Archive of Our Own

Sixty-seven years was . . . a long, long time.

It was a span of time that encompassed four full generations.  Comrades did not greet Steve Rogers when he awoke in a small isolation room in New York City.  Nor did their children, who he may have at least recognized. 

It was their grandchildren.

Had he sired children at the end of the War, they would have shown him their full-grown grandchildren by the time he awoke.  That was the scale of time that had passed, in a single icy night’s sleep.

Imagine sustaining an injury for that same period of time.

. o .

Pain awoke Steve Rogers from the longest sleep of his life. 

Grimacing, he reached for his left leg, remembering the shard embedded in it.  More than that: he remembered slamming into the ice, ruptured glass and ice-cold water surrounding him.  One particularly vicious shard of windshield had lanced deep into his left thigh, but he had not dared pull it out.

But the pain.  The pain was unbearable.

As Steve felt around for that nasty edge, he realized the shard was gone. 

Panic lurched through him.  Steve lunged upright, convinced he would find himself lying in a pool of blood, but when he yanked the sheet back, the cotton was white, unstained.  Heart still beating too fast, Steve looked up as a very strange woman appeared.

Hydra.

Steve swung both legs around the side of the bed.  His right leg was fine, but his left--gritting his teeth, Steve forced himself to plant both feet on the floor.  Pain scorched through him.

“Captain Rogers--”

At least you know who I am, Steve thought grimly before pushing himself to his feet.

His left leg did not support him.

As he started to fall, Steve caught himself on the edge of the bed.  Instinctively, he raised his damaged leg off the floor.  “What,” he rasped, tensing as a pair of black suits appeared on either side of the first woman, “the hell did you do to me?”

Black suit number one approached.  Steve launched him through the wall.  Black suit number two actually cocked his gun.  I’m faster than your trigger finger, Steve did not warn him, taking a shaky seat back on the edge of the bed.

He flattened his palm against his left leg—they know; kill them, they know—and held it there, trying to compress the pain.  Fuck; it hurt.  He wanted to rip off the fabric, see the problem for himself, but drawing more attention to it was a bad move.  Enemies shot at limps and blind spots. 

I would.

Once they had a twelve-to-one ratio of black suits to super-soldier, the leader of the pack informed him that he was not actually being held hostage at gunpoint but in good hands.

He leveled an unimpressed look at the man, resisting the urge to bolt out the window.  He would survive a three-story drop onto concrete without so much as a bruise, but a twenty-story drop without his shield could kill him.  Seething silently at his predicament, at his foolish leap to run without looking—there had not been time, she had called the reinforcements now pointing guns at him—Steve waited with nothing like patience for their real leader to arrive.

“Actually,” the real leader said, “this isn’t far from how I thought this would go.”

He introduced himself as Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.  At his side was Agent Hill, a woman who was either sufficient in lethality to twelve men or the Director’s way of getting off on the right foot as the hired guns vacated the room. 

Refusing to be lulled into complacency, Steve listened to their story as they explained how they had found his plane in the ice and brought him back to New York for treatment.  He did not ask the obvious questions gnawing at his consciousness: How did you fly a rescue mission to the Arctic?  Don’t you know there’s a war going on? 

Instead, Steve said, “You recorded the game.”  He indicated the buzzing radio.  “Why?”

“It’s a long story,” the Director said.

Tired of sitting in front of them, Steve planted a hand and set himself on his feet.  His left knee bowed.  Steve grunted in frustration as he tried to earn its cooperation, gripping the cot for support.  There was plenty of feeling in it—hurt like a sonuvabitch deep in the thigh—but there was seemingly no support to its structure.  Infuriated and in agony, he sat back down.  “Why can’t I walk?” he demanded.  “What did you do to me?”

And so Steve learned that his leg was broken before he learned that the rest of the world was, too. 

. o .

They had hoped for better.  Steve had, too, but seventy years of bleeding into the wound and preventing any kind of healing had ensured that the damage was extensive.  Permanent, they did not say, but he read it in the room, sitting on his bed looking at the scans for himself.  They had scanned his whole body without so much as a by-your-leave.

They had even scanned his brain.  Looking at the monochrome imagery, Steve wondered with a shiver of dread if they would have let him wake up if they had not liked what they had found, if they would have put a bullet in his brain despite all their overtures of peacekeeping if he had not measured up.  Undesirable.  They had the tech to diagnose a soft-tissue injury that would have eluded all but speculation a hundred years ago; surely they had the know-how to interpret degeneracy in the brain.

I’m not a degenerate. 

He had never liked doctors.  No matter how little critique the S.H.I.E.L.D. ones offered, he could not un-hear the tone.  They liked his new body, even if it was a broken car of a thing, one leg not functioning like it was supposed to.  Steve thought, You gonna cut it off? 

It would not even be a decision he had a lot of input over—he was government property, and if they could argue that he would be better off as a one-legged man, then he would be a one-legged man.  It was one of those caveats that Steve Rogers had not bothered to read when he had been five-foot-nothin' and one bad winter away from a grave, but at least it would never come up if he never got badly injured.

You fool, Steve told himself, sitting in a chair, no longer listening to them as he rubbed gently at his thigh, willing it to heal.  They had stated that full recovery was possible as long as he remained completely immobile and wore a knee brace.  The serum had performed small miracles in the past—and these people knew his past, to a degree of surety that unnerved him; they know me, I don’t know them—and it was possible that it would pull off another one.

There were lots of things to do in the—twenty-first century, as if that was not a complete hoax—while recuperating, they assured him.  In fact, they all but demanded his compliance, stating there was no greater cause demanding his attention than his own recovery.  What about the war? he retorted.

The war’s over, they replied cheerfully.  We won.

The knee brace was agony.  The idea was to draw a road map for the serum to repair the tendon, to prevent it from healing wrong, but one look at the black-and-blue ink spilled from the worst point on his thigh halfway to his knee and he thought, I am no longer an optimist.  He kept absolutely silent, though, because it was better than cutting the damn thing off with a saw.  Amputation was worse than death; it was a form of medically-authorized torture, and half the damn patients died on the table or shortly after.

There were a lot of bad weeks in Steve Rogers’ life—the periods of sickness, the periods of war, the periods of hunger and unemployment—but the week with the knee brace was up there.  It was the pain of a bear trap elongated over a period of not seconds but hours.  He thought in a somewhat desperate moment that it was a great way to make him sweat it out.  The Great Captain America can’t handle a piece of cloth, he could hear them sneering as he gripped his thigh to try and refocus the pain.

When they took it off, there was no relief.  Even with the cane they offered up—he refused to be in a chair, no matter how pathetic his limping along was—he was in so much pain he could barely follow the, All right, if you’ll come this way, mandate.  They scanned the leg.  The news was not good—rather than knitting back into place, the soft tissues had further retreated, further immobilized.  It was to be expected, they admitted.  Steve did not tear their heads off over the unnecessary agony of try, try, trying as they cheerfully volleyed the idea of surgery as a next option.

Your chances for recovery are good, they said.  Given the robustness of the serum.

Steve had heard that before.  It was an exercise in patience to sit, hungry as hell and sore to the bone, while they talked about body modification.  It was a further exercise in patience to inform them that anesthesia did not work on him.  They had immediately dismissed it as an outdated notion; they had not known, seventy years ago, how to handle the serum.  Now, they did.

Angry with pain, Steve bet them ten dollars that they could not knock him out.

Steve lost the bet, but he did prove a point: they did not know what they were dealing with.  It was solely experimental: they started within the dose level that should have knocked him out and he cleanly recited the alphabet backwards.  It was not until they were three times over the predictive level when he slurred his first answer, but he still did not falter until they were five times over their expected dosage.

The problem was the serum’s response system.  It deterred invasive agents with vigor, forming a defensive line that only total saturation could overwhelm.  While the S.H.I.E.L.D. tech’s dosage predictions were correct on size and metabolic speed, they failed to account for the serum’s defensive qualities.

Which meant that, all at once, they reached a critical point, where Steve had one second to draw in a short breath before collapsing dead on the table.

They revived him, of course, with all the anxiety of mad scientists trying to keep their terrible experiment alive.  He awoke with a sore heart and a terrible headache and an unquenchable appetite.  They presented milkshakes as peace offerings, which he devoured greedily.

“Well,” said one of the docs with forced optimism, “at least we have options, in the event of a catastrophe.”

That was the spirit, Steve thought grimly.

Needless to say, they did not discuss reparative surgery again.

. o .

Amputation came up as an option, once or twice.  For his comfort, of course. 

Anyone who spent five minutes in his vicinity could see that he was in pain.  Like the problem of an irremovable trap, the ultimate solution was to remove the trouble limb.  It was an outsized reaction that would require going under the surgical knife.  Until the limb necrotized, he refused to even entertain the possibility.  He would not let them cut off an entire leg because of a little pain.

It was a lot of pain, but he could handle it.  If it was his choice, then he wanted to keep the leg, no matter how much it hurt.

On crutches, he was faster, but he refused them in favor of the slower, more arduous cane.  People looked at a man on crutches and a man with a cane differently.  A cane was austere, a sign of earned injury; crutches were a temporary solution for an acute problem.  Crutches belonged in a hospital; canes were a gentleman’s tool after surviving an enormous suffering. 

Chairs were only for those who could use neither.  He was a cane user, not a man trapped in a chair.  He would not be a man trapped in a chair because they removed his leg. 

Steve limped down a long hallway, pretending like his left leg was not a weighty passenger.

It was extraordinary how difficult it was to walk because of something that had happened to him seventy years ago.  But he would have bled out if he had taken the shard out.  The limb likely would not have healed on ice, anyway—even the relatively simple hairline fractures in his ribs had only repaired themselves hours after awakening.  There was no escaping his fate.

