When the DEO called, Steve knew that it had to be serious. After all, they had Supergirl on their roster, and Superman on speed dial. From the beginning, Steve had felt uneasy about the realization that he was apparently third in line when things went south over at the DEO. But that was nothing compared to how uneasy he feels now, ushering Kara into the spartan hotel suite that the DEO rented out for their agents to run some last minute reconnaissance before he arrived on the scene. It was because of their surveillance that Steve was able to track her down so quickly, but that still doesn't explain why it was so easy for him to apprehend her. He was expecting more of a fight from her, and a dirty one at that, but in the end he was left with the nagging feeling that she had pulled her punches.
As suspicious as it was, Steve decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth right then. When he found her, Kara was in a crowded public park, the potential for civilian injuries perilously high; keeping people out of harm’s way had to be his first priority. What’s more, Steve knew that Kara would never forgive him if he had a chance to limit how much damage she could do and he chose not to take it.
So he did. It was too easy and he knew it, but Steve took the first opening he saw and didn’t press the issue when Supergirl all but let herself get captured. It’s not until they’re alone in the suite, waiting on a DEO caravan to escort them back to headquarters, that he finally calls her on it.
She’s cuffed, but he’s not under the impression it makes him any safer. Still, he stares her down as if she couldn’t disintegrate him with a glare. "Look, I’m not kidding myself here. I know the only reason I was able to bring you in is because you let me. But I won’t drag any more agents into this until I can be sure you won’t lash out, so get comfortable."
Lash out? ( it's almost laughable, how sure he sounds of himself, like his shield and slung punches could disarm her. the cuffs that dangle around her wrist are only steel, as easy as a twig to snap if she felt inclined. a fool's attempt at restraining something they couldn't possibly understand. ) I'm not the one lashing out, Captain.
( she knew why he was there. national city was three thousand miles from the avengers' ivory tower, but he was closer. he was the golden boy, the parallel to that two-dimensional too-good-to-be-true golden girl cat had tried to paint her as on tv. little miss do-good, little miss sunshine, always giving, giving, giving, never getting what she wanted. what she needed. not anymore, though. kara wasn't going to settle for second-best, or for what she was allowed. she was going to take it, by force if necessary, and to hell with anybody else.
she had hoped that her little stunt in the park might have netted her a showdown with kal-el, a real fight, something that would flex her muscles just itching for an opportunity, but they'd sent him instead, a patriotic present served up in a bulletproof van. not that bulletproof meant anything to real power. and now, thanks to his sweet, sweet naivety, they were alone, his only backup held aside by his own bravado. )
I don't want anybody to get hurt, ( she drawls, mockingly sincere; in the moments that follow, there's the quiet echo of metal clinking together behind her back, though her hands stay where he'd placed them for now. ) So why don't you come make me comfortable, boy scout?
( being a superhero comes fairly easy to kara. well, the hero part comes easily to her, at least — the billowing cape, the selfless application of skill and strength for the betterment of her city (and country, and even her planet, lately), and the courage to do the right thing even when it hurts. it's the super part that trips her up. being a public figure, one with no privacy, no right to have a bad day or a mess-up, has always been the challenge for kara.
she's been lucky enough to have cat grant in her corner. catco has always protected supergirl in the media, dissuaded the lowbrow paparazzi-fueled stories that would paint her as anything less than the good girl they've cast her to be. supergirl is the bronzed heroine of their digital age, practically the stuff of legends. her place is in national city, defending the helpless and protecting the weak.
so it comes as a bit of a surprise to kara to find herself summoned to new york city out of the blue one summer afternoon, the address in her dossier leading her to the gleaming glass front of avenger tower. supergirl isn't exactly inconspicious, but at least arriving from the air brings her to the flight deck rather than the ground-floor level; as much as she doesn't mind taking pictures or signing autographs in her cape and skirt, sometimes it's nice to have a quiet entrance for a change.
not that the quiet lasts very long, because it never really does for her. no, the quiet lasts only for a moment, because as soon as she pushes open the doors, there's a high-strung woman in a suit greeting her, talking a mile a minute and guiding her with a tentative hand to her arm into a small conference room where, judging by the sudden hush that falls over the room, it's clear she's the last to arrive.
the meeting itself is brief, almost clinically straightforward; kara can only listen with increasing flustered expressions as the public relations representative explains exactly why the avengers — technically, s.h.i.e.l.d., but "the semantics aren't important here" — have requested supergirl via interagency loan. the public's perception of "superheroes" has reached a critical low. they need a public relations boost, and after intense research and investigation, they've found the simplest option will be the best: love. not real love, though. fake love. pretend love. it works for celebrities. the public eats it up. they don't care if it's real or not, they just want to believe it.
and with that, kara's left alone (or rather, they're left alone) to resign herself to the reality of her situation, to review the copy of the dossier she hadn't bothered to read yet. she'd assumed there would be time to read and voice her objections upon arrival; if she'd taken the time to read before flying, she might have had a chance to protest to j'onn. now, though, it was too late — his signature as her supervising officer was already there, black and white on the faxed copy, and with it, her fate was sealed.
whether kara liked it or not, she was going to date steve rogers. or, rather, supergirl was going to date captain america. starting that day, because time was apparently of the essence, and they had a photo op in a park to create. )
I know you said 'don't be a stranger', but I didn't think this is what you meant.
To say that the mood in the conference room is tense would be an understatement. To the casual observer, it would appear that Captain America has been doing his level best to maintain that tension since the moment he arrived. And the truth is, that casual observer would be right. Steve understands that The Avengers need this, that it's even bigger than his team; he's seen the statistics, the polling data, the cable news punditry all pointing to an all-time low in public opinion on superheroes. He still disagrees fundamentally with what S.H.I.E.L.D. and the D.E.O. have proposed as a solution. But Fury knows just how to work him, because his briefing packet contained irrefutable evidence of the correlation between superheroes' abysmal approval ratings and rising hate crimes against enhanced individuals.
Few of the incidents have been widely publicized, as is so often the case with crimes against a politically vulnerable population, but S.H.I.E.L.D. has collected enough data to convince Steve of the urgency of the situation. Hostility against the enhanced will continue to rise until the public mood on superheroes shifts, and the people who will be most affected don't have time to wait for Steve to come up with a better solution. It's his discomfort versus the safety of hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians. So he agrees. But he makes sure that every S.H.I.E.L.D. and D.E.O. agent in this conference room is well aware of his disapproval. He can only hope it motivates them to come up with something better the next time they face a public perception problem.
Fury knew better than to show his face today, so he's glaring daggers at Maria Hill when Supergirl is escorted into the room. His heart sinks when he realizes she has no idea why they've called her in. He had the benefit of a heads up from Natasha, but not everyone has a Black Widow in their circle. He doesn't know how he would have reacted without advance warning, he just knows he couldn't have maintained his composure half as well as Supergirl ultimately does.
When the agents leave, Steve remains in his seat at the opposite end of the conference table, staring down at the folder in his hands and listening to the soft rustling of pages as she flips through her own packet. Suddenly, it occurs to Steve that she might think that he was in on all of this from the start, and he needs her to know that he would never have approve this plan, nor is he a fan of the execution, but before he opens his mouth to speak, she's diffusing the tension with a joke. His shoulders sag in relief; he couldn't express how grateful he feels to her in that moment if he tried.
"It really wasn't," he promises. "Fury's always had a unique way of bringing people together. I can't even say for sure that this is a first for S.H.I.E.L.D." He tries to tone down the bitterness in his voice before adding, "I'm sorry you got dragged into this."
[ Steve Rogers may not know Daisy Johnson personally, but he has certainly heard of her. Her name is a recurring element in any conversation to do with enhanced individuals and the regulation thereof. Secretary Ross uttered it in the same stiff tone of voice he used for Wanda Maximoff, equal parts fear and resentment that one individual should possess such incredible power. Men like Ross are only ever fond of great power when they stand a chance of controlling it, and people like Wanda and Daisy Johnson are not inclined to let others wield them like human weapons. (He can only guess about Johnson, but her S.H.I.E.L.D. file certainly hinted at a rebellious streak.)
He doesn't know Daisy Johnson yet, but he feels as if he has a responsibility to her. It's all wrapped up in the sense of debt he feels toward everyone who now lives with a target on their back for being Inhuman or otherwise enhanced. Not that Steve believes that a better outcome was ever possible; the Sokovia Accords were fundamentally about restricting the rights and liberties of enhanced individuals, and no amount of negotiation was ever going to change that. But it's hard to not look at the aftermath and wonder if he could have somehow played it smarter.
Just because there was no other way doesn't mean that Steve has to sit back and watch a bad situation roll further downhill. Whether or not he could have prevented all of this is irrelevant; it went down the way that it did and now here they are. He knows only too well that no amount of hoping or wishing can turn back time. The only option is to move forward, and his way forward is making sure that the people he helped put in harm's way have the tools to defend themselves.
