If Steve was being brutally honest with himself, he was fucking tired of hearing about “the classics”. Irrelevant people butting their noses into his business, tipping him off to what movies were, “the best of the best!” and “absolute must sees!” He appreciated what they were trying to do, but after a while, it felt like people were more or less just trying to garner a slice of his 21st century experience, and quite frankly, he liked doing things better by himself. It was much more appealing to park himself in front of his laptop, nothing but his own quietude to keep him company as he combed through different wikipedia rabbit holes and caught up on movies and TV shows that were apparently crucial to his very existence.
Most were subpar and honestly, he preferred the copious amounts of popcorn he treated himself to on these solo date nights, but some things surprised him. Like Indiana Jones. He liked Indiana Jones. He was neat, and Marion reminded him vaguely of Peggy.
Still, he supposed he should have seen it coming when Clint came to collect him from his floor one evening, that sort of eager-puppy energy he carried around with him vaguely prickling the back of Steve’s neck.
“C’mon, man,” he was saying. Steve leaned against the door jamb, tired. He was going to concede, but Clint was rambling and Steve knew better than to interrupt him. “It’s, like, certifiably the best love story ever. You need to watch it--”
And there it was again. That fucking claim. You need to watch this! You haven’t seen that?
No. He hadn’t. He’d been a little busy, you know, being dead.
“--And the acting is all so raw and it’s just-- Leo DiCaprio-- you know who that--”
“--Yes. I saw Blood Diamond--”
“--Oh, you did? Well, anyway, he rocks in this and--”
“Clint,” Steve cut him off smoothly. “I’ll come, don’t sweat it too hard.”
Clint looked positively elated. “You will?” he exclaimed. “Awesome, yeah, it’s gonna be the whole team. I mean, that’s good right? You’re cool with that? You gotta be, you’re the one who mentioned team bonding that one time--”
“Yes,” Steve cut in again. “I’m alright with that. Give me a minute to change, and I’ll be right down?” He was still in his gym clothes from two hours ago. He meant to take a shower, but he’d sort of… ran out of energy. The sweat had cooled by now anyway. He smelled fine.
“Oh! Yeah, no problem.”
Which was how Steve found himself in a pair of sweatpants and an old SHIELD t-shirt, squashed in between Natasha and Bruce on the communal couch. Someone had handed him a huge bowl of popcorn and Steve was pleasantly surprised to find that it was flavored with some sort of cheese powder.
“White cheddar,” Bruce said, holding up a little blue shaker bottle when he heard Steve’s appreciative hum. “They’re, uh, sort of like seasoning, but for popcorn specifically. They come in all different kinds of flavors.”
“Oh, neat,” Steve said, around another handful of popcorn. He liked Bruce. He seemed to get Steve in that quiet, brutally raw sort of way. A quiet kinship. They didn’t talk about it, but he never made him feel condescended, so Steve decided that was okay.
“I think I fixed it!” Tony said, stepping out from behind the ginormous movie screen where, presumably, he’d been fixing a volume problem. The screen had been frozen on the first frame of the movie for nearly ten minutes. “Okay, okay, let’s see…” he pressed play. Music poured through the speakers on either side of the TV, loud enough so that everyone cringed and Steve nearly dropped the popcorn bowl in his haste to cover his ears. He always managed to forget how damn loud the world could be when he let himself get comfortable.
“Sorry, sorry!” Tony hissed, turning the volume down to a much more tolerable level. “Okay, there. Okay, shh everyone. Gotta let Capsicle--”
“--Just Steve, Tony--”
“--Gotta let Just Steve get the full experience.”
Steve rolled his eyes, but settled in to watch.
The film was honestly better than Steve had been expecting, if not a little… itchy in that way period films tended to be for him. The themes of poverty and love were pretty well-rounded, but they hit just close enough that he almost cringed at the far-fetch’d beauty of it.
Still, his fingers itched for some charcoal as Jack guided a pencil over the worn sheaf of paper. The dim light, the faint scratch of the pencil, the forbidden love. It was familiar. Steve could almost smell the salty City air, afternoons spent under the dim lights of candles so they could see even with the curtains drawn-- a semblance of privacy amongst the compact vulnerability of his and Bucky’s shitty little tenement.
Draw me like one of your french girls, Rose had said, and Steve’s eyes drifted towards the wall, Bucky’s voice echoing through his head.
