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The Tower felt like it was melting.
“Why,” Tony groaned, sprawled dramatically across the couch, one arm flung over his eyes, “did I ever think floor-to-ceiling windows were a good idea? I’ve essentially built a greenhouse. A very expensive, very sweaty greenhouse.”
Clint, perched backwards in an armchair, flicked a playing card at him. “You love the aesthetic. Suffer for your art.”
“I don’t suffer,” Tony shot back. “I complain. Loudly. There’s a difference.”
“Turn the AC up, then,” Bruce suggested mildly, not looking up from the tablet in his hands.
“I did,” Tony snapped. “It’s already working overtime. Any higher and we risk freezing the lower floors while we roast up here. It’s a delicate balance, Banner, like soufflé. Or my patience.”
Thor, who looked entirely unbothered by the heat, leaned back with a contented sigh. “This warmth is pleasant. Reminds me of summer in Asgard.”
“Of course it does,” Clint muttered. “You probably had three suns or something ridiculous.”
Natasha, stretched out on the opposite couch, lazily scrolling through her phone, finally spoke. “Has anyone seen Steve?”
There was a pause.
Tony shifted his arm just enough to squint at her. “What, like… today?”
“Or in general,” she said dryly.
Bruce frowned slightly. “He was in the gym this morning. Early.”
“Yeah, I saw him after that,” Clint added. “Grabbed a protein shake, said something about paperwork. That was… hours ago.”
Natasha sat up a little. “And no one’s seen him since?”
Silence.
Tony pushed himself upright with a sigh. “Great. Fantastic. The one guy who doesn’t melt in the heat vanishes. Meanwhile, the rest of us are slowly becoming soup.”
Natasha was already on her feet. “Let’s check.”
⸻
They split up without much argument.
Clint took the lower floors, muttering about how if Steve had somehow found a secret underground ice bunker and not told him, there’d be consequences.
Bruce checked the labs, just in case.
Thor wandered through the training areas, calling Steve’s name once or twice in a voice that echoed.
Tony and Natasha took the main living levels, moving quicker than the others. Steve didn’t just disappear. Not without saying something.
Ten minutes later, they regrouped in the common room.
“Nothing,” Clint reported, dropping back into the armchair.
“Gym’s empty,” Thor said.
“No sign in the labs,” Bruce added.
Natasha’s gaze flicked toward Tony. “FRIDAY?”
“Already asked,” Tony said, rubbing a hand down his face. “She’s not tracking him on any active floor.”
Natasha’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Not any floor?”
Tony paused.
“…FRIDAY,” he said slowly, “where’s Rogers?”
A brief pause.
Then—
“Captain Rogers is currently located on the rooftop, sir.”
They all froze.
Clint blinked. “The roof?”
“In this heat?” Bruce added, confused.
Tony frowned, already moving toward the hallway. “Okay, now I’m curious.”
⸻
They didn’t storm up.
It wasn’t panic—not exactly—but there was something about Steve being missing for hours that made them… cautious.
They climbed the final set of stairs quietly, the rooftop access door just ahead. The metal handle gleamed faintly in the sunlight leaking through the cracks.
Natasha reached it first, resting her hand on the handle, glancing back at the others.
“Quiet,” she murmured.
Tony raised an eyebrow but didn’t argue.
She pushed the door open slowly.
⸻
Heat washed over them immediately—stronger than inside, the kind that clung to skin and made the air feel thick.
For a second, they didn’t see him.
Then—
“Oh,” Clint breathed.
Steve was stretched out flat on his back on the rooftop, right in the full glare of the sun.
Shirtless.
Arms folded behind his head like a makeshift pillow.
Eyes closed.
Completely, utterly relaxed.
He looked… still.
Not tense. Not alert. Not coiled and ready like he always seemed to be.
Just… resting.
A faint sound drifted over the rooftop.
He was humming.
Soft, low—absentminded.
Tony blinked. “Is he… sunbathing?”
“No way,” Clint whispered. “Captain America? Mr. ‘Up at 5am for a run’? That guy?”
Thor smiled faintly. “He seems at peace.”
Natasha studied him for a moment, something unreadable flickering across her face.
Bruce shifted, a little uncertain. “Should we…?”
Clint nudged him. “You ask.”
Bruce hesitated, then took a step forward.
“Steve?” he called.
