Her knees gave out, she needed to sit down. Her mouth was open, but no words were coming out of it. Just blankly staring at the pager screen, reading those words over and over again. We found him, those three words were like music to her ears. They gave her hope that died a long time ago. A hope to see him again. Her best friend. She immediately jumped and went to change to earth clothes. She can't possibly run around in her gown, can she? She quickly pulled blue skinny jeans on and stumbled as she was hurrying so much. A normal plain black shirt and grey buttonless jacket were needed for her journey to earth. She slipped on her black high heels and grabbed her pager. The last look to the mirror and she was ready to go.

Unfortunately, they don't use Bifrost as Asgard does. It's beautiful, she won't fight about that, but highly useless if you want to arrive unnoticed. They use portals, which can be created by rainbow crystals originated in their mountains. To open it, you need to say where you want to go. She picked one and placed it close to her mouth.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, Nick Fury's office," she whispered and tossed him. A human-size portal opened, outlined with rainbow colours. She quickly jumped through it and close it behind her.

"Where is he?" she asked immediately, not waiting for greetings.

"It's nice to see you too, princess." Director Fury greeted her, glancing at her with his eye. He didn't even flinch when she landed in his office, he was already used to her portal arrivals. It was her style of arrival.

"They are slowly defrosting him downstairs."

"How long is it already?"

"Around 4 hours." He said nonchalantly and got up from his chair. He searched her face for some emotion, but the only one he saw there was her poker face.

"Do you want to see him?" he asked and open the door for her. Without hesitation, she walked through the door and waited outside for him.

He guided her to the downstairs's lab in silence, through multiple stairs and doors. As they got there he stopped and turned to her.

"I must warn you, I know he was your dearest friend. Do you really want to see him before he will be fully awake?" He asked her again and looked into her eyes, which were the mirror of her soul.

"Show him to me." she clenched her jaw and tried to hold back tears. Director Fury without other questions took out his card and unlocked the doors. As she stepped through, agent Phil Coulson turned to look at them. She greeted him with a bow of her head and her eyes immediately spotted a super-soldier laying on the table with a bit of ice on his body. She gasped and her hand has automatically covered her mouth. Her eyes started to get watery and she slowly approached him. Scientists were still running around and checking all kinds of stats, but her attention was on him. She slowly traced his cheek with her fingers. He looked like he was just sleeping, long nearly 70 years long sleep. Both director Fury and Agent Coulson were following her with their eyes, Coulson knew the best how she feels.

"Where have you been?" she whispered and lonely tears streamed down her face. Smiling softly, she cupped his cheek with her hand.

"Where did you found him?" she asked without sparing a glance to them.

"We found Valkyrie in ice on Greenland, it was relatively whole and Captain was frozen in ice. It's a miracle that he survived." Stated Coulson. She could hear the hidden excitement in his voice, he was a huge Captain America fan. She couldn't take her eyes off Steve.

"If we would have searched longer, more, maybe we would have been able to find him," she said and closed her eyes. She regretted every minute when they didn't look for him. Together with Howard, they went on a search, just as they got the electromagnetic signal of the tesseract. They hope that maybe where is a tesseract, Steve would be there too but they didn't find anything and after long months and years of searching they gave up. They created S.H.I.E.L.D. and not long after that, she left Earth and came back just once, to give Nick Fury the pager.

"How long?" she turned to Coulson.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"He is stable, we expect that in a few hours, he will be able to wake up." He gave her a reassuring smile. She nodded and spared Steve last glance as she went back with director Fury.

"You know, it was quite quiet since we last saw each other. No major conflicts, no new visitor, well if I'm not counting Stark," said director Fury and rolled his eyes.

"Stark? As in Anthony Stark? Howard's son?" she knew what kind of troublemaker Howard was, could only imagine his son is as same as him.

"Let's say that Earth has a new armoured soldier. He created a suit for himself and is called Iron Man. It's a long history, I presume mister Stark will be more than thrilled to tell you about it when you'll meet him." That will be one of an encounter as she saw that. But she was relieved that Earth is save, for now. They talked for a bit when agent Coulson walked in.

