Every year I do a post of all the bits of fic I couldn't find a place for. Some stand alone pretty well; most are just starts I don't have the interest or energy to finish.
Thse works are also available at AO3.
Snowpiercer: After The End Of The World
Rating: PG
Summary: Curtis has hope, now. Yona has only her survival.
Notes: After seeing Snowpiercer, I desperately wanted to fix it, which I know is kind of directly opposing the spirit of the film. But the end was just...hard. So this was my idea for a fixit, which would eventually have included Curtis walking the train tracks to get back to New York.
Warnings: Brief discussions of cannibalism and rape. Brief nonconsensual drug use.
SPOILERS for the end of Snowpiercer.
***
When Yona saw the polar bear, up on the ridge, for a moment she thought perhaps it was a sign; some kind of symbol of rebirth, sent by a deity who was sorry for what He'd done to them. She'd seen pictures of polar bears in books as a child, before everything went wrong, back when the mid-carriages of the train seemed like heaven and her father still had hope in his eyes.
After a few seconds regarding the bear, she decided it was more likely that it had smelled the carnage in the air, and if it had survived then it was not going to be the last predator or scavenger who came looking. Yona had little experience of a world that didn't jolt and rattle along tracks, but she knew enough; she gathered up Timmy, leading him back towards the wreckage, and set about making herself shelter. It was almost ten minutes before she heard the crash and the groan.
"It's Curtis!" Timmy yelled, ducking under debris and clambering over it, dodging fires that hadn't yet gone out (good; they would need the heat). Yona followed more slowly, disbelieving, and found Curtis alive, hissing in pain and swearing, the stump of his left arm pressed into a snowbank to numb the pain. The hand had come off just above the wrist. He sounded almost feral, but when he looked at her, his eyes were clear, and there was triumph in them.
Well, she supposed, if they were going to die and be eaten by polar bears, they might as well enjoy their pyrrhic victory.
***
Curtis was not good for much more than sitting around and suffering, at the moment, but Yona was used to shifting for herself when her father was in the Kronol haze. She built them a passable little hut against the cold, out of scraps of metal and parquet flooring and one end of Wilfred's carriage. She built a fire -- clumsily, never having dealt with fire larger than the flame of a match -- and shifted a piece of paneling so that the wind blew the smoke the other way. She left Timmy and Curtis sleeping there while she picked her way along the train, wondering what they could salvage or if they should even bother.
She turned to study the ridge often, but the polar bear was gone. He might be on his way to eat them now.
And then, the last time she turned to look over her shoulder, she saw people on the ridge.
People on the ridge.
They couldn't be anything else, not with arms and legs like that and in thick fur coats, not the way they hurried down the side of the mountain and became hazy dots across the snow field as they came towards her.
But Yona had experience of the desperate. She had found a hatchet in the wreckage, and when she realized what they were and what they meant, she ran back to Timmy and Curtis. She stood outside their little hut, the axe in one hand, a warning scowl on her face.
The man who approached first looked harmless, at least. Some of them were white, like Curtis. Two were not -- they looked a little like her father, but not enough.
The man spoke in a language she didn't know, but his gestures were calming, and a woman following behind him offered food. When he realized she didn't understand, he waved for one of the others to try, but the language still wasn't anything she recognized.
There were perhaps ten of them in all -- men and women, two older children -- as well as animals she recognized as some kind of burden beast, maybe yaks. The children began to make a camp; some of the others began to pick through the wreckage as she had done. One, tugging at a bit of her hut curiously, yelped in surprise when Curtis surged out of it, a thick plank in his good hand, roaring a warning to Yona to get back.
They stood there for a split second, a terrible tableau. Curtis, half-crazed with pain and fear, plank upraised; the newcomers in a circle around him; Yona between them, with Timmy clinging to her leg.
Curtis heaved a deep breath, looked around wildly, and dropped the plank, cringing.
"It's okay," she said, as he shrunk away, staggering backwards, a large man trying to make himself small. "Curtis. It's okay."
"Am I hallucinating?" he asked her. She shook her head. "Who are they?"
"Ah! English!" one of them said in a thick accent, and stepped forward. "I speak some. We didn't know you did," he said to Yona, who rubbed her fingers together nervously. Curtis was kind but volatile, and these people, these strangers who had come out of the wilderness where nothing was supposed to live, were perhaps their only chance of survival.
"I'm sorry," Curtis said, and Yona breathed a sigh of relief. "I didn't know who you were."
"You came from the train," the man said. "We knew it would smash one day. Sooner than some thought. Lucky it was here. Lucky we were hunting. Very lucky, the three of you," he added thoughtfully. The others nodded. "Who else lived?"
Yona shook her head. "I don't know."
"Hopefully nobody," Curtis muttered bitterly. The man's smile was kind, the kindness reserved for wounded children.
"You must rest," he said, spreading his hands, pointing with one at the hut. "Rest. We'll gather anything of use, find any who lived. When we're finished, you'll come with us."
"Come where?" Yona asked warily.
"Home," the man said with a smile. "The town will be glad. I'm sorry, I don't know the words in English -- I think you would say fresh blood?"
Yona tensed.
"We will be happy for new people to come into our family," the man added.
"Oh," Curtis said. Yona glanced at him. "They want new gene donors," he explained.
Understanding washed over her, but it didn't make her less tense. There was a town full of survivors, and their first concern was genetic diversity. She knew enough to know that meant she would be bred.
"Please, please don't be so afraid," the man said. "We are happy here. We are peaceful people. There is a place for you, a safe place, just over the mountain."
"Thank you," Curtis said, though he looked wary too.
"And now, please, you are wounded, and you," he said, turning to her, "have suffered, you all have. Rest. We will watch over you, wake you when it's time to leave."
There was shouting then, from down the line of the wreck, and Yona knew what it meant.
Survivors.
***
The man who spoke English gave his name as Ivan; he had been a linguist before the ice and spoke many languages, so it had always been his job to make newcomers a part of the family. They hadn't had many, but there had been some over the years, enough that Ivan knew what to do.
In all, there were fifteen survivors of the wreck aside from her, Curtis, and Timmy. Most of them were children. There were two dazed-looking people in club gear who'd nearly frozen to death, and an elderly woman who looked like she was on death's door.
"She won't make the trip," Ivan said to Yona and Curtis in a low voice, as they prepared to leave. The children had been bundled up and put on yaks; they were all in shock, tractable and fearful, and Yona couldn't help the vicious spike of satisfaction in her that caused. Terrible little shit-heads, but they couldn't help that; they'd been indoctrinated since birth. She felt bad, feeling pleasure in their awakening to the truth of the world. But she still felt it.
"What do we do?" Curtis asked him, nodding to the old woman. Ivan looked at him, perplexed.
