"Careful, big guy. Almost bumped me back there."

"Sorry, Nat," Steve sighs, tucking in his elbows. "I'm still not used to this new body." He suppresses a shiver. The night air is brisker than usual, tainted with the threat of snow. The alleyway where he and his team are walking is dank and narrow, barely wide enough for two people to comfortably walk side-by-side.

"We should get you an 'Oversize Load' sign," Natasha says. "We could tape it right here." She gives his ass a pat as she sweeps past. She throws a smirk over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised. The dim light of the single flickering streetlight reflects off her fine-featured face. There's a teasing light in her sea-foam eyes.

"Would you stop flirting with my girlfriend?" Clint complains from behind. He strides up on Steve's right, matching Natasha step-for-step. "You two are gonna get thrown in jail. Didn't your moms teach you about the no-touching rule?"

"Hey," Steve throws up his hands, "she started it."

"Girlfriend?" Natasha scoffs at the same time. "Barton, you're the one who's going to end up in jail. You know how the Masters feel about relationships. Real or pretend."

"Guys. Stop. Headache." Tony Stark—the Avengers' resident mechanical genius and sarcastic comeback creator extraordinaire—groans dramatically. To further make his point, he forcefully grinds the heels of his hands into his temples. Steve is about ninety-nine percent sure that's not how you fix a headache, but decides not to point that out.

Even though her face is turned away, Steve knows that Natasha is rolling her eyes. "If you're going to be a crybaby, Stark, go home," she says coolly.

Tony has just opened his mouth, most likely ready with the perfect retort, when a massive explosion fills the alleyway with fire.

"DOWN!" Steve screams, diving into a side-alley just in time. He feels rather than sees Natasha throw herself down beside him, her hip digging into his thigh. He shifts to cover her body with his, ducking his head and drawing up his knees. Her breath is right in his ear. Even through the ringing in his head, he can hear it, loud and ragged like a knife wound.

"There's a second bomb," she hisses. He doesn't pause to ask how she knows. He's worked with her long enough to know not to make that mistake.

"Romanov! Rogers!" Clint's hair is singed and sticking up like a mad scientist's. There's a smear of blood on his forehead, but other than that he seems to have made it out unscathed. He's panting as he stops in front of them. Between breaths, he manages to explain what happened. "Stark killed the second grenade," he begins, "Thor went after our guy."

Steve rises to his feet. He gives Clint a quick, sharp nod. "You hurt?"

Clint shakes his head. "Stark got hit bad, though. We need to get him out of here. Now."

"I'll find him," Natasha says. She rises alongside Steve, shooting him a glance and the hint of a smile as she goes. He knows that's her way of saying 'thank you'; when she smiles, it always means something. Sometimes victory, sometimes the grudging acceptance of grim defeat. She never smiles at nothing.

Clint watches her go with rapt attention. "Stark needs medics. I'll call them in." He takes off in the opposite direction, heading for the nearest communication center. "Meet you back at the Tower, Rogers," he calls over his shoulder.

Left alone in the narrow alleyway, Steve walks as if in a dream back toward ground zero. His head spins and his ears ring from the explosion. Stark better be okay, he thinks, his heart sinking when he remembers what Clint said. Although Steve has only been with the Avengers—an elite team of superhumans tasked with defending the remainder of humanity from the Strocosia Morbus plague—for a little over three months, he's already grown to care for them all. Each is different and brilliant in their own way. Tony Stark is a mechanical genius with a wickedly sharp wit; Natasha Romanov and Clint Barton are master assassins who work together so beautifully that Steve half believes they can communicate telepathically; Thor is the best fighter in the city, and can make anything—from a workman's hammer to a power cord or a rotten apple—into a deadly weapon. Bruce Banner is both a brilliant scientist and the much needed voice of reason in the group, calmly pulling Tony back from the edge whenever the engineer gets too excited about a new (and usually dangerous) invention or project. Steve is their leader and moral guide, making sure unnecessary casualties stay low and the successful mission count stays high. They're like parts in a machine; without any one of them, the whole group would malfunction and fall apart.

