It became, rather quickly, apparent to Steve that it was strange not to fear death in this new century.
Everyone in this era, with Frappuccino’s and combats boots used for style only, is afraid of death. Steve noticed that people don’t discuss it now – and, when it’s brought up, they cower and fear shoots through their eyes. Back in the war, back in the trenches and screams, everyone was ready for death. People would talk about it like a beloved family aunt, or an exciting upcoming vacation.
There were no vacations in 1945, though.
People, soldiers, would look toward death with blazing eyes and strong hearts and Steve couldn’t do any less than that.
Because he was raised with that mindset, he couldn’t seem to get rid of it. Malnourished and bone-thin, young Steve had been ready to greet death like an old friend. Even now, in this new century that seemed to lack typhoid fever and dysentery, death was always in the back of his mind, lingering.
Killer aliens made and accidentally escaped from a lab experiment gone wrong didn’t help his “do-or-die” mindset. Six hours and thousands of nanobots sitting dormant on an airplane later, Steve didn’t have much of a choice. These nanobots were loaded with enough Marburg Disease that would wipe out the entire population of New York and more, and Steve was ready to risk it all just to save these people who didn’t ask to have such a shitty day today.
It still baffled Steve, after all he’s seen in his life, that the doing of one man could affect a whole population.
Which was why, currently, as his Boeing-757 plummeted toward the cold Arctic Ocean, sailing right over Canada, he wasn’t afraid of death.
Scared, yes, as natural human instincts permitted, but looking death in the face and saying “I’m ready”.
His plane hit the water, a horrible deafening noise as it slammed into the ice, layers and layers of snow and ice compiled to create a thick, impermeable blanket of solidness, and Steve’s brain short circuited.
xxx
Sarah Rogers was a devout catholic. While Steve always had a great respect for his mother and her belief, he didn’t much conform to any one religion. After his father passed though, his mother stopped attending mass and, over time, quietly put away all of her cross symbols into a cloth box, and neither ever really discussed it.
One song, though, that Steve always carried in his heart was the arranged piece titled ‘Ave Maria’. Perhaps it was the wordage of one specific line that made Steve listen just a little bit more when he heard it-
‘-at the hour of our death’.
Young Steve had always wondered what the hour of his death would be, however morbid it may have been.
He’d imagined it in a tiny apartment, shivering away with blue lips mumbling his own last rites with his religiously-defunct Catholic mother or in an alleyway, getting the snot punched out of him as he defended Mary Jane and her worn shoes.
But, whatever, whenever, his hour of death was, he didn’t imagine it without Bucky.
His rock, his redeemer, his soul and the other half of his thawed heart.
Inseparable both in schoolyard and on the battlefield, the exhibit said.
And a thousand places more.
But he never imagined it in a new century, strapped to the pilot’s seat of an airplane, sinking quickly to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean.
The exact way he’d tried to die the first time.
And, even now, Bucky wasn’t with him.
His head slammed against the side window on impact, glass cracking outwards in tiny spider webs. He more heard, than felt, his teeth rattle against his skull as the icy water began to pool at his feet from some unknown entrance in the back. He watched it begin to trickle through the bloody crack in the window, dazed and sluggish.
He heard Tony’s voice through his comm.
“Sskk – Cap! You – get out – surface and I’ll – now, Steve!”
Yeah, he should probably leave. Good idea.
He twisted out of his seat belt, hands numb and fumbling. He turned his head, ignoring Peggy’s voice.
‘Hang on! I can find you somewhere to land!’
His hands shuddered, feeling the solid mass of something pressing down on his foot. He grunted, blindly, wrenching his leg away and up. The water was to his knees now.
‘Give me your coordinates, I’ll find you a safe landing site.’
He felt the controls press into the bare part of his thigh where his suit had ripped. He didn’t know how he was standing.
‘I’ll get Howard on the line, he’ll know what to do.’
He shoved off the back of the seat, legs unsteady and weak as he stumbled through the cabin, water to his hips, eyes wide but unseeing. He felt the rattle of Bucky's dog tags from 80 years ago, rusted but true against the skin on his chest.
‘Please, don’t do this. We have time, we can work it out.’
He felt the stopwatch clutched in his hand, the ghost of Peggy’s picture pasted to the front. Blood ran down his head and in his eyes as he stared at his empty palm. Every breath felt like fire, he probably had a couple broken ribs, and his foot was definitely sprained, or worse.
Was this his hour of death?
The water rose to his neck, his chin.
Steve mumbled the final words to the prayer, hoping for Bucky and Peggy and home in Brooklyn and his catholic mother.