There was only a choice in paths.  Crutches, cane, or chair.

No question: cane.

. o .

He asked them, almost under the table, if they had any painkilling options available.  They again brought up amputation, before other, somehow more grotesque options—spinal injections, less aggressive tranquilizers.  Giving him painkillers by the bottle would neutralize the pain and his liver, they said, much like the serum-defying dose of tranquilizers had neutralized his heart. 

There was no way to neutralize the serum, let alone modify its potency, without experimentation that could lead to the unimaginable: losing the serum.

It was a double-edged sword, they told him, with sympathy and understanding, like they could sympathize or understand his plight of speaking to the great-grandchildren of his comrades.  He had been an officer in the Army; to be reduced to begging children was an awful place for his pride to be. 

Pride has nothing to do with this, he told himself severely, nodding in acceptance and moving along, cane a fixture in his hand.  It enabled him to walk; that was why he used it.  But as despair clouded his judgment, he thought, Would it be so bad to lose a leg?  To spend even a moment without the wrenching agony was nearly so desirable as to take a knife to it himself.

But he came to his senses, took a bottle of painkillers, and tried not to feel disappointed when all it gave him was a hangover.

. o .

They slowly let him out into the world, not as Captain America but Steve Rogers.

Took him for walks, like a dog, to show him the city he had known since he was born, the city he had never left for more than a day or two at a time until he went to war.  It had changed a lot.  There were one-and-a-half million more people crammed into the streets.  It seemed like every single one of them desired to personally knock his cane or leg out from under him.  Twice, Steve actually went down, unable to catch himself mid-fall on air and a broken leg.

Some were polite enough to stop and help, while others kept moving along.  He preferred the latter—the shame of being unable to keep himself upright was beyond bearable, never mind when attention was called to it.  His S.H.I.E.L.D. babysitters stood guard, offering an arm up so he could replant his cane and walk on his own terms again.

It was such a painful chore to walk that he could almost ignore the city itself, transformed by seventy years of progress.

I don’t belong here, Steve thought.  Steve mentioned it to the Director, who offered to put him up in D.C.  The Director had contacts with veterans who might be more Steve’s speed.  While Steve tried not to read it as lamed folks like you, he stepped off the plane with his leg so sore he almost begged them to take it off again so he would not have to deal with it.

And then he met Sam Wilson, a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed combatant without a scratch on him.

. o .

Sam liked early breakfasts, which was convenient, because Steve could not bear to wait until seven or eight AM for a meal when he woke up at four.

By five-thirty, they had found a diner.  Sam was as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as the moment Steve had met him.  Being the only two non-working people at the shop had its perks.  Sam’s laugh was infectious; Steve could not help but flash a smile as he stirred his own coffee.

Steve did not talk much, but Sam had anecdotes for days, funny stories that Steve could actually relate to, even though Sam was Air Force and Steve was Army.  “You Army guys think you’re so tough,” Sam said, grinning to lighten the words.  “Can’t even handle a bird.”

“Well,” Steve said, pausing meaningfully as he met Sam’s gaze, “they let me handle one.”  Sam watched him, listening with honest interest.  Steve shrugged modestly, admitting, “Think they revoked my honorary license.”

“Tough luck,” Sam said.

“Yeah,” Steve agreed.  “It’s a hard-knock life, sometimes.”

. o .

Sam was nice.  He made Steve feel like he was with a friend instead of a babysitter as they walked around the Washington Monument and its reflective pool. 

At least some things did not change, Steve thought, fond and relieved and beginning to see why the Director insisted he get out of town.  He never asked Steve if he was okay or if his leg was hurting him.  There was a time and place when such questions were actually handy.  Then there was the rest of Steve’s life, where he wanted to get by without being constantly reminded that he had an infirmity.

Not even from combat.  They sat on the steps at the base of the Lincoln Memorial together, enjoying the early morning light.  Steve stretched out his leg carefully.  It still hurt him.  Gritting his teeth hard enough to make a muscle twitch in his jaw, Steve waited for the pain to recede to a low burn. 

Sam said, “We good, Cap?”  He looked like he would sincerely take no for an answer, but hearing it phrased as a we made it a lot easier to say:

“Yeah, Sam.”  We’ll be fine.

. o .

And then a guy called Loki showed up.

. o .

Steve watched the footage of the Hulk smashing whole cars with a single blow from his green fist and mentioned to Agent Coulson, “You seem like you’ve got a lot of power on your hands.”

“We do,” Coulson agreed, standing with one hand on a support rigging as the—Quinjet sailed along the sea, towards the rendezvous point.  “But it’s not just about power.  Big guns.  We need brains, too.”

Flipping through the files—Dr. Bruce Banner, who somehow was the big green monster, had a college education and multiple Ph.D.’s; Tony Stark, the progeny and prodigy of Howard Stark; and Natasha Romanoff, a world-class espionage agent—Steve remarked, “I think there may have been a mistake.” 

His own file was complimentary—listed off all the attributes of the serum, including ones that no longer applied, like maximum speed and jump height—but there were clear absences.  He did not have any Ph.D.’s.  His combat tour of eighteen months seemed small on digital paper.  Even his rank of Captain did not seem to have much punch.  It was a fairly meaningless rank outside the Army.

It was disheartening, to say the least, but Coulson insisted, “We need you.”  When Steve looked up, he added, “With everything that’s happened . . . with everything that’s about to happen . . . we need Captain America on our side.  Because then everyone knows it’s gonna be okay.”

“I’m a symbol,” Steve said.  It sounded painfully close to show-boy.

“You’re our ace in the hand,” Coulson said.  Steve did not point out that, under some circumstances, it was the least valuable card.  “Think about it as a chance to get back in the world,” Coulson suggested.  “Sort of . . . test run.  For something new.  Fury mention it?”

“He plays his cards pretty close to his chest,” Steve said, disclosing nothing.

“Well.”  After a long beat, Coulson said, “If it’s not too much trouble—and you’re free to say no—I do have your trading cards.  Be an honor if you signed them.  They’re mint,” he added.

“Trading cards?” Steve said, frowning.  “What trading cards?”

. o .

Dr. Banner, at least, seemed relieved to have a Captain America aboard.  “Oh, thank God you’re here,” he said, approaching and offering a hand.  Steve shook it firmly, gripping his cane.  “I don’t know anyone here except Romanoff.  Have you seen her?”  He looked hopefully at Steve’s face, then added, “Sorry, I’m—”

“Dr. Banner,” Steve filled in.

Looking a mixture of awed and relieved, Banner said, “Yeah, I—”  Leaning in, he asked conspiratorially, “Fury give you a timeline of all this?”

“No,” Steve said honestly.  His leg was beginning to hurt a great deal, standing on the windy helicarrier deck, but at least Banner’s nervous energy provided a small distraction.  “He doesn’t really tell me much.”

“Right?”  Flicking his gaze around, Banner said, “Seems like a pretty big operation.”

“Seems like,” Steve agreed.

“When’d you get here?”

“About five minutes before you.”

Nodding to himself, Banner gestured around nervously and said, “Should probably find—”

“Well, this makes my job easy,” Natasha Romanoff greeted, stepping up.  “Hello, boys.”

“Oh, you’re here,” Banner said, turning to her like he had not expected her to show up.

Steve said politely, “Ma’am.”  She did not have a listed rank in her file.

“Soldier,” she replied.  She looked him over once, then said dryly, “They didn’t list the cane in the file.”

“Natasha,” Banner said immediately, horrified.

Steve shrugged and said, “Superfluous information.”

“Right.”

“There a problem, ma’am?” Steve pressed.

“Only if you keep calling me ‘ma’am,’” Romanoff said.

Steve looked her over once, casual in pedestrian clothes yet stunningly lethal, according to her file.  “In that case.  Sir,” he dared.  “I’m going to find the Director.”

“Don’t bother.  He’s busy with pre-launch.”

“Pre-launch?” Banner squeaked.  “Where’s he going?”

“He’s not going anywhere,” Romanoff said.  Nodding towards the edge of the ship, she indicated, “Might wanna watch your step, soldier.”  Then led the way.

Banner danced from foot-to-foot like a kid, then gratefully followed alongside Steve as he dutifully limped after her.  “Hell of a woman, huh?” Banner said.

“Don’t ever say that about her again,” Steve rebuked, making him cower.  Romanoff had a decent lead, might not even be in earshot, but it was the principle of the thing.

“Sorry.  Sorry.  I didn’t mean—”

Romanoff indicated, “Should probably stop there,” about fifteen feet back from herself.  “You’ll hear it.”

There was a deep thrum building up.  Steve limped closer, anyway.  Banner asked, “What’s that?”

“Is this a submarine?” Steve asked.

“You’re kidding,” Banner deadpanned.  “They want me in a submerged, pressurized container?”

Once they were mere feet from the edge, they could see the turbine, huge, half the size of the helicarrier, rising slowly out of the water.

Banner laughed, a touch hysterically.  “Oh, no, this is much worse.”

They retreated from the edge and back onto the landing pad, where most of the cadets racing around had donned masks.  “That’s our cue,” Romanoff said.

Steve watched her walk off, then followed at his own pace, Banner once more stuck like glue to his side.  “She’s real friendly, honest,” he said.  “Just—”

“It’s all right,” Steve said firmly.  His leg hurt, but he refused to cry uncle as he added, “Comes as a shock to some people, I s’pose.”

“I don’t care,” Banner alleged sincerely.  “Really.  I don’t.  I think it’s neat, actually, that you—well, not that you need it, that part is awful, but—”

Letting the chatter buzz over him, Steve blew out a silent, relieved breath as they stepped through the same doors as Romanoff into the interior of the helicarrier.  It was cool and smelled vaguely of metal.  Submarine, he thought, adding to Banner, “Go on ahead.  I’ll catch up.”

