Feel like the Washington Post covered some of that, [ he replies, dry. His prodigious memory tugs on memories of late night CNN segments playing on his condo's TV, background noise to sandwich preparation after returning home from removing a particularly formidable supratentorial hemangioblastoma (from a particularly immunocompromised patient). He vaguely remembers the story persisting in progressively more sensationalized headlines over the course of the next few months, but other than it adding fire to Christine's gripes on systemic injustice, he hadn't paid it any particular attention.

His chest clenches. He winces, balls his hand into a fist, loosens it again. Regardless of how outwardly upright this SHIELD agent might seem, he knows that the organization's primary function was (is?) public safety – or their idea of enforcing it, anyway. The less Johnson knows about... ...everything, the better.

Same as the Guardians. He wants to help where he can – but how can he, if they know what he's done? ]

Yeah, [ he replies around the lump in his throat. He slides his hands into his jacket pockets as they proceed down the street to avoid any other awkward... moments. ] Sounds about the same as my world. Guessing your Steve Rogers was the guy to blow it wide open too.

[ He pauses. He shouldn't ask. It doesn't matter, in the grand scheme of the multiverse, in the infinite number of– ]

You say it took a long time. What year are you from?