Man Out of Time - A Captain America / Avengers Fanfiction

Chapter 41

There's nothing like a shared traumatic experience of being forced to eat green bean casserole at a family function to get people's muses flowing!

Here's a note Jelsemium suggested which I thought you'd all enjoy:

To: Pepper Potts
From: Steve Rogers

I swear I will defend Tony with my life and even put up with his foul mouth if you will please, please, PLEASE arrange for Bernice to take cooking lessons. It doesn't have to be fancy, just edible.

PS - I will also be your personal flying monkey for life if you lead her to
believe that the cooking class is your idea and don't let her know that I had anything to do with it.

# # #

LOL! Thanks for reading!

X

Chapter 41

"Captain Rogers," Abraham Miller said. "If you have a minute?"

Steve looked up from the group of kids circled around him as he related a not-too-heavily edited tale about what it had been like to battle the aliens who had descended upon New York City. Omitting, of course, the fact that he was the commander of what the media had labeled 'superheroes' and not simply one of the many lowly enlisted soldiers who had supported their efforts. The kids, and quite a few adults, hung on his every word as he described staring down an alien glider, using his hands to accentuate the way the glider had drifted through the air. He was enjoying himself. Or at least he had been enjoying himself until the patriarch of the family uttered those ominous words.

Shooting Bernice an apprehensive look, he finished up the tale and rose, leaving the young ones begging for more. It had been Bernice's father he'd expected to have this conversation with, not her great-uncle, but duty called. It was clear the man who had been named after Doctor Erskine was the one the rest of the Miller clan looked to for direction. Abraham pointed to a small room at the back of the house.

"Mr. Miller," Steve said, schooling his expression to remain neutral and polite the same way he would speak to a commanding officer. He did not correct him that his rank was now Commander Rogers, a rank akin to colonel or brigadier general, not merely Captain.

The door clicked behind him. Abraham walked to stand before an enormous painting of Peggy mounted above one of those fake mantles designed to look like a fireplace. Although Abraham Miller had inherited Peggy's eyes and darker coloring, he was far taller and thinner than Steve assumed was from Peggy's side of the gene pool. He could see the echo of William Miller in the man. Abraham's no-nonsense demeanor, however, was Peggy all the way.

"How much does Bernice know?" Abraham asked, getting right to the point.

"Everything," Steve said. He decided to qualify that statement. "Almost everything. Your mother made me promise to shield her from the ugly reality we had both seen. Some things … the Nazi's … I don't see the need to tell her the details her unless she asks."

Abraham nodded. He looked up at the painting of Peggy, a much older version of the woman Steve had loved. Matriarch of the clan, at the height of her vitality, yet younger than when Steve had finally been released from the ice.

"I never really knew my mother until the last decade of her life," Abraham said. "She had … secrets. Things she would refuse to discuss even with my father. Ugly things she wanted to shield us from. As if she could! We weren't stupid, you know? Every kid in the neighborhood knew my mother was a secret agent."

This was surprising. Peggy had been under the assumption her efforts to shield her children from her work had been successful. Steve was silent, waiting to hear what else Abraham had to say.