“‘Course I want you to draw me. I ain’t denying my vanity, Stevie,” he teased, but his eyes were soft. “Pal, you could draw a stick of butter and I’d still wanna watch. It ain’t about me here.”
There was a soft touch to his arm and Steve blinked out of his reverie. Natasha was watching him, a neutral look on her face that Steve had finally learned to recognize as concern. He shook his head minutely, offering her a smile. She nodded and looked back at the TV.
The rest of the movie passed without much excitement. The acting was pretty good and Steve had even gotten to a point where he could recognize the filmmaking as something like revolutionary for the time it came out. He was quicker on the cultural uptake than people gave him credit for, but that was neither here nor there. He laughed with everyone else, let himself grow somber when the atmosphere lent that mood, and generally, it was a nice time. He hadn’t gone to any movie nights before this, but he thought maybe he’d start going to more.
And then the ship hit the iceberg.
Steve wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting. Obviously, he knew of the Titanic-- he knew, historically, what happened to it. But for some reason, it hadn’t quite hit him while watching the movie that he was going to have to see the catastrophe go down.
There was a loud creaking of ice on metal as the collision occurred on screen and Steve felt himself go still-- body rigid and tense as the deafening noise played through the speakers. His heart slammed in his chest and he felt his palms start to sweat. He knew that sound-- he knew that--
--He blinked, shaking his head. Movie. Watch the movie. There was a panicked scramble on screen. Characters rushing to amend the situation, more metal creaking and groaning and breaking as dark, foamy water broke through the sides of the ship and Steve could taste it, he could taste the water flooding into the cabin, hitting him from the left as it took the plane down in a harsh--
--He twitched, shaking his head. He was being silly. There were moments of reconciliation as the scenes rapidly flashed between water flooding the ships cabins and peaceful moments of civility. A calm before the storm. A final dance before death.
I’m gonna need a raincheck on that dance…
There was a sudden crash as water blasted through into the work quarters and Steve jumped, watching transfixed as unforgiving torrents pushed workers over, flooding them, drowning them, and they were falling, slipping, sliding, panicking as certain death met them at the halfway point, and Steve knew it must be cold. So cold. Suffocating and unforgiving as it flooded their lungs, saltier than they probably imagined, heavy and awful and--
“Stark, turn the movie off.”
The room went abruptly silent. Steve realized his eyes were closed, chest heaving as he sat, hunched over his lap, hands fisted in his hair.
The popcorn wasn’t on his lap anymore. When had he moved? He couldn’t breathe and he was so cold and someone needed to save those guys, someone needed to--
“Steve,” a gentle voice cut into the roaring waves crashing in his head. Bruce. That was Bruce speaking. “Can you hear me, Steve?”
Steve nodded, pulling his hair harder. He couldn’t breathe. Was he drowning again? Surely that was impossible. If Bruce was talking to him, he couldn’t be drowning again, but-- but the water-- and-- and the cold--
“Good, that’s good, Steve,” Bruce. Bruce again. It was Bruce. “Can I touch you?”
Touch. Touch. No touch. He was so cold. He wanted to stop being cold, but he was certain if someone touched him right now, he would lose his goddamn mind. More so than he already had.
“That’s alright,” Bruce sounded steady. Calm. So calm. Why couldn’t Steve calm down? “That’s okay. You think you can do something for me?”
Something… for Bruce? Could he? Could he do anything right then? If he could breathe, how could he do anything-- and he-- he felt sick--
He opened his mouth to answer and vomited between his feet, straight onto the carpet. Someone in the room hissed sympathetically. Steve wanted to crawl somewhere and die.
“Oh, Steve,” Bruce seemed to be talking mostly to himself, but Steve felt his shoulders climb higher towards his ears. “Okay, Steve, I need you to listen to my voice. Just listen. I’m going to count and you’re going to breathe in time with my instruction, okay? Can you do that for me?”
Steve shook his head, choking on a sob. His chest hurt. Like someone had taken all of his ribs and replaced them with weights, flooding his lungs with-- with water-- and fuck, now he was thinking about the plane again. He felt his breathing tick up higher.
“I want you to try,” Bruce said. “With me. In,” he sucked in a breath. “One… two… three… four…”
Steve tried to suck in a breath, but all he managed to do was send himself into a coughing fit. Bruce kept counting. Steve wanted to tell him to wait-- slow down-- shut up--
He braced a hand over his chest.
