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“I know, I know,” Steve says shakily. “I’m alright.”
It’s a lie, and the other Steves know it. He can only hope that SJ is young and naive enough to not pick up on it. He’s just witnessed himself viciously attacking other people with no hesitation or remorse, of course he’s not alright. He’s sickened and absolutely terrified, and he has no idea what happened in those other universes for him to turn out like the Director has, like Six-One-Eight has-
“God, that was a hell of a fight,” a voice says grimly, and Steve looks up past SJ to see Shield pacing towards him, a hand still clamped to his shoulder. He comes up close and then sinks to the floor with a groan of relief, face flickering in pain. Someone else steps up behind him and nudges him with his knee; Shield nods gratefully and leans back against their legs, and Steve glances up to see it’s the Commander. He hears more footsteps crunching across the gravel towards them and then Dresden is also there, sitting down next to Shield and nodding at him; Brooklyn appears and crouches down beside Steve, clapping a reassuring hand onto his shoulder.
“Hey, don’t look like that. We’re not all bad,” Brooklyn says, and Shield snorts with tired laughter.
Steve looks around at the familiar faces, and feels some of the worry and panic bleed away as he realises that Brooklyn is right. There’s a whole bunch of Steve Rogers here with him, good versions of him, no matter what they did or who they ended up with. Shield nods at him and Dresden offers him a small crooked smile, and the sense of solidarity is a heady relief, a balm on his ragged emotions.
“Yeah,” he says, smiling weakly even though he’s battered and bruised and exhausted, and the expression is matched on the faces around him. “Guess we’re not.”
Tony stares down at the newest EEG results on the tablet in front of him. Shakes his head because there’s still nothing but straight lines, still no discernable activity from Steve’s brain. By all medical opinions, he’s still technically dead.
Dropping the tablet, Tony reaches out and takes Steve’s hand in both of his own, turning it over and slipping the fingers of one hand up to his wrist. He can feel the steady tic of Steve’s pulse under his fingertips, and it just doesn’t make sense.
“Trust you to still continue to defy medical science,” Tony mutters. He’s infuriated by the situation; the fact he doesn’t understand it is almost too much for him to handle. He’s one of the smartest guys on the damn planet and being unable to work it out is more of a wound to his pride than he’ll ever admit out loud. He feels raw like sandpaper; constant pain, fear and uncertainty no longer piercing like knives but constantly scraping away at his insides. He's drowning with the burdens he's carrying, being slowly crushed by the need to have Steve back.
He lets go of Steve’s hand and gently reaches up towards Steve’s face. So, so gently he eases Steve’s eyelid back with his thumb, watches the pupil contract in the light before letting go. He slumps back into the chair, wrapping both hands back around Steve’s wrist, fingertips pressing against his pulse point again.
It makes no fucking sense and Tony wants to scream.
Throat tight, he breathes out shakily, and he knows there’s no point in saying it out loud but he does anyway, his question hanging heavily and unanswered between them.
“Where the hell have you gone, Cap?”
“What’re you doing?”
Steve smiles weakly at the sound of SJ’s sleepy yet curious voice. He lifts his head away from the back of the couch and looks down at SJ who is curled up on his side on the worn cushions, his head on Steve’s thigh and his eyes fixed on Steve’s fingers where they rest on the inside of his wrist, against his pulse-point.
“Just checking,” Steve replies, and SJ reaches out as well, pressing a finger in-between Steve’s, cool against his skin.
“Two,” Steve says, showing him, gently moving his hand into place, holding SJ’s fingers still so he can feel his pulse.
“I could just do this,” SJ says, pulling his hand away and sitting up, climbing into Steve’s lap and leaning against his chest with his ear resting over his heart.
“Or you could just do that,” Steve agrees, wincing slightly and shifting SJ so he doesn’t have a bony elbow sticking into his solar plexus.
SJ is quiet for a few long moments. He looks sleepy, despite having spent the last hour and a bit napping. “Is the Director going to come back?”
Steve hesitates. He absent-mindedly reaches up and smooths a hand over SJ’s head, pushing his soft blond hair away from his forehead. Normally, SJ would object to the ruffling – and Steve has plenty of memories of objecting when Bucky did the same to him when they were younger – but he just breathes out heavily and rubs his cheek against the fabric of Steve’s uniform.
“Don’t know,” Steve finally admits, not wanting to lie. He knows that the others have gone out to check that the Director and his crew are back across the river in the area that they normally haunt, but he’s not going to relax until they get back with a positive report.
