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Steve Rogers x Reader: Chapter Four

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Between the Fates
Chapter Four

An endless cloud filled with colours you don’t recognize stains your vision. You float in the intangible space, your limbs extending, stretching as far as you can see at impossible lengths, and still hurdling further. When the tension releases, they retreat to their normal size again, but you still feel big, as endless as the colourful nothing that grips you. You twist your head, and it spins and spins until your neck is a tangled knot, threatening to rupture your head. You shouldn’t breathe as clearly as you do, but not even panic quells your heart. The static of the universe bristles harmlessly, thick electric lines showering the colourful hue. The closest you can think of is magenta, but it’s certainly not.

You hover in suspended time for an infinity before something transforms in your peripheral gaze. The three robed men stand still as you shift your stare, their stance supported by an invisible floor. Only the middle man’s feet reveal beneath their matted robes—his ankles sport various warts and thick, blue veins. They offer their hands to you, just as grisly as their toes, and unlike the last time, their hoods collapse around their shoulders, revealing their faceless heads.

You wait for one of them to say something; an explanation, a threat—something to fill the void of silence ravaging in this cesspool of pendulous time. The three men watch you, and how they watch you, you’ll never know. Your wait turns longer, but their fists won’t open and the lightning strikes are getting hotter, creeping closer towards you as the flashes blind your gaze.

When you awake moments later, it’s to the shriek of your own scream. The science fiction limbo is gone.

Sweat pastes your legs, filling the room with a sweet scent that’s strong enough to make you vomit. You aim for the floor, missing your bed and most of your uniform. Your shoes aren’t so lucky. Your entire body convulses as you fight back the cresting nausea. Adrenaline thrashes through your body, a primal instinct taking command of the distress your brain is trying to warn—but there’s nothing wrong in the room. There’s nobody inside. Your room is locked, protected from all but the Colonel and one of Stark’s resourceful toys.

Where this aching flood of panic stems from you, you don’t know. The dream was nothing terrible by standard means. But the feeling of doom feels centuries old in your young, agile bones. There’s something foreboding, ominously wretched about those entities, and what their presence means.

It’s like a fairy-tale. That’s the best your mind can come up with, in light of your system’s refusal to repose. Despite the vast sea of what you know, you’re starting to believe in silly ideas, the very stories children use to make it through their dark rooms at night.

When you finally manage to stand, your knees wobble all the way to the door. By the absence of sound permeating the hall, you assume no one heard your unconventional wake-up. Good. You’re not ready to discuss whatever’s happening in your head with another human soul. Not unless they start speaking cryptically, with just the right hint of mysticism.

You search for a closet, eventually finding one four doors down. It perfectly mimics the one you slept in on your first night, minus the smell of mildew. After cleaning up the mess in your room, and leaving your shoes to dry in the hall, you change into your uniform and head outside.

In the soft dawn, the training grounds resemble a museum stage, simply remodelled for a new exhibit. It’s hard to take the reality of time seriously when everything looks so empty. Even the guards stationed at the gate, and the few patrolling the grounds could easily be replaced with modern-day security and antsy tour guides preparing for their next show.

You shake your head—if this is the start of your morning, you dread your upcoming appointment.

There’s no watch to mark your time, but Dr. Erskine spots you when he whisks out of the crew building. You assume at least an hour has passed since your cruel wake, and your socked feet pat the specks of gravel. A small leather suitcase clashes against his thigh while he jogs. By the time he reaches you, you’re wearing a new smile.

“Hey, doc,” you greet. Your voice sounds like a stranger emerging from your throat.

“Ms. [Y/LN],” he greets.

“I heard it’s Agent [Y/LN] now,” you joke. You shift towards the edge of the bench, allowing him space to sit beside you.

“Not by any formal account,” he says as he drops down, depositing the suitcase over his lap. “But it helps the Colonel accept your presence.”

“He’s a serious kinda guy,” you agree.

“He is. It makes him indispensable.”

You wait for him to continue, but Dr. Erskine trains his eyes across the fields, seeing thoughts you’re too weary to mirror. A meeting with a government director won’t prove in your favour, whether you control your mouth or not. You’re not sure how to reason the Einstein-Rosen Bridge with someone who probably clings to a bible between the sheets.  

