Miss America

Chapter Seven

. . . .  STEVE POV. . . .

Steve punches the punching bag repeatedly, over and over, flashbacks making each punch harder and harder before he finally with one swift punch, send the hundred pound, bag across the room, the metal chain snapping it lands across the room. Sand spluttering everywhere, he walks across the room, to retrieve another bag as Nick. Fury walks in.

"Trouble sleeping?"

 "I slept for seventy years, sir. I think I've had my fill." Steve replies, he hadn't slept well since coming out the ice and even more difficulty since finding you. 

"Then you should be out, celebrating, seeing the world."  Steve doesn't say anything, what had he to celebrate? He walks over to the bench, unraveling the tape off his hands as he sits down. 

"I went under, the world was at war, I wake up, they say we won. They didn't say what we lost." His voice stoic. 

"We've made some mistakes along the way. Some very recently."

"You here with a mission, sir?" Steve knew the drill. 

"I am."

"Trying to get me back in the world?"

"Trying to save it." Nick says as he hands Steve a file on the Tesseract, along with other files on HYDRA'S projects. 

"HYDRA's secret weapon." He says holding the file open and reading through. 

"Howard Stark fished that out of the ocean when he was looking for you. He thought what we think, the Tesseract could be the key to unlimited sustainable energy. That's something the world sorely needs."

"Who took it from you?" Steve asks finally. 

"He's called Loki. He's not from around here. There's a lot we'll have to bring you up to speed on if you're in. The world has gotten even stranger than you already know."

"At this point, I doubt anything would surprise me."

"Ten bucks says you're wrong. There's a debriefing package waiting for you back at your apartment." Steve stands heading towards the punching bag once more, leaving the file open on the bench. "You think Y/N would join? She knew a thing or two about the tesseract, we could use her help?" Suddenly Fury notices the pages of the file close on their own, and in a wobbly blur you reappear wearing all black. 

. . . . BACK TO NORMAL POV. . . .

"You should have left the tesseract in the ocean." You say coldly. 

"Its good to have you onboard. . . there's a package left in both your apartments." Fury says before walking out the gym. 

"Are you sure you're ready?" 

"James didn't die just for HYDRA to come back again, or whoever this Loki fucker is."

"But are you? It took you six months just to eat properly, you've only just left your apartment." 

"What else can we do? We can't do normal and. . . " you pause. "We have these gifts for a reason, maybe we're here. . . I don't know Steve but we know what this thing can do in human hands. . . if 'not from around here' means what I think it does then Red Skull was right about the 'gods' and just because my life is over, doesn't mean the rest of the worlds should be." 

"Well then" he punches the bag a couple of times before letting it swing back to him and he holds it looking at you "looks like we're going back to work." 

. . . .

You're sat next to Steve, fresh pair of jeans, a top and leather jacket all black. You didn't like to admit it, fresh clothes, new make up and your hair cared for made a lot of difference. Baby steps though still. You're both watching footage of the Hulk's attack on the army at the university on an iPad.