When he arrives, Steve sees that the alleyway is burned and blackened, the garbage heaped in the gutters still smoking. The putrid smell sticks in Steve's nose and coats his tongue and throat. It stings his eyes, catches in his lungs.

"Rogers, over here." Natasha is crouched beside a hunched and shaking form. It takes Steve a moment to realize that it's Tony.

"How bad is he?" Steve kneels beside her, eyes searching her half-turned face. "Natasha. Is it critical?"

When she looks at him, he sees the fear in her eyes. It's veiled—everything is with her—but it's there. She swallows hard, one hand resting lightly on the top of Tony's bowed head. "There's shrapnel in his heart. The only reason he saw the second grenade was because he landed right next to it. He didn't get out fast enough."

Panic rears, dark and ugly, in Steve's chest. He clenches his fists, rising to his feet. "There's gotta be something we can do."

She looks up at him, lips pursed. "When Thor catches the attacker, then you can do something. Whoever he is, we're going to make him regret this."

Steve turns away. Tony groans; a low, pained sound. Steve closes his eyes. "Damn straight."

In the distance, emergency sirens blare to life.

. . . . . .

~Two weeks later~

The woman who arrives on the day Tony Stark finally wakes up is lithe and beautiful, and carries herself like a queen. When she arrives at SHIELD's headquarters, the agents emerge from their offices to watch her pass. She has an aura of power and independence, of strength that comes from herself and no one else. An elegant dignity radiates from her like light from a flashbulb, blinding all who get caught in its beam. She calls herself Agent Carter, and her reputation billows in her wake like a matador's cape.

"Steve Rogers?" She asks, stopping in front of Steve. He's standing outside of Tony's sickroom. The lights in the hallway are flickering dully; inside the room, the equipment keeping Tony alive is sapping the generator's energy. The building's monthly power allowance has almost expired, and August has only just begun.

"Yes," Steve says. Then, remembering his manners, he dips his head respectfully and corrects himself: "Yes, ma'am."

She looks up at him. Her brown eyes are beautifully deep, full of bottomless intelligence. Her lips are bright red, standing out against her light skin. Her dark hair is caught up and pinned behind her head. Distantly, Steve thinks that her elegance and beauty is out of place in the dingy, half-lit medical sector. She looks like she belongs in one of the old paintings from before the plague. Like an ancient goddess trapped in a mortal body.

When she speaks again, he almost startles at her accent. Northern Europe, he thinks. English. It's been a long time since he's heard anyone who sounds like her. Ever since going underground, contact with the rest of the world has been almost nonexistent. She says, "we know who's responsible for the bombing." She doesn't have to say which one. "We want you to go after them."

"Them?" Steve asks, surprised. "I thought the authorities said it was a random attack. Last I checked there was just one perpetrator."

She purses her lips. "No. The responsible party was a cult called Hydra. We've dealt with them before: they're Carriers trying to return the world to how it was before the Awakening. They're organized, and they're dangerous. If we don't make our move soon, it may be too late."

Steve swallows the questions vying for attention at the front of his mind. He nods; a quick, sharp jerk of his head. "What's the mission?"

She hands him a manila folder, thick with documents and printed security footage. "The details are in here." Their fingers brush, and Steve's whole hand tingles at the rare skin-to-skin contact. He holds his breath, waiting to be reprimanded. Her expression tightens, but she says nothing for a long moment. And then, "I expect you to get the bastard who did this." Her gaze strays momentarily to the observation window of Tony's room. "For all of our sakes."

And then Agent Carter turns around and starts back down the hall. The two tall, expressionless men with her fall in to step on either side, their polished shoes clicking dully on the tiled floor. Steve watches her go, the tingling in his hand spreading up his arm and into his chest. The feeling settles there like a baby bird, nestling warmly against his heart.

He hasn't run a solo mission before. Not since he joined the Avengers. He doesn't know if he should be excited or terrified.

After he visits Tony and hears from the doctors just how extensive the damage is, about how there's shrapnel wedged in the engineer's heart, the warring excitement and fear becomes mixed with bitter vengeance. Hydra's going down, he promises himself. Those sons of bitches won't know what hit them.

With the folder gripped tightly in one hand, he returns to his room to prepare for Phase One.