Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Everything smelled like strawberries. Steve wasn’t exactly sure why that was. He hadn’t been eating strawberries before bed, and for that matter, they were in bed, weren’t they? Why did it smell like food? They weren’t anywhere near the kitchen.

Was it shampoo? Maybe it was Tony’s shampoo. But that wasn’t right either, because now that he thought about it, the smell might not have been strawberries at all. Some kind of berries perhaps, because there was a fruity finish to the scent in the air, but he couldn’t for the life of him name what it was.

Wait… something was familiar again. Now it sort of smelled a little bit like that air freshener Clint loved to spray all over the couch whenever he thought the air was getting to stale; he sure loved that air freshener. Steve had never been able to figure out what it was that Clint liked about it so much. Frankly, he had found it a tad sickening and he always had to leave the room whenever Clint started spraying it all over the place. Super senses, especially his sense of smell, didn’t like being assaulted by things so strong and he had never been able to get the taste of the stuff out of his mouth after he breathed it in, even if he gargled with mouthwash. It was always there, cloying and heady no matter what flavor he used to chase it away.

That was it! Air freshener! It had to be air freshener! But who would have sprayed air freshener in their bedroom? Tony was always complaining about the chemicals they put in that stuff, claiming that the aerosol cans caused cancer or something like that. Steve hadn’t put much thought into it, but he trusted Tony’s judgement, so he supposed that the whole cancer thing might be true. Tony was a genius after all.

Something was wrong.

The berry smell was going away, and being replaced by something that smelled… antiseptic.

Cold.

Mechanical.

Wrong.

That wasn’t right at all. Now everything smelled like tech, and they didn’t have any technology in their bedroom – he hadn’t let Tony drag any of his machinery in because it was their bedroom for Pete’s sake, not a workshop. Bedrooms were supposed to be calming places to get some sleep and to maybe snuggle in for a while. They weren’t supposed to be places where welding happened at three in the morning. No one liked to wake up to the sound and smell of welding; not even Tony, who practically lived through welding.

Something was definitely wrong.

White light burned its way into Steve’s brain even though he had his eyes tightly shut; or at least, he was pretty sure he had his eyes tightly shut. He could see blobs of red and white on the backs of his eyelids, everything becoming unpleasant and hazy when it had been nothing but sweet darkness before. His thoughts were mangled temporarily as he tried to fight through the pain when the light burned brighter. Steve tried to squint; he wanted to rub his eyes to clear his vision, and then stilled, hearing an odd sound from somewhere up above him.

Wait… they didn’t have anything up above their bed except for Jarvis’s speakers, and those were hidden in the ceiling panels. They didn’t make noises like this; aside from hearing Jarvis’ dulcet tones through them, those speakers only played music, and on the rare occasion those silly fake news programs that Tony liked to listen to before bed. Tony always offered to keep the volume turned down low because he knew how much Steve disliked waking up to the sound of someone talking in his ear. He was sweet that way.

So where was the noise coming from?

It might have been a voice, maybe a machine, and it was unbearably loud; for the first few precious seconds after regaining consciousness, he was terrified that he might go completely deaf. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get the sounds to stop or at least quiet down; not that he could move of course. Two other sounds kicked in, making their own fuss as if annoyed that they had been left out of the party. He flinched as another sound started up, an incessant beeping noise that blasted out from the space just to the right of his head. Every sound combined together now, a cacophony of unintelligible noises creating a symphony of agony, all being performed for Steve’s displeasure. The combination was overwhelming, like he was standing right in front of the stage when a band trying to get in tune, warming up together while all playing different shrill notes.

Boom.

Hiss.

Creak.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Hiss.

Boom.

Steve tried to cover his ears; his arms felt like they were being weighted down with sandbags, and wouldn’t move. His eyelids felt a little like they had been cemented shut. How was it possible for a person’s eyelids to get so heavy? He would have frowned had he not been so damned tired.

His lip must have twitched, because all of a sudden he heard something move.

“Sir! I think he’s waking up!” someone bellowed from above him. Steve didn’t recognize the voice; he couldn’t see anything except for the insides of his eyelids either and that view wasn’t helpful in the least. The voice was breathy, as if the speaker had just run a marathon, and just a tad excited. It was a woman’s voice, he could tell that much. The strange scent of berries was back again – just a hint of it this time near his face.

What was going on?

How had everything had gotten so heavy, so clinical, so painful?

He could remember going to bed with Tony after coming back from SHIELD HQ to visit Bucky in the Medical Bay after his suicide attempt; that had been it. They had crawled into bed and fallen asleep together, wrapped in each other’s arms in the wee hours of the morning, utterly exhausted and emotionally drained. Tony had been covered in bruises from Bucky’s assault, a living finger painting of purple and red fist shaped splotches. That had been awful to see, worse than war wounds and amputations, in Steve’s opinion. He had wanted to wrap himself around Tony so tightly after that fight, afraid of losing him; it hadn’t been fair that all that rage had been taken out on Tony instead of on him, but for some reason Bucky had felt that Tony was the more appropriate choice to vent his frustrations on. All this because Steve had come out to him, explaining carefully that he and Tony were in love, and that he was happy for the first time in his life.

They had fallen asleep after coming home. That was no reason to end up in a hospital…

A hospital…

That was why everything was so familiar!

He had woken up like this only once before…

When he had finally escaped the ice…

Oh god! The ice – not the ice again – please let it not be the ice!

Steve struggled against his body’s fatigue and managed to force his eyes open a mere fraction of an inch. He wasn’t in the ice anymore – he wasn’t – He was warm and comfortable, so it couldn’t be that again. He swum from his panic, settling for a nice, evenly spread dislike instead.

“It’s probably just a muscle spasm Dahlia. You know how it is with these guys. They move around all the time, but there’s nothing going on in there.” A man said from that same somewhere up above Steve. That same someone drummed on his forehead; the blows heavy and slow, as if someone were striking at him with the base of a candlestick. He didn’t like that sensation one bit; he didn’t like being someone’s plaything.

Footsteps echoed across the ground and he heard springs creaking.

Everything went brighter.

Steve squinted, his eyes watering as the bright white light dimmed, changing into an expanse of ceiling tiles and two reddish lumps that may or may not have been people. He almost couldn’t handle the shimmer of the fluorescent lighting above; it was so bright, and the hum they emitted was awful. Tears dribbled down his cheeks, leaving rivers of salt in their wake. Green blobs splattered everything in sight when he managed to pry his eyelids apart even farther; he regretted it instantly, trying to blink the colours away.

He spent a moment quivering again, trying to push through the pain that was merrily jolting through his eyeballs.

His vision cleared and he saw a stranger, a woman, staring down at him. She was a nurse or a doctor, judging by the Hello Kitty hospital scrubs, and she had one of those light pens that Steve hated so much held up in front of her at the ready. She shined the light in his eyes and he groaned, forcing his arm up to shield his eyes from the painful beam. He wanted to tell her to knock it off, but he couldn’t seem to form the words, his tongue heavy and thick in his mouth. His arm flopped pitifully onto his chest, his energy utterly drained, unable to move any more than an inch upwards afterwards.

He had little black spots in his vision now, dancing with the red and green ones, but he had shielded the worst of the light; the black spots weren’t any better than the red blotches, but they weren’t any worse either. They did seem to be fading faster at least, taking the red and green with them.

The glare from the room became a less agonizing swirl in his vision by the time the nurse lowered the light pen, seeming astonished by his reaction.

“Sir – he’s conscious! This isn’t just a muscle spasm –” The woman shouted. Maybe she wasn’t shouting, Steve thought while grimacing, because the other person in the room, the chunky looking man working at a computer terminal a few feet away, didn’t seem to hear what she was saying.

Maybe he wasn’t listening.

The woman smiled apologetically and patted Steve’s hand; the touch hurt, her fingers seeming to sink through his flesh. He gasped in agony.

“I’m sorry if that was too loud for you, sugar. I’ll go get the doctor, alright? Please try to stay awake. You’re safe here. It’s alright. You’re safe.” She said, enunciating every word, as if that would let him understand her better.

Steve watched her walk off, feeling more than a little lightheaded; his stomach started screaming bloody murder, gurgling away like he hadn’t eaten in months. He took in a deep breath, and clenched his teeth, trying to sit up. It felt like someone was sitting on his chest, and they had apparently set up shop.

Something solid and rubbery was stuck to his forehead; if he concentrated really hard he could feel something sticking out of his side, right above his hip too. It pulled every time he tried to move, and although he wanted to yelp, all he could manage was a sort of strangled whimper. There was something between his legs, he realized in horror. Some kind of thin tubing that kept rubbing against his inner thigh whenever he tried to move…

Oh god… he recognized those tubes…

Steve blinked up at the ceiling, close to hyperventilating. He was in a hospital hooked up to machines and tubes and he was alone. Where were the others? Where was he? He spent every few weeks visiting or laying in a hospital bed with all the work the Avengers did, so they should be here, shouldn’t they? They wouldn’t have left him alone, would they? Tony couldn’t have left him here alone, could he?

Tony wouldn’t leave him to wake up alone unless something had come up. He was probably taking a coffee break; there was nothing to worry about. Steve swallowed hard. He needed to stay calm. Everything would sort itself out eventually. He just needed to stay calm. The nurses and doctors had things under control after all, or else he wouldn’t be alive to begin with.

Why did he feel so weak? He hadn’t even felt like this after waking up from the ice. The only thing that came close was when he had woken up in the hospital with pneumonia when he had been fifteen; his mother had warned him about staying out in the snow, but he had done it anyways and he had cursed himself for days after it had happened, trapping in a hospital bed with nothing more than a view of the hairy old man two beds over for company.

It wasn’t the same. This was an exhaustion he hadn’t fought off before; it tugged at his eyelids, trying to get him to fall asleep again, dragging him down into soft, tempting darkness.

No.

He wouldn’t go to sleep yet. He couldn’t, not without knowing what was going on.

Steve struggled, managing to turn his head and upper body, using up most of his remaining strength. He couldn’t just sit around like this without knowing where he was. For all he knew he could be in an AIM hospital – or somewhere even worse; he wouldn’t have put it past Hydra to whisk him away to some underground facility and he had no interest in taking part in any of their twisted experiments. The nurse seemed nice enough but you could never tell.

He looked down at his wrist, hoping to see some kind of hospital bracelet or ID tag that might tell him where he was.

What Steve saw would have had him on the floor had he not already been lying down.

His arm was slender and pale, tiny, with a wrist that someone could have easily encircled with their fingers.

This wasn’t the right body – this wasn’t the right –

Steve fought to catch his breath, gasping shallowly as the nurse returned; she prodded him in the shoulder to get his attention, rolling him over onto his back as easily as someone might roll an infant. The brief contact of her hand touching the strip of exposed skin around the neckline of his hospital gown made his entire body go stiff like a board; it was as if he had been electrocuted, his skin alive with prickles that sparked all over.

Steve stared up at the tiled ceiling again, floundering, sure that his face was going purple from the effort of trying to get oxygen in.

“There, there. It will be alright.” The nurse stroked his stomach, not knowing that she was making it worse with each caring caress.

The chubby man approached the bed, limping slightly, giving Steve a good look at his face as he leaned in to take a look at him. The man was wrinkled and liver spotted, likely well over sixty years old and nearing retirement, unfamiliar just like the nurse. He stared down into Steve’s confused eyes; Steve stared right back at him.

“Easy now son. Easy.”

A tall, curvy, woman with long flowing black hair and red lipstick appeared beside the doctor, leaning over his shoulder to get a look of her own – yet another nurse in a line of nurses that kept appearing at the edge of his vision; Steve hoped to god that he wasn’t seeing double because he didn’t think he could handle that too on top of everything else. The nurse with red lipstick was pleasantly surprised when they locked eyes. She smiled at Steve, winking, the look so enchanting and fond that he could see it on the back of his eyelids every time he blinked.

“Sweet Jesus! You’re right! We have to call Howard –” The doctor said.

Howard?

Who the hell were they talking about?

They couldn’t be talking about that Howard could they?

“Where’s Tony? I need Tony…” Steve croaked; his voice was no more than a whisper, his throat and mouth dry as a desert. Each sound came at a cost, every swallow afterwards like trying to drink liquid sandpaper; his eyes watered again, his vision blurring. He was parched, choking on the cold air from the air conditioning, his body screaming for liquids, and he couldn’t even croak out for water.

Goosebumps popped up all over his pale skin, lumps that were so painful he almost blacked out when the nurse ran her hand over his cheek. He started shivered uncontrollably, shaking so hard that he could feel it in his very bones like he was going to shake to pieces, his entire body almost vibrating where it lay.

“What’s going on?” Steve rasped.

“Just a minute honey.”Hello Kitty Nurse disappeared from Steve’s line of sight, pressing a button on the side of the bed. Nurse Red Lips was gone when he looked back up from glancing in revulsion at his hand again. He had been praying that something might have changed while he had looked away, that this was all just a hallucination from the pain but it had stayed the same.

This was real, oh god it was real!

The bed gave a jerk, folding in half with an electronic scream, lifting Steve up so that he was sitting instead of lying down. The servos grinding in the frame were only marginally quieter than the other noises in the room, a litany of creaks and groans. This here was his symphony, the blasted noise that had almost deafened him laid out plain for all to see. He shivered.

“It’s so loud.” Steve cried out finally, coughing so hard that he felt like he was going to throw up.

Nurse Hello Kitty adjusted his blankets (blankets that felt so heavy, oh so heavy) and then held out a paper cup with a lemon-yellow straw sticking out of it; water, sweet precious water.

“Here, take a sip of this, alright?”

He reached but couldn’t take the cup, his fingers refusing to curl despite his mind’s willingness.

“That’s alright honey. Here, I’ll do it for you.”

She tucked the straw between his chapped and cracked lips because he was too weak to do it himself and then held the cup for him so that he wouldn’t accidentally dump water all over himself; it was such a kind gesture, he almost felt like crying. Steve sucked at the water as hard as he could, getting only a trickle with each pull, unable to manage enough force for a real sip. His lips tired before her arm did, trembling awkwardly from the effort. He swallowed at what little came up, greedily taking in as much as he could.

“Careful now. Drink too much and you’ll make yourself sick.” The doctor said.

The nurse set the mostly full cup down on the overbed table she pulled across his hips, arranging it so that everything was neat and tidy, white table over blue blankets. She shook his head at him when he tried to reach pathetically for the cup.

“Give it some time honey.” She said.

He didn’t want to give it time – he wanted water, goddamn it! He opened his mouth to protest but was cut off when the doctor snapped his fingers in front of his face to get his attention.

“Do you know who you are son?” The man asked, clearing his throat. He was staring at Steve, ignoring the chart and pen he had with him even though he had brought them with him for some reason. There was an ink stain across his lip from where he had been biting the end of the pen; it had burst, but he hadn’t noticed.

“I’m Steve Rogers.” Steve managed to get out, wheezing. His chest felt tight as if his lungs couldn’t handle the air anymore– oh god. No. He didn’t have asthma again – he couldn’t –

“Calm down son. You’re fine. You just need to breathe nice and slow – You’ll be fine Steve –” The man said, trying to grab for Steve’s hand.

Steve’s eyes rolled into the back of his head as he blacked out, silently screaming.

When Steve came to again he was lying in the same bed wrapped in the same blankets, only this time, he was facing a different direction. He had no idea why they had moved the bed around and wondered if it had something to do with that Feng Shui thing that Tony had talked about in passing once; he still had no idea what Feng Shui actually was. He had never gotten around to looking it up, remembering the name and the fact that it had something to do with furniture but not much else.

The view hadn’t really improved all that much, even with the redecorating. He could see the door now and a bit of the salmon pink hallway, not that it did him any good. His body still felt heavy and uncomfortable, and now it felt like he could fall through the mattress; he wasn’t sure if that was an improvement or not. He could move his head, and if he wiggled, he could even almost lift himself upright.

It was a start; a better start than he had expected.

The drag and pull of his limbs was more manageable now, less mechanical and more human. He was still a bit like one of those dolls you could pose, stiff and crooked from the waist up, but at least he could look around without blacking out. He could hold his arms up for more than a few brief seconds at last now too and moving around made it seem a little less like someone was borrowing his body as a spot for a picnic; he liked being able to breathe free, his chest light as a feather. He had almost forgotten what asthma had been like – he would have been happy to forget about those horrible, desperate moments forever, but apparently that wasn’t in the cards.

He braced himself against heavy-duty plastic safety rails, engaged sometime during his flight into unconsciousness, and lifted himself a little higher up the bed, unsticking his sweaty back from the gown he was wearing with a twist of his back; the railing didn’t move no matter how much he twisted around against it. Thank god for safety rails or else he would be on the floor and either unconscious or upside down.

“Careful!”

He recognized the nurse from before as she zoomed to his side, fretting over the fact that he had decided to move around on her. She must have been sitting somewhere nearby waiting for him to wake up; he felt a little foolish for not having picked up on her being in the room. She looked chipper, wearing different scrubs from before, her hair was pulled back in a loose pony-tail. He wondered how long he had been out for. He hadn’t even heard her get up, she had been so quiet. She offered him a cup of lukewarm water and stroked his hair softly, whispering what he supposed she thought were calming words and endearments; it was nice of her, but he wasn’t really interested in comfort.

The doctor was gone, and the computer desk on the far side of the room was uninhabited, the computer turned off, its dark screen standing out against the brilliance of the white walled room like a portal to another dimension. Sticky notes were lying all over the table, neon pink against the cream-colored table, the combination both jarring and ugly. They were too far away to read, the handwriting spidery and thin.

“I’m Dahlia, by the way sweetie. I know you’ve got some questions, so I’ll try to answer them real quick-like before you fall asleep again, alright? First off, your eyes were having problems adjusting to the light because you’ve been asleep for a really long time, so we’ve dimmed everything.” She said, pulling his attention back to her.

The nurses had talked to him like this after the ice too, all smiles and soft touches, trying to keep him calm and well-adjusted so that he wouldn’t try to murder anyone with a bedpan. Not that they had let him get a hold of a bed pan; he had been practically tied to the bed then because they were afraid that he would make a break for it. The only reason he hadn’t attempted anything back then in his panicked state had been because he was so sleepy, pumped full of drugs. They had known that using a little would get them a lot of pain for their troubles, so they had used as much as they had on hand; everything had been blurry and fuzzy, all the colours muted and grey. He hadn’t liked being like that, but he knew why they had done it, even if it didn’t sit right with him. They had been worried that he would go berserk, rampaging through the base. He wasn’t just some average Joe then, he had been a monster of a soldier that they couldn’t control. They had weaned him off the cocktail of painkillers and anti-psychotics eventually, but the feeling had stuck with him, chilling him to the bones. He had had nightmares about it – about being trapped in a bed, tied down and pumped full of drugs, weak and docile while they walked around him taking readings on their fancy hospital equipment.

He was glad that they hadn’t thought about restraining him this time. The restraints had scraped against his skin and left red welts on his arms; they had itched something awful too and no matter how much time passed, he had always been able to see the lines they left behind.

He would be able to leave this time, and there would be nothing to stop him. He took in a breath; his side itched. He breathed in and out again. The itch continued. Well that was just fantastic. Could this day get any better?

“What was sticking out of my side?” Steve asked through gritted teeth, his throat scratchy and dry.