“I really went all out for this mess,” you eventually say. He shuffles in the corner of your eye. “There’s no win-win situation here. Either I get to go to Europe and die there, or I’m shipped off to prison. And maybe, I get to die in there.”

“You can’t go back to your time,” he agrees, and despite your shield, he’s seen right through your disguise. “There’s nothing you can do but forget what you’ve lost. Move forward here. It is better to fight for your future than ignore the world as it changes.”

“I know what happens to this world,” you dismiss.

“You knew,” Dr. Erskine corrects. “The moment you arrived to us, you disrupted the course of whatever timeline your life followed. This world no longer applies to its outcome.”

You frown. “That’s… that’s not necessarily true, though,” you argue. “One little blip isn’t going to turn everything on its side.”

“You have leaders from many different factions, many different countries who value you because of your wealth of knowledge. If you don’t offer them at least a taste, then you pose no use to them.”

“Are you saying I have to tell them? I can’t do that. That’ll royally fuck everything up.”

“Yes,” he agrees. He adjusts the glasses perched across his nose. “But you must. You think the directors and the president and prime ministers will let you go because of a simple warning? “Oh no, I can’t tell you because the results might prove catastrophic.” That’s very silly, Ms. [Y/LN]. You’re a very bright lady.”

Your face turns warm, reacting to the familiar sweet scent of sweat beginning to build beneath your nose. It’s a little comical that even in dire times, the doctor has a sense of humor. “I HAVE to,” you insist. “I can’t tell them—or anyone, really, not even you—what happens.”

“Then they kill you,” he says simply. “And your… mess up? It becomes nothing but tragedy.”

If Abraham’s right, and by his train of logic, there’s a distinct possibility your naivety got a hold of you, then your presence back in time is meaningless. You were sent back because you were in a place you never should have seen, never should have heard of, and became a convenient outlet to destroy the modern age. You spent a long time opposing the United States, but handing the new world into the hands of extremist fascists?

You hardly stir when Peggy arrives. “Good morning,” she says briskly, and Dr. Erskine rises to shake her hand. You wipe yours on your thick skirt, eagerly clamming to remove the sweat that hasn’t left you since this morning. It’s almost winter, how can it be so hot out here? Did your little tumble through time kick out the weather cycles too?

As they chat, you return to collect your shoes, and then follow them to an oldsmobile, the sort of car your grandfather probably scraped to save back in his youth. It’s pristine, gently cared for by one of the staffed mechanics, and casual enough to blend outside of the facility grounds. You take the back seat with the doctor, allowing Peggy and the driver the front.

It’s hard to return to your unfinished conversation, and Dr. Erskine refuses to give you the opportunity. He starts an hour-length discussion on American cinema that nearly bores you into a coma. Apparently Peggy has an older sister who lived in Hollywood for a few months, trying to work her way to stardom. Now she works at a restaurant, married to the owner.

“Riveting,” you grumble under your breath.

When it shifts into politics, you take a nap. The rest of the drive disappears, and somehow, your subconscious is kind enough to avoid another intergalactic encounter. You wake up with a chill, but the car is parked and everyone’s falling out onto the street. You stumble out as well, swallowing your first gaze of 1940s New York City.

There are more cars than you expected, but most of them are tinkering taxis, wheezing past pockets of pedestrians who skirt up and down the street. Shops boast outside stalls, divided by fresh foods and wafting spices, to shoe-shiners and a paper boy. Peggy gently leads you around the car, towards an unkempt shop, and you finally swivel around to examine a furniture store.

“What.” You can’t even angle your voice to make it a question.

“Follow me,” she orders.

The driver waits outside as the three of you move in. A withered woman mops behind the counter, her lips trained into a small smile, and Peggy breaks away to speak to her. You turn to the doctor, engrossed by a side-table with intricate legs.

“If I tell them, I won’t be of any use anymore.”

Dr. Erskine doesn’t look up from his inspection, but offers a nod of his head. “Your role under Mr. Stark and I won’t change, as long as the directors grant their approval. They’ve travelled a great way to meet you, [Y/N].”

“I’m sure they’ll love me,” you say thickly.

