Spoilers for Captain America: Civil War.
Changes from canon: the rogue Avengers broke out of prison on their own; Tony destroyed the base in Siberia; Tony caught Steve. Everyone else thinks Steve died with Bucky in Siberia.
Warnings: varying degrees of torture (nothing graphic; it's mostly mind stuff), some language, PTSD (it's Steve we're talking about) and FEELS. Lots of FEELS and angst and HYDRA is indirectly helpful. (Possible OOC-ness, if you think overreaction is OOC-ness.)
Un-beta'ed, all mistakes on me!
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To Freeze and Thaw
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At first, Steve thinks it's just fear.
He flinches when he opens the fridge and its icy air caresses his skin. His hands tremble when he touches cold metal. He can't breathe cold air without shaking to his bones. Just looking at snow-covered ground makes his gut clench.
Steve manages to ignore it until Ross sends him on a mission in Greenland.
When he wakes up four days later in the Avengers facility with no memory of the mission, he knows it has to be much more than his lingering fear of ice. Ross doesn't send him in a cold country again.
During summer, Steve basks in the warm rays of the sun. Tony often points out that he's slowly roasting his star-spangled ass, but Rhodey just shrugs on his behalf and walks with the Stark Walker Prototype Mark 7 (or just Walker, really) until Steve drags him to the nearest couch to rest.
Rhodey could huff and complain all he wanted, but Steve always had his eyes on him whenever he was standing. "I'm not going to fall over the second you look away, Steve," he would say each time, rolling his eyes. The super-concerned super-soldier just shrugged and ignored Rhodey's implied 'I'm fine'.
Everyone told him that he was paralyzed on a mission almost three years ago, when he fell from the sky. They told him a rocket had whizzed too close to the War Machine armor and damaged the arc reactor, shutting off the power in the suit.
Vision always turned quiet in the rare occasions that topic was brought up.
The android was very intriguing to talk to. Steve vaguely remembered JARVIS in the short time he had spent in the Avengers tower since his thawing, and seeing him physically in front of him…
He didn't know if he still preferred the '40s, when he was the weirdest thing science had created. Vision was thoughtful, patient, kind – even when a bit of JARVIS's snarky personality resurfaced – and a damn good chess player. He had a lot of practice, especially during winter.
Steve always remained indoors during winter.
No matter what missions Ross decided to send them on – Steve always stayed inside the Avengers facility, usually with Rhodes. Tony and Vision would usually juggle all the work.
"Where are the rest?" Steve had asked once, seeing Tony fiddle with some circuit of his suit. "Clint?"
"Undercover somewhere. You know, for SHIELD."
For the true SHIELD, he thought, bitterly remembering the tale of how HYDRA was hiding inside of SHIELD and Natasha, Fury, Hill and some guy named Sam had to bring it down.
"Natasha?"
"Off the grid."
"Bruce?"
"Doing science, I hope."
"Thor?"
"Uh, realm-jumping?"
Steve crossed his arms and frowned. "We're the Avengers. Shouldn't we know where our friends are?"
Tony tried to hide the slight twitch in his fingers at the word 'friends'. He stopped working and turned to face the super-soldier. "They have their own lives, Cap. Birdbrain and Nat are not-so-secret agents, Thor is the next in line for Asgard's throne and Bruce wants to help people. And Ross makes him nervous, if you know what I mean."
"We should be able to call them anytime we need them – every time the world needs the Avengers to assemble."
Tony had smiled ruefully and stared at an old phone for hours after that.
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"You could at least thank me, Stevie."
"You didn't need to look for me. I had him on the ropes."
"Sure you did. Is your nose broken again?"
"It's nothing."
"Because blood is supposed to be splattered on you face?"
"Bucky…"
"No, really. Tell me if it hurts when no one's punching your face in."
"He was being a jerk."
"And you were being an idiot. Punk."
"Jerk."
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Bucky. The name sounds important in Steve's mind.
Who the hell is Bucky?
He should ask Tony, or Vision or Rhodes. Or FRIDAY.
FRIDAY tells him that 'Bucky' was a HYDRA agent.
It sounds wrong. It is wrong. Wrong, wrong wrong wrongwrongwrong-
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A week later, of which he remembers nothing due to some kind of super-headache, Vision phases through a wall next to him.
Steve punches him on his vibranium face, bruising his knuckles and making the android step back of about half an inch. He turns his concerned greenish eyes on the Captain's hands, asking what he was thinking about that had his complete focus – so much that Steve ignored his own surroundings.
He points his non-bruised hand at the hologram hovering in Tony's lab, from which Steve had to drag him to get him to bed.
It's him, it's Steve. It's frozen. It's a war relic with his face, stuck in time and ice.
Vision turns off the hologram and tries to embrace him, but he backs away when he notices Steve's flinch at the skin-to-metal contact.
(He may have a warm synthetic heart, but it sinks a little lower every time Steve subconsciously rejects his touch.)
