Man Out of Time - A Captain America / Avengers Fanfiction

Chapter 2

The 1938 Indian Chief rumbled to life with a kick of his heel, the throaty bass of its powerful engine reassuring beneath his thighs as it out into the Lower East Side traffic. The blue-and-grey motorcycle was a relic, like him. The dream bike his Irish-immigrant parents could only have dreamed of him someday owning, although they had both died so young Steve had hardly gotten to know them.

At least traffic hadn't changed all that much in the time he'd been asleep, though there was certainly a lot more of it now. The increase in volume was offset by the fact it barely moved, enabling him to weave in and out of stopped cars like a ribbon being braided into a pretty girls' hair. Narrowly missing a car door unexpectedly opened in the middle of the gridlocked Holland tunnel, Steve kicked the clutch and shifted gears using the 'suicide shift' located next to the gas tank to maneuver without braking. No matter how much things changed, some things always remained the same. Like idiot drivers!

He wore aviation sunglasses instead of the goggles he'd worn back in 1944. The helmet upon his head was hard resin rather than the soft leather worn during World War II, but the feel of the wind caressing his cheeks had changed little in the time he'd been asleep. The briny scent of the Meadowlands was so thick it was nearly palpable, though less so than it would be mid-summer when sun increased the rate of decay. Stark had built him an enhanced super-helmet with its own AI, but the full-faced wind-guard had left Steve gasping for air. They'd finally compromised by building a radio into his helmet that, for the most part, remained silent. Just in case they needed to reach him.

Plunking a handful of coins into the tollbooth to exit the Jersey Turnpike, Steve wound along the nameless river, the scent of the salt marsh fading the further he travelled inland. He forced his mind to focus on the sun, the curve of the road, the Indian throbbing reassuringly into his crotch as he drove. Years of self-discipline taught to him by the military helped him subdue the butterflies threatening to erupt out of his stomach as either vomit, or tears. Ninety-four years old. Peggy Carter was ninety-four years old. Really ninety-four years old. Not just twenty-five with a sixty-seven year gap like he had, but old.

"Somerset Valley Rehabilitation Center," Steve read aloud, staring at the white-and-green sign with apprehension. Squat, low buildings stretched across pleasant, neatly tended grounds. He guided the bike into a parking spot, though it wasn't difficult to find one in the nearly empty lot, and kicked down the kickstand. The engine fell silent as he stared at the place Peggy had been sent to die. He sat, squeezing the brakes on the handlebar in and out as he tried to pull himself together.

Ninety-four years old. Peggy's son had reassured him his mother was still pretty sharp for a ninety-four year old woman, but warned she'd gotten forgetful the past few years. Sometimes she mistook her grandchildren for friends who were long dead and in the grave. Had he really made enough of an impression upon her all those years ago that she'd remember him? The scrawny Irish kid from the Lower East Side of Manhattan who'd thrown his body across a dud grenade and not the image of Captain America the military had fostered to sell war bonds?

The lobby of the nursing home seemed homey enough, with a fireplace and powder-blue walls as though it were a living room in a private home. The scent of old-people mixed with urine, however, was unmistakable. Death. A place people were sent to die when they became too much of a burden on their loved ones. He'd been spared that unpleasantness with his own parents by their untimely deaths, but that just meant when his own time came to sit in a wheelchair and soil his britches there'd be nobody left alive to visit him. Empty. The nursing home was empty except for elderly patients left staring vacantly at the wall. A perky woman wearing white nursing shoes shuffled from patient to patient, sniffing to make sure nobody needed a change of Depends, but otherwise her charges were left alone with their own mortality. Steve followed signs down a long, featureless yellow hall to the nursing station.