<| Luke's POV |>
A couple of years later...
Dragging myself back to my place, I was wiped. Not from the mission itself—please, that was barely even cardio—but from the sheer volume of people I had to wade through. Crowds. Noise. The smell. Midtown was a nightmare today, and I didn't exactly blend in, even when I tried.
I kicked the door shut behind me and dropped my gear by the wall. My helmet clunked onto the kitchen counter, followed by my jacket, gloves, and what was left of my patience. I started flipping open cabinets out of habit, pretending I actually had food that wasn't protein bars or cold coffee. I didn't.
"Note to self," I muttered, scanning an empty fridge shelf. "Buy groceries. Or just invent the ability to photosynthesize already."
I popped a protein bar open and leaned against the counter, chewing like I had something better to do. I didn't.
Then I felt it—more instinct than thought. The subtle shift in the air.
The presence of someone else in the room.
A figure peeled itself from the shadows near the hallway. My heart didn't jump—too trained for that—but my jaw clenched automatically.
"Alright," I said, exhaling through my nose, "can we stop with the unannounced ninja entries? I know you're proud of your dramatic timing, but it's getting old."
"Yeah, Faraday, I know—protocol says call ahead." a familiar voice chimed in, laced with that same smug energy I could smell a mile away. "But where's the fun in that? Consider this a personal wake-up call."
"Fury," I sighed, placing the protein bar on the counter next to my helmet. "You do realize that breaking into my apartment is technically a crime, right?"
"Relax," he said, strolling in like he owned the place. "You really think a locked door and a couple of half-assed window alarms were gonna stop me? Please. I've breached safer places before breakfast.""
"I was kinda hoping for at least a text," I said, grabbing a glass from the cupboard and filling it with water. "Last time I checked, I wasn't due for a performance review, and I haven't killed anyone important this week. So, unless you're here to compliment my kitchen feng shui, I'm guessing this is about something."
He didn't answer right away. Just gave me that look—the one-eye version of a poker face. And that's when I knew.
This wasn't just a visit.
This was the beginning of something.
And as much as I hated to admit it... I was already listening.
"Remember that bet we started a couple years back?" Fury's voice cut through the bullshit like a blade, all humor gone. "Well, cash in your chips. World's going to hell, and your ass just got called back to the table."
Gone was the banter, replaced with a heavy weight that settled instantly in the room.
I dropped onto the couch with a groan, stretching an arm along the backrest. "I do," I said, voice level despite the shift in the air. "Just how bad are we talking? On a scale from mild inconvenience to global catastrophe?"
Fury didn't answer right away. Instead, he pulled a slim folder from inside his coat and slid it across the coffee table like it was carrying a bomb. I grabbed it, flipped it open, and—
A glowing blue cube stared back at me.
No label. No welcome note. Just a blur of scientific readouts, high-level clearance stamps, and photos with timestamps that didn't match any known time zone. My fingers flipped through the pages, absorbing everything. Energy output spikes. Radiation signatures. Unknown material composition. Cross-referenced reports from S.H.I.E.L.D. bases across the globe.
The damn thing wasn't just glowing. It was calling to something.
Or someone.
"Who swiped it?" I asked, eyes still scanning for patterns, for angles, for answers. "Because judging by the gamma resonance alone, whoever touched it without knowing what they were doing probably evaporated on impact. Unless..."
"This wasn't some two-bit troublemaker," Fury said, planting both hands on the table as his voice dropped to a graveled whisper. "Tell me, you ever crack open a book on Norse gods? 'Cause we're not dealing with local talent here."
I blinked and looked up. "You're kidding, right?"
"Not even close."
I sighed, leaning back and tapping the file against my leg. "Yeah, I've dabbled. Loki. Thor. Bifrost. All that old poetic murder-fest. What's that got to do with the cube?"