"We can't leave her here," he said. "We'll take her with us. Make her as comfortable as we can. As we will do for you," he added, pointing at Curtis's arm. Yona could see pain lines creasing Curtis's face, even though one of the people from the town had made a disinfecting poultice to press to it, and another had helped him pack snow around it to keep it numb. It would need more attention when they reached wherever they were going. "There are twelve of us, to get the children and you up the cliff, and we have things from the wreck to pack in as well. We'll have to send people back for the rest. Scavengers'll probably get it first," he added regretfully. "Still, not bad. More than a polar bear, it seems. Oh, how I yearn for farmland," he continued, as they began the long walk back to the cliff.
"You don't farm?" Yona asked.
"Once, we did. Even then it was hard. When the snows came, impossible. We lived as we could. Very hard at first. Soon, though, I think we will farm again."
Yona thought of her father, patiently checking the crashed airplane under the Yekaterina bridge. Year after year, waiting for signs of a thaw. Only seventeen years. She had enough education to know that the process was probably close to exponential, as the snow melted and stopped retaining the cold. In another seventeen years, the land might emerge from the permafrost.
In another seventeen years, she would be the age Curtis was now. Timmy would be a man. Curtis would be fifty-one, God willing he live so long. Imagining it pleased her. Seventeen years in this chill waste, as long as there was food and shelter, with the pure white snow fields slowly receding...yes. It would be good.
"You smile," Ivan said, looking pleased. "You will smile more soon, when we reach town."
"What town?" Curtis asked.
"A small suburb of Yekateringrad. The city itself is not a good place to go yet."
"You're Russian," Curtis said, then paused. "Or -- Ukrainian?"
"Russian, most of us. Some Ukrainian, Chinese. Kazakhstani, Finnish, Polish."
"People made it to Russia from China?" Curtis asked. "From Poland? After the ice?"
"Where did you come from? You are westerners, I think."
"Korean," Yona said, though the word meant little to her. The train barely skirted Korea; her father used to take her to the window and point south. "There is your father's home," he had said, but all she'd seen was snow.
"Westerner," Curtis agreed.
"Did you board the train where you lived?"
"No, we -- we made it from Chicago to New York before the cold got too bad," Curtis said. The man spread his hands.
"Our refugees made it as far as Yekaterinburg. I think maybe others were not so lucky. It was great chaos. But we survived." He grinned. "Russians. We know the cold. So you will be our first from Chicago, and you our first Korean," he added. "And the children, they must come from the train. No country; no past. Well, we will give them both. There are many empty houses. There are many women and men with no children of their own. I know you have no choice," he said, looking regretful, "but if you must be taken into a family, I think you'll find we are a good one."
"Are there any other survivors?" Curtis asked. "In other parts of the world? Ever made contact?"
"We knew of the train, but you never stopped. Have you never found any?"
Yona shook her head.
"Well, if we survive, I think others may. We were sheltered by the mountains, and we knew how to live in the cold. Surely -- Inuits, maybe? Tibetans? Siberians? And -- is it so cold everywhere? I learned as a boy that the equator is warm."
They crossed the equator four times in a year. In the mid-carriages, it had meant a special treat with dinner and a day off from school.
"Not anymore," Curtis said. Yona thought for him the crossing of the equator had probably meant nothing at all.
Ivan smiled. "Well, it was a warm winter. Perhaps in another year or two, we will send someone to see the world."
***
The journey to Yekaterinburg was hard. It took two days; normally they did it in one, apparently, but between the children and Curtis and the death of the old woman that night, they were delayed. Yona felt fearful over it; what if they were left behind, too much of a burden? But the thought never seemed to cross anyone else's mind. They didn't even leave the old woman; her body was bound in scraps of rag and thrown over the yak she'd been riding.
The morning of the second day, Curtis fell sick; infection, they said, and by the time they reached town he was still walking but he was delirious. He kept asking where the mall was. Whatever a mall was.
When they saw the town, dominated by a huge building at one end of a main road, Yona felt herself go into the shock she'd delayed for so long. It was enormous, to her eyes, a sprawling assortment of houses like the ones she'd seen in books, so wide and high, so open and seemingly vulnerable, and so still. There were people waiting for them; the hunting party had sent a man ahead to spread the news, and the children were lifted down from their mounts, the hunters welcomed home, the sacks of loot from the train shouldered by new men and women, all of them laughing and speaking an unfamiliar language.
A woman cupped Yona's face in her hands, seemingly delighted, and two men began to lead Curtis away, one of them carrying Timmy. Yona screamed, lunging for them, startled at the surge of fear she felt when she saw Curtis and Timmy being taken from her.
Everyone froze. Ivan said, very gently, "They must go to the school. Curtis for medicine, the boy to meet his teachers and the Lama."
"Why can't I go?" she demanded.
He looked surprised. "You can, of course. Wouldn't you rather have food? Somewhere to sleep?"
"No. I want to go with them."
Ivan said something in Russian, and the one who was carrying Timmy held out a hand to her. She took it and followed, carrying Timmy when the man tired of him. It seemed like more people than she'd ever seen in one place came with them in a procession down to the biggest building, this so-called school. They walked on bare ground, swept clean of snow; she remembered her father explaining dirt to her. Trees, like in the greenhouse, stood at points along the path.
A man wrapped in a faded red blanket met them on the steps of the school, smiling.
"Yona," Ivan said. "This is the Lama. He came from Tibet, once. Lama, this is Yona, from Korea by way of the train, Curtis, a Westerner from the train, and Timmy, a child of the train."
Curtis dropped to his knees. The Lama made a gesture and three people spilled past him out the door, helping Curtis up. Yona clung to him with one hand, Timmy a weight on her other arm, and the Lama said something quick and sharp.
Those who had been bending to take Curtis from her stepped away. Ivan, sighing, hoisted his shoulder under Curtis's arm and said to her, "Let them carry the boy, and I will carry the man; follow me."
***
They had tea in the sickroom, a long warm corridor full of beds, most of them empty. She had thought tea had gone extinct years ago. It was a treat her father took on equator-passing days until she was nine, when the tea ran out.
"It is very old, and not very good, but special occasions call for special things," Ivan said, pouring her a cup and offering her a bowl of something golden and syrupy. "It's honey," he said. "It's sweet."
She took a dollop in her tea, but with suspicion. The man in the red blanket -- a robe, he was a Lama, she remembered a photograph of one now -- adjusted himself in a chair, while an attendant took a sharp knife to the dead skin of Curtis's arm. Curtis was unconscious, sweating, but still. The Lama talked, and Ivan translated. Timmy slept against her side, breath warm against her ribs.
"We've seen the train come through every year," the Lama said, through Ivan. "We wondered who was on it, and why. The first year we merely saw you; the second year we recorded you; the third year you were late, and we tried to stop you, but there was no stopping, then or any other year we tried, and we had larger concerns. I am sorry for your loss."
