I'm With You

(✉ → captain handsome): … you’re just setting me up for this aren’t you (✉ → captain handsome): don’t worry. i’ve got a lot of metal in me, i’m firmly on solid ground (✉ → captain handsome): physical /and/ metaphorical fireworks sounds like a night well spent (✉ → captain handsome): oh really? i’m that predictable? (✉ → captain handsome): no way! i never would’ve guessed! […] (✉ → captain handsome): i’m sure there were other people i /wasn’t/ related to that you had a little thought about (✉ → captain handsome): that was an apology! i was being a friend! (✉ → captain handsome): i want them triaged and sorted into a system of impressiveness (✉ → captain handsome): pepper is going to murder me. she will throw a louboutin at my head if i don’t get these motions filed […] (✉ → captain handsome): i can dodge. come down

He hadn’t intended to run into Rogers now any more than he’d intended to do so before the seige, but this time, the world they shared was a different one.  They didn’t need hushed voices in an alleyway, out of sight of searching Sentinels.  There was no drywall dust on Erik’s shoulders, no blood pounding in his temples and electricity buzzing in his fingertips in the aftermath of a fight.  No sides.

Just two battle-weary men who’d seen too much and lived too long sharing a sidewalk in the inevitably temporary calm after the storm.

“I don’t think you a monster, Captain.  Never you.”  No matter what mistakes Rogers might make, there was a part of him that would always see the man with starry eyes–the daring soldier who’d liberated thousands of his people from the camps.  “We’ve both seen real monsters.”  

He knew the song and dance by now–everyone wished there was a better way.  But wishing didn’t change the way things were, as much as people like Steve and Charles might like it to.   Steve speaks of losing Tony’s home, of losing Tony, and there’s a flare of anger that flashes in his eyes before he manages to tamp it down.  In its wake, faint grief lingered.  “I understand,” he said around a tight throat.  “I lost someone during the siege, myself.”  A pause, to center himself, before he continued on.  “I understand him, too, you know.  I had no interest in putting him in danger.”  Luthor, yes.  He still might feel a murderous twinge toward her if he saw her on the street.  But not Stark.  “Which reminds me–I owe him a bag of peas.  And a bottle of sake.”

/ ..- / … / .- /

Steve nodded grimly. “But monsters do come in all shapes and sizes,” he said softly. “And sometimes... Sometimes I think the worst ones are the ones who look at us and smile. Who think they’ve done absolutely nothing wrong.” He sighed heavily. Those monsters worried him, so much more than the ones he faced on any battlefield. Those ones could worm their way right into your home, uprooting your whole life when you tried to yank them out. 

He thought of Scott, telling him about his mother’s advice. About how wishing things didn’t make them so. He didn’t share the same anecdote with Erik. They understood each other on a different level, different threads connecting them together. It felt too personal and too trivial to share, when Erik was looking to him as a soldier. Not necessarily as Captain America, but as a soldier who had seen the sins of humanity. 

The anger was quick, so fleeting Steve almost didn’t see it. But it faded into something softer. Pain. It faded into pain, as anger so often did. “I’m sorry,” he said, and he was able to say it sincerely. He nodded, letting out another long breath. “I think he’ll appreciate the peas,” he said softly. Tony would appreciate the sake too, but Steve didn’t want to encourage that particular vice. “Who did you lose?” he asked. “Can I ask what happened?”

I trust you.

Kara didn’t get it. One flight through the stars, and Steve Rogers trusted her, beyond even an entire weekend of ravaging the city he so trusted she loved. And he wasn’t the first to offer her a hand in support. Perfect strangers had sat on rooftops with her, had floated the stars with her, and looked at her with nothing but a quiet understanding. They’d offered her forgiveness when Kara couldn’t even manage to forgive herself.

She didn’t get it.

She looked at the skyscrapers, the sky, the ground, before she finally looked up to meet his eyes. They looked the same as they had all those months ago. He was quiet understanding, too many years lived, too many battles fought. He knew what it meant to wear a symbol on his chest and to be looked to as the epitome of good. He still looked like he smiled more often than he frowned, and there was something about him that reminded her of Kal-El. No, Clark. Sweet smiles, belongs somewhere in Kansas, deserves a soft life.

His question rattled around the inside of her skull and destroyed everything in its wake. She’d heard it enough times it was committed to memory. She’d been hearing it all her life, since she’d first followed the Danvers through their front door, and they’d acted like they cared, like she was more than just an assignment. The answer had been no so many times, but she always found a way to spin it into yes. She needed to. It’s what kept her going.

