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Chapter Fourteen Recruitment
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A month had gone by since Steve had woken up to a whole new world. His adjustment to the new era was easier than he had thought it would be thanks to the help of Diana. The Amazon had spent a good amount of time helping Steve adjust, letting him stay in her apartment, and explain to him the events and result of the Second World War. Steve had taken the information a lot better than Diana had expected him to. He processed slowly, asked questions, and accepted what he couldn't change. However, the guilt of not being there for the events that followed was slowly beginning to eat at him.
When Steve asked Diana what she had been doing since the end of the war, Diana always managed to change the topic of their conversation or find an excuse that she had to leave for work at the Metropolitan museum, where she worked as the Curator for the Department of Antiquities. Steve found this odd. He couldn't completely figure out why she wouldn't want to tell him more about her adventures. Then his mind wandered to the fact that it had been almost seventy years and his mind began to race with thoughts.
Had she fallen in love with someone else? Steve felt the thought break his heart and decided to ask Diana about it. Diana denies his accusation and stated she could never fall in love after he left her. And so, their conversation fell short and the two were placed in an even more uncomfortable position. Although, they had kissed when they met again, Steve and Diana still needed to have a large conversation about themselves.
The two spent everyday with one another, and yet still had not been able to have a conversation about their situation. After everything that's happened, it seemed that anything normal still managed to escape them.
Although, normal would never be the case for either of the two. Steve Rogers had been mutated into a Super Soldier through science— he was created to be used as a weapon, but ended up becoming another of the world's superheroes (Diana being the only other one). Diana Prince was the world's first hero, and an Amazonian demigoddess— the daughter of the Queen of Amazons, Hippolyta and of the God of the Sky and Thunder, Zeus.
Attempting to find a piece of normalcy, Steve entered to a boxing gym down the street of Diana's apartment. Diana had brought her work home, but had fallen asleep in the middle of it on her bed. Steve couldn't help but feel like this had been the only sleep she had gotten that week. Deciding not to wake her, he quietly slipped out and left.
Steve sighed in content when he picked the lock and found the gym was empty, although this seemed a given considering it was close to midnight. He placed his bag on the bench around the boxing ring of the gym and set up a punching bag. In twenty minutes, he had managed to destroy three punching bags. The reason being that his mind would drift into memories of the war.
His mind flooded with the thought of his late best friend, Bucky, then it drifted to his final moments before he hit the ice, the memory of Diana's sorrowful cry when she watched him go echoing in his mind. His heart felt broken at the thought of Diana being alone for so many years. You promised me, Steve.
With every memory, he struck another hit at the punching bag. Soon enough, four bags were destroyed. Steve sighed and unhooked the punching bag in order to replace it.
"Trouble sleeping?" said a familiar voice from behind Steve. He shot a glance over his shoulder and continued the task at hand.
"I slept for seventy years, Sir. I think I've had my fill," Steve replied back to the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. as he began to punch the new bag.
Fury chuckled, "Then you should be out, celebrating, seeing the world with Diana."
Steve's face contorted into confusion at his words before walking away from the punching bag and unwrapping the wraps around his hands deciding he was done, "I went under, the world was at war, I wake up, Diana said we won. She didn't say what we had lost."
"She didn't want to upset you. We've made some mistakes along the way. Some very recently," Fury said, shrugging nonchalantly following the captain to the bench that held his belongings.
"You here with a mission, sir?" Steve asked him, as he glanced at the file in his hands.
"I am."
"Trying to get me back in the world?"
"Trying to save it," Fury said, handing Steve the now open file. Steve glanced at it before taking it in his own hands.
Steve sighed when he saw the familiar object in the photo, "Hydra's secret weapon."
"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," Fury explained to the soldier. Steve read through the file and examined the pictures of the familiar vibrant blue emery source and clenched his jaw at the memories of it.
"Who took it from you?" Steve curiously asked him, handing him back the file.
"He's called Loki. He's not from around here. There was a fight back in 2011, where Diana was called in to handle him. Needless to say, Loki didn't go so quietly," Fury stated. Steve furrowed his eyebrows at his mention of Diana being involved. She hadn't mentioned that. "There's a lot we'll have to bring you up to speed on if you're in, that is if Diana hasn't covered most of it already. The world has gotten even stranger than you already know."
Steve sighed and stood up. "At this point, I doubt anything would surprise me."
"Ten bucks says you're wrong," Fury betted as he watched Steve collect his things. "There's a debriefing package waiting for you and Diana back at her apartment. I understand that's where you've chosen to say. Is there anything you can tell us about the Tesseract that we ought to know now?"
Steve walked towards the exit and without glancing over his shoulder he said, "You should have left it in the ocean."