"Thank you," Yona murmured.
"How many were on the train?"
"Nearly a thousand."
The Lama whistled. "Seventeen from a thousand."
"It was hell," Yona said. "It was a sentence to hell. We just didn't know it."
"Well, then your suffering has been rewarded. Here you are," the Lama told her with a smile.
"There is a woman in the town who wishes to be your mother, and Timmy's if you like," Ivan added.
"I have no mother."
"You have now," the Lama said.
"What if I don't want a mother?"
The Lama and Ivan exchanged looks. "Then you will be given a house, until you come of age," Ivan said.
"Age to do what?"
"Raise children. Or work. All must do one or the other. Some do both. How old are you?" the Lama inquired.
"Fifteen," Yona lied. To be younger seemed better, now.
"Then in six years you will be of age. Until then, you are a child to be cared for. You may go to school, if you like. Many of our young women like to explore the mountains," the Lama said. Yona relaxed a fraction. She could do a lot to protect herself in six years.
"Is she nice, this woman?" she asked. Ivan nodded. "Then, maybe. For Timmy." She looked to Curtis, who had cried out softly, though the doctor wasn't touching him. "What about Curtis?"
"He's old enough to work, once his arm heals. I'm sure there are women who would like a child by a strapping man like him. Is he violent?" the Lama asked. "Some of the men were violent when they came here."
"What happens if he is?" Yona asked.
"They were," the Lama said. "They no longer are."
"Violent?"
"The penalty for rape is death," Ivan said. Yona stared at him, mouth open. "Is he?" Ivan pressed.
She looked back to Curtis. Yes, he was; violent, prone to fury, eager to lash out in fear. She couldn't say he wasn't violent. He had eaten the weak.
But he was also kind. And he suffered for his sins.
"He didn't lose his arm in the crash," she said, hearing her voice as if from far away. "He sacrificed his hand to save Timmy."
Ivan looked interested. "Is he the boy's father?"
For all she knew, he might have been, but she didn't think so; she shook her head. The Lama made a questioning noise, and Ivan explained her answer. The Lama smiled and rested a hand on Curtis's forehead, which seemed to ease him somewhat. Then he stood and took Yona's hands, squeezing them in rough palms.
"Stay with him as long as you like," he said. "Finish the tea. Beds will be brought. Ivan will make arrangements for your new mother."
***
She stayed with Curtis for three days, sleeping in a cot with Timmy clutched to her chest at night, washing in bowls of clean snowmelt they brought her, eating whatever was given her, starving if nobody came (but someone always came, sooner or later).
Curtis sweated and moaned, fighting the fever; he raved for his mother, and called for Edgar, though it was clear it was the little boy and not the man Yona had known -- Edgar, come here, it's not safe -- I'm sorry, kiddo, it's all we have to eat -- Edgar, sit down!
Sometimes he counted to eighteen, over and over again. Twice more, people came to treat his arm. Daily, they changed his sheets, bathed him, and fed him in his calmer, glassy-eyed moments. She saw the terrible scar on his arm; she saw the stripes on his back, and knew that he had been flogged, as it was rumored they sometimes did to keep the tail-enders in line. A man, seeing the whip marks, looked at Yona with such intense hate in his eyes that she protested it wasn't her who'd done it, even though he couldn't understand what she said.
The Lama came too, sometimes with Ivan and sometimes without. When he came without Ivan, he taught her little words, like me and you, bed and cup and bowl in Russian. Slowly, gently, he and Ivan teased out of her the story of the train, such as she knew it. They had assembled parts already from their scavenging of the wreckage.
On the third night, Curtis screamed, wailing his guilt and terror to the empty walls. Yona considered the screams, carefully, calmly, and took the last rock of Kronol out of her pocket. She scratched dust into her hand, and then pulled his head up, holding her palm under his nose. When he exhaled the dust scattered, and she scratched another small pile carefully into her palm. This time, raising his head, she cupped her hand over his nose and mouth, until he gasped in the Kronol and choked on it.
She let him lie back, and within minutes he was quiet. His breath came fast and hard, and his eyes, open, darted back and forth, seeing things she couldn't. His mouth curved eventually into a loose, stupid smile, and he tilted his head back.
"Peter," he said, in a voice thick with love and desire. His eyes closed, and for a brief second his body arched forward, sinuous, like the one boy she'd had in her life, back before she was put in a prison drawer to be forgotten and then brought out to be sacrificed. His hips rolled up and he cried out in ecstasy, just once.
Then he was quiet.
***
When she woke the next morning, Curtis was not in his bed, and the thick blanket atop it was gone as well.
She found him wrapped in the blanket, sitting outside, in a field that the children from the school wing had turned into a snow-sculpture garden. She sat down next to him, on a bench made from a board perched on two stones.
"We went from Chicago to New York after it happened," Curtis said, after a few minutes. "The real deep cold hadn't set in yet."
"I was born on the train," she replied.
"Well, it used to be warm in the summer in Chicago. New York, too. We made it to the train. My parents put me on it without them, y'know -- we didn't have enough money for one ticket, let alone three. Mom -- she did what she had to, to get me on board." He had a handful of snow in his remaining hand, and his thumb sifted it slowly. "They said the train was the best chance, but they were going to go to the emergency refugee station at the library in Manhattan."
She waited, silently, for him to come to his point.
"How ridiculous the train was," he murmured. "How absurd. That this stupid -- closed ecosystem would keep us alive forever. We lasted less than two decades. And it wasn't even necessary. These people live just fine here."
"Here is not New York."
"No. But now, see, I have hope," he said bitterly. "If they could survive here, maybe my parents got into the refugee station. Maybe they're alive, halfway across the world. I had this dream last night -- I thought I was walking along the train tracks, trying to get to New York. I just kept walking and walking, but it was okay, because I had -- I had someone with me, someone from before the ice, someone I was -- good friends with," he finished, and it sounded like a frail half-truth even to her ears. "I never got there. And I wouldn't anyway if I tried, now. But every year we passed through New York and I could have...somehow I could have left the train, tried to find them, it would have been worth the risk of dying to know -- but I was afraid -- "
His chest heaved.
"You have hope," Yona said. Curtis brought his hands to his face, and then realized he only had one, and let his left arm fall. "I have none. Everyone I knew in life died on the train."
"I'm sorry," he said.
"Which is better, do you think?" she asked, leaning against him, and he shifted so that he could lay his left arm across her shoulders. "Hope, or no hope?"
He was silent for a while, and then he asked, "Are the people here nice? It seems like they're nice."
"I don't trust nice."
He laughed, drily. "No. I don't either, anymore. I did once. But they seem nice?"