One of the perks of being an international fugitive is that the stakes can only get so high; he doesn't worry about ending up on a watchlist because he's already on all of them. As are several people far less deserving of the distinction, which is where Steve comes in. He's spent the past several weeks finding new and creative ways of crippling registration enforcement efforts, usually by targeting surveillance operations. He has kept his distance, working under cover of dark and taking great care to avoid notice. But when the new director of S.H.I.E.L.D. parades Daisy Johnson out on the national stage, Steve instantly recognizes the discomfort in her body language. It reminds him of how he felt before his first USO shows, only he had more or less known what he was getting himself into. He didn't get the sense that Agent Johnson had signed up to be S.H.I.E.L.D.'s poster child, a dangerously public position for any Inhuman to hold in the current political climate. If she is being thrust into the spotlight against her will, he needs to help.
He doubts that Johnson will appreciate coming home to find him hiding in the shadows of her living room, but he can't exactly approach her in line at Starbucks. So he is waiting for her when she finally gets home that night, passing the time by brainstorming the least startling way to announce his presence. He sits up straighter when he hears her footsteps rounding the hall. It occurs to him that he's been in her exact position before, only when he opened his door, it was Nick Fury making himself at home in Steve's apartment. Steve isn't thrilled to find himself in Fury's shoes, but it's too late to second guess himself. He can already hear the key turning in the lock, and any second now he'll be introducing himself to the woman whose apartment he broke into. Here goes nothing.
As the door swings open, Steve steps forward into the faint yellow haze from the streetlights, flooding in through the cracks between the window blinds. ]
Agent Johnson. I'm sorry to drop in on you like this, but I was hoping we could talk.
[ she doesn't need an apartment. the fourth floor walk-up isn't the height of luxury, but a thousand square feet is ten times the floor space of her van — though if daisy's honest, she could probably do with half of it. she doesn't cook, barely remembers she has a couch at all; when she's home (if she's home at all), it's to crash on a bed she didn't even pick out, to crawl in between sheets stiff from disuse, and to sleep for as many uninterrupted hours as her schedule will allow.
maybe it's the fact that she's almost never here that lets her discount home security. she could have rigged up intrusion alarms, hidden cameras, trip wires — the dark web was filled with options, but so was the local home improvement store, and if she'd really been set on it, she's sure fitz could have helped her rig something up. but, honestly? she's never home, and she doesn't own anything that she'd mind losing that she leaves at home, so fuck it. security cameras and deadbolts were for boomer yuppies that had actual home furnishings. daisy's still counting herself lucky to sleep on an actual mattress.
tonight, she comes home distracted. key in the lock, hand on the doorbell, but her mind's elsewhere; it's arguing with mace over some stupid policy presentation, about dressing her up in yet another pseudo-patriotic pantsuit to sweet talk people who would rather see her dead or behind bars, mumbling irritated catchphrases under her breath as her bag drops to the empty box she keeps by the door for just this purpose. sure, it's tacky, but it works.
she's fully planning on riding this irritation train straight to bed. it would be nice. but that's not going to happen, because she's greeted with the absolutely terrifying surprise of some deep voice and the face behind it coming out of fucking nowhere with 'agent johnson' like that's normal. ]
What the fuck! [ thank god for training, honestly, because it's literally only muscle memory that prompts daisy to pull the smith and wesson from her belt. it's certainly not her logical, fully aware of her surroundings brain.
and then, after a beat, in which recognition dawns and daisy simultaneously clutches the gun a little tighter and hopes to god this isn't a test: ] You better have a damn good reason to break into my apartment, Captain.
"If I die," he'd told Rhodey, "make sure to bring me back to the lab. Don't let them do anything stupid, okay?"
Rhodey had given him a "what kind of stupid stunt do you have planned, Stark?" look, but had agreed in the end. And maybe that's what gives him the strength to look Thanos in the eye and snap his fingers, because he has a backup plan - it might not work, it's not like he can test it, but at least it's there.
(Maybe, in the end, he wants to prove to Steve that he can be the one to make the sacrifice play. That even if he hadn't worked it out, he'd still do this to save the world. And, really, he would; there's no denying that.)
Afterwards, he's tired - an exhaustion that seems to cut through his very soul. The kid's there, crying, and he tries to tell him it'll be all right, that he did a good job, but Tony can't manage to say anything, not even a croak. Everything hurts, and he's tired, and-
To him, it's little more than a blip. (Isn't that just the way things are going lately?) Realistically, Tony knows that it's been at least three days, that the cradle's rebuilt his body from scratch and uploaded a backup of his brain seconds before...seconds before, well, everything. Reducing it to scientific terms makes it easier to grasp; brains are just very complicated computers, and Tony's a fucking genius at code, and-
Okay, it's not so easy to grasp, and a moment of sheer existential terror rolls over him. Nearby, monitors blip alarmingly as his heart rate increases, and Tony's fingernails dig into the soft skin of his palms. (What's real anymore? Is he still real? Is he human? Fuck, why did he think this was a good idea?)
"Boss?" FRIDAY's voice sounds worried. "Boss, your vital signs are spiking. Is there an error in the programming? Should I initiate the Old Yeller protocol?"
God, there are moments when Tony regrets his sense of humor. (Not many, but they exist.) "No," he grits out. "No, Fri, it's fine. I'm fine." What's the keyword again? Shit. "Rosebud," he tries, but that's definitely not it. "Lassie, Flipper, Rin-Tin-Tin, Scooby-Doo-" Everything's slipping through his fingers as he panics. "Gandalf." Not an animal at all, as it turns out, and his heart rate slows a little. At least he's not in any danger of being destroyed.
He still hasn't made it out of the regeneration cradle, though. Tony stays there, staring up at the ceiling. "Is Steve around?" he asks finally. "Get him for me, FRIDAY. Unlock the damn door and let him in."
This is a great idea that cannot possibly go wrong in any way, shape, or form. Tony doesn't care; right now, he just wants to see Steve.
-- Wherever Steve is in the compound, FRIDAY suddenly speaks up, without warning. "Captain Rogers, your presence is required. Please proceed to Tony's workshop." When he gets there, he'll see that one of the panels of the wall has slid back, revealing a secret door and a palm reader, which responds to his palm and unlocks the door.
Steve hasn't slept much in the past three days and tonight is no different. He gave it a good try earlier, when the fatigue felt all-consuming and sleep couldn't possibly elude him— or so he'd thought. After half an hour shifting every which way in search of a comfortable position, he dozed off for what felt like just a few minutes, then jolted back to consciousness with his heart pounding in his chest. Steve was frustrated but not surprised. His body seemed to have adopted a policy of aggressive resistance against any and every effort to relax.
He was staring up at the ceiling wondering how to fill the long, quiet hours until sunrise when FRIDAY's voice broke the silence. It wasn't what she said so much as the urgency with which she said it that made Steve bolt out of bed and break into a run as soon as his feet hit the cold tile floor.
Steve slowed only slightly as he approached Tony's workshop, a spark of doubt cutting through the adrenaline for the first time. It was hard not to feel like he was invading Tony's privacy, stepping into this space when Tony wasn't around to grant access— or deny it. But before Steve could hesitate, the door slid open for him. FRIDAY's permission would have to suffice; who was less likely to violate Tony's trust than an AI of his own design?
Most of the workshop was still dark. FRIDAY helpfully illuminates a direct path to a door that Steve would bet money wasn't there before. He is familiar enough with the hallucination stage of sleep deprivation to know that he hasn't reached it yet. Still, reality does take on a distinctly surreal feel when Steve presses his hand to the palm reader and triggers a hidden door opening onto a secret chamber.
He sees the cradle, recognizes it for what it is, but he's stuck on the sight of it, the shape of it. It looks like a casket. Why he'd make that association now, why it would hit him like a punch to the gut, doesn't follow logic. They held memorials for both Tony and Natasha, but neither had a casket. Natasha's body couldn't be recovered, and Tony...
Tony had—
Tony had given Rhodey specific instructions. Steve hadn't pressed for details, but Tony had given Rhodey specific instructions, and they held a memorial without a body, and FRIDAY just led him to a secret chamber in Tony's workshop with a only regeneration cradle inside. It's impossible, and he's out of his mind for even considering it, but a wild wave of hope washes over him and Steve runs up to the cradle so fast that he has to brace two hands against it to absorb his momentum.
From over the edge of the cradle, Tony Stark stares back at him, alive.
"Is this real?" That isn't what Steve meant to say, but it was the loudest thought in his head, and when he opened his mouth to speak it just escaped.
Since Germany, Sam's been holding it together for Steve's sake. Steve needs someone to be strong right now, after everything that's happened to all of them, even if he won't admit it. But the problem is that Sam isn't doing so hot himself; between what happened to Rhodey and his time on the Raft, he's more of a mess than he's willing to let on. He hasn't been this bad since he came back to the States after his deployment, but at least he'd been with his family then, and he'd been able to hole up in his room on the worst days. Right now, he has no choice but to push through.
Even on the run, Steve's determined to help people any way he can, and that means that they regularly find themselves in the thick of a fight. It's not one of Sam's good days, and his reflexes are slower than they should be. A guy with a knife catches a glancing slash along his ribs before Sam punches him out. He barely notices it in the adrenaline surge of the fight; it's only afterwards when he realizes his shirt's wet that he looks down at the spreading dark stain, the ripped cloth.
"Fuck," Sam says, and then he faints.
