2012-10-17: A Lady's Welcome

The last few hours have been a blur for Zinda Blake. First, there was the storm- it had come out of nowhere, and it had taken her damn near everything she'd had not to crash into the water below. Then, very suddenly... there was no water below her, and the sky was perfectly clear, if... significantly darker. Scrambling to reorient herself, she managed to find herself a safe place to land- luck would have it she happened to get spit out that storm not too far from a USAF base. Everything about the landing, and her first interactions with the servicemen (and women!) on the base is a confusing blur. "Temporal displacement can cause this sort of reaction," she overhears someone very official-sounding tell someone else. "The shock should start wearing off soon. Surrounding her with something /familiar/ would probably be beneficial."

"Aw hell," Zinda groans as she overhears the man talking. "What the hell happened to me that they need to call in a headshrinker." Oh, hey, guess the shock's wearing off. The young psychologist tries not to look too offended by the term.

The man known as Captain America arrives, but not as 'The Man' himself but in his civilian guise. Mind you he did bring his uniform and shield with him. You just never know. Dressed casually in a gray plaid button down shirt with a white undershirt, brown slacks, a pair of black shoes and his favorite brown leather jacket. He had been called up to join S.H.I.E.L.D. at a local USAF base on a unusual situation. Not sure how he could help, but Steve being Steve does what he does best goes to look into the situation with fresh eyes and an open mind. As he wanders the base he sees the Men in Black otherwise known as S.H.I.E.L.D. "Excuse me agent, I was told the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. wanted to meet me here?" he asks politely with a smile.

Sleek, black and growly, this year's Chrysler 300C is a car bearing a message, and that message is /beware/. It's the kind of ride that screams mobster, mafioso, or someone else similarly connected: it has a finish that's pearlescent and dark all at once, and it reflects the starlight as if it was the younger brother of the clear night skies above. It's the kind of machine that doesn't have engine noise so much as it has engine sub-bass, a basso-profundo that shakes people's viscera as it passes without making hardly an audible noise...

... and it's just pulled up to the front gate of the Air Force base. A guard approaches, curiously, and the driver's side window rolls down smoothly to reveal a graying man wearing an eyepatch.

"-- Colonel Fury?" the guard asks, incredulous.

"Airman," Fury answers with a nod.

The guard shakes himself. "Wait, this is --" The airman has a sudden attack of the Motor City Fanboy, and his words spill out in a rush. "Colonel, not even GS-15s rate these kinds of rides! I mean, the President had a 300C, up until he replaced it with a Mercedes. Where did you /get/ this?"

"Somebody," Fury answers with the kind of gimlet stare that, if the airman was smart, he'd recognize as /shut up and do your job./

"I mean, I've only ever seen these in rap videos an'--"

"Airman, /open the damn gate./"

The airman shakes himself again and snaps to, then signals to the guardhouse to raise the gate. As Fury puts the car in gear, the airman can't help but ask: "But how did you /get/ it, sir?"

There's no answer. There's just a muffled cry from the trunk. It sounds as if it could've been a cry for help, just through several layers of duct tape.

Fury pulls up to the building where Lady Blackhawk's being debriefed, gets out, and tosses the keys to the nearest Special Policeman. "Car's got a full tank, the odometer's reading 18,048 and three-tenths, and it has a live AIM terrorist in the trunk. I expect all those things to still be true when I get out. As you were."

And with that, Fury vanishes inside the building, to see someone he hasn't seen in ... well. Almost fifty years.

Poor Steve, no one seems to have briefed anyone on who he actually is. It isn't until Fury arrives that the two of them are given access to the pilot, who... has looked better. Both her, and her flight suit look like they've been through the ringer. Her plane- the F-104 currently being looked over in one of the hangers isn't in much better shape. Multiple strikes from /some/ sort of energy, too scattered to be any sort of controlled weapon. A handful of SHIELD's scientists are already having some sort of nerdgasm over what this finding could mean for 'our understanding of time and space itself!' and, having been denied permission to poke and prod at the pilot (she /may/ have tried to punch one of them when he got too close with some sort of medical instrument), have settled for running tests on the plane. When Fury and Steve come in, she looks up, and squints, hard. Steve... he looks the same. But- "Good god damn, Sergeant, you look worse than I do. The hell happened?"

Hand tucked into his pockets Steve waits and waits and waits. If he were wearing the uniform it would be a different situation. But this works just fine. Waiting and waiting what the hell is taking so long? Okay even a super-soldier can get agitated with the wait. That is until a familiar face. Well lone from his past appears. Fury? How? Don't ask questions. In this day and age everyone looks young. Taking the cool and collected route Steve only offers Fury a nod. As any good soldier would do, he stands by and listens to what Fury has to say and even then he was asked here by some shadowy director. So it doesn't matter. But why are two old relics from the past being asked to come to an airbase? then a voice breaks his internal questioning. -Good god damn, Sergeant...- It couldn't be.

