Unknownfate
patreon
Chapter 151
🕑 Added 2025-06-07 09:55:01 +0000 UTCSteve Rogers, Captain America, hero of the Second World War and the world’s first super soldier, had been given many more titles over the long years since he had disappeared.
It wasn’t all of them he approved of; some of them seemed to paint him in a light that he didn’t agree with.
The entire world was so different from what he remembered, everything had changed so much. It was to be expected, seventy years had passed, and he fought hard to give the world a future.
One not ruled by the Nazis, one where freedom, liberty and justices prevailed.
He wasn’t entirely certain it had become that.
Sure, the evil Nazies were long gone, Hydra was gone, and that was a good thing. Those who replaced them however, he wasn’t so sure they were all that better.
When not working out to recover, he tried to catch up with everything. So much had changed, and he wanted to at least try to understand this new age.
He watched the news a lot, and honestly, he was disappointed, so very disappointed.
They never talked about any real issues, not like when he went around talking with people, even though that was also different from back then. Today, people are so busy, all trapped in their own little bubbles, not talking with others.
Still, he found people willing to just sit down over a beer and talk.
They all talked about this or that, and he asked about their troubles, their worries, and they never got too personal, but they were more than willing to speak about some of their general worries.
Which were often centered around money.
They weren’t greedy; they were just hardworking folks who didn’t get paid fairly. People who worked hard, yet only saw endless debt before them.
There were people who could spend their money more wisely, people who didn’t work hard enough, or lived outside their means, but plenty of people just tried to live, and failed, even while working hard.
America just wasn’t the nation it should have been.
He hadn’t wanted to believe it at first.
After all, he’d always believed in the people. In America. In doing the right thing, no matter the cost. But when he looked around now, at the endless cycles of poverty, at the unchecked power of corporations.
The way politicians worked for themselves rather than the people, how they used hate to divide people, he hated it all.
It didn’t feel like the country he’d fought for.
“Today, AP Morgan was given yet another bailout, this time, the Federal Government bought one hundred billion dollars worth of debt, and forgave it. This makes this the third-largest bailout since the Financial crash of 2008.”
Steve sighed as he watched the News. Another big corporation that caused the issues was saved, and who paid for it? The same people who were now struggling with homelessness, as the same banks that they bailed out, took their houses.
He muted the television.
There was only so much he could take before it all began to sound like noise — the kind that made his stomach churn.
He stood and walked to the window of his small apartment, Fury had arranged for him. He looked out at the streets, they were so unfamiliar to him still, those cars, the billboards, the whole atmosphere.
There, across from his window, down on the street, someone had glued a large printout on the wall; it had since been defaced, but still, it was impossible for him not to look at it, those green eyes, holding his own.
Arthuria Pendragon, the legendary King of Knights. Peggy no doubt grew up hearing about him, or her. Poor Peggy.
He shook his head, not wanting to think about that.
Instead, he once more looked at the defaced face of Arthuria, the Queen-King of Albion.
The image had been slashed with red spray paint. Words scrawled beneath it, now half-faded: Liar, Tyrant, Savior, Witch. No one seemed to agree what she was — only that she was everything.
Steve stared at it longer than he meant to.
Not because he believed the graffiti. But because the eyes — even printed, even defaced — held something he understood. Command. Burden. A weight not chosen but carried anyway.
He'd seen that in mirrors once.
Once he believed in himself, in the path before him, he fully believed that he was righteous, and he led his comrades with the same determination that she led her nation and people with.
Yet, he was a hero for having led America against Hydra, and she was the devil for having declared herself king.
She was a tyrant, there was no doubt about that, she ruled with an iron fist, her laws were merciless, she was ruthless.
She was everything he had once fought against, having given his life for the free world.
Yet, as he lived in what it had become, he didn’t feel like it was all that free anymore. What liberty did people have when just surviving required them to work themselves into an early death?
All while others grew rich on their suffering?
The rich could mess up the economy, and then get bailed out, all at the cost of those they stole from.
People… they lacked hope, hope for a future.
He knew it was dangerous, it was what led to the rise of the Nazis. The German people, not seeing hope, entrusted it to someone, someone not worthy of their trust.
Even now, people talk about Albion, whispering about how good it is.
He cast a look back at the television, and there, Camelot and Albion were constantly mentioned. Yet, they never mentioned all the good Albion was apparently doing.
No, they just talked about how evil they were, their communist ways. Even though many of the policies they seemed to be introducing were things he remembered from before the war.
Food programs. Universal housing. Education for all. A dignified life for the working class.
Things that used to be called the American Dream.
