Steve glanced out at the crowd as he stood next to the stage. It way bigger than any other previous rally he'd attended, with lots of American flags and similar. "Wow, there are a lot of them. Way more than have come previously."

Daisy snickered and patted him on the shoulder. "They're here for you, dummy."

Steve was taken aback. He looked at Daisy and then at the crowd, but he did have the good grace not to say, 'really' and instead went with, "I'm not exactly the most qualified to be talking about this."

Daisy shrugged, "Qualifications are cool, but you know who does have the qualifications? Michael Trent."

Steve laughed at that, "Yeah, I'm not about to hand it over to him. Do you think… I don't know, he gave away all that money. Maybe I'm not giving him enough credit."

"This moral doubt is why everyone trusts your judgment," Daisy said, pressing down on the suit she'd helped him pick out. She'd called him a dork for that, but Steve felt it was important to dress appropriately to the gravity of the occasion. Daisy was just in jeans and a nice blue top. "But Trent's a smart guy – He knows there are limits to what money can do that you hit before eight billion dollars. Even if he means well, which he definitely does not, it's not like that wipes out the fact that the international order which he so cherishes is built on the domination of half the human race and America just letting that go."

Steve nodded his head and heard the speaker previous to him announce, "Please welcome, Steve Rogers!"

Daisy gestured to him to get up there, "Good luck."

Steve got up and looked out at the crowd again, choking on his words a bit. "Sorry," he said, unfolding the paper he'd brought his speech from. "Sorry, I'm not very used to this. Um, at my last public performance I got mooned, so you guys are already way ahead of the crowd, best crowd in seventy years."

The crowd laughed and Steve wondered if it was polite laughter or if they were sincerely amused. Maybe they didn't believe that he'd been mooned at his last public performance. He looked down at his paper, the words written on it seemed to lash back at him. He'd felt much more confident, sitting around and workshopping them with Daisy than he did now. Was he really fit to be the shepherd to all these sheep? To show them where to go, tell them who to follow, to warn them of those were outwardly sheep but inwardly ravenous wolves? He took a deep breath and started to speak.

"I went under the ice in the middle of the greatest war for human liberty the world has ever known. I awoke in the freest world in history. Democracies were blooming or flourishing in every corner of the world..."

----

I resisted the urge to scream even though we were in the privacy of my home office and I could get away with it, "Captain America is speaking at the Cry for Liberty rally in Boston?"

"Yes sir," the Hydra agent reporting to me said. He was a youngish guy, sent over from Garrett to give me the news.

"And this is public knowledge."

"Yes sir."

"How did we not hear of this earlier?"

"Ward's been busy since Rumlowe died," he said. "And they're just a bunch of hippies."

I was going to die. I was going to die of a heart attack brought on by frustration. I was going to die young and surrounded by idiots. People don't tell you this, but ruling the world is like being a parent except children are grateful and cute and the world is ugly and ungrateful.

"Young man, do you know what Captain America's approval rating is?"

"No."

"Guess."

"Net eighty-five percent?"

"Captain America's approval rating is net ninety five percent, with three percent saying they don't know who he is." It was basically unbelievable. It was the most insane polling I had ever seen. If you had raised Abraham Lincoln from the dead he would've had a lower approval rating than Steve Rogers. "And asked if their feelings were somewhat or very favorable, eighty percent of respondents said they were very favorable. Steve Rogers is the most popular man in America and the next person down is not even close."

The agent looked taken aback by that. "We could always have him killed."

It was the dumbest idea I had ever seen drift forth from someone's mouth, "Not when it's public he's at the anti-authoritarianism rally!" It wasn't that someone would trace it back to us – Obviously, that wasn't going to happen. But the chances of an attack spawning a billion conspiracy theories and a finger pointing game at any of the dozens of 'authoritarian wave' countries listed by the Cry for Liberty was 100%. And a martyred Captain America would be like a martyred Lincoln – We'd have a palatial statue of him within the year and any cause he blessed would be the cause of the whole country.

I rubbed my forehead and started to concoct a plan using one of our oldest assets – The Winter Soldier.

---

"...And we have aided and abetted those tyrants, in the name of a fleeting security. To those who said it was a necessary compromise, the threat is over. Thanos is dead. Earth's reputation is secured on the galactic scale," or, at least, Asgard's aegis of protection would still function. The exact form of intergalactic protection wasn't important to Steve, but he had asked Thor about the probability of a second invasion and Thor had said it was extremely unlikely that any would test Asgard's might again soon. "The time has come to start asking how to disentangle ourselves from those compromises. To stop subsidizing tyrannical regimes across the world, to stop insisting on emergency alliances, to stop living in a state of permanent emergency. We have fought and we have sacrificed. The time has come to reap the fruit of our labor, to begin the real work of building a world worthy of the sacrifices we have made.