"Lady B." From Fury it's almost a term of endearment. He pulls up a nearby chair (wooden, of course -- metal and plastic chairs weren't entirely common in '50, and they wanted to minimize problems). "Short version: it ain't 1950 anymore. It's 2012. I got some of my paper-pushers looking into your family and all's gone on with them in the last fifty-three years: we'll have details on them in a couple of hours. But you need to get up to speed in a real big hurry, Lady B, so listen close, I'm gonna condense the last few decades down for you. Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, space monkeys, Mafia, Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go. U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy, Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo. Hemingway, Eichmann, _Stranger in a Strange Land_, Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs Invasion. Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania, Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson. Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politicians' sex, JFK blown away, what else do I have to say, birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon's back again, moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock, Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airlines, Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan, Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide, foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz, hypodermics on the shore, China's under martial law, rockanroller cola wars..."

Midway through this recitation, something very strange happens: every other person in the room, except for Steve and Zinda, begins mouthing /exactly the same spiel./ It's positively creepy. And then people are looking at each other and trying very hard to keep a straight face, their expressions somewhere between /oh my God I can't believe that just happened/ and /if I laugh Nick Fury will spend the rest of his life ruining what's left of mine/ and /oh God I have to get out of here before I lose it completely/.

Then there's a cavalcade of "Gotta use the restroom" and "Have to call my wife" and "uh -- meteor shower tonight!" and everybody else flees.

Fury doesn't explain a damn thing as everyone vacates Zinda's room. He just stands up, walks over towards the door, and props a chair up against the door handle to keep them from getting back inside.

"I cannot abide useless people," Fury says towards Rogers and Zinda. Then there's a broad smile, and yes, that's Fury all right. "An' believe it or not, Lady B, that was only history up until about 1989."

Zinda's mouth hangs open for a moment. She... has no idea what the hell is so funny about what he's reciting, other than that it /makes no damn sense/ and rhymes, for some reason. "How is that..." she starts to ask trailing off. She hadn't had much family to begin with, outside the squadron. "Janos?" she asks, not looking at all hopeful about that. Were Blackhawk alive, he'd be here. So would the others- any of them. She shakes her head before either of them can answer. "I'm the last one, ain't I?" Her voice is flat. Numb. It's all still sinking in.

As he listens to Nick he raises a brow not sure what the hell the other man is talking about. With a shake of his head Steve looks back to Lady Blackhawk. As she starts to talk he sees he go through the 'shock' of what happened. He knows that feeling. The loss, the confusion and the numbness that comes with the loss of everything you hold dear and close. Now he knows why he was called here. "Last maybe. But you aren't alone, Zinda." Steve says as he pulls his hands from his pockets. As he moves over to her he places a hand on the woman's shoulder. "As long as I or Nick are here, you will never be alone. I promise." As he promises his grasp on her shoulder tightens slightly.

"What he said," Fury answers, thumbing over towards Rogers. "Last. /Maybe./ We don't know. Been six decades and change, but there are still a good number of Korea veterans bouncing around. As soon as morning comes and the folks at the VA Hospitals check their records, we'll find out more. But -- you're definitely the last one flight qualified, Lady B. That's a hell of a thing to hear, I know. But some things are still the same. You're still the prettiest of the Blackhawks, and you're still the one dropped the Howling Commandos out a gooneybird over Luzon." He doesn't make physical contact with Zinda. Let Rogers do the touchy-feely stuff: he probably needs it as much as she does. Fury's maybe a bit more hard-bitten, and he's comfortable to just stand nearby, watching them. "World's changed a lot, Lady B. But some things, they ain't changed at all, and ain't likely to. The man here," he says, nodding towards Rogers, "well, he's still the Boy Scout he was. And me, well -- war never changes, and I guess I don't, either. So there are some things that are constant."

Lady Blackhawk looks up at Steve. "When the hell did you get this sappy?" she asks, forcing a laugh to chase all the other feelings away. Still, she puts one of her hands over his. "Should'a figured something was up. Saw more'n a few gals in uniform, and they sure as hell weren't WASPS." Her free hand runs through her hair as she listens, then snorts a little. "You /have/ changed, Fury. Though lookin' at ya I woulda guessed half as many years gone by," she says. "Not sure what it says about me that this /ain't/ the strangest thing I've ever lived through." Remember that time she got brainwashed by the Nazi pirate? Yeah... she... doesn't, really. But she knows it happened. Not that she'd like to admit it. Or talk about it. Or let anyone else talk about it without her fist making it real hard for 'em to continue talking.

Sappy? He isn't being sappy. He's just reaffirming a fellow time lost soldier of their place in the world. As he removes his hand he moves to a chair. "Know what throws me? I'm amazed she isn't shocked to see me alive." he says to Fury as he takes a seat. "I mean everyone said I was dead. At least that's what the report you guys built on me said. Even have a nice monument built to me." Steve adds as he looks over to the cyclopean cigar chewer.

"I think she's a little too weirded out by the fact sixty years have gone by to be weirded out by the smaller thing about you still havin' metabolic processes. No offense. Remember, in her head it's still 1950. You've been 'dead' in her history for what, five years? Plenty possible for you to come back. We were still finding Imperial Japanese Army troops on South Pacific Islands in '50 -- the idea that you might be washed up on some deserted island somewhere wasn't impossible. Unlikely, maybe, but ... in '50 I was still holding out hope for Amelia Earhart, so what do I know?"