Steve did not think he could take the fifteen-minute journey from gate to command center with Banner babbling in his ear the whole time about how accepting of Steve’s maimed leg he was, even if the intent was sincere. 

He almost preferred Romanoff’s cool dismissal, like he should not be on the helicarrier in the first place.  I shouldn’t, he thought, limping slowly down the hall, biting back a retort whenever an agent passed him on the inside with a brisk, “Sorry, Cap, coming through.”

The command center felt like a pyrrhic victory, even though it was refreshing to see the Director at the helm.  Taking a seat at the big table with a stifled wince, Steve resisted the urge to bite through his own cheek when Banner promptly wheeled over to him and asked nervously, “So, we have a plan, right?  To catch Loki?  That’s not Plan Green?”

Recovering, Steve shut his eyes, shutting out the noise of the helicarrier and even the little voice screaming at him that he should not be there.  Then he said, “Let’s start with finding him.  Then we’ll worry about catching him.”

. o .

Of all the ways Steve expected to return to Germany, chasing down a Norse god was not one of them.

Still—Steve went where the bastard showed up.  He even suited up when Fury told him to, although it was always a chore to get his pants on and off.  Steve propped his cane in one hand, his shield in the other, and thought, Is this how I fight?

Steve was not a fighter anymore.  He did not dare say it, because wearing his suit reminded him that he was a warrior, once, whole and unbroken and good.  The idea of taking the uniform off again and telling Fury he could not do it anymore was unbearable.  Steve would rather be cut down by Loki’s scepter than admit he could not even try to help.

Romanoff and he loaded up on one of the Quinjets with a handful of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.  Sitting in the front seat of a plane again brought back not fond memories, but at least Romanoff was piloting.  If we go down, it’s not my fault.

Romanoff said, “I feel like we got off on the wrong foot.”

“You’d be impressed how often that happens.”  Shifting in his seat, Steve hid a wince as he jarred his leg, adding, “How far out are—”

“Thirty minutes.  How’d it happen?”

“Take a guess.”  Steve fixed his gaze on the window, kneading his knee with his hand absentmindedly.

“Surprised they didn’t rig you up.  Braces—”

“Not on the table,” Steve said firmly.

“Why not?  Seems like it’s giving you trouble.”

Scowling, Steve said, “It’s not up for discussion.”

“Suit yourself, soldier.”

Looking out the window, Steve said, “Just point me in this guy’s direction.”

. o .

“Ah.  The soldier.  The man out of time.”

So.  Loki was a talker.  Standing with his shield largely concealing his black cane, Steve stared down his opponent, saying fearlessly, “I’m not the one who’s out of time.”

Loki’s grin was feral.  Standing outside the museum, half a head taller than anyone in the crowd around him, Loki directed them, “Look to your elder, people.  Let this be an example.”

Loki shot a bolt of energy that Steve blocked.  Then Loki lunged.

Loki did not jump—he teleported, one moment across the alcove, the next driving his lethally sharp scepter towards Steve’s heart.  It was only his own superhuman reflexes that prevented it from doing more than cutting the uniform and the outer edge of his skin—catching the blade on his shield, he flung it to the side. 

Loki stood his ground—he seemed to weigh far more than a human being his formidable size should, not moving with the blow like Steve expected.  Grinning eyes did not falter as Loki lifted Steve by the throat.

Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Steve stabbed outward with his good leg, landing a kick to the throat that would have crushed a man’s windpipe.  Loki grunted and threw him twenty feet away.  Steve landed on his back, but pain ricocheted to his bad leg, paralyzing him in a lock-jawed scream.  Fuck, it hurt, more than he ever wanted to admit, but Loki was back, behind him this time, wrenching an arm around Steve’s throat.

“Loki!  Drop it!” shouted Romanoff from overhead, still piloting the Quinjet, Steve saw.

Loki breathed, “I see you, Captain.”  He pinned down Steve’s bad leg with annihilating force; a howl tore its way out of Steve's lungs.  “Pathetic,” he spat, holding him hard. 

“Romanoff,” Steve spat into the comms.  “Take the shot.”

Hovering the bird, Romanoff ignored him.  Loki laughed, squeezed Steve's neck until black dots crowded his vision and he could not speak even if he wanted to.  Steve was aware of the crowd, of the bodies in the periphery.  The helplessness of both made him angry.  Anger was a tool in his kit--Steve struck out with an elbow, again much harder than Loki was expecting, if the way Loki's grip loosened was any indication.

“Do it!” Steve roared.

Loki locked his neck.  Steve had a flash of insight—he’s going to kill me—before a flash of blinding white light hit the metal helmet.  Loki released him and teleported out of range.  Steve struggled to his feet, head pounding, the pain in his leg like a stake keeping him on the ground.  He was stupidly grateful that the shield was still covering the cane, although part of it still jutted out.  C’mon, he told himself, lunging upright, catching himself on the cane and, hard as he could, throwing the shield at Loki.

The one-two punch worked—the shield struck Loki in the chest, and as Loki swung his scepter around to strike Steve down, Iron Man shot a blast that knocked Loki into the concrete.  Landing hard enough to shake the ground, Iron Man sprouted a multitude of guns, all pointed at the Norse god.  “Make a move, reindeer games.”

Steve expected a counterattack.  But Loki—shifted, shedding the antlered helmet and golden cloak, adopting a more modest outfit.  Slowly, he put both hands in the air.

“Good move,” Iron Man said, retracting his own guns.

Steve limped painstakingly slowly over to his shield.  Picked it up with only a grunt of pain, his left leg less cooperative than ever.  He latched it onto his cane arm and stepped up to bat, looking down at Loki, watching for the slightest twitch of retaliation, as the Quinjet landed noisily in the empty street behind them.

“Captain,” Iron Man greeted suddenly, his own metal eyes locked on Loki.

“Mr. Stark,” Steve huffed, resisting the urge to ask, Where the hell have you been?

Steve could almost hear the question in Stark’s own tone—what’s with the cane?—but Stark did not voice it.  Even after the Quinjet landed and dumped a handful of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to deal with the aftermath and help cuff and drag their prisoner back to the plane, Stark did not lose a hint of vigilance until they were loaded up.

It was only once they were in the air and Steve was seated next to Romanoff that Stark broke: “So, am I . . . not supposed to mention the cane?”

Steve shut his eyes.  He had no obligation to respond.  He had done his civic duty.  Helped bring in Loki.  As far as Steve Rogers was concerned, he was done with the mission.

But Stark went on: “And if I wasn’t supposed to mention it, why wasn’t I informed ahead of time that I wasn’t supposed to mention it?  That’s terrible PR.”

“You could not mention it,” Steve said shortly.

“No, but—I’m not crazy, am I?” Stark asked Romanoff.  “Captain America has a cane.”

Gripping his good knee hard, Steve snapped, “Real brave of you, casting stones.  Or is that thing in your chest for show?”

A beat, then: “I was tortured by terrorists.  What’d you do?  Fall down the stairs?”

It occurred to Steve, then and there, that they had no idea the extent of the injury.  Not a damn clue—it wasn’t in his file.  It was therefore the diplomatic answer to not respond to the goading, to let it go and be the bigger man.

Frostily, Steve said, “Leave it.”

“No, I wanna know.  How many flights?  Two?  Three?” Stark sneered.

There was a huff of air from the back of the plane.  Steve turned to look at Loki, but Stark’s bulky suit was blocking his view.  Sighing, he unbuckled and stood up, forgoing the cane in favor of grasping the chair.  “How bad is it?” Stark insisted, nudging him, nearly making him fall.  “Should you even be on a—”

Steve crunched the metal arm that came too close, up and crunched the metal in his hand.  Stark scowled, yanking his arm away.  “Anybody ever tell you you break it, you buy it?  Of course not.  You were busy doing time as a Capsicle.”

“Boys,” Romanoff warned suddenly.

“What else did you miss?  Hm?”

Anger sizzled under Steve’s skin.  So did exhaustion—pain was draining, pain was a weakness, pain was not something he could overcome.  He caught a glimpse of Loki’s eyes and they were dark with knowing, glittering with wicked knowledge.

I see you, Captain.

Mind games.  But—

A crackle of thunder made them all audibly pause.  “That’s weird,” Romanoff said.  “There aren’t any storms in the area.”

Rain was not pelting the windshield, but a flash of lightning compelled Steve to ask, “Is this gonna be a problem?”

“No, she’ll—”

“You’d know, if you read up more,” Stark interrupted.

Steve growled, lurching handhold by handhold deeper into the plane.  He could feel the weight of Loki’s stare and Stark’s sneer as the latter said, “Wow, I really cannot believe Fury sent you out like this.  People could’ve been killed.”  You’re useless.  Don’t you get it?

Shaking with repressed anger, Steve dropped into a seat on the opposite side of Loki, gritting his teeth hard against the pain.  Stark’s voice became background noise. 

Another rumble of thunder rattled the plane.  Loki’s expression twisted briefly, not in pain but—

“What’s the matter?  Scared of a little lightning?” Steve asked, as the Norse god looked at the ceiling anxiously.

Loki glared at him, but his voice was calm with purposeful ease as he said, “I’m not overly fond of what follows.”

Steve had time to exchange a what the hell does that mean? look with Stark before there was a loud thump on the roof of the Quinjet, followed by a particularly emphatic flash of light.

“Shit.  We got a hanger-oner,” Stark said, already reaching for his helmet, before the outer door was wrenched open, letting in the howling wind—and a human figure.

A towering human figure, even more monstrous than Loki, lurching forward, yanking their prisoner clean out of his seat and launching both of them out of the plane.

