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In dreams, the cold never came quickly.
It creeped. Slowly. Steadfastly. It never teased, never hinted. Never weakened. It conquered.
In dreams, Steve could see it coming. He could see that thick, soupy mist reaching its tendrils over what was in front of him and around him, enveloping everything in its path. The air itself seemed to crystallize and glimmer, and he could almost see his breath turn into tiny daggers of ice. Sometimes it was a slowly rising tide, deep blue water that inched closer and closer. It crawled its way up, over his toes, up his legs, towards his lap, around his chest. It would slow the closer it got to his mouth, to his nose, like it was saying I’m here, you can’t stop me. It would gradually cover his eyes until all there was, was a dark blur. Until there was only a vague hint of bright blue light glowing in the distance, before nothing.
Sometimes, it smelled like a brutal winter, of gunpowder and blood and exploding timber. Sometimes it tasted salty and bitter and cold. Sometimes it had really no taste at all.
In dreams, he could feel it begin. Tightening everything until he himself felt like a block of ice. His lungs felt constricted, his gasping brought that thick sludge of ice and water into him; he could feel the crystals in his mouth—ripping his throat and destroying his lungs. He could feel it in his blood, infiltrating into his tissues—into every hollow organ, over and around the others, filling and constricting and freezing whatever it touched.
It had been seventy years since he pushed the yoke of the plane downward. Since he felt the shift in the air and in his body as the plane began its all too rapid, all too slow descent into the empty white of the Arctic. He could see it coming then too. He knew what was coming, he could only wait. Could only breathe.
Then he couldn’t.
He always knew when it was more than just a dream. Of course he knew when it was more. When he…first woke up, he couldn’t tell. It just felt like…dying. Like slowly and steadily dying. He could feel his body shutting down, then he could feel the serum…flipping on. And that’s what was his first hint: a switch being flipped. When he was awake, the sense of the serum was constant. It was this incessant warmth buzzing under his skin, at the base of his skull. A quiet hum along his nerve endings. In the blanket of sleep, he was normal and didn’t realize he was normal until suddenly he felt like he was more, and it was coming for him.
He couldn’t run. He couldn’t turn away. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t even shut his eyes. He tried telling himself to wake up, tried telling himself it wasn’t real, it’s not real, there’s no ice, wake up, wake UP before the words turned to icicles in his throat. The shivers were beginning in his legs and in his arms, barely there under the surface. It wasn’t long before no ice, it’s not real, wake up turned into cold, so cold, why is it cold, helpsocoldiceicehelpme. As soon as the change happened, the serum blared to life, and it was an incredible heat— a lightning bolt of energy in his blood.
But eventually even the serum wasn’t enough to fight off the freeze.
The dreams were hell. A hell that was filled with creaks of shifting and invading ice and the bare beat of his heart. When he woke, his teeth were rattling and his body was shaking so hard, he was sure he could hear ice in his bones cracking.
He didn’t think hell could get worse.
And then it happens while he’s awake, with the team, in the kitchen with the smell of supper in the air. He's not exactly sure what it is, but it smells amazing and he thinks he hears Natasha say it's some kind of Asian noodle dish with chicken, a whole bunch of vegetables and some powerful smelling spices. He's fascinated, watching as Natasha and Clint throw everything together, an elaborate dance around each other that's as present in mundane everyday life, as it is in the field.
He never imagined it would happen outside of dreams. He never thought that it would happen the way it does. After all, he’s opened that freezer door before. He’s had that cold, cold air blow into his face before.
Maybe it’s the sound of somebody moving the metal chairs—the sound of them clanging against each other. The way it was similar to—but not really—how the plane sounded as it shook around him. Maybe it’s the sound of Natasha’s voice—nothing like Peggy’s, but still a woman’s voice. Maybe it’s the combination of all three—of the air, the chairs, of Natasha—that gets him. The only thing he knows for sure is there is nothing slow about it this time.
All there is coldcoldiceicehelpsocoldiceiceicehelpmecoldsocoldhelpmeHELP and the feeling of choking on the razor blades of icy water is the last thing he’s fully aware of before hell takes over.
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When Tony first hears it, he’s setting the plates on the island to prepare for the assembly line that consists of his teammates. They have a mammoth dining room table in the dining area that they never really use. He’s sure the robots have found several different kinds of food groups in between the leather cushions of the couch situated perfectly in front of that very large TV he might’ve had a hand in designing.
At first, he thinks maybe he's imagining it, his ears playing tricks on him as he juggles the plates, a couple glasses, and whatever blueprint for his next project is twisting around in his head. It's a strange sound, a guttural sound and not quite human. He isn’t sure if he’s ever heard anything like that before.
And let’s face it. He’s heard a lot of shit.
He twists around, looking for a possible culprit. Bruce is getting the last of the silverware and glasses gathered, Clint is throwing the various bits of trash and leftover prep stuff into the trash from different angles and vantage points. Of course, he never misses. Thor is standing guard beside the numerous pots and pans that Natasha is switching between tasting. Every now and then, the wooden spoon Natasha is holding would make a quick, no-nonsense thwak against Thor’s knuckles.
Steve is just... standing there. Completely still, the freezer door still open and white clouds spilling out.
“Cap, do you realize what utilities cost in New York?” Tony hears Clint snicker behind his back and he turns towards him, eyebrow lifted. “Problems, Barton?”
Clint looks away from the trashcan and flicks the green onion ends in its general direction. It makes its mark. There’s a sardonic grin on his face as he says, “Seriously?”
“Shut up.” Tony’s still watching Steve as he fires back at Clint. Steve hasn’t moved. At all. Tony steps towards him.