Fury gives a faint shrug, then sinks down into a nearby chair. Outside, a bunch of psychiatrists and a couple of Air Force Security Police are shaking the door, yelling to let them inside. Fury, for his part, pretends not to notice them. Useless people: he cannot abide them.

"It's 2012, Zinda," Fury says towards the Lady Blackhawk, using her name for the first time instead of the 'Lady B' that he usually calls her. "Whole hell of a lot of time's passed. Our friend here's been on ice for a long time, too. From '45 until just a little bit ago. But me... I caught up with you two the long way around. You got to skip over the years. I got to go through them." "Would you two stop talkin' about me like I ain't here?" she scolds the two of them, shaking her head. "An' I sure as shit wasn't beleivin' you were dead til I saw a body," she tells Steve. She shuts up as Nick talks, listening. "2012," she repeats, shaking her head. "Good Lord. Figured I'd'a been lucky to see '51," she admits. The entire squadron kind of figured their luck was going to run out any day, with what they got up to. "One of you two better have brought be a damn drink, or else you're bustin' me outta here to get me to a bar."

Steve holds open his jacket to reveal no hidden bottles. Only him underneath. "I don't drink and even when I do the super metabolism keeps me from getting drunk. So no reason to." he says to her as he closes his jacket and looks to Nick again. A smirk appears on the super-soldier's lips "Him on the other hand. You still carry that flask I got you in London for your birthday?" If there is any man still alive who knows Nick Fury's -real- birthday it's Steve. "If my memory serves me, and you know that it does. You drink Scotch, nothing less than twelve years old."

"But mainly thee, the bluid o' Scots, Frae Maidenkirk to John o' Grots, The king o' drinks, as I conceive it, Talisker, Isla, or Glenlivet!"

It's the sort of thing that few people in 2012 know, but a whole lot of people back then knew by heart. Robert Louis Stevenson was the J.K. Rowling of their childhoods, and everyone had read his _Child's Garden of Verses and Underwoods_. With that, he looks over towards Steve and gives a nod. "Gave it to someone, but she had the good grace to give it back to me when we broke up. Said she couldn't hold onto something Captain America gave me. She was a brandy girl, mostly." He reaches into his inner coat pocket, extracting a flask that looks as if it's been through a couple of wars... which, given Fury's life, it very well may have been. He hands it off to Zinda with a faint nod. "Talisker, eighteen years. They stopped selling the twelve a few years ago. I upped my standards: now down your hatch it goes."

Lady Blackhawk tilts her head back, taking a long, long drink. She /should/ be savouring it a bit more, she knows, but now is not the time for nursing a drink. Now is the time when she needs a little Dutch courage to cope with her current situation. She's silent for several long (kind of awkward, really) moments, before she looks at Nick. "What the hell am I supposed to do, now? I mean-" only a few hours into the modern world, and she's having her first existential crisis. She stops, and takes a breath. And another drink. And then, a laugh. "At least tell me there ain't any of those posters left around anywhere. If I'm gonna skip sixty-odd years, can I at least have that much?" Zinda Blake was never particularly /fond/ of her status as a pinup girl. She's not even going to mention some of the... more questionable things that got passed around. There's no way any of /those/ survived.

"Well, I got you on the back of one of my flight jackets. And there's been a big resurgence of art from that time period. A lot of people know about Bettie Page, people still remember Betty Grable. Hedy Lamarr's still popular. But I suspect about as many people remember Zinda Blake as remember, say, Veronica Lake or Joan Blondell," Fury answers her, matter-of-factly. "There are rumors of you doing some Bettie Page style stuff, but near as I can tell nobody's turned up anything." Whether that's because it doesn't exist or because Fury has personally bought up and destroyed the negatives is, of course, an open question: the man has an incredible poker face for these kinds of things.

"You know, I think I wanna see that flight jacket some time," Zinda says with a laugh. She never posed for any pictures in anything other than her uniform if she could help it. She sighs a bit in relief. "As long as that ain't all they remember me for, I guess I should count myself lucky." Then, she realizes the flask is empty, and hands it back to Fury apologetically. "Sounds like those fellas outside are pretty close to breakin' down the door. Maybe I oughta stop takin' up your time, an' let them do their jobs."

"I'll bring it by," Fury affirms with a slight nod. "I'm supposed to be delivering a prisoner somewhere -- well, really, I was supposed to be delivering a nanodot -- it's like a microfilm, but smaller -- but the guy who was supposed to be holding onto it dropped it on the floor mat of his car and I had to club him over the head and stuff him in the trunk, just in case it caught in his pant leg or something, and now I've got to deliver the whole car and the guy and everything else, just so we can find this nanodot -- never mind," he says, shaking his head. "Somebody else can deliver the package. But I'll be here for a day or two, Lady B, while you're coming up to speed. All you have to do is holler."

With that, he gives her one more nod, then turns towards the door. He opens it, and the collected guards and psychiatrists come streaming in. He lets them, of course -- and then discreetly lets himself out.