Steve cursed.  Stark growled, “I’ll handle this.”

Like hell he would.  Lurching upright, Steve grasped his metal arm, fingers impressing over the dents, and warned, “Stark.  We need a plan of attack.”

Stark shoved him back against the wall with a cold blast.  Hell of a message, Steve thought, keeping his expression flat.  “I have a plan,” Iron Man snapped.  “Attack.”  Then he launched himself out of the plane.

He really was beginning to dislike his supposed team.  Leveraging himself to his feet, Steve said, “Land.  That’s an order.”

“You gonna sit this one out?” Romanoff asked, looking over her own shoulder at him.

Steve snapped, “Land.”

. o .

No, Steve did not sit it out.  He had a bad leg, not a bad heart, or wheezy lungs, or half a dozen other ailments that disqualified him from enlistment.  He had a broken leg; he was not—

What?  Broken?

Trekking through the forest, too dense for the Quinjet to follow, he could see the flashes of light ahead.  He wanted to run.  He could not run.  Fucking dammit.

Steve slid down a forty-foot slope, landed hard on his feet.  He did not wait to catch his breath before shoving himself upright.  The last hundred yards took a lifetime.  But at least when Stark cracked into a tree nearby, upside-down, he felt somewhat vindicated for asking, “Still got a handle on it, Stark?”

“Shut up,” Stark grunted, slumping to the ground.  “Just shut up—”

The superhuman charged.  Steve shouted, “Hey!” but the superhuman was out for blood and Stark was it, so Steve planted himself in front of Iron Man and warned, “That’s enough.”

The superhuman paused, snapping, “Step aside.”

“Might wanna listen to him, Cap,” wheezed Iron Man, still on the ground.  Steve could not tell if the suit had taken damage or if Stark himself had, but it was a moment before he even started shuffling upright.  “He’s—”

“I don’t care what he’s up to,” Steve snapped.  “All I care about is Loki.  Where did you take him?”

“It is no business of yours!” roared the superhuman.  “I’ve come here to put an end to Loki’s schemes!”

“Then prove it,” Steve retorted.  “Put that hammer down—”

“Uh, yeah, no, bad call,” Stark said, as the superhuman roared:

“You want me to put the hammer down?”

He leaped for Steve.  Steve thought, This is either gonna work or kill me, flung his shield up in front of his head, and braced for impact.

If he thought Loki hit like a freight train, this guy hit like a planet.  Every inch of Steve resonated with the energy.  He cried out as pain shattered up his left leg, but instead of coring through him like an invisible blade, the majority of the force deflected backward, outward, flinging the superhuman away.  The sound alone was the loudest thing Steve had ever heard at close range, leaving his ears ringing long after the blast dissipated.

Trapped on his knees, still huddling under his shield, Steve felt Iron Man pry it out of his hands, say through the fuzziness, “Cap?” like he was genuinely worried.

Steve tried to breathe, but he could not, his chest locked up.  Oh, God, his leg, his leg was on fire, his leg was amputated, something was wrong, but as Iron Man put an arm around his shoulders and hauled him up, he looked down and saw it still dangling underneath him.  He planted his trembling right leg in the dirt, gripping the armor, confident he would face plant without it.

“So, I think that settles it,” Stark said, his voice full of forced cheer.  “It was a tie.”

The superhuman breathed deeply, breath steaming in front of him.  He seemed surprised that Steve was still standing, rumbling, “I do not understand.”

“Tie, you know—draw,” Stark said.

Steve slowly loosened his grip on Iron Man’s shoulder, but his cane was on the ground.  He could not stand for long without it, not with the deadweight of his left leg.  “Stark,” he rasped in warning.

“No,” the superhuman said, walking towards them.  “How did you survive?”  He was looking right at Steve, hunter eyes, finish it off eyes.

“Well,” Steve managed, aware his voice was tight and he could not even stand without Iron Man, “I braced.”

The superhuman stared at him for an unnervingly long time.  Steve did not dare blink.

At last, the superhuman said, “I am Thor, son of Odin.”

Steve offered quietly, “I’m Steve Rogers.  Captain Steve Rogers.”

“Captain,” said Thor, extending a massive hand.  Steve released Iron Man’s shoulders and extended his own hand.  Thor grasped his wrist with bone-bruising force.  “I concede this battle.”  He released Steve.  “Let us deal with my brother.”

Oh.  Oh.

Two Norse gods.

That was even better than one, Steve thought.

. o .

“Cap.  Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Iron Man was unexpectedly twitchy on the helicarrier, looking down the dark hallway like he expected people to come running at them with guns at any moment.  Steve was exhausted and looking forward to spending some time in his assigned quarters while the S.H.I.E.L.D. team interrogated Loki.  With Thor around and on their side, he felt confident that the situation was back under control.  The Director had even given him permission to lick his wounds.

“Make it quick,” he told Stark, who nodded vaguely and started walking.

Sighing, Steve followed him down the corridor.  Stark found a door, pulled it open, then made an affirmative noise.

Steve stepped into what appeared to be some kind of storage room.  Stark shut the heavy door behind them.  “Gonna finish me off?” Steve asked wearily.  He could not fight Iron Man in his suit.  Not here.  Not now.  Maybe before, when he had had both legs under him.

Stark ignored him.  “Why’d you do it?” Stark asked instead.

“Do what?” Steve replied.  His head ached.  They only had two-and-a-half hours to get back to the mainland.

Stark looked at him like he was stupid.  “Interfere.  I have a suit.  You—”  He stopped himself and said, “That’s not for show.  Is it?”

Weary of the game, of the lies to protect his own skin, Steve said, “I can’t walk without it.”  He limped deeper into the room, dug the folding chair out from its corner, and laboriously set it up.  Collapsing into it only made the pain bang from his knee to his hip.  He winced.  “I shouldn’t be here,” he confessed, the dark blue-tinted room a safe space to say it out loud.  Stark would forget it, anyway, or chalk it up to an old man’s delirium.  I’m not that old, you know.

Maybe it was seventy years for my body.  But it was one night for me.

“Did they tell you it’s necrotic?” Iron Man asked.

Steve rubbed his left thigh gingerly.  “Let me see it,” Iron Man suggested.

“No,” Steve snapped, angry, tired.  “It’s mine.”  You can’t have it.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Iron Man insisted.  “It’s like . . . what happened?”

“I’m tired,” Steve snapped aloud, shutting his eyes, shutting him out.  He could sleep here.  That would help, that would put him back together.

Stark said quietly but ominously, “That’s a dead leg, Cap.”

Emotion lumped unexpectedly in Steve’s throat.  He swallowed around it, gripped his hand into a tight fist.  It shook.  Pain swelled.  Stark went on, “You know, the prosthetics, they’re—”

“Shut up,” Steve seethed.

“Is it spontaneous deterioration?  Have you told anyone?”  Aghast, Stark said, “Is this new?”

“No,” Steve scowled, blinking at him, unreadable behind the damn suit.  “It’s not new and nobody’s taking it and you would leave well enough alone if you knew what was good for you.”

Unexpectedly, Iron Man knelt in front of him.  Steve bristled as Iron Man placed two heavy hands on his knees.  The left one hurt.  The right one was just warm.  “Why is S.H.I.E.L.D. letting you run around with a necrotic leg?” Stark asked, voice pitched between gentle and concerned.

Steve rasped, “Let go of me.”

“Answer,” Stark ordered.

Because they can’t fix me.  Steve’s throat mercifully closed up, preventing him from answering.  He looked away, but the pain in his left leg was mounting.  Steve gripped both hands into shaking fists.  “Let go or I’ll hurt you, Stark.”

Stark lingered for another moment, then withdrew both hands, resting them on his own metal thighs.  “Cap,” Stark said.  Then, unexpectedly: “Rogers.  This . . . you wanna see it?”  He popped off the helmet suddenly, held it out.  Steve stared at him, at the raw shock in his face, at the helmet in his hands.  “Go on.  It won’t bite.”

Hands still in fists, Steve shook his head.  “No.”  I don’t want to, he did not say.  Steve had seen enough scans.  They all meant the same thing.  It hurts.  It will always hurt.  Get used to it.  Steve drew in a shallow breath. 

Sirens went off.

So much for a two-hour break.

“Shit,” Stark said, scrambling to his own feet, shoving the helmet on.

Steve grabbed his own cane and shield, shoving himself to his feet.  He tried to shut down the voice whispering, Necrotic, necrotic, necrotic as he limped after Stark.

They would think Steve Rogers was superhuman, if they knew how much it hurt, carrying around the weight of the ice.

Stark said suddenly, “Fury says the engine’s down.  We gotta move.”  He turned to Cap and asked, “If I carry you, will you break my suit?  It’ll be faster.”

Sighing, Steve said, “Just do it.”

“Can’t wait for Nike to find out you used their slogan,” Stark said cheerfully, scooping him under the arms from behind and zipping off.  “If we survive this, it’ll be great.”

. o .

Depressurization at thirty-thousand feet was not fun.

It was especially un-fun with a dead leg.  Helpfully, Stark kept saying things like, “Oh my fucking God, the Hulk is on Deck C,” and then orders like, “Somebody gets eyes on the Hulk, please and thank you!”  Steve almost pawed the comms out of his ears so he could focus on the real problem, which was the giant turbine.  Stark dumped him on a metal platform, encouraged, “Need you to push some buttons for me,” and zipped off.

Barely able to think with the way his vision was swimming, Steve gripped the edge of the panel and slid it outward.  Oh.  Buttons.  Neat.

He breathed in deeply, almost frantically.  The unsteadiness faded away.  Which was good, as Stark relayed rapid-fire instructions and gunmen arrived to prevent Steve from following through with any of them.  