“You had a Gastric Feeding Tube. They took you up to surgery while you were unconscious so that they could remove it.” She said, keeping her voice soft and sweet. He recognized the name of the tube, but didn’t know where he had heard it from. Maybe from one of those television documentaries Jarvis always helped him find. He and Jarvis had watched a lot of those kinds of shows together whenever Tony was busy working. Well, Jarvis was an AI of course, so he hadn’t really been watching the way a person might, but it had been nice to have company anyways, especially when Tony was too busy working to watch with him.

“The Feeding Tube was inserted into your body through an incision they made in your side. They had to slide it in past the muscle and bone so that it could reach your stomach, dear. We had to start giving you liquid meals to keep your body alive, because you were sleeping for so long. The doctors took the tube out once they were sure you were going to be awake permanently.” Dahlia explained, almost robotically, like she was reading off a piece of paper. She wasn’t holding one, so maybe she had practiced this spiel; maybe she said this often, although judging by the look on her face, coma patients didn’t just wake up every day. “They ran a few brain scans on you to check to see if everything was functioning properly as well. I know it sounds complicated, but it just means that they knew you weren’t going to fall asleep on us without waking up again, alright?”

Steve knew the terminology she was dumbing down for him, although he didn’t know why they were bothering with the actual dumbing down part. They had given him an EEG, monitoring and mapping his brain to make sure that he was still functioning cognately; they were making sure that he wasn’t a vegetable, in other words. Something had happened to him, something bad and something big. He had been through medical tests like these a thousand times over and again, it was nothing new, yet she kept acting like it should be, like he should be having a panic attack. That irked him to no end.

The Gastric Feeding Tube scared him a little in truth. It had felt strange, although the urinary catheter he still had in him was much more uncomfortable. He wasn’t ashamed to admit that he felt extremely self-conscious and uneasy with it being there, even if it had been put there for a good reason; he didn’t like that other people knew it was there, even if they were nurses and doctors. He wanted it gone, and soon.

“And the catheter?” Steve coughed.

“They’ll take that out later today, so just try to get some rest and don’t worry about it.” She said, noticing the way he kept fidgeting. Steve flushed, wanting to clamp his knees together; he knew what would be happening when they took it out, and while he wanted it gone, he wasn’t looking forward to the actual removal procedure. He was mortified with the thought of strangers touching him… there. The only person who he had let between his legs was Tony, and well, that had been nerve wracking the first few times on its own.

Dahlia handed him another cup of water, noticing his distress and he drank, reclaiming his voice.

“Can I see Tony now?” Steve asked.

She stared at him, a sad smile on her lips, shaking her head. “I don’t think you know a Tony Mr. Rogers. Was he someone you knew during the war?” She made herself more comfortable in the chair beside his bed, fluffing up the green pillow behind her, probably out of nervousness more than anything else because the pillow looked mighty fluffed up already.

He gaped at her, confused and then looked down at his hands again, crestfallen. It was a shock to see that he was small and slender; a nightmare returned from an age long past. At least he wasn’t boney and emaciated anymore. He had some muscle mass now, and he had put on some weight. If he really had been in a coma, he would have expected the mass to be gone and the weight too. This seemed a lot like the kind of thing that Loki might do. Maybe it was a spell gone right – or wrong.

“Did Loki do something to me?” Steve asked, curious in his maudlin moment.

She smiled at him again, meek and tentative this time.

“Loki?”

“Did he use magic?” Steve asked, feeling weary, knowing the response as soon as he said it.

“Magic?”

Well, she obviously had no idea what he was going on about, and the mention of magic seemed to have made her eye twitch. She must have thought he was crazy or going there at least. Well that had been a waste of time.

“What year is this?” Steve asked on a whim. The look of sympathy on her face almost made him start panicking all over again.

“It’s the year two thousand and twelve Mr. Rogers.” She responded, speaking in that slow and careful way of hers, like he was mentally deficient. Had he hit his head or something? She hadn’t said anything about him having had head trauma and she had been pretty forthcoming about what was going on.

The year was still 2012? That was a relief; it had been 2012 when he had fallen asleep the night before, and it was still 2012 now.

So where was Tony?

What was going on?

And why wasn’t anyone from the team here?

At the very least he had expected to see Coulson, or maybe Fury lurking in the hallways waiting to brief him on the situation, but no. Neither of them had shown their faces yet. He was starting to wonder if he was in trouble or something. Maybe they hadn’t appreciated his little talk with Bucky.

Someone out in the hall cleared their throat loud enough to draw Steve’s attention away from the kind but useless nurse; he jerked his eyes off of her and locked eyes with the man in the doorway. Howard Stark grinned at him posing with a wave, his hip cocked to the side. He laughed, the sound merry and rich, strutting through the room to stand beside Steve’s bed.

Steve stared up at him in awe.

Howard had been dead the last time Steve had heard!

How was it possible that Howard was here?

“H..Howard?” Steve gasped.

Howard bent down and embraced him, wrapping his arms around Steve’s middle, mindful of the stitches from the Gastric Feeding Tube; he pressed Steve into the crook of his neck, enveloping him in warmth and the strong smell of tobacco and whiskey. Howard hadn’t smelled like this before, not that Steve had gone around smelling people of course. He had been hugged by the guy a few times, that was all. Howard had always gone on about how it was weak for a man to smoke and drink when there were better addictions out there. Steve wondered what had changed that.

Howard squeezed Steve twice more and let him go, snapping his fingers at the nurse, telling her to go away because he wanted some privacy. He was a little more rude and curt than usual, spitting the words out like she should have already known them without him having said anything in the first place. His nearly white moustache twitched in amusement when she wandered off muttering profanities under her breath; this wasn’t the first time Steve had seen a nurse walk off angry from something Howard had said or done and it likely wouldn’t be the last.

Aside from the greying of his hair and the thinning of his face, Howard hadn’t changed much since the war; well, he hadn’t changed much aside from the whole not being dead thing. He was dressed in a casual black suit with a grey dress shirt that was wrinkled and not quite buttoned up the right way as if it had been put on in haste; a lot of Howard’s activities were done in haste, so this wasn’t all that much of a surprise either. Howard did seem to look a little more tired and drawn than before. He probably hadn’t slept much if the rings around his eyes had anything to say about it. When Steve had first met him, Howard had joked that he never had time for sleep; he would sleep when he was dead, he had joked, not knowing that he would be dead much sooner than he would have liked.

“So you’re finally awake.” Howard said. His voice cracked, his gaze fond. He cleared his throat, smiling at Steve, all teeth.

“What’s going on Howard? No one’s telling me anything and –” Steve started. He looked down at his small hands, clenching the blankets over his hip, holding them tight against his body. What was he supposed to say? Was he supposed to ask why he was tiny? Why his body felt heavy and his stomach empty? He knew the answers, even though no one had told them to him yet. He could just feel the words waiting to take to the air.

“You’ve been asleep for almost seventy years now Steve. You were put into a coma as an effect of the Super Soldier Serum – Project: Rebirth was almost a failure because of what happened to you, you know? Well no, I suppose you don’t know, seeing as how you were unconscious the whole time…” Howard muttered cutting Steve off with a curt wave of his hand before he could even start. He frowned at Steve then as if Steve had fallen into a coma on purpose. “Steve… I know this is going to be hard to believe, but the year is twenty twelve. You’ve missed the war, son – you missed most of the world changing…” Howard sounded sad.

“I know that. That’s not the problem. What’s happened to me? Why am I like this – What happened to the Avengers? Where’s Tony?” Steve asked. He felt winded from spitting all of the questions out at once, but he hadn’t been able to keep them in any longer; the words had been clawing at him, trying to break free ever since he had woken up.

Howard would know what he was talking about; this wasn’t like asking the nurse. Howard was Tony’s father – he had to know about what was going on. Steve was sure of it.

“Tony? Who are you talking about?” Howard asked, bewildered.

Steve’s blood ran cold.

“Tony – Tony Stark. Your son.” Steve said, hands shaking.

Howard boomed out a laugh. He slapped his knee, looking relieved.

“Oh! You mean my Tony. I don’t think you’ve ever seen him before. I’ve never sent him to visit, well except for when he was a child and he came along with me... not that you would have woken up to say hello of course.” Howard snapped his fingers. “You must have picked up bits and pieces of the things we told you when we visited! Bucky and I have been stopping by ever since the serum failed, don’t you know.” Howard seemed a little chagrinned then, as if having been caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar. He scrubbed a hand against his moustache, dislodging crumbs from a hastily eaten meal. “I used to come in here once a day, and then it became once every week after they told me that they didn’t expect you to ever wake up. I couldn’t stop visiting, seeing as how you were here all alone.”

“Bucky? Bucky came to visit?” Steve asked.

He had seen Bucky the night before – Something was definitely wrong here.

“We figured that you needed the company, whether you knew it or not. I tell you everything about what’s going on in my life when I visit, kid. They told me that you wouldn’t remember any of it of course, but I did it anyways. You know how stubborn I am. I knew that some of it would sink in, and I guess it sort of has. You were always strong-willed, and the serum wasn’t the cause of it, that’s for sure.” Howard chuckled.

Steve rubbed the bridge of his nose, his head hurting, fighting off a migraine. Howard didn’t notice anything amiss, continuing on oblivious to Steve’s discomfort.

“Captain America comes to visit you too of course – sometimes we run into each other here, but more often than not he slinks in when he has time and I do the same. That’s what they call Bucky now these days – Captain America. I figured you would like the name. It’s very patriotic. Very grand and all that. Speaking of Bucky… I should probably phone him and let him know that you’re up and about.” Howard pulled a cellphone out of his pocket, a few bits of lint coming with it, pressing haphazardly at the touch screen; he put the phone up to his ear, rolling his eyes at Steve when Bucky didn’t pick up immediately after the first ring.

Steve watched Howard conducting his call in silence, not quite sure what to think. Howard was alive… and Bucky was Captain America? Just what was going on here? He could handle not being Captain America of course. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been just plain old Steve Rogers before; they had called him little Stevie at the soda shop, not that he had ever liked the nickname. He had been through much worse, and waking up in an alternate reality, or whatever this was, was par for the course for an Avenger. He could handle this just fine. He could; it was starting to feel a little too much like the mantra he had whispered to himself as a boy. I’ll be fine – I’ll be fine – I’ll be fine –

Howard began to chatter away with whoever it was that had answered his call, excited and enthusiastic in ways that reminded him of Tony after his fifth cup of coffee in the morning.

That hurt.

What the hell had happened to Tony? The way Howard was talking, they had never met before, and if that was true… what did that even mean? He loved Tony! He wanted to spend the rest of his life with Tony – and the night before –

“Bucky says that he’ll be here in a half hour. He’s doing some government work and has to ask for leave before he can drag his ass over here – he’s excited to hear that you’re awake. Are you feeling up to having visitors?” Howard asked, cutting in on Steve’s thoughts; his hand covered the bottom of the phone for a moment, eyes on Steve awaiting a response.

Steve nodded slowly. Seeing Bucky would be good; maybe Bucky would be able to explain everything to him and even if he couldn’t, he could always get Bucky to bring along Fury or Coulson. One of them would know what was going on. They always knew what was going on.

“Steve says that he would be delighted to have company. Right. Ok we’ll see you when you get here. Oh fine, I’ll ask – Bucky wants to know if you’d like him to bring you something to eat. I’ll ask the doctors and see what he’s allowed to have and we’ll phone you back, alright Buck? Ok. Talk to you later.” Howard hung up, setting the cell down with a clatter on the overtable above Steve’s lap. He gestured to the sleek black phone as it spun in lazy circles, grinning like a madman, his eyes gleaming.

“You’ll really like the technology – I know this is all new to you, but you should just see it all! We have phones that you can carry around in your pocket. We have computers that don’t take up an entire room –”

“I know. I’ve seen them.” Steve said distractedly. Nothing felt out of place – not like it had back when he had woken up after the plane crash, wrapped in a blanket of ice and fractured memories. Only, he thought with a frown, had he really seen any of this before? This all felt real, and he didn’t think that any of it was a hallucination or a dream, because he would have woken up by now if it was. He had been pinching himself while Howard was talking to see if he was dreaming, and so far all he had gotten was a shooting pain up his arm for his trouble. Even his fingers hurt from the effort; he could already see bruises forming on his skin, little circular red marks that would be turning purple after a few hours.

God – this body really was pathetic. It had always been frustrating when he had grown up in it, all elbows and jagged angles, but it was worse now putting up with such a weak body knowing what it had been like to be strong.

Steve blinked back darkness and slowly drifted off to asleep, listening to Howard ramble on and on about the newest advances in technology. He didn’t think he would miss all that much; the drone of Howard’s voice was pleasant, like a lullaby about the miracle that was Blu-ray.

Steve woke up with someone stroking his hair. It was oddly comforting, the touch so gentle and slow that he almost drifted right back off to sleep. He blinked back drowsiness, yawning, and peered into Howard’s equally sleepy eyes. Howard was lying down beside him in the bed, having disengaged the safety railing while Steve was asleep to make some room; his face was a few inches away from Steve’s, his body sprawled back against the pillow, hanging half on the bed and half off. It couldn’t have been very comfortable being stretched out like that, and for an older man, it must have been a thousand times worse, but he looked unconcerned, a bit rumpled, but unconcerned. Up close, Steve noticed that age had truly caught up with his friend. Howard was lightly liver spotted, his once cream coloured skin speckled like an egg. Maybe Steve’s eyes had been playing tricks on him earlier, because it seemed very obvious now that Howard was elderly. He was probably around his late eighties, and if he was a day over Steve wouldn’t have been surprised. There was a hint of cloudiness to Howard’s irises, the blue much paler and lighter than it used to be; crow’s feet marred the once smooth skin around his eyes, frown lines between his eyes made more pronounced when he yawned, waking up fully.

“Sorry… I think I fell asleep on you.” Steve murmured in apology, trying to focus his eyes in the dim light.

Howard smiled softly, letting his hand drop from Steve’s forehead, settling it on Steve’s stomach; for the moment Steve didn’t mind, the hand a comfortable weight against his flesh.

“It’s a lot to take in, I know. They said you would probably drift in and out. It’s standard procedure and all that jazz for someone in a coma, or so they tell me. I think I went a bit too fast for you to be honest. I should have known that it would be too much to handle; really, you’ve only been awake for a few hours or so if you add it all up. How are you feeling? Are you up to having visitors?” Howard yawned. Steve had a sneaking suspicion that Howard had been sitting around the whole time waiting for him to wake up again; he looked like he might blink and fall asleep even in that uncomfortable position.

“How long was I out for?” Steve asked, voice breaking. He coughed, covering his mouth with his hand, shaking from the effort as his throat tried to steal away what little breath he had left.

“Oh, a few hours.” Howard shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”

Howard got up and stretched, grabbing a pitcher of water from beside the sink, cracking his neck as he rolled his shoulders. He filled up a glass; Steve noticed that he wasn’t the only one who had a slight tremor to his hands anymore. He could see the muscles in Howard’s arm struggling against the weight of the pitcher and it was frightening watching age catching up with the man who had once saved the world with his bombs and weaponry.

Howard handed the full glass and a straw off to Steve, still smiling as if he hadn’t just spent hours waiting for Steve to be a part of the conversation again. Steve sipped at the water, downing it all and then grimaced, feeling his stomach churn. He fought off a wave of nausea that threatened to send it all back up again like a science fair volcano, focusing his attention on Howard, silencing his protesting body as best he could; this was all old hat, really. He had been keeping himself from throwing up since he was five and had his first fever.

“The doctors came in while you were napping. I took the liberty of making them tell me everything so that I could give you the gist of it all. Saves us the trouble and the bullshit, right?” Howard said. He refilled the empty glass, pouring a little more water in case Steve got thirsty again, settling back in his chair with a groan. “I’m getting old of course, so I don’t have the patience I once had for young whipper-snapper doctors who don’t know how to talk without trying to hit me in the face with a dictionary.” He laughed.

“When did you ever have patience?” Steve teased, lips curling at the corners. He squinted, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand. “What did they say?” He pinched his arm, focusing on the pain instead of the churning in his gut and the burning in his eyes; the distraction did wonders, and soon he almost forgot about his stomach.

“The doctors said that, just like Erskine suspected, the serum didn’t exactly fail. They’ve been monitoring your health ever since you ended up here, and it did affect your body. You’re as healthy as can be expected for a man your age, but that’s the thing. You haven’t even aged a day Steve – in fact, you look healthier than you ever looked when you were still pre-serum. They ran some more advanced tests on you when you passed out the first night to make sure that their records were up to date, and you’re in perfect health – you didn’t catch anything when you were in your coma either, but they had to be sure that nothing came back after you woke up. They had you in a fully sealed room for the first few years actually, now that I think about it. I think they were afraid of your allergies killing you, but what do I know, right? I’m no doctor – I’m an engineer. Anyways, they did a more up-to-date set of allergy tests on you yesterday too and surprise, surprise, you’re allergy free. They checked and double checked until they were sure they had all the details right – I paid for the overtime, so don’t worry about them being put out. But that’s boring, isn’t it. It’s over now. You’re awake and up.” Howard‘s words were rushed and restless.

“So… I’ve been here? For seventy years?” Steve asked in disbelief. This couldn’t be happening again. It must have been Loki. Something must have happened for him to end up here like this – with Howard alive, and Bucky as Captain America – with Tony gone. Steve’s heart ached at the thought. What had happened to Tony? What had happened to the Avengers?

“Yes honey. You’ve been here for seventy, long and painful years. You haven’t set a foot outside of this room since the day we brought you in on a stretcher.”

Steve tensed. That couldn’t be right! Had all the times he had spent with the Avengers, all the times spent curled up in Tony’s arms – all the happy moments, the sad and the frustrating ones… had they had all been lies? Were they all figments of his imagination?

Howard’s hand covered Steve’s. “Steve… you alright?”

“No. I am not alright. I … I don’t understand what’s going on. I… I have memories of things – things that you say couldn’t possibly have happened and I don’t understand… Have I really been here? For all these years? None of this looks different – I’ve seen all of it before and if what you’re saying is true –” Steve said, his voice rising, hysterical; he wanted to slap his hands over his ears, to not listen to a word that Howard was going to say, because it had to be a lie, it had to be. “It can’t be true.”

He looked into Howard’s eyes and saw sorrow there; even when he was delivering bad news to a fellow about their buddy having died while on a mission, Howard had always managed a cocky grin. Sorrow looked odd on him.

“Howard, it can’t be true!” Steve insisted, desperate for an answer.

“You need proof I take it?” Howard asked with a quiet sigh.

Steve nodded feverishly. “Yes, please. Anything you can do – anything at all.”

“Alright… I’ll do this first, seeing as how it’s the quickest way to get the point across.”

Howard stood up slowly, muttering to himself about his back and strode over to the sink, where a flat a flat mirror had been set out beside some scissors and a towel. He came back to the bed with the mirror in hand, sitting with it held face down across his knees.

“I have people who usually come in once every couple of months to trim your hair – so it didn’t get unruly. I…” Howard sighed. “Don’t be afraid, alright?” He lifted up the mirror and held it out to Steve, who took it with trembling hands; the mirror was heavy, almost unbearably so, but Steve managed to lift it and keep it upright so that he could stare into its silvery depths.

