In Your Eyes // Steve Rogers

5

I hadn't noticed how tired I was until I was in the passengers seat of a stolen SUV, music softly playing, the country road passing by my eyes. I fell asleep maybe thirty minutes into our road trip.

Steve's voice woke me. He sang my name quietly. I squeezed my eyes before I opened them fully. He had opened my car door and was timidly looking at me, hoping his voice would wake me.

"Morning, sunshine," he chuckled. "We're here."

I exited the truck. I yawned and stretched as I followed him to approach the barbed wire fence. Acres of open grassland surrounded us. Nobody had touched this land in a decade, perhaps more.

"Looks creepy," I noted. "It definitely could be our spot."

As we broke through the gate, I followed the GPS' directions. Steve trailed behind me, his footsteps dragging. I hadn't noticed until we were a building apart, where I turned, and he had stopped in his tracks. His eyes were glossed with grief as he surveyed the abandoned bunkers.

"Cap?" I called.

He met my eyes. "I, um, I know this place. Seventy years and everything is the same..." he mumbled. His brow furrowed as he looked behind me. "Except that."

He spoke of a shed in the center of the base. It was cleverly disguised with old rotting wood, placed to lessen the speculation against it. Steve had seen right through it.

He tightened his shield on his forearm, then slammed it down on the lock. It shattered. He kicked open the door.

Internally, the place was aged, but not nearly as old as the other buildings. Scattered desks had gathered colonies of spiders. The shelves were empty, the windows of the offices were glossy with grime. Every step generated a dust tornado to dance across the floor.

Steve flipped the light switch. One by one, the bulbs flickered on. The lights were positioned to illuminate a specific spot: a massive S.H.I.E.L.D. logo on the wall. It closely resembled the one we knew.

"First HQ, maybe?" I asked.

"It did start after I..." said Steve. He didn't bother finishing the sentence.

Together, we carefully stepped through the long hall. Nothing stuck out to either of us. I approached the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo. Three crooked frames clung to the wall above it. Two men and a woman, all three of their pictures tinted grey.

"Howard Stark," I said, pointing. "Unknown," I continued for the second man. I stopped at the woman. She hadn't look familiar by face. Steve and I had managed to say her name together: "Peggy Carter."

Steve looked at me. "How do you...?"

"I've done my fair share of research on who the agency was started by," I defended, "Don't think I just joined on a whim."

Steve gave a tiny, almost unnoticeable smile. It disappeared when he caught sight of a bookshelf lining the wall I stood adjacent to. He took a few steps, reaching his hand out to run his fingers along a certain case.

"If you're already working in a secret office," he mumbled. He shoved his hand between two cases, prying it open. "Why do you need to hide the elevator?"

I squeezed through the shelves. I scanned the keypad with the green light on my cell phone. Four numbers, the password, blinked brightly on my screen. I punched it in. The doors to the elevator slid open. Steve and I slid in.

I turned to him. "She still alive?" I asked.

Steve blankly stared at me.

"Ms. Carter," I clarified.