A crunchy, metallic cry blasts behind you, and you turn in time to see an entire wall mobilize. It drags away, revealing a hidden hall, plastered with shiny white panels and bright, artificial lighting. The doctor returns to your side, offering his arm, and you numbly grasp it with your hand as you’re led into a hidden facility.

The hall converges into three passages, the straight pass offering a glimpse of machinery and the confines of an apparent lab. You nearly trip over your heels in your excitement to see it, but instead, you’re pulled to the left, down a hall empty of everything but oxygen and doors. Peggy’s steps clip behind you, your only indication that she’s still there, as every breath, every sound from the three of you creates a shattering echo. When a door opens and two guards emerge, only then does your party halt.

“We’re to escort her to the interview room,” one of them says. Even under such definitive light, they both look helplessly similar: crew cuts, brown military uniforms, armed rifles strapped around their shoulders. You release the doctor’s arm and follow them, aiming to keep your walk as quiet as possible.

The interview is no different than the one S.H.I.E.L.D. held you in before, except for the outdated fabric around the chairs. The guards wait until you step inside before they lock you in, and you examine the one-way mirror taking up most of a wall, probably boasting the generals from Washington. You rack your head for the name of the one the Colonel warned you about—Stern, wasn’t it? Maybe he’s softer than his name.

By the time he enters the room, your nerves have calmed and you’re leaning against the table, impatiently strumming your fingers across the surface. Director Stern looks suave in his navy, three-piece suit, but his smile is forged by the greatest practice. You tuck in the corners of your lips, trying not to expose your returning nervousness as his gaze sweeps over your assembly. You know he’s assessing you, deciding whether you’re a hoax or a genuine prize from time. To ease his search, you slide into the seat, making a point to stretch your legs to the floor and leave them there. If not for the backrest digging into the nape of your neck, you could almost afford a nap.

“What’s up, sir?”

His thick, grey brows look as though they’re trying to levitate off his face. “Excuse me?” he asks with his thick drawl. A small bowler hat masks the top of his head, but flecks of grey burrow from behind his ears.

“I’m… from the future,” you say, stringing out each word, “I, uh, I am the one who they found. The Icicle from Beyond—the original Trekkie.”

“Trekkie?” His face waddles with every question, the thick skin seemingly struggling to fall off his chin.

“Yeah, you’ll get it in a few years,” you sigh.

Director Stern clasps his hands together, his mouth thinning impatiently. “Now, I’m a religious man, but forgive me if I don’t consider you as an angel gifted from the Lord himself.”

“Forgiven,” you agree dryly.

“Doctah Erskine and Miss Carta—“

“Agent Carter,” you correct.

Director Carter’s brow dip into a simmering stare—you guess he doesn’t like to stand corrected.

“You tryin’ to pull the wool over our eyes?”

“Uhm, no,” you say, stifling a smile. “But I’m pretty certain, Sherriff, that if I wanted to bring America to its knees, trust me, I’d have more effective methods.”

“Future or not, we’re not damned fools,” he growls.

“I’m aware of that. Dr. Erskine is revered as one of the most brilliant men in the world. Really… I owe him nothing but my respect.”

“I was referring to me.”

“I know you were.”

His fist clambers onto the table, water rupturing over the side your glass. You calmly place the palm of your hand across the mouth.

“Okay,” you concede, “my apologies, director.”

His fist uncurls.

“I know they’ve explained about the wormhole,” you say, “and it’s not an easy thing to digest. Even in my time. Mostly because it’s impossible, but again, we’re getting better with our…”

A fragmented memory of the three robed men flashes across your next train of thought. You swallow.

“…advancements,” you finish softly. “In technology.”

Director Stern swaps at the sweat leeching from his forehead and brushes it back with a white handkerchief. “I’ve been informed the information spoiled to you is of a particularly sensitive nature.”

The odd clash of words earns your frown. “I think… without divulging anything on my part, we can both agree to that,” you manage to say.

“I’m afraid it’s a lot harda' than that, Miss [Y/LN].”

A silence ripples between you, ignited by your refusal to break it. You know what he wants—Dr. Erskine warned you ahead of time, and they’re the simple words you can’t afford to spend. Prison isn’t ideal, but neither is sacrificing the outcome of your entire future. You’ve heard the jokes online—“thanks to us, you’re not speaking German”—but such a trivial exposition on the momentum of this war fails to paint the true consequence of the Allies’ victory.

