Chapter 22- Pn A- Part 1

  New York City, New York- Fallen Soldiers Bar and Grill- Oct 23, 2008 (Afternoon)

  Anna Marie Hopewell- (Rogue)

  "Nobody thought that sending the two underage kids to the bar was a great idea did they." Murmur compined as they stopped to look at the address they were given again, and it’s 'no minors allowed' sign.

  "And without Id's," Anna added.

  Then the two of them stared at their destination in silence for a minute.

  Then Anna swore. "Fuck it." Before sticking her hands into her jacket, she stole a gnce up at their brother sticking to the side of the building around the corner from them, just ahead of her heading inside. It wasn't until she saw her sister holding the door behind that she realized that she had followed her in. The inside of the bar wasn't overly crowded, but then again it was after the lunch rush. Still, there was a pair of full tables, and half of the bar proper was still taken.

  The two of them stepped to the side of the exit, while they looked for the person that Erik had described to them, but all of the serving staff and bartenders were too young to be the person that they were looking for.

  As they were looking one of the waitresses approached them and asked. “Are you two old enough to be in here?”

  Anna ignored her accusation and asked her instead. “We would like to ask the owner a couple of questions, an older gentleman, by the name of Mike? Where is he?”

  "Look, I need to see some ID." The waitress demanded.

  Anna shared a look with her sister, as if to ask how far they were going to push this, but before they complete their look Murmur, broke it and pointed to the door leading to the back, Anna flowered her sister's finger, as an older man came from the employee section of the building.

  "If you are not going to show me some IDs I will have to ask you two to leave!" The waitress demanded louder. Then Anna and her sister moved towards the older man that looked simir to the description that they had been given.

  As they neared the older man, the woman told the bartender. “Linace, stop them.”

  Before the bartender could intervene, however, Anna asked the older man. "Are you Mike, the owner of this pce?”

  He was already watching them walk towards him, and so were half of the other people for that matter. Instead of answering her, the older man requested. "If you will not provide us with legal identification miss, I am going to have to ask you to leave."

  "I will take that as a yes, look back in March you served a man who was drinking with Dum Dum Dugan," Anna stated to him.

  “I’ve served a lot of people more than I can remember, especially people drinking with Dum Dum.” the owner reminded her.

  "You will remember this one, he still had the numbers on his arm, the one that the Nazis wrote on him back in the camp, and you saw them and asked him if he served. He told you that he did unofficially." Anna said to remind the old man. The bartender then was close enough that he reached over and grabbed her arm.

  “You need to leave.” The younger man growled.

  "You need to let go," Anna told the man.

  He held on, and came out from behind the bar, as he did her clothes fshed and the illusion that Nath'aniel had cast upon her vanished and she looked as she was actually dressed. "What the hell?" The younger man asked in surprise. As he did, Anna reached down and tapped her belt buckle.

  “Colr deactivated.” Her earbud warned her.

  “Linace, release the girl. Yes miss, I know of the man you are describing, do you know him as well?" Mike told her, that when the bartender didn't release her the man snapped at him. "Ahabal! Linace, Let her go, or you can go home and I tend bar.”

  “Grandpa, they are minors they can’t be in here.” This Linace compined.

  Anna was a moment away from grabbing the guy back, but she didn’t want to ruin her chances with the older man. Who from their own confession were family members.

  A moment passed and the bartender released her arm, when he did the owner told his grandson. “Go tend bar.” Once he was far enough away he asked her. “Why are you here? Regardless of who you know, I can't serve you. And how did you change your clothes so fast."

  “It’s a magic trick and we not here to drink or eat, for now at least.” Anna started with.

  While Murmur followed up with. “We were asked to ask you for a favor.”

  Anna then pointed at a stretch of empty tables meant for only two people and asked. "Can I show you something to confirm what our friend already told you?" When he nodded the three of them walked over to the middle table, and Anna reached into her coat and pulled out a photo from the bundle that Erik had given her.

  She worried the letter would complicate things. She knew she shouldn’t have read it, but it was their asses on the line, so she had. So instead she just showed him the bck-and-white picture. Mike had to don a pair of gsses to get a good look at it. "On the right, you should recognize Dum Dum with his hat… and on the far left is our friend Erik," Anna said as she pointed at the two people in the photo.

  "Oh, god, they are so young. Wait, I know these men, this is a photo of the Howling Commandos." Mike whispered shocked.

