14Steve Rogers: "If they're shooting at you, they're bad."
STEVE
December 8th, 2011 - New York
The new world was confusing. Steve could admit that. There was technology readily available now that he couldn't have dreamed up back when he was just a little guy from Brooklyn gawking at a science fair.
Being dumped into a new world filled with this new technology and being told to navigate it just so that one could live had been … a challenge.
Everything was different. The money. The food. The lights. The heat. The cars. The women. The men. All of it, like stepping into a brand world.
Yet, let no person say that Steve Rogers was a coward or didn't jump into something with everything he had.
New technology? Fine, he got books on it, then a laptop, and then a cellphone. It was slow going, picking through the decades missed, swallowing the losses, and trying to learn all aspects of the new world. But, it was going.
Everything else... He picked up by going outside before the city was awake and then when most of it was asleep. He found comfort and perspective in old diners, long runs, stacks of 'need-to-read' books, and then punching bags when the tension got to be too much.
He didn't think about the two lines of script on his body: One found and cherished, another never fulfilled and questioning. When he'd lost Bucky and drove the plane down, he thought they must have messed up. No one in the history of the world had ever died before meeting the person with their Words. It was guaranteed. And if you didn't, well that was because you were a Blank. You didn't have that perfect match out there for you.
Seeing as how both Steve and Bucky had never found the third person to their triad, he thought maybe… somehow… they just hadn't heard them at some point. That when he crashed that plane and said goodbye to the world, that they had missed out on them.
But now that he was awake, the questions came. Steve had an unfulfilled soul mark. Words, that no one else had said to him before. He had a soulmate here, somewhere, in this new world it was clear now.
Something he didn't want and didn't know if he'd ever want after Bucky. Didn't know if he could love again like that.
And Bucky … well he'd had a row of words too. Had he met his third person and not told Steve? To save heartache because they weren't Steve's as well? What did it all mean?
Some nights, in the beginning, it drove Steve to start running the blocks and not stop until early afternoon. He'd get a driver to come take him back to his apartment. Then, after a month of doing that on and off, he decided that he'd just have to stop thinking about it. He'd never know now, and it left a pit in him that ached and rolled every morning.
The last thing he thought he'd find so early out of the ice was comfort. Solace. In this crazy, terrifying, confusing, new world, a sliver of peace was revealed completely by accident.
A singer in this age, of all the people he could connect to, named Darcy Lewis.
Twenty three.
Born and raised in West Virginia.
College graduate.
Newcomer in music.
Someone he'd never physically met, and maybe never would.
Darcy Lewis was a debut artist that the country had fallen in love with through her YouTube videos earlier last year. After success on that, she released an 'EP', a record, to the public last month and was going 'viral'. Only five songs were on 'Darling', but once Steve had heard her voice - listened to her lyrics - he couldn't get enough either.
He didn't know why, but her music spoke to him when the rest of the world was shouting nonsense.
She was his first personal YouTube video search, and the first User he 'subscribed' to. He felt a little weird being a 'follower' on the internet as it rubbed him all sorts of wrong when he'd never even met the woman before, but he did so on the 'social media' as well. Instagram, apparently, was brand new to all so everyone was figuring it out together.
And quite by accident, still trying to understand how everything worked, the internet provided him and reminded him of every new thing that Darcy Lewis did as the weeks went by. An interview with a magazine link was emailed to him. A 'notification' for a video of her speaking about the meaning of her songs appeared on his phone. A new 'tweet' of hers chirped its arrival after a morning run.
It was … strange, being so a part of someone he had never met before. Nearly an invasion of space, he thought, but something that the world did without thought or care.
Still, despite all rational thoughts of privacy or overly acute interest, Steve became what people these days called a 'fan'.
It made the days a little less bitter, and his nights just a little less lonely.
DARCY
March 15th, 2012
Her pants were itchy, the makeup felt heavy and hot under the lights, and Darcy couldn't remember if she had actually turned off her phone for this interview or not. Shit. And she couldn't just reach down and dig it out now to check.
Please for the love of all the gods, let no one call her.
"So what is it like?" Debrah the interviewer asked. Her teeth were a blinding shade of absolute white, and the red lipstick surrounding them tipped up into an energetic smile, making her look extra shiny and happy. "Being this now, international star?"
