It's been five years. I honestly never thought I'd come back to this story after so long, but then came the idea:

What if I rewrote this same concept but set the story after Age of Ultron. This would change a few key dynamics of course: Bruce and Thor wouldn't be present in the beginning. But I started to think about Steve's reversion to pre-serum and his search for Bucky, and how that might change things. The story would focus more on Steve, Tony, and Bucky. As Steve adjusts, Tony realizes he doesn't know Steve as well as he thought, and Bucky tries to protect Steve from everything and they have to deal with the brainwashing and the reveal of Howard and Maria's assassination. The basic premise of the story will remain the same, including the conflict of Tony wanting to "fix" Steve, and Steve questioning whether that's really what he wants.

Right now, I'm just throwing this out there to see if it's even worth pursuing. Would this be interesting to anyone?

Below are the prologue and first chapter that I have rewritten to show the direction I would be going if I rewrote the whole thing. Some of the scenes are very similar, but there are some big changes in the last scene.

Prologue "Reversion"

Steve didn't get sick. He never hurt for longer than a day. Gunshot wounds were never infected; scars always disappeared. His team followed him, and their enemies feared him. He may not always have been happy about his circumstances, but at least he had a place. His life made sense.

Until it didn't anymore.

It started with a strange, sporadic ache in his muscles, which was foreign enough. It would often show up after an intense workout or long battle. It always went away within 24 hours. Then it didn't. Nothing he tried made it stop. For a long time, Steve told no one.

Then it got worse.

Eventually, it got to the point where Steve couldn't get out of bed. He couldn't move without feeling like he would pass out from the pain. Sam was his most constant companion, though Natasha came and went to see how he was doing. She always seemed very worried, but she never said so.

Steve didn't see many of the others, but he understood that. It was an awkward situation. No one knew what was wrong with him. Tony called in all the best doctors, but no one could figure out what was wrong.

Conversations were few and far between with only Sam and Natasha for company. Not that Steve was up for conversation. Natasha did ask Steve a question once.

"Have you ever had anything this bad before?"

Steve didn't answer as he tried to remember a time he felt this much pain. He couldn't think of any; it had been over seventy years.

But the answer came one night when he woke in the middle of the night. Sleep had been his only release, and he had been getting plenty of it, but at that moment, everything became clear. The last time he had felt so much pain was during the transformation in Erskine's lab. He had never told anyone just how bad it was, or how hard it was for him to tell them not to stop.

This was worse.

It wasn't until voices filled the dark room that Steve realized he was screaming. But he couldn't stop. It was as if his body were eating itself from the inside. He couldn't think, couldn't focus. The voices continued, maybe two or three. Steve couldn't tell. It could have been one person talking to himself for all he knew.

And then it got worse. The feeling of being eaten turned to one of burning and pressure. If Steve had been able to form a coherent thought at the time, he would have thought that this was far worse than the transformation, and it was lasting much longer too.

Steve felt something heavy across his chest, making the pressure worse, but this was something on the outside. Someone holding him down. Through the haze of pain, Steve felt cold, sticky sweat all over his skin, and saw the briefest glimpse of a face.

Vision. What was he doing there? The confusion temporarily distracted Steve from the mind numbing agony of whatever was happening to him. It was Vision who was holding him down, probably to keep him from hurting himself by thrashing too much. Or hurting anyone else.

For a moment the pain dulled to excruciating, and then there was nothing.

Steve dreamed that he was back in Brooklyn. He was in high school, the scrawny kid everyone picked on. He was small for his age even then. Most well-meaning adults thought he was about twelve. But he made it out in one piece and went on to art school. No one picked on him there. They were all outcasts or oddballs of some form. Then the war started.

Steve dreamed that he was in recruiting lines again. He dreamed of being rejected over and over because he was too small, too weak, too sickly. He dreamed of finally making it because Dr. Erskine saw something in him no one else did. Steve dreamed that he was everything Erskine thought him to be, that he stayed the same inside.

He dreamed of being a tiny man on a strange bed, waiting for something to happen.

When he woke, it was no longer a dream.

