The cold hit first. Then the smell — antiseptic, rust, something chemical burning the back of his throat. His eyes snapped open to harsh fluorescent lights and a world that made no fucking sense.

Ben's chest heaved. His body felt wrong, heavy with sleep he hadn't asked for, muscles sluggish from decades of stillness. But the V was already working, knitting his synapses back together, flooding him with the kind of strength that had never once failed him.

Where-

And then he remembered. Something inside him snapped. Ben didn't think. He didn't need to. A pressure built behind his sternum, white-hot and furious, and then-

A blinding orange blast erupted from his chest. Someone flew backward like a ragdoll, crashing through a wall. Then there was just silence. Ben was already moving.

He didn't remember the next several minutes clearly. Just flashes — his bare feet on freezing concrete, his fists connecting with faces, the satisfying crunch of bone. A guard crumpling. Another one trying to hit him with a baton that bent against his skull like it was made of rubber. Ripping a coat off some unconscious bastard, pulling on boots that were too small, pants that barely fit.

Move. Keep moving. Get out.

He didn't know how he made it out of that facility. Didn't know how he crossed borders, hitched rides, stole what he needed. The details blurred together into a smear of a cold night, blood on his knuckles, and a single white-hot truth burning through the fog:

They sold you out.

The memories hit in jagged pieces. The Sandinistas attacking from the treeline. Gunfire and chaos. And then... Payback. Noir, that silent, treacherous fuck, coming at him from the left. He'd grabbed Noir by the helmet and smashed his skull into the burning Jeep again and again and again, feeling the satisfying give of bone beneath his hands-

And then her arms were around him from behind.

Crimson Countess. Holding him in place. Her grip tight while he was distracted, while he was winning.

The Novichok hit his face like a wall of acid. His lungs seized. His knees buckled. The last thing he saw before the darkness took him was the TNT Twins standing over him. Then nothing.

---

New York City.

Ben stood on a sidewalk in Manhattan and felt like he'd landed on a different planet.

Men walked hand-in-hand with other men. Openly. A woman with a ring through her nose and ink crawling up both arms pushed a stroller past him without a second glance. Black and white people sat together at café tables, talking, laughing, like it was normal.

What the fuck happened to this country?

The cars looked like spaceships. Everyone stared at little glowing rectangles in their hands. A billboard overhead showed a movie and the digital display moved like it was alive.

He pulled the stolen coat tighter around himself and kept walking. His overgrown beard scratched against the fabric. His hair matted and filthy. People gave him a wide berth, their eyes flickering with that particular New York brand of don't-make-eye-contact pity reserved for the homeless.

Fuck 'em. All of 'em.

He had one destination. One person who might still give enough of a damn to help... Or who would, at least, be smart enough to give him what he wanted so Ben didn't have to fuck him up.

---

The Legend's apartment smelled like cigars and old cologne. The man himself stood in the doorway, staring at Ben like he'd seen a ghost.

"Ben? Jesus Christ, Ben—"

"Move."

Ben pushed past him. Found the bathroom. Found a razor and a pair of scissors. He wasn't exactly used to doing this himself but fuck it, it'd have to work.

Twenty minutes later, the beard was gone, carved down to the close, jaw-hugging line he'd always kept. His hair was shorter, trimmed on the sides, parted loosely. Still not right, but closer. More him.

He stared at himself in the mirror. The face looking back was the same one that had been on war bonds and movie posters. Same green eyes. Same strong jaw. But something behind them had changed.

Almost forty years.

The Legend had kept his gear too — the dark green tactical suit, the boots, the shield. He changed with mechanical efficiency, feeling the familiar weight settle onto his shoulders like armor.

"Where's my wife?"

The Legend's expression flickered. Something complicated moved behind his eyes — pity, maybe, or fear.

"She's in the city. East Village." He scribbled something on a piece of paper. Ben took it.

She wasn't there that day.

The thought had been circling his skull like a vulture since he'd woken up in that Russian shithole. She wasn't in Nicaragua. Edgar had kept her behind — some excuse about work — and she'd listened. She'd stayed behind like a good little soldier while his team— his team— dragged him into hell.

Did she know?

The question was a knife between his ribs every time he breathed. A cloud of paranoia, doubt, anger and resentment that made him dizzy.

She had to know. Edgar wouldn't have kept her away unless she was part of it. Unless she was in on the whole goddamn thing.

But then...

What if she didn't know? What if she spent all these years thinking I was dead? What if she moved on? He didn't know which possibility was worse.

He left The Legend's apartment without another word. Walked through the streets of a city he barely recognized, past people who had no idea who he was, past a world that had moved on without him.

The address led to a walk-up in the East Village. Old brick, fire escape, the kind of building that hadn't changed much since the '70s.

Ben climbed the stairs. Stopped in front of the door. His fist hovered there for a moment. Just a moment.

You waited thirty-seven years for this. Don't be a fuckin' pussy.

He knocked.