Steve's Diary

September 19, 2011

Dear Diary,

Something's wrong. I mean, I know I said I was in a hospital in New York but it doesn't seem right.

Is the war over? Did we win? Why am I back in America and how the Hell did I get here without realizing it?

—————

Bucky- My mind goes blank, but that one word seems to swirl around in my brain. It's almost as if I can actually taste it as it sits seemingly flavorlessly on my tongue.

"B- Bucky..." I whisper, my water eyes flickering open.

I'm in a bed, it seems, and the light from the window at my right is blinding me awake as a tear rolls down my cheek.

The radio, it was playing... it was a baseball game, I think. I wiped my face.

Pearson pitches... a curveball, high and outside for ball one. So, the Dodgers are tied, 4-4. And the crowd well knows that with one swing of his bat, this fellow's capable of making it a brand-new game again.

Wait, what am I listening to? It's a Dodgers game, right? But, somehow I feel like I've heard this all before... am I dreaming?

Just an absolutely gorgeous day here at Ebbets Field.

Ebbets? Well, I was at a Dodgers-Phillies game a- hold on...

The Phillies have managed to tie it up at 4-4. But the Dodgers have three men on.

I looked around the room to see if I recognized anything that might have been triggering this severe déjà vu, but it all looked so foreign. The only thing I thought I knew was the game. It seems surreal, but I feel like I can see it all happening as the announcer's saying everything... like I'm there.

Pearson beaned Reiser in Philadelphia last month. Wouldn't the youngster like a hit here to return the favor? Pete leans in. Here's the pitch. Swung on. A line to the right. And it get's past Rizzo.

I turn to look at the radio, as I've definitely heard this before... maybe Bucky and I-

Three runs'll score.

No. That's it, isn't it?

Reiser runs to third.

It was Bucky and I.

Durocher's going to wave him in.

We were at this game.

Here comes the relay, but they won't get him. Pete Reiser with a-

The door opens and I make eye contact with the woman who enters, closing the door behind her. "Good morning," she says. "Or, should I say afternoon," she adds upon checking her wristwatch.

I gape at her in confusion. "Where am I?" I ask her, seeing what she'll say. They never re-play baseball games on the radio, so something has to be going on here.

"You're in a recovery room in New York City," she says, awfully too quickly. I look at her clothes and take in everything to see if there's anything else seemingly wrong here like I feel there should be.

The Dodgers take the lead, 8-4. Oh, Dodgers! Everyone is on their feet. What a game we have here today, folks. What a game, indeed.

It was a good game, I'll tell you that... and the only reason I can say that is because, well, I was there. I know I was there. I have to have been!

"Where am I really?" I asked her, taking on this new knowledge with full confidence.

She somewhat chuckled. "I'm afraid I don't understand."

"The game. It's from May 1941. I know, 'cause I was there," I told her as I stood. "Now, I'm gonna ask you again," I continued as I approached her. "Where am I?"

"Captain Rogers," she began.

"Who are you?" I asked as the door opened and two suited up men walked in behind her.

I threw them both to the wall and it shattered beneath them, revealing that the so called hospital had been a set all along. I jumped out through the hole that I had created using their bodies and entered a metallic facility and looked all around me for anything that might tell me where I actually was.

"Captain Rogers, wait!" the woman yelled from the fake set as she followed after me. Though, I had no time for stalling. I needed to know what happened and I needed to know as soon as humanly possible, so I ran.

All agents, code 13. I repeat. All agents, code 13.

I heard her voice all around me as I entered a crowded hallway. Everyone looked at me and started for me for whatever reason, so I kept running.

I ran through people and pushed them down, through doors and halls and everything I had to until I was outside, though, it wasn't anywhere I recognized.

Wait. Is this... I'm in New York City, aren't I? God, I see the ghosts of what used to be here but it's a Hell of a lot different now, isn't it? Well, it's not like nothing's the same, but I really did just run into the street and cross into Times Square without even realizing it, didn't I?

I'm spinning around and listening to all the noise and looking at all the signs and cars and colors flashing and changing and-

"At ease, soldier!" A man yelled from behind me. I turn to look and he's... wearing an eyepatch? He, in his black shoes and pants and shirt and trench coat, approaches me with, frankly, nothing written on his face, like he was born to show no emotion. "Look, I'm sorry about that little show back there, but... we thought it best to break it to you slowly."

"Break what?" I asked, just needing to know what the Hell was going on and why everything felt so strangely familiar but unusually and unavoidably different.

"You've been asleep, Cap," he started. "For almost 70 years."

I looked around, realizing why everything looked so new and unfamiliar... but that means all my friends, they're all-

"You gonna be okay?" he asked.

"Yea," I assured him. "Yea, I just..... I had a date."

—————

After all of that, the man, who's name I later learned was Nick Fury, told me everything alongside his friend and colleague named Phil Coulson. Though, I then began to remember everything, anyway.

At first, I thought all my friends had just died because, Hell, I'd been gone so long. Though, they told me Peggy was still alive. Then, I remembered what happened to Bucky, and they proceeded to repeat it anyway which quite literally almost killed me right then and there.

The year is, apparently, 2011, though, I last remember it having been 1945... meaning, I was frozen in ice in the middle of the Arctic inside the Valkyrie for 66 years before they finally found me and thawed me out through a project that is now called Operation: Frostbite; similar to the one I was a part of in 1939 called Project: Rebirth.

So, I'm not dead, then, but my dreams might as well be. Surely I've served my purpose, the one Dr. Erskine engineered me for, and now it's over.

The war, it's over.

The head of Hydra, the Red Skull, is dead... though, Bucky is dead for it too and, now, even Peggy is elderly. I might as well be gone, too.

Here I am, a 93-year-old man trapped in my very own genetically engineered super soldier 26-year-old body... all alone, mind you, with no family and absolutely nothing.

Nothing but the memories, the memories I've written down and kept safe in this very diary.

~ S. R.