Vision gets the blanket Tony keeps in the lab for his two-hour naps, wraps it around Steve's shoulders and leads him to his room. He's concerned by the way their Captain just lets him move him, like a puppet whose strings were only waiting to be pulled.
(He will have words with Tony.)
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Tony and Vision have their hands busy with some kind of super-villains and they don't let him go with them.
In his place they get some guy called Spiderman, whose young voice throws him off. Are they really so desperate they are getting a kid in the Avengers?! Captain America can handle all-out battles, the whole world has solid proof of it!
Ross ignores his arguments and sends him to search and destroy a HYDRA base on the other side of the world, on an island near Australia he had never heard about.
Steve has a million retorts and insults ready, but his throat freezes and Captain America reluctantly accepts the mission. He is given four agents and a time limit of five days to destroy the HYDRA base, and Captain America makes his way to the quinjet waiting for him.
He has to interrogate a HYDRA goon to know where the entrance is. The man, tied to a tree, blinks at him and slurs a surprised "you, alive?" at Captain America. Then he finds his bravado.
"The whole world knows it was you who split the Avengers!"
That earns him a solid punch in the face.
"Ha ha. Poor, poor Cap. Wasted potential. You fight for the same people you fought against three years ago!"
The man's right wrist is suddenly bent at the wrong angle. The 'three years ago' rings something in his head but Steve ignores it. "Where is it?"
"Always the good soldier, aren't you? Even if they killed your best friend."
His mind freezes. His body does not, and the goon gets his other wrist broken. Best friend? His best friend had died in 1945. What was his name again? James?
"You have plenty of joints for me to break. I can do this all day."
("Sure you can, punk.")
The HYDRA agent smirks – a grimace, really – and Steve knows this mission will be a pain.
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Two days later the HYDRA base is destroyed and Steve slips away.
The agents don't need to know where he's going.
He hates to admit it, but each time a HYDRA agent talked to him – those few bastards who had the time to, anyway – they threw his brain for a loop. Their bravado-fueled statements planted doubt in his mind.
"And here I thought you'd never be a pawn! Ross got you good, didn't he?"
Ross didn't get him.
"They should've left you buried in Siberia!"
He had never been in Siberia.
"The Soldier must be rolling in his grave, knowing you work for the same man who killed him!"
He isn't working for HYDRA.
"Captain America, switching sides? What a surprise!"
He didn't switch sides.
"Your group of misfits is fighting and you just have to ruin all our work here…"
Tony and Vision aren't misfits. Spiderman is just a kid.
So Steve gets some civilian clothes and watches the news in the nearest city he can reach. It's close to the quinjet too, so it isn't like he'd have a problem if he has to run there.
Whatever the woman on the screen is saying, it's in a language Steve doesn't know, so he just watches the super-villains Tony, Vision and Spiderman are fighting.
There is a man, flying in the distance with Iron Man on his tail. He looks like a big bird soaring over the streets, but Steve can't make out any features. Tony keeps shooting missiles at him and it's just his luck that no buildings get destroyed.
This is wrong. Birdman is an ally, a friend, isn't he?
Arrows rain with startling precision on Tony and Vision and Spiderman (Spiderkid). Some explode, some are electrified and others sever the white strings Spiderman is swinging on. The archer seems to prefer aiming at Iron Man, although most of the arrows just bounce off the suit.
This is wrong. Only Clint ever shot arrows with that kind of precision. But isn't Clint undercover for SHIELD?
Red tendrils of light throw cars, machines – it seems the fight is near some kind of industry or something – and just about anything that weighs more than a ton. The main target seems, once again, Iron Man. Vision destroys anything that slips past Tony's defenses before it can hit.
But this is wrong. There must be a woman around, Steve knows, deep down in his gut. He feels someone missing from the scene, someone Tony and Vision and Spiderkid don't see or refuse to see. Someone he, he… he feels some kind of connection to.
Steve feels sick.
He stumbles, trips into people, mutters "sorry" and flees as fast as his legs allow him.
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"Need a medic?"
"I need a new set of lungs, dude…!"
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"Hey Cap, how do we know the good guys from the bad guys?"
"If they're shooting at you, they're bad!"
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"They're talking very specifically about me."
"We try to save as many people as we can. Sometimes that doesn't mean everybody."
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"If we're going to win this fight, some of us might have to lose it."
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Captain America doesn't tell the agents of what he saw.
The excuse of a final sweep for HYDRA goons is enough to shut them up, and they fly away to the Avengers facility. He doesn't ask them who his two friends (and one kid who really shouldn't be with them) were fighting.
He'll ask Tony.
So Steve does, when he corners both Tony and Vision in the lab.
"Who were you fighting?"
"Super-villain lackeys. Some guy with wings and a mutant."
Steve notes Tony doesn't say there was an archer, although he's plucking arrows out of his armor right in front of him. Vision is caressing FRIDAY's hologram just a few meters to Steve's right.
