View source for The Mission Comes First (Steve Rogers)

{{Cutscene Header
|Date of Scene=2015/04/19
|Location=SHIELD Training Facility
|Synopsis=Reflections on the news from Reptilon
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=197
|Tinyplot=A Wish for the Future
}}
There was a time when Steve Rogers would have been the only person in an old boxing gym - literally older than he was, dating back to the First World War; it fell on hard times occasionally, but it always hung in throughout the passing decades, always keeping just enough members to ensure that it never closed down, and eventually it came back from the brink again when interest picked up. It was never one of the big gyms; it never tried to be, no matter who owned and ran it.

But now Steve lives in Washington, and the old gym in Brooklyn that he used to visit - watching the boxers as they practiced back before the war, then looking it up again after SHIELD rescued him from the Arctic ice sheet and going there to work out - is only a fond memory. And instead of a privately-owned gym, he trains in a dedicated SHIELD workout facility, one that's been customized for the limits that only he can reach - and he still pushes himself right up to those limits, straining, trying to stretch them that one bit further.

So it is that his gloves slam into the heavy bag over and over, much as they were doing the night Nick Fury came to him with a mission to save the world.

It's always been the mission. Even when he was with the USO, when the mission was promoting war bonds to the public, before he chose to go behind enemy lines to rescue the survivors from Azzano ... all the missions that followed, hunting down HYDRA camps and facilities, carving into Johann Schmidt's resources and personnel and materiel, chipping away at HYDRA until they finally managed to bring Schmidt down himself. 

And even Afterwards - Loki, the Chitauri, then back to hunting HYDRA remnants, not just in his world but in others, with other missions for the Union thrown in.

Steve's fists rock the heavy bag even harder as he remembers the past few nights. The growing crisis on Reptilon, the news of Tony Stark's death - he hadn't even known any of his teammates were on that world, or ... 

SHIELD's heavy bags are supposed to be absolutely tear-proof, but Steve's final punch ruptures the heavy bag; it doesn't fly off the hook, but the cloth finally rips apart and sand flies out, forcing Steve to step back and catch his breath, and his temper. No matter how he looks at it, he should have been *THERE*, on Reptilon with his friends and allies, not three worlds away hunting down HYDRA remnants not even connected to his own version of Earth.

He starts unlacing his gloves, walking back over to the bench where he left his bag to pack up his training gear. Even if Director Fury comes in with another assignment, it's going to have to take second priority; Steve's place now is with his friends.