“Um…” She spun, she spun and she spun and she tried to remember how there were people who still wanted to ask her if she was okay. She thought of Lois and the Statue of Liberty, of Kal above the Sahara. She thought of Donna and a quiet, late-night conversation, and Lar gently pulling her into the space between him and the back of the couch. “I will be. Are you okay?”

/ ..- / … / .- /

I will be. It was a surprisingly honest answer, and Steve felt how difficult it was to say. Maybe she didn’t quite believe it herself yet, but she was putting faith in it anyway. Maybe she felt like she had to be, and Steve could understand that impulse. Symbols didn’t get to take time off to mourn, to grieve, even if they were grieving a part of themselves. Symbols were meant to be above all that. 

But the two of them were firmly on the ground now. And they were more than the symbols on their chests, more than the uniforms they wore, and the abilities they had. It had taken him so long to learn how to embrace that, how to be a full person. “Yes,” he said, nodding. “You will. I’m sure of it,” he said gently. 

The silence that settled between them wasn’t a comfortable one, but it wasn’t uncomfortable either. It was a neutral, objective thing. It had no sway one way or the other, it simply existed. Scott had never been good at neutrality, never been privileged enough to know it with any sort of intimacy. Mutants weren’t given the luxury of going into a situation without an opinion, and neither were people who looked the way he looked. There was an unfamiliarity that came with it, and Scott shifted in response.

He stayed silent as Steve read the names, watched his expression carefully as if he might be able to deduct the way his brows drew together when he came across the name of a mutant, as if he might sense more sympathy when the name he was reading belonged to a human. He was, he realized, looking for Steve to be biased, was almost hoping for the man to prioritize his own people over Scott’s. It would be easier that way, after all, would make the neutrality melt away into the familiar anger that came with bigotry. But Steve displayed none of it, and Scott felt tense. 

Steve spoke of his mother, and Scott shrugged. “She was right,” he offered, thinking back on his own mother. She’d never given much advice, not that he could remember. She stayed locked in her room so often that Scott’s most vivid memory of her was the last one, was her pushing Alex into his arms and begging him not to let go. “Wishing won’t change anything. And neither will protests or meeting with government officials. We’ve tried all that. We’ve been trying to do this without violence for years now, and it hasn’t gotten us anywhere. I wish there was another way, too, but there isn’t.” He paused for a moment, glancing to the list in Steve’s hand. “I want to have children someday,” he said. “I don’t want them to grow up the way I did, the way my wife did. I want them to have a chance. And if this is the way I get that for them, I won’t apologize for it.”

/ ..- / … / .- /

It wasn’t easy, facing up to where you were found wanting. To where you came up short. Your mistakes, your sins, your errors in judgement. Steve knew what it was, to make the wrong call. He knew what it could cost people. And he knew what inaction could cause. Yet, he’d been idle in the fight for Mutant Rights. There was no denying that fact, no changing it. 

But they had to move forward. If this siege was ever going to come to a peaceful end, it would be because Mutants and Humans found each other in the middle. It would be because those who needed to face their mistakes would confront them, and they would find a way towards peace together. That was always how he liked to operate. With a team. 

He nodded at Scott. “She usually was,” he said, finding a small smile creeping across his face. Even as Scott continued, listing all the ways that hadn’t worked, and all the reasons he had for doing this. They both wished things could be different, and that connected them. The wish and the knowledge that wishing wouldn’t change anything. “You deserve that,” Steve said. “They deserve that. And I’ll help make it happen, to the best of my ability,” he said, extending his hand again, this time to shake Scott’s. 

“People take issue with Captain America’s personality?” The disbelief was easy to pick up on, and he made no move to hide it. The history books weren’t kind to superheroes, when they mentioned them at all. It was Alchemax’s attempt to shape the past the way they wanted it to be, but… Even they struggled to find a way to make Captain America bad. This, of course, meant he’d been turned into more of a symbol than he already was. He was a brave soldier who had been there for the rise of Alchemax, who had supported its reign. If you couldn’t make a hero into a villain, the next logical solution had always been to make it look like they were on your side. And history was muddled. Miguel knew that. Captain America didn’t support Alchemax just like Tony Stark wasn’t a dark, evil figure. But god, the conditioning was a hard thing to shake. Miguel tried to hide his discomfort, his caution, but he knew he fell short. “Nah, man, I’m leaking that shit. You know how much cash they’d give me for a story like that? Guy’s gotta eat.”