"He is out of ice and in a separate room. He can wake up any minute." As he said that, an alarm sounded through the whole building.

"All agents, code 13. I repeat, all agents, code 13."

They looked at each other with the director and ran out of the door. They got to the garage and jumped into a few black cars, she and director in one and other agents in the other cars. They drove as fast as they could to find where he ran to.

"Director, he is on the Time Square," a walkie-talkie sounded.

"Copy that," responded director Fury and turned the car that way. As they got there, she saw him, afraid and surprised by this new world in the middle of the square. Director came out first and she waited in the car.

"Easy, soldier. Look, I'm sorry about that little show back there, but we thought it would be best to break it to you slowly," he said.

"Break what?" asked Steve. She then came out of the car and walked to stand side by side with the director.

"You have been asleep, Steve, for almost 70 years," she said and look at him. The utter shock in his eyes couldn't be hidden. He saw her as same as she was back then.

"Rosa?" he asked surprised as she was just an apparition of the old times. He looked her up and down, searching for anything to prove to him that he is just dreaming.

"Hi Steve," she smiled at him softly.

"But how- why? I don't understand."

"I will explain to you everything, it's a long story," she stepped closer and looked directly into his eyes. Steve looked around and sighed.

"You gonna be okay?" asked the director.

"Yeah, yeah I just... I had a date," he said, his back to them as he was taking in this new world. She could hear that sad tone in his voice, could only imagine what's going on in his head. Her heart broke for him. He missed a big portion of his life in the 40s. Director Fury took him into the car and they drove back to the HQ.

Steve sat silently in the chair before the director's table. He was lost in his own thoughts, trying to process everything that has happened. She sat in front of him, her eyes trained on him and full of worry. Director left them alone, to talk it out.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't there when you woke up," she said softly and dart her eyes elsewhere. Steve's arm fell into his lap and he looked at her, giving her his full attention. She saw her fighting an inner battle to tell him something.

"I suppose I need to start from the beginning. You know me as Rosa, but my full name is Neilrosa. I'm not from this planet. I was born and I live on Flanker, as princess and heir to the throne of my father, who is the king of our planet. That's the answer to your other unsaid question, why I'm as same as back then. I age really slowly, by appearance I'm 24, but in reality, I'm thousands of years old." at that moment she had the courage to look at him. His eyes were without emotions and he nodded for her to continue. A small feeling of betrayal washed over him.

"I'm a goddess. A goddess of war." she sighed and finally look directly into his eyes after a while.

"That's why I don't age so quickly. I'm so sorry, that I didn't say anything to you, but believe me that I wanted to, but would you believe me?" she asked.

"You are right, maybe no," he said nonchalantly. He knew that if she would tell him something like that, he would only laugh at her.

"I eventually did tell, to Peggy and Howard, when they noticed that I don't age. But that was after your disappearance or death as others believed. We looked all around for you, we still had hope that you may be alive, but as time went by, one after another we lost hope. I couldn't stay here, everything was reminding me of you. I look years for you, with or without Howard's help. I regret every moment till now of not searching everywhere." she placed my face into her hands. She couldn't take it anymore, his burning blue eyes searching for any secret she may hide.

He got up and crouched before her, silently taking hands off of her face and lifted her chin.

"It's not your fault. I'm sure you did everything you could." he smiled at her. Tears started to stream down her face and she hugged him.

"You are back, thank god." she cried into his shoulder while he caressed her hair, both of them happy to finally reunite. They stayed like that for a while, until director Fury got back. He offered Steve a place in S.H.I.E.L.D and he accepted. He got a place not far from the HQ.

"We should catch up," said Steve as they were outside.

"I would love to, but I need to decline. I have urgent matters that won't wait, unfortunately. But I promise you, I will be back," she offered him a smile. He hugged her and they parted ways. He to check out his new apartment and she went back home. To prepare herself for the coronation.