It is time for the whole world to take a stand for liberty. I am not calling for war – Those who accuse us of calling for war underestimate what we are able to do. I am calling for us to begin the work of freedom by implementing policies that don't pretend that dictators and coup leaders should be fetid and garland with legitimacy. I'm calling for us to start voting, talking to our governing leaders, boycotting businesses that work with despots, and struggling for freedom in a way that acknowledges that the urgent needs of other human beings for freedom.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

People will say that what I am suggesting is risky – That taking the chance on building a freer world is not worth risking the security we have obtained. I understand their concerns. I am asking you all to take a risk. But there is no final security in the friendship of tyrants – No final security in a world that lives in fear. This work must be done – If there is ever to be lasting, true peace upon the earth, it must be done. What good is it to leave it to our children? To run up a debt of bodies broken, of human misery and anguish, of the bonds of brotherhood broken for our convenience?

The only thing worse than leaving this debt to our children would be to leave that fate to them, a world that continues the downward spiral into tyranny, till the light of liberty lit those two and a half centuries ago goes out. If the world is to be secure in the long run, it has to be free. Abraham Lincoln said that as a nation of freemen, we must survive for all time or be destroyed from within. There is no greater promise of security than a people accustomed to freedom, sure of their rights, and ready to fight for it. If we want the world to be safe, that is the legacy that we must leave to our children."

Steve was astonished about the response to the speech. He waved his hand, feeling like he was a teacher waving goodbye to classroom and climbed down from the podium. He was swarmed by a huge crowd of people and looked desperately for Daisy. Once he caught her eyes, he mouthed 'help' and she shook her head and made a hand shaking motion. Steve felt a pang of betrayal and then set his face to the smiling disposition that had served him when he'd been the government's cycling propaganda monkey.

It would be a long, long night before the hands were all shook and Daisy would permit them to head back toward the hotel. They were on foot for a bit, since people were still ridehailing out of the meeting. Steve knew, consciously, that he didn't have to be worried about muggers. Daisy could put a mugger through the wall with a flick of her hand. But he kept his eyes peeled regardless.

Finally, they got a cab and Steve let out a sigh of relief.

"You were worried," Daisy said, almost laughing. "Goodness, Steve, we're superheroes, I think we can handle the mean streets of Boston."

Steve felt himself heat up, "It just pays to be alert, alright. I wasn't always two hundred pounds of muscle." That he was also concerned out of old-fashion chivalry he did not mention. Daisy would call him a dork if he did so, though he did not think she was actually annoyed.

"Well, nothing wrong with a little caution, I guess. You did good. Did you really get mooned the last time you did a public performance?"

"Yes," Steve said, "I was doing an entertainment tour to the troops and, uh, well, they were having a bad day. Not their fault, the act was pretty corny. I'm glad I was able to do something more substantial for them." Steve left out that the guy involved in the mooning was an old and bad acquaintance. It wasn't important information, he'd been serving his country and he'd lost friends.

Daisy gave Steve a look that he couldn't quite understand. "Even when they moon you for trying to lift their spirits," she shook her head. "Ward's right, they don't make them like you any more Rogers."

Steve didn't really know what to say to that so he smiled and looked away. They passed the rest of the cab ride in amicable silence, got out and headed into their hotel. The hotel wasn't that nice, Cry for Liberty had covered it for him and Daisy had just gotten a room for herself, but it was big and it had a lot of rooms. Fairly modern, tile floors. They got onto the elevator and pushed for their respective floors.

Daisy looked over at Steve after the doors closed. "What?" Steve asked.

"There really weren't any women before Peggy, were there?"

"What?" Steve said, confused at the question. "Well there was the girl who kissed me before Peggy shot at me." Daisy gave Steve a very confused look as the door opened. "Uh, this is your floor," Steve said awkwardly.

Daisy stuck her hand on the door so it would stay open. Steve was always surprised by that trick – The first time someone had done it around him, he'd been worried they'd get their hand crushed. "It'll stick." Daisy said, looking at Steve. Then she held out her hand and said, "Come closer."

Steve obeyed, stepping closer to Daisy. Daisy let go of the door and grabbed his face and pulled him in to kiss him. It was warm and surprising and… Well, it was nice. Steve liked Daisy. It certainly put some of her recent actions in a new light but it wasn't unwelcome, really. Except that he was going to hear it from Nat for this.

"Okay," Daisy said, letting out a breath as the door started to slide shut again and she stuck out a hand to stop it. "That was nice."

"Um," Steve said.

"I'm sorry, did that make you uncomfortable?"

"No," Steve said, "It was really nice. I'm, um, I'm glad you did it. I wish I had done it. Not that there's anything wrong with you doing it."

"Smooth Rogers."

"Dinner, do you want to get dinner tomorrow?" Steve was definitely going to have to get better at this.

"Sure," Daisy said, stepping off the elevator. "See you tomorrow."

Steve waited for the elevator to reach his room – He would've preferred the stairs, but he hadn't wanted Daisy to go alone and if he had told her he planned on taking the steps she would've made fun of him. The elevator reached his floor and he got off and went into his room.

He opened the door to his room only to have a man with a metal arm slam into him.