He was still uneasy as he stepped out, still tense and uncertain. The way Alchemax told it, Steve Rogers was a corp drone. Tyler told him once that the man had been friends with his father (with Miguel’s grandfather, though he hadn’t known that particular tidbit at the time), that Tiberius Stone used to tell stories about him. Miguel had spent enough time around Tiberius now to know that that was a lie, and it wasn’t particularly surprising. Most things Tyler Stone said were lies. Miguel was so distracted by the thought that he almost missed what Rogers said next, but he wasn’t lucky enough to miss it entirely. “Partner?” He sounded about half as disgusted as he felt. “No. Christ, no, I’m not his partner. We’re — Shock, even acquaintances might be a hard sell.” It wasn’t. Miguel and Peter were friends, even if Miguel wasn’t likely to admit it. “I didn’t know him when I picked the name. I picked it because of my powers, not because of him. Partners. Jesus Christ.”

/ ..- / … / .- /

Steve shrugged a shoulder. “It’s been known to happen,” he assured the other hero. “My personality had me on the most wanted list not too long ago.” Things were different now, sure. And he had put his name down on a dotted line that finally seemed right, but there was still so much to sort out. He didn’t blame anyone for not knowing where to stand right now, not when it felt like the ground was only just beginning to settle beneath their feet. “Well, if it’s food you want, you can come back to the tower. There’s always too much for the amount of people actually there.” That was the truth, but it was also a peace offering, like setting down the shield. 

He stepped out of the shadows, though he still seemed uneasy. Steve stayed where he was, hands folded in front of him. He blinked at the visceral reaction. “Oh... kay,” he drawled. “Got it. Not partners. Gotta say, that leaves me with a lot more questions,” he said carefully. “How did you get your powers, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Sue lips formed thin lines. She never considered herself to be a hero, even now. She just wanted to do what she thought was right. Though she viewed her own abilities through a scientific lense, originally only wanting to hold onto them temporarily because she found herself to be a biological fascination, thanks to the unsought attention it brought from people who wanted to hurt them, Sue felt differently. She had the power to do what others couldn’t and she wanted to make sure that power didn’t change what she believed in before she ever became superhuman. It was one thing she respected and loved about Steve. He didn’t need powers to do what was right. It didn’t change him. “I think we all have the same thing in mind. Just…you’ve got to have something in your personality to put on a costume and run into the face of danger.” Sue humored a little.

Sue nodded at Steve’s reasoning. “He hasn’t hesitated before. I just don’t understand it.” Sue wasn’t too full of pride to admit even she couldn’t work out why things were the way they were. “We both have powers and we aren’t…I just don’t see what makes people see them differently.” From what she knew of mutant history which, albiet, wasn’t a lot she had to admit, it was like reading a war taking place under their very noses. She did nod in response to his words. “I understand.” Sue just wished she could be in more places than one. Sue sat across from Steve, pausing for a moment. “ So, where do we start?”

/ ..- / … / .- /

They tried to make hero into an idolized word. Into an ideal, impossible for anyone to really reach. They tried to strip all the meaning out of it and fill it with insubstantial things, dressings and drapery, and make it into a show. But for Steve, and he suspected for Sue too, it had always just been about doing what was right. That was something anyone could accomplish, people did it every day. But she had a point too. It took something extra to wear the costume and throw yourself onto the front lines. “Probably insanity,” he said, smirking lightly in response. 

“I know,” Lois said, letting herself into the seat across from him. “She talked about it a little.” Though the parts about him were particularly fuzzy, but considering who he had been back then — he hadn’t left much of impression. It wasn’t his fault by any means, and she didn’t fault her grandmother for not realizing who she had been with that night. But it really highlighted the fact that anyone you meet could turn into someone like this. Someone who appeared to be simply there was really a legend in the making. 

A smile touched the corner of her lips as he mentioned her grandmother’s friend. Lois didn’t know a lot about her but she had never married and her grandmother always skirted the reason why. Not mentioning failed relationships or simply not being able to find the right guy — it was the absence of information that Lois had found intriguing. (And of course, she came to her own conclusions about it…) “I wouldn’t blame her. I’m pretty sure Gran forced her to come with her so that Barnes would come out… but I… don’t think you were her type.” Lois putted added emphasis on the word type, hoping Steve would get it without to much pushing. “And I’d give yourself a little more credit. I’m sure you were a perfect gentleman.” 

Steve replied and Lois should have been satisfied with that answer. But she wasn’t. She thought of her father and all the questions she had about his life that were locked away behind the words classified… and how much he didn’t say was mounting against what he did. Which was bigger, she wondered? And did it matter? “I think that’s a well established excuse,” Lois commented gently. “But that’s all it is. An excuse. You can’t hide your inaction behind a status you held decades ago. You might be a man that took orders before, but you’re a leader too.” 