"Yes. They seem nice."
Captain America: The Greatest Generations
Rating: G
Summary: Steve couldn't be there for his children, and he won't abandon any of their children -- even if they're older than him now.
Notes: I wanted to try a different sort of story about Steve and kids, particularly about the possibility of a Serum breeding program. It got slightly out of hand and then ground madly to a halt.
Warnings: Discussion of parental death; brief discussion of all-partners-consensual extramarital affairs.
***
The first thing Steve Rogers said to Nick Fury on the street in New York, shortly after waking, was I had a date.
The second thing he said, before Fury could respond, was What happened to my kids?
It shocked Fury to silence, obviously, and in some ways that was a relief. The idea of the children in the hands of this terrifying monolith, this place that played with your mind, was unsettling.
"Director," someone said, from behind Fury, and a nondescript, middle-aged man stepped past him. "I think this is where I come in."
Fury was clearly surprised at this, too, and he began to look angry at how out of control the entire system was. Steve's attention, however, was drawn to the other man.
"If it's been seventy years," Steve snarled, "You're too young. I'm not an idiot."
The man smiled. "That's not wrong, Captain. Mariah was my mother. Vivianne was my grandmother."
He had pale brown hair just a shade away from blond, but then so had Vivianne. She'd said in a letter to him that their child took after her more than him. And something about the eyes, something about the jaw...
"You wanna explain to me what the hell is happening here, Coulson?" Fury snapped. Steve just blinked, stunned by the sunlight, by the terrible smell of the city, by this man before him, visibly older than him, who was nonetheless, probably, his grandchild.
"Mariah?" he said.
"I don't know if you'd recall -- "
"I remember," Steve said. He remembered all of them. He'd died with their names on his lips.
"Come with me," the man said. "Let's get off the street, hm?"
***
Phil had inherited, from his terribly organized grandmother, the keeping of the family geneaeology. Vivianne hadn't trusted the SSR by the end of the war, but she'd worked in the SSR records office, and in the shuffle of property between the various three-letter agencies after 1945, she had quietly made away with their dossiers -- all of the women from the program and all of their children. The scientists who worked on the project thought the government had taken it over; the government thought the scientists were handling it.
The salaries and administrative budget for the project kept coming from the SSR (and then OSS and then CIA), expertly managed by another of the participants, Loretta, a sweet southern belle who was ace at hoodwinking and who distributed the budget primarily amongst the unmarried mothers in the program who needed it the most. By the time the money dried up in the seventies, all the children were out on their own, and some had children of their own -- children like Phil Coulson.
Thanks to the SSR's bright idea for a super-soldier breeding program, Steve Rogers had a total of nineteen children from eighteen different women (one set of twins, who went to the Olympics as gymnasts, some year or other). Only fifteen grandchildren, and twelve great-grandchildren -- one of Phil's generation, a geneticist, was studying the fertility issue -- but still, that was sixty-four names to remember, sixty-four people to keep tabs on. Fortunately, most of them had gone into the military or government service, which made Phil's life easier.
"I wrote to all of them," Captain Rogers said, sitting in Fury's office, looking down at the list Phil had quietly compiled when they realized the Captain was still alive.
Phil contemplated just how long Fury would be angry with him. Really, this wasn't the kind of thing you could disclose in a job interview, but telling your friend of a decade or more that you were the grandson of Captain America was probably suggested.
"All of the children. Well, to the mothers, but I spoke to the children in the letters," Captain Rogers continued. "If I died, I wanted them to know who their father was. At least a little."
"There are a few left in the family collection," Phil said quietly. "My mother has two."
"Grown and gone," Captain Rogers murmured. His finger found a specific name. "Gladys. She was so nice to me. She sent me a photo of our boy Jimmy, once. Dunno where it is now. Looks like he...oh," he said sadly. There were two dates next to Jimmy's name. "He died...young?"
"Korea," Phil supplied. He had no memories of Uncle Jimmy, but he was one of the ones the family drank to, whenever a few of them got together. Captain Rogers first and foremost, then the others who had fallen. Now that Captain Rogers was up and about, Phil really should contact the other grandchildren still living.
Captain Rogers gave him a blank look. "Korea?"
"There was a war."
"Another one?" he asked wearily.
"Another few. We can deal with that later. And this, too -- but I can have the other grandkids come to see you, if you want. And the parents that are left. Though you might have to go to see some of them," Phil added. Most of the mothers had died in the last few years; some still held on, but only two were really mobile. "Right now, I think the Director's mainly concerned with keeping you from bolting again."
That earned him a small, dry smile. "He's an intimidating fella."
"You have no idea."
"You aren't pulling my leg, are you?" the Captain asked. It was a strange feeling, knowing how young he was -- Phil could remember being equally young and, if not equally in over his head, at least close to. He'd trusted in his commanding officers, sometimes erroneously, but he'd sometimes felt that the chain of command was the only anchor he had.
"Captain, I wouldn't do that to you," Phil said. "We all grew up hearing about you -- I think you'll find us a credit to your legacy. I hope so."
"My legacy," the Captain muttered. "All right, so. What happens now?"
***
Whether Fury ripped Phil a new one for keeping the Serum Child project from him, Steve never found out; Phil had Vivianne's sweetness of temper, and took whatever punishment was meted out to him quietly and without flinching. He told Steve that Fury wanted to wait to bring the grandchildren and great-grandchildren to him until he'd acclimated, and Steve was depressingly relieved. He wasn't ready for this century, let alone to be the patriarch of a grand clan.
When they took him to Almagordo in '42, before he became the Senator's dancing monkey, they told him that they wanted him to try to father children, to see if the serum bred true. Steve thought it was gauche, and cruel in some ways, and he worried it wouldn't, that any child of his would be sickly and weak. But he understood their logic -- and he had very little choice, in the end. They assured him the women were willing, and the women themselves assured him they were as well, when he asked them -- most of them were married, but hadn't been able to conceive with their husbands. It felt strange, being with a woman who was married, but they wanted children -- and he'd been able, in many cases, to provide a longed-for son or daughter.
Nineteen children. He'd never seen any of them in person, but he'd sworn he'd be a good father and he'd found it easy to love them, at least from a distance. He knew all their names, and mostly knew where they were and how they were faring.
And now many of the mothers were dead, and some of the children as well.
He'd written. He'd sent trinkets and candies when he could, special drawings on their birthdays. He hadn't thought about what he'd do when the war was over, but he'd wanted to at least see them all. They were all healthy, thank God, not a bum heart or colorblind eye in the bunch. The oldest, Rose, had already been walking when he'd gone into the ice.
They were his kin. Kin was important. And he'd abandoned them. And now, he'd lost them.
