Chapter 7
The Avengers were gathered around the common room coffee table, faces serious as they discussed how they were going to attack another Hyrda base. Tony had tracked Loki’s spectre to this base. Where Tony suspected they were doing some high-level experiments with it which could only mean high level problems for them. Steve frowned, Hydra always managed to make new and dangerous scientific weapons that no one else knew about.
Even with the tesseract gone, they were back to it.
“Then let’s go. To Sokovia.”
Sokovia had been a disaster. Steve felt exhausted, the only thing that had gone well was that they had met their objective. Being able to retrieve the spectre had made the otherwise failed mission a bit easier to tolerate.
Talking to Maria made his head hurt. He just wanted to know about their abilities, not the scientific jargon that was better left to Bruce and Tony.
“English, please.” His voice, he knew had lost some of it’s warmth, but he didn’t worry about it. Maria was a fellow soldier.
“He is fast and she is weird.” The exasperation in her voice didn’t help him. Neither did her answer. He knew that. But apparently no one knew anything else.
Her words still echoed in his mind even after he was back in his room.
“They are Sokovian orphans who signed for the government programme for experimenting.” The look of disgust on his face as she had said it. He didn’t want to, but he felt himself sympathise with them. They were young. Far younger than he and Buck had been when they joined the war. Even living through a Depression, for some years, Steve had had a childhood, with all its goods and bads. They hadn’t had that.
Steve decided, if he could, he would help them. They just needed to be taught that what they were doing was wrong.
The young always had time to fix their mistakes.
It was the night before Thor was supposed to take the Spectre to Asgard. It was a night of celebration that Tony had quickly turned into a party. Steve was never quite able to forget that Tony was Howard’s son when he did things like these by the dozen. He had attended more parties in this century than in all of his life combined.
Sighing, he smiled. After that disastrous mission, everyone needs time to reboot.
He watched as Bruce and Nat danced around each other. Stopped from going to each other by something that he could see or understand but he did understand that neither of them liked being apart.
With a flash his mind went to all those breakfasts after That Morning. He wanted so badly to talk to Loki but he could not decide even in his head what he could say to him.
He walked to Bruce. “What’s going on here?” he tried not to sound too teasing. Bruce was like him, shy.
“Nothing! That is nothing.” It was almost cute how nervous Bruce was. “Doesn’t look like nothing to her.” He pointed to Nat, still at the bar, staring at them before looking away.
Bruce looked surprised but pleased, before looking resigned. Like there was no hope for anything. That would not do.
“As maybe the world’s leading authority on waiting too long: Don’t. You both deserve a win.” He meant it with all of his being. They were good people. Even Nat. and deserved happiness. If they found it with each other, he would be the happiest for them.
He went to Thor, who was subsequently surrounded by a couple of veterans, talking about alcohol. He grinned, why was he even surprised.
“Oh, no-no! See this, this was aged a thousand years in barrels made from the wreck of Gronhill’s fleet. It is not meant for mortal men.” Thor sounded so proud and insistent. Until, the second veteran pulled out his sass and called Thor ‘blondie’ after which Thor acquiesced.
He didn’t even have to ask for Thor to pour him a glass. Steve had some small hope to be able to get drunk from space liquor but he just wanted to taste it even if it did nothing but make him piss, later.
Smiling at Thor, “It made me feel something.” He didn’t have the heart to tell that it made him just the slightest bit tipsy and warm, nowhere near as pleasantly buzzed as Thor clearly was. Still, it was better than nothing.
And it made him realise, Thor didn’t count him as a mortal man. He didn’t know how to feel about that.
-
Finally, he sighed, the party was over, he had seen the veterans being carried out on a stretcher and hoped they were fine. Now it was just the Avengers, Maria and Colonel Rhodes.
Suddenly his attention went to Clint’s voice, “It’s a trick!” Oh, they were talking about Thor’s hammer. Mew- nee? Urgh, hammer was better. He was the only one with a hammer any way.
“Oh no, it is more than that.” He sounded proud, and loud; he saw Maria wince a little.
“Oh, “whosoever, be he worthy, shall have the power.” What EVER, man. it’s a trick.” Clint was very clearly drunk. Enough to have forgotten the Asgardian Queen’s visit.
“Well, please be my guest.” Thor sounded smug, but Steve knew he was feeling something else, too, just not what it was. But he was clearly indulging them, like children.