Lois would have pointed to the Avengers or towards any number of situations where he had been forced to lead, but she figured that he’d pick them out himself. “It’s easier,” Lois admitted, nodding her head, “To stand at the side and let others tell your story, they assume your thoughts and motivations, and you might think it’s clear where you stand, but silence and quiet echoes much louder than you think it might. It looks a lot like inaction. And I think as a soldier, you understand what inaction can do.” The smile on her face dropped slightly and she tipped her head to the side. “Army brat. My father served. Learned a lot from him, mostly stubbornness,” Lois offered.

/ ..- / ... / .- /

Steve let out a small laugh. It wasn’t really humorous, it was more disbelief. Of all the strings he’d left untied back in the past, this was one he had never thought to pull on. Certainly one he never expected to wind up sitting in front of him. Steve pushed his coffee, pitch-black and half-gone, to the side. Folding his hands on the table in front of him, spine straight as he met her gaze. 

She smiled gently, and it suited her, that soft knowing sort of smile. Like she had all the answers, but wasn’t going to lay them down just yet. “Well, then I guess that makes us even,” he said quietly, nodding once. “I don’t think she was quite my type either.” It was all he would say, for now. To someone outside. Tony had been so against making a statement, wanted to keep it theirs a little longer, and Steve felt like he was lying, but he wouldn’t go against his wishes. 

The reporter was looking at him again, and she was gentle with her insistence, but firm. He wasn’t going to slip out of this part so easily, and he had nothing to hold him back, nothing to hide behind. Nothing but excuses and old tired lines that she waved away in a second. 

“I call it like I see it,” Sam replied, and for a moment, it was like they were years in the past, laid out under a tree after an early morning run around the capital. So much had changed since that first meeting, but sometimes Sam swore he could still taste the sweat and the sun and the grass from that hill. Steve was a man out of time, someone who existed in two worlds at once, and he had a way of taking Sam out of time and letting him exist in two places, too. He could make Sam forget that he was in a world where he didn’t belong, wipe away memories of too many funerals and a graveyard full of so many of his friends that he went ahead and reserved a plot for himself in case it filled up.

The brief move from the street to the safehouse was a quiet one, and Sam felt Steve observing the scene. It wasn’t much to look at, he knew. It was dreary and bare and a little sad all things considered, but Sam had never needed much. A safehouse, a one bedroom apartment, a barracks. Soldiers learned to sleep anywhere without issue.

Sam nodded absently as Steve spoke, unwrapping the package without much thought. When he pulled out the painting, he stilled. He’d only seen the photo it was referenced from once or twice. Joey Adams had been the one to snap it, grinning as he’d turned the screen of the cheap camera so Sam could see it. You guys just looked happy, he’d said, and I thought I ought to document that. He was always doing that, always snapping photos. He was one of the few people in their unit who didn’t go home in a body bag, though he took less and less photos as their tour went on. Sam heard he put his service revolver in his mouth a few months after Lopez’s funeral, but he sent Sam that photo first. You guys looked happy, he’d said in the email attached to it.  I wish it stayed that way. Sam could never bare to look at the picture for long after that.

The painting was good. It was a near mirror image of that photo, though the colors were a bit more vibrant. Sam was leaning on Riley, mouth open as he spoke and he wished he could remember what he’d been saying because Riley’s eyes were shining and he was laughing. There was a lump in Sam’s throat and his hand trembled as he looked back to Steve. “It’s…” He trailed off, voice thick. “It’s great, man. It’s perfect. Thank you.”

/ ..- / … / .- /

Friendships, bonds between brothers — they weren’t static. They changed and grew, as the people within them changed and grew. Steve had come to know more about himself in this past year than he had in the past century, and with that had come a new way of looking at his memories. Now when he thought back to the Howlies, to the soldiers in camp, he remembered wayward glances between some of the men. Knowing smiles, a hand lingering here or there, and quickly pulled away. 

He had started thinking about all the things Sam said. All the things he didn’t say. Pilot. Partner. He’d called Riley his wingman, but there was something in his eyes when he said it. Even back then, that made Steve pause. Some stuff you left behind. Some stuff you carried with you. Some stuff you shared with the world, and some things.... some things you kept just for yourself. 

Steve held his breath as Sam took in the painting. His hand was shaking, but Steve didn’t call attention to it. He saw it, and he didn’t pretend not to, nor pretend he didn’t hear the emotion thick in Sam’s voice when he spoke. “I know... it’s not easy, losing someone you love,” he said quietly. “But my ma used to say we carry a piece of everyone we lose. I guess it’s like you said, we just have to choose how to carry it. I thought maybe... Maybe this would help you carry his memory.” He shrugged. “Besides, all great soldiers deserve to be painted, even by an amateur hobbyist.” 