“Iron Man to Cap. You rogering, Rogers?” Once he gets to Steve’s side, he lays a hand on Steve’s bare arm and the humor disappears between one breath and the next as Steve gives a minute flinch. “Steve?” The skin under his palm is clammy and cool, and Steve is…pale.
“Hey Steve. Steve!” He doesn’t know why, but his heart begins to thump under the arc reactor. Steve doesn’t even look at him.
“What’s up?” Clint has abandoned his target practice, and is now alert and wary. Bruce has placed the glasses in his hands on the table and is slowly making his way to them, and Natasha and Thor are looking at them intently.
“I don’t know.” He tries and manages to turn Steve towards him, an uncomfortable prickling under his skin. “Steve, what’s going on?”
Still no response and now there’s a fear there that’s he’s trying to swallow down. “JARVIS, what’s wrong with him? Loki? Magic?”
“I am sensing an elevated heart rate and blood pressure, sir. No traces of magic have been picked up on my sensors.”
Bruce has walked up to them and grabs ahold of Steve’s wrist. His face tightens. “Pulse is racing. Steve? Can you hear me, buddy?” He tries to peer up into Steve’s sightless eyes. The blue is blank; no trace of awareness, and Tony hasn’t seen him blink yet. Steve’s lips are parted slightly, and he nudges past Bruce to put a hand on Steve’s chest. After a couple seconds, a horrible sense of urgency compounds the fear. He can feel Steve’s heart violently beating under his palm, pounding, and so, so fast; he can only just feel the rise and fall of Steve’s chest.
“Bruce, he’s barely breathing. Steve! Steve, hey look at me! Look at me, Steve!” He’s not sure if he actually pushed Bruce out of the way, but suddenly he’s got both of his hands framing Steve’s face. The skin there is moist and the paleness is turning to not-quite gray. He hears that animal sound again, and chills race up his spine as he watches Steve’s throat strain around it. He vaguely hears Natasha curse behind him, and then somebody is trying to pull him away.
“Tony. Stop. Clint, get him away.” Suddenly, there’s red hair flashing in front of him and the smell of Natasha’s shampoo fills his senses. “Thor, can you bring him to the living room? Try to get him into open space. Be alert.”
Thor doesn’t hesitate, he nods acquiescence and put his large hands on Steve shoulder. He says, his voice low and rumbling, “Come Brother Steven, I am here by your side, I shall aid you. All will be well.”
Tony struggles against Clint’s solid hold, curses falling from his lips when he sees Steve’s hands rise, sees his brow furrow and hears the violent gasp. Clint holds tight, putting an arm across his chest.
“Tony, damn it, stop it. Steve’s not in there right now. You’re not going to get through to him like this.” Clint’s words filter through the haze that’s taken over his mind.
“What the hell are you talking about it?” The fury burns in his chest, sharp and roaring, and his body strains against Clint’s at his back.
Clint slides a quick glance towards Natasha and Tony watches as her face shutters.
“You drink and shut yourself away in your workshop. Some of us just shut down. And get dangerous.” There’s a strange tone in Natasha’s voice. “He’s somewhere else right now. Has this ever happened before?”
At first, Tony still doesn’t understand what she’s saying. All he can think of Steve’s expressionless eyes, ashen skin, and directionless movements into the living room under Thor’s watchful and worried gaze and careful hands. Then it clicks. And all he can feel is horror. He struggles more against Clint’s restraining hands, feels a vague pride when he breaks away for just a second before Clint hauls him back again.
“Tony! Enough. The longer you fight us, the longer he’s alone there. We need to bring him back. How do we do that?” Natasha’s voice is sharp, almost a snarl and it’s what he needs to still. The desperation is still a tremor is his muscles and a hotness in his face.
Their relationship is new. Amazing. Incredible. And so horribly new.
“I don't—this has never happened before. I don’t know.” There aren’t many times he’s felt helpless before. There aren’t many times where he allows himself to feel helpless. Now…he’s got no control over it.
He knows how his panic attacks feel. He knows how fucking terrifying it is for him. He knows what it’s like to get stuck in a thick fog of terror and horror with no guide out. Why has he never wondered if Steve ever suffered through it too?
He tries to remember the last two months, tries to remember the nights most of all. All he can recall is solid warmth, an arm holding tight around his waist and the other protective over the arc reactor. He tries to remember shivering or stiffness, tries to remember sounds that weren’t his in that in between-ness of reality and nightmare. All he can remember is silence and stillness, and even that's vague, a little distorted.
Twice he knows he’s startled awake with Steve at his side. Twice he's jolted up in bed sure he’s burning, skin scraped away by fine granules of sand; sure he’s drowning in a dank cave.
The dreams of floating in another universe with violets, blues, and blackness around him seem to trade off with dreams of the desert. He dreams of that missile on his back; no suit between it and his body so it's heavy and melting his skin. He dreams of suffocating, of his body imploding. He dreams of Rhodey and Pepper burying an empty casket as he stands there, unseen as his screams go unheard.
Twice, he’s woken up choking on a gasp and his muscles seized—fully expecting to look down and see wires winding into his chest, or a hand ripping the reactor out. Twice he’s blinked the blur out of his eyes to see blue light and blue eyes, to hear a soothing voice that’s muffling the foreign languages, or silencing Stane’s taunts.
Twice Steve, somehow, was able to get him back home and out of Afghanistan, out of space, away from a traitorous psychopath.
Tony has no fucking idea how he can bring Steve back home, but he’s damn well going to try. He’s not leaving him alone in that place, wherever he is. He turns his head towards Clint and pleads, “Let me go. Please. Let me go to him.”