Darcy laughed and hoped it didn't sound too nervous. "Well I don't know about international, or even the star part to be completely honest, but the amount of people that like my music has been pretty overwhelming."
Debrah nodded like she had any idea what Darcy was going through. "You've got a Grammy nomination under your belt now after your first ever record last year. Beautiful dress, by the way on that red carpet. Loved it. My daughter wanted to be you-"
Darcy put a hand to her chest and let out an 'Awwww' and a smile to her interviewer.
She tried to keep her eyes on Deborah instead of the cameras.
Her stilettos were digging into the back of her heels, she was beginning to sweat in places that she didn't want everyone to point at, and her stomach felt tied up in knots.
"And your music video released two weeks ago for "Letters to Love" hit 71.6 million views within its first 24 hours-" Debrah continued. Her co-host of the morning show, Brandon, clapped his hands next to her and grinned like he was proud of her. "It's all very impressive considering you've been in the industry, what? A little under two years? I feel like that's got to be some sort of qualification for 'star' membership at this point."
Darcy could feel what she was putting down and smiled. Relax she told herself. This wasn't her first interview, and she knew how to be funny. Kind. Entertaining. This was just the first time she was doing it live, on national TV.
"Well, listen," Darcy laughed in answer and leaned forwards, "when I get my celebrities-only card in the mail, I'll be sure to let you know," she winked.
Deborah and Brandon laughed along with her very lame joke, easing a little of her inner tension.
"Until then- it's just..." she trailed off. She wanted to put some honesty into her feelings not only for her fans, or Jane in the lab, or Tasha watching from either at home or on mission, but for herself. This was her career now.
"I've had a bit of a learning curve within the last two years, you're right. I had to learn how to not only understand the industry, and change my life for new opportunities, and all of everything that comes with that... but also how to just release my songs to the world. I didn't have the confidence to do that two years ago. Now I'm scheduled to do it live, on talk shows, for the nation. I mean- it's- it's-"
Debrah put her perfectly manicured hands to the side of her face and smiled with a soft grimace. "It sounds like so much! Aww-"
"It's wild!" Darcy laughed along. "An amazing experience every day, absolutely, but calling myself a celebrity?" She made a wry face. "It doesn't sound true."
The three of them shared a laugh.
"Not yet then. How about an extended fifteen minutes of fame, does that sound better?" Brandon smiled and laughed to the lights and the people beyond. His own blinding smile flashed against his dark skin.
"Oh, so much," Darcy leaned back in her chair and smiled.
"Extended fifteen minutes of fame- I like that," Deborah agreed.
Brandon looked to his co-host. "We'll make T-Shirts," he joked.
They dissolved into laughter again, and Darcy found that her cheeks were starting to hurt. Was her makeup creasing?
"Speaking of," Deborah's laughs had died down and she turned back to Darcy. "Is it weird going out on the street and seeing people, like-" She smiled wide, eyes going big, and Darcy caught on immediately.
"Noticing me and pointing?" Darcy made herself laugh. Yes weird, and awful, and wonderful, and nauseating, but she couldn't say that. "Yeah, no, it's very different, you know?. I'm not used to having to handle fame."
"Does it ever get tricky out there when you're just trying to live your life?" Brandon asked.
"Every day," Darcy answered honestly. "It's a balancing act of trying to be myself in my own life, and being this 'other' person that everyone already seems to know."
They nodded and made 'mhmmm' noises. "Can you tell us," Deborah asked with a tilt of her blonde head, "What's been the most personal thing that people have made a mention of to you, that you just thought was just -" Deborah made a very vague hand motion in the air, and Darcy panicked a little inside.
That was a question that was framed for her to answer very badly. It could be catastrophic for her image if not done right. A very neatly set trap. She didn't want to come off ungrateful or an asshole to her fans, and she had to answer with a little honesty as well, or people would think her shallow and insincere. She swallowed.
"As you know," she started off, thinking furiously, "the lyrics to my songs are deeply personal," she said. "They come from a certain feeling or situation that I'm either in the center of or know so well that I can feel like it's me as the main character."
"Right, right," Bradon encouraged, looking very serious.