“I don’t think I’d have to try too hard,” Tony replied, the lazy smile only growing on his face as he leaned into Steve, foreheads only an inch from touching. “I’m pretty sure you’re whipped, Cap.” It was a statement he wouldn’t have been able to make a year ago, one that he barely dared to put out into the universe now. The idea of being able to lie beside Steve at night, to touch him, to talk to him whenever he wanted – already it felt like a fever dream, like something he shouldn’t be allowed to have. (He’d spent his whole life appearing to get everything he desired, but the one thing he wanted, the one thing he needed, was the same thing money could never buy.) “They make those,” Tony hummed. “I’ve been looking into them for a year, just in case. Didn’t want to buy one until I had you here with me.”

Tony’s eyes flickered to the crease on Steve’s forehead, and he found himself wanting to crumble. He’d always had that inclination, always looked at him across the Helicarrier or outside Clint’s safehouse and wanted desperately to get him to stop looking like that, but he was resolute, stubborn to a fault. “I wanted to touch you for a long time,” he said, entirely unfairly and he knew it. “The closest I got was getting pinned in the ring, or a pat on the back after a fight. People don’t see this. They wouldn’t … they wouldn’t understand it.”

Were they? The words died on Tony’s lips, because when had he ever felt like part of the world? When had Steve? “We have our own world,” he argued instead, feeling the defensiveness rise in him as Steve continued to speak. “I stopped hiding a long time ago, Steve. I–” Yes. The Invincible Iron Man, terrified of the idea of people looking and seeing this for what it was. “They’ll judge the Avengers based on this. They’ll think Siberia was because of this.” Maybe it was. “The things they used to say about me, the things I used to do, they won’t think … they’ll–”

Tony pushed himself back, wrapping the covers around himself tightly. “Dad would hate this,” he finished, picking at the sheets, focusing intently on the movement of his own hands. “Mom too, and Jar … People don’t understand. Why can’t we just keep it as us? We’re better as us.”

 / ..- / ... / .- /

“You’re gonna have to define that one for me,” Steve teased, leaning in to meet him, but stopping just short. “In my day, we just called it being a gentleman. And I thought it was just part of being in love.” His eyes lit up at the idea of the mattress, imagining how it would feel to lay next to Tony and know that they were both getting exactly what they needed. “I’m here now,” he said, as if it wasn’t already obvious. “And I mean to stay, if you’ll have me.” 

Steve leaned back at Tony’s next words. They stung, felt like nettles digging deep into his skin and making him itch. He sat up straight, a soldier’s spine to make him feel solid. “They don’t see it because we don’t let them see it,” he countered, brow furrowing even more. “I don’t see how we’re supposed to change that if we keep hiding.” 

He wanted to understand this, this hesitation, this fear, this — whatever it was. But it was hard, when Tony couldn’t even admit that was the problem. He could feel them falling into old habits, old roles, one against the other. But they weren’t on opposite sides anymore, and maybe they never really had been. “It doesn’t matter,” he said firmly. “Because we’ll know the truth. People are always going to judge you based on something, but it doesn’t mean they’re right.” 

“It was obvious to me,” Rictor replied, but maybe that wasn’t saying much. He had a habit of projecting, after all, and there was the chance he’d only noticed Steve’s fond looks towards Tony because he was trying desperately to deny the way he felt. Rictor was good at denying bits of himself by assigning them to other people instead. He could have made a career of it. “But… I get that. I’ve missed shit in front of my face, too.” He’d denied who he was for years because it scared him. He was probably the very last person who could talk about things being obvious. Laughing at Steve’s response, he shrugged. “Wouldn’t be surprised.” Stark was probably in charge of Steve’s tailoring, and Stark was exactly the kind of guy who’d give himself a little extra eye candy where he could.

Smiling, Rictor nodded. He had someone, had multiple people in his life who cared what happened to him. He had them even on the days where it felt like he had nothing. He had to remind himself of that, sometimes. At Steve’s question, he shrugged. “It’s like…” He trailed off, looking for the words. “I used to be able to feel everything, you know? The rain seeping into the ground, the bugs crawling in the dirt. It was there, but it was background music, white noise. But when I’m on Genosha, it’s like… Somebody turned the volume all the way up and broke off the knob.”

/ ..- / ... / .- /

Maybe it had been obvious to Steve too, maybe that was why he’d been so strikingly honest. Maybe they were mirrors for each other, just for a moment. Just when they both needed it. That reminder that however different they were from the rest of the world, or even from each other — they had this little piece in common. They weren’t alone. “Neither would I,” he said, shaking his head slowly. 