When he comes to, he's back in their motel room, laid out in bed. "I've had worse shaving," he croaks weakly, on general principle. And it's really not a bad wound, all things considered - it could be a lot worse. The blade could've gone through his ribs and punctured a lung, and then he'd be eight kinds of fucked (and possibly dead) right now. But he knows Steve's gonna fuss over him like a mother hen nonetheless, and he feels goddamn stupid for getting hurt in the first place. "You know how to stitch a wound, or am I gonna have to talk you through it?" Most other places on his body, he could probably stitch himself up, but the cut is too awkwardly positioned for that to be feasible. At least they've got a better than average first aid kit, including suture tools.
Sighing, Sam lets his head fall back against the pillow, trying to ignore the surge of guilt that rises in his chest. He should've stayed in Wakanda, he thinks - but with Nat off doing her own information-gathering and Wanda, well, being Wanda, Steve's on his own, and he needs someone with him, if only to keep him from running headlong into every goddamn stupid fight he finds. (Because Sam's clearly doing a great job of that right now.)
If Sam had voiced his thought about staying in Wakanda, Steve would have agreed, albeit for different reasons. Steve should have left Wakanda on his own, even if it meant stealing away in the night and denying Sam the chance to argue his case for coming along. Steve wasn't strong enough, then, to tough it out alone, and now look what's happened. He can't seem to stop putting people in harm's way.
Enough. There will be plenty of time for kicking himself later. Right now, Sam has a wound in need of tending.
Their better-than-average first aid kit includes a supply of local anesthetic, because Steve knows what it's like to go without and doesn't wish it on anyone. When Sam comes to, Steve is laser-focused on administering the anesthesia.
"I know what I'm doing," he replies without moving his eyes from the syringe, which he holds at eye level to check for air bubbles. Satisfied, Steve turns his attention to the wound. "Little prick," he warns before the first injection, starting from the top of the slash, just a few millimeters from the actual cut. He injects a small dose of anesthetic and pushes the two-inch needle a little further, keeping parallel with the wound, until he’s deposited the anesthetic evenly. He has to repeat the process two more times to span the length of the wound, then start again from the opposite side.
When it's done, there's nothing to do but wait. In a few minutes he'll test if Sam is fully numb, but for now…
Finally, Steve looks up and meets Sam's eyes. He hates seeing Sam like this, hates hearing him sound so weak and tired. Karmically speaking, Steve has probably earned this, with the number of times that Sam has had to sit at the edge of his recovery bed. It just makes him feel worse for not having appreciated how it must have felt on the other side.
It fucking sucks.
"You scared the shit out of me," he admits. It isn't pointed or bitter; he isn't trying to guilt Sam. It's just the plain truth: he was worried. Is worried, even if Sam cracking wise about his predicament is a good sign.
In this world, the Accords are signed without a hitch. There's no explosion, no assassination, no incriminating video to drive a wedge between the Avengers (there is a video, but she's not the one in it). The results, though less immediately violent, are similar; half the Avengers are outlaws, forced to hide from most of the world's governments.
And yet, even on the run, Steve Rogers still pursues her with a dogged determination that she knows will never end. He would follow her to the ends of the earth if he had to; she sealed her fate when she hauled him out of the Potomac. Even so, she can't bring herself to regret doing it. She'd do it again if she had to. Through all the torture, all the brainwashing, everything that HYDRA did to her, Steve was the only fragment of memory she held onto, the only thing she had to call her own. She doesn't remember much about him, but she remembers the feeling of loving him, of being loved. She remembers the purity of his heart, his emotional strength, his goodness.
(It hurts to remember too much about him, or anything else about her past, like shards of broken glass slicing through her brain. For years, it was more convenient to forget nearly everything, but one glimpse of those blue eyes flooded her brain with memories.)
She's tired of running, but she isn't sure she knows what the alternative is, if there is an alternative. She can never be what he wants, she knows that. That woman is dead.
There's no reasonable explanation for why she's sitting cross-legged on the bed of his motel room one day when he returns. She's wearing a white t-shirt and black leggings, drying her hair with a towel and acting like everything is perfectly normal. But her gaze is flat and hard, and there are multiple weapons surrounding her on the bed. A pack next to the bed contains the rest of her worldly belongings - mostly more weapons, a couple changes of clothes. It's apparent that she's here to stay.
"You're bad at hiding," she tells him. Her accent is flat and American, no trace of the crisp RP she'd had during the war. Everything about her is carefully curated to appear perfectly generic, the kind of woman who wouldn't stand out in a crowd.
Edited (super minor wording edit) 2020-07-05 18:33 (UTC)
It doesn't take long for the USO girls to drag Steve into their beds. Sam watches as it happens, her gaze dark and unreadable. Some of the girls whisper that she's a Sapphist - not entirely wrong - but if any of them feel the same, they don't feel the need to proposition her. But, then, she's quiet, always holding back a bit. Steve's the one on stage, awkward as he is, and she's the one flying stunts wherever they can get a plane up in the air. (She fucking hates going back to this; she'd thought she'd gotten away from it when she joined Project Rebirth.) She's not part of the show, not part of the group - and, yeah, she hasn't missed that all the girls are lily-white. They're nice to her, as civil as a bunch of white girls can be, but there's still a line between them. They envelop Steve with chatter and easy camaraderie, and Sam's left to navigate things on her own.
She's just as eager to see action as Steve is, and she jumps at the chance in Azzano. (It's galling to let Stark fly the plane - she's better, goddamnit - but someone has to watch Steve's back, and she can't do both.)
Afterwards, when they stumble back into camp at the head of a column of exhausted soldiers, the girls come back for Steve. Sam just rolls her eyes and slips off in the middle of the cheering. He deserves all the limelight, and she's glad to let him bask in it. She's more interested in a shower and a hot meal.
By the time she staggers back to her tent, all she wants to do is curl up in her cot. Problem is, there's someone else in it already.
( As Tony lifts the gauntlet, veins of pure, bright energy searing through his nanite armor, an inevitable outcome flashes before Steve eyes: once again, he is frozen, powerless, and entirely responsible for what he knows will happen next. In the back of his mind, he can hear Sam telling him about Riley— It's like I was up there just to watch— and the rapidly fading echo of Bucky's screams when he fell. When Steve let him slip.
But this time, Tony is miraculously within reach. Steve jumps into action without a second thought, closing the gap between them in time to wrap his hand around Iron Man's wrist, redirecting and absorbing the endothermic force of the infinity gems.
And that, he expects, is it.
Which is fine. In fact, it's good. It's right. When he first met Tony, Steve accused him of not being brave enough to lay down on the wire. Steve throwing himself on the wire to spare Tony— that's a fitting end. He can make peace with that.
He remembers the feeling, like lava in his veins, pure energy ripping through every molecule of his being. The romanticism of it all comes as a strange, unexpected comfort. His love life was a miserable string of missed opportunities and eventual tragedies. Self-immolating at Tony Stark's feet is a much more explosive gesture than Steve ever would have allowed himself, but since this is the end of him anyway, he's allowed to be dramatic without the guilt, just this once.
Despite his certainty that this is the end, it doesn't take Steve long to catch up when he comes to in a hospital bed. He was intimately familiar with the experience since long before the serum. Not that it's comforting— if he survived the blast, he must be recovering, and the serum can handle that without him being hooked up to several different machines and confined to a stark, empty room.
No, not empty. Not completely. He forces his eyes open, squinting against the harsh overhead lighting to see Tony hovering between the threshold, speaking quietly into his phone.
Steve intends to ask any one of the many questions running through his head: what happened to Thanos and his army? Why isn't Tony in his own hospital bed? How is he alive? But his efforts to form words devolve into a coughing fit as Steve realizes for the first time how dry his throat feels.
Well. That's one way to alert Tony that he's awake. )
[There are probably a half-dozen doctors and nurses who would also like to know why Tony isn't in his own hospital bed, but Tony's always been a terrible patient. Frankly, he refuses to stay in a hospital gown one second longer than is absolutely necessary. At least he can try to hide the gauze covering his right hand in normal clothes - though not very well, because stuffing it in his pocket hurts, big surprise there, so he's mostly just...trying to keep it where Steve can't see it. He hasn't seen it without the bandages yet, and he isn't sure he wants to.
He also isn't sure he should be standing right now - or how much longer his legs will hold him - but that doesn't matter. Tony taps the phone with his thumb to end the call when he hears Steve coughing. He'd known all along that Steve would wake up - was more certain of it than the doctors at some points - because not waking up simply wasn't an option in Tony's mind. Because he'd been willing to call in every doctor, right up to Stephen fucking Strange, to make sure it happened.
And while there's a rush of relief when Steve coughs, the deep anger he's been nursing this whole time flares up after a few moments, like an ember fanned into flames.]
What the fuck? [He tries to snap, but his own voice isn't up to much more than a harsh croak. Tony grabs the pitcher on the bedside table and pours two glasses of water, eyes Steve to try and gauge if he's capable of drinking on his own. He'll probably make a valiant attempt regardless, Tony thinks. God, he's so fucking stubborn.]
[ Officially, Steve Rogers is dead— or on a secret moon base, for those who ascribe to internet-fueled conspiracy theories. Unofficially, he stumbled upon a rip in the time-space continuum while returning the stones and was subsequently enlisted to help repair it before the multiverse collapsed in on itself.
He still has his phone on him, however, so when raw footage hits the internet featuring Sam Wilson giving world leaders a piece of his mind, Steve gets a notification within minutes despite being several timelines removed.