A slender looking young man stared back at him; it was him in the reflection, he could tell that right away even if he didn’t look exactly the same way he had pre-serum and yet it was almost like looking at a stranger. Steve wasn’t as emaciated and gangly as he had been, that was for sure. His cheeks and face had plumped out, and while he was still pale as ever he wasn’t sickly looking like he had been pre-serum. His hair was bright golden-blonde, and it was long, hanging around his ears, bobbing under his chin. He hadn’t noticed it, hadn’t even felt it when he had sat up. It had never been this long before. It had always been cut short to keep it from becoming something to grab in combat.

“Howard, this doesn’t exactly prove that I’ve been asleep for seventy years.” Steve protested.

“I can show you video surveillance for the room if you need more proof. All the files from the security system are stored on my private server, accessible only by me. I set the cameras up myself. We have years and years of footage Steve – hours and hours of visits recorded for the sake of giving you come comfort when you finally woke up…” Howard patted Steve’s hand again; his hands were soft like silk, old and scarred from years of use. “I’d carry you over to take a look at them right now, but… well I’m not a spring chicken anymore, kiddo. I’ll bring you a laptop to look at tomorrow instead, one of the good ones, not those hospital crap-outs that they use with all the other patients.”

“It’s alright…I … Howard? What… what happens now?” Steve set the mirror down on his lap, looking down into it, arms too tired and weak to hold it upright. The hysteria had left him as quickly as it had come, leaving him numb and empty.

Steve knew what he wanted to do – he wanted to go find Tony. He wanted Tony to hold him tight and tell him that it was all just a bad dream, but was that even true? Was this a bad dream? And if this was the real world – if there was no world like the one in his memories, then what should he do?

No matter what happened, he needed to know what was going on, even if it was going to be a hard pill to swallow. He needed to know the truth one way or another. If this was Loki’s doing, the Frost Giant was going to need to run like hell to get away from him. He would hunt the little rat bastard down to the ends of the earth if that was what it took.

“Focus on getting better I suppose. You’re lucky that way at least. The doctors didn’t find any atrophy in your body, and you didn’t suffer any mental degeneration or sicknesses when you were unconscious. Thank god for that. They did some expensive scans on you, you know – looking for brain death and all the like. I think they were hoping that they were going to get a chance to autopsy you to get some of their precious serum back. Bastards, the lot of them. I paid to have you kept safe here and I damn well intend for it to stay that way! Director Fury isn’t going to be sticking you with any needles – no blood for him and his little vultures at SHIELD!” Howard growled.

Steve looked up from the mirror with a jerk. Finally, a mention of SHIELD and the Avengers! “SHIELD? Howard, I know all about them – SHIELD, the Avengers Initiative – the Helicarrier. I know it all. How is it possible that I –” he blurted. They were real, so what he had in his head had to be real too!

“I don’t mean to rain on your parade love, but I told you all about those things while you were sleeping. Bucky did too – although he probably wasn’t supposed to be spouting off anything about the Avengers Initiative and their great many adventures as he calls them. That man doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut – never did. I should have put him across my knee and given him a good walloping back when my wrists didn’t crack. God knows he won’t listen if I try it now… Youngsters these days…” Howard laughed, shaking his head.

Steve’s excitement drained away, killed by that laugh.

It couldn’t be true.

None of it could be true – there couldn’t be – he remembered it all!

This wasn’t real – it had to be some kind of trick! This had to be Loki’s doing – it had to be!

He was Captain America – Tony was Iron Man – this didn’t make any sense!

Howard must have seen the dismay in his eyes, because he squeezed Steve’s hand again, trying to calm him. “They said that you might be getting some cognitive dissonance kiddo. Your brain chemistry changed when you were given the serum – apparently it adapted to protect you. They tried to study the effects on Bucky a few times to no avail. He had problems at first too, just like you. Kept remembering things from missions he had never been on… for a while there, we thought that the serum had driven him mad. He used to think that he had died falling from some train. Can you believe that? He said that it cleared up after a while, so don’t worry about it too much, alright?” Howard shook his head sadly. “He kept waking everyone in the base up with his screaming. It was awful those first few years.”

Steve looked down at his small hand trapped underneath Howard’s, staggered. Was that true? Would the memories go away with time? Would he lose them? Those beautiful moments gone, lost to time?

“I don’t believe it. This has to be because of Loki.” Steve refused flatly, pulling his hand free. He hauled his blanket up around his shoulders, rolling on his side, grimacing as his stiches twitched from the quick movement. He would have to remember to move slower now, or risk ripping his stitches; he hated the feeling of thread being pulled out of his skin.

“I know it’s hard to believe, Steve. You’ve lost so many people while you were asleep. I…” Howard took in a deep breathe; he looked like he wanted to say something and then thought better of it. “I can’t claim to understand, or to know what you’re going through. All I can say to you is that you’re alive, here and now, and that… You should get some rest. I’ll come back tomorrow and I’ll bring that laptop I promised. You can look things over while you recover and decide for yourself. And as for Loki… well, Loki doesn’t have nearly this much power, believe me. Loki doesn’t even know you exist.” Howard said, standing up.

He leaned down, kissing Steve on the cheek with a loud smack; Steve winced at the touch, the scratch of Howard’s beard against his skin almost too much to handle. His thoughts drifted back to Tony as Howard walked out, about how Tony had kissed him like this with the same scratchy beard. Steve’s eyes welled with tears he refused to shed. He burrowed deeper into the pillow, hiding from sight, not wanting to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing his misery. He would get through this – he would figure things out and then he would go find Tony. Tony wouldn’t want him to give up so easily. He could do this!

True to his word, Howard showed up the next morning a little after ten with a laptop bag slung over his shoulder and a paper bag filled with breakfast foods from A&W clutched so tightly in his left hand it looked like he might rip clean through the flimsy paper. He took off his jacket, flinging it casually over the back of the chair and set about rearranging the room. He spent a few lazy moments pulling his chair closer and then went about setting the laptop up on the overtable; he shifted everything so that it was closer to Steve’s hips, grumbling to himself the entire time, half of it technical jargon and half of it complete gibberish.

He plugged the charger into the wall, cracked his back and opened the paper bag to pull out one of the greasiest looking bacon and eggers Steve had ever laid eyes on. Howard paused then, eyeballing him as he manhandled the burger; he seemed curious by the way Steve’s eyes were still on him. He split the burger in half, smirking.

“I see how it is.” Howard chuckled.

The breakfast burger was a thing of beauty. No one had taken so much as a cracker into his room before this. Steve missed solid food. All they had given him was a liquid breakfast that morning at eight; the nurse had brought it to him in a plastic cup, forcing him to down every last drop to insure that he had enough nutrients to keep him puttering around. He was promised he would get another one to enjoy for lunch, and boy had he not been looking forward to that. She had lectured him for almost half an hour after seeing the disgusted look on his face, explaining in a somewhat high-pitched voice that his body needed to slowly reacclimatize to having solid foods again, seeing as how he had been fed a liquid diet through the Gastric Feeding Tube for the past seventy years. Steve had been given that same lecture once before, assuming of course that the original lecture was real and not some figment of his imagination; it had been word for word the same speech as last time too. He wasn’t sure if he should be reassured by that fact or not.

The shake had tasted like someone had mixed chalk in with milk, adding just a hint of what may or may not have been chocolate, and it had been the vilest thing he had had aside from D-ration bars back during the war. Steve highly doubted that any of the nurses had ever tasted that shake, even though they had gone on about good it was supposed to taste, how delicious and filling it would be; even as he was gagging, choking the awful thing down, Dahlia had been praising it. He was starting to suspect she was a lot crueler than he had initially thought.

Tony always claimed that healthy things weren’t supposed to taste good. Steve had never really believed that until now; he was all for healthy things, but that shake made it seem like a health food company had been taken over by Dr. Doom. No, scratch that. Even Dr. Doom wouldn’t have been that cruel.

Steve’s stomach rumbled. He was almost drooling when each twist of Howard’s hand had the cheese stretching. It had never been more intense watching someone tear a burger in half before. He craved meat – a cheeseburger or something that he could really sink his teeth into; had been craving it, really, for the past few days. He had tried asking for one, just a teensy little cheeseburger. The nurses had turned him down with a smile, saying that he wasn’t ready for anything substantial. He had almost started weeping.

Howard broke the half in half again and then handed Steve a greasy piece, winking at him, all-knowing.

“Don’t rat me out.” Howard grinned.

“Thanks.”

Delighted, Steve chewed slowly, savoring the flavor of cheese, egg and bacon as if it had been his mother’s cooking. His mother would have swatted him upside the head if she had heard him say that out loud, but he couldn’t help guiltily thinking it with each delicious nibble. His stomach protested after he swallowed the last bite and he glared at it; he had been throwing up a lot lately, and he would be damned if he threw this up. This was the first good thing he had eaten in days.

The nurse had been rather specific about his eating habits. The not eating solid foods part had been first on their list, not that Steve particularly cared; Dahlia probably would have been horrified, especially since she probably knew how much salt and fat was lurking there in that oh so delightful processed egg patty. Everyone had been pretty adamant about him taking things slowly, telling him that he should be healing and relaxing instead of overexerting himself; they didn’t like him getting up and moving around without a chaperone, and he didn’t really like having to have a chaperone in the first place.

Steve hated being forced to laze about, taking things easy; never had really, he preferred a challenge, and sitting around with only his thumbs to twiddle was depressingly boring. Things being peaceful, he always assumed, came with a price tag, and he never had enjoyed paying the piper when all things were said and done. Sure, he liked to go on vacation as much as any other fellow, but sitting around for long extended periods of time with no access to a gym, and nowhere to run made his skin crawl. He would have loved to be out there on the streets again, jogging through the morning mist, but it seemed like he wasn’t really going to get much of a choice in the matter; not that he would have been able to jog through the mist anyways. He probably wouldn’t have made it off the curb. The nurses had already threatened to chain him to the bed for trying to get up to go to the bathroom on his own, which according to them was a sin worse than murder in the eyes of the nursing staff. Apparently that had been too strenuous an activity for him, even if he had made it there on his own just fine; the way back had been a different matter, but he was counting the way there as a victory anyways, even if it was only a partial one.

The worst part about all the waiting he was doing was that it left him with too much to think and not enough time to power down; once he had gotten around to puzzling out what would happen to him after recovery, it became a little like trying to make a cake without finishing it, leaving the proverbial baking pan filled with goop on top of the stove instead of baking it. For some reason he just couldn’t shut off anymore, couldn’t let go of those tantalizing thoughts about what the world was going to be like.

Half of Steve’s nights were spent drifting off to sleep and then waking up again, praying each time that things would go back to normal or get better somehow; the other half were spent awake filled with endless thoughts of dread and of what little he had left to hold onto now that he was here, alone. The world refused to change back no matter how many times he squeezed his eyes shut, and so he would eventually end up stare up at the tiled ceiling, bitterly hoping that it would come crashing down on him so that he might die and get the waiting over with at long last. He didn’t want to think about what the world was like now, but it was there, itching at him like a healing scab every time he closed his eyes. Things were the same and yet different. This was worse than waking up after sleeping in the ice; he hadn’t thought that anything could be worse than that, but this definitely counted as worse.

Steve didn’t like hospitals all that much and this stay was the worst in a long line of hospital visits that had been equally taxing. It wasn’t that the people working in hospitals were horrible or cruel – they had been very kind and almost loving, handling everything with the kind of patience and grace his mother used with all of her patients in their old neighborhood. Half of the people working in Steve’s wing alone were descendants of the original nurses and doctors who had taken care of him when he had first fallen into the coma; he had found that out from one of the night nurses, who had been just as bored and lonely as he was. She sat with him after noticing he was awake and had read to him from the funny novel she had brought in to kill time. He wanted to get a copy of that book one day, just to keep the depression at bay. She had said it was called Catch 22. Maybe Howard would know where to find it. It had seemed strange to him that everyone on staff had been so excited about having the chance to meet him; a few had dropped by on their days off just to get a look at him, amazed that he was finally up and about. He felt a little like a zoo animal, fresh off the boat from some strange and exotic land. He could understand their excitement a little, even if it seemed morbid to him. They had been waiting a long time, just as Howard had, hoping to see a good conclusion to a sad story. He had liked those kinds of endings too.

Steve’s stomach settled at last; he took a sip of tepid water that the nurse had left him. Howard was here, and the mysterious security footage that he had been going on and on about had come along with him. Maybe that would help answer some of the many questions floating around his head.

“Did you get any sleep?” Howard asked, crumpling up the wax paper wrapper. Steve shrugged noncommittally. He didn’t want to talk about the nightmares or the fear. The only one he had ever really talked to, aside from Natasha, had been Tony.

Howard stuffed the balled up wrapper back into the paper bag and started in on the second bacon and egger with renewed gusto. Grease dripped down the side of the wrapper, narrowly missing his finely pressed dress pants. Howard really shouldn’t have been eating greasy fast food at his age. Not that Howard would probably appreciate being called old. Steve debated on teasing him about the breakfast burgers, but he held his tongue instead, the joke leaving him as abruptly as it had come. Who was he to tell someone else off for their eating habits? He had enough people telling him off for wanting to eat solid food for Pete’s sake.

“How’s everyone been treating you? Found yourself anyone special here? Or were you waiting for little old me to show up again?” Howard grinned.

“It’s been fine. The nurses are very nice.” Steve said politely. The truth was that he had been in a bad mood ever since he had woken up that morning even thought he had known that Howard would be coming to see him. It hadn’t been Howard that he really wanted to see, but that was hardly Howard’s fault, now as it? It wasn’t Tony’s fault either, and despite knowing that, it almost felt like some kind of betrayal that Tony wasn’t here with him right now. He knew he was being ridiculous, but still somehow a part of him kept dredging up unhappy thoughts about what had happened, thoughts like Tony off with someone else, married with children; Tony, living a life without him. He pushed the thoughts away, sipping water as if that might somehow lessen the sting.

“Well that’s good! They all seem very taken with you. You might even get a few phone numbers if you work it right, hot stuff.” Howard laughed, winking in a way that was so lewd Steve was a little embarrassed to even be seen sitting by him.

“Very funny.” Steve grumbled. He was really starting to get tired of being trapped in a hospital bed, especially since the bed made it difficult to walk out on irritating conversations.

“I’m serious! They think you’re a sweetheart! Get laid while you’ve got the chance kid, because believe me; you’re not going to be young forever. Well… maybe you will. Seventy years and you look like this? I’m starting to think that we should just bottle you and be done with it. I wouldn’t mind scraping a few years off myself while we’re at it. Do you come with a warranty I wonder? Perhaps a coupon?”

“I was in a coma for seventy years. How could they possibly know that I’m a sweetheart?” Steve snapped in exasperation, putting on a fake smile if only to keep Howard from asking if something was wrong; Howard didn’t seem to notice the difference between the genuine article and the falsity. Instead he ignored Steve, gesturing to the laptop with a cheese covered finger, impatient and ready to start off. Thankful for the change in conversation, Steve relaxed, letting his body go slack. He followed Howard’s gesture with his eyes, noting that Howard was staring rather intently at the power button as if trying to will the laptop to start up on its own. He couldn’t help but crack a real smile at that.

“I’m assuming that you want me to turn it on.” He said dryly.

“Yes, yes. Press the little button there – the one that looks like a horseshoe with a line in the middle.” Howard instructed around a mouthful of burger, almost spitting some of it out in his haste to get the words out.

Steve followed the instructions step by step and it was easy, criminally so. He had hoped to get some joy out of that fact, but it was more frustrating than anything. Had nothing changed? Sure, the operating system seemed a little different and a lot slower, but all the commands and mouse clicks led him to the same things. He frowned at the little box in the corner that said Windows 7; it had always read Stark 14 when he had looked before. Was Stark International not making computer programs anymore? Tony had always been very particular about not using ‘crap’ as he had called it, when designing his technology, so why were they using something with Windows 7? What was going on?

The computer finished loading, chiming with the enthusiasm of a child being offered chocolate before bedtime. It was set to one of those strange musically-themed displays that Steve had tinkered with in his off time. He had styled his laptop’s desktop red and blue when he had first learned how just so that Tony would stop badgering him about it. He had left it on default settings the first time on purpose, and for some reason that had driven Tony absolutely batty. What use did he have with a red and blue desktop anyways? He never had been very fond of personalizing technology, and the only reason his phone had a background at all was because Clint had changed it on him when he had left it unattended. He knew how to mess around with that stuff of course, had picked it up quickly after Tony had shown him the ropes; he wasn’t stupid, he just didn’t particularly care what colour the start bar was. He found desktop wallpaper pointless because really, how often did he spend looking it in the first place? All he ever did was play around on the internet and stream the documentaries that Jarvis found for him. He barely ever saw the thing unless he was minimizing something.

It hit him then that this was all assuming that he had had a laptop in the first place. He stared down at the laptop on the table, daring it to do something different while at the same time praying and waiting for everything to finish loading the way it always had, his fingers poised over the keyboard. He nervously drummed his thumb on the spacebar, unsure if it would be better if he recognized what was happening, or worse.

Howard gestured to the keyboard with a greasy finger. “When did you learn to type?” He finished his food, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, ruining what Steve was fairly certain was a dress shirt worth a few thousand dollars. Steve grimaced. Most people couldn’t afford a shirt like that after a year or two of scrimping and saving, and here Howard was smearing grease and cheese all over it.

“A friend taught me.” Steve shrugged; it had been Tony who had taught him, although truth be told he had learned the actual skills from one of the computer programs that Tony had forced him to use. One night Tony had caught Steve finger typing for the last time Tony had sworn, eyes twinkling, and they had started off down the path of computer aided learning. Steve smiled at the memory. Tony always did have such a charming way with words; the threat to tape all his fingers together had been extremely effective too.

“Lucky dog! Was she hot?” Howard laughed. “She must have been hot if she got you to learn how to type. Back then that was women’s work.” When Steve scowled, he sobered up a bit, clearing his throat. “Double tap on the touchpad – the little flat part at the bottom with the – oh for god’s sake let me do that.”

Howard scooted his chair closer and turned the laptop towards him, reaching around Steve, who had to press himself up against the safety bars to keep from toppling over; he swiped his finger across the touchpad, and double tapped on a shortcut labeled Security Footage. A folder opened up to reveal thousands of files, so many in fact, that the computer wasn’t able to fit all of them on the screen at the same time. The scrollbar on the side of the window seemed to go on endlessly, a tiny bar that couldn’t really get any smaller but seemed to want to try anyways, plummeting endlessly downwards.

Steve gaped at the screen, his mouth hanging open. Howard grinned at him, slapping him on the shoulder; his chest pressed against Steve’s back as he leaned forwards again. “You’re going to catch flies…” Howard teased. It was strange to be this close to Howard. They had never been particularly cozy with one another before. Mind you, Howard hadn’t really been cozy with anyone back then because he hadn’t been able to sit still for more than a few seconds at a time. Steve had remembered thinking that his inability to sit still had been a godsend at the time. At least it had kept Howard busy and out of harm’s way; you couldn’t shoot at someone who wasn’t sitting still. Age appeared to have dampened that urge in Howard, and he seemed contented to just stay there leaning against Steve, looking over his shoulder, breathing in his ear.

“I know – it’s crazy right? Back in our day it was all typewriters and paper – everything is electronic now and paper’s gone the way of the dinosaurs. This is the digital age, my friend. No more typewriter ribbons and correction tape, I promise.” Howard said.