He went quiet then, just listening as Rictor explained. Steve tried to think of his own experiences, the first time he’d taken a deep breath without wheezing, felt the extra muscle on his bones. The world had seemed so much bigger than before, with so much more possibility. “It could be a good thing,” he offered, once Rictor had finished. “If you make it one. It could be the start of something pretty incredible. You have– intense abilities,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m not surprised they come with an intense emotion too.” 

Day 3: The Queen of Wands

Steve is a symbol of strength. But it’s not his muscles that make him impressive, it’s the moral fiber. He’s not a perfect soldier, and that’s why Erskine picked him. Because he’s a good man. His strengths are his beliefs, in ideals like freedom and honesty, and in people like his teammates and friends. His real strength is always getting back up, “I can do this all day,” even when he’s on the losing side. He’s also able to question himself, to set his own ego aside and wonder if he’s doing the right thing.

Day 2: The Ten of Cups

Sam had a habit of recognizing things in people that others would have missed. It was how he’d known exactly what to say to Steve when Steve had turned to walk away from him that first morning at the capitol, when their friendship could have so easily dissolved to nothing before it ever began. It was how he looked at Bucky when his arm was caught in that vise and saw, for the first time, the kind of man you saved instead of the kind of man you stopped. Sam was good at reading in between the lines.

And so was Steve. It was one of the many things they had in common, one of the multiple ties that bound them together. They were soldiers who understood people, hard men with soft hearts, people who had lost a little too much. Steve was Sam’s reflection, was all the things he wanted to be, was what he strove for, and he’d missed him. He’d missed him so goddamn much that it ached, even if he was mad as hell that he’d left in the first place.

“Bet you’ll make the grade,” he offered, smiling faintly. And then Steve was studying him and Sam was shifting. He wasn’t the person Steve wanted to meet, wasn’t the same version of himself that Steve had known and loved, and it was hard to know how he’d react to that. Sharon accepted him without question. Natasha welcomed him with open arms, even while making it clear that she wasn’t who he had known either. Sam knew Steve, knew him better than he knew most people, but his own fears and insecurities made it hard to guess how his friend might react to him.

Steve didn’t seem angry. Didn’t seem upset or sad. He apologized, and Sam’s heart clenched like a fist in his chest. You’re still Sam Wilson. It was like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, and he nodded. “I’m trying to be,” he agreed, because he was Sam Wilson but god, there were days when he had no idea who that even was. At Steve’s question, he nodded. “Yeah,” he confirmed. “Yeah, I guess we do.” His throat felt tight, the memory of a casket weighing heavy on his shoulders bombarding him all at once. “What’s Bucky told you?”

/ ..- / ... / .- /

Sam’s face went serious and dark, the way he must’ve looked when he was out in the desert. Steve knew what it was like, to school your features into something blank and solid, something strong and empty at the same time. He had done it himself in front of the Howlies, he had probably even done it in front of Sam more than a few times. Sam had a way of pulling out the soldier inside him, but Steve didn’t mind. It felt... honest. Like Sam was keeping him grounded, even as he soared through the sky. 

“You’re doing great,” Steve said, smiling gently to try and reassure him. “You sound just like the guy who harassed me about getting a life. The one who knew about my mattress being too much like a marshmallow.” He gestured for Sam to follow him. They could go to his old apartment. His name was still on it, though he hadn’t spent much time there. Old habits died hard, and he had more than a few incentives waiting for him in the tower. But this, this would require a little more privacy, something not so flashy and intense. 

Steve led the way through the back alleys and towards the back door of his building. “Not much,” he said. “I... I don’t know if that’s because he doesn’t want to talk about it, or because I don’t. I know the broad strokes. Thanos. Infinity Stones. The, uh, Snap. And...” He trailed off, sighing heavily. They reached his back door and he set a hand on the handle. “He told me about Morgan. That was... a revelation.” He bit his lip and opened the door, leading the way up the stairs. 

It was still strange. One half of Bucky thought that Steve shouldn’t have to drive up to his house because Steve had always, even when they were just kids, had occupied either the flat next door or his couch after Sarah died. A house wasn’t home without his brother, and he felt like, without him, it wasn’t just his arm that was missing and replaced with cool metal. The other half … the other half had grown used to living without him. Something in him had snapped when Steve turned to that time travel machine, when he returned a ninety year old man, maybe even older. Something snapped, and something told him he’d never have Steve like he used to, and he’d accepted that. Grown used to it.