The means to travel through time and space were granted to him for an explicit purpose, and Steve has been careful not to abuse the gift. But the arguments for taking a quick detour to visit Sam are mounting quickly. For starters, Steve had actually just hit a dead end and could benefit from a break. Besides, he has clearly missed some developments back home and could afford to get caught up, even if he can't stay. And last, but perhaps most importantly, is the fact that Steve won't be forgetting how Sam filled out that suit any time soon.
Unsurprisingly, Steve ends up convincing himself to go through with it. By the time that Sam is dramatically soaring away from an active crime scene, Steve has already begun to materialize in Sam's living room. He waits by the front door, barely giving Sam the chance to fish out his keys before he unlocks it himself and yanks Sam in by the collar. ]
Hey Cap, [ he breathes out, backing Sam up against the door as a means to slam it shut. ] Loved your speech. You write that down first or was it all off the top of your head?
[Sam can't say he's happy with Steve jaunting through time and space, but, well, it's a very Steve thing to do, and using his own feelings as leverage to get him to stay is a shitty, manipulative move. It's not like Steve doesn't know, anyway, but he's always been the kind of guy to put duty first - witness literally everything he's ever done - and so is Sam, so he can't fault him for that.
There's a Doctor Who joke on his lips when Steve catches him by surprise, but all witticisms flee when Steve pins him up against the door. It's been a long fucking day, emotionally and physically draining, and all he wants to do is lose himself in Steve and forget about the rest of the world for a moment.]
I had a real good mentor, [he murmurs against Steve's lips as his hands settle at his waist.] And a lot of time to get mad at some asshole politicians.
There's a certain point where you just get used to weird bullshit - probably somewhere around getting dusted for five years and then being brought through a wizard's portal to fight an alien army, if Sam had to pick a particular occurrence. It's part of the glamorous life of a superhero, right up there with having to tell your insurance agency that a brainwashed super-soldier totaled your car or being on the most wanted list. Point is, Sam's life is rarely lacking in excitement.
He'd been enjoying a rare night at home watching the game, right up till the storm broke and the power went out. One thing led to another, and now he's outside in the pouring rain, water dripping down the back of his neck while he plays the beam of his flashlight over a muddy paw print the size of a dinner plate. There's no way that belongs to a stray, he thinks, and suddenly regrets his lack of anything resembling a weapon. (Bucky's going to give him so much shit for this later. Of course, Bucky can be stark naked and still have at least five knives hidden on his body; Sam's not that kind of guy.)
He shines his flashlight into the trees, thinking about how this is how half the Black guys in horror movies get killed. "Anyone out there?" he asks in his best soothing voice. Dog or not, there's no reason to be antagonizing before he gets attacked.
The flashlight shines on a pair of eyes way too far above the ground, and Sam regrets every choice that brought him to this point.
The thought that got Steve through Project Rebirth even when he felt like his heart was less than a beat from giving out was that if he could just get through it, grit his teeth and get to the other side of the pain like he had countless times before, this time he would come out a changed man. This time his pain would have purpose. Either that, or he would die.
This transformation was a lot like that: an excruciating and utterly foreign kind of pain that wasn't sure he could survive. But where he had been determined then, this time he was terrified.
When he finally felt, inexplicably and yet undeniably, that the transformation was complete, the terror didn't retreat. The one thing that cut through it was knowing that his first priority had to be getting far away, where he could be sure that whatever was happening, he wouldn't be a danger to anyone else.
He didn't get far before he realized the obvious trail that his footprints would leave. Climbing the tree had seemed clever at the time, but he soon found himself growling in frustration as the beam of Sam's flashlight honed in on him. He bared his teeth, wishing Sam would decide it wasn't worth the trouble and head back inside.
[Peggy's learnt quite a lot about the TVA in the time she's spent hopping from timeline to timeline. She's had to, in order to stay one step ahead of them. Luckily, her stolen tempad lets her pick up on some of their communiques, and when she catches word of their intended target, she knows that she's got to step in.
Which is how, when Steve shows up in the 1940s and is about to knock on the door, he ends up tackled into the bushes by a red, white, and blue blur instead - and through a door in the air that opens to a deserted planet. The portal snaps shut behind them, but Peggy remains on top of him.]
Of all the bloody stupid ideas!
[She thuds the heel of her palm against his chest as she swears up a blue streak. Is this what you wanted, Steve?]
[ After everything, you would think that something as inconsequential as clothes wouldn't register on Steve's radar. Somehow he still ends up obsessing over what he should wear, both in terms of making sure he fits in with the time and, more importantly, in making his second first impression with Peggy Carter. He doesn't think her so vain that it will even matter, which makes it all the more frustrating when he still loses the better part of the morning switching in and out of clothes.
So, the first absurdly inane thought that Steve has as he gets tackled to the ground is that he wasted all that time pressing his slacks. Then he hears her voice, in that achingly familiar exasperated tone, and the dirt stains on his pants are downgraded to the last thing he could give a damn about. ]
Peggy! [ Steve exclaim-exhales, fresh out of breath in part from the surprise, in part because she so expertly knocked him to the ground. Flat on his back under her weight— which he remembers being substantially less, though he'd go to his grave before mentioning it— Steve can only sit there and wait for the cursing streak to come to its natural end. He's missed her so much that even that puts a goofy smile on his face. ]
[ Some days, Steve fears his grip on reality is slipping. It seems like a reasonable response to what he's been through, but there's more to it than that. He doesn't feel comfortable in this time, no matter where he is; he feels numb and detached, adrift enough to float away if the weight of the world didn't hold him down. And lately there's a new discomfort, but a familiar sensation— he keeps feeling like he's being watched. Someone out there is keeping tabs on him.
Maybe. He can't be sure yet, with nothing but a gut feeling to go on. But he could have sworn he just saw the cursor on his SHIELD-issued laptop move from across the room, and that's what it takes for Steve to finally break and type into the word processor (feeling insane while doing so): ]
I know someone's there.
[ If it's just his imagination, the response (or lack thereof) should confirm it. Steve stares at the screen, feeling taunted by the little blinking bar at the end of his sentence. ]
[ she's looking for something. the people at shield may be nice, welcoming, but they aren't her people. they're what stands between her and what she really wants — answers. information. about herself, about her past, about what dangerous plans they keep hidden in the dark.
skye's looking for answers, following rabbit holes and slipping between various hash-encoded logins, when suddenly the screen flickers. on the machine she's infiltrated, a word document opens. weird enough... but then words.
words that certainly aren't aimed at the writer. words meant for her.
shit. well. she could bail, of course, but something stops her. instinct, maybe. whoever owns this computer hasn't immediately hit an alarm or detached from the web server; instead, they've contacted her directly. maybe that's stupid. maybe it's smart. either way, skye figures she's already in this deep. might as well keep digging. ]
It's classified.
[ best way to convince someone to reveal their info? make them prove they're allowed to have it. ]
Okay, I'm gonna need some help figuring out the level of emotion you want here. Are we talking pet names or like...long, meaningful gazes into your deep blue eyes?
[ By the time that he takes a break from dancing, Steve has just about sweat through his crisp white shirt. He leans back against the bar, both elbows rested on the counter, and watches the dance floor as he catches his breath. Natasha really gave him a challenge: if he hadn't been taking dance classes for weeks leading up to this night, he wouldn't have had a snowball's chance in hell of keeping up. But he did, because if they were dead set on being traditional about this wedding, then Steve Rogers was going to have his first real dance with his husband in front of all their friends and family.
His husband. Just thinking the words brings an uncontrollable grin to Steve's face. He rubs the pad of his thumb against the band around his ring finger. Vibranium and a gold-titanium alloy hammered together to create a flowing pattern not unlike Damascus steel. His smile takes on a soft, dreamy quality when he thinks about Tony in that damned black tank top he always wears when forging, and the way it highlights every bead of sweat that drips down those strong arms of his. The image sparks an ember of want that sinks below his belt. A reminder that the night isn't over and there is still a lot to look forward to.
His eyes scan the party, curious what Tony is up to now. ]
[Tony's mostly been dancing with the handful of kids at the wedding - he might not act like it most of the time, but he's a sucker for kids, and they all love getting to dance with Iron Man (even if he's not wearing the suit). It gives him something to do that isn't the same old small talk and keeps him at the reception for the socially appropriate amount of time without dragging Steve off (or vice versa). It's been months and he still isn't sure how he fell into this ridiculous trap of maintaining Steve's virtue - what had started out as a joke when he'd found out about Steve's virginity had ended up as the most sexually frustrating period of Tony's entire life, and while he doesn't really regret it, he's a little concerned that months of teasing each other might have caused some permanent damage to important parts of his body.
Tony finishes up a dance with the latest little girl, who looks at him with big wide eyes, and he bows to her and kisses the air above the back of her hand. She giggles and scampers off, and Tony waves off the rest of the crowd, pleading exhaustion. Really, he can see Steve alone at the bar, and he hopes this means they can sneak out together.
Tony tries to look suave and calm as he saunters up to the bar and orders a martini.]
[Tony's familiar with losing track of time, but it hasn't happened like this for a long time. Nearly two decades, in fact, and the only difference now is that he's in his own house in Malibu and not haunting the hallways of an East Coast mansion where he's never felt entirely at home. He built this himself to have something he could call his own, rather than the empty grandeur of his parents' estates. It doesn't hold memories of his parents around every corner, and he's thankful for that. It's bad enough when a panic attack leaves him cowering in the corner of his room without feeling like his dad's about to suddenly appear and tell him to fucking man up.