Still, aside from poor Jimmy, most of them had lived long and happy lives, and their mothers had banded together, so Phil said, so that all of them were close. That was good; that was how it ought to be with family. Five of the fifteen grandkids were in SHIELD. One was a Lieutenant in the air force. Most of the great-grandkids were still children, but the oldest was at West Point.
"What am I supposed to do?" he asked Phil at one point, and then realizing he was asking advice of his own grandson. "Sorry, I just..."
"None of us want anything from you," Phil said, head cocked sympathetically. "Well. Perhaps to meet you. But we don't need money, we don't need...bringing up, even the little ones. We -- they -- just want to know you." His smile turned shy. "They've heard a lot about you from me since you woke."
"It's a helpless feeling," Steve admitted. "Knowing I ought to have been there. For them. For you."
Phil shrugged. "You died for your country so that we could live in safety," he said. "I don't think there's a single one of us who doesn't understand that sacrifice."
"Cheapens it a little when I'm still kickin' around."
"No, Captain," Phil said gently, and the affection in his eyes was both reassuring and painful. "I don't think it cheapens it at all."
***
The first one he met after Phil wasn't one of the other SHIELD grandchildren; it was the Air Force officer, a slim man named James Rhodes. "Rhodey" Rhodes. And he was not what Steve was expecting.
"Well," he said, as they shook hands. "You didn't take much after me on the outside, huh?"
Rhodey looked startled, and then he laughed. "No sir."
"Steve is fine. Phil keeps insisting on calling me Captain; makes me feel about a million years old. Have a seat," Steve said, settling in at the table in the mess hall. "I don't really know how to...do this, I suppose."
"Nothing to do, really," Rhodey said, with a bright, wide smile, and in that Steve did see -- not himself, so much, but the charm in that smile reminded him of his own mother. "Just wanted to introduce myself. Phil's a nice guy but he can be a little excitable on the subject of our venerable ancestor."
"He's been helpful, though," Steve said.
"Yeah, he is that. His ma was really nice; when my dad married my mother, even some of the other children gave him the eyeball. Vivienne and Mariah shouted 'em down."
"Your dad, now, he was Phyllis's son? Phyllis and -- she was married to Mike Rhodes, right?"
Rhodey nodded. "Good memory."
"She was fun, Phyllis. Made me laugh so I wasn't so nervous," Steve said. "I got to know them all a little, before I left."
"Well, she always had nice things to say about you."
"Seems like everyone does. I feel a little like I have to live up to myself, now," Steve admitted.
"From the sound of things, it won't exactly be a problem."
"Maybe. Hey, I hear you run around with Stark's kid, Tony?"
Rhodey laughed. "A word to the wise, Steve -- don't let him hear you calling him 'Stark's kid'."
"I'll take that under advisement. Kinda glad he's not one of mine, truthfully," Steve said. "So, tell me about this War Machine suit you have."
***
Over the course of the months that followed, bleeding into one year and then two, he met the children that still lived, the grandchildren and their children. He held one great-grandson on his knee and made faces at him, delighted at how much the boy resembled him. He learned how to use the calendar on his phone purely because he now had to keep track of so many birthdays, but he made sure everyone got a card and something small. He had money now; he could afford more than hard candies and kewpie dolls. His grandchildren said he didn't have to, but he liked to. It was one bright thing he could make in his life.
Then came the fall of SHIELD, the fall of SHIELD at his own hands. One of his grandsons was suddenly Director (suddenly alive again, after Steve had mourned his death at Loki's hands). Three more grandsons and a granddaughter had been loyal against HYDRA; not a single child with Rogers blood in them had been a traitor, and it filled him with pride.
But one of those SHIELD grandsons, Tom, had died in the fighting. And Tom had a young son, Steve's great-grandson.
Who he had named Steven.
It wasn't the first time one of the children or grandchildren had lost their parents, and the extended family was relatively quick to assemble. They met in the back room of a restaurant in Virginia, him and the grandchildren and the two eldest great-grandchildren. All the grandchildren but Tom, of course -- and Phil, who was holding the reins of SHIELD by the tips of his fingers, and who Steve had ordered to stay put and get the house back in order. Sam had come too, but he was out in the restaurant proper, sitting with one of the younger great-grandchildren and helping him to mind Steven.
"Someone's got to take Steven," Rhodey said, when they'd settled down to discuss matters. "He's one of our own. We aren't sending him into the system."
"I agree. We can work up some papers, but who's going to take him?" Alyssa asked. "Half of us are still cleaning up after Hydra, the other half are practically still babies."
"Hey now," one of the younger ones said. "That doesn't mean we can't take him. He's four, he's a Rogers kid, he's durable. How much can we mess him up?"
"Plenty, with that attitude -- "
Steve sat thoughtfully, listening to them argue -- so stubborn, very much his blood, stubborn and determined to do the right thing come damnation or disaster -- until he felt it had gone on long enough, and most of the grandchildren had been discounted for one reason or another. Then he stood up, and everyone fell silent.
"I have a duty to discharge," he said. "Some loose ends from Hydra to wrap up. Then I'll take the boy."
The rest of them exchanged looks.
"Steve," Rhodey said, in an undertone. "Are you sure about this?"
"I didn't get to raise a one of you. Didn't even get to provide for you. And honestly, I could use a leave of absence," Steve said. "Brian."
"Sir," Brian said.
"You and your wife can take Steven in the short term?"
"Sure, as long as she doesn't get deployed anytime soon."
"I'll have Phil ensure it. I'll be back for him in six months at the outside. Anyone object?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. A few looked discontented, but nobody was willing to speak up against him. "All right. Thank you all for coming. I'd like to speak with each of you before you go, but I know some of you are on schedules." He smiled. "Remember, grandfather loves you all."
That put smiles on the faces of even the unhappy ones. By the time he made it out to the restaurant's public dining room, Little Steven was asleep in the arms of his cousin Big Steven, who was twelve and still overawed by his celebrity great-grandfather.
"Hey," he said, crouching next to Big Steven. "Looks like you did a great job."
"Thank you," Big Steven said shyly.
"Your uncle Brian and his wife are going to take the little one for a while," he said. "Now, you live near them, so it's your job to check up on him and make sure he's fine while I'm gone, okay?"
Big Steven nodded, eyes wide. "Yessir!"
"You have my phone number. I won't be around much but you can email me or text me if there's something wrong," Steve said. "Even if you just have a feeling."
Big Steven nodded again, releasing his little charge as Brian came over to collect him.
"Thank you," Steve told him. Brian smiled.
"Hardly a trial," he said, cuddling the boy to his shoulder. "The wife'll be surprised. Still, Phil gave her the We're Family speech before she married me, so she knew what she was getting into, and she likes kids. I'll let you know how he settles in. Come on, Big Steven, let's get you back to your mom."