(It's weird, but he thinks it shouldn't be FRIDAY the one being caressed.)
"Any reason why you didn't want me to come?"
Tony looks at him, then returns to plucking arrows. "The civvies had already fled the place. That mutant would've thrown you around. You can't fly." He says, thinking it can explain everything.
"Neither can 'Spiderman'," Steve points out.
"He was swinging around. It's about the same thing."
"Who was shooting arrows?"
Tony puts down the metal-tool-thingy – some kind of pincer? – and stares at him. "Unknown support. The agents should have taken care of him."
"Who's him?"
Tony just shrugs. "We'd have an idea if they'd done their job."
"You would have taken him down if you'd thought he was an unknown hostile."
Tony doesn't answer.
"Who was the archer?" Steve hisses, looking down at Tony and using all his imposing stature to intimidate him into answering. He will accept nothing but the truth, not vague lies.
"Captain, Clint has turned."
Steve turns sharply to Vision. "What?"
The android seems genuinely sad, concerned, even betrayed. "We didn't want you to think any less of him. He… defected, as it is, from both SHIELD and the Avengers."
Steve feels like he has to sit down.
"Why?" he asks, whispering. "Why did he? When? To whom did he turn?"
"I'm afraid that is something I'm unaware of," Vision says, and Steve thinks lies, lies, all of it. "But I think Clint did it willingly."
Steve grinds his teeth together. "Clint would never turn. Not on the Avengers."
Clint isn't HYDRA. They fought HYDRA more than once, together, as a team.
He bumps into something as he stumbles back, shaking his head. Tony steps forward. "Not the Walkers, Steve!" he scolds, reaching for a scrap of metal on the floor. "Do you know how busy I was with these?"
("You've been busy.")
("And you've been a complete idiot!")
Steve grips his hair, wondering if the splitting pain in his head will stop if he pulls his hair out. "Clint would never… Sam… Wanda…"
Vision straightens. Tony slowly reaches for something on a desk.
Steve flinches when Vision suddenly grabs him, his metal fingers digging in his shoulders and the cold seeping into his bones.
He doesn't see the syringe stabbing his neck.
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It's cold.
It's freezing.
He's freezing.
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Then he's not.
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Steve wakes up to a familiar headache.
He groans and sees Vision handing him a glass of water. He's thankful for its warmth.
"What happened this time?" he mumbles, and the android gives him a strained smile.
"You thought it would've been a good idea to take a hit square in the chest," he says and points at Steve's shield, which is sitting to his right. "First you throw your best protection away, then you run straight into a gun fight with your fists."
Now, that's something he would do for his friends. "Was Tony getting himself killed?"
Vision smiles more genuinely. "In his own way, yes."
"There'll be a time when I'm not there and he's actually going to die," Steve says, half-joking. The suit is the only thing separating Tony from certain death each time he steps in the field, and that thought terrifies him more than he'd admit.
Vision grimaces. "Possibly," he mumbles. "But we're here to keep him alive, aren't we, Captain?"
He's startled to realize that's a serious question. Shouldn't it go without saying that he'd always watch Tony's back?
"Yes, we are."
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"What do you mean he's acting out again?"
"Why do you ask me if you already know?"
"You told me the Winter Freeze Project worked!"
"I told you to keep him away from triggers, and what do you do? Throw that kind of shit at him."
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Captain America stormed another HYDRA base.
It didn't go as planned.
His two snipers were down, Agent Delta got caught red-handed (literally) inside the perimeter, Agent Epsilon and Omega ran into a laser grid. Alarms blared throughout the base and HYDRA agents swarmed the hallways. All of them had gas masks, and Steve didn't understand why until he heard a hissing sound.
Gas.
Non-lethal sleeping gas or some kind of sedative, he corrected, when he woke up later tied to some kind of metal contraption.
Then he looks in front of him and sees the – presumably – HYDRA General he has to kill. He's surprised it's a woman, whose black hair reach her shoulders. The tips are blood red and contrast sharply on her black and silver uniform.
She smirks. "And here I thought you were smart."
She's that kind of General? Good God, no…
"Did you really think you could just destroy our bases without any kind of punishment? Age must be catching up to you, Captain."
Ugh. At least she's not torturing him yet.
Keep a straight face, Steve, keep a straight face.
She's within kicking distance from him. If he could actually kick her he would, but alas he's kind of stuck.
"Such a shame you had to destroy SHIELD – we were having so much fun giving you orders."
Steve did what? It wasn't him who tore down SHIELD/HYDRA. It was Natasha, Fury, Hill and 'Sam'.
"We could have used two super-soldiers working for us," the General pouts. God, how low HYDRA must have fallen for such a woman to get to that position. "But, well. One is better than none."
She gestures to someone behind him and Steve hears a whirring sound from that same direction. It sounds like he's stuck to a very special metal contraption. Oh joy.
He hears electricity sparking just behind his head.
