5th March
14:36 GMT -5
Earth 8096
Anthony scowls at me as I chivvy my team mates out. "You know, this is
technically my house. And by 'technically' I mean 'I
literally own it'."
"And I'll let you
all back in just as soon as you're wearing-" I pat Anthony's power armour with my left hand and give Thor a slightly harder glare than he really deserves. "-normal clothes, and I've made sure that he's well enough to do
anything."
Janet shrinks and flies up so that she can look at the now-defrosted Steven Rogers over my shoulder. "He looks fine to me."
"He's been frozen in a block of ice for over sixty years, Janet. I'll be impressed if he's not a vegetable. Please?"
"H
mh." She folds her arms across her chest as Anthony and Thor give up and head down the corridor towards their rooms. I raise my left hand and
generate a fly swatter construct. Her eyes widen. "You
wouldn't."
"I'd feel
bad about it, but if I thought your presence was a risk to my patient's wellbeing,
I would."
"Okay,
fine!" She turns away, reverting to normal size as she stalks down the corridor with fists clenched. "Jerk!"
And we're good. I step back into the mansion's sick bay and close the door. Then I lock it before turning around to look down at Captain America.
Ring,
status?
Orange light plays over his body and then cuts out.
Subject is in good physical condition. Mild bruising. Acceptable fat reserves. No muscle wastage. No detectable damage to internal organs. Upon the basis of available evidence-.
It wasn't hibernation, because if he was hibernating he'd be… Thin as a rake. At best.
Based on normal hibernation energy consumption, he would be dead.
While in reality, he's already breathing unaided. His body was the temperature of the ice surrounding it when we dug him out, but ever since we
did he's been steadily warming up. He's nearly up to the body temperature of a-
"Mrrhki."
-healthy human-.
I shove my left hand into the pocket of my lab coat as Captain America's eyes flutter open.
"Captain?"
He
jerks upright. "
Bucky!" He tries to push himself off his bed, his legs getting momentarily tangled in the sheets before he regains enough motor control to just rip them apart. As he comes to his feet his eyes scour the room, noting and then apparently dismissing me as he searches for-.
Ah. His shield. Which is in the armoury two floors away. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
I use my thumb to slip the power ring off my left ring finger and then hold both arms out towards him, empty hands clearly on display. "Mister Rogers. Can you understand what I'm saying?"
Two feet firmly planted on the ground, right shoulder slightly forward, enough power in a jab to give me a skull fracture.
Right.
"Who are you? Where am I? Where's Bucky?"
"Mister Rogers, I'm not going to tell you anything until I'm certain that you're well. If you're not going to lie down would you at least
sit down?"
His eyes narrow slightly. "You're a doctor?"
"A nurse, actually." Sort of. I rushed the theoretical parts of the job by ring download and don't have anything like enough practical experience a fully qualified nurse would have. But I'm pretty sure that I could have qualified in the forties. "And it's my job to make sure that tomorrow we can announce to the nation that Captain America is alive and well and not that he had a heart attack and died because we fouled up his care." I smile, then gesture at the bed with both hands. "Please?"
He regards me cautiously for a moment before scanning the room again. Without ripping out large amounts of equipment I couldn't really make it look like it was from the forties, but I at least got rid of the
worst offenders. Nothing..
appears to set him off.
He takes a deep breath and then relaxes his muscles a little.
"Is this.. England?"
"No. New York, actually. Please-" I take a small torch out of my right pocket. "-
sit down and save your questions until after I've given you a once-over?"
He hesitates, then reluctantly nods, lowering himself back onto the mess of sheets. "You know I can't get sick, right?"
"Given what you went through, we don't want to take any chances." I walk closer. "Head back a little?" He complies, and I shine the torch directly into his right eye. Pupil reaction normal, and I already know that his optic nerve is fine. I switch to the left. Normal there too. I take a step back and turn off the torch before returning it to my pocket. "Please tell me your full name."
He frowns slightly, but obliges me anyway. "Steven Rogers."
"Your parents' names?"
"Joseph Harvey Rogers and Sarah Alicia Rogers."
I raise my right fist, sticking out my forefinger. "Please follow this?" I move it right, up, down and left, then in a figure of eight. His eyes track it with no difficulty. I return it to my right pocket, pull out a lollypop and toss it to him. His right arm
blurs as he grabs it out of the air, and for a moment I think he's about to launch himself at me.