And what would happen if a little cheerleading overshot their confidence? It’s a responsibility you can’t spit out and sweep under the rug.

“What happens over the next few years… is something you should patiently wait for, like everyone else.”

“And why can’t you tell us? What’s the point of you going all the way back to our day and age, if you can’t give us the very key to win this war.”

“Because if I do it, if I give you a play-by-play of what’s going to happen, it’s not going to happen.”

“I fail to see your reasoning.”

You ball your fist around a few straggled hairs, bringing your knee up to your chest to crutch for your chin. “I wasn’t meant to come back here. I don’t belong here. I was born… a lot later on this planet, and to reveal any of that future is a hazard. I’m a ticking bomb of information, but I’m also the bearer of the detonator. I refuse to negotiate that.”

“Miss, we have soldiers preparing for the frontlines. From what I’ve heard, you’re well-informed about our little projects—“

“Destructive projects,” you mumble.

“—and if it were any other nation, I guarantee you wouldn’t find your governments as kind. But we can visit extreme methods if it might coax you to reason.”

The threat of torture angles your brows, but it’s the splice of ice that intrudes your veins that buries your next loathing retort. You’re not speaking to your high school principal or your boss. As similar as he might be, he’s not your father. This man employs the nation’s future, and squeezing a few notes from you wouldn’t disrupt his rest.

They seemed stupid. That was your first mistake, to see the people of this time as nothing but naïve, silly children. There’s a reason they succeeded without you in the undisturbed timeline.

They don’t need you, but you’re a novelty from the stars. A quicker fix to a global battle.

“We win.” The words erupt like an incongruous parasite, abandoning your vessel to shape into something far more lethal. You can hardly stomach the sight of him, so you switch your gaze to the door behind him, wondering how many guards wait with their weapons drawn, or whether his associates watch from behind the one-way mirror. Whatever history secured to lay birth to you, you feel its destruction under the weight of such simple words. “In 1945, we win. The Axis powers surrender.”

“How?”

“The Germans over time, thanks to your Super Soldier. The Japanese… with your Manhattan project. And nobody gives a shit about the Italians.” If he asked for a breakdown on the bombs, you could plunge into prodigious detail, but your recollection of the battles is lacking. You aced history because of your dissection of the governments in power and ability to recall battle details. Dates and names blur under your scrutiny, and you’re not about to reveal your preference for the Cold War.

“And I don’t suppose you could stand to be a little more specific?”

You want to cringe. “With all due respect, sir,” you say, “I’m not a history prodigy. I work primarily with the sciences. From computer to physics, and everything in between. I can happily recite Dr. Erskine’s work for you.”

“That won’t be necessary,” he assures you. You nod.

“The Italians, though—“

“As far as I’m concerned, you guys sweep them up pretty effectively. There wasn’t any… grand device involved with their defeat. How about that?”

Director Stern’s cheerful grin reminds you of the spoilt kids who received porches for their sixteenth birthday, namely Rogers’ older siblings. You hate that you’re the payee for his happiness.

“I had a sneaking suspicion we won—“

“Then why did you need to hear it?” you demand. Why force me to disparage the very confession you just heard? Why toy with a timeline you knew from my calmness was already in your favour? You want to rail the words at him with more ferocity than a sling of bullets, and instead you bite them, each swallow hitting your gut like a punch.

“Your cooperation is appreciated,” he says, ignoring your question. A knock interrupts the rest of his spiel, and he gets up, nudging the table as moves to the door. A shadowed figure whispers secrets strong enough to elude your determined hearing.

“Alright,” Director Stern agrees, and the door closes. He turns to you, his grey eyes sweeping over your unorthodox pose. Consciously, you lower your leg over the other.

“Miss [Y/LN], we’ve determined that you’re not a spy.”

You’re too weary to find sarcasm now.

“However, there’s still some doubts presiding over your… insistence on our controversial expenditures.”

Now that’s unexpected. “Excuse me?”

“I believe you,” he confesses, “but the funding right now is strict, in light of an upcoming war. We’re pouring a lot of money into the Super Soldier Serum and the Manhattan Project—some of our board members doubt their relevancy. Your intimate contact with Colonel Phillips and Dr. Erskine… shrouds your account with suspicion.”