Bastards, Steve thought, using his shield to deflect bullets, waiting for Stark’s signal to pull the red lever.  Hurry up, Stark.  The whole helicarrier abruptly began to list. 

Stark shouted, “God, dammit, can someone please look out for the fucking engines?!”

With two down, they would never stay in the air, Steve knew, gripping the panel in one hand and his shield in the other, desperate to stay on his feet.

It was hard—the metal under his feet was slippery.  When he twitched his right foot to avoid a bullet, he went down unexpectedly hard, gripping the underside of the panel just to stay on the plane.

“Cap!  Pull the lever!” Tony chose that moment to roar.

Necrotic, a voice whispered.  Dead.

“Cap!” 

Dead, insisted the pain throbbing in his leg, like there could be pain after death.  Steve hauled himself up and pulled the lever as another bullet pinged off his shield.

Trembling with it, he clung to the bar even as Iron Man swooped in, crashed into a pair of goons, and landed inside the door.  Letting out a gasp of a breath, Steve fumbled for his cane, but it was gone—lost in the melee, lost when Stark picked him up, he did not know, but without it—

“Hang on,” Stark wheezed, putting a metal arm around him and hauling him back inside the ship, clear of the black suited bodies.  “I gotcha.”

He let go and Steve—dammit, there was nothing for Steve to grab, stepping forward and crumpling.

The outer door shut after its thirty-second timer.  The silence was foreboding between them as Steve—planted both fists on the ground and started to push himself up.

“Here, I—”

“I got it,” Steve rasped. 

Metal hands gripped under his arms, lifting.  “Don’t touch me!” Steve howled.

The hands merely firmed and pulled him the rest of the way upright.  Steve shook with anger, enraged by the dampness on his face, desperate to excuse it as condensation.

“I’m not—” Steve began, swallowing.  Slowly, Stark retreated.  Steve managed, “Damn you.”  He gripped the arm before it could retreat, needing it to stay upright.  Even then, he began to sway, holding on desperately, determined not to fall.

Steve hopped one step forward, slipped.  He hit the ground on his back.

Too ashamed to feel ashamed, Steve stared at the white ceiling, half-expecting Stark to grab him by the leg and drag him off.  Amputate.  Amputate.  Steve strained forward, to sit up, at least.  The vertigo was nauseating.  He felt pale and uncertain, lost as both hands fumbled for his leg, tore at the fabric to see what he already knew.

“Christ Almighty,” Stark hissed between his teeth.

Steve gripped at the blackened flesh desperately, desperately, willing it to turn red, to come alive, and sobbed once when nothing happened.

“I’m gonna be sick,” moaned Stark, turning away.  “Oh, geez.”

Please, Steve could not bring himself to whisper.  Please.

He heard Stark take off his helmet, gagging in a corner. 

Please, Steve whispered.

. o .

Phil Coulson, the man who believed in him, who had offered him trading cards to sign, was dead.

There were a dozen or more fatalities, but it was Phil Coulson who stood out.

Dead, a voice whispered.

Sitting at a table, staring at the bloody trading cards, his own form proud and cane-less, he thought, This man is dead.

He cupped his chin in a weary hand, ignoring them all for—twenty minutes, give or take.

If it was sleep, it was awful, because the pain never went away.

. o .

When he blinked his eyes open, he realized a mylar blanket had been placed over him.

I’m not dead, he thought, jerking.  He ripped it off, tearing the fabric in his haste.  I’m not dead.  He shredded it into pieces, hands shaking, violently disposing it.

He stood and flailed for his cane—it was not there, he lurched forward to catch himself on nothing and—

The Director caught him, slid under his arm, more strength he would have expected under his black cloak.

No words passed between them as the Director helped him back into his chair.  Steve gripped a hand into a fist on the table, suddenly aware that he was—nothing, less than nothing without his cane.  He could not walk away.

His eyes burned.  He looked away.

God help him, help them all.  Loki was gone.  The Hulk had gotten out, Thor was missing, and Phil Coulson was dead.

“At ease, soldier,” the Director said, an offering and an order.  Steve looked up at him, wondering what his eyes showed, what the Director saw in the blackness visible on his leg.  Dead skin.  Dead tissue.  Dead bone. 

Shuddering, he said, “Help me.”  It was a terrible whisper, but—he needed it.  He could not avoid it.

The Director seemed like he would not, like he would walk away from him, but then—with more care, he slid Steve’s arm around his shoulders.

With Steve limping heavily beside him, they found Stark.  Thank you, Steve thought, but the Director put him in reach of the railing.  Steve grabbed it.  Then the Director was gone.  Thank you.

Carrying the weight of his left leg was a burden, but speaking to Stark was more important.  “You two knew each other?” he preluded.

Stark scoffed.  It was an unpleasant sound, mean, making fun of.  There were tears in his eyes.  “First name Agent, last name Fuck Off.  He was an idiot,” he seethed suddenly, turning to face Steve, standing maybe ten paces around the circular room.  “He should’ve known better.”

“Why?  For believing?”

“For taking on Loki alone.” 

Steve thought, I did.  And so he defended the dead man: “He was doing his job.”

Scoffing, Stark walked away from the edge of the catwalk and sneered, “He was out of his league.  He should’ve—waited.  He should’ve—”

Taking one limping step along the railing towards him, Steve said softly, “Sometimes, there isn’t a way out, Tony.”  Another step.  It seemed unbearably loud in the silo-like room.  Two more steps.  Then Tony Stark sniffed, crossed the distance, and said meanly:

“God, that’s unbearable to listen to.”  He curved an arm around Steve’s back, stepping in for the Director.  Although shorter, Tony was strong, too.  My team is strong, Steve thought.

“This the first time you ever lost a soldier?” Steve asked.

He felt Tony’s back go rigid, half thought Tony would throw him down to the pit.  If the doors opened, he would fall an extra thirty thousand feet to the ground.  But Tony spat, “We are not soldiers,” and Steve knew, in that moment, the precise difference between him and all his supposed teammates.

I am.

And it showed.  None of them were—battle-scarred, the way he was.  They were all good, hearty, whole.  They had not—and then he saw the glowing blue light in Tony’s t-shirt and reminded himself, Not perfect. 

But not broken.

Swallowing, he said honestly, “I’m sorry, Tony.”

Tony sighed, “You’re so damn heavy.”  Steve was not even sure if he meant his physical weight.  Steve shuffled them to sit on the steps instead.  “We’re a mess, Cap.  We’re a fucking wreck.”

Steve said again, “I’m sorry, Tony.”

“And that—that was before Loki showed up.  You think I signed up for this?”

He was a broken record: “I’m sorry, Tony.”

“I—I wanna be in my home, doing what I do best, not fighting gods.”

Steve kept his silence.  There was nothing more he could say.

“And Loki, he—he didn’t just hit us where it hurt, he—he made it personal.”

“That’s not the point,” Steve said softly.

“That is the point, that’s Loki’s point.  He hit us all where we live.  Why?”

Steve thought about it.  “I don’t know.”

Getting up, Tony said, “He wants to tear us apart.”  A beat.  “He wants to be seen doing it.  The world has to know—he wants an audience.”  He held out a hand suddenly; Steve took it.  Tony hauled Steve up, looking Steve dead in the eye as he said, “He’s going supernova.  Whatever comes next, it’s gonna be huge.  Stuttgart, that was just a rehearsal, this is—this is opening night.”

. o .

Opening night was opening a portal to an alien army—in space—and unleashing it on the eight-and-a-half million inhabitants of New York.

Sometimes, Steve hated the twenty-first century.

Hated S.H.I.E.L.D. for messing with the Tesseract, hated his leg for refusing to cooperate, hated—

“You’re coming, aren’t you?” Iron Man asked him, standing on the Quinjet and holding out a wooden cane.  It was more conspicuous than his black one, but at least it was sturdy.

Steve gripped it, said honestly, “Thank you, Tony,” and caught Tony’s nod.

“Sure.  Now let’s kick his ass.  Can’t be harder than Thor.”

. o .

It was, if only because Loki had an army of aliens at his disposal.

Steve had never felt the weight of the cane as much as he did looking at the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed Avengers, Iron Man telling him, “Call it, Captain.”

Even Thor was listening. 

The Hulk was listening.

Maybe there was something to be said for the ace in the hand, Steve mused, turning at last to Romanoff and saying, “You and me, we stay here on the ground.  Keep the fighting here.”

Turning to the big green guy, surprised to see him still paying attention, Steve said seriously, “Hulk?  Smash.”

Hulk grinned, feral and delighted, and took off in a flying leap. 

Steve turned to Romanoff and said, “Think about getting off on the right foot yet?”

“I’m considering it,” she said.

Steve smiled.  “I’ve had worse odds.”

. o .

They won.

Steve would not call it a landslide, but they won.

. o .

His leg was necrotizing.

Steve stared at it, swallowing back horror.  The serum had given up, consigned the damage to oblivion.

It was necrotizing.  It was spreading.

You know the endgame.  He stared down at his legs, gripped his left thigh, holding on like he could keep it safe that way.  He had used the Internet for many purposes, but looking up necrotic damage had been a mistake.

The pain was worse; even at rest it was unbearable, but he was bearing it, because what else was he gonna do?

. o .

“Stark.”

Feverish and desperate, Steve limped over to Tony Stark, seated on a couch working on a tablet, looking up and dropping the tablet in surprise.

“What the hell?”

“Stark,” Steve pleaded, hand shaky and sweaty where it gripped the cane.  “Please.”  Stark was a genius.  Stark could fix it.  Where everyone else fell short, Howard Stark stepped up to plate and defied all expectations.  He had made the shield sitting in Steve’s apartment, unprotected but not in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s hands.