“If I grew up I’d be like you and not that,” SJ yawns, and the simple sentence feels like a punch to Steve’s sternum. His throat goes alarmingly tight and he’s momentarily lost for words. God, there’s no doubt about what’s the right thing to do as both Steve Rogers and Captain America when it’s phrased like that. Well, ‘truth comes from the mouths of babes’ was what his Mom always used to say; at the time Steve had been nothing but suspicious of the phrase, because his Mom had clearly never listened to the tall tales that Eugene Jackson used to tell, but now it all slots into place and he finds a new and startling clarity about what she had meant.
“Good to know,” he finally opts for saying.
“Well, you or Shield,” SJ says. “Maybe Shield because he never got beat up by a robot.”
A laugh tumbles from Steve’s mouth, catching him by surprise. “Gee, thanks,” he says ruefully, and SJ grins up at him, looking pleased with himself.
Steve’s sharp ears catch the sound of approaching footsteps on the stairs; evidently the others have returned from their sweep of the area. He’s glad; now he’s over the initial shock of meeting the Director he’s got so many questions to ask. Some of the answers aren’t going to be easy to hear, but he wants to know. If he’s going to continue to be the good man he needs to be in order to live up to the role of Captain America, he needs to know.
“Come on then, move off,” he says to SJ, planting his fists into the cushions in order to push himself up-
“Nu-uh.” SJ instantly wraps both his arms around one of Steve’s, burrowing into his armpit and not shifting off his knee. Steve debates just picking him up and moving him, but he doesn’t have the heart, so he just stays where he is and looks expectantly towards the door.
Within seconds, Seven and Shield walk into the room, looking tired but not stressed or worried. Shield looks as serious as ever, back to business as if he’d not been shot only a few hours previously. Seven has got the remnants of a black eye but is otherwise looking fine.
“All clear?” Steve asks.
“All clear,” Shield says with a nod, and sits down heavily next to Steve, his hand moving up to press carefully against the wound on his shoulder. SJ wriggles his feet into Shield’s lap and his mouth flickers in a small smile as he lays a palm on SJ’s ankle. “Winter says they’re all the way up to where the 8th street bridge on the Passaic River should be, still heading north west. It’ll take him hours to get back here even if he decides to turn around and come back now.”
“What happened to him?”
Steve’s question hangs in the air, heavy and tense. Seven shifts around to sit on the floor opposite them, legs kicked out in front and weight wresting back on his hands. It’s hard for them all, Steve knows that, but they can’t avoid the issue. Maybe there’s something about the Director which he can learn; the key to him avoiding war in his own world and getting home.
“Someone needs to tell me,” Steve says when no-one answers, voice low and serious. SJ is very still, his eyes on Shield and clearly listening in.
Shield breathes out through his nose, slow and deliberate. “We don’t know,” he finally admits.
“What do you know?” Steve asks.
Shield and Seven exchange an unhappy glance. “As far as we can tell…he’s always been that way,” Shield tells him, his mouth a sorrowful twist. “He went through Project Rebirth, joined the army, went to war.”
“Did he – was he frozen, like us? Did he crash the plane?”
There’s another weighty pause, and then it’s Seven who speaks. “Yes,” he says. “But it was different. We think he murdered Erksine to make sure he would be the only super-solider, then founded Shield with Peggy and Howard before the end of the war. He was the heart of Shield, and when he woke up after being frozen he took it for himself. No-one questioned it.”
Steve’s mouth is dry, his stomach churning unpleasantly. “He murdered-”
He can’t even finish the sentence.
“We don’t know why,” Shield repeats bitterly. “But it looks that way.”
Steve shakes his head. No, that’s not right, he would never. He looks up as SJ shifts in his arms, leaning forwards and pressing fingertips to the back of the hand Shield has resting over the bullet wound. Shield nods, reaching out to ruffle SJ’s hair, and SJ smile is wobbly but true as he pulls his hand back.
“Why didn’t anyone stop him?” he asks, and his mind immediately goes to the one person who always calls him on his attitude when he gets stubborn, when he pushes too far with the team. “What about – what about Tony?”
Shield’s smile is depreciating and crooked. “In his universe, Tony Stark died in Afghanistan. He never knew him. No Iron Man, no Avengers.”
Steve shuts his eyes tightly, breathing out and feeling his throat constrict. He doesn’t need to know anymore. He doesn’t want to know anymore.
“And the other guy,” he manages to say, doing his utmost to keep his voice level. “Six-One-Eight.”
Shield’s face falls and he looks over towards Seven. Seven’s posture has gone completely rigid, his jaw set tightly. “He definitely wasn’t always like that. He - he killed Tony Stark during their Civil War,” he says abruptly, face twisting in anger. “The grief, the guilt over what he did…he couldn’t handle it.”
Steve feels like he could throw up. He opens his eyes, begging, pleading them to be wrong. “No,” he says, denial thick in his veins. “No, I would never-”