Clint and Natasha trade glances. A conversation passes in an instant, and Natasha's eyebrows draw together. She hesitates for a second, then Bruce lays a hand on her shoulder.
“Be careful, Stark.” And it’s only then that Tony hears something in her voice. Something almost like pain, maybe even fear. “He doesn’t know who you are. He doesn’t know who any of us are.”
“Natasha, Clint, please.” Tony can hear the despair in his voice and the tremor that runs through the words.
And that’s all it takes. Clint lets him go and takes a step back, shoulders tight and arms at his side, ready and watching. As Tony steps by Natasha, she lays a hand on his arm, gentle, and the expression on her face is pleading for a split second before it’s tense again.
“Tony. He’s a soldier. If that’s where he’s is…”
Only one of us comes close to his reflexes.
He hears the words she doesn’t say. He hears the distress she’s trying not to let into the words she does say; he can only think of Steve, frozen feet and possibly decades from him and the urgency clamors in his chest. He leans in close and kisses her forehead.
“I’m not leaving him there. Thor’s got my back.”
Thor nods, and says, voice quiet and promising, “Indeed. I will not leave him, nor will I turn on you. My word.”
He’s not stupid. He’s woken up with torn fingernails and bloody knuckles beside his bed with red smears on the wall. Throwing elbows and punches, kicking legs he thinks are being held down only to find he’d wound himself in the blankets. One good hit from a super soldier stuck in a 70 year old battle…
Tony knows he should stay clear of Steve’s strike zone. Knows he should leave himself enough room to react, to duck, to flee—he knows an attempt to block would only leave him broken. He brings himself within inches of Steve’s chest and puts a hand right in the center, fingers splayed, and the other on Steve’s cheek. He ignores a hissed noise that sounds vaguely like a curse and Russian from behind him.
He’s never had a very good sense of self-preservation.
“Steve? Cap? How about you come home, huh?” Steve’s eyes stay fixed somewhere over his shoulders, but they’re moving erratically now, and that barely-breathing is steadily picking up speed, shallow and noisy. Steve’s throat is working visibly and his hands are clenching and opening rhythmically.
Tony sees Clint move closer at the corner of his eye, and Thor seems to ready for battle.
He’s not sure where Bruce is. He doesn’t even know if Bruce is still in the room, or if the Big Guy has decided he’s not very happy with the situation.
Tony doesn’t know what the hell to do. He can feel his panic is right there. He can feel it in the dryness of his throat, the ball in his belly, and the tingling in the tips of his fingers. The helplessness is an anguished voice in the back of his mind and a thrumming along his nerves crying help him help him help him.
He reaches up and touches his lips to Steve’s. Steve's mouth is unmoving and lax under his own. He doesn’t know what to do, so he does what he does best. Talk.
“Steve, come on baby, I’m right here. We’re all here. We’ve got your back. It’s not real. Wherever you are, it’s not real. We are. You’re here, with us, with me. It’s time to come home, we’re all waiting.” He feels his fingers grasping at Steve’s cheeks. There’s still no recognition in those deep blue eyes, and Tony can almost see the light of arc reactor playing off the paleness of Steve’s face.
The image of Steve’s arm across the reactor in sleep flashes in his mind. All of a sudden, it’s knowledge, certain and unquestioning. He doesn’t know why, he can’t explain it, it probably may be the stupidest damn fucking thing he’s ever done. He grabs Steve’s hand and places it right over the center of his chest. He feels the weight over the reactor, feels Steve’s fingertips brush against his skin over the edges.
The curse he hears is in a deeper voice, and there’s Clint and there’s Bruce. Moving together and almost like they’re going to rush him. He’s prepared to wave them off when Thor shakes his head.
“Be calm…Steven will not harm him. Not as long as I am sentry.”
Tony feels only utter gratitude.
“The lights.” He hears himself say it, and tells himself it’s a long shot, but it’s the best—the only—idea he’s got. “JARVIS, dim lights to 30%.”
The lights are dimming before he finishes the sentence, and JARVIS’s quiet voice echoes through the room, “Certainly, sir.”
Pale blue emphasizes the shadows and planes of Steve’s place, reflects eerily off his eyes. The hum of the arc reactor seems louder in the silence, it’s this constant low buzz that just barely overlays the staccato rhythm of Steve’s breathing, those horrible choking sounds that are forcing their way out of Steve’s throat, and the sound his own heartbeat hammering in his ears.
He wonders if Steve felt this powerless those two nights.
When Tony starts speaking again, he’s worried that the helplessness and panic will be laced throughout the words, but what he hears is calmness and evenness. He’s never been more grateful that he’s so able to fake it as well as he does.
He’s not really sure what he says, how long he goes on. All he knows is Steve begins to shiver. Those unseeing eyes begin to blink rapidly; his breathing becomes louder and more rapid; his jaw clenches and unclenches, and Tony’s terrified that’s he making it worse. He’s terrified that these movements only mean that Steve’s going deeper into his nightmare.
He’s not sure if it’s any better than the silent stillness of before. All he can do is hold onto is Steve’s hand that's still heavy on his reactor. He places his fingers in between Steve’s, still resting gently along the metal’s edges.
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He’s cold. He is so cold. Why is he so cold? He can’t breathe. Everything is so numb, it’s agony. Why is he hurting? Why does he feel so numb he’s almost burning?
He’s so confused. He can feel the answers are there, right at the edges of his recognition. Every time he almost grasps it…it disappears. His thoughts are sluggish, and he can’t move. Everything seems weighed down, seems tied up and down and around and the restraints seems to go into him and how can that be?
He tries to open his mouth but the words are—
He’s frozen.