Then all he can think of is pain.
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He's stuck. He's trapped. A metal beam presses on his chest.
Water raises to his ankles and he draws a breath. It could be worse.
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When he opens his eyes again, the water is to his knees.
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He blinks, and the water is up to his waist.
He can't feel his legs.
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He tries to move, but his arms are trapped in ice and metal.
The water reaches his chest.
His lungs refuse to draw in the air he so desperately needs.
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The water is up to his chin.
Steve tries to scream.
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He can't.
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"Winter Freeze Project, Test 3. Subject 17 kept in cryosleep for two days and fifteen hours. Assessing memory."
"Captain, how do you feel?"
"Cold."
A blanket is draped over him in an instant. It's warm.
"What do you remember, Captain?"
"Why should I tell you?"
"We work for Mister Stark, Captain. He's concerned for your wellbeing."
Stark tried to bury him and Bucky in Siberia. "Where is Bucky?"
The man turns around. "Memory assessment: Subject 17 remembers."
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Steve is frozen again.
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"Valkyrie, Nightfall, Eighteen, Potomac, Shield, Nine, Mountain, Snow, One, Loyalty."
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"Capsicle Week, Test thirty-something. Cap, how do you feel?"
Steve feels angry. What did Stark do this time? "You've done something stupid, didn't you?"
Tony smirks. Sort of. "Remind me. I need the perfect excuse for the occasion."
Steve remembers a name: Bucky. He knows he's important. "Where is Bucky?"
Tony's face falls. He turns around, and there's something to that action that scares Steve.
"…You know, it would be much easier if you just forgot about Barnes. I'd probably be doing something responsible if Barnes remained dead."
He doesn't like the way "Barnes" and "dead" are put together.
"The Avengers would still be a team, and we'd still be friends. Instead, I'm doing this."
Tony touches a screen and Steve feels something piercing his neck, just below his head.
It's cold.
He opens his eyes – when did he close them? – and realizes he's trapped in a glass tube. Stark turns sorrowful eyes to meet Steve's betrayed gaze. "It'll be easier if you just forget him, Cap. I want my old friend back, and you know how I am when I'm desperate."
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Steve is frozen again.
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"Valkyrie, Nightfall, Eighteen, Potomac, Shield, Nine, Mountain, Snow, One, Loyalty."
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"-Steve!"
Steve freezes at the voice. His muscles lock and he looks down at himself.
He feels the blood staining his hands.
He feels the familiar rush of adrenaline in his veins.
He's about to break Clint's neck.
Steve feels lightheaded. What just happened? Why was he trying to kill his friend? Oh God, how many others died before he was aware-
He hears two people sigh behind him, relived, and the super-soldier stumbles back to look at them. Clint sags to the concrete roof – how did he even get up here?! – and coughs as he slowly turns around.
"Steve, man, is that you?" a man- Birdman- Falcon- Sam breathes, and he sounds (and looks) like he's been fighting nonstop for the last five hours. Maybe he has.
Steve stares, horrified at the thought that maybe his friends were fighting him.
"Of course he's Cap," Clint says, still rubbing his neck. He already has an ugly bruise on his throat. "Nobody has this kind of strength."
The super-soldier winces.
"Steve, what do you remember?" the woman- the mutant? – Wanda asks softly. Her eyes are still red and he knows she did something to his mind to bring him back. At his lost look, she repeats, "What do you remember?"
Everything, he wants to shout, everything Tony did to him when everyone thought he was dead and buried. "Winter Freeze Project," he whispers, shuddering. "Ross. Stark. HYDRA."
"Wait, Stark is HYDRA?"
Steve shakes his head so hard he almost falls face-first onto the concrete. "Winter Freeze Project," he repeats, because those words were stuck in his head each time he had woken up.
He had woken up fifty-three times.
Someone gasps behind Clint, and everyone turns around.
It's Natasha.
"Nat, what is this Project?" Clint asks, much more nervous than before. Steve almost killed him a moment ago, and yet the archer is more worried for Steve's wellbeing. It's… heartwarming. Without counting the almost-killing-him part.
"I thought it'd been scrapped," she breathes, eyes wide. Her face falls into a blank slate the next instant. "After the CIA recovered Zemo's HYDRA book three years ago, Ross had started this program to create… other Winter Soldiers."
Steve knows his friends must feel as sick as he does.
"I've heard that they put some kind of chemical in the subject's bloodstream, it gets to their brains and… once it freezes, so do neurons. It keeps memories buried – forgotten, almost. At first they had created an electrocuting device, similar to what HYDRA had made, but it was shut down immediately after."
He's somewhat relieved he didn't get stuck into that machine before… before HYDRA caught him.
How many days had passed without his knowledge?
"I know of eight people who were brought in. Criminals, mostly, two of them were enhanced. I've never heard of them again."
"Seventeen," Steve mutters. "Whenever I woke up, they spoke of me as Subject 17. They called me Captain."
