chapter thirty-one
it's been a long, long time

"𝐃𝐎 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐈𝐌𝐀𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐄 what life will be like after the war?" Grace asked one day and Steve looked up from his reading at her. She chuckled softly. "Sorry... that's a heavy question. We're in the middle of the war with no end in sight."

Steve shrugged. "Maybe a little," he replied, setting aside his book while Grace laid down on her bed, looking up at the top of her tent. "I haven't thought much about it. Though, I also didn't think that I'd ever be fighting in the war. Have you?"

"Sometimes," she said, shifting closer to him and feeling him rub her back. "But a part of me doesn't know what it would be like. I mean... before all of this... I spent my days cooking dinner for my brother or spending time with his butler, which sounds ridiculous hearing it. I don't know, I just... the war has given me something that I love. I can help people. I just don't know what I'd do afterward. Don't get me wrong, I'd love for everybody to be reunited with their families. i just don't know what my life would be like."

Steve nodded. "I get what you mean. For my entire life, all I ever wanted was to serve my country. Now I am but I never thought about what I would do if I wasn't in the Army."

"We're just a pair of clueless idiots, it would seem," Grace said and Steve shrugged.

"Well, then we'll be idiots together."

Grace sat in her office with her laptop open in front of her when she heard a knock on her door. She looked up. "Oh, Nick."

The Director of SHIELD let out a breath and walked into her office. "Do you have a minute?" he asked, closing the door behind him and she nodded. "There's something that I need to tell you."

"What's up?" she asked, setting her pen down. In response, Nick set down a folder on her desk and she picked it up in confusion. "What's this?"

"The Avengers Initiative plan," he replied and she quirked an eyebrow upward. "Open it. It'll tell you who I think should be in it."

Knitting her brows together, Grace opened the file to the first page. "Anthony Stark, Thor Odinson—" She looked up at Nick. "The God who destroyed a town in New Mexico?"

"Keep going."

Grace let out a breath and looked back down. "Natasha Romanoff, Clint Barton, Bruce Banner, and... Captain Steve Rogers..." She blinked at the file before shaking her head with a small chuckle. "Okay, that's very funny, Nick." She handed the file to the man and took her mug, walking over to her kettle of hot water. "Steve is dead. He has been for over sixty years."

"He's not."

"Yes, he is," Grace said, pouring the hot water into her mug and steeping the tea bag. "Believe me, I heard it. I heard his last words. The static of his radio when he crashed the plane into the ocean. Steve Rogers is dead, Nick."

Nick paused before walking over to her and replacing her mug with a tablet. She opened her mouth but he quickly interrupted her. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner," he told her and she looked at him, incredibly confused. "After he crashed his plane into the ocean..." he started while Grace looked down at the tablet, watching a video play. "Your brother made you a promise that he would find Captain Rogers."

"But he stopped," Grace said, shaking her head and looking at the man. "He never found the plane."

"He didn't stop," Nick replied quietly and Grace blinked in confusion. "He was sort of forced to stop when he died, but he never fully stopped. You just never knew about it. He didn't want to get your hopes up."

Nick let out a breath and gestured to the tablet in the brunette's hand. "This is footage from our extraction team," he explained and she looked down at the video. "I made the decision to... look for the Valkyrie, his plane that went down with him." Grace let out a breath and sat down at her desk. "About a year later... we received word from a Russian oil team that they found the crashed plane." Grace shook her head in denial. "I sent Coulson to the Arctic when... our team found Steve Rogers encased in ice... still alive."

Grace looked up at Nick who remained silent after the information he had just shared. "So..." She looked down at the video and saw his body slowly leave the plane, tears filling her eyes at the sight. "He's alive?"

Nick slowly nodded as she brought a hand to the dog tags around her neck. "Yes," he replied and she held her head in her hands. "He's... he's in our medical wing."

Grace's head shot up quickly and she looked at the man. "He's here?" she asked, standing up and walking toward him. "He's in this building?" She crossed her arms and pursed her lips. "How long?"

"I'm sorry?"

"How long have you known that Steve is alive and in our medical wing?" she asked, tilting her head. "How long did it take for you to tell me?"

"Grace—"

"Answer the damn question, Fury," she snapped and he let out a breath. "Days? Weeks?" He stayed silent. "Months?" He slowly nodded his head and she scoffed. "Months." She brought a hand to her mouth and paced around the room. "You knew for months and didn't tell me."

"Grace, I was going to, I just wasn't sure how—"

"Oh, cut the bullshit, Fury," she interrupted, shaking her head. "Just..." Grace let out a breath and ran a hand through her hair. "Just don't."

⸻ ~~~ ⸻

𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐎𝐃 𝐎𝐔𝐓𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄 𝐎𝐅 the medical wing, biting her nails, a habit she had picked up when she was young. She hardly ever noticed she did it, but it always drove Howard insane. She reached for the door handle several times, never finding the courage to open the door.

He was seventy feet away.

The man she thought she had lost all those years ago was on the other side of the door. All she had to do was open it, walk inside, and she would see him.

But a part of her was terrified. Terrified that because he had been encased in ice for so long that he wasn't the Steve Rogers she remembered him to be. The man who had been caring and comforting. The man who sacrificed himself to save the world. Though, it wasn't actually a sacrifice as it turned out.