Steve tripped into a low-lying table, cried out.  Stark struggled to catch him, redirecting him onto the couch.  He might have blacked out, coming to to Stark’s frantic hands tugging at him, getting him on his back.  “Please,” he whispered.  Steve did not even care if cutting it off hurt—he just needed the pain to go away.

Steve could not imagine cutting it off would hurt more.

Stark said, “All right.  All right.  Hang in there, big guy.”

He clawed for consciousness, straining against the fever his own body had cooked up in a dire attempt to survive the wave. 

The leg had to go.  “Please,” Steve reiterated, hoping the words made it in, somehow.  Stark.  Help me. 

I can’t take it anymore.

. o .

Steve's left leg was gone.

Steve reached for the depressed space in the blankets.  It was a dream.  It was a nightmare.  He gripped the edge of the blanket, determined to pull it back, to see the truth, but—he sucked in a breath, then another, and yanked it away.

The bandaged stump did not even look like it had been part of him.  Steve reeled in horror from his own body, nearly fell out of bed.

“Easy, tough guy,” warned Iron Man, on his right side, metal hands preventing him from toppling to the floor.  “It takes time.  It takes time.”

They had taken his leg.  A howl of fury, despair, shredded Steve's throat.

He could not be Captain America with one leg.  He could not be anything with one leg.

Steve clawed at the blankets where his knee should have been, unable to repress a sob.  Puncturing the thin mattress, he held on like that would make the pain come back, like that would reawaken what had been dead for seventy years.

It’s gone.  It’s gone.

. o .

Lying on a couch, Steve ignored Stark’s entreaty to eat.  Banner periodically deposited boxes of food within arm’s reach, skittering close and then retreating in terror, like Steve would turn a plastic fork into a lethal weapon. 

Steve never moved an inch, only stared at the growing piles of white Styrofoam, listening to the background conversation about him.  There had been a time when he would have fought anybody who talked about him, but he did not care, anymore.

He was visibly mutilated.  There was no coming back from it.  No warm lies about how everything was going to be fine because the serum was robust.  Resting a hand on the remains of his leg, he felt a jolt of real pain and lurched back in horror.

It was gone in an instant, but the heart-pounding feeling of it nearly made him jump out the nearest window. 

He had barely survived real pain.  He could not do phantom pain.  He couldn’t.

. o .

What made Steve sad was not the missing leg.  He was numb about it, in denial about it.  It was that he had never seen the damage.  Never looked at it and known, with surety, that it was as broken as it felt.  He had seen the original scans, but in polarizing black and white, there was not much to read if one did not know.  It could have been normal.  They could have done something to him, modified the scans in a desperate attempt to get his leg.

But the way Tony had offered the helmet haunted him.

“Can I see?” he asked Tony softly one evening, maybe a week after the amputation.

Tony was busy tapping on a laptop, but he paused, looked over, and said, “Uh, sure.  What?”

Steve swallowed.  It would take a lot of pride to admit—“You said . . . the helmet, it . . . .”  He swallowed again.  His mouth was very dry.  “I wanna see,” he said softly.

Tony handed it over and instructed, “J.A.R.V.I.S., analyze blood flow.”

Little red and blue lines appeared all over Steve.  Steve jerked in alarm, but Tony said, “It’s the imaging.  Heat flow, mostly but also a bit of sonic scanning.”  A hand, mapped in the same colors, appeared in Steve's field of view, then pointed at the void next to Steve's missing leg.  “See how there’s no lines?”

Steve could not respond verbally, so he nodded.  Tony squeezed his right knee.  “The heat map wasn’t—actually, J., do we have a heat map for May 3, 2012?”

“Yes, sir,” J. replied.  Steve jolted at the sound of the voice, but then he saw a silhouette of himself on screen.  One leg was mapped in red and blue, like it was supposed to be.  The other. . . .

There were hints of red but no blue.  It looked dead.  It was dead.

Steve pried off the helmet and gripped it tightly in both hands.  Tony shifted to hold his right hand—preserving the helmet, keeping it intact—and when that was not enough, he shifted forward.  Steve tensed as Tony wrapped his arms around him.

He did not—he did not need a hug, he—he clung to the helmet and Tony squeezed him and said, “I’m so sorry.”

An anguished noise built inside him.  He crushed it down, tossing the helmet aside and gripping Tony’s shirt, anchoring himself to reality.

. o .

Tony recommended he go to therapy.

Steve resisted, insisting that his head was fine.

Then Sam called to check in after the Battle of New York, mentioning that it had been a while since they had talked.  Steve asked him if he seemed fine in the head, at which point Sam recommended he go to therapy.

So, Steve went to therapy.

Sat across from a gentleman in street clothes and tried to bring himself to see the interaction as anything other than a plainclothes interrogation.  Steve said, No, sir and Yes, sir too much.  He could not recall sharing one piece of meaningful information about himself.  He never once mentioned the leg, the amputation, or the war.  The therapist did not bring it up.

The therapist prompted, “And why are you here, Mr. Rogers?”

Steve responded, “Captain.”  Then he did not see the man again.

. o .

Steve was becoming bony.  Not eating enough, not even wanting to eat. 

Tony helped him set up an appointment with a new therapist.  Steve thought he would be even more reluctant to talk to her, but he ended up liking her, because she reminded him of the gals back in the USO tour.  Some of them wanted more than conversation over a late-night coffee, but others were kind and earnest, yearning for companionship.  Women were nice to talk to: they never one-upped his accomplishments or questioned his right to be there. 

They chatted about how nice the city was in summertime.  Steve said he had missed having the chance to have a conversation with a stranger.  Steve told her that he still did not know what a wireless radio was, or even how his portable telephone worked, or why he could not go home.  He rubbed the stub of his leg compulsively and asked her if she ever missed anything.  She told him that she had moved to the city from Montana and only her practice superseded the view of sunrise in the mountains.

He asked her what she got out of her practice.  She said, “Helping people.  Same as you, Captain,” and it changed how he saw the whole exercise, from a medical necessity to a form of . . . well, healing, he supposed.  Comforting, maybe.  He actually ate a meal that night, instead of lying on the couch, wondering when his leg would grow back.

. o .

Steve put on weight quickly, once he started eating properly again, which elevated him from occasionally huggable to frequently huggable.  Well.  Tony hugged him.

Tony hugged him a lot, which Steve was fairly sure was a Tony thing, not a ‘this is for Steve’ thing, which amused him more than it annoyed him.  Tony said Steve was the most huggable person he had ever met, in a tone that implied it would be criminal for Tony not to embrace him three times a day, occasionally knocking on his guest room door right before midnight to say, “Almost forgot” and hugging him gently before walking off without so much as a Goodnight.

The boys in the camp had been big on casual touches, grabbing his hand, squeezing his shoulder.  He had never been a hugger before the war, but a lot of scared kids needed it, so he provided it.  When Captain America hugged you, you knew you were gonna be okay.  Imagining that as Tony’s motivation for hugging him, he made a point of tentatively initiating at least one of those three hugs per day.

Tony had a metal plate—more like a metal cup, the depth of the thing was surreal, and it appalled and amazed Steve that it rested inside Tony’s chest—that made his hugs different.  Not bad, nothing like bad.  But he could see why Bruce grimaced when Tony hugged him, why Tony, who seemed to crave hugs, took pleasure in hugging Steve, especially.  Exclusively—he seemed to hug Steve nearly exclusively, like he was afraid of how others would react, or maybe disliked how it felt, pressed against his bones, his beating heart so near it.

Steve did not let anyone near his left leg; Steve could not imagine letting someone touch his heart.  It was brave.  Steve told Tony as much, who blinked at him, then skittered off with a lie about a beeping oven before burning a batch of cookies to make it truthful.

They were still good cookies, Steve thought, eating a charcoal-black piece that might have been a chocolate chip cookie, once upon a time.

Tony’s commitment to a lie was strangely endearing, even if his reason for lying made Steve want to say, You’re brave, you know? again.

. o .

One cane was not enough, so Steve had two canes.  They were less showy than crutches, but they forced him to hunch over when he walked.  Steve hated it.  Even the short walk from the couch to the kitchen was often unbearable.

He was finally out of pain, but the sight of the missing limb paralyzed him.  Steve yearned for its return so intensely it was like a sickness.

Could it have been saved?

By our best speculation . . . no.

Steve grabbed his canes—he refused to even think of them as crutches—and got up, because he could not bear to lie down.  He limped to Tony’s room and Tony greeted him with a hug, careful not to knock him off-balance.  Like he could heal Steve with hugs.  Steve swallowed as he realized maybe the hugs were for him, after all.

Maybe they were for both of them.

They played cards, even though Tony kept falling asleep on his hand.  Steve let him sleep, playing Solitaire for a while.  Once upon a time, Steve could have carried Tony to bed.  But he needed both hands for his canes.  Trapped in his own body, Steve scraped his chair back, then propped himself up on his canes.  Steve tapped a snoring Tony on the shoulder. 

Under his own power, Tony arose and bid him goodnight.  And Steve did not feel bitterly disappointed.

. o .

The first time Tony brought up prosthetics, Steve boiled internally.  He did not need a new leg.  Steve had one, and—they had cut it off, because it was dead.  He simmered down.

Listened.  Even looked at the potential prospects.  Then he threw up as it hit him, all over again, that he really was not getting his leg back.

Steve did not bring it up with his therapist, even though he was restless about it.  He did not talk about it with anyone.

I don’t need a new leg.  This one is fine.

. o .

“Do you want to get out of town?” Tony offered.  Steve said sure, and they ended up in Malibu.

It was even hotter than New York, but the ocean view was breathtaking.  The pool was nice, too.