"Turns out Loki—yeah, that Loki—decided Earth's his new stage. And that Cosmic Cube we've been babysitting? He's taken a real shine to it." Fury's eye locked on like a targeting system. "Already turned a few of my best into his personal puppets. So unless you've got Asgardian-grade aspirin, we've got a problem."
I rubbed my temple. "Okay, just to be clear here—you're telling me a literal god with a superiority complex, magic mind-control, and questionable fashion choices broke into one of your vaults and stole a cube of unknown cosmic origin?"
"That's about the shape of it."
I stared at him, deadpan. "Fury. That's not a 'bad situation.' That's a Greek tragedy waiting to happen on Norse hardware."
"Damn right you're not wrong," Fury grunted, thumb tapping the file in his hand like it owed him money. "That cube? Older than civilization itself. We've barely scratched what it does—and every test just gives me new reasons to lose sleep."
I glanced back down at the file, flipping to a page that showed an incident log from a remote S.H.I.E.L.D. base: systems failure, personnel missing, power anomalies. The timestamps were exactly eight minutes apart. Too precise to be random.
"You've already lost people to this, haven't you?" I asked quietly.
Fury didn't answer. He didn't have to.
"We're forming a team," he added after a beat. "Another asset's already being contacted. We'll brief you both together once we're airborne."
I shut the folder with a snap and stood, feeling the old spark stirring again.
Danger.
Mystery.
The unknown.
Yeah, I missed this.
"You sure this isn't about you losing that bet?" I smirked. "You just want me to clean up your intergalactic mess so you don't owe me five hundred bucks."
Fury's lips twitched. "You catch the god, I'll double it."
I slung the folder under one arm and met his gaze.
"Alright, Fury," I said, already grabbing my a bag. "When do we leave?"
....
Fury led me down a narrow flight of stairs into a dimly lit underground gym. The air was thick with tension, pulsing with the heavy thud of fists slamming into leather. But it wasn't just a workout. No—each hit came with the weight of something personal. Rage, grief, maybe both.
"Mind filling me in on who's throwing this tantrum?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. "If I'm supposed to be playing babysitter, I'd like to know who I'm being signed up for."
"All in good time," Fury replied, brushing past my question with that infuriating shrug of his.
As we reached the bottom of the steps, the mystery puncher came into view. Tall. Blond. Familiar.
And very much not supposed to be alive.
I blinked, trying to reconcile the living, breathing man in front of me with the historical photos burned into every military file I ever read. Steve Rogers. Captain freaking America.
He launched a final punch that sent the bag swinging wildly, then calmly reached for another. No pause. No breath. Just pure, focused aggression. If the bag had a face, it'd be pulp.
Fury stopped near the edge of the mat, and I hovered a few steps behind, arms crossed.
"Trouble sleeping?" Fury asked, tone casual but loaded.
"I slept for seventy years, Sir, and I think I've had my fill," Steve grunted. "I think I've had my fill."
"Figured you'd be out celebrating," Fury said dryly, flipping open the file he'd shown me earlier. "Then you should be out, celebrating, seeing the world
"When I went under, the world was at war," the man muttered, each word punctuated by a hit. "I wake up—they tell me we won." He stopped, finally, letting the bag sway. "They didn't say what we lost."
Fury's face tightened. "We've made some mistakes along the way, some very recently."
The Steve began unwrapping his hands, knuckles raw and scarred. "You here with a mission, Sir?"
"I am," Fury said.
"Trying to get me back in the world?" Rogers asked, a tired smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Fury slid the file toward him. "Trying to save it."
Rogers opened the folder, his expression shifting as he scanned the contents. "HYDRA's secret weapon..." he muttered under his breath, eyes narrowing.
"Howard Stark fished it out of the ocean when he was looking for you," Fury said, his voice lowering. "Thought the Tesseract might be the key to unlimited sustainable energy. And we figured he was right. The world could use something like that."
"Who took it from you?" Rogers asked, suddenly alert.
