Back to the Past

Prologue

Captain Steve Rogers was a man out of time. While he left 1945 and woke up 70 years later, coming back to 1953 felt out of time. In the future, everything had changed, and he dreamt of a day when he was able to come home. Now the day had arrived when he took the last of the Pym Particles and laughed himself through time. It had been the overall goal to be back, but even now, he stood eight years in the future from where Peggy last saw him. Eight years changed a lot in technology. It was nothing like the future, but it felt like nothing from the past eight. The COld War had sparked, and Steve had an idea about what hid in his its midst.

Standing outside the metal gates, he didn't know what he was supposed to compare New Jersey underground site to: the past when it was just the army or the future of what it would become. Both were good questions.

A car horn honked, and Steve fell out of his trance. He could've stared at the gates all day with no idea how to walk through.

The guards at the gate stared back. Steve was a tall and imposing man, but he had soft eyes. The guards at the gate weren't as tall or imposing, but their eyes were mean and their fingers twitched too much close to a gun. Those were bad combinations.

"Are you going to stand there all day, kid?" came a gruff voice from behind him.

Steve liked to think he was just a kid from Brooklyn, but he wasn't that anymore. Turning to the man, he was quick to notice the uniform. It was a familiar face, one he thought would retire after the war, but Steve guessed that Howard Stark needed some soldier help.

The man blinked and then recognition dawned on him. Colonel Chester Phillips said, "We thought you were dead, lost you in the ice."

"You did," Steve admitted. "It just took me a long time to find my way home."