Close || Steve Rogers

Twenty Four

A man  who looked like Steve, yet wasn't Steve, greeted me when I opened my eyes. 

He gave me time to adjust to my surroundings before he smiled and asked me, "How are you feeling?" 

Looking around the room, I took notice of the baseball game playing on the radio and the breeze blowing through the open windows.

"Where am I?" I ask him skeptically. 

"You're in a recovery room in New York City." he responds, smiling widely at me. 

"Where's Steve?" I ask him then, wondering how they found us. When the man doesn't answer, I start to panic.

"Where's Steve?" I ask again, louder. The man fumbles for words so I stand up and storm out of the room. I gasp when I see that the room I was in wasn't really a room at all. It was a fake one set up to make it look like I was in New York.

"Steve!" I yell out, panicking and running towards the doors. Two big, tall men with guns in their hands step in my way but I duck under them and run out the doors. 

"Steve!" I yell out again. As I run through the unfamiliar hallways, I reach another set of doors.

Throwing them open, I step into a wide, open room filled with people walking around. I gasp and stop moving, not used to seeing anything like this. 

A few people turn to look at me but I ignore them when a loud, person-less, female voice says out of nowhere, "All agents code 13, I repeat, all agents code 13."

I panic even more and begin to move towards a door that I hope leads to outside. My bare feet slap against the smooth, cold floor as I race to the door. The door swings open as my shoulder hits it. My mouth drops open when I take what's going on outside.

Tall buildings, bright flashing lights, people everywhere. I look around in panic, still searching for Steve. I turn to the right and run down the street. Then, I see a huge group of people standing around something.

I push my way to the front of the group and almost collapse with joy at what I see. 

"Steve!" I call out, running in between two black vehicles. He turns around just as I run into him. He catches me and staggers back a few steps.

"Elizabeth?" he asks as if he doesn't believe it's actually me. 

"I'm here Steve. I'm not going anywhere." I whisper, beginning to cry as I clutch him to me. His arms wrap tightly around me as I wrap my legs around his waist to support myself.

"I hate to interrupt this but we need to get you two out of the public's eye." a man wearing an eye patch says, folding his hands behind his back. Steve blushes as he sets me down. But he keeps an arm around my waist to keep me close to him.

We follow the man as he gets into one of the black vehicles that had been surrounding us. I share an uneasy glance with Steve before following the man into the vehicle. 

"What's going on?" I ask as the vehicle begins moving.

"You've been asleep. For almost seventy years." the man with the eye patch says simply. I gasp and look at Steve. He looks down at me and smiles before gently squeezing my hand.

"Wait, what does that mean? How could that have happened?" I ask, still confused. 

"Well, what we think happened was, because of Captain Rogers' super soldier serum, that's what kept him from freezing. You, however are a different story." the man tells us as the vehicle comes to a stop.

"How so?" Steve asks. 

"Since Elizabeth didn't receive the serum, there wasn't anything special in her blood to keep her body from freezing. However, she's still here. Some doctors think that Captain Roger's body heat kept you from freezing. Others think it was just pure luck."

"All that matters is she's here." Steve smiles at me before kissing my forehead. I blush and duck my head as the man looks at us in the mirror. 

"This is where you two will be staying for the time being. You'll find everything you need inside." the man tells us, gesturing towards the apartment building we're stopped in front of.

Steve tells him thank you before helping me out of the vehicle. The man tosses a key at Steve, which he catches, before the vehicle drives off. 

"Which apartment is it?" I ask Steve as we walk inside. 

"602." Steve responds, looking at the tag attached to the key. We make our way over to the elevator and step inside. 

"Do we just press a button? What do they even mean?" I laugh as we try and figure it out. Things have definitely changed over the past seventy years. As we try and figure it out, the doors open again and an older woman walks in the door with a little boy clutching onto her hand. 

"Excuse me, miss, but how do you work this elevator?" Steve asks, blushing slightly. She looks at us like we're crazy before asking what our room number is. 

"602." I reply. 

"Then you just press the button labeled '6' and it'll take you up to the sixth floor. Your room should be on the right." she replies before hitting the button with a '4' on it.

I then lean around Steve and hesitantly press the button with a '6' on it. The elevator jerks slightly before beginning to move up. The elevator is quiet as we quickly move up to the fourth floor. A bell rings before the doors slide open and the woman and child leave quickly.

"I don't think they liked us very much." I chuckle as the doors slide shut. 

"Apparently we're too old to understand this." Steve jokes. 

"That was horrible, Steve." I reply, shaking my head slightly. Steve begins to respond but the bell rings again and the doors open. 

"Is this the sixth level?" I ask, peeking my head out. Answering my own question when I read the room numbers next to the doors, I pull Steve out of the elevator before the doors slide shut.

"This is our room, I suppose." I say, taking the key from Steve. I unlock the door and push it open. Walking in, I look around hesitantly. The living room was the first thing we walked into. There was a couch with a large, flat box across the room from it and a table directly in front of it.

To the right was the kitchen, filled with unusual appliances. Walking through the kitchen, there was a little hallway that led to a single bedroom with a small bathroom in the room next to it. 

"Steve, there's only one bed." I inform him as I walk back into the living room.

"I can sleep on the couch then." he shrugs, sitting down. 

"No, we can share the bed. I mean, we did spend the past seventy years together, so there really is no difference." I laugh, sitting next to him. 

"Are you sure?" Steve asks.

"Of course. I'm sure the bed is way more comfortable than the couch anyways." I say to Steve. He laughs before leaning back and swinging an arm around my shoulders. I pull my feet up onto the couch and tuck them under me before leaning into Steve's side.

"I never thought I'd see you again." Steve says quietly after a few minutes. 

"When?" I ask. 

"When we went into the ice. And when I woke up. I thought you had died. I didn't know what I was going to do without you. When I heard you call out my name earlier, I couldn't believe it was you."

I close my eyes and move closer to Steve as a sign of comfort. 

"I asked the man who was with me when I woke up where you were and he didn't answer. I thought you had died too. I started panicking and I ran off to try and find you." I tell him.

Steve sighs before pressing a kiss to the top of my head. 

"At least I still have you." he whispers. 

"You'll always have me, Steve. I will never leave you, I promise. I will always keep you close. I love you." I tell him. 

"I love you too, Beth." 

-

awe feels.