And suddenly, he knows exactly where he is and why he’s there, and he knows he’ll never get out. Knows the ice is never going to thaw because it’s been days, months, he’s sure it’s been lifetimes. Maybe this is his penance because he let Bucky fall into the cold. Because he just couldn’t get there in time, because Bucky died in the snow. He failed his best friend and it should only be fair that he freeze alone.
Buck, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.
He doesn’t want the cold to thaw. He never wants to be warm again because he failed, and he’s going to be alone because Bucky is gone, because Bucky is dead and Bucky was the only one who knew him, who knew Steve, who followed Steve and not the damn uniform and shield. So maybe he’s better off frozen and numb and so cold…
He thinks maybe there’s a light far off beyond the blur of blue and ice. Another type of blue so bright that it's almost white, and there’s something like warmth in it. There’s something like the smell of metal and grease and bitter coffee. There’s a sound in the distance, a low humming and a soft rumbling.
Suddenly, there’s a low heat in his hand, and he tries to look down. He thinks maybe he comes close to movement, but he’s not entirely sure. He tries to wonder what it could possibly be, but he can’t. He feels like he should know what it is, feels like the answer is right there, but there is just so far away, and he’s here, and he’s alone, and he’s so goddamn cold.
Then he’s not. Or he is, but something is trying to chase away the cold, and he can feel it, he can almost see it. That blue-white is closer now, and the humming is more incessant. That rumbling turns into unintelligible garbles that become consonants and vowels that become almost comprehensible words. And apparently that’s all he needs.
He’s not alone. He knows he’s not alone, and he knows he’s not alone. He knows the ice isn’t real. He knows he’s not frozen. He knows that bright, bright blue is the perfect shade of blue and the best shade of blue because it’s—
“Tony?” The words tear through his throat, over a tongue that feels too thick for his mouth.
He may not be frozen anymore, but he is still so, so cold.
“Hey, hey you. Hey, welcome back. You’re ok. Do you know where you are?” Tony's voice is frantic under the buzzing Steve realizes is in his ears.
The room around him is only barely lit, but he can see his team gathered in a semi-circle behind Tony, sees Thor just out of the corner of his eye. They’ve all got tight expressions on their faces, but Tony…Tony’s face haunts Steve. He doesn’t know if Tony has ever had an expression that fearful before.
He’s about to reach up with his hand to lay it on Tony’s cheek, before he realizes that one is being held solidly against the arc reactor. He can feel it thrumming under his palm, and Tony is holding tightly to the other one.
“Tony? Wha--?” The cold is in his bones again, and his heart is pounding in his chest, the almost pain of the violent beating not quite enough to distract him from the cold. He can feel the shivers in his legs, the tingling in his fingertips and he still can’t breathe. His skin is crawling, and it feels like every exposed part of him is just electrified. Between all of that— the shivers in his limbs and the chattering in his teeth— he feels like he’s dying from the onslaught. “Tony—ice, so cold.”
The lightheadedness and dizziness hits him suddenly, his knees buckle, and he thinks for a second that he’s falling back into the ice.
“Shit! JARVIS, turn the heat up now! Somebody get me blankets. God, his skin is so damn cold. Steve, look at me, you’re ok. I need you to breathe. Listen to my voice, I’m right here, baby, I’m right here. You’re going to be ok, do you hear me?”
The floor is hard underneath him, cold, and it threatens to send him back, but he’s got Tony filling his senses—the smell of grease and coffee, the feel of the Tony’s arms around him and bringing him into Tony’s chest, the sight of the reactor’s blue, blue light—it’s all pushing the ice away.
He feels a heaviness drape over his shoulders, and it feels amazing. Between Tony breathing in his ear and Tony wrapping his arms and legs around him, it feels incredible. He thinks maybe the violent tremors wracking his body may be calming, but then another one hits hard enough that he feels Tony jolt with him. He thinks he’s shaking apart, he hopes he’s shaking apart, he hopes he shakes hard enough he can shake the cold right out of his blood.
“Steve?” Tony’s voice is tense and low, “Tell me what you’re feeling. I need to know how I can help.”
“Just stay,” Steve slurs. The words are hard to get out. The vowels are stumbling and blending together and Steve isn’t sure how his breath doesn’t come out in a fog. “’M cold. T’ll pass. Need time, stay. Please.” You’re warm. You’re so warm.
Tony’s embrace tightens, and he pushes Steve’s head under his chin.
“Not goin’ anywhere. Talk to me, babe. Where are you?” Steve hears the barely controlled distress in Tony’s voice, hears the worry, and he tries to burrow closer.
“N’York. Vengers Tow’r.” He clenches his jaw and forces his eyes to stay open, to keep the reactor’s light close. The words fight with his heavy tongue and the breaths that he’s panting out.
“Keep going. Slow your breathing down. In. One, two, three, out.”
He’s taken over by another incredible shudder, feels Tony move with him, grabs his hands and begins to blow into them. His heart is still racing, and his stomach is tingling. He can feel his fingers beginning to spasm towards his palms, a different kind of numbness setting in right at the tips. He knows it’s only because he’s breathing too fast, knows that funny feeling in his gut and the cramp in his hands is because he’s hyperventilating.
This is something he can control. He times his breathing with Tony’s coaching, and soon, that tingling is gone and Tony’s breaths are warm against his palms.
“You still with me?” Tony’s voice is still low, gentle; he’s not quite whispering and Steve can feel the rumble of the words against his temple. “Keep talking. What’s happening? Where did you go?”
