So this was supposed to be a comment fic for avengersgen over on LJ. You can see how well that worked out.
Original prompt by semiseverus: "Post-Avengers, Steve somehow returns to his smaller self. There's no way to fix it - nobody knows the formula, and Bruce's attempt at making it ended up disastrously. So Steve has to adjust to a life in the modern world again, this time without the benefit of the serum. Does he conclude that his usefulness to his country is pretty much over, and head to art school? Does he stay on at SHIELD as some sort of consultant but ultimately is unhappy there because he misses the way things were? How does he deal with modern medicine's fixes for his health problems?"
I took some liberties with this, not entirely intentionally...this story kinda had a life of its own.
Thanks goes to tari-roo , tireless and amazing beta that she is, and Catko who put up with me spamming chat with bits of it and going "hey, does this work?"
4F
Summary of Patient Health Issues:
Asthma
Scarlet Fever
Rheumatic Fever
Sinusitus
Chronic or Frequent Colds
High Blood Pressure
Palpitation or Pounding in Heart
Easy fatigueability
Heart Trouble
Nervous trouble of any sort
Has had household contact with turburculosis
Parent or sibling with diabetes or cancer.
Doctor: "You'd be ineligible on your asthma alone."
Steve: "Is there anything you can do?"
Doctor: "I'm doing it- I'm saving your life."
- Captain America: The First Avenger
4F
A man stands alone in a room and hesitates. The room is empty but for a few pieces of furniture and a handful of sketches pinned to the walls. Sunlight streams in from the tiny window. It's not much, but it's enough. He stands in front of the battered old wardrobe and pulls the door open until the mirror is at an angle to catch his reflection. He reaches forward and lays one hand against the glass, palm to palm. The pressure moves the door just enough that the mirror catches the sun. The light is dazzling- blinding. He pushes the door shut. You don't need a mirror to see the obvious.
Waking is... problematic. Steve's struggling towards consciousness, aware enough to know he's not yet awake, but not enough to break free of sleep's hold. It's distantly familiar- a childhood surgery, for something he didn't quite remember except for the bills, the damn bills still haunting his family years later- and when he'd come out from underneath whatever drugs they'd given him, it had felt like this. The wonders of the future, that they'd managed to come up with drugs that would even work this well on him. He pushes past it, fights against the pull of the drug in his veins like a swimmer cutting through the dark waters of the Channel until he surfaces into a too-bright and bleary world of beeping machines and furious, whispered conversation.
"What?" His throat is dry, his lips cracked, and the word is more a shape on his lips than anything vocalized. He feels...wrong. He blinks, and the hazy features of Tony Stark swim into view. He looks strained, exhausted- pale faced and baggy-eyed. Nearly twitching with that manic nerve Steve recognizes from those times Stark's stayed up for days, him and Banner both, trying to find some solution to the newest and latest disaster facing mankind.
"Steve! Steve. Can you hear me?" Stark sounds very far away. Steve blinks again. "Somebody get the doctor!" It's urgent, too urgent for the fuzzy blankness of the moment. Steve wonders at that.
And then someone's tapping the side of his face, not hard enough to sting, but urgent. "Hey, hey-" he hears. "Stay with us, man." Steve opens his eyes. He hadn't realized he'd closed them. It's still Stark, his face floating somewhere up above. Still strained, still pale, still manic. "Steve- Hey. Hey- listen to me. Listen. Steve. It's going to be okay, all right? I promise you it's gonna be okay. I'll fix this. I'm going to fix this."
Steve blinks again. He wants to believe him, but he isn't sure what's broken. Before he can ask, something shifts and the currents he's been fighting carry him steadily away and pull him back under.