“I can see that.” Steve said, uninterested. “What was the last day Bucky was here?”

“Two days ago.” Howard growled, moving back, putting some space between them, clearly not appreciating the sudden switch from technology to Bucky.

“Can I see the video from that day please?”

Howard muttered out something that sounded suspiciously like a garbled curse word and double clicked on the file Steve had requested, opening up a video player. “I have the best quality cameras of course. Everything is state-of-the-art – Just replaced them as a matter of fact, although I suppose that was a bit of a waste now, huh?” Howard said casually, leaning forwards again to plaster himself back against Steve’s back.

The footage began to play, streaming seamlessly with people moving into frame as the camera did a quick pan and then settled in the centre of the room. It was a little grainy despite the so-called state-of-the-art camera equipment, but it would do. The Bucky onscreen moved a chair to sit beside the onscreen Steve’s bed. Bucky looked pensive, lost in thought; his body was much larger than it had been before, his muscled shoulders so broad that they almost filled the entire screen. He was dressed in Captain America’s uniform –it didn’t look quite as nice as Steve’s had; he took a guilty bit of pride from that. It was still red white and blue with a big white star in the middle of the chest, but it just didn’t seem to stand out all that much, looking almost like it had been pieced together from of a variety of different concepts like a patchwork quilt; the fabric around his hips was studded with little white stars, and the top half around his shoulders was draped with red and white stripes.

Bucky reached out and took the sleeping Steve’s hand, sandwiching it between his much larger ones; the move was delicate, like Bucky thought he might break Steve’s fingers by accident. Knowing the serum, he probably could have done just that.

“Hey Steve... I know I haven’t come to visit in a while – I’m sorry about that. I got tied up with a few Avengers missions and was away from the city for a while. Did you miss me?” Bucky said. He looked around for something out of frame and then sighed, still clutching the sleeping Steve’s hand carefully in his own. He seemed to relax after that, looking a lot less sombre and a lot more like the Bucky that Steve remembered.

“Things were busy this week. We were fighting Doctor Doom again – you remember him, right? He’s the crazy guy with a mask and an obsession with magic and robots. He has his own country – Latveria, remember? I told you about him last time didn’t I? Oh well… not like you’re going to tell me to stop talking just because you’ve heard it twice already. So anyways –”

The video clip went still, the frame freezing on screen as Howard viciously hammered down on the pause button; when Steve tore his gaze away from the flickering image, Howard was glaring at Bucky’s stilled form, his lips curled in a vicious sneer, his eyes locked on Bucky.

“What’s wrong?” Steve asked, startled. He rested his wrists on the edge of the table, watching Howard curiously. For a moment he was convinced that Howard was going to have a full-fledged temper tantrum right then and there, but Howard’s glare vanished, albeit slowly. He grimaced, closing the video player down, loading a new file at random, leaving a greasy streak on the touchpad where he had touched it. Steve itched to clean the mess away but restrained himself.

“Bucky pissed off a lot of people with the stunt he pulled a few nights ago. I had to personally fund the repairs to half of Brooklyn because he decided that it would be better to blow up a few buildings on Wall Street because the Doombots were in hiding and he didn’t want them run away. He has a bad attitude sometimes – I know you like him and all, but honestly Steve, I don’t know what you see in him half the time. He’s a menace – even if he is Captain America, he makes the stupidest decisions when he’s frazzled. Honestly, my idiot son could do better. You can’t just flush out enemies by blowing everything up – it doesn’t work like that in the real world. You need controlled blasts, not chaos.” Howard muttered in way of explanation.

“I’m sure he did what he thought was best.” Steve said tersely.

“I’m sure he did, but it was obviously a crap decision.”

Howard’s phone sprang to life in his pocket and he groped for it, cursing; he didn’t look at Steve’s face, which was a pity, because he would have been treated to a rather nasty glare.

“Hello? I thought I told you that I would be out of the office for the rest of the week! I told you – Fine. Pepper, calm down – yes. I’ll deal with him, don’t worry. He did what? Oh lord…” Howard groaned. He held his hand over the receiver, scowling, tapping the laptop casing with his free hand.

“You’re going to have to entertain yourself. We’ve hit a snag at SI and I have to go and personally smooth things over with some investors. They’re demanding blood money or some damn thing – I don’t know what the slang is these days – My son started beaking off about the new tech not being ready and they’re having heart attacks in the lobby, threatening to drop the contracts if they don’t get to see me in person right now. I’ll see you later Steve.” Howard said. He carefully untangling himself from the laptop cords with the phone still pressed against his ear, leaving a void of warmth where he had been sitting, grabbing his jacket as an afterthought. He pushed the chair back with his knee, gave Steve a scratchy peck on the cheek again and then left the room while incoherently mumbling away to his phone.

It was a stroke of luck that Howard had left so early; he wasn’t exactly great company, even at the best of times. Steve had been dreading the thought of spending the next ten, fifteen minutes listening to Howard caption every damned thing on the screen, and it was a pleasant surprise to be left without the running colour commentary. As much as he appreciated the effort Howard was making, he didn’t need the hand holding. He hadn’t appreciated that little jibe about Tony being ‘his idiot son’ either. What the hell had that been about?

It was better to not have Howard perpetually leaning over his shoulder anyways; it uncomfortable enough watching the one-sided conversations people had had with him as it was, particularly since those people thought their conversations were private. Howard probably hadn’t told anyone that they were being recorded. Wouldn’t that be fun to explain? Oh hello, nice to see you again – I’ve been watching our conversations to catch up and wow, you sure told me some personal stuff. He shuddered at the thought.

Steve was normally all for the right to privacy, so he it was with reluctance that he turned back to the computer. He had to know for sure what had happened – what could be written off as a dream and what could be counted as reality. People would understand eventually. And if they didn’t, well, he would apologize later.

Looking at the long list of files made his head hurt; the files flooded the screen, little movie reels repeated over and over again, taunting him, an army of amassed in his sleep.

There had to be thousands of files here, each one with a different screen capture on it. Were they all separate files, or just duplicates stored in the folder to trick him? Would Howard do that to him?

Things didn’t feel right.

While he hadn’t been outright locked into his hospital room, it still felt a little like they were keeping something from him. Sure, he could see the outside world through his windows, and the world didn’t look all that strange, but sometimes it sure felt like something was going on; at least the windows in the room actually opened. They weren’t anything like those holographic lies SHIELD had use back when he had woken up after the ice.

It felt like trickery, but it didn’t seem to be. If someone, like maybe SHIELD, had been trying to trick him they would have done something to stop him from getting visitors and the doors would have been closed and locked all the time. Yeah, he couldn’t get out of bed yet, but he had plenty of people to chat with, and he had been wheeled down the halls tons of times on his way to medical exams. He wasn’t completely in the dark and they definitely weren’t in a base somewhere. They had children’s drawings taped up on the walls, and once, he had seen families visiting in one of the other rooms.

He definitely wouldn’t have had any visitors if this was a ploy. If he was planning on keeping someone complacent in a cell, he certainly wouldn’t have let them have any visitors that were like Howard Stark. Howard was all razzle dazzle – a shit disturber if he had ever seen one and for that matter, Howard had been dead in the other world. Why would they have even bothered with Howard if that other world had existed? Yes, Howard was a friendly face, but it wasn’t as if they had been best friends. Why not bring Bucky in first? Or Tony for that matter?

It seemed a little too convenient that SHIELD had washed their hands of the entire thing, if that was indeed what had happened. What were they playing at? Howard obviously hadn’t seemed to think much of Fury, even though the Avengers Initiative worked hand in hand with SHIELD. So where was he being kept then? Howard hadn’t said anything about this being a SHIELD facility, so was he really in some plain old hospital? Weren’t they concerned about the serum getting out? They should have been, seeing as how he had survived seventy years in a coma with hardly any side effects. That had to have counted for something, even if he had been a failure. The serum falling into the wrong hands would be a disaster.

Why no guards? And why no secrecy? Why hadn’t he been taken into custody or thrown into a lab to be studied like an animal? He had signed his life away, hadn’t he? He was the property of the American Government.

Maybe SHIELD wasn’t involved at all.

Steve had been able to read Howard like a book ever since they had first met; Howard was an awful poker player, and he had lost more than a few bucks to the guys when they played cards. He had once come to Steve to ask for tips about how to ‘play innocent’, and Steve had just laughed at him and chased him off. Men had made small fortunes off of Howard Stark’s failed attempts at bluffing; it had made Howard plenty mad, but he had had the grace to hold his head high and pay up. The man couldn’t bluff his way out of a wet paper bag, so if he knew that SHIELD was involved, Steve was damned sure he would have read it on Howard’s face by now.

So was it real then?

Or did Howard not know if SHIELD was involved either? Were they in this together, the both of them trapped, being worked over by SHIELD agents who wanted a piece of the serum? At the very least Howard would have said something about SHIELD if he had known that they were involved, even if he only mentioned it in passing. Howard always had hated playing by the rules, even when they suited him just fine.

That led to another problem. Steve rubbed the bridge of his nose. Was Howard really who he said he was? He was basing all of his proofs on the idea that Howard was actually the one and only Howard Stark, billionaire inventor. What if this wasn’t even Howard? He seemed solid enough – and he wasn’t keeping his distance, so he had to be human, right? But then again, they did have LMD’s… That was one possibility he didn’t want to consider; bringing LMD’s into this mess would bring a whole pack of paranoia with it, because if you couldn’t trust anyone to be human, who could you trust?

Steve sighed.

Howard could have been an LMD, but they had never been able to make them that lifelike, even when Tony had taken a stab at it, and anything Tony did turned out pretty damned amazing. SHIELD’s scientist made LMD’s had always had dead fish eyes half the time, their smiles a little too unnatural, and frankly, they had been creepy. They hadn’t been able to play-act even with their supposed personality chips helping clear the fog. Tony’s attempts had been more lifelike, but they still hadn’t quite felt like people, especially when they were leaning up against you. Steve had been able to hear the current running through them whenever they were near, and no matter what, their skin had never felt right. It was like touching some strange combination of oily silk and old meat, hardly human at all. Of course most of them didn’t even know that they were LMD’s in the first place, which led to a whole other sack of snakes.

So who and what could he trust then? Could he trust anyone? Was SHIELD out and Howard running the show? And what about Bucky?

If Bucky was Captain America then maybe they really had dumped him like a sack of garbage on a rainy Wednesday morning. SHIELD didn’t have time to waste with failures; that had been Fury’s favourite tagline. Maybe that was it. They didn’t need the weaker version of the serum, because they already had Bucky.

Steve scowled.

It wasn’t like he was of much use if they had the real thing already.

Maybe Howard had bought them off, paid for him to be taken to a private facility. That certainly made a hell of a lot more sense than SHIELD wasting some poor tech’s time making a few thousand fake twenty four hour videos for some nobody in a hospital bed. Even if they had done it over a few years, it would have been costly.

It all came back to the videos, didn’t it?

He was drowning in a sea of technology, but it was all familiar with even though it wasn’t supposed to be. Did they know that? Was it an accident, or had they gone about it on purpose to try and startle something out of him? They couldn’t have been that good at acting. Most of what he had seen so far was technology that wasn’t even as advanced as some of the things Tony had shown him. Everything still had the same old familiar feel no matter what he tried to tell himself.

It was odd to think that the new was old and familiar now. Boy was it odd.

Back on point, he wasn’t strong, he wasn’t a threat and he wasn’t a part of the Avengers anymore. What would be the point of trying to pull the wool over his eyes? He didn’t have any say here – no pull at all, except maybe with the night nurse, who read to him. So was it someone else? Was it Loki pulling the strings? Loki wasn’t one to waste any of his time on things like security footage either; there wasn’t anything magical to this whole operation, even if he was scrawny again. Sure, Loki loved illusions, but this wasn’t something he would find entertaining; it was more pitiful really. Even if Loki did love causing chaos, Steve didn’t think he would have bothered with something so… bland.

He had woken up like this once and it had felt just as frustrating then, trying to piece together what had gone on while he was sleeping. And yes, SHIELD had tried to trick him in the past, but that was just to protect the serum. It wasn’t like they had been trying to intentionally mess with his mind. They had been trying to help him stay calm. But he wasn’t Captain America now. He was Steve Rogers, failed experiment.

Was that it? Was he Steve Rogers now and nothing more? Did no one care about what happened to him? Howard had cared enough to visit for all those silent years, and so had Bucky but did anyone else know he existed aside from the pair of them and maybe Fury?

Was he a nonentity?

This was the ice all over again! He was trapped in a facility, albeit a hospital this time, and no one even so much as knew his name aside from people that had been involved with Project: Rebirth. He was alone here; he had Howard and Bucky, assuming they were real, but otherwise he was alone.

So what should he do? Should he believe it?

What would Tony do?

Steve looked down at the laptop and knew exactly what Tony would do. Tony trusted technology more than people half the time; he had plenty of reason for it too. If there was anything that could be real, it would be the videos. Videos didn’t lie. They could be edited, but then so could the newspapers and so could hospital charts. Tony would trust the videos because they had time stamps and metadata in them. If there was proof that this was a con, it would be there, buried inside a nest of numbers and images. Fakes wouldn’t be perfect; SHIELD had never been the greatest at ripping apart video files, no matter what they had said. They had played the wrong ball game that day he had woken up, and if they could make a mistake once, they could make one again and he would find it.

But that was just it. Would they have even bothered? He knew SHIELD, perhaps better than most, and SHIELD wouldn’t have wasted their time by hiding the truth in a hundred thousand video files; they would have just done the same stupid set-up they had done the first time. It was simply too much work, even for them. Too much cost, too much overhead and far too much work to do just to keep one sickly little guy from Brooklyn in the dark. They could have just flat out denied him access to the videos in the first place.

The tactician part of Steve tried to plot and discount theory after theory, desperate to figure out what was going on. He knew what he had to do after a few minutes of quiet contemplation. He steepled his fingers underneath his chin, letting out a long shaky breathe. He would watch the videos until he was satisfied that he had the truth; he would take advantage of the time stuck in bed, and then he would decide for himself what was real and what wasn’t. They wouldn’t keep him from the truth. He felt sure of it.

Steve watched videos on the laptop all through the rest of the day, relentless in his search for what had happened to him. He was so determined to work that he only stopped twice, resting when the nurse came back in with his protein shake for lunch and dinner; he always had been good at pulling all-nighters, just like Tony, so it wasn’t too much trouble. They had once joked about it, holding on to each other for dear life, staggering down the hallway to their bed after being up all night thwarting Doctor Doom’s latest plans for world domination via enchanted blender. That night seemed like a million years ago.

Steve’s eyes were bloodshot and sore by the time the lights went off in his room, shut off by an irate nurse he hadn’t bothered to learn the name of who had gotten tired of watching him staring at the computer like some kind of deranged zombie. He hadn’t appreciated the darkness, even if his eyes had applauded her actions. The nurse politely asked him to go to sleep and he sulked, ignoring her until she was gone.

He would sleep later.

He turned the lights back on using the switch beside his bed once she was out of sight. It was stupid of course; that was the brilliance of hindsight.

She didn’t appreciate his unwillingness to go to sleep one bit. He was informed tersely a few minutes later, that if the lights magically turned on again he would be getting a piece of her mind; then she shut the lights off again. He turned them back on. She shut them off. He may or may not have back-talked her after that. He couldn’t remember. All he could remember was the images on the videos, Bucky’s face and Howards, talking and laughing while his had been still, like death lying in the same bed he was now sitting so casually in.

She physically took the laptop away from him after that to get the point across and he had been more than a little angry. He was deliberately rude to her when she came in later on during the night to check on him, because somewhere within those files was the truth about everything that had happened to him. He was pretty sure that he had tried to explain that to her, and she had been polite and understanding about it even though she had looked hurt by his words; he felt bad after that, realizing that he had taken his anger out on the poor woman for no reason at all. He hadn’t apologized, too out of sorts to manage anything coherent.

She had put her foot down anyways in the end. He would go to sleep and that was final. Peggy would have been proud of her. Peggy probably would have taken a swing at him if she had seen what an ass he had been.

The laptop was left on the counter across the room from him, so close it was almost like she was taunting him with it out of spite. Steve stared forlornly it for a whole hour, wanting nothing more than to be able to get up and go get it, but he hadn’t, partially out of shame and partially because his legs shook uncontrollably whenever he tried to stand up, and he was afraid that if he actually did get a hold of it he would drop it and break it trying to make it back to the comfort of his bed; then there would be nothing to see, no more truths to be learned. He closed his eyes, flashes of Bucky and Howard playing about on the backs of his eyelids until sleep claimed him.

Steve didn’t see Howard again until three lonely and long days had passed. Those three days had been spent glued to the laptop, scrutinizing and studying everything, barely living. He had been sleeping only when forced to, stopping only to eat during the day or when the nurses dragged him off to see a specialist or the physiotherapist. He hadn’t been very interested in what they had to say, and during the physio, he had actually fallen asleep on the gym mats they had set up for him so that he wouldn’t fall on the hard ground. The physiotherapist had not been impressed.

The nurses were at their wit’s end and decided to take the laptop away again right before Howard showed up. This time, they physically locked it up in a tall cupboard to keep him from limping over to the counter where they had been keeping it, not that he would have bothered at this point.

Steve found himself angry with everyone and no one in particular; it wasn’t the doctors or the nurses that were driving him mad, it was someone much closer to home. He was angrier with himself for a whole assortment of things, like for not having been able to keep it together enough to fend them off, and for not having stopped the entire nightmare from happening to him in the first place; it was a familiar rage, one that he knew too well now.

He rationalized the anger, parceling it out like Christmas presents. He needed to find some hint that said what he remembered was real, and the real world he was in now was imaginary, an elaborate spell or perhaps some kind of forced dreamscape. But rationalizing it didn’t help either. He knew he was being miserable and awful to people who were only trying to help, but he couldn’t seem to help it. What made him angriest was that it was that it was starting to look like he wasn’t going to find any proof of dishonesty, not matter how much time he spent looking for it. Bucky would have told him that he was on a quest for Unicorns; something that was very obviously not there.

Every file he had looked at had contained whispered conversations between someone, usually Howard or Bucky, and his sleeping form, and every file was useless, a menagerie of details that meant absolutely nothing to anyone other than the paparazzi. Howard and Bucky told him every goddamned thing when they visited, every story from their lives for the past 3640 weeks or so; some of the things he hadn’t ever wanted to know.

Did he need to know that Howard clipped his toenails on Sunday afternoons at precisely four thirty? Did he need to know that Bucky had gotten a new houseplant to keep his fern company? Did he really need to know that the fern was called Fern and the plant called Plant? The details were mindboggling. It seemed unlikely that he had gotten his memories from anywhere other than those quiet moments sleeping in bed while someone rambled away at his bedside; every second of every day was catalogued, filed away for future reference.

He wanted it to not be true.

He raged as he desperately tried to find some kind of acceptable solution, but he always, always, came back to those stupid files and those damned whispered conversations. Nothing else made sense.

If what Howard had said was true, about Bucky experiencing the same thing, then there was nothing he could do. Maybe the memories floating around in his head really were something created by the serum; he shuddered in despair at the thought, wanting to claw out his eyes. Was nothing real at all? Even those precious moments?

