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It takes awhile for Steve to convince the others to start running in the park with him, mostly because Sam’s told that “on your left” story about a thousand times now, and out of all of them, only Bucky can really keep up with the pace he typically sets. Maybe Thor, when Thor feels like running. But he gradually wears them all down, until seeing all the Avengers jogging in the early morning is a regular enough thing that most New Yorkers don’t even blink anymore when the team wanders into Central Park and begins their warm-up stretching.
They’re all at different skill levels, even with their high levels of activity. Tony lets the Iron Man armor do a lot of his heavy lifting, so while his upper body strength is excellent, his stamina and endurance are subpar, and he’s always huffing and turning red by the time he’s nearing his third lap. Pietro’s fast and his legs are strong, but has no endurance for a more normalized pace, and tires almost as easily as Tony does. Clint and Natasha are incredibly athletic, but Clint especially keeps suffering from strains and stitches due to his impatience with switching from sprinting to distance running.
Wanda is probably the worst of all, with no experience with workout regimens. Sam, nominally the most normal of them all, works with her the most, since half the time, his damaged leg prevents him from doing more than occasionally keeping pace with anyone else. At least until Tony convinces Bruce that he needs to suffer along with the rest of his team and that if Tony potentially blowing up half the city if his arc reactor goes bad isn’t enough of an excuse to get out of running, does he really think Captain America is going to accept “I don’t want to get my heart rate up because I might turn green”?
(Captain America doesn’t, Steve confirms to Bruce later, when approached privately. Because Captain America is a douchebag, Bruce grumbles in reply, but shows up the next morning, grumpy and resigned and bedhaired, in sweatpants and an Avengers hoodie, to join the others.)
The first scorching hot day, one brutal enough to have even Steve sweating through the run, the Avengers are collapsed under and around one of the many trees on their regular route, taking a water break. Steve swigs half his bottle in a single gulp, then dumps the rest over his head and shoulders. He doesn’t think twice before hauling his tee over his head to mop at his face and neck.
Tony, half-passed out and spread-eagled in the grass, lifts his head to glare at Steve with one eye. “I hate you,” he grumps, closes his eye again and thumps his head back down on the grass, chest heaving with the effort of catching his breath. “Also, I suddenly want Doritos for breakfast. Does IHOP make Dorito omelets?”
“You’re rich,” Clint wheezes from his own collapse three feet away. “I’m sure they’ll make whatever you want them to if you pay them enough.” A pause. “Buy one for me too.”
“How any of you are Avengers is beyond me,” Bucky says, on his third bottle of water, since the first two are soaking his hair and shirt. “How the hell can you handle fuckin’ aliens coming out of the sky if you can’t handle a goddamn jog?”
“Not all of us are supersoldiers, Captain Klondike,” Clint snaps. “Shooting stuff mostly involves a lot of standing still, with only occasional running and screaming.”
Steve opens his mouth, but Natasha’s already beaten him to it. “Language, boys,” she chides. “Steve’s got delicate ears, remember?”
“I was a in a war for heaven’s sake,” Steve protests. “I know how to curse, dammit.”
“He does,” PIetro says, lounging back against a tree. “Captain America can curse most efficiently. For heaven’s sake, dammit.”
Steve eyes his teammates. And just because he can, because it’s mean and petty and yet still completely within character, he says, “Okay, Avengers. Back on your feet. Let’s finish this before your muscles stiffen.”
He enjoys the groans of protest a little too much.
——-
The next day is just as much of a scorcher, and Steve strips his shirt off right at the beginning to maximize the surface area the wind on his skin will cool. He folds it neatly and tucks it into his back pocket, and turns to see everyone staring at him with varying looks of surprise, envy and interest. “What?”
“Just remembering how much I love the miracle of science,” Tony says with a leering smirk, then turns away to start his stretches, using a nearby bench to warm up his leg muscles.
Natasha just shrugs and pulls her shirt over her head as well, rolling it up like a bandanna and tying it around her head. “If Steve’s running shirtless,” she says, readjusting the band holding her iPod under the strap of her sports bra, “so am I.”
“Good idea,” Sam agrees, and starts rolling up the hem of his tank.
“Well, if everyone else is doing it…” Clint says, already half out of his shirt.
Bruce just shakes his head. “I’ll just drown, thanks,” he says to Natasha when she looks at him questioningly. He waves a hand around, indicating multiple toned bodies appearing. “No way I can compete with any of that.”
Natasha arches an eyebrow. “No one says you have to.” But she doesn’t push it further.