Wanda's hand is on his right shoulder, a soft reminder of her presence. She knows what it's like to be experimented on. Natasha most likely does too, but she had never spoken of her past in the Red Room so he doesn't know. Sam and Clint probably think the term 'Captain' was plastered on his face out of convenience, so that everyone knew who they were wiping.
It didn't stop them from doing just that.
"I think… they claimed to work for Tony."
Natasha nods, a slight frown on her brows. "They wanted to trigger a specific memory. It probably had to do with what happened in Siberia."
Steve stiffens at the same time Sam lowers his eyes. "Steve," his friend whispers, and he wants to erase the guilt he hears in his voice. "I… I should have known Tony wouldn't have listened to me… man, I shouldn't have told him you were there, I'm so sorry, Steve… I thought…"
"It's OK, Sam…" he whispers, just as his eyes begin to close.
He sees blurred shapes over him, but he isn't worried. They are friends.
They are family.
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Steve discovers he's afraid of many things.
Ice and cold are the top of that list. Scientists fall a close second. Being electrocuted wins the third place. Being unconscious for days with no clear memory of what he did is in fourth position. People turning their backs on him get the fifth place.
He already knew why the cold frightens him: because of his seventy-year nap and the Winter Freeze Project. He has vague memories of them, and none are good. No one brings the topic up until they're forced to walk through somewhere cold.
(He had something close to a panic attack when he got inside a supermarket. It was just luck that Natasha calmed him down before he caused a scene.)
He knows why scientists scare him: every time he saw many of them in the same place, he felt pain. When they gave him the serum, when he was thawed, when Ross and Tony – God, why Tony?! – froze him time and time again and when HYDRA tortured him. They controlled him for ten hours.
(Thank God it was ten hours and not more. Who knows what they would have done with more time on their hands.)
(Scott later told him he was their prisoner for two weeks. They were confident two weeks straight of electrocuting wouldn't turn his brain to mush, and if it did they still had the chance to recreate the serum. The day he was out, Clint had spotted him and called the others.)
Sometimes Steve wakes up and doesn't remember what he did before falling asleep. There is always one of his friends beside him who reminds him – "'Morning, Steve. That trek yesterday was really tiring, you know? You had this zombie look on your face. Yet you stood guard till I woke up. Man, you fell asleep before hitting the pillow." – and he's thankful for that.
(They hope he'll heal with time.)
The people-turning-their-backs is a little harder to avoid. Their rogue status means they have to speak quickly to each other and run away. It involves a lot of back-turning – it's a quiet form of trust, Steve knows, and yet he still can't help but tense up when they turn around.
It reminds him of the Project, when the scientists would turn around right after talking to him and freezing him with a tap on a screen. Steve managed to hide that fear until Sam left their hiding place and Wanda felt him tense under her fingers.
Overall, it's getting better.
(Still, there's only so much Wanda can do to stop the nightmares.)
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It's almost two weeks later when Tony calls them.
It's Wanda who answers and puts the phone in the middle of the hotel room they sneaked into.
"What is it, Stark?" she asks coldly. "It doesn't seem to me like the world is ending."
"Wanda, just hear me out, alright?" Tony sounds genuinely distressed. Steve can picture him in perfect detail, running a hand through his hair. "It's… it's Cap. He's alive and HYDRA got him."
Four weeks ago, Sam looks about to point out, but then he'd give away their secret. Steve told them he had a time limit of a month, and Tony couldn't look for him sooner anyway. Not without tons of paperwork, meetings, diplomacy and preparations for damage control.
Only the emergencies could go without preparations. The paperwork, as Steve had seen, would be about the triple of the usual.
The whole room shares a glance. "Steve's alive, and you didn't tell us?" Wanda whispers bitterly. "We thought our captain, our friend-" her voice breaks at that, "-died three years ago, and you decide to tell us just now."
There is silence from the other end.
"We were listening to your every word from the Raft." her eyes start glowing red. "We were waiting, hoping that Steve was alive. We'd have been OK even if he and Bucky had been taken to prison. We just wanted them to be alive."
Sam puts a comforting hand on her shoulder and takes her place before she loses control. "I've never regretted so much telling you where they were."
"Wilson, look, you have every reason to be angry-"
"I thought they were dead because of me, Stark, I don't think you quite understand."
"We don't have time to dig up grudges!" the billionaire snaps at him. "You can pick all the bones you want after Cap is out of HYDRA hands, but we need to act now! If anything, he'll be glad the Avengers assembled once again!"
Steve has the sudden urge to shout, "I'm already out, no thanks to you," but he knows it isn't time for his big reveal yet.
"And when we are assembled, what then?" Sam asks, glaring at the phone sitting innocently on the bed. "Steve will be out, but so will we. And you know what we think of the Accords."
"You get a free out-of-jail ticket, congratulations!" Tony claps his hands. Even that sounds sarcastic. "And I'll get the Accords changed so you can protect your privacy and save the world legally. Aren't you satisfied yet?"