That was the only thing he and Bucky shared now; stupid, broken memories that their bodies had made to protect them. They weren’t soldiers – he wasn’t a soldier. Bucky was Captain America. Steve was a scrawny little brat from Brooklyn stuck in a hospital bed until further notice, a scrawny little brat who had memories stuck in his head that weren’t real; memories that he had made up.

It all seemed sort of pointless after that. With the laptop gone, he found himself listless, unable to concentrate anymore, unwilling even to rage. What else was he supposed to do? What else could he do? The search was over; he had lost and there was nothing left for him.

“He’s been on that bloody laptop for the past three days Mr. Stark. It’s not healthy! He doesn’t even try to get up and move around – he just sits there, sulking with his videos streaming in front of him like some kind of loony.” Dahlia growled.

“He can’t be that bad.” Howard snorted.

“He’s obsessed!”

“He’s just taking to the technology. We’re lucky he’s not having a fit.” Howard grumbled, dismissing her rage with a flap of his hand.

“He’s obsessed. We’ve been forced to take the laptop away once nighttime rolls around because he doesn’t sleep if he has it. He doesn’t eat either – he acts like the world is over! He’s going to end up killing himself if he keeps this up, and we can’t be there with him all the time.” Dahlia hissed.

“He’ll adjust. He’s been asleep for seventy years for god’s sake! What did you expect would happen?”

“I’m not saying that he’s supposed to get over this in a few days, I’m just saying –” Dahlia snapped.

“Then what do you suggest I do hm? Do you want me to take the laptop away from him? You want me to take away the last little thread of hope he has? He wants to find something – he hasn’t found it yet, but he’s looking. He’ll find it eventually – just give him time! He’s looking for lost friends, or whatever is going on in his head. Leave him be.” Howard snapped back.

Steve sat up and pulled on his hospital slippers, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and staggered towards the window, taking it one step at a time.

They were right of course; Howard and the nurse. Even if he couldn’t find any proof that his dream-world existed, it didn’t mean the world was over.

Tony was still out there somewhere.

If he could find Tony, he could work things out; it didn’t matter if the dreams were fake, what he felt for Tony was real. Nothing had ever been more real for him than Tony. Tony was life – Tony was everything.

Of course in order to get to Tony, he would need to get better and to get better he would need to get back into shape. Being angry with everything wasn’t going to get him anywhere; he knew that. He had been putting life off for too long, obsessing over things he couldn’t change, and for what? A few more minutes a night staring at a computer screen so that he could watch the past? This he could change; his body he could work with and mold to his will.

His legs weren’t all that bad really; while being weak and shaky, the muscles weren’t damaged, just out of practice. Steve caught himself against the windowsill and threw all his weight against it, completely out of breath but not quite panting. His arms quivered from the stress of holding himself up, but they weren’t going to fail just yet. He ignored the tell-tale burn in his muscles and stared out at the world outside the window, watching the cars and trucks pass by on the freeway down below.

Hope was clear when it had once been a vague little blob in the back of his mind; this was New York, and even if it had changed, it was still New York. He had listened to its slow metamorphosis every visit Bucky had made in those damned videos. Bucky loved to rant about the freeway down there, out beyond the window, as if it was some kind of old friend that wasn’t keeping up with the neighbors. He had ranted about the city more often than not when he visited, always taking the time to pull off his leather jacket before he started in on it; his rants varied, usually going into great detail about how buildings from their youth had been replaced by newer, slicker looking stores and restaurants. He hated the changes, even though he had been there every step of the way watching it happen. But when all was said and done, it was still New York. It would always be New York. He was still Steve Rogers too. Things had changed, but he was still Steve Rogers.

Steve could see the world through this window, and it was just as busy and beautiful as it had been in his dream-memories; he pushed the window was open a crack, letting in the breeze which while not carrying the best of smells, at least made the room smell less like a hospital.

If New York could go on, if America could go on, then he could too. This was just a set-back – nothing that he couldn’t work with.

Steve grimaced. There was one thing still nagging at him; he wished it would just shut up, but it wouldn’t. If all of the memories in his head were the product of Howard and Bucky’s stories, how had he developed a relationship with Tony? Had he simply made it up, like the doctors had said in order to cope with the coma? Had he made it up so that he could deal with the fact that he liked men?

Steve bit his lip. Maybe. Maybe that was true.

But why Tony? According to Howard, he hadn’t even met Tony, and he obviously hadn’t seen him, so how had he known what Tony looked like? It wasn’t as if Howard had given him a description to work off of, hell, Howard hadn’t even brought in a picture of the family to show off. For a man who had described every detail on his own clothing to an unconscious coma patient, he had been surprisingly sparse with details about his family.

Did he really know Tony? Or had his mind just played a cruel joke on him, making someone to tease him with, someone to keep him company in the dark?

Howard was another mystery. Why had he thrown details like Howard’s untimely demise into the mix? Had he been angry with something Howard had said while he was asleep? He couldn’t remember being all that angry then. They had met and talked over coffee and cookies the morning before the ‘big show’ as Howard had called it; that had been the last time they had spoken really. They hadn’t said a word to one another the night of Project: Rebirth, and they had parted friends. It had been a strange year long friendship before that night, one that Steve hadn’t entirely loved or hated.

God, why were there so many questions? Couldn’t he have peace for a few minutes? He bit his lip so hard he could taste blood, and wiped it absentmindedly on the back of his hand. Why couldn’t he ever turn off his brain?

Howard laid a hand on the small of Steve’s back, pushing him upright against the windowsill, jarring him from his thoughts; Steve stiffened.

“So they tell me that you’ve been busy researching.” Howard drawled, moving his hand from Steve’s back to his hip, fingers digging into the soft flesh there as if looking for a handhold. Steve frowned at the unwanted contact but didn’t saying anything, biting his lip again instead, bearing with the unwanted attention for the time being. It would be pretty stupid to pick a fight with the only other person he knew in the world aside from Bucky by punching said person in the face, even if said person also deserved it; if there was one thing he had learned since growing up, it was when to pick his fights. Today was a day for playing nice, not for broken noses; Howard liked nice, and he could make things awfully difficult if he thought he wasn’t getting what he wanted.

At least his brain was doing something useful now.

Steve released his lower lip, running his tongue across the worried and slightly bleeding skin; he could taste copper there, but it was faint, a mere trace left behind and nothing more. Howard was harmless, even if he was being a little handsy. He had to think tactically now – no more letting his emotions get the better of him. He could grieve for those he had lost later once he was sure they were really gone, until then he would build up his strength and work on a back-up plan. He liked plans; plans were good.

“I’ve gone through the first thousand videos…” Steve said, loud enough for only Howard to hear him, eyes still on the traffic outside. He tried to ignore the reflection of Howard practically wrapped around him and channeled his rage into digging his fingers into the windowsill, picking at the peeling paint like it was a scab.

“And? Do you believe me now?” Howard prodded, moving closer, leaving no space between them at all. He reluctantly sagged against Howard’s chest as his strength finally gave out, collapsing backwards. He held onto the windowsill with trembling fingers, ready to pull away if he got any strength back. Howard’s smell surrounded Steve like a miasma, the scent that of liquor and stale cigarettes, this time with a hint of body odor thrown in to boot. Had Howard even bothered to shower since the last time he had been to the hospital? Steve wrinkled his nose and sneezed. The force of it sent him tumbling backwards, crashing into Howard; it wasn’t as if the collision bothered Howard any. He barely moved.

Steve flushed, absolutely mortified. He had never been knocked over by a sneeze before. Geeze!

He hung his head in shame.

“Sorry…” He apologized.

“Don’t worry about it. You’ll get back on your feet in no time.” Howard said softly, squeezing Steve’s hip. Steve scowled down at his slippers, keeping his face out of the reflection in the window by raising his arm. It had been bad enough seeing himself in the mirror all those days ago; he didn’t want to catch his eye anymore.

“So what did you think of the videos? Do you understand now?” Howard asked. Steve shrugged aware of nothing except Howard’s warmth melting through the thin hospital gown he was wearing; he got cold a lot now, no matter how many layers of clothing he wore. Any heat he managed to keep in eventually flittered away, so heat was a precious commodity, and he couldn’t help but take stock of where it was at all times. Was it the serum that had done this to him, making it so easy to notice the heat people radiated? Was it some kind of side effect from the failure? He unhappily shared Howard’s warmth, basking in it like a turtle sunbathing, disgusted with himself for having to resort to it to keep from shivering in the air conditioned room. Howard was still solid for an older man, his muscles not quite gone after years of working with metal and machinery. He probably had trainers to keep him in shape. Tony had told him once that it was all the rage in Hollywood. He didn’t enjoy the feeling of lean muscle against his back one bit.

“I’m starting to believe it all, yes.” Steve conceded, unenthusiastic about having to admit it. It was bad enough thinking it in his head. “Can we go sit down? My legs feel like they’re going to drop off.” It wasn’t quite a lie, but at that point he would have told Howard he was going to have a stroke if it meant getting away from him and his cursed warmth.

“Sure honey.” Howard said. He slipped his arm around Steve’s shoulder and walked them back towards the bed, one hand still holding on tightly to Steve’s hip. Tony had called him honey all the time, usually when he wanted to curl up and go to sleep. Steve bit back his misery and allowed himself to be settled into bed again, Howard tucking the blankets around Steve’s legs with care. He then sat down in the padded chair beside the bed, stretching out like a lazy grey cat.

“I talked with the nurse. She says that you’re getting much better but that you’re a lousy patient.” Howard laughed, smiling crookedly at Steve from his slouched position. Steve tried to smile back at him. He had heard the conversation of course. They hadn’t exactly been quiet.

“On a good note, they did say that you’ll be ready for discharge soon.” Howard continued, examining the finely manicured fingernails on his right hand with an air of boredom. That got Steve to look up again, eyes wide, lips twitching into a genuine smile. He hadn’t heard that part.

“Really?”

“Have I ever lied to you? No, don’t answer that.” Howard rolled his eyes. “They said that you’ll be eating people food and everything for the rest of the week, provided of course that you get your sleep and exercise your legs a bit more. You’ll be out of here by Friday at the earliest. They didn’t think you’d be ready so soon, but apparently the serum has done wonders.”

“That’s great!”

“It is – there’s a problem, though.”

Steve hung his head, weary once more. There always seemed to be a problem. It must have been Murphy’s Law, and all that. Tony said that a lot whenever things went wrong. Steve had no idea who Murphy was, but he apparently had the worst luck in the world.

“It’s not that big a problem –” Howard broke in quickly, holding up his hands. “I’m just going to have to work out the logistics of your moving around, that’s all. Obviously your old apartment is long gone. It got torn down decades ago when they put in one of those newfangled malls. Before you start, don’t worry, I had the stuff you had in it was put into storage, so it’s all waiting for you when we’re finally able to move you out of here. Most of its all junk now, but the pictures and important stuff are packed away in my mansion for safekeeping. I’ll have it delivered when you’re ready – oh. Yes I almost forgot! You’ll be visited tomorrow by my tailor for a few hours. He needs to take some measurements for your new clothing so that it doesn’t hang off you like some dame’s dress. You’re a little on the small side, and apparently it’s hard to come up with things that look decent on such a slender body.”

“Howard –” Steve objected.

“No complaining. You’ll accept the clothing and the place to live and you’ll like it.” Howard growled, crossing his arms over his chest. He sure looked formidable like that, playing the gruff old bear; Steve could see why people followed Howard’s orders so easily. You couldn’t take orders from a person you didn’t respect, and Howard commanded respect with every fiber of his being when he was serious.

“Thank you. I appreciate the help. I really do.” Steve said. He was thankful for course, but it still irked him that he had to take Howard’s handouts, especially when he knew that they always came with a price tag attached. What would Howard want, he mused, in exchange for housing and clothing? The touches made him think of a few things, but Howard wasn’t like that.

“Not a problem. I’m just glad to have you back – to tell you the truth, I wasn’t expecting to live long enough to see you awake again.” Howard said somewhat humble for a moment, almost tearing up. It was an odd sight, and one Steve probably wouldn’t ever see again; Howard Stark almost never shed tears unless he was drunk or in extreme pain, or so Peggy had told him once. She had seen that mythical moment alone – Howard hadn’t been able to look her in the eye after that, so maybe he had done something to deserve the tears. Steve really wished that he had taken the time to ask.

“You’re not that old. You still look like the same Howard to me.” Steve rolled his eyes.

“Gee, thanks. I’ve always looked like a geezer to you?”

“You still look like you, just a little greyer.”

Howard laughed at that, preening. “I can deal with a little grey. Still, it would be nice to be able to go out and pick up a few dames on the base again, eh?” He leaned forwards, elbows resting on his knees, eyes on Steve. “Oh for those days again.”

“You and me both.” Steve said. Only it wasn’t true anymore, was it? He didn’t really want to go back to those quiet days; he was glad to be here, here where Tony was waiting. Going back would be like tearing himself in half, taking the good away one jagged chunk at a time. He smiled through the lie, hoping that Howard wouldn’t notice anything off.

“Speaking about the old and outdated, Bucky says that he’s going to visit you tomorrow after the tailor gets in. He’s sorry that it’s taken him so long to get here.” Howard said rather stiffly, almost as if he were forcing the words out at gunpoint. He probably didn’t like being Bucky’s errand boy. He never had been any good at making up excuses, at least not for other people.

“I take it that you and Bucky still aren’t getting along?” Steve asked; not getting along was an understatement of course. He had watched the pair glaring at each other in the security cameras for the past thousand videos, and somehow he didn’t think that it had gotten any better even with seventy years’ worth of time. They had attempted to hide it for a while, pulling fake smiles on the moment they stepped into the camera’s view, but Steve had seen it. Sometimes they forgot where they were, and the hatred slipped out. They had gone their own ways, moving on and yet those same childish attitudes had come along for the ride no matter the occasion. He had seen more than a few raspberries and stuck out tongues when the pair had thought no one was looking; they forgot about the cameras a lot. Those two were stubborn beyond belief, and if time couldn’t blunt those sharp edges, nothing could.

“Oh, no. We’re pals.” Howard said.

“Oh?” Steve quirked an eyebrow, amused by the lie.

“We go out for lunch all the time. We’re friends.” Howard insisted. He had a strange look in his eyes then, and Steve had to force himself to look away to keep from blatantly staring at him in disbelief.

“Well that’s good. At least you two worked out your differences. I’m glad.”

“Yes. We’ve worked out a lot of things over the years. Now, I’ll look into finding you a place to live if you want. Well, you don’t really have a choice about that I’m afraid. I’m not going to leave you by yourself in all of this mess.” Howard said, gesturing at the window, all business again. The funny little look in his eyes was gone when he looked back. Steve wondered what it had been.

“That’s very kind of you.” Steve said.

“Don’t be so thankful – It’s just to keep Bucky from sticking you in some godforsaken hole. He doesn’t have the kind of pull I do, even if he is Captain America. I’m not going to have you living in some roach motel. You can stay with me. I’ve got plenty of rooms, even with all of the Avengers living like locusts in my mansion, eating me out of house and home as it were.” Howard grumbled. Oh yes, Steve snorted, Howard and Bucky were best friends.

Hearing about the Avengers made Steve’s heart ache all over again. He had been worrying about them, just like he had been worrying about Tony, but hadn’t known how to broach the subject with Howard; it was hard to talk about a lot of things, and the Avengers were right up there on the list under Tony. For some reason he couldn’t form the words, and when he could, after spending an hour composing them in his head, they didn’t seem to be able to leave his mouth. Then all he wanted to do was curl up in a little ball because all he could see was their faces, the Avengers, his friends, and it all came crashing back that he didn’t really know them anymore; they weren’t his anymore.

Asking about the Avengers Initiative would be poking the classified beehive with a stick. Judging by the conversations he had overheard in the videos and the funny way Bucky had kept looking off screen all the time when he talked about them, the Avengers were top secret still. SHIELD had always been pretty tight lipped when people weren’t the right rank, and even though he had been a member of Project: Rebirth, he was still only ranked as a lowly private at the end of the day. He had seen it in writing when he had peeked at his chart and it had been a bit of a shock. He wasn’t even a Captain anymore.

“You want me to live with the Avengers?” Steve asked skeptically. He would be lucky to see a napkin from the mansion on his own; living there seemed more like a delusion than an actual option, even if it was Howard saying the words. Howard couldn’t seriously think that SHIELD was going to let him into the building, could he?

“I will have to talk to Fury first of course. It’s just a formality. He can’t really stop me. He’s going to have kittens.” Howard continued, grinning. Steve smiled and nodded along. He sure hoped that Howard was right.

The next morning found Steve with company. He had been expecting the tailor to show up of course, so it wasn’t that much of a surprise, he just hadn’t expected the guy to show up so early in the morning. He didn’t mind being up early, but it would have been nice to have a few minutes to wash up first. The tailor didn’t seem to care about how he looked, so Steve relaxed and let the man do his job, hoping that it would go by quickly and with as little embarrassment as possible.

He received a phone call from Howard while he was being poked and prodded by the tailor for the umpteenth time; the tailor had measuring every part of him with the ruthless efficiency Steve had only known only of medics on battlefields, and it had been a little frightening at first to have someone’s hands all over him like that. Even the doctors hadn’t been so hands on when they had been giving him a physical. It seemed almost too friendly, but from the look on the man’s face, he might as well have been plucking weeds in his garden or maybe cleaning a toilet with his tongue. The nurse brought the cellphone Howard had left for him over from its place on the over table and gingerly held it out to Steve as if the thing might bite her; the ring tone was some god-awful racket that Howard must have dredged up from the world of cyberspace as a joke, something that sounded a lot like the word nyan repeated over and over. If it had been ringing near him, he probably wouldn’t have wanted to touch it either.

He answered the phone, standing on rubbery legs while the tailor measured his inseam for the fifth time in a row; at this point he wasn’t sure if he was being measured or groped. He sure hoped it wasn’t the latter.

“Hello?”

“Hi honey. I’ve got some bad news.” Howard’s voice growled in his ear; Steve almost had to turn the volume down.

The tailor adjusted Steve’s stance and began to measure his arms, making him hold the phone at an awkward angle; at least that solved the volume problem. Steve switched the phone between hands until the tailor had what he wanted, trying to keep in mind that the manhandling was for a good reason.

“Steve? You still there?” Howard asked. He sounded tired and raspy, with just a hint of boredom still lurking in the shadows.

“Just being measured by the tailor, that’s all.” Steve said as the tailor began to measure his waist again, as if he hadn’t done that fifteen times already.

“Ah, I see, I see.”

“What happened?” Steve said, feeling a little nervous. Had something happened to Bucky, or to Tony? Howard hadn’t said that he was going to call today, and Steve hadn’t gotten a single call from the man since he had been given the phone in the first place. No one had called him, not even an accidental call from a telemarketer. He had been kind of lonely.

“Fury says that it’s a no-go. I can’t bring you to the mansion because there’s too much classified information lying around and they don’t trust you. Fury spouted some garbage about you being a sleeper agent, and I told him it was complete bullshit, because, come on, you’re you. Then he told me that if I even let you set so much as one toe into the Avenger’s mansion he’d have me kicked off the team. While I am the primary funder and the veritable owner of the mansion, as I so kindly reminded him, I apparently have no say in matters of national security. He said some choice things about me being an irritating old coot and I gave him a few words of my own which I will not repeat lest your delicate sensibilities suffer. Sadly we are at an impasse. I have to work on wearing him down, which means regrettably kissing his military behind until he agrees to do what I want him to do –” Howard blathered angrily into Steve’s ear, barely stopping for air. It was a miracle that he hadn’t passed out; maybe he had an oxygen tank beside his desk in his office for such occasions.