Tony panicked about Steve in the water—Tony was panicky about a lot of things, scolding him for turning out all the lights at night, making sure the doors were locked despite J.A.R.V.I.S.’s repeated assurances, and occasionally going on long rants about the most inconsequential of things—but Tony took special exception to his interest in the water.  He seemed on the verge of telling Steve to get out and stay out before coming up with a compromise.

Steve did not love the compromise, but Tony insisted it would help him sleep at night, so Steve hooked an arm through the float ring and drifted into deeper water until Tony poked him repeatedly with a cleaning stick to return to the shallow end.

Steve did so, then retaliated by ducking under the water and paddling over to the deep end using his arms, which was surprisingly easy to do, but as soon as he resurfaced, Tony squawked, “Steve” and attempted to half-aid, half-drown him with the cleaning stick, now with bonus net.  Steve could not help but laugh at the absurdity of it, slipping under the net and giving it a warning tug. 

It came loose—Tony was evidently taking zero chances of getting pulled into the water with him.  Steve stroked back to the opposite side of the pool, pulling himself out easily.

The pool was not just nice—the pool was great.

. o .

Tony chucked pool noodles at him and insisted he used them, so he did, bundling two of them under his chest and drifting along peacefully, almost dozing. 

When Tony brought home a giant inflatable flamingo, Steve rebuked, “Tony,” but Tony chucked it into the pool with him.

“This is your punishment,” he sniffed.

“Why am I being punished?” Steve asked.

Tony grumbled inconclusively and sat on one of the poolside chairs. 

“I don’t need a lifeguard,” Steve informed him, aware of Tony’s strongly negative feelings towards pools.  He did not know why, but it did not take a genius to figure out that Tony Stark hated pools.  Tony did not even seem to like the ocean, which made his multi-million dollar estate on a gorgeous, isolated stretch of oceanfront either funny or sad.

“You have one leg.  If you drown, it’s on my conscience,” Tony grunted, furiously snapping open a paperback.

Steve paddled over, nudging the floating flamingo out of the way, and rested his arms on the edge of the pool.  “Well, if you’re so concerned, you should come in.”

Tony visibly tensed.  “I should think not,” he quipped, like Steve had threatened to jump in a volcano, glaring around his book at Steve.  “Now leave me alone, you heathen.”

Experimenting, in a pleasantly playful mood from listening to the ocean and relaxing in the pool, Steve splashed around frantically for a few seconds, careful not to chuck gallons of water out of the pool but putting up a real fuss.

Tony bolted out of his chair, but instead of running towards the water, he crashed into the glass door, slid it back, and fled indoors.

Sinking lower in the water in remorse, Steve thought, S’about how well my overtures usually go, and drifted over to the giant flamingo, hooking an arm around its neck instead.

Steve hauled up onto it, flopped on his back, and kicked his one foot in the water, humming, It's a Long Way to Tipperary to himself.

. o .

Tony did not even eat dinner with him.

So Steve cooked up some extra grilled cheese, left two plates on the table, and knocked on Tony’s door.  “Tony?”

Tony fake-snored.  Steve knew because Tony’s actual snoring was fairly quiet, even with Steve’s super-sensitive hearing.  “I know you’re in there,” Steve added, then, less on the offensive: “I made dinner.”  There was a brief pause in the snoring, before it resumed at the same volume.  “I’d bring it, but—”  He scowled at himself, adding cheerily, “Anyway.  It’s grilled chee—”

Tony opened the door.  He looked haunted.  “Dinner?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, nodding over his own shoulder.  It felt . . . good, to actually cook a meal.  It was a challenge to get the ingredients together, but as long as he could still grip the canes, he could manage.

Tony shooed him and Steve led the way down the hall, hyper-aware of each firm thump from his canes.

Steve was on his first bite when Tony said abruptly, “They drowned me,” and resumed eating his sandwich at a frantic pace.  “I, um.  I have strong feelings.  About it.  Not good ones.”  He chuckled at himself, then finished, “So, ah.  Don’t do that.  Ever again.  Or else.”  Wincing, he finished his sandwich, shoved his chair back, and said, “Okay, good ta—”

“Tony.”  Steve struggled to his—foot, after him.  It was hard—put down the sandwich, move the chair back, balance, grab the crutches, canes—but then Tony was there, hugging him again, giving him a lean-to.  He sighed, left his canes against the table, and balanced on one foot, wrapping his own arms around Tony.

“What do you mean, they?” he asked, horrified at the thought of S.H.I.E.L.D. doing something like—

It was not S.H.I.E.L.D., thankfully, although Steve still struggled to finish his sandwich as Tony narrated his time in Afghanistan.  It was worse than he had thought—I was tortured by terrorists, a belated memory—but it seemed good for Tony to talk about it.  And good for Steve to hear it.  This is my necrosis, he did not say, patting the arc reactor.  This is my killing wound.

Steve asked if Tony would ever get it removed.  “Can’t,” Tony said.  “It—the surgery, the tissue, there’s—really, this is easiest.”

After a long beat where Steve almost backed down, almost said, Goodnight, Tony, and retreated to his own room, Steve asked, “Can you show me the prosthetics?”

Christmas morning smiles were not as bright as the look Tony gave him, then.

. o .

Tony had plenty of contacts in Malibu.

At first, Steve thought he was . . . almost betraying S.H.I.E.L.D., not to lean into their incredible resources—they had un-iced him, after all—but it was a lot more relaxing to talk with a biotech company that Tony vouched for, a CEO that Tony laughed with.  That was a good feeling, Steve thought, as he shook hands with the guy and walked around his lab. 

It was only halfway through the meeting that Steve realized neither of the guy’s legs were real.  Steve had to ask for the restroom, so he did not cry in front of them, because that was—good.

Metal was a second life.  Metal was good.

Sure, the canes were—effective.  He would get used to them, Steve told himself, but the—the idea of it, of being something other than—than—an undesirable, oh.  It spoke to him.

Steve spent too long composing himself.  Tony asked, “You good, champ?”  Steve hastened to vacate the stall and pretend his face was not splotchy.

Tony said, “I really think hot rod red is your color,” and grinned back at him as Steve chuckled, dabbing at his eyes messily with cold wet paper towels.  “Throw in a little gold, it’s on brand.”

“Yes,” he deadpanned, once he was confident he did not look like he had been bawling, “my brand.”

Tony winked.

. o .

Getting fitted for a prosthetic leg took more courage than Steve was expecting.

“I don’t know,” Steve murmured, rubbing the remains of his left leg.  He did not let anyone—not even Tony, who he trusted with his life—touch it.  It was the weakest part of himself.

But they had to fit a leg to it.  He could snatch one up, pop it on, and walk out a new man.

It had to be fitted.  There was training.  It all seemed overwhelming, but the image of the man with two metal feet clung to him.  They had not even looked like feet, but the way he had maneuvered on them, smooth and confident, was addictive.

You survived the serum, Steve rebuked himself.  How hard could it be, to let another person handle his leg?  It did not even hurt anymore.  He had nothing to fear.

Lounging on the flamingo, Steve thought at the sky, I can’t do this, and kicked his right leg in the water absently.  He liked the movement of it, aching to do more, to jump, to sprint, he would sell both kidneys and an arm to run again. 

Gaining the serum had unlocked a world of mechanical pleasures for Steve Rogers.  Losing half of them in one fell swoop was almost harder than learning everyone he had known and loved was dead.

It was harder to adapt to a missing leg than the new world, Steve thought bitterly.

. o .

Tony tried to help, offered to put off an appointment as long as he wanted, but Steve missed New York, missed some sense of familiarity, despite the appeals of sunny Malibu.

So he swallowed his pride, said, “Let’s do it,” and resolved to stick to the date. 

He was so goddamn nervous.  The phantom pains were more frequent, driving him up a wall.  Chafing indoors, Steve limped along on his canes as quickly as he dared on the long stretch of road outside the mansion, even wandering down to the beach—a disaster, the sand was impossible to navigate and he ended up flat on his face and humiliated. 

Struggling upright was a chore.  The sand was still a mess to navigate, but he did make it back onto flat land on his own.

Steve was proud of what he could do, even if it took a little creativity.  Table soccer was hardly a graceful sport in real life, but Steve learned how to foosball everything from stray t-shirts to the one Roomba that seemed determined to trip him up without breaking any walls or his own ass. 

Steve fell often, but the bruises did not last.  He had yet to break an arm.  That would be my luck, Steve thought, landing a chair all because he had decided to punt a banana into his own hand.

Tony came running to Steve's aid if he was around when it happened.  Tony did have the grace to stand back, looking concerned and out of breath—running was not Tony’s friend—while Steve leveraged himself upright.

“What was it this time?” Tony asked.  “Roomba?  I’ll disable them—”

“No,” Steve grunted.  “They’re fine.”  Getting up was always the worst part.  And Tony was around. . . .  With a sigh, Steve extended a hand towards him.  Tony gratefully stepped in, gripping it with both his own and hauling.  “Thanks,” Steve said, planting his canes.

Tony sneaked in a brief Glad you’re safe hug before reiterating aloud, “Glad you’re safe,” and turning to leave.  Then he asked, “You wanna see my lab?”

It seemed like one of those invitations that was equally for Tony as Steve, but Steve was curious, so he nodded and followed along.  The stairs were treacherous—more than once, Steve thought, I am going to break my nose—but they made it downstairs safely.

Then they spent seven hours going over all of Tony’s toys—his robots, his Iron Man suits, and his cars.  “You can totally drive with one leg,” Tony said.  Steve gave him a sharp look.  Tony wheedled, “It’s private property for two miles.

Caving to curiosity, Steve slid into the driver’s seat and caught Tony’s eye.  “J.A.R.V.I.S. can take over if you lose your nerve,” Tony assured.