But life had a funny way of throwing you curveballs.

“That’s a dramatic lack of context, even for you,” Bucky retorted, moving to lean against one of the porch columns. “Least I didn’t need to lie on any forms. Legal citizen, pardoned and a proud homeowner.” He paused for a beat, then added, “Thank your other half for me. Couldn’t have got it off the ground without an anonymous donation.” Sharon knew Bucky wouldn’t accept it, but there was no way they could have this without a little push. “Time for you? Always. And it ain’t intrusion, not in our place. You want coffee?”

/ ..- / ... / .- /

“Well,” Steve shrugged. “It’s probably the company I keep.” He rolled his eyes, nostalgia and guilt washing over him in a wave. Nostalgia for a life they had technically never shared together. But blood didn’t define family, and neither, it seemed, did universes. Still, there were differences. Sometimes he caught Bucky just staring at him. Sometimes he found himself staring at Bucky. Remembering what it was like to grieve him, to think of him as part of the past that wound around his throat and his heart and wouldn’t let go. Remembering what it was like to fear for him. To worry for him. He had been a ghost, then a mystery, and now he was... He was just Bucky. His brother. 

Day 1: The Eight of Wands

Justice propels Steve forward. Justice, honor, truth, freedom. All those noble words from noble stories, he believes in them. He believes in people. And his beliefs keep him sustained, even in the darkest trenches. Steve is no stranger to loss, and he’s not naïve — but he never loses hope. 

There was a conflict on Rogers’s face, a quiet argument he seemed to be having with himself, and that shouldn’t have felt like a victory but it did. There was a part of Scott who wanted Steve to acknowledge just what America represented to people like him, as if Steve’s acknowledgement would change any of that. Scott had been fighting against people who wanted him dead for one reason or another for most of his life, and so many of those people had looked like the man in front of him now. They were human, they were white, they were big and physically imposing. And Steve wasn’t those people, but those people weren’t here and Scott’s anger was and he’d feel better if he had a target to point it towards.

But then Steve spoke, and Scott’s anger died. He’d gotten what he wanted and he still felt nothing. He still felt hollow, still felt empty. There was something missing inside of him, just as there had been for months now, and hearing Steve admit that he was right didn’t fill the space it had left. So Scott only nodded, only looked down at the paper in his hands, only pretended he was satisfied. “I appreciate that,” he said quietly. He didn’t know if it was true.

His laugh was as hollow as he felt, and he nodded again. “I’ve been told I’m reasonably good at both,” he offered, placing the list into Steve’s hand. He was quiet for a moment, watching as Steve looked at the paper. “You understand why we’re doing this,” he said slowly, “don’t you? We didn’t want anyone to get hurt. But we’re — They’re killing us. Every day, they’re killing us. We just want that to stop.” 

/ ..- / ... / .- /

Steve’s only reply was a small nod. There was nothing more he could offer, and if Scott sounded uncertain of his answer, that was a suspicion with a lot of background. A suspicion Steve understood. It wasn’t martyrdom, he didn’t offer himself up to be flogged, didn’t want to twist his shame into the focus of the conversation over Scott’s truth. It was a knee-jerk reaction sometimes, when the truths were this bitter, but that didn’t change the facts. 

He looked down at the paper, reading names and descriptions. Some were Mutant, some weren’t. All of them were just people who needed help, and that was all that mattered. But Scott’s voice pulled him from that thought. He looked up slowly, jaw set and lips pulled into a long thin line. 

“Yes,” he said. “I just wish you didn’t have to.” He was quiet for a second, his hand running down the list. “My ma, she used to tell me wishes were like cotton candy. Melt on the tongue and leave you hungrier than before.” He shook his head. “Didn’t really understand what she meant for a long time. But I think we’ve got too much to do right now to waste time wishing, right?”

The American. Before Natasha even knew, before she even put the pieces together of the Winter Soldier’s identity from the fragments of her own memories, she thought of him when she first met Steve Rogers on that Helicarrier strip. She looked at how he held himself, the casual parade rest, the vague detachment, the stiff upper lip, and she felt something deep and dragging within her, a memory that didn’t fully come to the surface until there was another bullet through her shoulder and she was bleeding out in the back of a SHIELD humvee. “I didn’t know it was him, before,” she said, though justifying herself to Steve was something she’d long learned was unnecessary. “I don’t even know if it happened in his universe. And in this one …” In this one, there had been no time before he went into the ice again in Wakanda, before the world turned upside down and they went from heroes to vigilantes in a matter of hours.