"Name's Loki," Fury said. "He's... not from around here. There's a lot we'll have to bring you up to speed on if you're in. The world has gotten even stranger than you already know."
Rogers closed the file slowly, brows furrowed. "At this point I doubt anything would surprise me."
"Welcome back to the deep end," I said finally, stepping forward with a grin. "Hope you know how to swim, old-timer."
His gaze slid to me, measuring. Not hostile. Just... curious.
"And you are?"
"Lieutenant, Luke Faraday. Part-Time Merc." I extended a hand.
He took it. Firm grip. No hesitation. "Steve Rogers."
"Yeah, I know," I said, smirking. "You're kind of a legend. No pressure or anything."
Rogers turned back to Fury. "If this Loki's as bad as you're saying, then let's not waste time."
Fury gave a rare nod of approval. "Glad to hear it. Wheels up at 0800. You'll both be debriefed on the way."
As we followed him out, I glanced back once at the punching bag swaying gently in the dim light. Something told me this team-up was going to be anything but ordinary.
....
~Inside the Quinjet, the next day~
Fast forward to the next morning, and there I was—buckled into a Quinjet, flying to some top-secret S.H.E.I.L.D base in the middle of nowhere. The hum of the engines was steady, the skies clear, and the mission vague as hell, as usual. Agent Coulson sat across from me, calmly reading through a tablet like we weren't about to be dropped into a potential world-ending situation. Captain America or Steve Rogers, as he preferred me using—yeah, still weird saying that in my head—sat beside me, arms crossed, eyes constantly scanning the horizon through the small window like a soldier who hadn't learned how to switch off.
"ETA to home base: twenty minutes, sir," the pilot announced over comms.
Steve glanced at me, then looked again, longer this time. There was curiosity behind his eyes, and maybe just a trace of suspicion.
Not that I blamed him.
"So... how old are you, anyway?" he asked, with the same cautious tone someone might use when poking a sleeping bear.
I sighed, already used to that question. "On paper? Twenty. Biologically? Still close enough. But if we're being real—add a few decades. The timeline's... complicated."
His brow furrowed slightly. "Aging situation?"
"Let's just say I don't wrinkle easy," I said with a shrug. "Built for the long haul. Enhanced metabolism, regenerative tissue, the whole cocktail."
Steve leaned back slightly, processing that. "Just like the super soldier serum?"
"Inspired by it," I replied, tapping the side of my temple. "Same goal. Different lab coat. Different ethics, too."
He nodded, but his gaze sharpened a little. "And how does it feel?"
I leaned forward, resting my forearms on my knees. "Being a living science project? Pretty lonely. Though I meant you. Waking up in a century that doesn't speak your language anymore."
He gave a soft chuckle, a short exhale through his nose. "It's strange. Feels like I was gone a minute, and everything I knew turned into a history book."
"I get it," I said. "For me, it wasn't ice—it was orders. One day I was just a kid in a lab coat. Next thing I knew, I was a weapon. Out there pulling high-stakes ops while pretending I knew what the hell I was doing."
Steve glanced at me, more interested now. "What kind of ops?"
"Oh, the usual," I said, shifting into a more sardonic tone. "Extraction missions, recon, asset recovery. VIP protection, too. Always the glamorous stuff." I paused for a beat, "But I had limits. Still do. I made a promise early on—no unnecessary killing. Not after what happened to my family. Not if I wanted to stay human."
There was a silence between us after that. Then I felt Steve's hand rest on my shoulder.
"I'm sorry," he said simply. "Losing family... that pain doesn't go away. I wish I could tell you different."
I gave him a small nod, jaw tight. I wasn't about to get sentimental in front of a living legend.
Coulson finally looked up from his tablet, glancing between us. "You know, it's kind of poetic, really," he said. "The first person they ever considered to take up your mantle, back in the early '80s—was him."
Steve blinked, confused. "Him?"
