If he's not dreaming of freezing or drowning or crashing planes, then it's bombs and gunshots and tanks and shouting and screaming and crying. Because that's his life now.He sometimes wonders if Erksine's serum was worth it. He traded poverty and asthma and weakness for watching other men die.All he has now is cold and pain and darkness. But still his own death won't come. Only the deaths of other men flash through his mind. His own is just out of reach.He vaguely wonders how long he's been sitting here, trapped in his own head inside an ice cube inside a plane inside an ice sheet in the ocean.He wishes it would end.~x~

Steve wakes up feeling like he's floating. He supposes it's better than drowning, but its not exactly safe either.

He is wrapped in a blanket in loose clothing and the room is warm. But it does not feel right. The ceiling above him is too white, while the window in the corner of his eye is far too clean and it is almost hard to make out the glass. When he turns his head to look he sees huge green trees behind a group of white warehouses, each emblazoned with large 'A's on the side. The paths between them are perfectly neat and made of crisp, white gravel.

The area outside is empty of people, but he can hear voices from somewhere behind him. The serum allows him to hear the muffled conversation through a wall, but he cannot quite make out the words. However, the feeling of being watched does not come from them. His soldier's instincts and awareness make him aware of someone else standing in the room.

The make no noise, no movement, but he knows they're there. He's not a super soldier for nothing.

He slowly moves the blanket in such a way that he would be able to make a quick escape from the couch if necessary, and subtly scans what he can see of the room looking for any possible way out.

He doesn't know where he is, and from what he remembers of the people he met when he first woke up they hadn't been threatening, but he can't take the chance that this is Hydra. It always seems to be Hydra.

He tenses, ready to run, when a female voice speaks from behind him.

"I see you are awake Captain Rogers. Can I get you anything?"

He slowly turns, and recognises the woman from earlier with fiery red hair. She is standing still in the centre of the room, which is also completely white and pristine.

"You could tell me your name."

He's not in the mood for wasting time today.

The woman gives him a half smile and replies. "For most of the world that is classified information Captain. But, it's Natasha. Natasha Romanoff."

"And who do you work for Miss Romanoff?"

"She's part of a team of superheroes called the Avengers. We answer to SHIELD and Director Fury, and we protect America from threats that no one else can handle."

This came from the man walking through the door, who looked like Howard and claimed he was his nonexistent son, accompanied by the doctor Bruce and the other man he recognised from before, who named himself Clint.

Steve stood up to face them.

"So your on our side? You're not with the Nazis or Hydra?"

"Of course!" They looked scandalized he'd even suggested it.

"Then where have you been for the whole war?" Steve growled out in what Dugan called his 'channelling Colonel Phillips voice'. "You claim you're superheroes and can fight off everything the rest of us can't. You also claim you fight for us. So where have you been? We've been fighting and dying all over Europe while you've sat here in your clean white buildings doing fuck all apparently. I've watched men burn to death, explode to pieces, go mad from watching friends die in front of them. These are all normal people. They've been there. Where were you?"

And somehow, even though they knew what Steve didn't, his impassioned speech made them feel guilty that they hadn't been there.

"Steve, we'll explain everything, I promise, but first what is the last thing you can remember?" Bruce ventured, putting off the inevitable for the moment.

Steve sat back down on the sofa, looking weary, and the Avengers walked round infront of him. Bruce sat on the coach beside him, Natasha was on the coffee table, Clint was perched on the arm of a chair and Tony was leaning against the window, looking out at the empty compound.

"I defeated the Red Skull, Schmidt, and was sitting in the Pilot's chair at the front of the Valkyrie. The bombs were still on board and the plane was headed for New York. Howard patched me through to Peggy and Colonel Phillips. They were trying to find a solution, but I knew there wasn't time. I couldn't risk bombing New York if it went wrong, so while there was still time I decided to put her in the water. Keep everyone safe.

"Peggy didn't want me to obviously. I could hear her crying over the radio as we talked. She told me she'd teach me to dance as long as I didn't break my promise to meet her at the Stork Club next week. I wanted to cry too, but I didn't. I tried to be strong, for her. The last thing I saw was the photo of her I kept in my compass.

"Then I hit the ice. I was thrown forwards out of the chair and the window was smashed by the force of the collision. The glass shards hit me all over. Then the water rushed in. I had no time to even breathe before the salt water rushed down my throat and into my lungs. I started to choke but was completely underwater and there was no hope of air at all. I remember not breathing for well over ten minutes while my foot was trapped under something, but the serum prevented me from passing out."

Bruce absently noticed the fine tremors shaking Steve's body, but was too absorbed in the horrific tale.

"Once I got my foot free I tried to claw my way out through the open window but my muscles were too fatigued from the lack of oxygen. The water was blossoming red around me. Next I registered the cold. The water was freezing. Chunks of ice floated in it and they got into my lungs. I already had no control over my own body by the time my lungs were frozen. I then felt the blood in the veins freeze bit by bit.

"I felt myself die and I knew this was not something you come back from. This was the end. But the serum wouldn't let my mind shut down. I died. Over and over and over again. Freezing and drowning and bleeding and dying. Except I couldn't. My body wouldn't let me even though it had already shut down.

"I couldn't breathe, couldn't see, couldn't do anything. All I could feel was cold. And pain. But that's why I said it felt like forever since I last breathed Doctor."

He turned his focus on Bruce, deep blue eyes fixed on the man's face, on the pained gaze, on the tear tracks down the cheeks.

"Because I'd almost forgotten what a relief it was to have oxygen in your lungs. I almost forgot what it felt like to breathe."

Clint roughly wiped his eyes with his sleeve as Steve wrapped the blanket tighter around his shivering form.

"Now you will answer my question." Steve looked round at them all individually, his sad blue eyes staring them down in turn. "Where have you been this whole time?"

There was a soft thump as Tony rested his forehead against the glass. Natasha held Steve's hand in her's and whispered, "you have been through too much in your short life Captain. And I'm sorry. But this will hurt."

"What do you mean?" the soldier asked confused.

Tony sighed. "There's a reason why I exist now and didn't before, why everything is cleaner and more advanced than you're used to, why it felt like you had been frozen for an eternity Cap."

Steve has a horrible feeling growing in the pit of his stomach. "No..."

Tony grimaced. "We're going to help you get through this, but there's no putting off the truth Steve. You've been asleep for over 70 years."