No response.
Steve didn’t move. Didn’t even flinch.
The humming continued, soft and steady.
Tony frowned. “That’s weird.”
Natasha stepped out fully onto the rooftop, boots quiet against the surface. “Steve.”
Still nothing.
Now they were all looking at each other.
Clint raised his voice. “Cap!”
⸻
Steve’s head turned.
Just like that.
Slow, easy—no tension, no snap of alertness.
His eyes opened, squinting slightly against the sun, and he looked at them like they’d just walked into a room he’d forgotten he was in.
“Hey,” he said, completely normal.
They stared.
Tony blinked. “You—”
Clint gestured wildly. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you!”
Steve frowned slightly, like that hadn’t occurred to him. “Have you?”
“Yes,” Natasha said, crossing her arms. “For hours.”
He shifted just enough to glance up at the sky again, then back at them, a faint, almost sheepish smile tugging at his mouth.
“Sorry,” he said. “Lost track of time.”
Tony stepped out onto the rooftop fully now, looking him over like he was trying to solve a puzzle. “You’re… lying on the roof. In direct sunlight. In this heat.”
Steve glanced down at himself briefly, then back up. “Yeah.”
“…Why?”
Steve’s expression softened, like the answer was simple.
“Felt like it.”
That… did not compute.
Clint shook his head. “No, no, you don’t just ‘feel like it’. You schedule things. You plan things. You probably have a chart somewhere—”
Steve huffed a quiet laugh.
A laugh.
“I don’t have a chart.”
Tony pointed at him. “I refuse to believe that.”
⸻
Natasha moved a little closer, her gaze sharper now, more observant.
“You’ve been up here the whole time?”
Steve nodded. “Pretty much.”
“In the sun?”
Another nod.
“And you’re… fine?”
That earned her a slightly amused look.
“I’m fine, Nat.”
Bruce stepped out beside her, pushing his glasses up his nose as he studied Steve more closely.
“Your vitals aren’t—well, I mean, you look fine,” he corrected himself. “Better than fine, actually.”
That was the thing.
Up close, it was even more obvious.
Steve didn’t just look relaxed.
He looked… younger.
Not physically—he always looked young—but something in his face had softened. The usual weight behind his eyes, the constant awareness, the tension—
Gone.
Or at least… quiet.
Thor tilted his head. “You seem… lighter, my friend.”
Steve considered that for a moment.
Then he shrugged slightly. “Guess I am.”
Tony crouched down a few feet away, squinting at him. “Okay, I’m officially concerned. Who are you and what have you done with Captain Responsibility?”
Steve smirked faintly.
“Taking a break,” he said.
Clint made a face. “You? Voluntarily?”
Steve closed his eyes again, settling back into the warmth like it belonged to him.
“Yeah.”
⸻
For a moment, no one spoke.
The city stretched out around them, distant noise drifting up, softened by the height.
Steve’s humming started again—quiet, almost unconscious.
Natasha sat down beside him without asking, stretching her legs out in front of her.
“Doing anything up here,” she asked, “or just… existing?”
Steve’s lips twitched.
“Mostly just… thinking.”
“Dangerous,” Tony muttered.
Steve ignored him.
After a second, he spoke again, voice quieter now.
“Been a while since I just… stopped.”
No missions. No plans. No expectations.
Just sun, warmth, and the steady rhythm of his own breathing.
Bruce lowered himself onto the rooftop too, a little awkwardly. “What were you thinking about?”
Steve opened one eye, glancing at him.
“Everything,” he said simply.
Then, after a beat—
“And nothing.”
Clint dropped down with a groan. “You’re getting philosophical on us now? That’s how I know it’s too hot.”
Steve chuckled again, softer this time.
⸻
They ended up staying.
No one really said it out loud.
Tony complained a bit more about the heat, but he didn’t leave. Clint stretched out eventually, muttering that if he got sunburnt, it was Steve’s fault. Bruce leaned back on his hands, relaxing despite himself. Thor looked entirely at home.
Natasha didn’t move from where she’d settled beside Steve.
And Steve—
Steve just stayed where he was.
Arms behind his head, face turned toward the sun, humming under his breath like someone who had, for once, nowhere else to be.
For a couple of hours, the world didn’t need him to be Captain America.
He was just Steve.
And that, more than anything, was what made the others fall quiet.