“Oh my god,” you finally release. “I just confessed the most pivotal point of our history AND YOUR CONCERN IS WHETHER OR NOT YOU SHOULD FUND THESE PROJECTS? THE ONES THAT GUARANTEE YOUR VICTORY? Sure, okay. Okay, Director Stern, have a great time. When the Nazis take over Europe and Hitler figures out a sufficient defeat for Russia, don’t think for a second he won’t have a golden time with you, too.”

The door opens again, before Director Stern can silence you with a reprimand, and a smaller man emerges through the frame. His hair is slicked back with grease, not a strand misplaced—he’s young, probably in his mid-twenties, and between his fingers slides a silver walking stick. Director Stern shuffles around him, like a secretary caught misbehaving.

“What a colorful woman,” he greets you.

You’re not sure whether you should rise to shake his hand, so you don’t.

“It’s not foolish to disregard what is likely a well-fashioned tale.” Unlike the named director, his speech is unaccented. “We know where you’ve spent the past week. We understand the insistence of your caretakers. And we’re not blind men you can swindle.” His words arrive clipped from each other like cut-out segments from a collage piece. He moves over to Director Stern’s abandoned seat, sitting promptly in an unruffled pose.

“I have no qualms over killing you. My men are waiting at my command. Director Stern would squeeze the life out of you, if I demanded it.”

Your eyes flicker to the director, whose face remains blank.

“But it seems there’s something valuable over having such an asset. And you will be spent as such. You are to aid in this war. You will exceed my expectations, which right now, Miss [Y/LN], are tremendously low. Colonel Philips will review your efforts, and if he decides you’re nothing but a hoax, he has our direct order to kill you where you stand. Have I made myself explicitly clear? I would hate for our traditional manners to prove too obsolete for your simple understanding.”

He hasn’t named himself and it’s not worth feeding his festering ego to ask it—but this man is unrecognized under your eyes. He has the sort of dangerous wit that would label him a special kind of leader—one of inhibited qualities. Considering the present age, you can’t think of a more appropriate time for him to appear.

You also can’t recall encountering his profile anywhere. If not your lack of names, his face should stir something, some sort of register in your demanding mind.

You’re not sure how long your thoughts dragged you away from them, but when your mind recovers, the men appear short of patience. You swallow, managing to bob your head up and down. “Understood, sir. You’ll have my full, uncompromising compliance,” you manage, with only a small thread of mockery.

The Man without a Name leaves without acknowledging you. Director Stern encloses his hands together, eyeing the door as though he’s ready to dash out after him.

“I hope this has been enlightening for you, Miss [Y/LN],” he says.

“It’s been a treat, director.”

“Due to whatever God almighty has in store for you, I can’t justify your rights as a regular citizen. According to the Colonel’s report, you’re not even a normal citizen from your own time—you’re Canadian.”

You quirk your head to the side, offering him nothing more than your wiped face. You already know what to expect this time.

“Under no circumstances are you to venture away from the facility without supervision. For all intents and purposes… you’re now property of the United States of America. I suggest you keep that in mind during your time here.”

He makes it sound like you’re on a trip, like any day now you’ll pop back into your time. But all the ridicule you can muster fades into somber silence, and you simply offer your agreement. When the guards enter the room to escort you back to your group, you peer at the unmarked door, the room behind the one-way mirror, and wonder if that man is as smug as you are defeated.

On the way home, you don’t share a single word.

-|-

“How was your meeting?” Steve asks, swinging his legs over a chair. His gaze watches everywhere but you, but you can’t take your eyes away from him. His face is the safest hold you have right now.

You’re not sure how he knew he’d find you in the sergeant’s office, and you’re especially unsure of who mentioned the meeting to him, but it dawns on you that maybe he asked. Maybe he went looking for you today, and sought answers when he couldn’t find you.

“It was pretty intimidating,” you finally murmur, your fingers running over your knuckles on the opposite hand, swapping through rotations. “It doesn’t feel half as real as it should be. Maybe because none of this is even remotely possible, and I’m still waiting to discover I’m locked away in a mental institute or slumbering in a vivid dream. But… it’s scary here. Whatever this is, it’s just… fucking scary.”