I raised an eyebrow at Coulson. "Seriously, you're bringing that up now?"
Steve turned to me again, his tone more serious. "Hold on—what's he mean by that?"
I sighed. "Back in the Cold War days, when they thought you were gone for good, the White House wanted a new symbol. Quiet program. No press, no parades. Just a file labeled 'Project Sentinel.' That was me."
Steve stared, silent.
"They figured I could carry the torch. I passed the tests, completed the missions. But then—Dr. Faraday, my creator, my father figure, got murdered. Along with the rest of the team that built me. Assassinated. Clean sweep."
Coulson's voice filled the gap. "After that, the government shelved the entire operation. Too dangerous, too messy. They didn't want another headline. Program was absorbed into SHIELD once Fury took over."
Steve leaned forward now, elbows on knees. "They didn't just want a successor—they were building the next me. A better one."
I shrugged. "Maybe. Or maybe I was just a failed prototype with good PR potential. Doesn't matter now. The title doesn't make the man."
Steve was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, "I know what crumbling looks like. You? You're still standing. That's not luck—that's who you are."
I snorted. "Give it time."
He cracked a small smile. "We'll see."
"Intel said you were cut from the same cloth—just dyed different," Steve said, watching me carefully. There was curiosity in his tone—professional, but also a bit personal. "Care to show me where they got it right?"
I leaned back, arms crossed. "Well," I said, thinking of how to explain this in a way he'd get, "imagine if the super soldier serum had a cousin—less traditional, more experimental. That's me."
Steve raised an eyebrow, not fully convinced.
"Alright, think of it this way," I clarified. "Strength? About twenty times what the average guy can pull off—punch through steel, lift a car if I really have to. Agility-wise, I'm faster than most sprinters, and I can twist through tight corners like a cat on caffeine. Reflexes? Let's just say bullets look slow on a good day."
His brows furrowed slightly, like he was calculating the implications. I continued, keeping it grounded.
"My brain processes information like a high-speed computer. Give me a tactical feed and I can analyze, break down, and execute plans on the fly. Enhanced senses—hearing, sight, smell. I can detect subtle shifts in air pressure, magnetic fields, energy signatures... basically, if something's off, I feel it before it happens. Not to mention a healing factor that puts most hospitals out of business."
Coulson, seated a few feet away, looked up from his tablet. "SHIELD ran scans on him in the early aughts," he chimed in. "Could survive a headshot if it missed the brainstem. Bullet wounds close in under a minute. Bone fractures in less than an hour. He's biologically engineered to last."
Steve whistled softly. "That's... impressive. Gotta ask though—what's the trade-off?"
"Yeah," I admitted. "Not major ones, although enough that I keep a mental checklist. My body doesn't age, sure, but my mind still does. That's the part people forget. Time passes, people disappear, and suddenly you're the most familiar stranger in every room."
He nodded solemnly. "I know the feeling."
"Oh, and if I push too hard, too fast—say, keep going for days without rest—my system starts to glitch. Short bursts of neural misfire. Nothing lethal, still it's like rebooting in the middle of a sprint. Can't afford that on the field."
"So SHIELD still doesn't have you on payroll?" Steve asked.
I shrugged. "Technically, I'm 'under SHIELD jurisdiction'—not part of it. Back in the early 2000s, I cut a deal with the White House after a mission went sideways. They buried my records, gave me a shot at normal. I took it. Lived low, changed names a couple times, did freelance work on the side—merc jobs for SHIELD only when they really needed me."
"But Fury kept calling," Coulson added with a smirk.
"Every month," I said. "Like clockwork. 'Check in, Luke. Give us five minutes, Luke. Help us move a satellite, Luke.' That man does not take a hint."
Steve cracked a smile. "Alright, I'll bite. What finally tipped the scales?"
"Fury," I said simply. "He looked me dead in the eye and said something like, 'Something big is coming. And we're not ready.' That was enough. I've been running from who I was built to be for a long time—but if there's even a chance I can stop what's coming... I'm not sitting this one out."
