This story is dedicated to the wonderful Mgsylvester, who is the most amazing person and talented writer I've had the incredible opportunity to interact with! This one-shot was inspired by their 'Hell is Cold' Avengers story. (Go read it. You won't be sorry. It's awesome and it will change your life!)
Standard disclaimer-I don't own the rights to any of this.
The morning dawns brisk and cool. Steve opens his eyes, pulls himself from the warmth of his bed and tries not to think of a similar morning seventy years ago. After going through his strict routine of running and getting cleaned up afterwards, he fixes himself breakfast and eats before returning to the stove to prepare a meal for the rest of his team. They will wander in eventually, as the fancy strikes them. A pile of pancakes releases steam, and bacon sizzles in the pan, spitting dots of boiling oil at Steve, who deftly avoids them with practiced ease.
Natasha comes in and helps herself to the freshly brewed coffee and still warm pastries. Only minutes later, Clint stumbles in, rubbing sleep from his eyes as he pulls the milk from the fridge and drinks it straight from the carton. Steve raises a disapproving eyebrow. With a shrug, the archer takes his prize with him to his seat at the table. The scent of food brings Thor into the kitchen and he digs into his meal with gusto, shoveling it into his mouth by the forkfuls.
Steve flips pancakes, drains bacon, serves breakfast and keeps himself distracted. After reserving portions for the absent scientists, he clears away the dishes and washes them in a sink of water so hot it scalds his fingers. With his hands submerged to the elbows in soap bubbles, he listens to the conversation taking place at the table. Some of it he understands. Some of it contains references to people and things he hasn't caught up on yet.
Eventually, the date becomes the topic of conversation and Steve pauses when he can feel a pair of green eyes digging into the back of his skull. The plate slides from a slackened grip as he turns to glance over his shoulder. Natasha's gaze meets his own. She knows what this day is, what it means to him. Leaving Thor and Clint to argue over the remaining slices of bacon, she glides across the kitchen tiles. She sidles up to Steve and touches him softly on the bicep. Her fingers are cold. He flinches.
"Are you okay?" she inquires.
"I'm fine," he answers quietly and without hesitation.
She opens pink lips to disagree when a shrill alarm blasts through the speakers in the ceiling. The heroes tense and listen as Fury's voice comes over the communications line, informing them that they are to Assemble. There is a situation in New Hampshire which requires their expertise.
Steve leaves the plate in the sink and gives the order to suit up. As he jogs to his quarters to retrieve his shield, he asks Jarvis to ensure Tony and Bruce have heard the call. The leather straps of his shield have been worn smooth, and easily meld to his grasp. He is the first to the helicopter landing pad on the Tower's top floor, where a quinjet is touching down. The others appear behind him in a matter of moments, all garbed in battle dress.
They climb into the back of the ship and it rises into the morning sky, heading north. A mechanical vent puffs air on Steve's neck and he tugs his cowl over his hair prematurely. At the speed with which the jet can travel, it doesn't take long for their journey to be complete. The back panel lowers and allows a breath of wind to bring a rush of snowflakes into the interior.
Steve blinks and grips his shield tighter. He can feel Natasha's eyes on him again. His boots thunk across the paneling of the quinjet until they sink through inches of slushy white snow. Tony makes a joke Steve doesn't hear and Clint returns with a witticism of his own. Bruce makes as if to stand, but Steve holds up a hand. The Hulk is for reinforcement purposes only, if such measures are called for. With a relieved sigh, Bruce settles back in his chair. Steve watches with a twinge of envy before surveying his surroundings.
Skeleton trees dot the horizon, frosted rocks interspersed between them. The slap of water against wood draws his attention. He looks to his right and sees an old pier. Boats are tethered on fraying ropes, while the lake kicks up against their sides. Blocks of ice bob on the water's surface and Steve feels the saliva stick in his throat when he tries to swallow. Thor's heavy tread brings his focus back to the task at hand.
A villain has decided to attempt to dominate the world with his robot army, beginning in New England. Steve scans the area, assesses the situation and gives orders with a calm born of rote memory. They split up to complete their designated assignments and Steve tries to lose himself in the rhythm of calculating shield trajectories and throwing with the appropriate amount of strength. The team makes much progress in a short amount of time. Victory is near.