Steve isn’t quite sure what’s happening here, but when the front page of theDaily Bugle the next day runs an article with a 50-point headline screaming “ALL-AMERICAN BEEFCAKE”, peppered with pictures of shirtless Avengers oblivious to the admiring looks from people they pass, he understands in a rush of furious blushing.
He also kinda likes it.
——
Steve doesn’t want to go running at all a week later, because an encounter with one of Zemo’s devices has nullified the Rebirth serum in his cells, and he’s never felt as weak and powerless as he does now. Bruce assures him that it’s only temporary, because the serum is still in his body, but it’s hard to believe he’s not going to be like this forever when even Natasha and Wanda tower over him, when he can barely lift an empty barbell, let alone the hundreds of pounds he’s used to benching.
It’s especially rough when everyone starts stripping down to begin their runs, and it hits him exactly how thin and underdeveloped he is. It claws at his mind, tearing away chunks of his self-confidence. How can he possibly pretend everything’s normal when his body has betrayed him?
He catches Tony looking at him, as he stares around at the perfect bodies of his teammates with unbridled envy, and Steve fists his hands, tips his chin defiantly, waiting for whatever mocking comment Tony’s about to unleash. But there’s nothing but sympathy and understanding in Tony’s eyes.
It strikes Steve suddenly that this might be how Tony feels every morning, because Tony will sweat through the hottest day without doing anything but lifting the hem of his shirt to wipe his face. Because Tony’s body is far from perfect, and it doesn’t matter how many salads he eats or how many laps he runs.
Bucky never goes without a shirt either. Steve never thought anything of it, but suddenly knows it’s because, despite Bucky’s quite frankly breathtaking chest and abdomen, his shoulder is a mess of scars and angry flesh that never truly heals.
Steve drops his eyes, and tightens his fists for a moment before relaxing. He’s still Captain America. And Captain America sets an example. He changes his routine because he’s not the same anymore, and what message does that send? Nothing good. Nothing positive. Nothing Captain America should stand for.
Every instinct is screaming at him to stop, but Steve pulls his too-large shirt over his head and tucks it into his back pocket, ignoring his shaking hands. He doesn’t want to look up, because he doesn’t want to see the looks on the others’ faces. Not their pity or disgust or careful looking anywhere but at him.
He huffs and puffs along, determined not to reach for the inhaler Bruce gave him just in case that’s currently a lump in his pocket. He tries not to feel humiliated or ashamed as even Wanda and Bruce easily outpace him, and he’s left in the dust of a pack he usually leads.
He falters to a stop, bending over with his hands on his knees to catch his breath. Tears burn behind his eyes, but he’s too stubborn to let them fall. He hears footsteps running, slowing, and stopping, and then the toes of Tony’s expensive running shoes appear next to his knees in his vision.
“Looks like you’re running with me today, Cap,” Tony says easily, and claps him gently on his bony shoulder. “I’ll try to take it easy on you, cos you’re an old man.”
Steve pushes his hand away. “I don’t need your pity,” he snaps, and that voice in the back of his head is screaming that this is a mistake, put his shirt back on, slink home, hide under the covers until he’s himself again.
Tony laughs. “You don’t have it, Cap,” he replies. “This is the only time I’m ever going to be faster than you, so I plan on enjoying it until you’re all Greek godded up again. And I can’t do that unless I’m running with you.”
Steve looks up, and Tony’s just smirking at him, the same aggravating patented Stark smirk he always wears when he’s pleased with himself. Oddly, it makes Steve feel better. “I can still outpace you, big man,” he finds himself saying.
“Yeah, we’ll see.” Tony mops his face with the neck of his shirt, then blows out a breath. “Damn, it’s hot,” he says casually, and pulls his faded tank top off.
All Steve can do is stare, because Tony doesn’t have many areas of vulnerability or shame he shows to anyone, but the arc reactor implanted in his chest is definitely one of them. Outside of medical suites, Steve doesn’t think anyone on the Avengers or affiliated with SHIELD has ever seen the knotted, twisting scar tissue radiating in gnarled snakes out from the perfect circle of the arc reactor.
Why would he… Just for Steve? That’s… humbling.
“Race you,” Tony says, like he doesn’t have a single insecure thought flitting through his head, but Steve’s known Tony long enough to see the uncertainty in his eyes, the wild almost-panicking edge.
In moments like these, Steve remembers some of his first words to Tony, and wants to go back in time and punch himself in the teeth. Tony’s never been anything but a hero, and it’s moments like these that prove it the most.
“Loser buys breakfast,” Steve replies, then fishes his inhaler out of his pocket and takes a hit off it. “Be prepared to pay up, Stark. I’m starving.”
And he takes off like a bat out of hell, skinny arms and legs pumping, with Tony howling behind him that Captain America doesn’t get to be a cheater.