White Christmas

Setting: Post-Avengers. Pre-Anything Else.
Genre: Drama/Friendship. No pairings, besides a slight hint of Pepperony.
Summary: Steve, Tony, and Bruce plan the team's first Christmas together. Steve gets mugged. Tony blames Bing Crosby.


Chapter 2: Snow


"Might I inquire as to where you're headed, Captain?" The tinny voice of Stark's butler rang out in the vacant entrance hall, the only noise besides the faint rush of the decorative waterfall.

"I've got some things to see to, Jarvis." Steve replied, distracted. Tony had attempted to explain the concept of AI to him on several occasions, but it was far easier to believe that his friend had an Englishman shut up in a cupboard somewhere.

Still, it was no use being uncivil to the invisible butler. Tony probably had a camera on him somewhere, anyhow.

"Shall I ring the driver for you, or would you prefer a cab?" Jarvis intoned, with all the assumption and decorum that Lord Falworth had possessed.

"Neither, thanks. I think I'll just walk. People forget it, but I did grow up here." Steve replied, his lips curling with the faint hint of humour. He tugged on his leather jacket over his thin cotton shirt and swept out the door.

Dusk descended over Manhattan as he made his way down East 42nd. New York City had fairly mild winters compared to the rest of the state, and certainly in comparison to the Alpine winter from which Steve had been plucked. The Howling Commandoes had been launching expeditions in -20 degree weather for months. Judging against that, the few flakes drifting from the dreary Manhattan sky were nothing.

He stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets as he passed Grand Central Terminal. Despite the scaffolding and areas still cordoned off for repairs, travelers streamed in and out of the doors, going everywhere and nowhere all at once.

It must be the universal constant of life in the city, Steve mused. Everyone was always busy. Attending to some emergency. Managing some circumstance masquerading as a crisis.

And the technology that Tony so highly praised seemed to be doing a better job at dividing people than bringing them together. Most of the people on the street were talking on their phones, looking at their phones, or plugged into some kind of wireless device.

Just as Steve approached an intersection, a dark-haired teenager with a backpack on came trodding down the street. His head was down and thumbs busy, ears engulfed in a massive set of headphones. So engrossed was the boy in his device that he apparently didn't notice his light was red. Right before the boy stepped off the curb into the path of an oncoming tour bus, Steve reached out and yanked the handle on the youth's backpack, pulling him back onto the sidewalk just in time.

Confused, the boy looked up as the bus roared past. By the time he figured out his near-deadly mistake Steve had already continued on his way.

Following the clusters of tourists, Steve let the flow of traffic move him past one theatre after another. The crowds of visitors who flooded Manhattan during the Christmas season had grown exponentially since he was a youngster. Somehow there was a mystical image of a classic New York City Christmastime that drew visitors from across the world to ride through the park in a horse-drawn carriage or see the tree lighting at Rockefeller Center.

He remembered the first tree the men constructing Rock Center had put up. In those days twenty feet seemed impossibly tall, decorated haphazardly with paper garland and old tin cans. And yet, they had been so proud.

Vividly he could recall walking Broadway as a tyke, ducking from alley to alley in hopes of catching a glimpse of a celebrity entering the venue. Like any good child of the '20s, Steve read the funnies religiously – even doodled a few of his own on occasion. But no matter how many times he played out a Little Orphan Annie scenario in his head, there was no glamorous benefactor to take him away from his squalor.

"Speak of the devil," Steve muttered as he looked up at a billboard the length of a city block, advertising the third revival of Annie: The Musical.

Well, how about that. He was older than the classics and he hadn't even celebrated his thirtieth birthday yet. Or had he? Did it really count if he had been basically comatose the whole time? Was he twenty-seven or ninety-five?

The bottom dropped out of his stomach as Steve continued plodding north. He struggled to keep his thoughts from turning darker, but there were too many gloomy corners in the labyrinth of his mind to avoid them all.

He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with exhaust and the exotic scent of something frying in the distance. For a moment he entertained the illusion of being just another face in the vibrant mass of humanity. He banished the darkness by gazing into the flashing neon and chasing after the scrolling LED signs. An icy wind picked up and began blustering through the corridor of buildings, driving some of the crowds indoors in search of shelter and hot chocolate.

After passing the same coffee shop three times, Steve thought he'd somehow gotten turned around – but no, it was simply three locations of the same franchise. At last, the street opened up onto Columbus Circle.

In the center of the traffic circle stood the same familiar statue of old Chris himself. A bitter smile came to his lips as he remembered his ill-fated attempt to scale the statue at age thirteen and the resulting dislocated shoulder. Bucky had flipped his wig, but it was worth it to see the pity in his friend's eyes for the first time replaced by respect.