"What about Ross? He isn't really a fun of ours," Sam continues.
Tony sighs. "I'll deal with him. I'll try words first, non-lethal chemical weapons second, crippling blows if he has spare gas masks. I hope you do."
The 'rogue Avengers' share another look. "Sounds like a deal."
"Finally!" Tony is clearly relieved. His investigations must've failed pretty badly - maybe he had tried to track his shield, which was in HYDRA's hands. "If you tell me where you are I can pick you up; I have a spare quinjet here, FRIDAY can fly it to you-"
"What do you know of the Winter Freeze Project?" Clint calls from the window.
They can hear Tony's breath stopping. "It's… kind of a long story."
"Make it short."
There is a long silence on the other end. "When I found Steve under the rubble in Siberia, I took him to the Avengers facility. I tried to reason with him like we should have done at the start. We argued, especially since he discovered Barnes was literally dead and buried."
They look at Steve, but he doesn't remember any discussion with Tony after the HYDRA base fell on him and Bucky. He still doesn't remember much about Bucky.
"Long story short, Steve swore he'd avenge Barnes. You can say he won't kill me, but his threats say otherwise." Tony huffs a laugh, humorless. "I say I wanted to mend our friendship, and he'd say I was no friend of his. It went on for a whole month."
"Then of course Ross discovered Steve. He wanted to make an example of him." Tony draws a shaky breath. "I convinced him not to. But he'd uphold his end of the deal only if he could control Captain America."
Steve feels both like shouting at his supposed friend and rocking back and forth like a child.
"So he began the Winter Freeze Project. It took almost a year and a half for Steve to forget Barnes, and he spent almost its entirety as a Capsicle."
That once-playful nickname isn't even remotely amusing.
"Vision always shot me those disappointed looks, but I knew I couldn't stop. Then Steve forgot our falling out and life was… kind of normal. He'd always ask of you, Nat, Bruce and Thor." Tony sounds like he's holding back a sob. "Every time Steve started remembering, I had to… freeze him for at least four days. Five, or even a week if he was too close."
Steve's hands are shaking.
"I was desperate and I was an idiot, and I hurt Steve in ways I wouldn't wish on any of you – all because I selfishly wanted Steve to be my friend again. There, I said it!" Tony sounds hysterical. "I miss him harping on my sleeping habits, I miss Thor denting my roof with his superhero landings, I miss doing science with Bruce, I miss Nat scaring me out of my wits with her knives and I miss you getting stuck in the air vents!"
"Vision misses Wanda and Sam and Natasha and he just looked at me like I'm going insane, because I'm shouting into this fucking phone calling you guys for help, and Steve is in fucking danger and if we don't move our asses-"
"I'm here, Tony."
Tony stops rambling.
"You don't have to do anything," Steve whispers. His hands are still shaking. "You were just a little late. I'm already out. And I've heard everything."
"…Uh." There is silence until they hear him calling for Vision to "burn the paperwork for the Cap-emergency, there's no emergency here Viz, yes I'm serious – do you think I'd joke about this?!"
They wait.
"So, uh. Steve. I… I don't know what to say. I'm not good at apologies. Not that it'd change anything." Tony clears his throat. "I, Anthony Edward Stark, solemnly promise to do my utmost to mend our magical bond of friendship-"
"Tony." Steve says, exasperated. It feels so easy to fall into their routine of small, daily squabbles. He knows it's everything but that. "I don't need your apology."
His once-teammate stays silent.
"I just need you to answer some questions. Honestly."
"…Shoot."
"Did Bucky get a proper burial?"
Tony's expression must be ominous, he knows. "There was no body to bury, and no one to mourn. So… no, he didn't." Criminals don't get a hero's burial.
The fleeting image of his own, imposing memorial – a statue saluting the sky, a pillar for a whole nation – flashes in Steve's mind, and he forces it down. He filled the hero's shoes long enough.
"What did you stuff my head with?"
They hear Tony scratching his head. "I don't think you mean the chemical composition, uh?" he fills the silence with dull laughter. "It's stuck on your neurons and it just… sits there. It becomes thicker if exposed to very low temperatures. It blocks part of your memory if it's thick enough, so you should remember more the longer you're out in the sun. It won't melt away, if that's what you want to know."
Steve slowly breathes. He just has to be careful with the cold. He can do that.
He has one more question.
"When you fired your missiles back in Siberia," Steve whispers, "you knew the building would've fallen on us."
Tony is silent. The whole room is holding their breaths.
"Did you want to kill both me and Bucky?"
.
Bucky was down, his metal arm destroyed beyond repair.
Steve picked up his shield and charged at his once-friend, desperate. He knew that, if he left Tony even an inch of space, he would kill Bucky.
He wouldn't – couldn't – allow that.
