A/N: Post CAWS. Canon deviation from CACW. Standard disclaimers apply.

"What about when he wakes up and starts redecorating my lab? Have you seen White People Renovating Houses? I know South Park's on your Future To Do List. I'm all for open spaces, but these are load-bearing walls. Now, I could suit up and go in there with you, but it's a new suit, and I don't want to scratch the paint. Just kidding. The paint is scratch-resistant titanium oxide. Trust me, Cap. You want me out here reading the scans. I may not be a doctor, but I am the only one here who doesn't think UNIX is cute slang for unicorns, and the suit's GUI is limited by the size of my head, which is not as big as you seem to think."

Tony maneuvered Thor and Steve into the lab and Bruce towards the stairs, all without pausing for breath, because he was a genius and he could multitask, although his ability to multitask had less to do with his masters from MIT and more to do with the near-simultaneous invention of split-screen computing and internet videos of sneezing pandas.

Thor looked out of place in the sterile lab setting, but the Winter Soldier didn't, which was the only reason Tony had decided to help when the crazy ex-assassin who murdered his parents had shown up riddled with bullets on the roof of his Tower in the middle of the night (and how had he done that at all let alone looking like one of Tony's high-pressure rainfall massage shower heads?)

Also, this was the first time Tony had seen Steve look like a real boy and not a cartoon character. Well, he looked a little like Eeyore. He had been crying steadily even since the Winter Soldier collapsed against him. He didn't seem to have noticed.

Steve had carried the Winter Soldier downstairs, slowly, because he didn't want to hurt his childhood friend any further, and because, "He may be my brother, but he's still pretty fucking heavy."

"Should we restrain him?" asked Thor, who had been caught up on the Winter Soldier situation, and seemed to have a ready grasp of adopted brothers who occasionally needed to be restrained.

"No," Steve didn't so much say as intone.

He and Thor stood guard while the doctors removed the Winter Soldier's tac vest, shirt, and bullets. Well, they were somebody else's bullets. Hydra, probably, if the intel about someone going on a Tarantino-worthy rip-roaring rampage of revenge was anything to go by, and it was the Widow's intel so it was everything to go by. When she told Steve, he had just sniffled and said, "We met the real Basterds in Innsbruck back when they were serving for the OSS. I think the Howlies would've whipped 'em out and measured 'em if frostbite weren't an issue." Natasha didn't have the heart to tell him that was the wrong Tarantino movie. (Tony did.)

Tony stayed at the screens, translating the scans for the doctors, and pointedly ignoring everything he saw in the scans that made him feel sorry for the Winter Soldier. (There were some places that screws should just not go.) Eventually, the Winter Soldier was stabilized. The doctors left, and Thor placed Mjölner in front of the lab door.

"That isn't actually going to stop him," said Tony. "He'll just go through the wall. Well it might take him a few more… seconds. Hope you don't need to pee in the middle of the night, Cap."

Steve just nodded grimly, as though Bucky's wellbeing took precedence over his own bodily functions. From his actions on the helicarrier, those bodily functions seemed to include breathing.

Steve, Thor, and Tony, settled in for the night. All three of them were combat-seasoned superheroes. One was a supersoldier, one was a god, and one was the official high-scorer on NES Tetris.

All three of them fell asleep on watch.

The Winter Soldier was gone when they woke up.

"Rude," said Tony.

Steve started crying again. He still didn't seem to notice.

They were all still staring at the empty table when Bruce came in with four cups of green tea.

"What happened?"

"He left," said Steve, and Eeyore. Tony couldn't not hear it now.

"Uh, guys?" he said, mentally smacking himself, because he was supposed to be a sneezing-panda-watching, multitasking genius, but he didn't have as much practice cataloguing property damage that wasn't there. "Did he move Mjölner?"