Then he opens his hand and realises what it is. "A lollipop?"
I shrug. "You're being a good boy. With reflexes like that, have you ever considered a career in cricket?"
"A-
heh." He makes a sort of cough-laugh sound, though his eyes never leave my face. "I think Uncle Sam's going to have first call on my time. Are you going to answer my questions now?"
"Ah… Yes, and as far as I can tell you're in good health. I was…" I glance at the door. "Rather hoping that one of the members of your squad would be here for this bit, but… I'll do my best. Please understand that you may have questions I'm.. not supposed to answer at this time."
"Alright. Where am I?"
"New York. Eight hundred and ninety, fifth avenue, to be precise."
"What the heck-" He starts to stand. "-am I-" I make a motion with my hands like I'm about to try pushing him back down, and he relents. "-doing back home? There
is a war on."
"Mister Rogers, what's the last thing you remember?"
His face hardens. "My missions are classified."
Ah… Yes, that's something a HYDRA operative might ask. I don't want this to turn out like the
Ultimates. "Mister Rogers, part of my job is to assess your mental state. I've
read the files. I know that your previous mission involved an attack on a HYDRA base commanded by Johann Schmidt, where he was attempting to create a portal to Asgard. I'm asking
you to tell me because I want to check your short term memory."
He nods, still a little suspicious. "We took the castle. Schmidt tried to run in some kind of rocket plane. Bucky and I-." He stops, and for a moment I think he's about to ask again. "We climbed on board. Schmidt hit the eject and rigged the plane to explode. There wasn't a second parachute, so I told Bucky to jump but-. The entry ladder got twisted around his leg. I tried to free him but he-. I lost my grip. I fell into the water, and… Then I woke up here."
I nod. "That's.. all correct, as far as I know. I'll have to assume that you
are compos mentis. Mister Rogers-."
"It's
Captain Rogers."
"Ah… Actually, it
isn't. While you were… Ah, missing in action… You were promoted."
"Major Rogers, then. I'm not usually a stickler for protocol, but-."
"General Rogers, actually. But since you insist,
General, as far as we can tell, after you entered the water your body… Entered a form of suspended animation."
He frowns. "Like hibernation?"
"No, it's more than that. I'm.. sure that Doctor Erskine would have understood it better than
I do. You were…
Frozen. And.. now you're..
not. And everything I can see tells me that you're exactly as you were when you went into the ocean. Which is pretty darn amazing."
"
Bucky, did he make it too?"
"We.. don't know. I.. don't want you to get your hopes up, but… We didn't think we'd get
you back either. We've got some people
looking." I shrug. "As soon as we know anything…"
He nods. "If you're not rushing me back to the front… Is the war.. over?"
"Yes. Ah. It's actually been over for.. some time. This is.. a bit that I think it's going to be hard for you to accept, and I.. really wanted someone you
knew to be here so
they could tell you. Ah-."
"Who'd you call in?"
"James Howlett."
"Logan?" General Rogers frowns, but there's a small smile at the point of familiarity. "What's
he doing in New York? I thought he'd go right back to the Yukon."
"I believe that he did
immediately after the war, but he works as a school teacher in Westchester County these days."
"So it's… Nineteen forty five?" He sees my face. "Forty
six? I was out that long?"
"Ah." I take a step back. "I really think it would be best for you to hear this from Mister Howlett. But if you're not willing to wait..?" He gives his head a small shake. "You've been through a rough time and you're in an unfamiliar environment. I'll tell you, but I need you to promise me first that you're
not going to dive through the window."
"Why would I dive through the window?"
"Because it's going to be a shock and your initial impulse is going to be to disbelieve me, which is why I wanted to wait until someone you trust would be here."
He turns his head to look at the window.
And he stares at it for a
little too long.
"Alright. I swear that I won't dive out the window when you tell me."
"You experienced no physical change for the whole time you were frozen. I'm not sure you couldn't have been in there indefinitely. So I.. suppose that we're lucky it was
only sixty five years."
"Sixty f-?" He blinks, staring at me in a mix of
fear and disbelief. "Sixty five
years?"
"It's the fifth of March, twenty ten. Welcome to the future." My eyes dip to the floor for a moment.
"I'm very sorry."