The statue was just about the only thing he recognized in the area, though. Gone were the beloved brick-and-stone buildings, replaced by colossal structures of glass and metal enclosing every side but one.

From the east, the inviting branches of Central Park waved to him like a long-lost friend. Snow began to stick in the grass, frosting the cobblestone pathways and great spreading lawns.

At least that was one sight the passage of time couldn't change: everything looked the same under a layer of powder.

He crossed the street and entered the park. Unprotected by the tremendous skyscrapers, the chilling wind cut through his jacket and trousers with ruthless efficiency.

Goosebumps rippled over his skin, but the rapidly dropping temperature did little to affect his core. Steve had achieved the peak of human potential – including the peak temperature conservancy. Only truly extreme temperatures could bother him at this point – like being completely encased in ice. Even then, his stubborn heart refused to stop beating while the rest of the world turned onwards.

And that, Steve surmised, watching as tiny crystals swirled in the light of electric streetlamps as they flickered to life, that was the crux of the matter.

He was the same. It was the world that was different.

When he truly understood how alone he was in the twenty-first century, he was overwhelmed by grief. Ploughed by grief. Dragged, screaming, out to sea and smothered by an ocean of grief.

His mistake had been in living as though everyone he'd ever known had died – had been wrenched from his grip just like Bucky.

But that wasn't true.

They lived, many of them long, glorious lives. They had had children and grandchildren, loved and been loved. They won the war and returned home in glorious triumph. They took offices and earned degrees and made names for themselves.

They lived and died, old and full of years. And though many had mourned the fall of Captain America, few, if any, mourned for Steve.

Making his way to Bow Bridge and strolling halfway across, he leaned against the railing and watched as the pristine whiteness of drifting snowflakes was swallowed up by the blackness of the water. He took a breath of ice and forest and tried to imagine away the tinge of smog tainting the edges of the air. If he closed his eyes, he could almost see the constrained chaos of ice skaters gliding across the lake, woolen coats and scarves flapping in the wind.

Well, anonymity was what he had signed up for. He laid his life on the line knowing that he was giving up everything for his country. He sacrificed his future, his love, and his very life to offer the chance for the same to others.

Like he told Peggy in their desperate last conversation, he had made a choice. However painful, however drastic the consequences, it had been his choice to crash the Valkyrie. He had been ready to die.

He had, in a sense, died.

And in return, he had miraculously been given a second chance.

Steve could mourn. He could rage and curse the sky and pray for death. But to do so would dishonor the lives that his loved ones lived without him, to claim that their lives were somehow less valuable without his presence. He would, in essence, be valuing his own happiness above the existence of the millions who would have died had Schmidt's plan succeeded.

In essence, he owed it to the people he missed so dearly to live his life to the utmost. It still hurt terribly to be without them and he would never be able to replace them.

There would never be another Peggy; a woman with brown eyes so endless that he could fall into them and never come back to earth.

There would never be another Bucky; a man who stood by his side for years, who had stood up for Steve Rogers when nobody else thought he was worth anything.

But there would be others that Steve could teach of their courage, their independence, and their determination. He owed it to his fallen friends to be their presence in the lives of others.

Relationships were not like sums. You couldn't add and subtract people. No one person can fill the hole left by the loss of another. It was more like multiplication – relationships compounding and building off each other exponentially, increasing in affection and depth as he learned how to connect with others in new ways.

For those he had lost, for those he had yet to meet, and for himself: it was time to start living again.

An icy breeze sent ripples across the lake and drove the flurries against his cheek. He closed his eyes and let the burden of grief fall from his shoulders.

And for the first time since Bucky died, the winter wind was a comfort instead of a torment.

The temperature continued to fall, but there was warmth in the pit of his stomach. Ready to face the night, Steve pushed off the railing and headed north into the Ramble.

Perhaps it was because he felt so utterly at peace, or because he was generally more confident since he'd been transformed into the peak physical and mental state for a human. Perhaps it was because he hadn't needed the same degree of caution when he was a kid in the 30's, wandering through the Hooverville built on what was now the Grand Lawn.

Whatever the reason, Steve unintentionally disregarded what had become one of the cardinal rules of visiting New York in the twenty-first century.

Don't walk alone through Central Park at night.

And he was completely caught off guard when a figure stepped from the shadows and pointed a .357 Desert Eagle in his face.


For kicks and giggles, you can totally follow Steve's walk on Google Maps using the streetview.

Don't write the story. Live the story.