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Steve's head hurt. At one time in his life that wouldn't have been an uncommon occurrence, but now it was cause for alarm. Especially since the pain was worse than what he was used to. He groaned and reached for his head instinctively, frowning when his hand encountered bandages instead of hair.
"Hey man, don't touch that."
He knew that voice. "Sam?" he mumbled, opening one eye.
Sam looked relieved. "Steve," he said, leaning forward. "Thank god. You gave us a hell of a scare."
"What happened?" Steve asked.
"What's the last thing you remember?" Sam asked instead of answering.
Steve tried to think. His brain was fuzzy and the room spun when he tried to focus on Sam's face. "Um... I fell into the Potomac when the Helicarrier collapsed. Did you fish me out?"
"You fell..." Sam trailed off, staring at him. Suddenly he jumped to his feet. "I need help in here!" he bellowed.
The door flew open seconds later. A man and two women rushed into the room. Sam charged over to them, grabbing one of the women and ushering her back out into the hallway. Steve tried to sit up so that he could watch to see where they'd gone, but a splitting pain shot through his head and he moaned, sinking back down against the pillows. The man and woman came over to him.
The woman said something in a language Steve didn't recognize and looked at him expectantly.
"I'm sorry. I don't know what you're saying," Steve said, glancing around the room. This wasn't Avengers Tower, which was where he would've expected to wake up considering that SHIELD's helicarrier and Triskelion had fallen. He didn't recognize either of these two people either. Had Sam not been there, he would've thought he'd been captured by Hydra.
The man and woman exchanged looks. Then the woman said, in lightly accented English, "Mr. Rogers, we have some questions for you to answer. Do you feel up to it?"
"Yes, it's just - my head..."
"We can give you something for the pain." She looked at her companion and said something in that other language. The man nodded and moved to the I.V. that was hooked into the back of Steve's left hand. He injected something into it. Moments later, the pain in Steve's head dulled significantly.
"Thank you," he said, meaning it.
She smiled at him and picked up the tablet that had been sitting on the nightstand. "It's no problem. Now, can you tell me in detail what the last thing you remember is?"
"I fell into a river. I was fighting with Hydra," Steve said. It was as detailed as he was willing to get with civilians.
"Your full name?" the woman asked next, tapping into the tablet.
"Steven Grant Rogers."
"Did you recognize the man you woke up with?"
"Yes. That's Sam Wilson."
She nodded. "And the date?"
"April 5."
"The year?"
"2014."
Her tapping paused at that. She kept looking at her screen for a few seconds before she met Steve's eyes with another smile. "Okay. The doctor will come speak with you in a moment."
Amnesia.
He had amnesia.
Steve looked between the doctor and Sam, half-thinking that they were pulling his leg. Amnesia was something that only happened to soap opera stars. He could just imagine Tony's reaction when he heard about this. But no. He was met with two completely serious expressions. And when Sam picked up a tablet and showed him some footage - well, that was pretty hard to argue with.
It showed Steve, Sam, Clint, and a man and woman Steve didn't recognize training together on some kind of field. The woman had red magic that could do amazing things, but it didn't seem like she had very good control. She spun, her red magic aimed at Sam who was ready to dodge, but at the last second her magic swerved into an unsuspecting Steve instead. He was flung up into the air before landing like a sack of wet cement.
Sam shut the footage off then. "You hit your head really hard. You've been unconscious for two days."
"Two days?" Steve blurted out. "How much time am I missing?" He was expecting a week. Maybe two. A month at the most.
"Approximately two to two and a half years," the doctor said.
"Two..." A rush of dizziness overwhelmed him, silencing him.
"It may be temporary," the doctor went on. "The serum is doing an excellent job of repairing the damage, but not a lot is known about the nature of Ms. Maximoff's power yet. It's possible she did something to your mind without even realizing it."
"She what?" Steve lifted a shaking hand to his head. "She stole my memories?"
"Wanda would never do that to you," Sam said immediately, squeezing Steve's arm. "This was just an accident, Steve."
An accident. That wasn't much of a consolation. "You said it may be temporary. What does that mean?"
