Shadow of the Past (Captain America) // ✔️ //

Chapter 25: The Changing Tide

Being frozen in ice for seventy plus years was a numbed experience in which he didn't feel a thing. It just went by in a blink of eye and he felt nothing. It was complete and utter nothing. He didn't dream, he didn't think. It wasn't even known if he was alive during that time. How could he have been alive? He was frozen; how could a body survive such harsh temperatures? No one should have been able to survive that, but he wasn't just anything one. He was a soldier... and not just any soldier. He was Captain Steven Rogers, a super soldier with unknown strengths and weakness; however, it seemed one of his strengths was that he could survive extreme temperatures for decades.

After he was thawed, his brain didn't snap back right away and his dreams took a few days (or what felt like days) to return. There was no real way to tell when his mind snapped back to his body and when he began to feel once again, but it all came back to him. His dreams were not of Agent Peggy Carter, the one of three women he had ever been kissed by and the last woman he had kissed. When his dreams came back, they were of Corporal Antonia Sark, a woman he had kissed once, a woman he didn't know a lot about; however, he was completely in love with her.

His heart binged when he thought of how he had rejected her after Bucky's death because of Phillips' advice. He told – no... more like ordered Steve not to start a relationship with her, which Steve didn't like. Sure, the Colonel had a point and there was no need for love in war, but he had no right to order him not to start a relationship. But before he could snap, Phillips told Steve that she needed time, that he shouldn't attempt a relationship with her. He told him that he should honor Barnes, his best friend, and just be a friend to Antonia. After seeing how broken she was after she learned of Bucky's death, he had known Phillips was right.

So before Antonia could even come up with the idea, he shot her down as gently as he could. He played up his non-relationship with Peggy, which wasn't fair to Peggy. At first, he thought he had imagined the pain in Antonia's eyes as it disappeared in a blink of an eye but later he could see how crushed she was. It completely crushed him to see her like that, but it had to be done. She was in enough pain; she couldn't handle anything else. It also wouldn't have been right. She was his best friend's dame, even if he saw her first.

However, seeing how badly he hurt Peggy when he went under, it was a good thing that he did reject Antonia. Listening to Peggy as she cried, it almost broke him, and if it would've been Antonia, he would've surely died listening to her breaking. She, a woman who never opened up to anyone, wouldn't have withstood another blow to heart and he was glad that he didn't break her heart more than it had to be, though it didn't protect his heart. As he was going down, there was only one person he wanted to talk to and it wasn't Peggy. His heart ached to talk to Antonia but he couldn't and he knew it. It was the worst feeling in the world and at the last second before he hit the ice, he wondered if he had made the right choice in not pursuing her.

When his dreams came back to him, his desires came to life and all he thought about was her. All he thought about was righting that wrong; sure, Phillips was right then, but now, he was wrong. When he awoke and he would wake up, he would find Antonia and he would kiss her like she had never been kissed before. She needed to know how he felt.

The first thing that came to mind when he woke up was her and then the rest of the world. This room, this strange room, was the last thing he thought about. He needed to see Antonia. "Where am I?" he asked the Agent staring at him. The radio was on, broadcasting a baseball game.

"You're in a recovery room in New York city," she stated with a smile. She was a pretty woman, but he wanted to see Antonia.

There was something off about this room, which didn't look quite right. "Where am I really?" he asked, suspiciously. Antonia should've been here; she wouldn't have left him here alone, not after what happened. Peggy wouldn't have left him either.