Tony's repulsor beams hit his shield and were deflected to the walls. Steve slammed his shield on Tony's chest plate and started punching him relentlessly. His once-friend was cornered in a few seconds, his armored back to the wall.
He'd have to go through Captain America to get Bucky.
He didn't even realize his fighting pattern became predictable before Tony stopped his shield, tossing it aside with a quick movement of his right arm.
Then he gained the upper hand.
Steve was tossed aside as easily as his shield and he tried to get up as fast as he could. A second was all Tony needed to kill Bucky. He wouldn't allow that to happen.
He still had all of Tony's focus.
(Good.)
"Stand down, Cap." He said, raising his right arm. A dozen of tiny missiles were ready to be fired from his shoulders, Steve could see them clearly. "Final warning."
He wouldn't – couldn't – surrender.
(He's always been stubborn.)
Steve huffed. "I can do this all day."
Tony let his arm fall to his side. The super-soldier almost dared to hope Tony decided not to kill Bucky. He still kept his guard up, just in case.
"I should have known you'd chose him over everyone else." His once-friend spat bitterly. He fired his missiles under Steve's horrified gaze.
The whole building collapsed on top of him and he knew no more.
.
"At that moment?" Tony asks. "Yes, I did."
Wanda breaks the glass she was holding in her hand. Clint starts sharpening his arrows. Sam grips the bedside hard enough to make it creak. Scott cracks his knuckles, tempted to punch a hole through the nearest wall.
Steve waits.
"But as soon as the HYDRA base fell down, I knew I couldn't live with your blood on my hands." It implies he can live with Bucky's staining his conscience, Steve notices. "I- I couldn't think straight after seeing… that video. I let my emotions get to me. We all did."
Sam turns to Steve, silently asking, 'What video?'
Steve doesn't remember.
"If I'd been in my right mind, I wouldn't have tried to actually kill you," Tony continues, "At first I was more, like – trying to arrest you. I could've blown you up, but we were still family, you know? I thought I could fix it."
Steve notices his past tense, hears the guilt in Tony's voice.
(It's going to kill him if he doesn't stop, Steve knows firsthand.)
"I should have known better, right?"
Steve presses his lips together and breathes. Tony had tried to fill the gaps in their friendship, he had done more than the super-soldier apparently did. Though he may have made things worse by agreeing to the Winter Freeze Project, it still was the genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist who handed the olive branch, and it was Steve who threw it away.
(He doesn't remember their arguments.)
A long silence fills the hotel room as everyone waits for his answer.
"Maybe it isn't too late," Steve eventually tells him, "to set things right once again."
.
.
Wounds are slow to mend.
Sam and Natasha are the only ones to actually drop by at the Avengers facility. Falcon isn't as actively pursued as Captain America, Scarlet Witch, Black Widow and Hawkeye (he's not an assassin/superspy/supersoldier/force of nature), so he flies there the most. He still can't see eye-to-eye with Tony, but he tries.
(He still feels guilty about Rhodes, Vision knows, though it's not the man's fault. No matter how many times he tells him, Sam will always think he is to blame for Rhodes's paralysis.)
Natasha checks on Tony once or twice every month, languidly polishing her knives in front of his lab at 2:00 AM – "Yes, Tony, I've heard you missed me scaring you." – or giving him information on HYDRA and other assorted villains whenever they reared their ugly heads to cause trouble.
(She had often raided HYDRA bases with Steve, Scott, Clint, Sam and Wanda. Many countries tried to keep their heroic illegal actions out of the news, but Tony always 'leaked' information one way or another. Ross was not amused, and that made it even more satisfying for the rogue Avengers.)
(It was the only case when the 'cut off one head, two more shall take its place' motto became useful.)
Scott is an oddball for the rest of the world. Sometimes he's seen near Hank Pym's house, though he visits his own daughter Cassie far more times than he does the old man. Ross's agents are always four steps behind him – "My cameras were mysteriously turned off for a whole day. Ooops, my bad." – and more often than not they return to their headquarters covered in ant bites.
He always answers the Avengers' Call though, no matter where he is or what he's doing. He might have been a regular Avenger if Pym hadn't warned him against trusting Stark.
Clint hovers near his family farm. He keeps his eyes on them from his nest – the top of a particularly tall tree – and makes sure no one tries to get his wife and children because of him. He drops into his home randomly, with no clear pattern, in a way that confuses Ross's agents. Natasha often calls him on missions for 'good Avengers propaganda' and rooting HYDRA agents out of their bases.
(He doesn't visit Tony. He'd probably feel too tempted to put an arrow through his skull if he doesn't calm down before.)
Wanda and Steve stick together more often than not. Both are actively pursued by Ross and HYDRA to be brought in (and be experimented on again, most likely) while the governments try to kick them out in the open.
Apparently, nobody likes the idea of a super-soldier loyal only to the (dead) Winter Soldier and the rogue Avengers. Or the idea of a telekinetic/telepathic woman who can turn their brains to mush with a snap of her fingers or stab them with a thought.