Steve slices through one droid and takes the moment of bought peace to make a visual assessment of his teammates. Thor is engaged in a hand-to-hand duel with the villain. It would be easy for the demigod to kill the mortal. But Fury wants the man alive. Meanwhile, Black Widow is inside his temporary base, hacking his servers, simultaneously finding a way to shut down the remaining robots and downloading the information on where he got the designs and funding for them. Iron Man is a blur of red and gold, zooming carelessly through the clouds, shooting down his pursuers. From his perch on a rooftop beside the pier, Clint picks off the stragglers.
With his bow aimed in one direction, Clint doesn't see the robot coming from the other. Steve does. Shouting into the comm for Iron Man to come and assist him, Steve races through knee-deep snow to the dock, praying he isn't too late to rescue the archer. The droid raises its appendages and Steve has no time to calculate before tossing his shield at it. Just as the disk is set to be released from his fingers, his feet slip on the water-drenched planks of the pier and his aim is thrown off.
The striped shield hits the robot at an angle, causing it to waver. Its bolt misses the archer himself but blasts apart the roof he's is positioned on. With a startled yelp, Clint falls through open air toward the water below. Steve's boots pound across the deck and he never lets his eyes stray from the spot into which his fellow Avenger disappeared. Snow stings his face and he takes a breath that tastes like frostbite as he launches himself off the firm boards and into the water.
There's nothing but black emptiness and biting cold. It eats his skin and since he keeps his eyes open to search for Clint, it eats them too. The blue body armor drags Steve down, down, down. Metal groans and the Valkyrie shudders as it plunges into the Arctic. Stirred by the unexpected additions to its depths, the floor of the lake spits up clouds of mud, darkening the water and obscuring everything. Steve strains to catch a glimpse of the sharp shooter.
He thinks he sees a hand stretching toward him, with fingers bare because 'I shoot better with my own fingers, pal.' The other hand is curled around the metal bar, and the clack of train wheels on track is deafening. Wind rushes and tears through the interior of the cockpit, gaining access by way of the shattered windshield. Steve is thrown forward as the ship collides with frozen ground, stealing his breath. Liquid ice pours down his esophagus and encases his lungs, freezing them into solid chunks of preserved organ tissue that can't move, can't move, can'tmovecan'tmove. Can't breathe!
Steve kicks sluggish legs toward the surface. But it's all dark and he doesn't know which way is up. The way to freedom. To sweet, precious oxygen. Metal blocks his path and he claws at it but it won't budge and his chest burns, his brain screams and his spine fractures. His knuckles brush fabric and he clutches it close as he fights against the paralyzing cold. Don't you dare be late.
The train jolts, shaking off the body clinging to it. Steve lurches forward, please-no-not-Bucky-don't-let-this-be-true, fingers stretching, stretching, stretching, closing around vacant space. Tears bubble up from his icicle heart and they're only muddy river water sloshing against his cheeks and slabs of ice knocking into each other over his head, just like the teeth in his skull.
Super soldier serum rushes through shrunken arteries and pumps adrenaline into his limbs and he tugs the body closer and kicks with powerful strokes toward the splintered wooden dock. Seventy years is a long time. He needs oxygen. It's been too long since his last breath. Metal creaks and shifts around his unmoving form.
Sunlight blinds him and he heaves the unconscious archer up onto the pier. For a moment, Steve can't do anything more than lay his arms over the planks of the dock and hold on, leaving his legs submerged. The whine of repulsors accompanies the thud of metal on wood and Tony swears loudly. Steve shivers and pulls himself up. Painfully, slowly, drags himself out of the icy water. He kneels on the deck, panting and gasping shallow breaths that prick needles in his lungs and stab into his nostrils. His muscles quake and his heart flutters like a wounded bird inside his aching chest, and harsh coughs that burn bring up freezing water from his sore stomach. He's gagging, choking, vomiting. Tony demands that Banner get over here this instant and that Romanoff radio for an immediate medical evacuation.
Steve sees Bucky falling, tastes Peggy's lips and feels the ice trap him and whispers, "I'm fine."