“Cold. It was cold.” His voice is coming easier. It’s raw, and maybe the words are still overlapping, but it doesn’t feel like he’s swallowing razors of ice anymore. As soon as he says it, what feels like another heavy blanket settles around his shoulders. He gets a waft of spices and feels long, slim fingers run through his hair. He finds himself leaning his head towards Natasha before he really thinks to.
“The cold was everywhere. Couldn’t move. I was alone. Felt the ice, felt like I was the ice. Then you came.” Natasha disappears and he burrows back into Tony. “Heard you. Felt this.” He presses a hand into the reactor, can almost imagine the heat flowing through his fingers and up his arm. The shivers are smaller now. More occasional than they had been. His heart is finally slowing and that horrible numbness is receding. He feels the strong lines of Tony everywhere. He feels the warmth of Tony's body chasing the freeze away. “You brought me back. You were here.”
“We were all here.”
Bruce steps forward and drops to his knees. He reaches into the blankets to press fingers to Steve’s wrist and peers into his eyes.
“Are you ok with light, Steve?” As he nods, Bruce gives a small smile, “JARVIS, could you turn the lights up, please?”
“Right away, Dr. Banner.”
“Thank you, JARVIS. How are you feeling, Steve?”
The concern is obvious on Bruce’s face, and as the panic fades away, Steve begins to feel something like embarrassment. He thinks he should pull away from Tony, but even the thought make his chest tight all over again. It seems like he’ll never be free of his body betraying him. It seems like he’ll never be able to control his weakness. The shame begins to burn in the pit of his belly.
“Steve, I need to you to answer me.” He glances at Bruce for a split second and gives a quick nod.
“Yeah. Sorry. I’m sorry.”
He feels Tony’s arm tighten around him.
“Hey, no sorries. What’re you sorry for?”
Steve doesn’t have an answer. The shame reaches deeper than the cold did, and he doesn’t know which feeling is worse. He does try to pull away from Tony this time. Ignores that sharp twinge deep in his chest, that buzzing at the base of his skull.
“I should—”
“Stop it.” Tony’s voice is sharp, and he just shifts with Steve, moves so Steve’s back is flush with his chest and his legs bracket Steve’s hips. A harsh gasp escapes Steve when the blankets fall from around him and the air touches the skin on his neck. Then Tony grabs them and wraps them back around the both of them, secure and tight. The reactor is warm and solid against Steve’s back.
“What’s going on in the head of yours, Cap?” He feels Tony’s goatee brush against his jaw as the words are whispered against his ear. He doesn’t know how to answer. Doesn’t know how to put the shame into words. Doesn’t know if shame is even the right word. It’s almost like nausea, hot and tight at the bottom of his stomach. It’s like fear and disgrace and a feeling like he’s going insane because he’s supposed to be their leader.
How can he hold them together, if he can't hold himself together?
The dreams had been gradual. It had been a transition from just strange to a terror that was all-consuming. When it first happened, he’d woken up on the floor next to his bed, shivering and gasping for breath. He'd been gagging and retching in between the gasps, and clawing at the air like he was trying to dig himself out of something. He remembered nothing of the nightmare, and it had taken asking JARVIS to bring the heat in his suite all the way up, a shower at the hottest temperature the water could go, and an hour and a half with the water beating down on him before he started feeling almost warm.
It was another four panic-filled awakenings before he began to remember snippets. Remembering was much, much worse.
“I dream in red.” Natasha’s voice almost makes Steve jump. When he focuses back on his team, they’ve all gathered around him and Tony. There’s a mound of pillows and blankets that they’ve all grabbed and settled into. Natasha lays on her back with her head in Clint’s lap and drops her feet into Bruce’s lap as soon as he sits down, legs crossed. Thor settles himself just to the right of Tony next to Clint, and he reaches and runs his fingers through Natasha’s hair as she spreads it over Clint’s thigh. They’re all within touching distance of each other.
Steve’s heart gives another tug. This tug, though, isn’t the bad kind of painful. He knows better than most, love hurts.
“On the helicarrier, with Loki, he said my ledger was dripping in red,” she doesn’t glance at Thor when his fingers stall, she just reaches up and twines her fingers through his, and reaches unerringly for Clint’s on her belly when he stiffens, “Gushing red.” Her voice is bland, face expressionless, but Steve’s sees the way her eyelids flicker. Sees the look that passes over in a literal blink of the eye.
“There’s rivers of red in my dreams, and sometimes I can smell it on my hands. Sometimes I can smell burnt flesh and ash. Hospitals…” She gives a cruel smile as her thumb strokes obsessively over Clint’s hand, “Hospitals smell like burning and the walls are so, so red. Everybody walking in hospitals are all shades of red, and sometimes it seems like they breathe fire. I can see the flames in their eyes and glowing through their skin. Sometimes I feel like I’m burning right along with them.”
It’s quiet for a few seconds after that. Clint gives a sigh that rocks his shoulders.
“Well if we’re sharing.” The shape of his lips would be a smirk if it weren’t shadowed with helplessness. He nods at Tony, “Don’t take this the wrong way, Stark, but sometimes your reactor freaks me out.”
Steve feels Tony shrug behind him.
“It freaks a lot of people out, Bird-Boy. I sure as hell can’t look in the mirror sometimes.”
Clint tilts his head. He says, “It doesn’t happen a lot anymore. The color’s off, barely, but enough. And it doesn’t talk to me.” The laugh he gives is harsh and maybe a little choked, “That helps. I can still hear that fucking thing whispering in my head sometimes. Just fucking taunting me. Sometimes, it’s all I can hear.” He looks down at his hands, past Natasha’s slim fingers.
