America’s Sleeping Beauty | Captain America (Steve Rogers)/Reader | Chapter 1:
Steve went into the ice 70 years ago and left you, his wife, behind. Or so he thought. You were the woman behind the greatest soldier the world had ever known. You were Mrs. America. So what happens when you didn't get left behind? Or rather what happens when you make a choice to try and save yourself from the heartbreak of losing your husband? You end up in the same time together, launched into the future. So how did you get here and what happens now?
A/N: Find this on my Ao3 crystallclover: here
Not read by anyone-mistakes my own. Non Canon compliant:
Tags: vi0lence, implied SH, implied A, and more,
but let’s try posting again so we don’t get lost in the void
Chapter 1: When you find my body........
You were a woman frozen in time.
Literally.
Stuck in July of 1950, the Fourth of July, 1950 to be exact. Or rather, your body was frozen in time and you were asleep, in a glass coffin of sorts. Not really asleep but frozen in time, to wake up on July fourth of 2016, 66 years to be exact.
Why that year?
That wasn’t really the important part so long as to see how the future, how better the world would be. You were America’s Sleeping Beauty, the woman frozen in time, THE Mrs. America.
It had been a little over 5 years since your husband’s disappearance in the war. While he was the face of hope for the war front, you were the face of those left behind. He was to rally the troops, you were to rally the homemakers, the factory workers, and those who weren’t fit to fight. He sold war bonds, and you educated everyone on the importance of rationing, victory gardens, and turning over precious materials for the greater good. He was America’s hero, and you were its sweetheart.
After he disappeared, you were revered as America’s War Widow, a face that garnered sympathy from everyone. You were put on a pedestal as you were to push on through the grief to help America heal. And you did, for 5 years you helped push America into the post-war boom. To garner in the next decade of prosperity to the American people. And then an opportunity laid out before you, a choice that was yours to make, one that wasn’t hand-picked for you like the last 7 years, since 1943.
You made the choice to be America’s Sleeping Beauty, to wake up 66 years in the future, to bring a bit of 1950s America into the now modern day. A former Nazi scientist turned American Government asset had proposed this idea to S.H.I.E.L.D., to Colonel Philips and Peggy Carter and the other’s in charge of S.H.I.E.L.D., your bosses. They kept you as an asset to keep America safe, a front to hide behind. A public face to prop up, and the American people at it up.
You pitched the idea back to them after the prospect of putting someone to sleep this way was presented to all of you. The idea that you could be America’s Leading Lady, a gift to future America, one that knew of peace. Another way that people could rally behind you, behind S.H.I.E.L.D. and a better world. And you pitched it at the perfect time, they were just about ready to determine how to terminate your position, how to phase you out so that America could essentially move on from the war completely. They knew the American people wouldn’t want to give you up just like that, but this was an opportunity for all parties.
So you did his initial testing, the baseline health tests, ones that you would be compared to once you woke up. This wasn’t something that had ever been done before successfully on humans. Encased in a specialized glass coffin designed by the scientist, and engineered and built by Howard Stark. And you were to be presented at the Stark Expo just a day later. The hope was that if it wasn’t successful, you weren’t going to be too rotted yet if it did kill you. You knew the potential risks, and if you were to die by this procedure, it would be better than chucking yourself off a cliff, which is how you felt underneath your perfect mask since your husband’s disappearance. But America’s Sweetheart committing suicide was not an option, a tragic science experiment was.
Your hope was that when you woke up they would know where Steve was, even if they had already buried his body, you would have closure. You would also be farther removed in time that you may have a chance to move on. There was also a fail-safe if Steve were to somehow magically appear. You could be woken up early with the right set of sequences, to join him in life again.
The base of your resting place held the information needed to wake you up, the tests that needed to be performed, and your luggage packed with your things as if you weren’t taking a 66 year trip into the future, and more or less as if you were to be taking a trip to California from New York. But Stark had the idea to keep that all airtight, perfectly preserved like the day it was put in there. The coffin would start its wake-up sequence at 11:45 AM on July 4, 2016, and you were to be awake at noon. No matter what.
You had dreamed that if this were to be successful, that you were to be put on display at the Smithsonian for all to look upon until you were to wake, that there would be some grand ceremony, after all you were America’s Sleeping Beauty.
But here you were, encased in dust in a bunker on an Army base all but forgotten about. Your display, explaining your life and your dreams surrounded you. The coffin had no need for external power, which was a good thing because the breakers were turned off down here. It was like you were moved here temporarily and were completely forgotten about. As if you had never existed. Today was June 23th, 2016, and today was the first day anyone has seen you in over 30 years.
Just 36 years after you were put to sleep you were forgotten about in the American Eye. You had captured the heart of the nation, you were the face that Americans held on to with such reverie, but you were a blip on the timeline in retrospect. Well, many products still had your face on them, posters and classic Americana did too. When children ask who you were, their parents would remember you fondly, but never had the answer to the question as to what happened to you. As they remembered to know who you are, just a moment later you were forgotten about. No one searched for you. That was, until today, or rather, the search for you had started officially just a few months prior.
But today was the day that this bunker that was your home was to be finally searched. By three men, two whom you knew from childhood. They seemed to be frustrated, running out of options, running out of places to look as they opened the doors in this bunker, room after room sat as if someone just locked the doors one day and never came back, which was actually what had happened. You were the last door, the last bit of hope, but what they stumbled upon wasn’t what they thought.
Steve was the one who entered the room first after the three men made the decision that he should be the one to open the door, the last door of hope in finding you. They knew the weight of what could be held behind the door. But until it was open, they didn’t know if you were there.
Your room wasn’t like the other offices that they had been finding. Of course, you were in a glass coffin and the room around you held the panels of your life, telling your story, or at least a glorified version of it. It seemed to belong to a museum, not some dusty bunker on an army base forgotten about to be left to crumble.
But as Steve entered the room he was frozen. The dim still working filament lightbulbs cased a pitiful glow about the room, the coffin was encased in dust, even with his super-soldier eyesight, he could see what looked to be a body, but no detail more under the thick layer of grime. Bucky and Sam entered behind him but in an instant, Steve took two large steps forward before he could caution himself against it he wiped away at the head of the case.
You were just like the day he last saw you, save for the peaceful look of sleep. He could have sworn at the lack of light in the room for not giving him a better view of your face. He was entranced to see his wife, his best girl, seemingly asleep before him, not aged a day.
His angel.
Even if you weren’t alive, if there was no chance of saving you, he was grateful that you were preserved in this way. He would have sold his soul just to see you once more.