Steve slid into the booth across from Sam as the rest of the family left, and once they were gone, he rested his forehead on his arms.
"So?" Sam asked, tapping him on the crown of the head lightly. "What's the verdict?"
"Brian's taking him for now. We have six months to find Bucky," Steve said.
"Or what?"
"After six months, I'm coming home. Steven needs me."
He could feel Sam's skepticism radiating. "Steven who has like, a million uncles and aunts? Are you sure it's not you who needs him?"
Steve sighed. "Does it matter?"
***
Four months into the search for Bucky -- hampered by the fact that he had been hitting Hydra bases, torching them, and leaving no traces after him -- Steve got a text message from Big Steven.
You better come home, Steve, it said. Attached was a photograph of a tree. Steve frowned, enlarged the photo, frowned again, zoomed in, and then dropped the phone.
"SAM!" he yelled, and Sam yelled back from the bathroom of the hotel room, "WHAT?"
"He's back in DC," Steve said, holding out his phone as Sam emerged. Sam blinked down at it.
"Who took this?" he asked.
"Big Steven."
"For real? That's one observant twelve-year-old."
"Chip off the old block," Steve said with a grin, pocketing the phone. "Get dressed and pack. Bucky's found the family."
***
They arrived at Brian's place in Alexandria the following afternoon, and Brian was waiting for them. Steve had sent him a heads-up as soon as he got Big Steven's text, but Brian already knew; his wife, Nina, had spotted the man in the tree, but she had assumed he was a bodyguard Steve had sent. He wasn't aiming his rifle at the house, she said. He was aiming where he'd hit someone trying to break into it.
"When was the last time you saw him?" Steve asked, settling in at the dining room table with a beer Brian had offered him. Little Steve was lying on the kitchen floor, drawing with crayons, stolidly impervious to the drama taking place around him.
"This morning. He generally comes out at night. I assessed the threat, found he wasn't threatening us, and left him to his peace," she said. "I thought you'd sent him."
"In a way," Steve said. "He's...an old friend."
"He's your loose end, isn't he?" Brian asked. Steve nodded. "What's he doing here, Steve?"
"Protecting him, I think," Steve said, nodding at Little Steven. "Waiting for me, maybe. I'll find out tonight."
"What, you're just going to stroll out and say hi?" Sam asked.
"Yep," Steve replied, as Little Steven got up to bring him a drawing to admire. He hefted the boy onto his lap. "If he wanted to hurt me, he knows how," he added, stroking Steven's downy, dark-blond hair. "This is wonderful, Steven. Look at all that blue."
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Nina asked. "Not the...creepy sniper in the tree thing. With Steven, I mean. I'm not saying it'd be easy to keep him, with the life Brian and I have, but he's family; we'd change if we had to, to keep him long term. You shouldn't feel responsible, Steve, the mess they got you into..."
"I want to," Steve said. Steven looked up and smiled at him, and he smiled back. "I need to take what responsibility I can."
Steven solemnly offered him the blue crayon. Steve took it, and let the boy squirm out of his grasp and down to the floor, running off.
"How much does he understand about what's happened?" he asked Brian.
"He knows his father's gone; his mother died when he was born, so it's not his first experience with the idea. I've tried to explain to him that he's staying with us until you can look after him, but..." Brian shrugged. "I didn't want him to think we didn't want him."
"No, I'm sure you did fine. It's not like I know what I'm doing," Steve admitted. "I have a place lined up for us to live, and I found a school for him in New York, but that's pretty much it."
"That's not too bad," Brian said. "New York, eh?"
"Stark offered me a place. He has a computer living in the walls," Steve said.
"Well, that won't be weird," Nina said with a grin.
***
It was night before Steve caught a glimpse of Bucky, and then only because a passing car bounced a brief reflection off his arm as he moved into place. Steve gave him time to settle, then stepped out of the house and crossed the street.
Bucky didn't move, didn't even look at him. Which in some sense, was a good thing. He clearly didn't consider Steve a threat.
"So," Steve said, looking up into the branches. "Saw your handiwork in Iowa. And California. And Montana. And I think, outside Chicago?"
"Yep," Bucky said grimly. "That was me."
"You were thorough. Why'd you come back to DC?"
"Always do."
"To come here?"
"No," Bucky said. "It was home base. Then I found out about the kid. Kids."
"Yeah, there are a lot of 'em." Steve rubbed the back of his head. "Don't suppose I could convince you to come down and talk to me? Sam's in there, Steven's safe, and I feel a little odd talkin' to a tree."
Bucky considered it for a while, then dropped from the tree, gracefully and more silent than Steve could have managed. He looked like he hadn't eaten in a while.
"What do you want?" Bucky asked.
"I think you know the answer to that, Buck," Steve said. "How -- how much do you remember?"
Bucky glanced at him. "Little more all the time."
"You know who I am. Who we were."
"Ain't that fella anymore, for sure."
"You don't have to be. But Buck, I haven't got much. The kids, most of them are older than me. Sam, Natasha...Sam understands. Natasha too, in a different way. Different parts. I just -- not like you do, not like you would. I'd really like if you came back with us, Buck," he said, voice cracking.
Bucky didn't look at him. "Back where? In there?"
"I'm going to New York. I have to look after Steven. Come with me, Buck, please," Steve said. "Don't make me pick between my blood and my best friend."
Bucky looked down. "I shouldn't be around him."
"Why?"
"Dangerous."
"Well, you've done all right so far. And I could use a couple of dangerous fellas looking out for the kid. It's an awful world for a little one to grow up in unprotected."
Bucky snorted. "Just like that? Happy family Rogers?"
Steve exhaled hard, frustrated. "At least come to New York. I know a guy can get you a warm place to stay, meals on the regular."
"Your pal Stark."
"Howard's kid. He's not so bad." Steve shrugged. "I love you, Buck, but I have other concerns too. Come or don't. But it'd make me happy -- it'd put me at ease -- if you came."
"When?"
"Couple of days. Gotta get Steven packed, make sure everything's arranged."
Bucky was silent for a few minutes. Steve waited patiently. Across the street he saw Steven's face appear at the window, smashing his nose up against it.
"I'll meet you there," Bucky said, and when Steve turned to ask him what that meant, he was gone.
***
Steve put Steven to bed that evening, a daunting task in itself; he remembered what his mother used to do for him, but maybe things had changed. He sat next to Steven's bed, tugging the blankets up fretfully, and asked, "Do you want a story?"
Steven looked up at him with Steve's own blue eyes, mouth working as he decided. "Yah," he finally said. "Captain 'Merca story."
"Who tells you Captain America stories?" Steve asked, amused.
"I get to be Captain Merca someday," Steven whispered.
"Do you?" Steve asked. He wondered if Steven had absorbed his heritage -- it wasn't like the others never spoke about it -- and misinterpreted its meaning.