"Well, you better be, because Legolas isn't looking too good," Tony snaps, armored hands rolling Clint over and inspecting him.
Cold, cold water sinks into Steve's skin and chills his spine. His eyes are blue and his lips are blue.
Natasha skids to a stop and drops to her knees beside Clint, a Russian profanity slipping from her lips. A moment later, Thor joins them, Bruce in tow. Bruce quickly diagnoses the problem and warns that time is of the essence. Deciding that SHIELD is incapable of providing the necessary means of transportation fast enough, Tony takes it upon himself to move the archer to the closest hospital. Scooping him up, Iron Man launches into the air. Thor swings one arm around Natasha, the other around Bruce, and follows suit.
Steve presses stiff fingers to his bare forehead, his helmet lost to the wicked lake. His breath is nothing more than a thin stream of vapor. Ice in his chest, ice in his brain. Ice in his head and ice in his heart. Gradually, he gathers his shivering limbs beneath him and stumbles upright. He has a duty to perform.
Once the villain, whom Thor had left locked in one of the nearest fishing boats, is secured and stored aboard the quinjet, Steve quietly orders the pilot to locate the nearest medical facility and to make a landing there before continuing on to the helicarrier, with a message for the director.
Drops of water freeze into crystals on Steve's temples and the back of his neck. He stands in the snow bank, watching the quinjet fade into the growing night. When it is no more than a smudge against the falling snow, he turns and enters the hospital. On the floor of the lobby, his boots leave wet prints in which the ceiling lights are reflected. The walls are white and ice is white.
It isn't hard to find the band of superheroes. They are sequestered in a private room, huddled around Clint's bed. Natasha rubs a thumb over his palm as Clint gives them a drug-induced grin. Thor claps a hand on Bruce's shoulder and Tony's knuckles nudge Clint's knee.
There's a plastic chair in the corner of the room and Steve drops into it. His uniform makes snapping noises as the frozen material is stretched and bent, causing the thin layer of ice on its surface to split. He folds his hands together, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his thighs. Soon, he bows his head until his forehead is supported by his interlocked fingers and he takes a shuddering breath. Silence falls on the occupants of the room. Steve senses them shift their focus onto him. He doesn't want to see the accusation, the confusion or the pity. So he keeps his eyes shut.
And Captain America opens them, staring out reassuringly at the team. The constant trembling has spread an ache through his entire body, an ache deep enough to settle into his bones. Mud is caked in the spikes of his hair and the silver star over his tired heart is a frosty steel color, even as it drips brown water over the clean floor.
A clock on the wall shows that the day isn't over yet and Steve wishes it was. But he rises, not without some trouble, from the chair and gives his unwanted audience the most charming smile his chilled facial muscles can manage. He forces stiff legs to carry him to Clint's bed, where he can see with his own weighted eyes that the marksman is safe.
He reaches out a hand to touch the other man's shoulder, just to be sure that all is well, and curses internally as his fingers shake. Dropping it to his side, he hopes the others haven't caught the tremors. They have. As Natasha's eyes burn on his face and Bruce moves to start an examination of the captain, Steve steps away from them all.
"Are you alright, Cap? You're not looking too good yourself," Tony points out, regret for his earlier guilt-driven anger shining though his tone.
It's seventy years to the day since Steve was locked in an icy prison while all his friends died, the world moved on without him and he lost everything he loved. His knees buckle and Peggy's curls were the color of hot cocoa and Bucky screamed so loud when he fell and the ice hurts. It hurts.
Thor's arms are under his own, holding him up and Bruce snatches nearby medical equipment to make use of as only he knows how and Natasha's eyes are burning coals and Tony puts a hand on his shoulder and Clint blinks at him and Steve struggles to pull himself upright. His efforts only tax his fatigued limbs further. Filthy ice water trickles down his face and it looks like tears.
"I'm fine," Steve whimpers, voice cracked and broken.
Warmth is all around him, as are hands and conversation. There's gold and green and red and black. No blue and no white. But cold is still inside him and it splits his heart in two.
"I'm fine," he repeats weakly.
His exhausted body refuses to support him any longer and he collapses to the floor, dragging the others down with him. Dripping, the ice melts.
"I'm fine."