”
“Then do it,” Fury said.
“Sir, he has no living family,” Dr. Cho explained. “There is no one to give us permission, and his last record made it clear that he did not want medical experimentation or intervention.”
“There’s a simple solution. I will sign the permission slips,” Fury said. “After all, Captain Rogers is property of the U.S. government.”
Dr. Cho looked like she wanted to disagree, but no one disagreed with Fury.
“I want a full debriefing after your tests,” Fury added.
Dr. Cho glared at Fury's back as he left the hospital ward.
The poor captain deserved better.
It was a miracle he had survived at all.
No one had expected Erkskine’s serum to work so well.
Deftly, she pulled some of the captain’s blood and sent the vial to pathology.
Hopefully, it would uncover why he continued to sleep.
“Come in! Dis is Captain Rogers.” Steve’s voice cracked over the radio.
“Steve, is that you? Are you alright?” Howard’s voice filled him with a quiet calm.
“M'fine. Schmidt’s dead.” Steve shivered.
Death was too nice a word for what happened to Schmidt.
“What about the plane?” Howard asked.
Steve closed his eyes. “Dat's a bit tougher to explain.”
“Give me your coordinates. I’ll find you a safe landing site.” Howard sounded so sure.
“Dere’s not gonna to be a safe landin. I'm goin to try and force it down.”
“Stevie, just give me a moment to think!” Howard begged.
Steve blinked back tears. “Dere’s not enough time. Dis thing’s movin too fast, and it’s ‘eadin for New York. I gotta put ‘er in de water."
“Please, don’t do this. We have time, we can work it out.” Howard never asked for anything.
Steve hated to deny him now. “Right now, I'm in the middle o’ nowhere. If I wait any longer, a lot o’ people are goin to die. Howie, dis is my choice.”
Howard didn’t say anything.
Steve was afraid that the connection had been lost. “Howard?”
“I-I’m here,” Howard promised.
Steve breathed a sigh of relief. If this was the end, he didn’t want to be alone. “I loved you.”
“I love you, Stevie. Always.”
Dr. Cho frowned as she surveyed the test results. She had been hoping for an answer as to why her patient remained unconscious.
However, the tests did not reveal answers; there were only more questions.
His estrogen and progesterone levels were shocking. Especially his progesterone levels, which were much higher than his estrogen levels.
She’d only heard of such levels in pregnant Omegas, but that was a ludicrous thought.
Captain America’s designation was well known. He was an Alpha.
A terrible thought crossed her mind: What if he isn’t?
That terrible thought propelled her as she inspected the captain’s stomach.
He was smooth like a baby. The little body hair he possessed was soft and subtle.
She squeezed a cool gel on his stomach and hovered the sonogram machine over his stomach. If she did this, there was no going back.
The machine hummed to life.
The music of the sonogram filled the room, two heartbeats.
Dear God, she thought, Captain America is an Omega, and he’s pregnant.
Dr. Cho was dreading her debriefing with Fury.
“Will he wake up soon?” Coulson asked.
“Hopefully,” Dr. Cho said. “Will you stay with him while I debrief Fury?”
Coulson’s eyes lit up. “Really?”
Dr. Cho smiled. “Yes, it would be good for him to hear a friendly voice.”
“I can do that!” Coulson exclaimed.
She wondered if he would be so willing if he knew the truth. She would have preferred to stay with the excited Coulson and the sleeping Captain America.
The conference room was built to make Director Fury look even more intimidating. He stared down at her. “Well?”
“C-Captain Rogers is an O-Omega,” Dr. Cho stuttered.
Fury chuckled. “I do appreciate a joke now and then.”
“I am not joking,” Dr. Cho said. “Captain Rogers is an Omega.”
“You see this face?” Fury growled. “This is my not-amused face.”
“His estrogen and progesterone levels were extremely high,” Dr. Cho explained.
Fury sighed. “That complicates matters.”
“T-There’s more,” Dr. Cho whispered.
Fury waited.
“He’s pregnant.”
“There’s a pitch, it’s a ball high outside. So, the Dodgers are tied four to four. At that count, no doubt, one swing of his bat. This fella is capable of making it—a brand new game again! Just an absolutely gorgeous day here at Ebbets’ field—”
Steve remembered that game. He had listened to it over the radio when he had been confined to a small hospital room, waiting to die.
Howie had promised to take him to a real game after the war. Where was Howie?
Steve’s mind melted slowly.
Memories replayed second for second.
Every terrible moment. Every fateful decision.
Steve was suddenly very aware that the bed was too soft, the blankets too thick. He was careful as he studied his surroundings, not quite opening his eyes.
The hospital room was too dandy.
Something was wrong.
Why would an old baseball game be playing on the radio?
Why would Howard not be waiting by his side?
Why would the hospital not look right?
“Oh, my god. Where am I?” Steve’s eyes were fully open. He could hear something like a quiet buzz, something he’d never heard before.
A nurse entered the room, but her clothes looked strange as if they had seen years. “You’re in a recovery room in New York City.”
“The Dodgers take the lead, it’s eight to four! Oh ho, Dodgers! What a game we have here today, folks. Fine game indeed.”
“Where am I really?” Steve growled.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
The lie fell flat from her lips.
“De game. It’s from May 1941. I know ‘cause I listened to it when I was in de hospital. Now I’m goin to ask you again. Where am I?” Steve wouldn’t ask again.
“Captain Rogers.” The nurse’s voice attempted to be soft and comforting.
“Who are you?” Steve asked. He stumbled out of bed.
“Captain Rogers, wait!” The nurse looked panicked.
Steve had, had enough. He needed to get out of this place. He needed to find Howie.
The nurse clicked a strange box.
Steve used his strength to escape the hospital room, only it wasn’t a hospital room.
It looked like a stage.
He could hear the fake nurse communicating with whoever was behind this farce.
“All agents, Code 13. All agents, Code 13.”
Steve wasn’t about to stick around. He ran blindly and clumsily, almost like he’d run after the Hydra agent who had killed Erkskine.
The buzz became louder and louder.
Until he was outside staring in horror at the sight before him. He didn’t even know how to process what he was seeing.
The smell almost reminded him of home.
But it couldn’t be home.
Vehicles of all colors and sizes zoomed by faster than he would have ever thought possible. Their impatient noise was responsible for the buzzing in his ears.
The skyline almost mirrored the one he’d spent hours trying to draw.
But it wasn’t the same.
The buildings were shinier and taller. Their strange sight brought to mind the story of the Tower of Babel that his mother used to tell him.
And the streets, he’d never seen so many people.
They didn’t stop for anything, not even the man in the middle of the road. They didn’t look up from their strange boxes, making their own noise. They shoved and pushed each other with no care about each other.
“At ease, soldier.” A man with an eyepatch scrutinized him as if he found Steve lacking.
Steve stared at him.
It took every ounce of strength inside of him not to break down right that second.
“Look, I’m sorry about that little show back there, but we thought it best to break it to you slowly?” The man continued.
“Break what?” Steve asked apprehensively.
“You’ve been asleep, Cap. For almost seventy years,” the man said it so simply as if he hadn’t just crushed a national hero.
Steve dropped like the Valkyrie, crashing into the Arctic waters. He hit the asphalt hard, bruising his knees.
No, no, no.
God, no.
Captain America keened with so much pain and grief that he could topple the highest skyscrapers.
The world had never heard such a sound.
Steve’s chest caved in.
He couldn’t breathe. Gasping, he cried for the only one who could make it all better, “Howie! Howard!”
***
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