Bruce was still counting.
He wasn’t sure how much time passed, but eventually he found himself matching Bruce’s counts, eyes closed and the heels of his palms braced on his temples as he sucked in greedy, measured breaths. His heart was still slamming hard enough to make him tremble and he could smell his own sick wafting up from the ground, but at least he was breathing on his own.
Bruce trailed off. Silence hung thick in the air, the only noise was Steve's slow, shaking breaths. Shame burned around his ears. He didn’t dare look up.
Tony, predictably, was the one to break the silence. “I’m sorry, Steve,” he said, and Steve was surprised to hear honest regret in his voice. “I was the one who suggested we watch Titanic. I should have thought for more than two seconds about that…”
Steve shrugged. Embarrassment climbed from his stomach to his throat, threatening to choke him.
Natasha spoke next. “Why don’t you go wash up?” It was an escape-- a way out-- and Steve took it graciously, keeping his head ducked down as he stood on shaking legs and rushed to the communal bathroom.
Inside, he locked the door and braced himself over the sink, splashing warm water on his face. He drank greedily from the tap. His reflection looked like shit-- he’d burst some blood vessels in his eyes, probably while vomiting, and his skin looked sallow and pale. He was trembling, sweat matting his hair to his forehead. He looked like how he looked after a nightmare. This, he supposed, had kind of been like a nightmare. Though, he hadn’t been asleep.
Nightmares, he was finding, weren’t strictly exclusive to the nighttime.
He supposed he’d always known that, though.
He closed his eyes, bowing his head again.
His emotions had been fucked to high hell since waking up from the ice. This hadn’t been the first of those awful… fits, and he was certain it wouldn’t be the last, but to have something like that happen in front of the team was a whole new level of mortifying. Fuck. He’d gotten sick. And he’d left it.
He felt the ceramic counter straining under his grip. Scowling, he let go.
He could slip off to his room, lock himself away until he could find some way to sneak out of the Tower and never talk to any of the others ever again. Even in this state, Steve knew that wasn’t viable in any sense. He sighed. Besides, he couldn’t just damn the others to clean up his mess.
Stowing his pride, he dug some spare mouthwash out from behind the mirror and chugged some straight down, keeping a mouthful and swishing it around before spitting it in the sink. He still felt and looked like shit, but at least his breath would smell like wintergreen.
The others were still gathered in the communal living room, watching what looked like a kid’s cartoon on TV. There was a distinct smell of cleaner in the air and Steve’s eyes landed on the ground where he’d gotten sick. It was clean. He let his eyes drop to the ground, ashamed.
“I’m sorry,” he said. The cartoon paused. He didn’t look at any of them. “I was going to clean up.”
“Nah, man, the only thing worse than freaking out is having to clean up after yourself while you still feel shitty,” Clint said, and Steve looked up. There was no pity in his gaze, only understanding.
“Yeah, we’ve all been there,” Tony said. “Sucks, but hey, least we know now that Titanic is a no-no for you.”
Steve flushed, swallowing a few times. “Um, I guess,” he looked at Bruce. “Thank you.”
Bruce smiled. “No problem,” he said gently. “We’re watching Phineas and Ferb if you’d like to join us, but we understand if you’d like to go rest.”
“Phineas and Ferb?” Steve asked, guilt replaced with genuine confusion.
“Yeah,” Clint said, shoving a handful of popcorn in his mouth. “It’s my go-to when I have a bad day. Nothing like some good old platypus drama to cure life’s woes.”
Steve blinked. “I genuinely don’t know what to say to that.”
Clint barked out a laugh. “Join us, man! Don’t gotta talk if you’re not feeling it, but being alone after shit like that sucks.”
And Steve hadn’t had someone there for him after a breakdown-- not since the war. Not since Bucky. Every ounce of him wanted to run. Hide. Smooth out his face and slip on that mask of stoicism. But maybe… maybe he didn’t have to. Maybe he could let himself have this, if only this once.
“Sure,” he said, voice a little hoarse. He awkwardly sat back in between Natasha and Bruce.
Tony pressed play again and Steve smoothed his hands over his thighs, feeling out of place and a little cramped and--
Natasha settled, casually letting her feet rest on his lap. On his other side, Bruce leaned into his shoulder, a subtle, grounding pressure. Clint caught his eye and offered him some more popcorn.
Steve relaxed.
Yeah. He could let himself have this.