Now? Now, those same ideals were called dangerous. Radical. Tyrannical.
Steve furrowed his brow, arms crossed tightly over his chest. Maybe he was just too old. Maybe the world had moved on without him and what he was seeing as contradictions were simply the new rules of engagement.
But the truth was… he didn’t understand this world. Not really. Not its politics, its economics, not its people. It felt like a puzzle where all the pieces had been reshaped just slightly. Familiar, but wrong. Or maybe it was him that was wrong.
Even his place as a symbol — the shield, the uniform, the flag — all of it felt heavier now. Complicated. He still believed in the ideals behind it. Freedom. Courage. Sacrifice.
But those ideals had been twisted. Warped into slogans sold on T-shirts and broadcast by talking heads who didn’t care about people. Not really. Not like he did.
And Arthuria… She was another contradiction. A monarch with populist support. A tyrant who crushed the elite and elevated the poor. A warmonger who offered peace to the oppressed.
Was she really the villain they said she was?
Or was she just… doing what needed to be done?
He didn’t know. And that uncertainty gnawed at him.
He looked out the window once more, down at the battered printout, the words smeared across her face, the conflicting emotions mirrored in the image itself.
He didn’t want to judge from a distance anymore. Didn’t want to keep trying to decode truth from slanted headlines and partisan whispers.
Maybe it was time to stop watching.
Maybe it was time to see for himself.
He turned from the window, switched off the television completely, and picked up his jacket from the back of the chair.
He needed to clear his head, and the best way to do that was by moving his body a little.
Down at the old gym, he started punching, just punishing bag after bag. The poor sandbag groaned in protest, and the metal holding it groaned in protest. But it felt nice; he wished all his problems could be solved by punching them.
The world was chaotic; there was Albion, which apparently just worsened the global economy, caused unrest, and started unjust wars. And all manner of evil.
Then, there were the mutants, people who gained power through some inborn gene, which he didn’t fully understand. But he got the general idea. They were normal people, and suddenly they gained some power, good, bad, strong, or weak.
Those people were causing problems. Riots, attacks, deaths. They should be the bad guys, killing innocent people? Easy bad guy.
Yet, even that wasn’t so simple.
Because when he listened — really listened — to those who marched, to those who protested, to those mutant voices drowned out by fear and media panic, he heard something else.
He heard fear. He heard desperation. He heard people begging to be seen. To be safe. To be treated like people.
It was the same tone he remembered from before the war — from factory workers in Brooklyn, from mothers waiting for letters from the front, from the young black soldiers in segregated camps who still volunteered to fight a war for a country that barely acknowledged them.
That was the part that hurt the most. The part that made his fists clench harder every time they rose toward the heavy bag.
Thump.
He thought about stories the mutants told, about them being captured, experimented on, by whom? Their own government. The same government that called them evil is doing such evil. Who was right? Who was wrong?
Thump.
He thought about news anchors calling Arthuria a monster while ignoring the suffering of their own people.
Thump.
He thought about families sleeping in cars while billionaires bought new islands. Companies given help over people, workers slaving away day and night, afraid they might get sick and fired.
THUMP.
His punches began to come faster, harder. The bag jerked wildly on its chain.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
His breath came rougher now. Not from exertion, but from the storm raging in his chest. Rage and confusion tangled together. This wasn’t how things were supposed to be. This wasn’t the future he died for.
Then, with a final, brutal crack — the chain snapped.
The bag flew off its hook and slammed into the far wall with a dull, heavy thud. Sand spilled from the torn seams. Steve stood there, chest heaving, hands shaking.
He didn’t curse. He didn’t scream.
He just stood in the silence of the gym, the echo of that last blow still ringing in his ears.
And then, slowly, he looked down at his fists. He flexed them once. Twice.
“This isn’t helping,” he muttered.
He walked over, picked up the bag, and sat it upright again — or tried to. It wouldn’t stand. It was too broken.
Just like the world, maybe.
That’s when he made the decision.
He couldn’t keep punching ghosts and questions.
He needed answers.
If Albion was a tyrant’s empire in disguise, he’d see it with his own eyes. If Arthuria Pendragon was just another despot cloaked in gold and legend, he’d know it face to face.
And if — just if — there was something worth learning from her… from them… then he would carry that back, too.
He picked up his jacket again and slung it over his shoulder. Then, grabbing a duffel from the bench, he headed for the door.
No more waiting.
It was time to see for himself.
He knew most people couldn’t enter Albion; the US government stopped them. But he wouldn’t let that stop him. It was time to give that Nick Fury a call.
