Chapter 107
En Route to Avengers Tower
November 2011
“It’s not your fault.”
Steve looked up and saw Natasha standing there, face unreadable.
He breathed out and looked down. “Yeah it is.”
“No,” she said, more firmly, sitting down next to him. “It’s really not. Steve, seriously, we’re big boys and girls. We make our own choices. Clint walked in there with you because he trusts you, and because he believes in this mission. He walked in there knowing exactly what would happen, and he took those shots for you for his own reasons.”
“I just…” Steve closed his eyes. He didn’t have words to explain why he was so furious with himself. He knew Clint made his own decisions, and so did Sam, but in the end he’d been the one to lead them in there. In the end, he was sitting there while his friends were in the hospital. “I can’t screw up.”
“You didn’t.”
He looked up. Bucky stood there.
“I know what it was like for you,” Bucky said quietly, kneeling in front of Steve. “Being Captain America.” He tapped his head with a small smile. “I’ve been remembering. Slowly. You were the poster boy, you had everyone’s hopes on your shoulders, you couldn’t slip up. I was the one who did your dirty work, remember? So we didn’t have to sully the icon.” He snorted. “Knife in the dark. There’s some irony. But whatever. The point is, you don’t have to be perfect all the time. It’s okay to screw up. It’s okay to let us take some of the slack. We got overconfident, didn’t do proper recon, missed their energy weapons. We shouldn’t have been down in that courtyard in the first place. You distracting them probably saved our lives.”
Steve bit his lip.
“Let us share the load,” Tony added, leaning on the wall nearby.
Steve looked up at him. His relationship with Tony was complicated, to say the least, but here he was trying to help.
Tony joined their little clump. “Sam’s been… helping me,” he said slowly, unable to meet any of their eyes. “Talking about–there’s a form of PTSD that involves blaming yourself, all the time. I get it. I feel like that all the damn time. Like you have to do everything yourself, and every time something goes wrong, you think you should’ve fixed it, if only you’d been faster, smarter, stronger.” He finally met Steve’s eyes. “Am I right?”
Steve swallowed. “I–yeah.”
“Of course I am,” Tony said. “It’s irrational, it’s annoying, but there you go.” He stood up. “Someone at the UN is pitching a hissy fit. I’ll go put out our fires. Take a break, Rogers.”
Bucky watched him walk away, brows furrowed. “When did he get nice?” he asked.
Natasha snorted. “Not sure I’d call that nice.”
“Nice for a Stark,” Bucky corrected.
Steve found himself grinning a little. “He cares. He’s terrible at showing it, but he cares.” He took a breath. “Thanks. Both of you.”
“No problem,” Bucky said, smiling back. “I’m with you to the end of the line.”
Steve felt like someone had just set off a firework in his heart.
“Oh, get a room,” Natasha teased.
“No,” Bucky said, mock horrified. “I’d never betray you, my dearest–”
“Too late,” Natasha said, resting a hand over her heart. “You have wounded me beyond redemption–”
“What, is this Shakespeare in the park now?” Bruce asked, sticking his head into the niche where they all sat. “Because I’ve been told I play Horatio really well.”