There are good days and bad days, and the latter tend to blur together in a drunken haze. Again, a familiar feeling, though Tony can't drink nearly as much now as he did when he was twenty-one. Probably a good thing; Tony always figured he'd live hard, die young, and leave a pretty corpse, but it turns out that he's not quite ready to shuffle off this mortal coil just yet, so he should maybe ease up on his liver a little. (Not by much.)
Pepper comes by on one of his better days - Tony's changed his clothes and made it to the sofa downstairs, at least - and with her is an absurdly good-looking man who somehow manages to look more uncomfortable in a suit than anyone else Tony's ever seen.
"Don't tell me you're training your replacement." Tony gives her a mock pout. "What are they offering? I'll double it." He doesn't really think Pepper's been poached by someone else - enough people have tried and failed - but she usually comes alone.
"It's not that. I just-" Pepper glances away quickly, then back. "I think you need someone around you more. And I'm busy taking care of things at Stark Industries, so I just recruited someone to keep you company, that's all."
"Well, at least you remembered I like blondes." Tony eyes him suspiciously. He doesn't give off therapist vibes, but it's not impossible. "All right, fine, I accept your offer of eye candy."
"Tony, that's not what I meant."
"I know what you meant." And he doesn't want to talk about it. As he's told Rhodey often enough, he doesn't need a damn babysitter.
Pepper makes some more excuses, sets a stack of paperwork on the slice of redwood that serves as a coffee table, then leaves him alone with his new best friend.]
I'll double your salary if you don't come and tell her you did.
Edited (ugh i keep finding typos sorry) 2023-05-04 01:38 (UTC)
[ This isn't the sort of thing that Steve Rogers would normally agree to. He is not a spy— not a judgment, just a statement of fact. It simply isn't his skill set. He also has misgivings about the way that Director Fury— and by extension S.H.I.E.L.D.— have handled his return. (For now, he keeps those thoughts to himself because, frankly, he doesn't know where else he would go.)
On the face of it, he has very little reason to go along with this. And yet.
It so happens that S.H.I.E.L.D. locates Captain America's arctic wreckage just as Colonel Rhodes finds Tony Stark in the middle east. The media frenzy around Stark's triumphant return, they tell Steve, is only a fraction of what he could expect if his story got out. It makes Steve feel sleazy, like he is letting Tony Stark take the heat for him while he hides.
When Fury offers him the mission, Steve doesn't need to think it over. Just because Stark is home doesn't mean he is safe. Steve can't spare him the unwanted attention, but he can protect him from a repeat attempt on his life.
He doesn't start to rethink that choice until he is standing in a jarringly modern cliff-side mansion being called eye candy, a new euphemism that Steve contextualizes with help from Tony's comment about liking blondes. Pepper leaves too soon and then he is being bribed. To say it's not what he expected would be understating things. ]
You really think she wouldn't notice? [ He gestures in the direction Pepper disappeared to. ]
( she does not much care for bodyguards. she does not need one, not really. sure, she's been — well, less than careful. less than rule-abiding, specifically. she's dug her nose into places SHIELD has no interest in letting her go, asked too many questions of the wrong people, accidentally not returned one too many documents at one too high a clearance level... the charges are fair, if not a bit pedantic. daisy's willing to admit that. but she doesn't need a bodyguard. she isn't delicate.
in truth, steve is SHIELD's equivalent of a parole officer, a half-retired superhero kept on the payroll with this low-risk responsibility, but the way he huffs in frustration when she so much as breaks a nail feels a lot like a bodyguard.
maybe that's why she toes the line so much, why she tries his patience, tries to slip his too-attentive gaze, even if it's just to dart under the employees only rope in the art museum. maybe it'll prove he's out to stop her from doing something SHIELD doesn't want on their records, stop her from embarassing them — and not because he cares about her well-being.
[ He isn't an agent. He could never fit the mold. But the ask came from Coulson and Steve knew it had to be important. You don't call in a Captain America favor for any little thing.
Bodyguard may not be the official title, but that's what he is in spirit. He couldn't care less what she did to offend S.H.I.E.L.D.; Steve is just as likely to poke his head where it doesn't belong. But he takes her safety seriously, earning a reputation with her for being strict and immovable. He doesn't disabuse her of the impression.
Still, as much as he is himself a troublemaker, it is with real exasperation that he chases her down a hallway in the art museum designated for employees only. ]
There's not even any art back here. [ #priorities ] What was the point?
old miss olive and her bridge club miss you. you should come down again sometime. we could take the boat out if you can stand abandoning the ladies for a hot minute.
[ Maybe, juuuuust maybe, Sam misses Steve too. Maybe. ]
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☀️ kara danvers, advena.
When the DEO called, Steve knew that it had to be serious. After all, they had Supergirl on their roster, and Superman on speed dial. From the beginning, Steve had felt uneasy about the realization that he was apparently third in line when things went south over at the DEO. But that was nothing compared to how uneasy he feels now, ushering Kara into the spartan hotel suite that the DEO rented out for their agents to run some last minute reconnaissance before he arrived on the scene. It was because of their surveillance that Steve was able to track her down so quickly, but that still doesn't explain why it was so easy for him to apprehend her. He was expecting more of a fight from her, and a dirty one at that, but in the end he was left with the nagging feeling that she had pulled her punches.
As suspicious as it was, Steve decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth right then. When he found her, Kara was in a crowded public park, the potential for civilian injuries perilously high; keeping people out of harm’s way had to be his first priority. What’s more, Steve knew that Kara would never forgive him if he had a chance to limit how much damage she could do and he chose not to take it.
So he did. It was too easy and he knew it, but Steve took the first opening he saw and didn’t press the issue when Supergirl all but let herself get captured. It’s not until they’re alone in the suite, waiting on a DEO caravan to escort them back to headquarters, that he finally calls her on it.
She’s cuffed, but he’s not under the impression it makes him any safer. Still, he stares her down as if she couldn’t disintegrate him with a glare. "Look, I’m not kidding myself here. I know the only reason I was able to bring you in is because you let me. But I won’t drag any more agents into this until I can be sure you won’t lash out, so get comfortable."
new phone, who dis.
( she knew why he was there. national city was three thousand miles from the avengers' ivory tower, but he was closer. he was the golden boy, the parallel to that two-dimensional too-good-to-be-true golden girl cat had tried to paint her as on tv. little miss do-good, little miss sunshine, always giving, giving, giving, never getting what she wanted. what she needed. not anymore, though. kara wasn't going to settle for second-best, or for what she was allowed. she was going to take it, by force if necessary, and to hell with anybody else.
she had hoped that her little stunt in the park might have netted her a showdown with kal-el, a real fight, something that would flex her muscles just itching for an opportunity, but they'd sent him instead, a patriotic present served up in a bulletproof van. not that bulletproof meant anything to real power. and now, thanks to his sweet, sweet naivety, they were alone, his only backup held aside by his own bravado. )
I don't want anybody to get hurt, ( she drawls, mockingly sincere; in the moments that follow, there's the quiet echo of metal clinking together behind her back, though her hands stay where he'd placed them for now. ) So why don't you come make me comfortable, boy scout?
☀️ it's called 'public' relations for a reason.
she's been lucky enough to have cat grant in her corner. catco has always protected supergirl in the media, dissuaded the lowbrow paparazzi-fueled stories that would paint her as anything less than the good girl they've cast her to be. supergirl is the bronzed heroine of their digital age, practically the stuff of legends. her place is in national city, defending the helpless and protecting the weak.
so it comes as a bit of a surprise to kara to find herself summoned to new york city out of the blue one summer afternoon, the address in her dossier leading her to the gleaming glass front of avenger tower. supergirl isn't exactly inconspicious, but at least arriving from the air brings her to the flight deck rather than the ground-floor level; as much as she doesn't mind taking pictures or signing autographs in her cape and skirt, sometimes it's nice to have a quiet entrance for a change.
not that the quiet lasts very long, because it never really does for her. no, the quiet lasts only for a moment, because as soon as she pushes open the doors, there's a high-strung woman in a suit greeting her, talking a mile a minute and guiding her with a tentative hand to her arm into a small conference room where, judging by the sudden hush that falls over the room, it's clear she's the last to arrive.
the meeting itself is brief, almost clinically straightforward; kara can only listen with increasing flustered expressions as the public relations representative explains exactly why the avengers — technically, s.h.i.e.l.d., but "the semantics aren't important here" — have requested supergirl via interagency loan. the public's perception of "superheroes" has reached a critical low. they need a public relations boost, and after intense research and investigation, they've found the simplest option will be the best: love. not real love, though. fake love. pretend love. it works for celebrities. the public eats it up. they don't care if it's real or not, they just want to believe it.
and with that, kara's left alone (or rather, they're left alone) to resign herself to the reality of her situation, to review the copy of the dossier she hadn't bothered to read yet. she'd assumed there would be time to read and voice her objections upon arrival; if she'd taken the time to read before flying, she might have had a chance to protest to j'onn. now, though, it was too late — his signature as her supervising officer was already there, black and white on the faxed copy, and with it, her fate was sealed.
whether kara liked it or not, she was going to date steve rogers. or, rather, supergirl was going to date captain america. starting that day, because time was apparently of the essence, and they had a photo op in a park to create. )
I know you said 'don't be a stranger', but I didn't think this is what you meant.