“I was there the entire time, and I remember everything. I was screaming, and it was whispering, and I couldn’t do anything. It ripped me up and shoved me to the side and stuffed a demon in. Sometimes all I can think is that demon is still in there, waiting to take back over and make me watch.” He doesn’t say anything after that, just leans back on his free hand. The hand in Natasha’s is gripped tight enough to whiten his knuckles.
Bruce places his hands on Natasha’s feet, and Steve wonders for a second how he doesn’t end up with a broken nose. The quiet sigh Natasha gives as Bruce begins to rub, gives him his answer.
“Sometimes I remember what happens with the Other Guy. Not often, I can probably count on one hand.” He doesn’t look at any of them, just concentrates solely on Natasha’s massage. “There's one time...I remember pulling the hammer on the revolver back. I remember putting it in my mouth. Squeezing the trigger.” His voice never changes its cadence, never varies it steady, steady tone. ”I even remember the shot.”
He closes his eyes then.
“For those seconds when I’m beginning to change, everything is magnified. A thousand fold. My senses are…I can still taste the gunpowder. I never dream about it, but I taste it all the time. Sometimes, when it happens, I hear screaming, and I’m not sure if it’s me, or if it’s him. It hurts like hell; I can almost taste the pain. And it tastes like gunpowder.” When he opens his eyes and meets all of theirs, the green tinge there is sad, and red rims temper the glow.
Thor reaches over and lays a hand on Bruce’s shoulder, “I have fought many battles, friends. For millennia, I was sure I was among the greatest of the warriors, the most steadfast, the most feared. I was skilled, surely, but I was a child. Arrogant and a fool, with glory and recompense my only goal. I have no right to name myself among the greatest.” He ducks his head then and holds Mjolnir gently in his hands.
“There were a great many of us who fought bloody battle after bloody battle; in the numbers were my father’s most terrible warriors. It is known that they worked themselves into such a state as to having no logical reasoning, no mind left. They had only the thirst for blood, for war. They are called Berserkers. They may have been honorable warriors, but they had no control. Many fell under…our sword, beneath our hands. The innocent as well as the criminal. Fire and iron would not wound the mortal warriors. We knew no such thing as mercy.” He runs a finger along the designs of Mjolnir’s handle before laying it at his feet. “I was a young, foolish warrior who fell to madness. A warrior’s madness, but a madness all the same where we felt no pain or shame.”
He looked up at them, met every one of their eyes before settling on Steve, “War is unkind, brother. And war need not involve iron or fire or the great vehicles of Midgard to be called such. Battles are won and the dead are burned or buried—in ground or memory. Armor is hung up and our weapons and shields are stored away until they are needed again. Of those who are left after the bell is rung, I fear, many crave the Deep Sleep where the battles cries are silent and the blood has no feel or color. We trained to fight, we are taught our strategies to prevail in that terrible fray. We are not, however, shown our way home. In this…our battle is never won and our lifetimes are spent beseeching forgiveness from those deaf to our pleas and imploring purgation from the mind of what can never be disremembered. In this, we are all damned and in that, is the greatest cost of war.”
Steve can feel the heaviness of Thor’s gaze, can all but feel the weight of their lives between them as Thor says, “You should feel no shame, brother. Your humanity saved you and your greatness damned you. You, who knew naught but weakness, were given awesome power, and yet you wield it without mishandling. Such a countenance is near unrivaled. You are a great warrior, Steven Rogers, but you are also, a great, great man. I am honored to call you a brother-in-arms, a sentiment I am sure is shared amongst our team, and moreso, we would be greatly inclined to take some of your burden from your shoulders should you only ask us to.”
There’s a dense silence that fills the space around them when Thor finishes. Steve can feel a phantom touch against his chest—maybe not a perfect soldier, but a good man—and he’s got a burning behind his eyes and a tightness in his chest that has nothing to do with panic. He jumps when there’s a low whistle followed by Clint saying, “Wow.”
He doesn’t see Natasha move but Clint twitches a little bit and a chokes off a yelp, but his cheeks are reddening and he ducks his head.
“Sorry. That was supposed to stay in my head. Oops?” Clint is looking sheepish and trying so hard to keep from grinning. It’s tinged with not-exactly embarrassment, and well, that’s Clint, Steve supposes. “Serious. I’m serious now. I’m sorry. But yeah…what he said. Absolutely.”
Natasha rolls her eyes and reaches up to slap his cheek, “You’re an idiot,” but her voice is affectionate, and her face says I love you and isn’t that perfectly them? Perfectly all five of them, so awkward, not fitting into anything quite right, but fitting just right with each other even when their worlds are crumbling apart in fire and ice and rage and regret. Steve can't help but think how perfect it is that all their broken and ragged parts slot so wrong and so right together.
Steve laughs. It’s sharp and loud, maybe too bright and a tad strangled with a touch of hysteria. It starts deep in his chest before bursting from his mouth. There’s wetness on his cheeks, and he doesn’t know when the burning in his eyes turned to this—to laughter choked with a random hiccup and a trail of tears. The tears are warm on his face, and he can only hope that means the ice in him is beginning to thaw. Looking at his team, they all have expressions of concern and confusion.
Steve turns his face into Tony’s neck to muffle the laughter and has to tell himself it’s not to hide the tears. He feels Tony swallow before Tony begins to speak.
“You can touch the reactor. You can—it’s,” he stammers like he can’t find the right words. “You know sleep and I have a complicated relationship.” Tony snorts, “In that, it’s non-existent. I never considered that for you. I’m sorry for that. I’m so, so sorry for that. I’m a selfish son of a bitch, Steve, and you—you’re not. You are always so damn strong, so fucking indestructible, so fucking brave, I forget—we all forget—that you’ve seen the worse parts of war. You went to sleep and woke up with nothing and nobody asked you how you were ok when we all knew you never had the chance to be ok. I don’t think I ever wondered if you were suffering, and I should’ve.” Tony’s voice is rough and Steve feels Tony grip him harder.