Steve started out at a crawl, but his right leg was fine, his right leg was perfect.  It was not long before he was gliding with confidence down the road.

“I just realized, you definitely don’t have a valid license.”

“Yeah, that’s the most concerning thing about a one-legged man driving,” Steve agreed.

Tony laughed, one arm slung along the open window, the hood of the car down to let in the breeze.  “I mean, it is,” Tony insisted.  “Give it a little gas, it’ll be fine.  I have survived. . . .”  He counted off his hands, finished, “Four car crashes.  That’s a great number.  I can’t break that streak.”

Steve pressed down on the accelerator gently, watching the speedometer creep past sixty.  The wind in his hair was thrilling.  Tony propped both feet up on the dash, stuck two fingers in his mouth, and whistled loudly, apparently for the hell of it.

“Turn here,” Tony suggested, then: “Come on, give it a little gas.”

Zipping down the straight road, Steve thought, This is definitely better than the old cars, as they glided along, smooth as glass.  It steered well, too, the lightest touch enough to make the car comply.  “That’s a hell of a ride,” Steve remarked, sometime around the forty-minute mark.  “They don’t make these like they used to!”

. o .

It was nearing sunset when they rolled up to a drive-thru diner and split a pair of milkshakes.  Steve had not intended to share, but Tony said, “Let me try that."  Steve passed his strawberry shake to him.  “Here,” Tony conceded, passing along his own shake, a rich chocolate that almost made Steve regret his original choice.

It was real nice to sit in a parking lot, Steve behind the wheel, Tony easygoing and chatty beside him.  He did not worry about his civic duty or even the prospect of getting a new leg.  Right then, Steve felt whole—wanting nothing, having everything.

As Tony slurped down the remains of his own milkshake, Steve said honestly, “Thank you, Tony.”

Flapping his free hand, Tony said, “Thank me not,” and instructed, “I just really wanted two milkshakes.”

But he put a hand on Steve’s right thigh, squeezed it, before pointing ahead of the open windshield and instructing, “Mush!”

. o .

"Thank you,” Steve said again, as they abandoned the lab for the living room, where the flat-screen television was playing a movie he did not recognize.

Tony shrugged modestly, flopped down against his side, and said, “Uh-huh.  Thanks for running away to Malibu with me.”  Then he buried his face in Steve’s belly and started snoring for real.

Deeply content, Steve enjoyed the show on his own, trying and failing not to laugh at the born-and-bred New Yawhkers on trial in Alabama for a crime they did not commit.

It felt like home.  It really felt like home.

Tony snuffled awake at a particularly boisterous laugh, muttered, “Oh, hey, My Cousin Vinny,” and promptly fell back asleep without another word.

Steve . . . maybe, kind of loved him.

. o .

Maybe, kind of, a lot loved him.

Steve loved when he joined Steve on the pool deck, even if he would not touch the pool, chucking a foam football back and forth while Steve lounged on the godforsaken flamingo.

Steve loved when Tony showed him old footage of the Iron Man suits, allowing Dum-E to wheel over and “watch” alongside them.

Steve loved that Tony made him burnt cookies, that Tony gave him midnight hugs, that Tony showed up for his prosthetic fitting for moral support.

Steve could not say why he loved watching Tony struggle, sleep-drunk, to tie his left shoe on his right foot, but he loved that, too. 

There was something . . . wonderfully real about Tony Stark’s life, something wonderful about how easily he invited Steve into it, like he was as eager for the companionship as Steve.

. o .

Maybe he was, Steve mused, as they sat around a fire pit on the deck, enjoying the extra warmth on a cool night.  Maybe he was.

“This is why people elope,” Tony said suddenly, snapping his fingers and saying, “to be free.  No one to tell you no, or where to go, or say—that’s a song from Aladdin.”

Steve did not even know what Aladdin was.  “I love you,” he said honestly.

Tony swallowed, then held up a pointer finger like he was about to make a point, before lowering it.  He blinked at Steve, surprised.  “You—”  Frowning sternly, he re-framed, “That,” and then stood up, held Steve’s head in both hands, and said seriously, “Dork.”

Steve grinned up at him, heart all warm and fuzzy, enjoying the light blush that warmed Tony’s face, visible in the ambient light from the fireplace.  “Can you kiss me already?” he murmured, as Tony, thunderstruck, stared down at him like he was still trying to parse out, I and love and you, not necessarily in that order.  You love me?

Blinking, Tony said, “Sure,” and all but crashed into him.  Steve smiled, unable to help himself.  Tony muttered, “Dork,” again and kissed him properly.

. o .

Getting a new leg was so much more than one fitting, one trial, one tentative test run.  It was hours of practice and consultations and practice to get his new legs under him.

But that first moment. . . .

Oh, it was strange, watching them fit his stump with a sock and covering and finally, finally the new leg.  To Tony’s teasing disappointment, it was solid black.  Steve had wavered between realistic and robotic before settling on a middle grounds option, a sleek design that required a double-glance to even notice, unlike some of the more exotic designs.

Tony had already told him he would be happy to splurge for multiple legs, but Steve . . . as soon as he fitted on the black leg, saw it, he felt a wave of euphoria, a weakness and joy so powerful it nearly paralyzed him.  “C’mon,” Tony teased as the fitter helped him figure out how to stand.

There would be a thousand joyful moments of discovering his new legs—standing up on tiptoe again, jogging along a sandy beach again, jogging along any stretch of land again, running, running—but few things compared to standing up, both hands on the silver bars at waist-height for support, and slowly, slowly getting the instructions to take his first step.

First with the right leg, the good leg.  Easy.  Easy.  Heart pounding, he heard, “And now with the left.  Take it slow, push down on the heel.”

Steve lifted his new left leg—somehow the right amount of weight hanging from the stump that it hugged, the last part of him still attached—and set it down slowly, slowly, easy, easy.

His first step was small, nothing to write home about, in any other context.  But the men who walked on the Moon did baby steps, too.  And neither he nor Tony Stark was alive to see it happen in real time.

But Tony was right at his side as Steve Rogers walked again on his own two legs.  The tears in Tony’s eyes were perfect.

. o .

Steve cried, too.  He joked that his prosthetic was a sonuvagun with a direct link to his tears, but really, he was just so damn happy.

He could run again, reach tall shelves, even somersault.  It took a lot of practice—and Tony was there to put an arm around his shoulders and steady him, seeming to relish the chance to hug him without fear of overbalancing him, getting a running start to show off how newly well-balanced Steve was—but it was a fun learning curve.  Every new victory was celebrated.  Every new lap was a joy.

Steve ran as often as he could, pounding down the pavement or the sand.  He longed for grass, even the city, but he looked fondly at the great pink flamingo floating around the pool, a reminder of times gone.

Slipping his shirt and the prosthetic off, Steve slunk into the pool, hauled himself up onto the flamingo, and basked one last time, kicking his right foot joyfully.

I am whole, Steve thought, rubbing his stump of a leg almost fondly, sore from romping around so much but not bad.  Strong.  Strong.  The serum had made and kept him strong, even when it had failed him.  Steve knew he had a life ahead of him, a good life.

Tony still yelled at him for playing in the pool unsupervised.  Steve grinned and whistled Yankee Doodle in response, wondering what he had done to deserve all this.

. o .

You’re the ace in our hand, Coulson had once said.  As Captain America, his metal leg in plain view, stepped onto the world stage again, he felt glad that people noticed his new leg, glad that they even noticed how little of his original leg was left.

Tony got so much fan mail he rarely read it, but Steve made a point of opening the letters addressed to him.  Steve read about veterans who had lost something in combat, viewed images of men and women of all ages—even children—flexing their own metal arms and legs.  A few had even painted the Stars and Stripes on them, which gave him an idea. . . .

Paint was definitely a messier medium, but Steve was quite happy with the results.  The shield looked nice on his leg, right over the most painful part of the former wound.

I am better now, Steve thought, massaging his leg as he set the prosthetic aside.  I am whole, he thought proudly, looking at the stump of a leg and patting it once.

Steve showed his therapist his new leg.  She told him that the superhero life suited him.

Steve grinned and agreed.

. o .

“C’mon!” Sam howled, as Steve lapped him for a third time.

“Gotta keep up, old man!” he shouted over his shoulder, bolting towards the Washington Memorial with joy in his heart and two powerful legs beneath him.

. o .

"I would miss your nightlight,” Steve said honestly, as they were lying in bed together, looking at the reflection of blue-white light on the ceiling.

“I confess, I miss Captain Foosball,” Tony admitted, making Steve grumble playfully and roll over, squishing him with a squeak.  “God, you’re so heavy.”

“Hey,” Steve grumbled.  “I lost twenty pounds.  All in one leg, but—”

“You’re so heavy,” Tony wheezed dramatically.  He wrapped his arms around Steve’s back, then said, “I will simply get so strong I am immune to how heavy you are.”

Kissing his cheek, Steve rolled off him.  Tony chased him, cuddling into his side, and sighed, “Ah.  Order is restored.”

Humming, Steve agreed, “Happy endings all around.”

“I do love you,” Tony insisted.

“I know,” Steve assured, curving his arm around to cup the back of his neck.  “I know, Tony.  S’why I stick around.”

“Damn.  And here I thought it was my devilishly good looks.”

Chuckling, Steve kissed his forehead, insisted, “Shh.  Lights out.  Bedtime.”

“Can’t turn this light out,” Tony preened, squirming around to tap the arc reactor.  “Hah.”

Sighing, Steve said fondly, “Wouldn’t have it any other way, Tony.”

And Steve meant it.

Tony curved a leg around his, said, “You too, big guy,” and Steve knew he meant it, too.