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Few of the incidents have been widely publicized, as is so often the case with crimes against a politically vulnerable population, but S.H.I.E.L.D. has collected enough data to convince Steve of the urgency of the situation. Hostility against the enhanced will continue to rise until the public mood on superheroes shifts, and the people who will be most affected don't have time to wait for Steve to come up with a better solution. It's his discomfort versus the safety of hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians. So he agrees. But he makes sure that every S.H.I.E.L.D. and D.E.O. agent in this conference room is well aware of his disapproval. He can only hope it motivates them to come up with something better the next time they face a public perception problem.
Fury knew better than to show his face today, so he's glaring daggers at Maria Hill when Supergirl is escorted into the room. His heart sinks when he realizes she has no idea why they've called her in. He had the benefit of a heads up from Natasha, but not everyone has a Black Widow in their circle. He doesn't know how he would have reacted without advance warning, he just knows he couldn't have maintained his composure half as well as Supergirl ultimately does.
When the agents leave, Steve remains in his seat at the opposite end of the conference table, staring down at the folder in his hands and listening to the soft rustling of pages as she flips through her own packet. Suddenly, it occurs to Steve that she might think that he was in on all of this from the start, and he needs her to know that he would never have approve this plan, nor is he a fan of the execution, but before he opens his mouth to speak, she's diffusing the tension with a joke. His shoulders sag in relief; he couldn't express how grateful he feels to her in that moment if he tried.
"It really wasn't," he promises. "Fury's always had a unique way of bringing people together. I can't even say for sure that this is a first for S.H.I.E.L.D." He tries to tone down the bitterness in his voice before adding, "I'm sorry you got dragged into this."
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don't like the flash, wanna keep us in the dark.
He doesn't know Daisy Johnson yet, but he feels as if he has a responsibility to her. It's all wrapped up in the sense of debt he feels toward everyone who now lives with a target on their back for being Inhuman or otherwise enhanced. Not that Steve believes that a better outcome was ever possible; the Sokovia Accords were fundamentally about restricting the rights and liberties of enhanced individuals, and no amount of negotiation was ever going to change that. But it's hard to not look at the aftermath and wonder if he could have somehow played it smarter.
Just because there was no other way doesn't mean that Steve has to sit back and watch a bad situation roll further downhill. Whether or not he could have prevented all of this is irrelevant; it went down the way that it did and now here they are. He knows only too well that no amount of hoping or wishing can turn back time. The only option is to move forward, and his way forward is making sure that the people he helped put in harm's way have the tools to defend themselves.
One of the perks of being an international fugitive is that the stakes can only get so high; he doesn't worry about ending up on a watchlist because he's already on all of them. As are several people far less deserving of the distinction, which is where Steve comes in. He's spent the past several weeks finding new and creative ways of crippling registration enforcement efforts, usually by targeting surveillance operations. He has kept his distance, working under cover of dark and taking great care to avoid notice. But when the new director of S.H.I.E.L.D. parades Daisy Johnson out on the national stage, Steve instantly recognizes the discomfort in her body language. It reminds him of how he felt before his first USO shows, only he had more or less known what he was getting himself into. He didn't get the sense that Agent Johnson had signed up to be S.H.I.E.L.D.'s poster child, a dangerously public position for any Inhuman to hold in the current political climate. If she is being thrust into the spotlight against her will, he needs to help.
He doubts that Johnson will appreciate coming home to find him hiding in the shadows of her living room, but he can't exactly approach her in line at Starbucks. So he is waiting for her when she finally gets home that night, passing the time by brainstorming the least startling way to announce his presence. He sits up straighter when he hears her footsteps rounding the hall. It occurs to him that he's been in her exact position before, only when he opened his door, it was Nick Fury making himself at home in Steve's apartment. Steve isn't thrilled to find himself in Fury's shoes, but it's too late to second guess himself. He can already hear the key turning in the lock, and any second now he'll be introducing himself to the woman whose apartment he broke into. Here goes nothing.
As the door swings open, Steve steps forward into the faint yellow haze from the streetlights, flooding in through the cracks between the window blinds. ]
Agent Johnson. I'm sorry to drop in on you like this, but I was hoping we could talk.
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maybe it's the fact that she's almost never here that lets her discount home security. she could have rigged up intrusion alarms, hidden cameras, trip wires — the dark web was filled with options, but so was the local home improvement store, and if she'd really been set on it, she's sure fitz could have helped her rig something up. but, honestly? she's never home, and she doesn't own anything that she'd mind losing that she leaves at home, so fuck it. security cameras and deadbolts were for boomer yuppies that had actual home furnishings. daisy's still counting herself lucky to sleep on an actual mattress.
tonight, she comes home distracted. key in the lock, hand on the doorbell, but her mind's elsewhere; it's arguing with mace over some stupid policy presentation, about dressing her up in yet another pseudo-patriotic pantsuit to sweet talk people who would rather see her dead or behind bars, mumbling irritated catchphrases under her breath as her bag drops to the empty box she keeps by the door for just this purpose. sure, it's tacky, but it works.
she's fully planning on riding this irritation train straight to bed. it would be nice. but that's not going to happen, because she's greeted with the absolutely terrifying surprise of some deep voice and the face behind it coming out of fucking nowhere with 'agent johnson' like that's normal. ]
What the fuck! [ thank god for training, honestly, because it's literally only muscle memory that prompts daisy to pull the smith and wesson from her belt. it's certainly not her logical, fully aware of her surroundings brain.
and then, after a beat, in which recognition dawns and daisy simultaneously clutches the gun a little tighter and hopes to god this isn't a test: ] You better have a damn good reason to break into my apartment, Captain.
fingerguns.
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[ Sorry, Responsible Steve can't come to the phone, it's Bad Idea Steve hours. ]
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erasing half the plot points of endgame, no more marriage/kid, the compound's still there, etc
Rhodey had given him a "what kind of stupid stunt do you have planned, Stark?" look, but had agreed in the end. And maybe that's what gives him the strength to look Thanos in the eye and snap his fingers, because he has a backup plan - it might not work, it's not like he can test it, but at least it's there.
(Maybe, in the end, he wants to prove to Steve that he can be the one to make the sacrifice play. That even if he hadn't worked it out, he'd still do this to save the world. And, really, he would; there's no denying that.)
Afterwards, he's tired - an exhaustion that seems to cut through his very soul. The kid's there, crying, and he tries to tell him it'll be all right, that he did a good job, but Tony can't manage to say anything, not even a croak. Everything hurts, and he's tired, and-
To him, it's little more than a blip. (Isn't that just the way things are going lately?) Realistically, Tony knows that it's been at least three days, that the cradle's rebuilt his body from scratch and uploaded a backup of his brain seconds before...seconds before, well, everything. Reducing it to scientific terms makes it easier to grasp; brains are just very complicated computers, and Tony's a fucking genius at code, and-
Okay, it's not so easy to grasp, and a moment of sheer existential terror rolls over him. Nearby, monitors blip alarmingly as his heart rate increases, and Tony's fingernails dig into the soft skin of his palms. (What's real anymore? Is he still real? Is he human? Fuck, why did he think this was a good idea?)
"Boss?" FRIDAY's voice sounds worried. "Boss, your vital signs are spiking. Is there an error in the programming? Should I initiate the Old Yeller protocol?"
God, there are moments when Tony regrets his sense of humor. (Not many, but they exist.) "No," he grits out. "No, Fri, it's fine. I'm fine." What's the keyword again? Shit. "Rosebud," he tries, but that's definitely not it. "Lassie, Flipper, Rin-Tin-Tin, Scooby-Doo-" Everything's slipping through his fingers as he panics. "Gandalf." Not an animal at all, as it turns out, and his heart rate slows a little. At least he's not in any danger of being destroyed.
He still hasn't made it out of the regeneration cradle, though. Tony stays there, staring up at the ceiling. "Is Steve around?" he asks finally. "Get him for me, FRIDAY. Unlock the damn door and let him in."
This is a great idea that cannot possibly go wrong in any way, shape, or form. Tony doesn't care; right now, he just wants to see Steve.
--
Wherever Steve is in the compound, FRIDAY suddenly speaks up, without warning. "Captain Rogers, your presence is required. Please proceed to Tony's workshop." When he gets there, he'll see that one of the panels of the wall has slid back, revealing a secret door and a palm reader, which responds to his palm and unlocks the door.
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He was staring up at the ceiling wondering how to fill the long, quiet hours until sunrise when FRIDAY's voice broke the silence. It wasn't what she said so much as the urgency with which she said it that made Steve bolt out of bed and break into a run as soon as his feet hit the cold tile floor.
Steve slowed only slightly as he approached Tony's workshop, a spark of doubt cutting through the adrenaline for the first time. It was hard not to feel like he was invading Tony's privacy, stepping into this space when Tony wasn't around to grant access— or deny it. But before Steve could hesitate, the door slid open for him. FRIDAY's permission would have to suffice; who was less likely to violate Tony's trust than an AI of his own design?