"It means we don't know. Typically people with this sort of amnesia have a good chance at getting their memories back, but, between the serum and Ms. Maximoff's magic, your case is very unique. We'll continue to monitor your progress, but at this point there's nothing we can do to help."
Two and a half years. It sounded like nothing compared to the seventy that Steve had already lost. But he could barely speak for the crushing grief weighing him down. "Where's Bucky? Is he okay?"
"Bucky's fine. I can take you to see him later," Sam said.
Steve nodded, trying to breathe. "And Tony? I need to see him now."
Sam froze. "Stark?"
"Yeah. Where is he?" Steve looked around the room, though he wasn't sure why he bothered: he already knew Tony wasn't here. And that was weird. Last time Steve had gotten hurt in battle, Tony had staked out his hospital room and refused to leave until Steve was allowed to come home. And then he'd personally escorted Steve back to the tower and fussed over him for days.
He looked back at Sam, who was looking at the doctor. "Wait. Is Tony mad at me for not telling him about Hydra and SHIELD? I didn't want his name to get dragged through the mud again. I thought - " He stopped. Of course that wasn't why Tony wasn't here. That was two and a half years ago. That had to be old news by now, right?
"Um, Stark is... Stark is busy," Sam said carefully. "He won't be coming around for a while."
"Busy doing what?"
"Stark Industries stuff?" Sam said. It was obvious he was just guessing.
"Sam -"
"Well, I think you're ready to leave the medical bay," the doctor cut in. "I'll have someone bring you some clothing. You'll need to come back in three days time for a check-up. If you experience any unusually severe pain or headaches, come back immediately. We'll give you something for the pain as well." She left the room quickly. Sam followed, closing the door behind them.
Steve scowled at the door. To hell with that. Maybe no one had even told Tony that Steve had been hurt. Tony was a busy man, after all, and it made sense that no one would've wanted to interrupt him for a simple knock to the head. But selfishly, Steve wanted his boyfriend here with him. He wanted to sit on the couch with his head in Tony's lap so that Tony could play with his hair.
He picked up the tablet. It wasn't a Starktab, which was really weird, but it only took a couple of minutes for Steve to figure out how to use it the way he wanted to. He quickly logged into his private Stark Industries account and navigated his way to the secret server Tony had set up for them a long time ago. It was safeguarded with as many firewalls and whatchamacallits as Tony was capable of building, making it safe to use no matter where Steve was.
He dialed in. There was no answer. He dialed a second time. Three, four, five times, with no response. Steve was getting worried now. Tony had promised that he would answer this line no matter where he was or what he was doing, because it was only for emergencies. Had something happened to Tony?
But then, before Steve's eyes, the line connected, and the screen suddenly showed Tony. Steve's heart leapt at the sight of him, though he couldn't deny that it was a different Tony from what he was used to. This Tony looked much older. There was silver around his temples and in his goatee, and new lines on his face, and he didn't exactly look happy. But Steve didn't care.
"Tony," he began, deeply relieved.
"What the fuck, Rogers," Tony said, cutting him off, and suddenly Steve realized that actually, Tony was furious. "What gives you the right to use this line?"
"What?" Steve said, shocked.
"This was a private line. Not something for you to blithely use whenever you feel like!"
"I'm not -"
"I didn't call your stupid phone. Was that not a good enough hint that I didn't want to hear from you? No? Then let me lay it out so that we're both on the same page." Tony straightened up, brown eyes cold. "You and your one-armed friend can go fuck yourselves."
"Tony!" Steve exclaimed.
"I'm done with all of you, actually. I have a new team now. One that actually acts like a team and doesn't hide secrets. I don't need you. And before you ask, you're never getting the shield back. I meant it when I said you didn't deserve it."
Steve opened his mouth, but the video cut off before he could think of what to say. He tried to dial back in, but before his eyes the server, his Stark Industries account, even the VPN he'd logged into to get there, all vanished. He tried a dozen different ways in an attempt to get back in, but it was like none of that had ever existed. It was just... gone.
"Steve? I got a change of -" Sam pushed the door open and stopped short. Steve looked up at him. The tablet was still laying on his lap, now open to the Stark Industries home page because that was apparently as close as he could get to Tony.
"Sam, what did I do to Tony?" he asked shakily. "What did I do to him?"