The tailor rolled up his measuring tapes and scribbled down some random numbers on a page in what had been a mostly blank notebook when he had walked in; there were quite a few measurements written down there now, so many so that Steve was starting to wonder just what they were all for. He was tempted to ask Howard about it and then promptly waved the idea away; he had the internet after all. He didn’t need to waste time asking Howard a thousand questions when he had that at his fingertips. He liked not having to ask questions so much nowadays. It was a relief that others didn’t have to know that he didn’t know what was going on. It wasn’t that he didn’t like to ask – he just didn’t want to badger someone relentlessly, because there were so many different things he didn’t know anymore. He hated not knowing things; hated being ignorant with a passion.

The tailor packed everything up and gave Steve a quick once over, not quite frowning but coming close to it. He was probably trying to figure out just what tiny Steve Rogers had to do with the impressive and powerful Howard Stark; the wrinkling of his nose seemed to suggest something of the like, or maybe he just didn’t like being in hospitals any more than Steve did. Steve couldn’t blame him. The smell of antiseptic and death was heavy in the air, even though they were in a recovery ward of sorts. The only fresh smell was air freshener, a bottle of some mixed fruit spray that Dahlia brandished like a wand every time she came into the room. At least now he knew what that smell was. It wasn’t so bad now – wasn’t as over powering as it had once been. All of his senses had lost their superior status, leaving him sneeze and headache free when she sprayed it around; another good thing was that he didn’t have to smell the scent of urine wafting down the hall from the door over when his elderly neighbors had accidents.

“Thanks for coming.” Steve said, trying to at least be civil.

The tailor left the room, bag slung over his shoulder without so much a grunt in response. The only things he had said to Steve when he had arrived that morning was his name and the command ‘stand straight please, son’. Steve wasn’t sad to see him go. He had met doorknobs with more personality.

“Hold on for a second Steve, I need to find something.” Howard croaked; something crunched in the background, but Steve couldn’t tell what it was. Probably had something to do with work, considering after a quick check of the caller ID it was coming from a Stark International hardline.

“Alright.” Steve sat down on the edge of the bed, doing leg lifts to work the kinks out of his stiff muscles, listening to the sounds of Howard continuing to rustle rustling through things on the other end of the line; his legs complained after a thirty repetitions, but it was worth the burn. The physiotherapist had given him a list of exercises after he had sheepishly admitted during their latest session that he might not have been paying attention the last few times; she had given him this look, a mixture of a smile and annoyance and had then proceeded to flick him in the forehead. She had given him a whole list of things to try out, compiled in curvy handwriting that bordered on illegible, enthusiastically walking him through a few of them so he wouldn’t accidentally cripple himself twisting wrong. He had borrowed a little of her enthusiasm, storing it away to save for a rainy day and had left panting and sweaty, having gotten far more of a workout than he had expected. He knew he wasn’t going to be running any marathons anytime soon, but it had felt great. He would at the very least be able to walk in a straight line without keeling over when all was said and done, and that was something to be happy about.

Dahlia’s playful tabby cat sat beside Steve while he worked out, staring at his flexing leg muscles with was very obviously evil intent. The cat liked to sit on his bed whether he was awake or asleep, stalking him everywhere he went, be it to the physiotherapists, or the bathroom. He hadn’t exactly been introduced to it formally; it had sort of just wandered in one day and hadn’t left. The furry little thing had taken a liking to him for some reason; it didn’t even have a collar, so he didn’t know what her name was. The only reason that he even knew she was a she was because of the amount of times her rear end had ended up in his face when she did her mandatory seven-time-circular-turn-around on his chest before settling in to sleep there. The night nurse had laughed when she had seen it, prodding the cat in her blubbery haunch in an attempt to get her to leave Steve alone for more than a few minutes. Steve had flushed and told her that it was alright. It was just a cat after all, nothing to get concerned about. As long as she didn’t sleep on his face, he would be all right. She had smirked at the reference and winked at him, leaving him to his sleep.

The cat slept strangely too, with her face pressed against whatever she was sleeping on, with the rest of her body curled up like a wheel of cheese. She was a total sweetheart, easy to please and affectionate as hell, even if she was a bit nippy when you got her annoyed. Petting her had been better therapy than he had expected, although he ended up with too much cat hair on his clothing afterwards for his liking.

His sleep had been better than ever with the cat curled up in the middle of his chest, and boy, she weighed almost as much as one of those textbooks Bruce used to read for fun; he had been almost nightmare free for the entire week, a new record, even with her crushing the air out of him. He had been allergic to cats once if memory served, and it was nice to be so close to one without having his eyes watering and lips swelling up like one of those sausage shaped balloons. Not breaking out with hives was nice too; he had looked like a duck suffering with acne when an allergic reaction struck back then, and he hadn’t been able to leave the house for days. Thankfully those days were long gone.

Dahlia brought the cat in every day because it had anxiety issues when left alone at home and tended to shred things that were left out, sometimes going so far as to eat whatever was left behind after said shredding was done. She had told Steve more than a few of the horror stories, rubbing her hands together in glee as she tried to find the ones that would freak him out the most; she was a bit of a sadist. She had come home once to find that the cat had eaten an entire newspaper as well as all the toilet paper and a paper plate. It would have been funny if she hadn’t told him about the aftermath and a few other stories too, like how the cat had eaten the money right out of her wallet when it had gotten bored, and how it had apparently snuck into her bedroom and eaten her wedding photos right out of the album, plastic covers and all. The cat’s love for chewing paper was the main reason why no one left anything made of paper unattended in the hospital for more than a few minutes.

No one seemed to mind that it was left to its own devices. The cat, who Steve was starting to suspect was actually just called The Cat, spent her days wandering the halls while Dahlia worked her shift, looking for warm victims to sit on. Some of the patients seemed to look forward to the visits just as much as the cat did. Steve knew he certainly did.

Howard continued to natter away over the phone while Steve did his exercises, oblivious to the fact that he was still talking into the phone; the one sided conversation was weird, peppered with bits and pieces of stock information, what Howard wanted for lunch and the fact that Howard needed some new paperclips delivered a.s.a.p.

Uninterested, Steve stretched out, curling his toes. The cat continued to stare at him; he stared back and her.

“Steve?”

Steve tuned back in when he realized that Howard wasn’t talking to his secretary or stapler anymore.

“I’m back now, Steve. Where was I?” Howard yawned.

“You were saying something about why I can’t stay at the mansion.” Steve supplied, quickly looking away from the cat so that she didn’t pounce on him.

“Oh! Right. So this means that you can’t stay with me. You’ll have to stay with my son – I know it’s not the same or ideal, but he’ll behave himself, I think. Well, to tell you the truth I don’t really know what goes on in that boy’s mind half the time. He is such a brat – honestly Steve, I wouldn’t leave you with him unless it was an emergency. I would have put you in an apartment of your own instead if it was safer – Hell, I would have lit myself on fire first if that didn’t mean Obadiah taking over and sinking my business while I was in the hospital recovering.” Howard grumbled. “Are you alright with that? Because –”

“Staying with Tony sounds fine to me.” Steve cut in quickly, heading off the next part of Howard’s rant before it could start; once Howard got rolling, it was hard to stop him. Steve didn’t feel like sitting around listening to the tirade. He had listened to enough ranting when he had first entered Project: Rebirth, thank you very much. He liked his ears where they were.

He rubbed his hands together in glee, the cat staring at his hands like they were some kind of edible monster. He would get to stay with Tony! It was like a… Steve frowned, his happiness faltering. It was like a dream come true. Those words tasted hollow and chalky, even if he had only said them in his head.

Dreams weren’t all that much of a relief anymore; not that he had ever really been a fan of them in the first place. There was something awful about them now, even the ones that had been happy were twisted, warped wrecks of things he had lost; there was something in them now that had never been there before, lurking in the shadows, waiting to strike. Every time he woke, eyes wide in the dim light of his hospital room, he would clutch the blankets helplessly, his breath catching in his chest. He could always see the nightmares there, in his room, shadows of those he had lost prowling in the corners of the room; they didn’t leave, no matter how many times he squeezed his eyes shut. If the cat hadn’t been there, he might have had panic attacks every time. Thankfully she had always been there purring in his face. He was going to miss having her around when he got out of here. Hopefully Tony would be around to take her place. He didn’t know what he would do if he woke up alone with them waiting for him in the dark.

“I’m glad that you’re so optimistic about it Steve, I really am.” Howard said.

“Well he’s your son Howard. I trust everyone in your family.” Steve said, switching legs to begin another set of repetitions, carefully avoiding the cat’s eyes. She didn’t seem pleased by that. She stepped forwards, the blanket flattening underneath her clever feet, and batted his thigh; he ruffled her back fur in retaliation. She started purring like a freight train, kneading the blanket, her blue eyes squeezed shut in pleasure.

“I’d have left you with Maria first if she wasn’t dead. Honestly Steve, my son is a mess – an awful boy. I’m embarrassed that you even have to hear about him, let alone that you’ll be meeting and staying with him. Is that a cat I hear? Or am I going senile?”

“Maria died?” Steve asked, eyes widening in horror, shocked to his very core. Howard hadn’t mentioned much about Tony or Maria, sticking to topics like the weather and technology. Steve had found it strange at first, figuring that it was because Howard was trying to handle him with kid gloves just like everyone else. He had wondered what had happened to Maria, her absence something of a mystery, but he hadn’t thought her dead. She could have been living in Boca Raton after a lengthy divorce for all he knew. He had kind of expected it to have been divorce, knowing how Howard was around women; the man was lucky he didn’t walk around perpetually with black eyes. Maria had been sweet, a kind woman who had once kissed Steve on the forehead after he had tripped and crashed headlong into her, knocking them both down. After helping her up she had run her fingers through his hair as he apologized, his face flushed with embarrassment; she hadn’t cared about the fact that he had ripped her expensive looking dress when they had fallen to the ground, and when he had offered to pay for the damages, she had laughed and kissed him on the head again, telling him that he was ‘too sweet for his own good’.

Steve let out a weary sigh, a habit he had picked up ever since waking up; there didn’t seem to be many days when he wasn’t sighing anymore.

“Unfortunately, yes, she died. We married a year after the war ended. We didn’t have much time to date during the war, seeing as how we both had work to do, so it was a surprise when she said yes. It would have been nice if you had been at the wedding – the entire thing was boring as hell, and everyone was so gloomy.”

“Your wedding was gloomy?” Steve snorted, rolling his eyes. Only Howard could think a wedding was a gloomy affair.

“Well we weren’t all that happy then, even after the war was over. I think we were all too worn out from searching – not that it was anyone’s fault of course. She enjoyed herself immensely. She had a grand old time dancing with Peggy and the Commandos while I entertained the champagne table. Even Bucky got a few dances in if I recall correctly. She liked you, you know.” Howard said.

“She knew Peggy and the Commandos?”

“Oh yes. She met the Commandos through Bucky, and Peggy through me. She and Peggy became best friends after the whole serum failure. They met in your hospital room when I was busy making arrangements, tying up loose ends and all that. Maria found your sketchbook in your things and brought it by. Wanted to make sure you had it when you woke up. She talked about the drawings all the time, but she was always too upset after what happened to you to want to want to visit again. I think she took it as some kind of personal insult that the entire thing failed. Peggy seemed to think so too. I still have the sketchbook in storage. She had it hidden away in her things.” Howard drawled.

“They knew each other well?” Steve asked, surprised. Peggy had always seemed so serious, he had been afraid to ask about her other friends; he had also been a little concerned about taking a fist to the face at the time too, because she always got this funny little glint in her eyes when he asked her personal questions. He wished now that he had had the nerve to ask her more. She had always been kind, even when she had seemed angry with him. She probably would have put up with the questions, but he had been too scared to ask. He started crying, sniffling a little. Maria had been so kind, just like Peggy. Strong but kind; he could have gone to them with anything, but he had been too damned scared to ask for their help. He wiped at the tears, hoping that his sniffling wasn’t loud enough for Howard to hear over the phone.

“Oh yes, Peggy and Maria were two peas in a pod by the time Tony was up and about. They died in a car crash in case you were wondering. We were all together, coming back from some function or another – I don’t really remember the event and a lot of the details are hazy. Hit my noggin pretty hard on the back seat, so it’s mostly a blur of events all out of order. It was lucky that I made it out of there at all. Both of them though…” Howard said, his voice turning morose. “They died on impact. Peggy was driving with Maria in the passenger’s seat. I was passed out, drunk as a skunk in the back seat. I suppose it was a miracle that they didn’t suffer much.” Howard sighed.

“I’m so sorry.” Steve whispered into the phone. He had heard about the accident from Tony before… No. He had to stop thinking about the world using those lost memories! Things were different now, and he couldn’t keep relying on those fractured memories. It was so hard not to rely on that other world. Everything had changed so suddenly, and then it had gone and changed again while he was trying to catch up. It wasn’t fair! He slapped himself in the forehead, trying to steady himself, tears dripping down his face.

Peggy and Maria had died together; he hadn’t expected that. Back in the dream-world, Howard and Maria had died in a car crash when Tony was twenty, and Peggy, well Peggy had died in a rest home with Alzheimer’s, her family at her side every step of the way. He had been glad that she had had family, that she had moved on and lived her life without him. She had deserved great things in her life, things he hadn’t been able to give her, even if he had been around.

She would have liked Tony.

She would have liked his shit-eating grin, and the way he could make someone smile no matter how down they were. He wondered if Tony had known her well, if she had babysat him and tended to his birthday parties. Had she been by his side for his graduations? Had she and Maria spent lazy afternoons together chatting about the Army and all the idiotic things the Howling Commandos had gotten themselves into with Tony playing in the garden? He closed his eyes; he could see them like that, sitting around together, the sun warm and the breeze sweet with the scent of flowers. Maria had always carried around books about roses. She probably had gardens of them, gold and crimson and white blossoms settled together, all arranged in a neat square. Her father had been a botanist, she had told him, a man who had little time for nonsense. She had begged her mother to teach her how to grow roses so that they could spend time together. She had never talked about whether it had worked or not; she had never really talked about her family either, except for little asides she let slip when Steve was fighting with his asthma.

“Don’t worry about it, honey. It all happened years ago and I’ve made my peace with it all.” Howard said. “Anyways, getting back on topic, I’ll pick you up on Friday night and shuttle you over to Tony’s place. Tailor says he’ll have all of your new clothing ready by then. While I enjoyed seeing your pasty white ass in those delightfully chic hospital scrubs, I highly doubt the rest of the world would enjoy the spectacle as much as I did.”

“Your tailor is named Tailor?” Steve snorted, almost falling off the side of the bed as the cat head-butted him in the side; apparently snorting was a no-no in the cat’s world. She bit his scrubs, slobbering all over them as he tried to free them with one hand, refusing to let go no matter how much he tugged at them.

“Yes. God, hearing it out loud… that’s absolutely ridiculous. Poor bastard. Anyways –” Howard murmured thoughtfully. “Did you want anything in particular for when you move in with Tony by the way? You used to sketch, right? Do you want some sketch pads and pencils? I can pick up a few things for you from an art supply store I know while I’m in between meetings and the like. Did you have any special foods you wanted? I remember that you used to like eating those god-awful cookies – what the hell were they called again?”

“Fig Newtons?” Steve barked out a surprised laugh. He wiped his eyes on his arm again, trying to reign his emotions back in.

“Yes! Those damn things. Personally I think they taste awful, but to each, their own right? I’ll pick up some stuff and have Tony’s fridge stocked with all your favourites. Don’t worry about it.” Howard said.

“You don’t have to –”

“Nonsense. I insist. Now don’t worry your pretty little head about it. I’ll check in with you on Friday.”

Howard hung up before Steve could even say goodbye, leaving Steve feeling empty and alone. He frowned blearily at the phone and then set it down on the table beside his bed, rolling his shoulders. At least Howard had phoned and told him about the change in plans; it was nice to know that someone was at least trying to keep him in the loop.

It would be nice to have a sketch book again. He had been itching to try out his skills ever since he had seen Cindy, the night nurse’s trainee protégé, doodling in her notepad when she thought no one was looking. He hoped that the artistic talent he remembered wasn’t just another part of his dream-memories; maybe he would start off drawing some roses.

With his luck he would probably be good at drawing nothing but stick figures and speech bubbles.

He continued to do his exercise all through the afternoon, using the same piece of elastic he had nearly brained himself with earlier to create more resistance when it got too easy; he had reveled in that victory, chasing away the sadness of lost friends for a brief moment of bliss. The cat stole the elastic away with a flick of her paw after that, and he had to wiggle a bit of string he had pulled off of his sheet in her face to trick her into giving it back. After that, he had been more interested in the cat than the exercises, pleasantly distracted by furry flailing limbs and a tail that could have given him whiplash if he didn’t watch it. The nurse on duty walked past his door on her way out and rolled her eyes at the sight of the pair of them, tired and lying flat on their backs; the cat’s tail lay on Steve’s upper lip like a faux mustache.

He couldn’t stop giggling after that; the cat swatted him with her tail a few times, telling him off, but he just kept giggling, too much emotion bubbling up and out. Some days he wondered why Tony had even bothered to put up with someone like him – someone that couldn’t even keep himself in check.

But there was no Tony to see this, no Howard, no Bucky, or Maria or Peggy either; there was only the nurse, who wiped his face with a wet washcloth and rubbed circles on his back, letting him cry into her shoulder when the giggling finally stopped. He didn’t want to talk, but he choked out bits and pieces in between sobs, feeling foolish and ashamed the entire time. The nurse stroked his hair and whispered that his friends wouldn’t look down on him for missing them so much. They wouldn’t fault him for loving them. He sobbed harder, but it didn’t hurt so much after that, with her hands in his hair and on his back, holding him tight.

As Steve was drifting off to sleep later that night after being tucked in red-eyed and drowsy, he realized that Bucky hadn’t shown up. Did it have something to do with their last meeting, and the fight they had gotten into? Had he said something? Or done something wrong? Bucky had never been able to stay mad at him for long, but was that still the case? Was he holding a grudge?

But that was nonsense, wasn’t it. That other world had all been a dream, all except for Tony, and Bucky couldn’t have known about the argument, not unless he was telepathic and reading it right from Steve’s head; he started crying again, choking on the tears as he tried to hold them in.

Did that mean something? Did Bucky not want to see him after all these years? Was he that horrible a friend?

Steve curled his body, pressing his face to the pillow, willing the tears away, digging his fingers into the soft meat of the pillow. He sniffled, wiping his nose on the sheet wrapped around his shoulders; his misery was dry and sore in his chest, his throat worn out from sobbing for so long. The nurse had brought him dinner after he had calmed down, and sat with him the whole time, passing him Kleenex when he needed it; he had been feeling better too, less tired and more numb, but better. Now that was all gone. All the progress, lost because of one stupid thought; all because Bucky hadn’t bothered to show up.

He missed Tony. God did he miss Tony.

He missed all of his friends, but he missed Tony most of all; Tony had been his light in the darkness, and it was hard to see where he was going now that that light had gone away. The dream world might not be true, but Tony had to be. Tony had to be real.