Some jeering and Clint went and tried his luck with Thor’s hammer that he put on the coffee table. And fails. “We know you have had a tough week. We won’t hold it against you if you can’t get it up.” And there went Tony, making dick jokes. Steve wanted to shake his head.
“I’ve seen this before, right?” Clint tries again. “I just don’t know how you do it!” And went to his seat to sulk.
More jeering and Tony went to try his luck. Standing before the table, “I’m never one to shrink from an honest challenge. It’s physics.” he asked Thor, “So, if I lift it, then ill rule Asgard?”
“Yes, Of course,” Thor couldn’t have sounded more patronising if he tried.
Then Tony went and got his armour glove. A moment later, Rhodes had his, too, as they both tried to lift it at the same time. “Are you even pulling?” “Are you even on my tram?”
“Just represent! Pull!” Rhodes shouted and they tried again, for a while before giving up, “It’s rigged!”
“You bet your ass!” Clint laughed. “Steve, he said a bad word,” Maria chimed.
“Did you tell everyone about that?!” He was never going to live this down. At least Bucky or Loki didn’t hear it yet.
Tony goaded Bruce into trying, and he acted like a big dork, pretending to be Hulk as he pulled, with all the sound effects. Steve wanted to laugh, but he kept quiet. Though he didn’t miss Nat’s fond look as Bruce made his way back, sheepish.
Then everyone turned to Nat. She clearly refused, probably the second most sober after him. “That’s not a question I need answered.”
Tony turned his sights on him and Steve had the distinct feeling Tony wanted him to try just to watch him fail. He pushed it away. He walked up to the hammer and looked at Thor. He had been oddly silent through most of this. But, also seemed pleased? Steve didn’t understand people sometimes.
With a nod to Thor, he gripped the handle, looking at the others, and pulled. “See. Nothing-” except, the hammer did something more than nothing.
It moved, it came half a foot above the glass before it dropped back with a dull metallic thud, cracking the glass slightly.
Steve looked at Thor, who looked just as shocked as he felt inside. He backed off from the table to his seat, mind whirling with all that it meant.
He remembered Loki’s mom saying, “It is not a test of worth, but a test of love.” Clearly their friendship had developed into something more on both sides.
Steve felt stunned. And confused. Why would Loki love- “The handle is imprinted, right? Like a security code? “Whoever is carrying Thor’s fingerprints, I think is the literal translation.” There went Tony, with his science trying to explain everything. But this time, he was wrong.
“Interesting theory, but I have a simple one for you.” He then single handedly lifts the hammer. “You are all not worthy.” He looks Steve in the eye as he says the last word and feels like a threat that no one else hears.
“Worthy.” A hoarse voice calls from behind them and suddenly everyone is alert. And there stands a broken- looking robot that walks towards them.
-
After Ultron is gone, and Colonel Rhodes leaves, they all stand in the dark room that had just hours ago hosted a party. Suddenly, Thor lifts Tony up by the neck and chokes him.
“This could have been avoided if you had not played with something you don’t understand.” Thor sounded furious. With a murder bot on the loose, Steve could definitely understand.
-
The next day found them all sitting with heaps and heaps of files and documents as they tried to find Ultron.
Steve wanted to scream at something. The only one paying any kind of serious attention to the task was Nat and Him. They needed to find that robot before it killed anyone else.
“it is not a tattoo; it is a brand.” Thor, however unknowingly had led them all to their next destination. An illegal Vibranium supplier. Just the thought made him shudder as he thought what a killer robot made of his shield could do.
-
The ride back from the mission was filled with grave silence. No one wanted to say anything. The only one normal was Barton; having escaped the witch’s mind magic.
He recalled his vision.
Standing alone on the dance floor, as all his friends, the Commandos and Bucky and Peggy dance around him. The flashes of cameras and the inebriety of his fellow soldiers. Then came Peggy, pretty and tall and sharp eyes that could cut with a glance.
When she had told him the war had ended, he had felt relieved before he had felt the loneliness slip in, just like what the ocean had felt like. Until he wasn’t standing in a ballroom but sitting with the team at breakfast, where all of them left. One by one.
Until only Loki remained. But he didn’t talk to Steve, just stood up.
He turned blue, slowly, until he turned into golden dust and swept away by the wind; until gold was all he could see.