Most of the workshop was still dark. FRIDAY helpfully illuminates a direct path to a door that Steve would bet money wasn't there before. He is familiar enough with the hallucination stage of sleep deprivation to know that he hasn't reached it yet. Still, reality does take on a distinctly surreal feel when Steve presses his hand to the palm reader and triggers a hidden door opening onto a secret chamber.
He sees the cradle, recognizes it for what it is, but he's stuck on the sight of it, the shape of it. It looks like a casket. Why he'd make that association now, why it would hit him like a punch to the gut, doesn't follow logic. They held memorials for both Tony and Natasha, but neither had a casket. Natasha's body couldn't be recovered, and Tony...
Tony had—
Tony had given Rhodey specific instructions. Steve hadn't pressed for details, but Tony had given Rhodey specific instructions, and they held a memorial without a body, and FRIDAY just led him to a secret chamber in Tony's workshop with a only regeneration cradle inside. It's impossible, and he's out of his mind for even considering it, but a wild wave of hope washes over him and Steve runs up to the cradle so fast that he has to brace two hands against it to absorb his momentum.
From over the edge of the cradle, Tony Stark stares back at him, alive.
"Is this real?" That isn't what Steve meant to say, but it was the loudest thought in his head, and when he opened his mouth to speak it just escaped.
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Even on the run, Steve's determined to help people any way he can, and that means that they regularly find themselves in the thick of a fight. It's not one of Sam's good days, and his reflexes are slower than they should be. A guy with a knife catches a glancing slash along his ribs before Sam punches him out. He barely notices it in the adrenaline surge of the fight; it's only afterwards when he realizes his shirt's wet that he looks down at the spreading dark stain, the ripped cloth.
"Fuck," Sam says, and then he faints.
When he comes to, he's back in their motel room, laid out in bed. "I've had worse shaving," he croaks weakly, on general principle. And it's really not a bad wound, all things considered - it could be a lot worse. The blade could've gone through his ribs and punctured a lung, and then he'd be eight kinds of fucked (and possibly dead) right now. But he knows Steve's gonna fuss over him like a mother hen nonetheless, and he feels goddamn stupid for getting hurt in the first place. "You know how to stitch a wound, or am I gonna have to talk you through it?" Most other places on his body, he could probably stitch himself up, but the cut is too awkwardly positioned for that to be feasible. At least they've got a better than average first aid kit, including suture tools.
Sighing, Sam lets his head fall back against the pillow, trying to ignore the surge of guilt that rises in his chest. He should've stayed in Wakanda, he thinks - but with Nat off doing her own information-gathering and Wanda, well, being Wanda, Steve's on his own, and he needs someone with him, if only to keep him from running headlong into every goddamn stupid fight he finds. (Because Sam's clearly doing a great job of that right now.)
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Enough. There will be plenty of time for kicking himself later. Right now, Sam has a wound in need of tending.
Their better-than-average first aid kit includes a supply of local anesthetic, because Steve knows what it's like to go without and doesn't wish it on anyone. When Sam comes to, Steve is laser-focused on administering the anesthesia.
"I know what I'm doing," he replies without moving his eyes from the syringe, which he holds at eye level to check for air bubbles. Satisfied, Steve turns his attention to the wound. "Little prick," he warns before the first injection, starting from the top of the slash, just a few millimeters from the actual cut. He injects a small dose of anesthetic and pushes the two-inch needle a little further, keeping parallel with the wound, until he’s deposited the anesthetic evenly. He has to repeat the process two more times to span the length of the wound, then start again from the opposite side.
When it's done, there's nothing to do but wait. In a few minutes he'll test if Sam is fully numb, but for now…
Finally, Steve looks up and meets Sam's eyes. He hates seeing Sam like this, hates hearing him sound so weak and tired. Karmically speaking, Steve has probably earned this, with the number of times that Sam has had to sit at the edge of his recovery bed. It just makes him feel worse for not having appreciated how it must have felt on the other side.
It fucking sucks.
"You scared the shit out of me," he admits. It isn't pointed or bitter; he isn't trying to guilt Sam. It's just the plain truth: he was worried. Is worried, even if Sam cracking wise about his predicament is a good sign.
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And yet, even on the run, Steve Rogers still pursues her with a dogged determination that she knows will never end. He would follow her to the ends of the earth if he had to; she sealed her fate when she hauled him out of the Potomac. Even so, she can't bring herself to regret doing it. She'd do it again if she had to. Through all the torture, all the brainwashing, everything that HYDRA did to her, Steve was the only fragment of memory she held onto, the only thing she had to call her own. She doesn't remember much about him, but she remembers the feeling of loving him, of being loved. She remembers the purity of his heart, his emotional strength, his goodness.
(It hurts to remember too much about him, or anything else about her past, like shards of broken glass slicing through her brain. For years, it was more convenient to forget nearly everything, but one glimpse of those blue eyes flooded her brain with memories.)
She's tired of running, but she isn't sure she knows what the alternative is, if there is an alternative. She can never be what he wants, she knows that. That woman is dead.
There's no reasonable explanation for why she's sitting cross-legged on the bed of his motel room one day when he returns. She's wearing a white t-shirt and black leggings, drying her hair with a towel and acting like everything is perfectly normal. But her gaze is flat and hard, and there are multiple weapons surrounding her on the bed. A pack next to the bed contains the rest of her worldly belongings - mostly more weapons, a couple changes of clothes. It's apparent that she's here to stay.
"You're bad at hiding," she tells him. Her accent is flat and American, no trace of the crisp RP she'd had during the war. Everything about her is carefully curated to appear perfectly generic, the kind of woman who wouldn't stand out in a crowd.
no i lied now it's in the normal post
She's just as eager to see action as Steve is, and she jumps at the chance in Azzano. (It's galling to let Stark fly the plane - she's better, goddamnit - but someone has to watch Steve's back, and she can't do both.)
Afterwards, when they stumble back into camp at the head of a column of exhausted soldiers, the girls come back for Steve. Sam just rolls her eyes and slips off in the middle of the cheering. He deserves all the limelight, and she's glad to let him bask in it. She's more interested in a shower and a hot meal.
By the time she staggers back to her tent, all she wants to do is curl up in her cot. Problem is, there's someone else in it already.
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But this time, Tony is miraculously within reach. Steve jumps into action without a second thought, closing the gap between them in time to wrap his hand around Iron Man's wrist, redirecting and absorbing the endothermic force of the infinity gems.
And that, he expects, is it.
Which is fine. In fact, it's good. It's right. When he first met Tony, Steve accused him of not being brave enough to lay down on the wire. Steve throwing himself on the wire to spare Tony— that's a fitting end. He can make peace with that.
He remembers the feeling, like lava in his veins, pure energy ripping through every molecule of his being. The romanticism of it all comes as a strange, unexpected comfort. His love life was a miserable string of missed opportunities and eventual tragedies. Self-immolating at Tony Stark's feet is a much more explosive gesture than Steve ever would have allowed himself, but since this is the end of him anyway, he's allowed to be dramatic without the guilt, just this once.
Despite his certainty that this is the end, it doesn't take Steve long to catch up when he comes to in a hospital bed. He was intimately familiar with the experience since long before the serum. Not that it's comforting— if he survived the blast, he must be recovering, and the serum can handle that without him being hooked up to several different machines and confined to a stark, empty room.
No, not empty. Not completely. He forces his eyes open, squinting against the harsh overhead lighting to see Tony hovering between the threshold, speaking quietly into his phone.
Steve intends to ask any one of the many questions running through his head: what happened to Thanos and his army? Why isn't Tony in his own hospital bed? How is he alive? But his efforts to form words devolve into a coughing fit as Steve realizes for the first time how dry his throat feels.
Well. That's one way to alert Tony that he's awake. )
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He also isn't sure he should be standing right now - or how much longer his legs will hold him - but that doesn't matter. Tony taps the phone with his thumb to end the call when he hears Steve coughing. He'd known all along that Steve would wake up - was more certain of it than the doctors at some points - because not waking up simply wasn't an option in Tony's mind. Because he'd been willing to call in every doctor, right up to Stephen fucking Strange, to make sure it happened.
And while there's a rush of relief when Steve coughs, the deep anger he's been nursing this whole time flares up after a few moments, like an ember fanned into flames.]
What the fuck? [He tries to snap, but his own voice isn't up to much more than a harsh croak. Tony grabs the pitcher on the bedside table and pours two glasses of water, eyes Steve to try and gauge if he's capable of drinking on his own. He'll probably make a valiant attempt regardless, Tony thinks. God, he's so fucking stubborn.]
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He still has his phone on him, however, so when raw footage hits the internet featuring Sam Wilson giving world leaders a piece of his mind, Steve gets a notification within minutes despite being several timelines removed.
The means to travel through time and space were granted to him for an explicit purpose, and Steve has been careful not to abuse the gift. But the arguments for taking a quick detour to visit Sam are mounting quickly. For starters, Steve had actually just hit a dead end and could benefit from a break. Besides, he has clearly missed some developments back home and could afford to get caught up, even if he can't stay. And last, but perhaps most importantly, is the fact that Steve won't be forgetting how Sam filled out that suit any time soon.