It hadn’t all been for him. Natasha made a habit out of playing both sides of the fence, and during her time with the Avengers, she’d learned the importance of listening to her gut. The Accords would become a part of their life in some capacity, she knew that – but she also knew that fighting back against Rogers was never a good idea. It hadn’t all been for him, but part of it was. He was close to her heart (or what was left of it) in the same way Clint was, a walking wound that years ago she would’ve been forced to close. “I’m not a recruitment agent,” she said, instead of what she was thinking (that she wasn’t good like Clint. She couldn’t say the right words to make someone believe they were worth fighting for). “If you need someone to inspire, I’m not the right Avenger to send in. Wanda would be better.”

She should be more surprised that there were other universes, other worlds, but was it really more unbelievable than the idea of aliens and planets filled with intelligent life? “I think they’ve got dark research projects we don’t even have whispers of yet,” she said, “but I can work on getting more information.” It sounded like he was talking about the butterfly effect, and Natasha wasn’t entirely sure what she thought of that one – the importance of destiny versus individual choice. “If a giant purple alien shows up in New York, I hope we’ll notice it,” she teased, a small smile coming onto her face, a smile he was one of few to prompt.

Gratitude wasn’t something she was used to. Neither was someone asking her for acceptance – most often, people saw her approval as something to be sniffed at, at something to keep like a dirty secret. “Of course it’s okay,” she said, and this time, she let her hand rest on his arm, lightly over the area she’d given a dig. “And we’re not friends, Rogers. Don’t get ahead of yourself. We’re barely more than colleagues. Actually, we’re ex colleagues.”

A year. Natasha’s frown deepened, the humour all but gone. “Stark is …” Unpredictable. No matter how she tried, he managed to pull something out of the bag that came from stage left. “He’s more intelligent than I gave him credit for, and not just when it comes to machines. Just because someone seems to be putting themselves on the line doesn’t mean they’re worth trusting.” She paused, feeling those all too familiar walls build – and then she consciously reached over them, touching Steve’s cheek before letting her hand drop. “If he hurts you,” she said, “I’ll kill him. No permission needed, Captain. Understood?”

 / ..- / ... / .- /

Steve had led the Avengers, but there was no leading Natasha, not really. She had scraped and clawed for every ounce of agency she had, and he couldn’t blame her for holding on with an iron grip. She and Bucky both had a habit of going quiet, so quiet you almost forgot they were there, until suddenly they spoke, and you realized they had taken in everything, processed it for themselves, and made a plan all on their own for how to deal with it. Steve and Natasha knew how to communicate now, they weren’t fluent in each other’s languages, but they understood enough. “It’s not exactly an easy thing to talk about,” he said quietly. “Conversations like that take time. Energy.” And they could leave you vulnerable too, expose a weakness you didn’t want to show anyone, even your best friends. 

What Bucky meant to Natasha was something she would have to decide for herself, and she would tell him when she knew what she wanted to say. Steve respected that. He trusted in that, even. Trust was something solid between them now, a rock they relied on, even if the shape of it took them both by surprise. “You might be the right person for him,” Steve said gently, a little nudge in a direction she might’ve been leaning anyway. “Wanda would make him hot chocolate and tell him everything would be okay. You’d kick his ass and tell him to make it okay,” he said, smirking a little. “Sometimes, that’s what people need.”

None of this was easy. The shape of the future was uncertain, and the world was bigger than they’d ever thought it would be. He was just a kid from Brooklyn, after all. But there were universes that looked to them for help, guidance, protection. “Let me know what you find,” he said, nodding seriously to her. She would find something, of that he was absolutely sure. “I’m gonna start jumping every time I see a Barney balloon,” he quipped. (A reference he only understood because Clint had once made him watch a ‘hysterical’ video where said balloon got caught on a lamppost and deflated slowly during a parade. Parades were different in his day.)

People didn’t look at Nat and expect sentiment. Or any powerful emotion from the infamous Black Widow. But Steve knew that deep in there, her emotions were far more powerful than she wished they would be. She loved with a fierce loyalty, and she showed it with that gentle touch on his arm. “Of course,” he said quietly. “How silly of me. Forgot myself.” They weren’t friends or colleagues. They were family. And sometimes, you didn’t have to say that out-loud. 

Somethings though, did need to be said. “I know,” he said. “But he’s... He’s not the kind of person who can pretend to do that. You know him, Nat, you’ve seen him. When he puts his heart on the line, he puts it all out there. Wears it right on his sleeve. I ask him what he’s thinking all the time, but what he’s feeling? It’s right there on his face.” Steve sighed lightly, her hand against his cheek. “Understood,” he said. “But if you ever meet someone, I hold the same privilege.”