  “They rescued Erik from the camp the Nazi’s put him in. He was fighting back against the Nazis, so he was telling the truth when he said fought with them unofficially. He helped them fight as technically a volunteer commando.” Anna expined to the bar owner.

  “Amazing.” The old man said as he stood back up, he reached into his pants pocket before asking. "Can I take a picture of this photo?"

  “Oui (yes).” Murmur agreed.

  As he got his phone ready to take the picture he asked. “You want to ask me a favor for him, what kind of favor?” Then he tried to zoom in with his phone, before taking a picture.

  Anna stated their request. “One of those men went missing during the st days of the war, and was decred dead, but Erik recently got a call from Dum Dum. Dum Dum told him that said person was seen alive and here in the city. Erik is trying to locate him, and was hoping that once he did they could maybe reserve your bar for a couple of hours.”

  “When?” Mike asked. He then smiled as he finally got the shot he wanted of the photo.

  “Probably tonight.” Her sister answered.

  The man sighed, as he thought for a moment. "That's a tough request, and with such short notice… Wait, if he was a commando he would be in this photo. Which one is it?"

  "The one in the middle," Anna answered right away.

  Murmur added. “He’s the one giving the thumbs en haut (up).”

  Mike used the copy on his phone instead of putting his gsses back on, he just zoomed in even more and after a moment dropped his phone. Anna quickly tapped her belt buckle with one hand, while the other one shot out to grab the falling phone.

  “Ca… cap…Captain America is alive?” Mike muddled to ask. Anna was gd that he was so shocked and didn’t ask that too loudly.

  Anna leaned in and whispered into his ear. “Would you like to meet him?”

  Despite his age, Mike looked like a kid in the candy store, before he nodded. Then he pointed back at his phone, so Anna handed it over to him. He struggled, but eventually managed to pull up his phone’s info. Then the bar owner handed it back over, once she located the phone number on the screen, she reached into her pocket for the bundle and wrote his number down on the outside of the envelope.

  "Give me, forty-five minutes, no thirty minutes heads up to clear the bar first." The older man sputtered out to them, agreeing to their request.

  Anna kissed the back of the man’s hand after she handed back over his phone to him, and whispered. “Thank you.” Before winking at him. Then the two sisters nodded at each other before leaving the bar.

  New York City – Mabel Cemetery- Oct 23, 2008 (03:00 PM)

  Steven Rogers (Captain America)

  Steve sighed when Mrs. Van Dyne-Pym pushed ahead of the guards assigned to him. Then he heard Antony talk to whoever he was on the phone with, how he was on the phone with someone without a phone was slightly confusing to him, but it wasn’t the oddest thing he had seen since waking up.

  "Thanks, Happy, get the car running we may need a fast getaway." the younger man told this 'Happy'.

  The super soldier also frowned as he saw his 'guards' having already drawn their side arms, since there was no clear threat or justification for it. Yet he had learned enough, not to argue with them. His liaison, Janet Van Dyne-Pym, was about to scold him for ditching his detail again. Yet it was Howard's son who spoke first.

  “Mrs. Janet Van Dyne, color me surprised to see you leading these attack dogs, is the good Captain going to a fashion show or something.” Antony’s words distracted her from her rant against his ditching his guards.

  “Mr. Stark, shouldn’t you be boxing up a piece of hardware or something?” Janet asked Tony.

  Steve wasn't in the mood for an argument, so he scanned the skyline and tried to tune them out. As he did his 'guards' moved to surround him, rather professionally the veteran noted. However, a flickering light caught the super soldier's attention.

  "No, Janet, can I call you Janet? Right anyway, Janet, there is such a thing as the legal process. I invented and built a thing, much like your husband did; only I did it with my own money and resources, so it makes it mine…" Antony started to expin.

  However, the light Steve saw was very familiar to him, and while it took him half of a second, he did recognize it and acted. First, the veteran shouted. “Sniper!” Then he shoved Howard’s son to the ground, before tackling Mrs. Van Dyne to the ground.

  A second ter a guard's chest, which had been standing immediately behind the woman, erupted in blood and guts, as the metal round tore through it.

  Steve asked her in a lower tone. "Are you alright, were you hit?"

  “I think… I think I am fine.” His liaison answered.

  As she did, Howard’s son said to the air. “Happy, Happy I need you. Bring me the Mark Five, it is in the trunk.”

  Then Steve heard a battle cry that he really had hoped had died in the war that he left behind in the Atntic.

  “Hail Hydra!”