Unsurprisingly, Steve ends up convincing himself to go through with it. By the time that Sam is dramatically soaring away from an active crime scene, Steve has already begun to materialize in Sam's living room. He waits by the front door, barely giving Sam the chance to fish out his keys before he unlocks it himself and yanks Sam in by the collar. ]
Hey Cap, [ he breathes out, backing Sam up against the door as a means to slam it shut. ] Loved your speech. You write that down first or was it all off the top of your head?
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There's a Doctor Who joke on his lips when Steve catches him by surprise, but all witticisms flee when Steve pins him up against the door. It's been a long fucking day, emotionally and physically draining, and all he wants to do is lose himself in Steve and forget about the rest of the world for a moment.]
I had a real good mentor, [he murmurs against Steve's lips as his hands settle at his waist.] And a lot of time to get mad at some asshole politicians.
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He'd been enjoying a rare night at home watching the game, right up till the storm broke and the power went out. One thing led to another, and now he's outside in the pouring rain, water dripping down the back of his neck while he plays the beam of his flashlight over a muddy paw print the size of a dinner plate. There's no way that belongs to a stray, he thinks, and suddenly regrets his lack of anything resembling a weapon. (Bucky's going to give him so much shit for this later. Of course, Bucky can be stark naked and still have at least five knives hidden on his body; Sam's not that kind of guy.)
He shines his flashlight into the trees, thinking about how this is how half the Black guys in horror movies get killed. "Anyone out there?" he asks in his best soothing voice. Dog or not, there's no reason to be antagonizing before he gets attacked.
The flashlight shines on a pair of eyes way too far above the ground, and Sam regrets every choice that brought him to this point.
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This transformation was a lot like that: an excruciating and utterly foreign kind of pain that wasn't sure he could survive. But where he had been determined then, this time he was terrified.
When he finally felt, inexplicably and yet undeniably, that the transformation was complete, the terror didn't retreat. The one thing that cut through it was knowing that his first priority had to be getting far away, where he could be sure that whatever was happening, he wouldn't be a danger to anyone else.
He didn't get far before he realized the obvious trail that his footprints would leave. Climbing the tree had seemed clever at the time, but he soon found himself growling in frustration as the beam of Sam's flashlight honed in on him. He bared his teeth, wishing Sam would decide it wasn't worth the trouble and head back inside.
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tbh you may not even need to read the wiki because I'm playing fast and loose with canon anyway
Which is how, when Steve shows up in the 1940s and is about to knock on the door, he ends up tackled into the bushes by a red, white, and blue blur instead - and through a door in the air that opens to a deserted planet. The portal snaps shut behind them, but Peggy remains on top of him.]
Of all the bloody stupid ideas!
[She thuds the heel of her palm against his chest as she swears up a blue streak. Is this what you wanted, Steve?]
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So, the first absurdly inane thought that Steve has as he gets tackled to the ground is that he wasted all that time pressing his slacks. Then he hears her voice, in that achingly familiar exasperated tone, and the dirt stains on his pants are downgraded to the last thing he could give a damn about. ]
Peggy! [ Steve exclaim-exhales, fresh out of breath in part from the surprise, in part because she so expertly knocked him to the ground. Flat on his back under her weight— which he remembers being substantially less, though he'd go to his grave before mentioning it— Steve can only sit there and wait for the cursing streak to come to its natural end. He's missed her so much that even that puts a goofy smile on his face. ]
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Maybe. He can't be sure yet, with nothing but a gut feeling to go on. But he could have sworn he just saw the cursor on his SHIELD-issued laptop move from across the room, and that's what it takes for Steve to finally break and type into the word processor (feeling insane while doing so): ]
I know someone's there.
[ If it's just his imagination, the response (or lack thereof) should confirm it. Steve stares at the screen, feeling taunted by the little blinking bar at the end of his sentence. ]
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skye's looking for answers, following rabbit holes and slipping between various hash-encoded logins, when suddenly the screen flickers. on the machine she's infiltrated, a word document opens. weird enough... but then words.
words that certainly aren't aimed at the writer. words meant for her.
shit. well. she could bail, of course, but something stops her. instinct, maybe. whoever owns this computer hasn't immediately hit an alarm or detached from the web server; instead, they've contacted her directly. maybe that's stupid. maybe it's smart. either way, skye figures she's already in this deep. might as well keep digging. ]
It's classified.
[ best way to convince someone to reveal their info? make them prove they're allowed to have it. ]
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from tfln
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That's a relief.
[ he's gonna scream 🙃🙃🙃 ]
Anything else I should know beforehand, sailor?
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His husband. Just thinking the words brings an uncontrollable grin to Steve's face. He rubs the pad of his thumb against the band around his ring finger. Vibranium and a gold-titanium alloy hammered together to create a flowing pattern not unlike Damascus steel. His smile takes on a soft, dreamy quality when he thinks about Tony in that damned black tank top he always wears when forging, and the way it highlights every bead of sweat that drips down those strong arms of his. The image sparks an ember of want that sinks below his belt. A reminder that the night isn't over and there is still a lot to look forward to.
His eyes scan the party, curious what Tony is up to now. ]
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Tony finishes up a dance with the latest little girl, who looks at him with big wide eyes, and he bows to her and kisses the air above the back of her hand. She giggles and scampers off, and Tony waves off the rest of the crowd, pleading exhaustion. Really, he can see Steve alone at the bar, and he hopes this means they can sneak out together.
Tony tries to look suave and calm as he saunters up to the bar and orders a martini.]
Hey there, good-lookin'. You waiting for someone?
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There are good days and bad days, and the latter tend to blur together in a drunken haze. Again, a familiar feeling, though Tony can't drink nearly as much now as he did when he was twenty-one. Probably a good thing; Tony always figured he'd live hard, die young, and leave a pretty corpse, but it turns out that he's not quite ready to shuffle off this mortal coil just yet, so he should maybe ease up on his liver a little. (Not by much.)
Pepper comes by on one of his better days - Tony's changed his clothes and made it to the sofa downstairs, at least - and with her is an absurdly good-looking man who somehow manages to look more uncomfortable in a suit than anyone else Tony's ever seen.
"Don't tell me you're training your replacement." Tony gives her a mock pout. "What are they offering? I'll double it." He doesn't really think Pepper's been poached by someone else - enough people have tried and failed - but she usually comes alone.
"It's not that. I just-" Pepper glances away quickly, then back. "I think you need someone around you more. And I'm busy taking care of things at Stark Industries, so I just recruited someone to keep you company, that's all."
"Well, at least you remembered I like blondes." Tony eyes him suspiciously. He doesn't give off therapist vibes, but it's not impossible. "All right, fine, I accept your offer of eye candy."
"Tony, that's not what I meant."
"I know what you meant." And he doesn't want to talk about it. As he's told Rhodey often enough, he doesn't need a damn babysitter.
Pepper makes some more excuses, sets a stack of paperwork on the slice of redwood that serves as a coffee table, then leaves him alone with his new best friend.]
I'll double your salary if you don't come and tell her you did.
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On the face of it, he has very little reason to go along with this. And yet.
It so happens that S.H.I.E.L.D. locates Captain America's arctic wreckage just as Colonel Rhodes finds Tony Stark in the middle east. The media frenzy around Stark's triumphant return, they tell Steve, is only a fraction of what he could expect if his story got out. It makes Steve feel sleazy, like he is letting Tony Stark take the heat for him while he hides.
When Fury offers him the mission, Steve doesn't need to think it over. Just because Stark is home doesn't mean he is safe. Steve can't spare him the unwanted attention, but he can protect him from a repeat attempt on his life.
He doesn't start to rethink that choice until he is standing in a jarringly modern cliff-side mansion being called eye candy, a new euphemism that Steve contextualizes with help from Tony's comment about liking blondes. Pepper leaves too soon and then he is being bribed. To say it's not what he expected would be understating things. ]
You really think she wouldn't notice? [ He gestures in the direction Pepper disappeared to. ]
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❝ long live the walls we crashed through ❞
in truth, steve is SHIELD's equivalent of a parole officer, a half-retired superhero kept on the payroll with this low-risk responsibility, but the way he huffs in frustration when she so much as breaks a nail feels a lot like a bodyguard.
maybe that's why she toes the line so much, why she tries his patience, tries to slip his too-attentive gaze, even if it's just to dart under the employees only rope in the art museum. maybe it'll prove he's out to stop her from doing something SHIELD doesn't want on their records, stop her from embarassing them — and not because he cares about her well-being.
who would do that. )
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Bodyguard may not be the official title, but that's what he is in spirit. He couldn't care less what she did to offend S.H.I.E.L.D.; Steve is just as likely to poke his head where it doesn't belong. But he takes her safety seriously, earning a reputation with her for being strict and immovable. He doesn't disabuse her of the impression.
Still, as much as he is himself a troublemaker, it is with real exasperation that he chases her down a hallway in the art museum designated for employees only. ]
There's not even any art back here. [ #priorities ] What was the point?
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[ Maybe, juuuuust maybe, Sam misses Steve too. Maybe. ]
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[ Imagine just coming right out and saying they miss each other. Imagine that. ]
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Clint says hi by the way.
That's how I got your number.
I promise not to text on any non-America-themed holidays unless it's an emergency.
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If you got my number from Clint, I'm assuming this is Kate?
You're allowed to text. It's not a big deal.
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don't feel bad if i waited too long and you don't care and wanna drop it now lmao