Chapter One "The Inside"

It didn't hurt anymore. Steve opened his eyes, but the lights were too bright. He closed them again, but not before he saw that he was not alone. Vision was standing at the foot of his bed, and there were others in his peripheral vision whom he didn't get a good look at. He brought his hand up to his eyes, but it felt wrong. His fingers, his arm, his face, everything felt wrong.

Or maybe it didn't feel wrong anymore. And that was the problem. He had been used to feeling so unlike himself, that the reversion was like being thrown forward in time all over again. Only this was going back in time. Back to the real Steve Rogers that he was always afraid everyone would see. The little kid who didn't really know what he was doing.

Finally Steve opened his eyes again, able to stand the brightness. Aside from Vision, the other inhabitants of the room were Tony, Sam, and Natasha. They all stared at him as if unable to blink. No one said anything. No one seemed to breathe.

Vison had a look of resignation in his face. Like he knew things were bad, but there was nothing to be done about it. He looked like a doctor about to tell a patient some bad news.

Natasha looked scared. As if up had suddenly become down, and everything she knew was just the opposite of what she thought. Her mouth was set, but the muscles in her cheeks twitched ever-so-slightly as she tried to hide any emotion.

Sam looked similar, but more angry than afraid.

But Tony. He was indignant. He glared. His eyebrows were knit so tight that it looked like it hurt. His face seemed to say that this wasn't happening; it wasn't fair.

Steve took all this in over the course of a few seconds. As his eyes came back around the room, Vision shifted slightly.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, hesitant, cautious.

Steve hadn't really thought about it. But as soon as he did, he knew exactly what to say. "Normal."

The previous tension was lifted and replaced by another feeling of collective unease.

"Define 'normal'." Tony's voice sounded almost accusing.

Steve knew what normal was. "Normal. Like I've always been."

"Always...?" Natasha almost whispered.

"The way I was until... I feel normal." Steve pulled the blanket over himself further, knowing everyone was looking at him and disliking it immensely.

"Are you—" Sam halted. "—okay with it?"

Steve turned over on his side, facing away from them. "I'm fine." He kept his composure better not looking at them. "Please leave."

"Are you sure?" Vision asked. He sounded even more like the concerned doctor.

"Yes."

Tony was less subtle. "Cap—"

"I said I'm fine!" Steve resisted the urge to turn around, to tell them never to call him that again. He knew he wouldn't keep it together if he did. He just needed to be alone. He heard them all moving to leave.

"I'll try to find you some clothes," Natasha said as she closed the door.

Then he was alone. Steve wrapped his arms around his torso under the blanket, feeling his ribs like rows of dragon's teeth. The air coming in and out of his lungs felt heavy, full of lead and blood. He realized he was starting to hyperventilate, and in the process of trying to calm himself down, stray tears made their way down his face.

He had never cried about being weak. Not when the other boys in school pushed him, stole his lunch, laughed at him, made him bleed. Not when the Army rejected him five times. Steve Rogers didn't cry about silly things like that. He cried when Bucky died. He cried on the radio with Peggy the last time he heard her voice. Those things were important. Being stronger than everyone else wasn't.

But he remembered Tony's words in one of their many arguments: everything special about you came out of a bottle. He probably didn't mean it, but it was true. Without Dr. Erskine's serum, Steve wasn't special.

A weak man knows the value of strength. That was very true. And now he had lost it.

~A~

True to her word, Natasha found some clothes for Steve. Tony's pants still looked baggy with a belt cinched as far as it could be, but they were passable. Wanda's shirts might have fit, but they were all too feminine. Natasha's were too big, but at least they were plain, and she had a lot of comfortable sweatshirts. Looking in the mirror, Steve knew he looked like a little kid, but it was time to face the world.

When he came to the main living area of the Avengers HQ, Tony and Vision were sitting at the kitchen island talking quietly. Sam and Wanda sat on the couch playing a game of checkers on the coffee table. Natasha was nowhere to be seen after dropping off Steve's new clothes earlier. She had mentioned something about picking up Clint.

Once again, everyone stared. It wasn't like last time where everyone expected him to look different. It was more like he had suddenly turned into someone else, when in reality, he had just turned back into himself.

"Hungry?" Tony asked, standing up and moving further into the kitchen as if to change a subject that was never spoken.

"Not really." Steve knew his voice sounded exactly the same as it did before, and that might be slightly disconcerting.