(Seriously, why does no one consider befriending them or at least not be openly hostile. If the two of them really wanted to burn their way around the world, they probably could – if no superhero turned up to save the day, whole countries would fall.)
Steve calls Tony every week. They promised they'd do their best to mend their friendship, and so they will – even if it means occasionally dealing with an overenthusiastic (or overly-sad, overly-drunk or both) genius.
("No, Tony, I don't need a home in orbit around Earth. Neither do Wanda, Nat or Sam. Yes, Clint could still shoot you from space. Tony. Tony. Don't tell me you've already started a project.")
Wanda calls Vision just as often. Their relationship had taken a few blows, but it's nothing they can't fix. Their positions on the Sokovia Accords aren't as extreme as Steve and Tony's, and their previous interactions weren't as disastrous as their teammates'.
(They would almost be a normal lovely couple if they weren't a law-enforcer android made of vibranium who bears the Mind Gem and a fugitive mind-reader with telekinetic powers.)
Sam and Wanda help Steve as often as possible. For all the world praised him as the peak of human perfection, he too has his flaws and weaknesses.
He's still afraid of ice and snow and mountain passes. Sometimes being in trains and planes sends him into panic and all the traumatic memories that come with them resurface. Memories of Bucky, Peggy and the Howling Commandos usually return to him, but it's painful to both experience and watch.
(Wanda and Sam can only do so much to calm him down.)
So they stick to places around the Equator, which are about as warm as it can get. Blending in with the crowd is difficult for a blonde, blue-eyed, fair-skinned, tall man, so Coulson gives them the SHIELD-issued fake-skin Natasha had used to infiltrate the Triskelion.
(Coulson got his Captain America trading cards signed that day. Natasha had never seen that man look so euphoric.)
They meet Bruce in New Zealand once. "I like being free with no government holding my strings," he tells Steve, "but I miss you guys. And the news of your fight – the other guy almost got out when I saw them. I was angry with both of you. Tony could have handled things better-" 'Oh Bruce, you have no idea' "-but you could have been more subtle. There are crystal-clear videos of you in your full uniform and shield running after the King of Wakanda. Steve, what were you thinking?!"
"Bucky could've mistaken me for a random agent sent there to kill him," he answers, and Bruce's gaze turns sympathetic.
(He doesn't know Steve remembers very little about Bucky.)
Steve, Wanda and Sam eventually reach Wakanda as the super-soldier had insisted. He wants to either apologize or ask for an apology, they aren't sure which. Maybe he wants an expert not working for Tony to do something about the thing in his brain.
They shouldn't have been surprised the fake-skin didn't work on Wakanda's advanced scanners.
Before they even knew their covers were blown, they were quietly ushered to a reinforced metal room in the airport. Steve and Wanda itch to break the door down and flee, but they know it would take just a show of power to send the crowd into frenzied panic. It's bad publicity for the Avengers, who have worked for almost a year on returning in the people's good graces.
They wait.
T'challa, the King of Wakanda himself, comes into the room.
He greets them and stares. Steve is the first under his sharp gaze – the fake-skins were somehow turned off – and he hopes the King understands he means no harm. That he just wants peace.
Wanda and Sam share his sentiment and try to relax their coiled muscles.
His silent staring continues for nearly a minute.
Then T'challa nods and says, "Follow me," in a voice that doesn't sound like an order, but it might as well be. The way the King walks through the door – which remains open for them – is not that of a king, but of the Black Panther they first met.
They glance at each other (Steve determined, Wanda wary and Sam tense) and follow T'challa to his jet, which takes them to his palace among the tall trees of Wakanda. A menacing statue of a black panther towers over the building, already huge in its own right.
They pass through several rooms – which T'challa briefly explains, though he doesn't tell them why he isn't just throwing them in jail – until they reach the medical wing of the palace. It is spacious, well-lit and warm; a wide window covers an entire wall – it reminds Steve of the Avengers Tower – and it overlooks a high waterfall.
Steve hears four voices coming from inside.
He recognizes one.
"Bucky?" he whispers, hoarse, hardly believing what his improved eyes are already burning in his mind.
Bucky (his Bucky) turns his head to look at him, smiling. The skin around his eyes wrinkles – happy, he's happy and safe and alive – and he waves at him with his flesh arm. He looks healthier than he'd been during the fallout of the Avengers.
(But maybe it's just the way his smile makes the room seem brighter and the air lighter.)
"It's me, Steve" Bucky says.
Steve might just cry at how hearing his (best)friend's voice makes him feel warm and alive.
They melt in each other's arms, reunited at least.
.
(The world is a cold place, but maybe they can learn how to be warm again together.)
.
.
END
.
But there's also a chance that I'll stick around enough to write a sequel, though I'm not promising anything. I'm not sure if Tony's actions are too extreme, but when backed into a corner... everything's possible, I guess.