Letting out a breath, Grace pushed open the door and all heads turned to her. "Oh, Miss Stark, we weren't expecting you," an agent said, quickly taking note of their boss standing in the doorway. "Director Fury hadn't told us that you had been informed."

"I just was," Grace replied, not looking at the agent. Her eyes were searching for the blonde hair she had missed for so long. "Where is he?"

"Miss Stark—"

"I heard him die on a radio over sixty years ago," Grace said, interrupting the agent and crossing her arms. "For sixty years, I watched everybody I loved find the person they were supposed to end up with. Every single one of them. Hell, even my own brother found his soulmate. But mine? Mine had sacrificed himself in the Arctic. I'm not waiting anymore. Where the hell is he?"

An agent sighed and gestured to the room to Grace's left. She followed their direction and looked inside the room.

Laying on a bed was Steve.

Her eyes scanned his sleeping figure, a SHIELD shirt covering his upper body and a pair of sweatpants that went to his ankles.

"We've never had a case like this," the agent spoke up and she nodded, still looking at Steve. "We're doing the best we can."

Grace tore her eyes away from the blonde soldier and looked at the agents that filled the room. "Here's what you're going to do..." she said, crossing her arms. "You're going to dress a set into a hospital room from the '40s. You're going to dress him in an SSR shirt and army pants. I know where to find some. Some street noise would be good. Some of the old cars we had back then. And... a Brooklyn Dodgers game on the radio. But from before he went to war."

"Why?"

Grace glanced back at the sleeping figure of Steve. "Because we don't know what kind of damage might have been done to his memory. We don't know what kind of shock he's going to experience when he wakes up nearly seventy years later from when he crashed. If he remembers the Dodgers game and he's in a surrounding that looks like one he's used to, we can ease the transition. It'll still be hard, but it'll be better. And we'll know whether he has any damage to his brain or his memory. Get on it, agents. Before he wakes up."

"But he's been asleep for months."

"I don't care," Grace said, clenching her jaw. "I want it done before he wakes up. And we don't know when that is. Get on it, agents. Don't make me ask a third time."

The agents all scattered and Grace looked back inside the room, her eyes shifting to his monitor. "You're alive..." she muttered, covering her mouth. "You're alive..."

⸻ ~~~ ⸻

𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 Grace hadn't taken into account: Steve waking up in suspicion and destroying the mock medical room and running into modern-day New York. Alone.

That was a minor issue...

"At ease, soldier," Nick said once they had found Steve in the middle of Times Square. Steve turned around at the sound of the voice, his gaze landing on the man with the eyepatch and trench coat.

"Who are you?" he asked as Nick continued to walk toward the newly-awakened blonde soldier.

"Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD," he replied calmly. "You would have known us as the SSR."

Steve's eyes traveled the man as he continued to look at him apprehensively. "Where am I?" he asked.

"Round about 34th and 5th," Nick said and Steve looked at his surroundings in shock. Nick told his agents to stand down from their positions. "Sorry about that little show back there. See, there's no precedent for what you've been through. She couldn't tell how delicate your mental state might be. She thought it best to break it to you slowly, but you sort of ran away before she had a chance."

"Break what?" Steve asked, even more confused. "Who's she?"

Nick sighed. "You've been asleep, Captain. For almost seventy years." Steve stared at him as he took in the information. "You gonna be alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, it's just..." Steve let out a breath. "I guess it means I broke a promise."

"And what kind of promise was it?" Steve froze at the sound of the voice and turned to see Grace standing beside Nick. "Because I'm sure whoever you promised would be very understanding that you saved the world." Grace shrugged and looked at him. "I mean, you did save the world, so..."

"Grace?"

She smiled softly. "Hi, Steve."

"Ho—How are you—?"

"One thing at a time," she said, walking closer to him. "You still have your own shock to work through." She took his hand and her hazel eyes found his blue ones. She smiled lightly as they filled with tears. "I forgot how blue your eyes were."

"You're real?" he asked, cupping her cheek and she melted into his touch. "Even after all this time?"

She nodded. "It's a really long and complicated story," she said softly. "One that I don't really feel like sharing in the middle of Times Square with several agents around us." Her hands restyled his hair that was falling over his eyes. "We should be heading back. I'll tell you everything there."

"Yeah," he said. But before she could walk away, Grace felt herself get pulled into a tight hug and she wrapped her arms around his neck. "I'm sorry I broke my promise."

She closed her eyes. "I'm sorry you woke up seventy years later," she whispered. "But we'll figure it out. We always do."

Steve pulled away to look at her and nodded. She smiled softly before turning to look at Nick. "Alright, load up the cars. And for crying out loud, put the stupid guns away. He's not gonna hurt you." The agents looked amongst themselves and she rolled her eyes. "I'm your boss' boss." They all quickly did as she said and all went into their black SUVs.

Steve glanced at her. "I think I missed a few things..." he said and she chuckled, taking him by the hand toward her car.

"Don't worry," she told him softly. "I'll bring you up to speed."

⸻ ~~~ ⸻

an: and this marks the
end of act two :)

it's the chapter y'all
have been waiting so
very patiently for and
I really hope you guys
like it after all the hype...
it stressed me out writing
it

and before i hear any "oh
he didn't kiss her"
comments, give the man
a break, he just woke up
70 years later...
a hug is acceptable

okay, see y'all in act
three!