The cat’s tail thumped him across the back of the head, her feet pushing against his skull, toes kneading his hair. He ignored her, wishing that he could just wake up and that things would go back to the way they had been before, even if only for a few minutes; he would have cherished those minutes forever. He missed the smile Tony always had on his face when it was bedtime, the both of them curled up together, pressed close, limbs tangled. He missed the way Tony smelled, the way he walked and talked and most of all the way he had been there whenever Steve needed him most.

The cat kicked him in the head for not paying attention to her; laughing through his tears, falling asleep with one of her feet in his ear, Tony’s face in mind, smiling.

The rest of the week went by like he was watching an old mule dragging a wagon full of rocks up a steep hill; it was slow, tedious work, even if it was rewarding, and no matter how much he urged it on, it just wouldn’t go any faster than it wanted to go. Steve spent a good deal of his time pacing up and down the hallway directly outside of his room with a nurse shadowing him, waiting to catch him if he collapsed so that he wouldn’t split his skull open like some kid’s party piñata; she was rather calm about it too, padding along behind him with a book in her hand, one eye on him and the other on the page she was reading. The cat also stalked him, but that was only because she wanted to grab him by the ankles and seemed to want to kill him for some unknown reason. He had to make a few unscheduled stops to untangle his socks from her claws, and that was probably the most exciting thing that happened that week.

He had savored those still moments, even though he had had to almost kill himself tripping over the cat to get to them. There was something calming about problem solving, the way the solution slowly slid into place as he worked through what was wrong; in this case, untangling the cat’s pesky claws from his already mostly holey socks.

The cat climbed up onto his back after the last untangling and sat on his shoulders while he paced the rest of the day away. She seemed to like the view, even if he wasn’t all that tall. At least someone didn’t mind that he was short; being a whole five foot one was exhausting, and having to take so many extra steps to keep up with people made it feel like he was a child again, trying to keep up with his mother.

At least he was healing faster now.

In childhood, his body had been pathetic and weak, wracked with sicknesses every few months that made a simple game of tag feel like he was going for a 10k hike through the forest. He had bounced back of course, surviving possibly through sheer will-power alone, but that feeling of helpless dread remained firmly entrenched in his mind and every time a doctor walked past he had to steady himself to keep from running in the opposite direction. It wasn’t that he didn’t like doctors; it was more that he hated getting bad news, and more often than not, they were the ones to give it to him. They had been the ones to tell his mother about the pneumonia, and the asthma; they had been the ones who had told her about the broken bones and the allergies, not that she hadn’t known all of it already, from her years nursing strangers back to health. She had stitched him up often enough to know what he looked like when he was in pain. Worst of all, they had been the ones to tell him about her tuberculosis and that there was nothing they could do. For a long time he had avoided the hospital, even if he had been sick, too heartbroken to want to go in; he saw his mother in anyone who so much as sneezed near him, and it had taken months to stop calling out ‘mom, I’m home!’ to an empty house.

He was strong and healthy now, even if he was still slender and far too small for his liking; his mother would have been happy to see him like this, without a constant sniffle or bruises. He wasn’t nearly as fast at recovering from bruises or scrapes as he had been when he had been Captain America but he made do with what he had; what did it matter to him if a scratch took more than a few minutes to heal? It wasn’t as if he was out on the battlefield, worried about bleeding to death anymore. The only thing scratching him was the cat, and most of the time those weren’t even all that deep. At least he couldn’t get a lung or a bladder infection anymore. He didn’t even want to hear those words again: bladder infection. Being stabbed had felt nicer.

The doctors were surprised by his recovery, marveling at the fact that in such a short amount of time he had shaken off seventy years’ worth of coma with nothing more than a weeks’ worth physiotherapy and a bunch of protein shakes. They had the nurses taking vials of blood after every meal, hoping to catch something of the healing process as it happened; it was irritating getting stuck with needles every few hours, but at least it kept them off his back the rest of the time. So far, they hadn’t found anything worth mentioning, although Steve suspected that if they had, they wouldn’t have told him. He was low on the chain of command – possibly beneath the chain entirely, with some small specks of dirt out of sight on the floor below it.

He didn’t want to ask really, didn’t want to question anything that happened to him. He was an experiment, and while he was sure Howard could have told him about it all if he wanted to know, it felt awkward. Getting the information wouldn’t be all that hard, maybe just a little bit of wheeling and dealing on Howard’s part; he didn’t want to add another favor to the already staggering pile of them he had been handed. It would be better to save them for when they were really needed, instead of bartering for information he already knew. And besides, that would mean talking to SHIELD, which would mean talking to Fury, and he knew just what Fury would say on the matter.

Experiments didn’t get rights. They didn’t sign up for rights, and if he was suddenly an experiment again, then he would get chucked into a SHIELD cell, lost under a bunker to be tested on against his will, the perfect guinea pig. Even Howard wouldn’t be able to keep that from happening if he poked around too much. He had heard about what SHIELD had done in the past, the secret facilities that were government funded and so far under the radar that it would have been easier to dig to the centre of the earth. No one would find him there, not even Tony; he would become a lost thing, nameless with only a number and if he was lucky, a blanket and bed to call his own.

He knew what the serum supposedly did for the most part anyways; he could figure the rest out on his own without a bunch of lab coats chasing after him with needles. Besides, he didn’t exactly want to just hand them any knowledge they didn’t already have. He had to have some cards up his sleeve in case of emergency. Bucky had probably told them most of it, but it always paid to plan ahead.

Howard showed up at Steve’s room at 6 p.m. on the dot, carrying a plastic bag filled with what Steve assumed was some of the clothing Tailor the tailor had custom made for him. He hadn’t even thought about clothing, and was glad that Howard had, or else he would have been going out in hospital scrubs, a rather unpleasant thought seeing as how he didn’t really have anything of his own aside from his underwear. He would have given anything for a bath, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, so he made do without, hoping that he didn’t smell too bad.

Steve was a bundle of raw nerves by the time Howard approached his bed. He hadn’t been able to close his eyes for more than a minute or two at a time the night before, afraid that something might happen to delay their departure; the anxiety had been so strong, he had almost asked the nurse on call to give him a sleeping pill before he remembered that it probably wouldn’t work because of the serum. By midnight he had been praying for daylight, begging for it, muttering to himself like a madman. The cat had slept so close to his face he had almost choked on her fur; at least the muttering had been drowned out then, and he had been able to lose himself in that loud, incessant purring.

Today was the day.

Today he would get to see Tony!

If left up to his own devices now, he would have probably just run out the door, clad in nothing but the underwear he had on, consequences be damned; he wanted to be outdoors again, with the wind blowing the scent of antiseptic floor cleaner away. The clothing in the bag was practical, far less ostentatious and more comfortable than he had expected from Howard. He didn’t know what he would have done if Howard had brought by a three piece suit. He hadn’t worn one of those in years, and his had been too short, the legs of his pants hiked up above his ankles after his last growth spurt; not that he had gotten taller from that spurt. He had gained a whole inch, which he had been insanely proud of at the time, and his mother hadn’t been able to afford a new one to replace the old, so he had gone to church in it for the next few years.

Howard sat down on the arm of the chair beside Steve’s bed, watching as Steve changed from his hospital gown into the new clothing, drumming his fingers on the safety rails. He wasn’t quite staring; Howard’s gaze flittered around the room like he hadn’t ever been in it before, constantly moving around, refusing to settle on anything for too long.

Steve pulled on a pair of brown slacks, fumbling with the zipper, his fingers clumsy and slow. A white button-up dress shirt waited for him sitting beside a highly polished pair brown leather shoes; there were socks too, and they were hot pink, likely Howard’s attempt at a joke. All of it was custom fitted; the price must have been outrageous, because Howard kept giving Steve these little looks, as if he could see the money on him.

“You look nice! Very suave. I especially like the fit of the pants.” Howard cleared his throat, looking Steve over, his tongue dragging leisurely over his lips. Steve went faintly pink, startled by the comment. He finished buttoning up his shirt with fumbling fingers, cursing himself for not doing enough of the hand exercises he had been shown.

Howard was all bluster. There was nothing to worry about. Now if only he could stop the blushing so that he didn’t look like he was appreciating the unwanted attention. Luckily for him, Howard had turned away again, checking the time on his phone.

Steve could certainly appreciate the way the clothes fit. He hadn’t worn anything custom made before, even if he had been offered a tailor’s services by Tony on more than a few occasions. It had been hard to find clothing and he could still recall the strained look on his mother’s face whenever they had gone searching for shirts that would fit him; some of those outings took hours, and most of the time he ended up getting things from thrift stores because it was all they could afford. The tailored clothing was like a second skin, smooth and comfortable. A quick look at the numbers in the waist of his pants confirmed what he had suspected; he had gained weight, and with it, muscle mass. How much more muscle it actually had gained he didn’t know, but he was fairly certain that he had put on at least twenty pounds.

Maybe.

He hoped.

It had been uncomfortable being back in this scrawny body and at first it had seemed completely unnatural, like he was piloting one of those clockwork toys Tony had used to make to amuse the children at the hospital, moving around all stiff and twitchy. But now it was almost like coming home after being away for a long time, pulling on an old shirt he had thought he had lost. Everything was just like he remembered, including every freckle, scar and wrinkle. At least he didn’t have to worry about hitting his head on doorframes, or accidentally breaking things with his grip anymore.

Steve picked up one of his new shoes from beside the bed, pulling his leg up to rest against the edge of the railing, slipping it on. It fit like a dream, as had everything else. He hadn’t noticed the tailor taking his shoe size. Apparently Tailor the tailor was either extremely good at guessing or had found another way of sneakily getting shoe sizes without actually asking any questions; maybe he had taken lessons with Coulson. He froze at that thought. Could SHIELD have been –

“The shoes fit alright?” Howard asked snatching up the laptop bag from beside the bed where Steve had unfortunately left it unattended. He shouldered the bag in one easy swing, smirking as Steve fought with the laces of the other shoe with his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth.

“Yes, everything fits really well. It’s a little creepy how well actually.” Steve said, standing up and adjusting his shirt. The fabric was smooth and soft, some kind of expensive cotton. He liked the feel of it. “Who did you get your tailor from by the way?”

“He’s been working for me for years. Doesn’t touch anyone unless they’ve got the cash. SHIELD would die if they saw the cost of those pants.”

“I see… They are nice pants.” Steve admitted.

“Well that’s good. At least they won’t fall off when you’re walking. Not that I would mind.” Howard chuckled.

“Very funny.”

“Well really… you look young enough to be my grandkid or something. I’d be a lovely grandfather. They’d sit on my lap, enjoying stories of the war, eating chocolates.” Howard mused.

“Grandkids…” Steve mumbled thoughtfully. He had never really thought that Howard would marry, let alone have a child, and the thought of him entertaining grandchildren was absolutely mind boggling. He supposed that it was just what you did back then. You got married, had children, the whole nine yards, but there were just some people where you had to stop and wonder how the hell they had managed to find someone to put up with them long enough to get to that point.

“Yes, grandkids. I want grandkids. Try to keep up, will you? You’re making me feel old.” Howard laughed as he led them out the door, an arm slung over Steve’s shoulder.

“Same here.” Steve smiled awkwardly.

The Nurses and Doctors had gathered around in the hallway waiting for him. Steve said goodbye to each and every one of them, going through the line of them as they passed by on their way out the door; these were good people, ones he respected even if he had been a bit surly towards them. He was hugged by a few of them, held close by the physiotherapist who was going between crying about losing him and lecturing him about keeping up his exercise. Even the cat decided to show up, drawn from her nap by the noise in the hall.

He picked the cat up and gave her an affectionate squeeze, snickering when she licked his chin with her rough pink tongue, rubbing against his cheeks until he was covered in fur. Howard rolled his eyes at them, and then smiled softly, backing off to stand in the corner playing with his phone; Dahlia embraced Steve in a bone crushing hug and patted him on the back, practically in tears. Steve blinked back a few tears of his own.

“I’m sorry I was such a grump.” Steve whispered as she hugged him for the second time, the cat trapped between them, a reluctant passenger.

“Don’t worry about it.” Dahlia whispered back, giving him a kiss on the forehead.

He wanted to apologize to the cat too, some inane part of him needing to say he was sorry for leaving even though she wouldn’t understand a single word of what he had said. She seemed to know that something was wrong, and ended up attaching herself to his pant legs as he tried to head back to Howard, holding onto his ankle for dear life. Steve picked her up one last time and gave her a kiss on the head, burying his face in her soft fur; she purred loudly, licking his nose and then promptly bit him.

“I don’t think she wants you to leave.” Dahlia laughed. She held out her hands so that Steve could hand the cat over; he did so, reluctantly, having to pry her claws out of his shoulder. He wiped his eyes.

“See you later.”

“Bye for now Steve. Take care. If you need anything, you know where to find us. I’d better not see you in here again.” Dahlia threatened, shaking her finger at him. The cat took that opportunity to lunge from her hands to the ground with a loud meow.

“You won’t, I promise.” Steve grinned bashfully.

It took them almost an hour to make it down the hallway; it was so crowded with well-wishers and hospital staff that he almost had to fight free from all the handshakes and hugs. The cat wouldn’t let go of his leg and scratched Dahlia when she tried to pick it up again, so he had to carry her down the hall to Dahlia’s office and set her down in her basket, whispering soft words to her while scratching behind her ears until she fell asleep. He closed the door, feeling a little guilty about locking her in, but it was time to go at last and he couldn’t leave Howard standing around forever.

There was a car waiting outside on the street; Steve had to block the light with his hand, almost blinded by the sun when he took his first few steps of freedom. The sun was still a shock, no matter how many times he had looked at it through his window and he couldn’t help but wince while looking up at it. He had been out on the visitor’s balcony earlier in the week, and it had taken him almost three minutes to be able to see again after the sun had peeked over the cement walls; he swore that it had never been this bright before. His vision went spotty, a mirage of black, red and white splotches and he let out a contented sigh despite the pain. He had missed this. He was warm on his own for the first time in ages, soaking up every ray of the sunset that touched him. He closed his eyes for a moment as his vision cleared taking comfort in the way the warm breeze caressed his cheeks, breathing deeply the scent of freshly cut grass. This was life – this was freedom, right here.

“Do I need to get you and the great outdoors a room?” Howard snorted.

“I’m ready, I’m ready.” Steve said, prying his eyes open. He frowned at the laptop bag slung over Howard’s shoulder. “I can carry that you know. I’m not an invalid.”

“I’m sure you can, but I’d rather do the honors. Don’t want you to sprain anything getting to the car.” Howard teased, leading Steve to the older model Lexus sedan sitting by the curb.

“Nice car.” Steve said. It didn’t look as futuristic as some of the other cars around, and even though it was expensive it didn’t look it. Steve had seen a Lexus before of course; Clint had showed him a catalogue once, making jokes about how Steve needed to work his charms on Tony to get him a ‘sweet ride’. He had car watched from the window in his room when he was in between meals, the cat sitting on the windowsill beside him. She had liked to pat the glass when someone drove by too fast and loved smacking at corvettes far out of reach.

“I wanted to go with something simple. I didn’t want to end up with any reporters following me around.” Howard said.

The driver, who had been obscured by tinted glass, opened the door and stepped out, straightening his immaculate sports jacket; Howard pulled the bag off of his shoulder and hefted it towards the man, who caught it with practiced ease, as if he was thrown expensive computers every day.

Steve gaped.

It was Happy – Happy Hogan!

He tripped on the curb in his surprise and had to catch himself on Howard’s arm to keep crashing into the ground. Steve gawked at Happy, eyes wide, not knowing what to say or if he should say anything at all.

Steve untangled himself from Howard and peered into the back seat, which turned out to be disappointingly empty; his glance put him in Happy’s range, and they locked eyes briefly. For a second, Steve thought that he was going to get a friendly ‘Hi Steve!’, but no. Happy blinked at him with no sign of recognition and then went about putting the bag away in the trunk, doing his job just like he would if Howard had been escorting a client around town.

“That’s Happy Hogan. He’s my driver. Happy say hello to Steve Rogers.” Howard said, staring at his phone again.

“Hello Mr. Rogers. It’s a pleasure.”

“It’s nice to meet you too Happy. Please, call me Steve.” Steve held out a hand as Happy came back around to open the car doors for them. Happy shook his hand firmly, bobbing his head.

“Sure. Anything else Boss, or are we setting off now?” Happy said, dropping Steve’s hand.

“Yes, we’re off. No need to dawdle. Best get there before he’s too out of it. God knows what he’s going to do when he answers the door.” Howard said ushering Steve into the car. “Come along slow poke.” He settled Steve beside him in the back seat as Happy closed the door behind them, moving around to the other side of the car to clamber into the driver’s seat. The interior of the car was covered with smooth grey leather, buffed and cared for as any expensive car was when in the hands of a Stark. It had likely been Happy who had done the actual polishing in this case, but the spirit was all Howard’s; it was sleek and clean, not a crumb in sight. Steve looked around, a little mesmerized by the familiar interior. He had seen this car before – it had been one of Tony’s cars! Tony had taken the team out for dinner in this car – or at least, a similar car. He couldn’t help but stare at everything again, looking for anything else similar, entranced by the familiarity.

The reverie was broken when Howard leaned over and did up Steve’s seatbelt for him.

“I do know how to do up a seat belt you know.” Steve said, rolling his eyes.

“Sure you do. Just making myself useful, that’s all.” Howard smirked. “I’m sure you’re looking forward to getting out of everyone’s hair for a few days, hm?”

That was true. It would be nice to have some time to just sit around with Tony again; being able to sleep in a room where there weren’t security cameras and nurses constantly watching would be a real treat.

“It sure will.” He agreed. “I just hope that I don’t embarrass myself in front of Tony.”

He had thought a lot about today over the past week, mainly debating on which approach would be best when he saw Tony again. God knew he could botch it badly if he didn’t watch out. It would be better to make a good first impression if he had to make one again, and if Happy’s introduction had been anything to go by, he might actually need to go with his contingency plan. They had almost hated each other on sight when they had been introduced the first time. Of course, Tony hadn’t really known the real reason why Steve had been so rigid and uncomfortable, so it wasn’t as if either of them could have done anything to fix the problem; even Fury hadn’t known a thing about it, and he had seemed down right surprised at the lethal banter they had been slinging at each other.

Being attracted to an older male teammate had been a little too much for Steve to handle back then; thankfully, that wasn’t going to happen this time around. He would be on his best behavior no matter what happened and Tony would get to see Steve Rogers, not the Captain America persona he had once worn like a security blanket.

The car slipped away from the curb and into traffic without even a pause in motion, a testament to Happy’s skill as a chauffeur. Howard’s arm slid over Steve’s shoulder at the same time, his hand resting comfortably behind Steve’s head, fingers splayed and tangling in the hairs on the back of Steve’s neck.

For a split second, he thought that it was Tony touching him. Tony had always loved to trail his fingers down Steve’s back and around his shoulders when they were together, relishing the way Steve wriggled and flushed at the contact. This wasn’t Tony’s hands casually perusing his body – this was Howard’s.

“What are you doing?” Steve blurted out. Usually he was better than this; he cursed himself for his lack of tact.

Howard didn’t jerk his hand away in shock like Steve had thought he would. He didn’t even twitch, continuing to stroking the back of Steve’s neck, a slight leer on his lips; it looked grotesque on him, a look so lustful it would have scared off perverts in the park.