“Et in hora mortis nostrae, Ave Maria.”
And then he closed his eyes and the water rose.
xxx
Unfortunately, his death didn’t last long.
He spluttered water out, jerking to life.
“Hey! Come on, Cap. Breathe.” Tony was there, forcing air into his back with a pounding fist. Steve coughed out the remainder of the salt water, shivering and looking between the softly falling snowflakes, gazing at Clint and Sam.
“We need to get you some wings like Sam, buddy, so you can stop pulling stunts like this. We don’t need a repeat of 1945. The first time was noble, but this one was a little excessive.”
Steve shivered again, not able to form words. Harsh, violent-like shakes wracked his body; he suspected it was more shock than chill. He gazed back at the ocean where his plane went down, a trickle of smoke and the tip of a wing the only proof to show the accident ever existed.
He could feel the armrest clenched in his hand, thoughts of dancing with Peggy in his mind still.
Bucky’s fall. He fell, still, and Steve couldn’t do anything to prevent it, even a second time, and –
“-eve, come on – STEVE!” Tony yelled as Steve pitched forward, just a little, and even though he was already sitting, it felt like miles and miles before his face hit the soft snow that covered the grounds of Antarctica, his breath coming out in foggy puffs.
Strong hands wrenched him up, ice oozing through his veins and paralyzing his fingers.
He’d felt this before – the last time.
His voice was raw. “What year is it?” His teammates stared.
“Steve-“ Tony said, dumbfounded.
“Is Peggy…?” He looked around, unperturbed. He knew it couldn’t be 1944, but he couldn’t get her out of his mind –
Sam knelt between Steve’s legs. “Steve,” he said softly, firmly, grasping the sides of Steve’s neck and face. “It’s Sam. You’re in 2016, it’s okay. You’re safe, just breathe, Steve.”
Steve’s gaze went out of focus as his eyes lingered on the wreckage.
He missed her.
He squenched his eyes, hard.
He missed Brooklyn.
He felt the ghost of the stopwatch in his hand, eyes alight with fear and then –
He missed Bucky most of all.
“What happened to the aliens?”
Sam stared, not believing the normal-ness in his voice. Steve knew he could see right through his facade, could probably see the gears in his head turning as he compartmentalized.
“Gone,” Tony said. “We killed most of them, the rest just self-destructed.” At least they weren’t causing more damage.
“Casualties?”
“Nat got her arm sliced open and a little bit of alien goop got in it, but Bruce said a few days of antibiotics and she’ll be good to go.” Clint said. “A few minor injuries to civilians.” Steve could imagine the nanobots, water-logged and nonfunctional at the bottom of the ocean. Good riddance.
When he was able to take a full breath, Sam continued. “We need to get you into dry clothes.”
And just like that, the simple mention of something warm and home shattered the calmness he was so diligently working to put up.
“I wasn’t afraid, you know,” Steve blurted. He needed to stop talking, but he couldn’t. “Maybe the serum makes me not afraid, I don’t know, I mean, I’ve already tried this before, and even the second time, I can’t-“ he stopped.
The silence said it all.
“What, Steve?” Tony said quietly.
“Die,” he ended. “I can’t seem to die. Maybe my death isn’t supposed to be in an airplane, because I’ve crashed one twice into the ocean and here I am, only a couple of scrapes to show for it.” The blow on his head was already healed, dried blood stuck to the side of his blond hair and trailed down his face.
His breath came out in cold, hard gasps, air puffing into vapor. “All I’m saying is, I’m not afraid to die.” He looked up at his friends, who wore grievous expressions. “I’m ready for it, whenever it comes.”
“That may be true, but Steve, you gotta not be so reckless, and don’t just tell me ‘that’s how you fight’ because I’ve seen you fight for what’s important to you.” Sam gripped the straps on his suit, hoisting him up.
He could still feel the controls against his hand, 80 years ago but just as fresh.
He knees were wobbly and Tony gripped his arm. He felt heat seeping into his side from Tony’s armor.
“I lived in ice for the better part of a century, Tony.” He mumbled, silently reminding him that ice was practically part of him now.
“Come on, princess. Let’s find you some warm clothes and Bruce! He’s gonna rip you a new one for doing this to your head. And Fury! Imagine him seeing you like this, destroying government property with that messed up leg…” Tony trailed, leaving his suit on heat-mode despite Steve’s weak protest.
And then, the only signs of the wreckage was a long-gone plume of smoke in the sky and bubbles rising from the plane, popping quietly at the surface, along with every thought of Peggy and his mother, and Bucky.