"Maybe," Steven allowed.
"Well, you should know all about him, then." Steve wondered if Brian -- or Steven's father -- had made the stories up, or told him real stories passed down through the generations. Phil said he'd been raised on Captain America stories, but those were the comics, a strange blend of reality and fiction.
"Did you know Captain America had a best friend?" he asked. Steven shook his head. "His name was Bucky. Captain America protected people, but you know who Bucky protected?"
"Captain Merca?"
"That's right. Whenever Captain America was hurt, or sad, or lonely, he had Bucky to make him feel better."
Steven yawned prodigiously, then blinked up at him. "I want a Bucky."
Steve sighed. "Don't we all."
***
Tony Stark called the next day, while Steve was playing Go Fish with Steven, who really loved Go Fish. Steve saw a lot of Go Fish in his future, and resolved to teach the kid poker as soon as he was old enough to be discreet about it.
"Hey, so, I think I found your friend," Tony said.
"Let me guess," Steve said. "A guy in black broke into Stark Tower, bypassed your security systems, and is walking around on the floor you designated for me and Steven."
"...wow. Are you in my security network?"
"I told him we were moving in with you. He said he'd meet me in New York. Kinda had a feeling he might be shoring up the place," Steve said.
"What do I do?"
"Let him be, if he's not harming anyone. You might leave some food out for him."
"What, like a stray cat?" Tony asked. "If I feed him does he sit outside my door at 3am and beg to be let in?"
"Probably not," Steve said. "If he does, just have Pepper swat him on the nose."
"You're really funny, Steve."
"I do what I can."
"How's the kid?"
Steve glanced over at Steven, who had picked up Steve's cards and was arranging them in numerical order.
"He's great," Steve said. "We'll be there in a few days."
"Sure, whenever, I can feed the pet mercenary until then."
"You're all heart."
"More than you know," Tony said. "Seeya in a few."
"My regards to Pepper."
Steve pocketed his phone and went back over to sit down at the card game. Steven got up and climbed into his lap, settling in against his chest.
"Let's play like this," he suggested.
"I can see your cards," Steve pointed out. Steven bounced a little, his bony elbows digging into Steve's ribcage. He twisted, looking up at him.
"M'I gonna live with you?" he asked.
"Yes. I have a place for us to live in New York. Would you like that?" Steve asked, apprehensive.
"Does it have a swingset?"
Steve smiled a little. "I'm sure we can arrange for a swing."
"Can I bring my Go Fish cards?"
"Yes," Steve said. "We'll bring all your clothes and toys."
Steven flopped sideways into his chest, heaving a breath. "Just you and me?"
"Maybe. Maybe some of my friends, like Sam. You remember Sam?"
Steven nodded, fiddling with his cards. Steve felt simultaneously thrilled and terrified; anxiety squeezed his ribcage one minute, reminding him that he was taking responsibility for an entire life, but the next minute his heart swelled with affection for the little boy. It would not be hard to make Steven the axis around which his world turned.
And a little corner of his mind, one that he was not entirely sure of, said that Bucky would love the boy too -- that little Steven, effortlessly, would anchor Buck to Steve and draw him in. After all, Bucky hadn't gone off to bodyguard the grandchildren, who didn't need it, or the other great-grandchildren, who all had a parent or two. He'd come to Steven, the orphan of the battle of the Helicarriers, to protect him until Steve returned.
It was unfair to pin so many hopes on the child, Steve knew, but he was a Rogers. He'd carry them fine.
***
Taking Steven to New York wasn't quite as easy as it had seemed when Steve was explaining it to him. Steven was fussy and anxious when he finally realized he was leaving Brian and Nina's house for good. He cried for a good half an hour even after the train had pulled away from the station. Steve, helpless and wondering if he'd done the right thing, could only cuddle the stiff little body and hope it was just nerves.
Once he'd cried himself out and calmed down a little, though, Steven began to perk up -- staring out the window at the scenery rolling past, climbing on the seats, and eventually wandering up and down the aisle, occasionally attempting to make a break for it through the doors at either end of the car. The crying had been horrible, and the rambunctious exploration was not all that much better -- by the time they pulled into Grand Central, Steve was exhausted, and Steven looked like he was threatening to cry again from all the noise and bustle.
"There he is," said a voice, as Steve wandered wearily through the station. The next minute, a friendly fireplug of a man was easing his luggage cart away from him, under the direction of Tony Stark, and Tony was guiding them towards an exit. Steve bewilderedly followed him into the sunlight briefly, and then into a limo, as the other man, Tony's driver, loaded the luggage into the trunk and got behind the wheel.
These things happened with strange regularity around Tony.
"Now, let me meet you properly," Tony said to Steven, once they were moving. Steven buried his face in Steve's shirt. "Unfriendly little cur, isn't he?"
"He's tired," Steve said.
"Sic transit gloria mundi," Tony said, and turned one hand palm-up, cradling a little device that popped a wavering green hologram into the air. Steve caught Steven eyeing it, and gently maneuvered him around so that he was sitting properly on his lap. The hologram -- a little smiling robot -- waved at Steven. Steven's jaw dropped. Steve felt his shoulders relax.
"Hello, young master Steven," the robot said in a familiar voice. "My name is JARVIS."
"Lo, Jarviz," Steven answered shyly.
Captain America: Rebuilding SHIELD
Rating: PG
Summary: In the aftermath of SHIELD's destruction, Steve has more hard decisions -- and more friends -- than he expected.
Notes: This is a super long and going-nowhere-fast fic I wrote after seeing Winter Soldier three times in three days, and it was almost immediately jossed by Agents of Shield. Always the way.
Warnings: Extensive description of hospital stay and injury-related PTSD.
***
The police found James Barnes in the alley that used to lead to Steve's apartment (now it led to the back of a shopping center, more stores going in every day). He was shivering despite the spring warmth, with the bloodshot flicking eyes of a junkie.
They were just going to take him to the ER and dump him off, one more candidate for the charity rehab ward, but then one of them eased the glove off his left hand.
SHIELD was in tatters, both human and infrastructure, but its servers had been deep underground, run on generators designed to withstand calamities even larger than the one Steve had brought down on them. The servers, with their secure lines and processing power, their access to camera feeds and police scanners intact, were accessible to anyone who knew how.
Natasha knew how, and she'd set up a watch program to look for Bucky. So despite her absence, despite the space Steve had deliberately and carefully given her, within an hour of Bucky's reappearance on the grid he had a text message from her with a hospital address and a room number in Washington.
"How are you?" he texted back, but she didn't reply. Later he realized it had probably been an automated system. Natasha might not even know.