"You should eat," Vision said. His tone sounded sorry for the inconvenience.

"Fine." Steve didn't want to argue. He sat down next to Vision and saw the scattered papers they had been studying before he came in. "What's this?"

"Nothing you need worry about," Vision said quickly.

Tony made a snorting noise as he shuffled through a cupboard. "Calculations." He closed the door and turned around to face the others. "Trying to figure out what happened to you and how to reverse it."

"That is what he's trying to do," Vision said. "What is more important is knowing that you are okay."

"So you think it's permanent?" Steve looked over the papers, but couldn't make sense of any of it. In his peripheral vision, he saw Sam moving toward the kitchen.

"I don't know. But considering the pain you went through to get to this point, we do not want a repeat performance."

"It was worse."

Tony seemed to forget whatever he was doing and came back over to the island. "What do you mean 'worse'?"

"Than the first time. When I became... bigger."

By this time, Sam was standing behind Steve, as if to protect him from something.

Tony spread his hands. "So whatever happened to you wasn't just a reversal of the effects of the serum?"

"There's no way to know that, is there?"

"Actually, there probably is," Vision said, but he seemed reluctant.

Steve looked over at him. "You don't sound pleased about that."

"Whatever the explanation is, it might not be something we can fix."

Tony rolled his eyes. "Why am I the only one here with any optimism?"

"Optimism for what?" Steve asked. "Because if it is just the serum wearing out, then I guess it was fun while it lasted, and now it's over."

"Really? Is that all you have to say? You're Captain America!"

"No I'm not." Steve struggled to keep his voice even. "That's him, that—" Steve couldn't help thinking of Bruce. "—other guy."

Tony didn't seem to be paying attention. "Am I the only one who finds this disgusting resignation unacceptable?"

Vision shook his head. "While I think we should run some tests to be sure this is the end of it, if it is, then at least there's nothing else to worry about."

"Nothing else to worry about?" Tony put his hands flat on the counter. "Do you guys not see what's going on? This whole thing—the Avengers—all falls apart without him. And my attempts to find a suitable replacement backfired majestically if we all recall."

"I don't think that's what we need to be concerned about at the moment," Vision said, giving Tony a warning look.

"Oh, you mean the fate of the world, safety of the universe sort of stuff?" Tony started pacing. "We don't need to worry about that? Okay, I'll go back to making guns then. Sounds like a brilliant plan."

"Let's not talk about this," Steve said, hoping to end the argument there. "It's strange enough as it is."

"Right." Tony put up one finger. "I was going to make you breakfast."

"It's lunch time," Steve said.

"Considering you haven't eaten in a few days, I think I'll call it breakfast."

~A~

Tony always took forever in the kitchen, which Steve didn't mind. He wasn't that hungry anyway. Vision had wandered off, and Sam was now sitting next to Steve in complete silence. Steve got the feeling he wasn't going to speak until Steve opened the conversation.

"Is this weird?" Steve asked quietly.

Sam smiled grimly. "Weird doesn't even begin to describe it," he said.

"I understand if..."

"If what?" Sam said, staring Steve right in the eye. "You think this changes something?"

Steve looked away. "No," he said. And he meant it. He wasn't worried about Sam.

"Good," Sam said. "I'm with Vision on this one—we need to make sure you're not gonna burst into flames any time soon."

"That is one thing I've never done."

"No, you just jump out of buildings and planes and—"

"Okay, okay," Steve interrupted. Something about the way Sam talked reminded him of something else he couldn't quite place.

"There is the other thing we need to talk about," Sam said.

"Other thing?" Steve asked.

"Yeah, our amnesiac friend. I'm not exactly thrilled about the idea of you going after him when you've got all the punch of a sack of potatoes."

Steve feigned offense. "What did potatoes ever do to you?"

Sam shook his head and smiled. "My apologies to the potatoes. But you see my point?"

Steve considered it for a moment. "You'd think that," he said. "But the more I was like my old self, the more he seemed to remember me. This could actually be a good thing."

Sam did not seem convinced. Not in the least.

Please let me know if you think I should pursue this further. If there is enough interest I may continue replacing the rest of the chapters and finish the story. I'm going to leave the old chapters up for now, but I will be removing them if they are rewritten.