“Oh come on Steve, grow up. It’s not like I groped you.” Howard purred.

The problem was, it sort of felt as if he had.

Steve shifted his shoulder, trying to put some space in between them. The last thing he wanted was to get into a fight, even if the touch had made his skin crawl. When that failed to get Howard’s hand off of him, he leaned against the door as heavily as he could, hoping that Howard would get the hint.

Howard’s hand soon dropped down onto the backseat, leaving Steve’s neck alone; he could still feel the tingle of Howard’s fingers, and forced himself still, wanting to scratch at the skin as if to scrub away the contact entirely; he distracted himself with the traffic outside his window.

And then of course the moment Steve finally felt comfortable again, Howard’s hand migrated its way to Steve’s thigh, caressing it as if he had been invited. Steve abruptly turned a shade of cherry-red, as he had his first aneurism of the day; he sat up ramrod straight in his seat.

“Hey –”

“Relax. We’ll be there in a bit.” Howard murmured, his thumb rubbing a line up Steve’s inner thigh, following the inseam of Steve’s slacks like it was the yellow brick road. Steve glared at him, still bright red in the face, trying very hard not to wind up and sock Howard in the jaw right then and there.

“Howard.”

“You have very nice legs. Did you know that?” Howard asked, cocking his head to the side.

Steve wasn’t going to fall for that bait, no siree. There would be no face punching in this car, no matter how bad it got. “I’m very flattered, but stop that please. It’s making me feel very uncomfortable.” He kept his voice as neutral and emotionless as possible; he had read all about sexual harassment in one of the many pamphlets SHIELD had given him, and at the time he had thought that they were just telling him to behave himself. He was suddenly glad that he had read the thing the whole way through. It had talked about things like this – about people with busy hands and unwanted touching in the workplace. He wasn’t in the mood to play mind games. He had enough on his plate already without having to deal with Howard messing around with him too.

“Oh?” Howard said, his thumb pausing in its movements.

“Yes. It makes me uncomfortable and I find it hurtful that you’re doing something like this to me.”

“You know it’s legal now, right?” Howard asked. He sounded bored, as if he were reading a dictionary instead of feeling up his friend.

“Is that so?” Steve asked, crossing his arms in irritation.

“Oh yes. They did away with those archaic laws years ago. We can have so much fun now, you and I.”

What the hell was Howard playing at here? Did he think this was funny? He studied Howard’s face, but found no traces of humor lurking there; there was nothing friendly either. It was like he had become another person, something else borrowing Howard’s face.

Howard had always had a strange sense of humor; it had seemed more playful then, like he had just been kidding around with one of the guys while trying to play a prank or two. Nothing serious, just a few slaps on the back or pokes and prods when no one was paying attention, catching people off guard at odd times. It had been for laughs, Howard had insisted, even after he had been punched out after creeping up on a young man fresh out of basic training. Peggy had put a stop to it when she had noticed how uncomfortable Steve had gotten walking down the hallways, looking around every time he walked near a pile of boxes, or when he was passing a doorway.

He felt stupid for not having seen it before. He had thought that Howard was his friend, but this wasn’t how friends behaved around one another. This was just plain cruel.

“Steve?”

Howard’s hand was still on his thigh.

“Yes?” Steve said, gritting his teeth.

“I’m talking about homosexuality, Steve. It’s alright for you to fuck men now – they won’t throw you in jail for it anymore you know. Even the army is doing its part – don’t ask don’t tell was repealed.” Howard said. He emphasized the word fuck, digging his thumb against the seam as he said it; Steve didn’t flinch. He watched as Howard’s thumb returned to rubbing circles, moving so lazily it was as if it was a separate sentient entity altogether. Howard’s lip twitched at the corners, waiting, eyes glinting with promises of things to come.

Steve clung to his patience, willing it to stay strong; this had been his friend – a man he had trusted. He channeled the rage bubbling up inside him and took in a deep breath centring himself before prying Howard’s hand off of his thigh. He turned to face Howard, staring him down as the seatbelt cut into his shoulder.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about Howard, and while I’m all for change, please don’t touch me like that. It makes me uncomfortable. You’re supposed to be my friend.”

Howard pretended to look crushed and threw his hands up in front of his face, mock swooning at the reprimand; the drama queen, as always. He and Loki should have gotten together and taken their show on the road.

“You’re so mean Steve! Honestly…” Howard pouted.

“I’m mean because I don’t want you pawing at me?” Steve said.

“Well when you put it that way…” Howard sighed. “You make it sound crass.”

Howard shrugged, leaning against the door with the casual air of a predator waiting for the kill, eyes still trained on Steve, studying him with renewed interest; Steve would have preferred that interest to have died a long, slow and painful death. He wondered how many other things he had missed about his so called friend; how many other people had he done this to over the years? The urge to punch was much stronger, almost uncontrollable.

“You used to react differently. I remember you turning white as a sheet once when I grabbed you from behind while you were talking with Peggy. Now you just blush like some kind of virginal waif and whine about your feelings.” Howard grinned wolfishly. “It’s entertaining. I like it.”

“I’m surprised that you don’t still have the black eye she gave you. I think it took what… a good week and half to get rid of it? She had quite the swing. She would probably slug you again if she was around right now.” Steve commented dryly.

“Heh, yes well, that was Peggy for you. She always did know what to do to get people to back off… Iron fists and all that jazz.” Howard sighed, shaking his head. “I’m sorry… I guess I was just hoping that something might have changed with you. I was always interested in you honey. I wanted to take you out on a nice date, but of course you were unconscious and all so that would have just been awkward for the both of us. I suppose I’m far too old to try and win over you young lovelies anymore. Cradle robbing, they call it now.” Howard grumbled, flapping a hand at Steve.

Steve snorted, rolling his eyes. “Maybe they just don’t want to rob the grave.”

Howard looked genuinely shocked at that; it lasted a whole thirty seconds before he burst out giggling, hands clasped over his mouth, face turning redder than Steve’s had.

“Good god – you’ve still got quite the bite to you, don’t you? I’d almost forgotten you were so mouthy.”

“I have to be. I’m small enough for most people to step over. If I don’t bite back, they’ll just push me around, and I hate bullies.” Steve growled in warning.

“True enough.” Howard sighed. He scrubbed a hand over his beard, thoughtful all of a sudden. “There are some things you should know, I suppose.”

“What things?” Steve asked, suspicious about the change in topic.

“Oh, just some things about my son… Some warnings for you really, nothing overly complicated.”

“What do you mean?”

“Tony’s quite the handful – completely shit-faced half the time I visit, and honestly, I don’t know why he does it. Personally I think he just wants to poke a finger in his old man’s eyes, but really, what do I know. I’ve never been good with people of his kind.” Howard said.

“People of his kind?” Steve frowned.

“You know. Children – little ones. He didn’t exactly grow up right in the head, which is entirely Maria’s fault by the way. She let him get away with too much – but that’s not really important. What is important is that he’s not quite the charmer that I am.”

“And that means, what, exactly?”

“Well, it means that he doesn’t really have manners. I wanted to give you a heads up before he stuck his hands down your pants and tried to do something to you ten seconds into the stay. He’s…” Howard trailed off, pursing his lips. “He lacks initiative except for when he does something to piss me off. I suppose he blames me for his mother’s death, or something of the sort. We don’t talk all that often and as I’ve said before, I would rather you be staying with me then with that degenerate, but Fury isn’t backing down anytime soon, so we’ll just have to make do.”

“I’m sure he’s not that bad.” Steve said, grimacing at the window. How could Howard talk like that about his own son? Steve had heard kinder words spoken by super villains in the heat of battle!

“He’s useless is what he is. I have him learning responsibility these days. So far nothing has stuck. Maybe having you around will give him the motivation to get his act together.” Howard grunted, turning away to look out his own window.

Steve had never wanted a car ride to end so quickly before. He was pretty sure that if Happy didn’t start driving faster someone was going to be met by a very untimely demise, and it wasn’t going to be him.

Steve had to stifle his urge to cheer when he realized that they were indeed at the end of their journey. They pulled up in front of a large mansion that could have been on a magazine for home and gardens if the front yard wasn’t quite so diseased looking. The mansion wasn’t falling down, but it lacked the certain splendor of most wealthy homes, and it certainly didn’t look like a place Tony Stark would be holed up in; the paint was peeling a little at the sides near the shutters, and the hedges looked like they had taken on a life of their own. The lawn seemed to have been cut by someone who had no idea how to make straight lines, someone possibly drunk out of their mind.

This mansion wasn’t the same as the Avengers Mansion; it wasn’t even in the same league really. There were just the two floors to the place, three if you included the roof. Steve counted only seven windows on the front side of the building. This must have been one of Howard’s smaller mansions, something he had bought just to use as a throw-away, or maybe for the tax break.

“I lent this place to the brat so that he could get out of my hair. It’s not his of course. He’s more like a caretaker. We have an understanding. I don’t charge him rent and in return he cleans up his own messes and doesn’t light the place on fire. He grew up with too much silver spoon and not enough of the lash I’m afraid. He doesn’t understand the real world at all.” Howard sighed in despair.

They got out of the car sluggishly, stretching their stiff limbs. It hadn’t been a long drive, only an hour or so from the private hospital, but it had been long enough for Steve to get a few kinks in his legs; he suspected that he would have had those even if it had only been a fifteen minute drive. His legs still weren’t completely friends with him yet, and they didn’t appreciate spending any amount of time lounging around.

Happy trailed along behind them carrying Steve’s new luggage as Howard led the way up the driveway, humming a tune that sounded mysteriously similar to the wedding march. Steve lingered for a moment beside the car to catch his breath, not quite sure that he was ready for what he might see. His stomach felt as if it were doing somersaults, not to mention the fact that his heart was practically lunging up out of his throat and into his mouth; with his knotted leg muscles the way they were, he felt like he was going to have to crawl up the driveway, a gnarled hunchback.

He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. He was shaking – oh god, he was shaking! He took another breath, and another. “Get it together Steve – you can’t break down now.” He muttered to himself. He started up the driveway, determined to see things through till the end, ignoring the way his hands were trembling uncontrollably; he had been shot at before, and his hands hadn't shaken then.

Howard climbed up the porch with a whistle, taking the steps two at a time. He banged hard on a large red double door nearest him, a rough clang sounding with each strike as the wrought iron knocker bounced in place, the angry lion now holding a dancing loop. He stood in front of the door with his hands on his hips, grumbling to himself about useless ingrates and lazy bastards, tapping his foot, every so often looking at his wristwatch as if he was wasting a serious amount of time being there on the doorstep. Steve stood a step behind him, waiting on the edge of the porch so that he could try to catch sight of Tony from around Howard’s broad shoulders. For an eighty-something-year old-man, Howard was still impressively wide in the shoulders which made it remarkably hard to see anything around him aside from a small patch of white on the door frame.

The door swung open, making Steve jump in place as it slammed into the wall, the ring clattering.

This was it – he would see Tony, and everything would be –

Tony Stark stepped out of the front door clutching a beer bottle in one hand and a television remote in the other; Howard stepped to the side, avoiding the door as it bounced back towards him, and it was then that Steve got a better look at Tony. Tony was around five foot nine, thin, worn, and a lot less healthy looking than his dream counterpart had been. He had bags under his eyes that a raccoon might have envied, skin so pale that it looked like he had rolled around in melted marshmallows. His dark brown hair, while being its normal messy self, looked brittle, as if he hadn’t been taking much care of it; the only part of him that looked maintained was his beard, his iconic van dyke, which was neatly trimmed as always although a little on the scraggly side. The rest of him mirrored his hair; unkempt and dishevelled. Tony’s clothing hung from his frame, barely hanging on, looking a little like they was going to fall off if he tried to move around too much. He looked underweight for his height, his hips sharp like blades, poking out against the top of his sweat pants.

He wasn’t at all like the Tony that Steve remembered from his memories; this wasn’t the same Tony at all.

Steve felt like he had taken a blow to the solar plexus, staggered by the sight.

Tony’s eyes darted from Howard to Steve. He sniffed disdainfully at Steve and then ignored him altogether, attention and wobbly gaze square on Howard.

“I told you on the phone, I don’t want him. You can take him somewhere else, because he’s not staying here.” Tony said, leaning against the door frame. He swayed, very obviously drunk.

Steve stared at Tony, his mouth going completely dry at the sight of Tony’s unforgiving glare. He took a step backwards and then to his horror tumbled down the steps with an audible oomph as he hit each step on the way down. He came to a stop on the last step, winded and wincing, eyes filling with tears that he tried to convince himself were only there because of the pain in his backside. Howard was beside him in an instant, scooping him up, dusting him off with rough hands that went everywhere; for a moment Steve felt as if he was going to completely seize up, his breath stuck in his chest. He swallowed hard, trying to suck in air that just wouldn’t come.

“Jesus, Steve, be careful! You’ve only been out of the hospital for an hour! They’re going to skin me alive if I bring you back all banged up!” Howard grumbled, patting Steve on the back. Steve looked down at his feet, studying the dust on his once perfectly shined shoes, trying to keep from blacking out. He had faced down bullies and soldiers before, but this …. All he could hear was Tony’s voice saying four words repeated in an endless loop.

Tony didn’t want him.

Tony didn’t want him.

Tony didn’t want him.

The words bounced around inside Steve’s head, bashing into the memories of Tony wrapped up in arms; the memories of months and months of smiles, kisses and soft touches, shattering the relationship he had built into nothing more than dust.

“Take a breath kid, it’s fine.” Howard said soothingly, rubbing a circle between Steve’s shoulder blades; Steve let out a breath he hadn’t even realized he had been holding, almost gasping for air when he did, a fish out of water.

“Look at the guy – he can’t even stand up. Why the hell did you drag him out here in the first place? Scrawny little fucker looks like he’s going to cry too.” Tony complained, taking a sip of his beer, gesturing with the remote as if it were a sceptre. His eyes lingered on Steve, looking him up and down; Steve felt as if he were being x-rayed, his insides ripped out and laid bare for all to see. He shivered and stepped away from Howard, trying to regain his balance, the world lurching beneath his feet. He gagged into his hand, eyes watering and burning.

“Behave yourself Tony. He’s still a little off because he was in a coma for seventy fucking years – honestly! The one time I need you to do something useful and you’ve fucked it up too! Congratulations! Are you happy now? Jesus – Steve, are you alright?” Howard settled a hand on Steve’s shoulder, looking absolutely livid and concerned at the same time. “Say something honey. You alright down there?”

Steve shook his head; his mouth didn’t seem to be able to work anymore and his tongue felt as if it had been dipped in lead. He simply stared at Tony unable to look away. Was this the man he had fallen so deeply in love with? The man who had pulled him out of his misery and given him a home?

Tony stood forbidding and vicious in the doorway, a rabid animal protecting its den.

No. This wasn’t his Tony.

Steve swallowed hard, making eye contact with Tony in a last ditch attempt at drawing out the man he knew and loved, the man who had to be there; he just had to be. Tony’s eyes narrowed into slits. He scowled darkly at Steve.

“What? You got a problem buddy?” Tony snapped.

“I…” Steve managed to get out, his voice no more than a squeak. He endured the intense glare for a few moments longer before being forced to look away, ashamed and at a loss.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause any problems.” He whispered, hands hanging at his sides, limp and useless. He hung his head. He had lost a part of himself; something had gone rushing away, leaving him hollow and staggered. He hadn’t even felt this broken the day his mother had died all those years ago. Losing her and Bucky had been nothing in comparison. He had known it could be bad, but he had never thought that it could be this bad.

It had been stupid, he realized, to think that Tony would remember when no one else did. He had been blind. He had been senseless and stupid. He had been hopeful. He should have known better than to trust blindly in anything. He should have known better than to believe in miracles. He was pathetic – why had he even bothered getting out of that hospital bed?

“You…” Tony stared at him, eyes widening. He bobbled in the doorway, pushing himself away from it and approached, watching Steve like this were the first time he had seen another person before in his life.

“You’re sorry? Why the hell are you sorry?” Tony asked; for a drunk, his voice wasn’t the least bit slurred. It was a little frightening how clear he was, how apparently in touch with his thoughts he seemed to be.

“I shouldn’t be here. I should be…” Steve sighed, voice barely audible almost drowned out by the cars passing by behind him. A cricket chirped, and then another, sounds picking up from where they had stopped off like the war starting up again after a ceasefire. He wished it was gunfire he was hearing. He could deal with gunfire.

Tony frowned, the beer bottle hanging from his fingertips, forgotten, liquid sloshing inside as the bottle tilted threatening to spill out.

“What?” Tony asked, confused.

“I shouldn’t be here. I’m disturbing you and it’s… it’s not fair that you have to have your life disrupted because of me – I should go –” Steve mumbled, still staring at his feet, his words tumbling from his mouth like broken teeth. He wished it was broken teeth; he could have handled a mouthful of blood, bleeding lips and hands. He wished that this could be anything else. Anything to kill the dull pain in his heart.

“Oh, nonsense! Tony’s glad for the company, isn’t he? You can stay here for as long as you need. It won’t be a problem.” Howard barked, giving his son with a look so venomous that Tony actually took a step backwards, flinching; the beer bottle clanked, hitting the railing and the last few precious drops splashing onto the porch. Tony cursed.

“Great…” Tony whined. “Now the beer’s gone.”

“Yes, the beer is gone. Jesus Tony. Grow the fuck up.” Howard snapped, moving forwards as if to grab at his son’s shirt. Howard’s phone gave a sharp beep. He let out a hissed breath and pulled the phone out to glare at it instead, flicking the touchscreen. He stuffed the phone back into his pocket, looking grim.

“Happy, please leave the bags here. Tony will help Steve carry his things inside. We have a meeting, as I have been so kindly informed by the lovely Ms. Potts, with the board in half an hour and I would hate to show up late. Steve…” Howard said, resting a hand consolingly on Steve’s shoulder, turning his back on Tony. “Don’t worry about him. He’s always been a big disappointment. You’ll get used to it, I promise.”

Happy set Steve’s bags and the laptop bag down beside Steve’s feet as Steve floundered, marching back to the car. Howard gave Steve’s shoulder a good squeeze and went back to the car as well; he cast a glance over his shoulder at Tony, eyes narrowed and then got in, waving goodbye to Steve through the window. The car pulled away.

Steve turned to watch them go, arm half raised in protest, half to wave goodbye, his brain on autopilot. He saw Tony out of the corner of his eye bending down to pick up his bags, the television remote tucked into the waistband of his sweatpants to keep it from falling to the ground.

“Don’t worry about him. He’s always been a big disappointment. You’ll get used to it, I promise. He’s such a jackass.” Tony muttered bitterly to himself, hefting Steve’s bags over his shoulder. He gestured to the laptop bag with his foot, the now empty beer bottle clenched in his other hand, his knuckles white.

“Pick up your laptop and let’s get this show on the road. I don’t have all day – well… really, I do have all day, I just don’t want to spend it this close to sober, so move it short stack.” Tony said, stomping unsteadily up the steps.

Steve hefted his laptop bag over his shoulder, and followed Tony inside. He moved along, putting one foot in front of the other; his mind was moving at a snail’s pace, chugging along while the rest of him tried to desperately catch up with what had just happened. He was lost, waking up all over again not in reality, but in a nightmare.