In an instant, seven or eight black SUVs screeched to a halt around him, boxing him in. Dozens of heavily armed agents poured out, raised tranquilizer guns, and watched him warily, but not one of them dared step closer.
Then Nick Fury got out.
Black coat. Black eyepatch. The kind of presence that made everyone else instinctively give him room.
"Easy, soldier," Fury said, his tone calm.
The moment Steve saw him, he knew one thing for certain. This man wasn't with the enemy he remembered, and he definitely wasn't part of Hydra. An outfit like that would never have put someone this composed and clearly in command at the center of the operation
That calmed him, at least a little.
"My name is Nick Fury. I'm the director of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division." Fury spread his hands to show he wasn't carrying a weapon. "Listen, Captain. I know this is hard to take in, but it's the truth. We found you under the ice in the Arctic."
"You were asleep for nearly seventy years. More precisely, sixty-three. It's 2008 now."
2008.
Steve could barely process the number.
He thought of the plane going into the ocean. He thought of Bucky. He thought of the dance he never made it to.
And he thought of Peggy Carter.
"The world changed..."
"Yeah," Fury said. "And it changed into something a whole lot crazier than anything you dealt with during the war."
He pointed toward the giant screen nearby, his voice carrying a complexity even he could not hide.
"While you were asleep, the world stopped belonging only to ordinary people. We've got billionaires flying around in armored suits, green monsters in the jungle using tanks like toys, and..."
The screen suddenly changed.
The commercial cut out and was replaced with exclusive high-definition footage licensed from the Daily Bugle.
Clark.
Clark in all his glory.
"...and," Fury finished, staring at the screen, "we've got an alien ally who can tank missiles with his body, tear apart extraterrestrial armor with his bare hands, and make physics look optional."
Steve tilted his head up and stared at the figure on the screen, at the bright red S on his chest.
He could feel the presence even through the footage.
For some reason, Steve thought the two of them might actually get along.
"That S... does it stand for Soldier?" Steve asked. "Did the government build a better super-soldier after me?"
"No, Captain." Fury turned toward him. "Around here, it stands for Superman."
"Superman?" Steve blinked. "I know that name. He was in a comic once, years ago, before they replaced him. So this guy took the name to honor that character?"
Fury shook his head.
Truth was, he didn't know. He'd chosen the codename himself because he remembered that short-lived comic too.
As for the public, they all just called him the S-Man. Clark himself had never once bothered to comment on it.
Meanwhile, in Hell's Kitchen, Peter had decided not to waste the evening and was out fighting crime with Cindy and Gwen.
"Peter, behind you!" Cindy shouted, webbing up one of the incoming attackers before he could close the gap.
"I know, I know! But what are these guys?!"
Peter backflipped to avoid three katanas chopping down at once, landed, and drove a punch straight into a ninja's chest.
Against a normal thug, that hit would have cracked ribs and left him groaning on the pavement for two weeks.
But these attackers, a group dressed head to toe in red ninja garb with their faces completely covered, only staggered back two steps before raising their blades and rushing him again.
"I think they're Hand ninjas!" Gwen called out. "Clark had them marked on the map he gave us!"
Her memory for Clark's notes was still excellent. She said it while dropping another ninja with a hard punch.
Tonight, the spider team had come to Hell's Kitchen to do exactly what Clark had taught them to do: level up a little, stop a major drug exchange, and clean up the streets.
What they had not expected was for both sides of the deal to get slaughtered by a sudden wave of red-clad ninjas, who then immediately decided the three nosy vigilantes would be next.
If it had only been a dozen ninjas, the spider squad could have handled it.
But the red-clad assassins just kept coming, like cockroaches pouring out of every crack in the city.
At a rough count, there were already more than fifty.
"There are too many of them!" Cindy shouted after webbing several together, only to see more closing in.
Then a familiar weapon came spinning in from the dark.
A billy club ricocheted off the wall several times, cracked into the skulls of the ninjas trying to flank the spider team, and snapped cleanly back into Matt's hand.
Daredevil stepped out of the shadows, still carrying that same hard-edged chill he always seemed to wear.
"I warned you," Matt said coldly. "Hell's Kitchen is not a playground for kids pretending to be heroes."
But tonight Matt had not come alone.
Two more figures emerged behind him, both carrying the kind of physical presence that made a crowd instinctively step back.
On the left was a huge Black man pushing close to six and a half feet, wearing sunglasses and a yellow T-shirt.
On the right stood a white guy in a green jacket, his chest half open to reveal the black dragon tattoo curling across it.
Peter's white mask eyes went wide.
"Hey! I know you two!"
He flipped onto a dumpster, pointed excitedly at the big guy and the glowing-fist fighter, and shouted, "It's Mr. Unbreakable Human Shield and Mr. Glowy Punch! Long time no see!"
Luke Cage's mouth twitched.
How could it not? Their first meeting had been chaos from start to finish.
"So it's you three color-coordinated high school vigilantes again."
Luke rolled one shoulder and flexed a fist. "What, last time wasn't enough? Thought you'd come back for another lesson in Hell's Kitchen?"
"Funny coming from you," Peter shot back immediately. "You're about our age too. You throw on sunglasses and a T-shirt and suddenly you're some seasoned pro? Please."
He absolutely refused to let anyone insult his costume taste.
And besides, these two weren't exactly old men dispensing wisdom from the mountaintop either.
They were young too, even if they carried themselves like mentors.
Danny, meanwhile, had no interest in watching the two of them start up again.
His fist began to glow.
"Focus, Peter."
He drove forward and started tearing through the ninjas.
"These aren't street punks. They're elite Hand operatives. If you don't put them down properly, they'll haunt you until you're dead."
Then, without looking away from the fight, he added:
"Luke. Less talking. More punching."
With the help of the three more experienced fighters, the tide shifted immediately.
In under ten minutes, more than fifty Hand ninjas were webbed to walls, poles, pavement, and each other.
"Whew... finally," Peter said, jumping down from the wall and dusting off his hands.
Matt collapsed his billy club back into his grip and looked at Peter.
"Hell's Kitchen is a swamp. You won tonight, but you also just put yourselves on the Hand's radar. Remember this. There is no pure justice here. Only survival. Don't let this place drag you under."
Luke stepped forward.
His mouth was still rough as sandpaper, but he bumped a fist lightly into Peter's shoulder anyway.
"Not bad, little bug. But call me a human shield again, and I really will stuff you in a dumpster."
Danny gave a small nod, still sounding like a man who spent too much time trying to sound profound.
"Stay sharp. The dark never sleeps."