"So a lot of them circle around love," she stated. "Everyone can relate to it. Either wanting it, losing it, or the rainbow of actions with it, but they understand, fundamentally, this feeling of love."
"Absolutely," Deborah nodded.
"And usually what comes with that is the mention of our Words or our Ones, which, generally-"
Brandon 'mmmmm'ed in sympathy. "Is very personal, right," Deborah answered.
"Right, so when people hear my lyrics they ask me point blank to my face- 'oh is this true?' 'Have you not found your One?' 'What are your Words?'-"
"Has someone really asked you that, to your face?" Brandon asked with raising eyebrows. In polite society, actually in almost all of society, asking what someone else's Words were was personal. Friends knew them, family would know where they were on your body, but complete strangers had no business asking unless they matched. To ask someone without even knowing their name was very, very rude. Everyone knew this.
"Oh yes, several times actually," Darcy answered. "It was- jolting, to say the least."
"Eck," Deborah frowned. "And what do you usually have to say back to that?"
Darcy unconsciously tucked a curl behind her ear. "I try to be as polite as I can. Just 'thank you so much for your interest, but it's not your problem. I know now for sure that you are not one of my matches-"
Darcy knew she had made a mistake even before the end of her sentence.
Deborah's eyes widened. Brandon's did as well, but his gaze went to someone beyond the cameras in front of them like 'did you just hear what I just did?'
She wanted to slap a hand over her mouth and suck back the words. She had let out that she had not one, but two soulmates. A rarity.
"Oh shit," she said on live TV, and then cursed in her head for the curse out loud.
STEVE
March 15th, 2012
Steve's eyes widened in the diner at the TV mounted on the wall.
It was late morning, and he was having a rough start of the day. He'd had nightmares, felt jittery, and went for a run until the streets got crowded, and then went to the diner closest to home, only to have to wait thirty minutes before he could snag a table. He didn't know why Thursday breakfast was such a big hit here, but by the time he got his food, he was starving, tired, and ready to just eat.
Halfway through his second helping of pancake stacks, he noticed the TV just across from him. Someone had turned up the volume to the news station, but what caught his attention was the familiar face on the screen.
"I've had a bit of a learning curve within the last two years, you're right," Darcy Lewis said. Her long chocolate-colored hair was down, curled around her face, wearing a shade of dark lipstick that brought out the rosy tint in her cheeks. She didn't have on her signature black frame glasses that she wore in her YouTube videos. "I had to learn how to not only understand the industry, and change my life for new opportunities, and all of everything that comes with that... but also how to just release my songs to the world. I didn't have the confidence to do that two years ago. Now I'm scheduled to do it live, on talk shows, for the nation. I mean- it's- it's-"
His headache vanished. Something in him settled. A familiar, handsome, face, smiling and laughing. He hadn't seen anything from her for several weeks after the release of her music video, and he hadn't gone out of his way to look busy as he was with trying to catch up to this century and its new threats.
But like fate, there she was.
He continued to eat and watch her interview, slightly absorbed by the frank blueness of her eyes. An aquamarine - electric blue- sapphire- The color changed the longer he looked.
Caught up in the sounds of her voice and her conversation to the other two on the screen until -
"I try to be as polite as I can. Just 'thank you so much for your interest, but it's not your problem. I know now for sure that you are not one of my matches-"
He stopped chewing. Others who were watching the morning show made noises of surprise.
"Did she just say-"
"Bro, like two?"
"Oh, no way-"
Having more than one Soulmate was as unheard of in this time as it was in his. Those that were in that small statistic were spoken of in a different connotation between the subcultures around the world. One of the very few things this time and his had in common. His lips curled over his white coffee mug, and a sense of sympathy washed over him.
Clearly, she had not meant to say that out loud. Her resounding snap of "Shit" echoed in the room, and some around him laughed. He winced.
He could only imagine the backlash the conversation was going to have. What it might already have. News spread faster on the internet than it ever did in the papers of his past.
Before he could catch more of the interview, the phone in his pocket chirped at him. Steve Rogers fished out the phone, but Captain America read the message and responded back.
Looks like breakfast was over.
Thank you all so much for your sweet comments and love, I appreciate it :)
I am sorry that it takes me a little longer to update, but I am currently also working on two other very LONG stories, so, patience my dears. I do intend to finish this as well :)