Steve was quiet for a second, his gaze thoughtful. "That's good instincts," he finally said.
"Too many guys with power spend their whole lives learning when not to use it. You..." He huffed something that wasn't quite a laugh. "Hell, you remind me of a kid from Brooklyn who wouldn't back down from a fight even when he couldn't throw a punch."
I tilted my head. "Let me guess... wears stars and stripes?"
He smiled, but there was something more serious behind it. "No, more like a buddy of mine. Should've been crushed a dozen times over. Never let it bend him." He exhaled, sharp. "Still don't know how he did it."
I let the compliment hang for a moment, then gave a small grin. "I'm used to taking the road with landmines. Just gotta know when to duck."
The Quinjet's engines hummed beneath us as the pilot's voice came through the speakers again.
"Ten minutes to touchdown."
Steve's gaze shifted to a tablet displaying a green behemoth tearing through what looked like Harlem.
"So, this Dr. Banner was trying to recreate the serum they used on me?" Steve asked, turning slightly as Coulson stood up to stretch his legs.
"Let's just say you sparked more than a few copycat projects over the decades," Coulson replied.
"Sorry, Luke, but your file's got the same effect. Banner figured gamma radiation might be the missing link in replicating Dr. Erskine's formula. Thought he could crack it."
I folded my arms, nodding slightly. "Which, in theory, makes sense. Gamma energy has regenerative potential, and Erskine's original serum was partially tied to cellular growth and enhancement. But—" I tilted my head, "—the human body's a little less predictable when you flood it with unstable particles and hope for the best."
"Guess it didn't quite work out as planned, huh?" Steve said, offering a wry smile.
"Not unless your goal was to go full Jekyll and Hyde," I said. "Banner wanted to make soldiers. Instead, he made... himself. A walking green beast wrapped in a scientist's worst-case scenario."
Coulson added with a small grin, "Yeah, but when he's not smashing tanks, he's practically Stephen Hawking."
Steve blinked. "Stephen who?"
I smirked. "Think Einstein, but British. And in a wheelchair. Banner's brain is off the charts—he's the top expert in gamma science. If anyone's going to make sense of that kind of power, it's him."
Steve gave a slow nod. "Must be tough, living with something like that inside you. Never knowing when it'll take over."
"Yeah," I murmured. "Power without control is a hell of a thing. And Banner's stuck in that tug-of-war daily."
Coulson, meanwhile, was practically vibrating with fanboy energy again. "It's really an honor to meet you officially, Captain Rogers," he said, almost tripping over his own words. "I mean, I kind of met you once—when they pulled you out of the ice. I was there. In the room. You were... well, unconscious, but still, huge moment."
Steve chuckled softly, brushing off the compliment. "Appreciate it, Agent. But let's see if I can still live up to the legend."
"Oh, I'm sure you are," Coulson beamed, then glanced my way. "Both of you, actually. You know, I even got to help with the new uniform design." He gestured toward Steve's suit, clearly proud of his handiwork.
Steve glanced down, eyeing the stars and stripes with a furrowed brow. "Isn't this a bit... old-school?"
"With everything we've seen—and everything we're about to face—people could use a little old-school hope," Coulson replied. "Sometimes the past reminds us who we are."
I raised an eyebrow, grinning. "I just 'hope' you didn't sneak in one of your custom helmets again. Those things are a nightmare when they lock up mid-fight."
Coulson laughed. "Don't worry, I got feedback. This one shouldn't pinch."
The cockpit suddenly flickered green as the pilot's voice came over the comms. "Approaching target airspace. ETA: five minutes."
"Guess it's showtime," I muttered, rising to stand beside him.
"Let's hope we're enough," Steve said, glancing at me.
I shot him a dry look. "With you wearing that much patriotism? We'll blind them before we even throw a punch."
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To be continued...
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