“You’ve always known with me. I don’t know how. I don’t know how you know when the skin is being ripped from my bones from sand, how you know I’m melting from the inside out while I’m choking on grit and water and fucking metal. But you always do, I can feel you in the worst of it.” Tony shifts so that he’s facing Steve, somehow still keeping the blanket wrapped around the both of them. He grabs Steve’s hands again and presses them into the center of his chest.
“You are the only person who can touch this. You are the only person I know who will never rip this out, because even when you were stuck in your mind terrified and gone, your hand was gentle. You keep this safe. You keep me safe. You bring me home. What can I do to bring you home? How can I be there for you?”
By the time Tony finishes, his voice is frantic, and his eyes are pleading. His hand is gripping Steve’s as though letting go means they’ll lose each other to the heat and the cold.
“What do I have to do so you can trust me to be there for you?”
When Tony says those words, Steve jerks his head up and meets Tony’s eyes.
“No. No.” And he is so glad that the words come out steady, because he will not have Tony thinking that. Not when they’ve come this far. “Trust is not an issue. My trusting you is not in question,” he moves his gaze to his team. “My trust in all of you is absolute.” He can’t help but duck his head for what he says next.
“I thought I was going crazy. We all knew about Battle Fatigue. I sent a lot of great men home. I heard all the talk, heard the how they all tried not to judge. We got used to keeping it a secret, to lying to ourselves and each other. I don’t know if I even considered telling you because I spent all of the war burying it. This has only happened a few times before.” That split second flash of memory thrums along his nerves again. “It’s only ever happened when I’m asleep.”
Tony stiffens, “Since we’ve been together?”
This time, Steve feels shame for an entirely different reason. “I’m sorry. I can usually feel it coming on. The ice and the cold. I just…leave. Go to my room, the gym. Just somewhere…else.”
“And be alone.” Tony’s voice is toneless and Steve has nothing to say about that. “How many times?”
Steve doesn’t answer.
Tony leans in until they’re close enough to share air, and lays his forehead against Steve’s.
“No more. You won’t do that anymore. You promise me right here, “ his tone is sharp, “You swear to me, the next time this happens, you wake me up. JARVIS, monitor him, and you wake me up when it happens.”
“Absolutely, sir.” JARVIS’s reply is immediate.
“Tony—don’t, This—tonight, it’s never been this bad before. It’s never happened that quickly before. I’ve never been awake before.”
“But haven’t you?” Natasha asks, except not really, because that’s knowledge on her face and Steve can lie when he has to. Because sometimes his commanders didn’t fucking need to know some things, and maybe he isn’t a perfect soldier, but the Commandos weren’t successful because they followed the rules.
But this is his team, this is his family, and he can’t lie to his family. Natasha never gives him to chance to answer, when she speaks again.
“You’ve never had flashbacks in front of us before. You have, however, left a sketchbook open once on the couch. You’re an incredible artist, Steve. You’re drawn into your art, intense, almost like you are when we’re fighting, except worse. There’s nothing around you, nothing else exists but you, the paper, and your medium. You were so quiet, but it was the kind of quiet that means a soldier is caught up in something that’s not what’s going on in front of him.
"I remember watching you that day., Your hand was flying over that pad, and suddenly you just stopped. Completely froze, you didn’t even breathe. The pencil dropped from your hand, then you stood up, and you walked away. I picked it up and looked at it,” she didn’t sound apologetic, “Your art—how much do you remember of being in the ice, Steve?”
He remembers that. Vaguely. He remembers how frantic he felt when he couldn’t find it when he finished destroying the punching bags, after he turned that hot, hot water on his body when even that wouldn’t warm him. He just assumed he was the one who put it on his bed, pad closed, when he wasn’t fully aware of what exactly he was doing.
Steve hears Clint curse, sees Bruce’s eyes widen, looks back at Tony and takes in the stricken look on his face.
“You were awake?” Tony asks, and God, his voice is horrified, every line in his body is stiff, and the hands that have gripped his shoulders are almost bruising. “That entire time? How?”
Steve shakes his head immediately, “No, not the entire time. Not even the serum could hold that off. I remember the plane going in,” he has to swallow past the lump in his throat, take a breath through the nausea. “I remember the ice. The serum is always there, you know? I can always feel it. I can’t feel cold…literally,” but he shudders anyway, “it’s this heat that’s always running under the surface. It kept trying to fight off the cold.” Then he gives a helpless kind of shrug,.
“But then it couldn’t, and I just froze. I stayed awake long enough to feel everything turn to ice. Sometimes, I dream about that. Sometimes it’s just winter and the trees are exploding all around us. The snow is turning red and black, and my men are screaming as they’re being blown apart.”
Sometimes, it’s Bucky screaming as he falls and falls and falls.
“We all stared death down. It was war after all, sometimes we won. Mostly…we were just at a standstill and waiting for the next time knowing there was a damn good chance the man sitting next to us might not be there. They knew eventually there wouldn’t be anybody left, and I knew I would be the one if there was, and I would be alone. Turns out…I won that wager.”
By the time he’s done speaking, his tone is matter-of-fact, and he’s just reciting facts. Inside, he’s a little numb, a little cold that has nothing to do with ice in his blood.
Tony lays his hands on Steve's face, and Tony’s lips when he lays them on Steve’s are warm and soft.
“Not anymore. Never again. Would you leave me alone in my nightmares?” The way Steve’s jaw clenches gives Tony his answer. “I will not let you go through this again alone.”