Given SHIELD's recent spectacular meltdown, Natasha's testimony, and the information received from loyal SHIELD agents (now scattered to the winds, for the most part), nobody would have taken SHIELD credentials terribly seriously. Fortunate, then, that all the credentials Steve would ever need were on his face and on his back -- the jawline of Captain America was internationally known. That shield, with that face, gained him access to surprising places, like the private room where his best friend lay unconscious in restraints that wouldn't hold him for a second if he didn't want them to.
Ten minutes after arriving at the hospital, two minutes after he finished speaking to the doctors about what was going on -- how he'd been medevac'd to Washington on mysterious orders, how they'd been asked to post guards on his door and how sick he truly was -- Steve stepped outside and called Sam.
"They found him," he said.
"Well, that's good news, isn't it?" Sam asked. "I mean, unless he was gettin' up to old tricks."
"No. He was practically unconscious in -- he was trying to...I mean I think he was -- it looked like he was trying to find me," Steve ran a hand over his face. "He just forgot I'm not in New York anymore."
"Hey," Sam said, and Steve could hear his professional VA Counselor voice overtaking his personal interest. "Are you okay?"
"I really need some help here, Sam," Steve answered, pride stinging at how broken and weak he sounded. "I know you've already done more than -- "
"Shut up, asshole. I'm coming to you," Sam said. "Tell me where you are."
"I'm at the hospital," Steve said, pitifully grateful, and relayed the address. "They think he's in some kind of withdrawal, that the...the arm, thing -- "
"His prosthetic."
"They think it was feeding him drugs. He has burns on his scalp, under his hair, he has infected wounds, things I did to him, he has broken bones, I don't -- "
"Steve," Sam said sharply, and Steve took a ragged breath. "Listen to me, okay, man, I need you to keep it together. We're gonna unpack this right now and you'll be okay until I get there, just work with me. I'm good at this, so let me help you, you get me?"
Steve swallowed. "Yes."
"Okay. So are you more freaked out that he's hurt, or that he's hurt from something you did?"
Steve tried to think clearly, to grasp the lifeline Sam was throwing.
"That he's hurt," he said finally, thickly.
"But he's getting care? He's at the hospital."
"For the surface stuff, the stuff they can. They're afraid to take his arm off. He has scars, really bad scars," Steve said.
"So they're doing what they can."
"Yeah."
"So really you're freaked out it won't be enough."
"I can't get him back and lose him again, Sam," Steve managed.
"You're anticipating a whole lot you can't know," Sam replied. "So focus on right here and right now. You got your buddy back. You got to see him, and they got doctors working on him. Is he lucid?"
"He's not even awake."
"Sedated?"
"No, I don't think so." Easy questions, easy answers. He breathed in through his nose.
"Okay," Sam said, and there was silence. "I don't think you're gonna like this, but maybe I'm wrong. Your pal is in the hospital, and I know that's hard, but your pal is also someone who ripped up large portions of this city like two minutes ago, and who may not be very stable. So I'm gonna push you a little."
"What?" Steve asked.
"Right now you need to put Steve aside and be Cap," Sam said. "I need you to stop worrying about your friend and start worrying about a confused assassin who damn near killed us all who is lying un-sedated in a hospital room."
"He's not -- I saw his face -- "
"Cap," Sam said.
"There are already guards on the door."
"You know they won't be enough if he decides to get up and cause trouble. Right now you need to be Captain America and you need to stand guard over a prisoner. You can do this. I swear to God it'll help."
Steve took a shuddering breath. "What if I have to -- I don't know if I could put him down again."
"I'm seriously ten minutes out from your location, we will worry about that shit when I get there," Sam replied. "Right now, go inside, go to his room, and stand guard, okay?"
He swallowed bile. "Yeah. I can do that."
"I know you can. Go on."
"Should I hang up?"
"I can stay on if you want."
"No, I'll be okay," he said. "Thanks, Sam."
"This is my job, man," Sam replied, a smile in his voice. "I mean my actual job, not my superhero job. Be there soon."
Steve hung up and went back inside, ignoring the sidelong looks from nurses and doctors as he followed the maze of hallways back to Bucky's room. He was still unconscious, but the metal in his arm rippled and shifted occasionally. His lips twitched, eyes darting back and forth in a dream.
Steve touched his hand, his right one, the one he kept thinking of as the real one. Bucky didn't stir. He touched his face, tracing the thin line of a scar high on his cheekbone, a memento of combat back in the war when a sniper's bullet had zinged out of nowhere and grazed Buck just as he was lighting a cigarette. Steve had pivoted, fired, and dropped the sniper and his spotter in two shots while Bucky swore and dove to the ground. The ash from the cigarette had flicked up into the wound, cauterizing it, but it left behind a thin brown mark that never fully faded.
Bucky's body seemed to settle, eyes stilling, mouth relaxing. Steve nodded, pleased, and stepped back against the wall, falling to attention.
He had a job to do. Guard the prisoner. It was a sensible task, a task he was uniquely fitted for. The rest -- the fresh pink wounds where they'd scrubbed out infected flesh and pus, the broken bones, the fever, he didn't have to worry about that right now. Not until Sam arrived, at least.
Sam was there soon enough, carrying a brown paper bag with a couple of tupperware containers in it (tupperware -- right up there with no polio for best parts of the 21st century, in Steve's book).
"Hospital food is bullshit," Sam said, as Steve opened one. It was filled with a tan substance. "Hummus. Should be carrot sticks in the tall one."
"Okay," Steve agreed, setting it aside. Sam smiled and guided him to the chair in the room, leaning against the foot of Bucky's bed like it didn't contain a medical miracle and a dangerous threat rolled up together.
"You all right?" he asked. Steve nodded. Sam put the tupperware back in his hands. "Eat. This is a different kind of battle."
Steve cautiously swiped a carrot stick through the hummus and ate, not really tasting the food.
"So, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I made a list on the way over," Sam said, ticking off points on his fingers. "One, we're worried about your boy there. Getting better, getting loose of whatever drugs they've been dumping in him."
Steve nodded.
"Two, we feel guilty because some of the damage he's healing right now is stuff we did to him."
"We?" Steve asked.
"Mostly you, but I'm sharing your experience here."
"Is this a therapy thing?"
"It's a good friend who happens to know a lot of shit about trauma thing," Sam replied, and continued. "Three, we're worried about how much is your friend and how much is the guy who tried to murder you. When he wakes up, which one will he be, and are you gonna have to take him down again."
"Four, I'm not that sure he won't be arrested," Steve said. "The fact I'm here means they think someone in charge is going to take care of him, but I don't know how long they'll think that. They could call the police. I mean..." he jerked his thumb at the cop standing outside. "It's not like they'd have far to go."
"Is it just those four?" Sam asked. "Or is there more?"
Steve thought about it, trying to pick through the wreck of his feelings about