  The super soldier stole a gnce at the source and saw a squad, or two's, worth of men dressed in green and yellow combat armor and armed with mostly modern rifles and automatic pistols. Only the lead-heavy trooper carried the dreaded 'blue energy' pulse rifle.

  Then Steve heard the songs of war and automatic weapons fire. It was occasionally interrupted by his guards' screams and the whine of Hydra energy weapons fire. Out of the corner of his vision, Steve saw the men assigned to him either get cut down with rapid-fire bullets or vanish in a puff of blue vapor.

  Yet like the true American soldiers that they were, they did their duty, seeking cover and returning fire. Feeling helpless, he looked down into the eyes of the woman under him, and he ordered her. “Stay down, down is safe.”

  Then he rolled away before quickly belly-crawling towards one of his downed guard's bodies. He spent half of a second to see that Antony had stayed in cover behind the side of a rather rge and expensive headstone. Then the super soldier broke the dead man's fingers to retrieve the man's side arm, and spent another second to pull out a spare clip from his belt.

  Steve spent another second to eject and count the number of rounds in the gun, before rolling again. A round hit where he had been but unlike the first sniper round, the one that missed him. This one was much weaker. Steve swept his vision over the area he had been in, and instead of a bullet, he spotted the remains of a dart.

  ‘Are they trying to take me alive?' The super soldier wasted the faction of a second to ponder, before getting out of cover to fire six shots, and score six head shots, two into three different bodies. The first round broke their protective eyewear, and the following round penetrated their head killing them.

  The Hydra soldiers wasted good time turning and looking at their still falling comrades.

  Time Steve used it to swap out the mostly spent clip for the fresh one, before he started sprinting towards the downed Hydra soldier with the only energy weapon. He felt the instinct to scold himself for being too slow as he slid into the downed man's body. Nevertheless, he spent a fraction of a second to remind himself that he couldn't do a really good cardio regime without ditching the detail assigned to him.

  As he slid to the body, he heard the sound of compining metal and the reeving of a car engine behind him. Steve really hoped that was this ‘Happy’ person that Antony was talking to, and not more Hydra soldiers.

  Steve rolled with the dead body for a short distance, and then he spun the body around like an empty sandbag and used it for cover to fire at the next closest soldier. As he feared all of these Hydra soldiers were decked out in full tactical armor and gear, so his detail, who were unable to make eye shots, were basically helpless against them with them only being armed with basic pistols.

  Still, he put another two Hydra soldiers down, before they pulled out their grenades, which meant that Steve only needed one shot to take them out. When his pistol fired dry, he dropped it and reached down for the Hydra energy rifle the dead man under him had been using.

  When he rose to a knee he could see that another wave of Hydra soldiers were still waiting near the north and eastern entrances into the cemetery. ‘There is also that sniper to worry about, too much of a dey for it to be two.’ He reminded himself, as he waited to see how they would respond.

  Sure enough after about half a minute, then another half of a dozen soldiers moved in, the sniper tried to dart him again, but Steve raised the rifle to block the whistling dart. While powerful, he hated how slow their energy weapons were to cycle, so he moved to fire a pair of shots but grunted when the weapon just whined at him.

  He then combat rolled to get behind a statue, and then looked at the weapon. Unlike the ones he had used during the ter stages of the war, this one's grip was different. Instead of the leather-covered metal, he saw that the entire grip was made up of some sort of device. The super soldier stole another gnce at the dead trooper, and sure enough he had a simir-looking device wrapped around his wrist.

  Steve thought for a moment to get the other device, but honestly he never liked the weapon. Then threw the rifle as hard as he could at the next closest Hydra soldier, when the weapon floored the armored man, it took only a second ter the gun and he vanished in a plume of blue vapor.

  Then he took stock of the situation and could hear his detail calling to him, while also trying to move up to support him, so Steve ordered them. “Move carefully, they are armored and you’re not. And be mindful of that sniper.”

  “Sir, reinforcements are on their way!” The closest one shouted to him.

  Steve then heard the squealing of breaks as a car stopped near where Antony and Mrs. Van Dyne were taking cover, not that the super soldier took the time to confirm that both were still there.

  A roar preceded a shadow, which took Steve only a second to identify it as a flying car. Instead of retreating, Steve charged towards the source, he heard the crushing of stone and metal as the car nded atop his previous location.

  “I don’t think they will get here quick enough.” The super soldier muttered before clotheslining a distracted Hydra soldier.