“And if I hurt you? Tony, I couldn’t—if I hurt you,” Steve can’t even choke the words out.
“We’ll figure that part out. I swear, we will figure that part out.” And the absolute certainty, the firmness has Steve just about believing it. "But that will not be the reason you think you’re dying all over again alone. We may not be able to save you from it, but we will be able to bring you home.” Because Tony knows, he knows, there’s no saving from this. There’s only survival after the war. Broken and shattered and hoping like hell, maybe one of these days you’ll be alive again.
“And we're going to do everything we can to have you believe you’re home. You’re our Captain, Steve,” and Tony kisses him again and again and again, “You’re ours. We’re not leaving you behind. I’m not leaving you behind, because you brought me home and I should’ve known that you needed someone to bring you home too. Now I do.”
“We’ve all been a thousand places.” Bruce’s voice is quiet and his eyes are steady, “We’re all we’ve got, and we’re the only ones who can possibly begin to understand what we’ve been through, what we’ve seen and what we’ve done. We’re all castaways.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Clint says. “Thing about castaways, we watch. We observe. We look at people, we study them. We see how they fuck up. We survive. We know exactly what it takes to survive on our own.”
“If we all six banded together in our times of strife,” Thor’s voice is introspective, “I feel we would truly be resilient. If we all know how to conquer on our lone, to combine this quality would mean to foster it, to magnify it.”
Tony gives a laugh but there’s something under it, something that isn’t nearly derision.
“So if we have nightmares, we all have a sleep-over? JARVIS, begin program, Avengers Assemble, Operation Lullaby.”
“Right away, sir. Do you wish for me include such nursery rhymes as well?” JARVIS sounds like he’s politely judging, and Tony feels a surge of pride.
“Tony,” Steve begins, and there is he is, Tony thinks, there’s that smile, there are those blue eyes with all those ghosts chased away. “It has to go for all of us. And besides, isn’t that called Movie Night?”
Tony feigns indignation even as the relief is a heady feeling through his veins. The buzz he gets from the finest whiskey is nothing like the high he gets as Steve settles those blue, blue eyes on him as the lines fades around his mouth and his cheeks get that faint flush back and pushes the pale away.
“I’ll have you know, Captain Rogers—”
He never finishes it because this time it’s Steve who slots his mouth against Tony’s, and it's warm and yielding. When they hear Clint speak, Steve's mouth curves into a smile.
“If we’re getting our nails painted, I call purple. There better not be any bird stickers in this tower. I’m drawing the line there, you can all screw yourselves.”
Natasha gives a faint, ringing laugh.
“Thor’s fingers are very skilled at braiding, and Bruce gives the best foot rubs.” Her words are amused, and her tone says, You men. You’re all mine. You’re all idiots, and you’re all mine.
Bruce says nothing, but his face is pleased and maybe the most peaceful Tony has seen it.
Their demons are out in the open. Not all of them, because God knows, the Avengers have a hell all their own, each their own. The thing about having their monsters being out though, is that they know they’re there. The demons have all been acknowledged, and once they have a name, they can be eliminated. But until then, they’re all just playing that game, trying to figure whether they’re on the side of winning or if they’re just strategizing survival until the sun comes up.
It’s a good fight, a great one and a terrible one at the same time. At the end of war, there’s always a winner of sorts, but there’s also always blood and destruction and ruins left on both sides. The dust will settle, the dead will be put to rest and those vague glimpses of recovery will be seen. Everybody will band together, stronger than before, hopefully wiser and so much more broken. Because really, there’s no true victor in war. The wounds will all be dressed and bandaged, the blood scraped from the ruins, and the tears will be wiped away.
It will be done together, because if they’ve shattered together, all those tiny pieces will have fallen together—an amalgamation of fragments and blood. To repair it means to carry pieces of the other within themselves so they will never again be solely themselves. Their blood will never again be solely theirs and the ghosts and demons will never be absolutely certain whom to haunt.
When Coulson enters the common room several hours later, it’s almost uncomfortably warm. The room is dark but for the moving lights of the TV dancing off the walls. He finds them there in front of that huge screen, a pile of limbs and bodies and he couldn’t say where exactly one ended and the other began without walking closer.
He steps silently towards them, JARVIS’s low, low voice welcoming him, “Good evening, Agent Coulson.” Like Steve, he looks up and smiles at a camera in the ceiling, tilting his head in greeting, murmuring his own ‘hello’ back.
They’re all gathered on blankets and pillows, a sort of fort that has him feeling equal parts of exasperation and absolute affection. None of them twitch, and he thinks they’re all still deep in sleep, but then Natasha angles her head towards him from where it’s resting on Bruce’s chest. She says nothing, but the small smile on her face and the look in her eyes tells him he’ll get the details soon enough. She reaches down and lays one hand on Steve’s head where he’s curled around Tony at her side, combs her fingers through his hair when he makes a faint sound before reaching over Bruce to Clint, fingertips just brushing him.
Coulson goes down on his knees when Clint’s eyes blink open lazily and focus on him. A little upturn of lips tells Coulson a whole wealth of information. He lays a hand on Clint’s forehead and kisses him, and Clint is back asleep before Coulson is standing back up again. He nods at Natasha, knows she reads the words in his eyes when hers slide back shut. The trust in him so apparent when she’s relaxed and sleeping in the next breath.
Coulson sits on the couch facing the entrance, removes his firearms from his shoulder holsters and his ankle holster, placing them next to him. His team is in front of him and he has a clear view of the entrance into the common area.
Nothing is getting through.
The lights continue to move on the walls. There’s no demons or battles that night.