Steve finally meets your eyes, and without a word, leans down to grip your hand. He squeezes it, but you loop your fingers around his, keeping him to you.

“You have a gross habit of finding me at my worst,” you say.

His shy smile blooms across his face. “Yeah. Sorry about that.”

“Liar,” you chide.

“You’re right,” he admits. “It’s just… nice to have a friend in here. I mean… whatever you… whatever we…”

“Friends,” you repeat. “Yup. We’re definitely that, Private.”

You finally release his hand, only for Steve to maintain his grip. He slips off the chair, careful to avoid your legs as he kneels in front of you. His eyes cast to the floor, and you’re sure there’s something touching waiting behind his nervous pause, but Steve is close, not like the night he found you, but close enough to convince your primal urges to act. You keep your hand steady beneath his, but your other one reaches for his face, and when you kiss Private Steve Rogers, you wonder how you spent a week avoiding it.

His lips stumble against your own, at first worrying you that he’s trying to pull away, and you almost let him until he changes course. His grip is so tight it could sever your bloodstream, but your nails are balling into your palm, readying to puncture through the skin as you ravage your own need against his. Steve is sweet, sweet and earnest in his clumsy attempts to catch your bottom lip. When he finally succeeds, your eyes almost retreat inwards. It’s chaotic how good the kiss feels, how the nausea pooling in your stomach is from the dizzying lust wrapped around your head, because it’s been a while since you kissed someone, and you’ve had some pretty good kisses to remember up until that point.

Steve’s mouth is like a blank slate, and you’re eager to fill it. Because there’s no cure to your fears, no method to the madness surrounding you. Between barrage attacks of menacing generals and titillating nightmares, Steve feels real; consistently, wholesomely safe.

And just as suddenly as you kissed him, Steve steals his mouth away.

“Sorry,” he gasps, but the whisper almost goes unheard beneath your panting. You retreat against the flat of the desk, hiding your balled fists in your lap as he awkwardly climbs to his feet. A metre between you feels as exaggerated as a mile, but Steve doesn’t stray far. You wonder if he’ll look at you.

You wonder who will speak first.

And chiefly, you wonder if his heart hammers as clumsily as yours, threatening to burst from his chest and soar into yours.

“You really don’t need to apologize,” you finally manage. You can’t wait for him to say the first words. You can’t spend another second in your head, listening to your veins roar. “Should I?”

He waits with his back still turned, before he finally shakes his head. “Maybe. You crazy by any chance?” he asks. You can picture the weary smile on his face.

“I might be,” you grin. “It’s kinda crazy that I didn’t do that sooner.”

The back of his ears flush red and Steve reaches for his cropped hair, his fingers thumbing through in small strokes. “Should I… go?”

The heat in your cheeks dies a little. You close your eyes, but the rush is starting to sleep; in its place, you can feel the brew of another headache.

“Go ahead,” you say, and you wish you could disguise the snap in your voice. “I don’t care either way.”

Steve’s probably too stupid to hint at your lie, but he walks away without even a glance at you. Only one thought crosses your mind as the tendrils of regret smother your adrenaline and lull you into silent pain: your mistakes haven’t stopped since they led you here. If this journey is a lesson, it’s only reaffirming the character you accepted back in high school, when everything originally collapsed and your plans washed away sooner than a college drop-out. You’re still a mess, still a slopping, saucy mess, and the dirt that stains you is never crumbling away.
avengersfanfictioninsertreaderrogersstevesteverogerstheavengersreaderinsert
Howdy, howdy, howdy! SORRY ABOUT THIS DELAY, LIFE GOT A LITTLE BUSY WITH WORK AND SOME OTHER STUFF. 

Also, I apologize to anyone who cringed over the botched and comically condensed retelling of the Allies' victory, but to be fair, the reader was against spilling her beans from the start. She ain't a fool like Jack. The less she said, the quicker it wrapped up. I basically resorted to how clipped and short I might be explaining something I didn't want to to my parents. >_>

And sorry Italy. But, like, y'all did a good job taking care of Mussolini. In the end. Anyway.

I'd love to hear your thoughts!! I was really excited about this chapter, even if it took a while to arrive. You guys have been incredibly good to me. Thank you! :)  
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ezaito's avatar
ezaito
So glad I found this!  This is an amazing read.