He shook his head. He ran his hand over his chest, rubbing the pads of his fingers over the small bump. He assured himself that Loki was very much alive, and safe.
He looked at Tony as he called Maria, probably to get a status update on things around, Steve couldn’t be bothered too much.
“Well, the news is loving you guys. Nobody else is.” Her voice sounded emotionless and Steve could only wonder what they were saying on the TV. Nothing good, as always.
“Go off the grid for a while, until this cools off.” She hung up after that.
And Barton turned the jet into another direction.
-
Standing in front of Barton’s farmhouse, Steve felt like an intruder. Not Tony, the man frustrated him like nobody else could.
“She is clearly an agent.” Not even trying to keep his voice low.
Apparently, the ‘agent’s’ name was Laura; who “already knew all their names.” The only part of it that didn’t surprise him.
Clint’s children come running into the room, “And these are… smaller agents.” He wanted to duct tape Stark’s mouth.
The only on not surprised by Clint’s family was Auntie Nat. At least somethings were worth smiling even now. The look Bruce sent her way was fond and painful all at once, and Steve wanted there to be more reasons for them to smile.
-
Steve was chopping wood for the Barton’s, not wanting to be a freeloader like he had been with the Barnes’. But even then, they had been almost family. Here, it was even more important to pull his weight, with Laura being so heavily pregnant. He wanted to apologise to her for troubling her so, but didn’t know how to say it.
He wondered what Loki would have done had he met Laura or the kids. Sweet kids, those, he smiled before his eyes fell to his right. He shook away the guilt he felt at thinking about Loki in the place where his wrong deeds’ victims were living.
Tony had copied him, probably not for the same reasons as him. He wanted to talk. Steve didn’t know if he could manage it without screaming. This Stark frustrated him, but he was still his teammate.
“Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, she tore us apart like cotton candy.” He tried his best to not show all of his anger. He wanted to be Tony’s friend. He had so few- If any of those- left.
“Seemed to me you walked away just fine.” The judgment in his voice was cutting. So much like the looks the army recruits sent him when he walked into the registration camps. He wonders for a single moment what others would think of how Captain America’s biggest fear was the war itself that had created him.
“Is that a problem?”
The words they exchanged were bitter and defensive.
“Isn’t that the mission? To end the fight? So, we can go home?” Tony sounded desperate but Steve couldn’t find sympathy in his heart for a scientist playing at being a soldier.
The wood in his hands split in two, splinters dug into his hands. He hadn’t meant to do it. “Every time someone tries to win a war before it starts, innocent people die. Every time.” The words were the truth, from the depth of his heart.
But what he couldn’t bring himself to say, even in his anger was that, there was no home for him anymore.
Loki’s sleeping face flashed before his eyes. But it was too late for that. He had messed that up as well.
With a heavy heart, Steve thinks he shall be the world’s leading authority on waiting too long for as he lives and; perhaps, longer still.
-
Fury’s arrival and pep talk managed to bring the team back together in working condition, but Steve longed for the reassurance and comrade-ship of his Commandos and Bucky. People who he could trust.
But beggars couldn’t be choosers. And in this new world, Steve was definitely a beggar.
He tried not to think about it, watching as they travelled across the skies.
-
They had secured the Cradle. And thankfully, Doctor Helen Cho was still alive if a lot injured. He was grateful for that. She would make life easier for a lot of soldiers. ‘If they can afford it.’ He shook that away from his mind.
He has managed to recruit the twins, another thing to be thankful for. He was glad, they were kids that needed guiding them along the right path. What soothed his heart was that they had come to the right side of the war on their own. They were good people.
He felt guilty for ignoring his team member missing even as Clint had asked again and again, “Where is Nat?”
They had lost Nat into enemy’s hand. He, honestly and a little shamefully, was not too worried. Out of all of them, perhaps apart from Loki, was the one most likely to survive the experience and come out mostly unscathed. But looking at Clint, he had reminded himself to not say anything other than his orders. Nat was Clint’s Bucky.
Somethings were off limits. They would get her back.
-
Not being able to contact Tony and Bruce had made feel like he could pull out all his hair. They had fallen into this mess because of a killer robot. And there they went, trying to make another one!
Wanda’s words echoed in his mind and he wondered, probably not for the first time, where Howard had gone wrong with Tony to have him make such huge mistakes. Repeatedly.
“Ulton can’t tell the difference between saving the world and destroying it. Where do you think he gets that from?”
-
Standing in the lab as they attacked each other over the need for another Robot, he tried to do his best to not hurt Tony. He forgets that thought with an energy beam to the chest. He wasn’t much successful.
Then suddenly, Pietro ran and unplugged the Cradle. And again, he was glad to have made the call to let them be part of them. “No, go on. You were saying?” Kid had a smart mouth on him.
Steve had been counting his eggs way before they could hatch. Thor not only sided with Tony, because of the ‘Waters of Fate?’ but had also powered the Cradle with his hammer.
He wanted to smack both Thor for using it and for Loki for giving it to him.
He was ready to shout again when Wanda assured them that the new robot was not like Ultron. Though he didn’t like how infatuated she looked with the machine. ‘Now is not the time!’
He was stupefied when the Machine ‘Mr. I-am-not-Ultron, -I-am-not-JARVIS. I-just-am’ defended Ultron and then seemed to mourn that he had to be killed and it was Mr. New Machine who was going to do it. Having fought Ultron, he didn’t doubt that they needed a new plan, he wasn’t sure they needed another robot.
When he had casually handed Thor back his Mew-nee hammer, Steve wanted to fall in a faint, thinking about how Loki loved this MACHINE! The room spun before his eyes for a single moment.
That was until he realised, Loki did not even know about the Mr. Machine.
Mr. Maroon had come from Loki’s spectre and clearly, Loki loved it like Steve loved his shield.
That fact calmed him down enough that he could move again. He patted Thor’s hand as he walked out of the room. The other one who seemed to remember the hammer’s true significance. And needed assurance for the same.
-
In the middle of fighting, hearing Natasha’s voice had calmed down a part of Steve’s brain that he hadn’t known had been buzzing until it wasn’t.
But the fight was still ahead underway. When suddenly, the ground started shaking and rising in the air.
He once again thought that, “I miss those days when the weirdest thing science had ever created was me.”
But now wasn’t the time for that.
“Avengers, it’s time to work for a living.” Well, Tony had got another thing right this day it seemed.
-
They were all gathered around the anti-gravity machine Ultron had made, they had to make sure no one got close enough to activate it.
If it was activated, the city would go flying down.
The higher it went into the air, the more lives it would take. He didn’t have any way to make it right except to say. “Tony.”
Wanda was going to guard it and they were going to get the civilians.
-
Steve was destroying Bots as he tried his best to get the civilians to safety when he heard Wanda over the comms. “How could I let this happen?!”
He was glad Hawkeye was there to take care of her, “Doesn’t matter what you did, or what you were. If you go out there, you fight, and you fight to kill. Stay in here, you’re good, I’ll send your brother to come pick you up. But if you go out there, you are an Avenger.”
He didn’t think Hawkeye realised that he had his comm, if his mutterings of “No one would know” were anything to go by. The amusement was fleeting.
-When things were starting to look dire for there was no safe way to get the civilians off the city, suddenly the whirling of engines. He looked up to see the Hellicarrier and its lifeboats.
“Nice, right? I pulled her out of the mothballs with a couple of old friends” - he saw Maria then. “She is dusty but she will do.”
“Fury! You son of a bitch!” He hadn’t meant to say that, but he couldn’t help falling back on old habits in such dire times.
Fury’s next words made him glad for his old friend. “Oooh! You kiss your mother with that mouth?”
The lifeboats were rapidly filled and started flying off to make second rounds.
Suddenly, Pietro was beside him, “THIS is S.H.I.E.L.D.?” He was proud when he said, “this is what S.H.I.E.L.D. is supposed to be.”
-
He was flinging his shield towards another Ultron minion when the city started falling, Wanda had been defeated and someone had activated the anti-gravity machine.
At the rate they were falling, he didn’t know what would happen to the Sokovians or the surrounding areas.
There was a lot of screaming that could be heard from everywhere. The city was only half empty. Steve felt his heart clench. “Move it, people! Get as many off the city as you can!”
“Tony try to do whatever you can to make it come down, gently.”
“There is no time, Cap!”
Steve felt his heart clench painfully when suddenly there was a voice behind him, calling his name.
“You have been busy in my absence, I see.”