Necessary Risks, part 2

When the thunder of falling concrete ceased and their own screams stopped echoing in their ears, the Avengers heard a calm voice, "Guys, I could use a lift."

Looking up, across space formerly blocked by the apartment building, the Avengers saw Cap dangling in space with the boy strapped to his back like a backpack.

"Benny!" his mother screamed in joy, relief and still some fear, because they were dangling eight stories up.

The boy had no such qualms. He waved happily. "Hi Mom!" came faintly to their ears. "Isn't it cool?"

A few minutes earlier:

Steve always rolled his eyes when Tony called him "The Man With the Plan," but the nickname was apt. His serum-enhanced brain could collate all the facts, sort them and spit out an answer as fast as a computer.

Looking out the apartment window, seeing no safe place to land, Steve jumped anyway. Better he and Benny should fall clear of the collapsing building, then he and the shield could probably protect the boy — but that was the secondary plan.

In Plan A, Steve's powerful legs launched him clear across the street. He slammed the edge of his shield into the blank concrete wall, striking at an angle that dug it deep into the concrete.

It held.

Now he dangled like a mountain climber depending on a piton.

His left arm was threaded through the shield straps and the fingers of both hands were interlocked to take some of the strain off his left arm — not that he looked as if it was a strain.

The gash in the concrete, however, was showing some stress with loose grains dribbling out of the corners of its downturned "mouth."

Before Tony could completely take in the scene, he had tipped back his heels and blasted upward, not even waiting to straighten his legs. He rocketed through the settling cloud of dust followed closely by Sam.

The two fliers slowed and hovered next to Cap.

"Hi, Iron Man," Benny said happily. "Hi, Falcon."

"Give a pair of stranded soldiers a ride?" Steve asked, as if he was hitchhiking.

Tony was still too upset to find any snark (that he could say in front of a six-year-old). "Only because you asked politely," Tony said, his voice rough with repressed emotion.

It would be difficult for Iron Man to wrap his arms around Cap with his piggyback passenger.

"Can you get the kid?" he asked Sam.

Sam unfastened the belt and swooped away with the boy. Benny squealed with glee and waved at his mother. "Mom, look at me. I'm flying!"

Tony studied Steve's position. He carefully lifted him away from the building — and then shot away to the roof of the parking garage.

"Hey!" Sam protested, as he put Benny in his mother's arms while she scolded and hugged him at the same time.

The Avengers could hear Tony berating Steve through their earpieces. Sam started to fly after the pair, but a metal hand grabbed his harness.

"Not without me," growled Cap's oldest friend.

Sam didn't argue. He grabbed Bucky under the arms and flew to the roof of the garage.

"What's happening?" the mother asked, tearfully hugging her son.

"A little of that," Clint answered drily, pointing at her and her boy.

When Sam and Bucky landed, Iron Man was yelling at Steve and thumping the shield that Cap had raised protectively. The fist banging wasn't an attack, just emphasis for Tony's words.

"You suicidal, self-sacrificing, son of a bitch," Tony raged. "You scared us all to death!"

It was ironically funny that a man who often put himself in harm's way would accuse Captain America of being careless, but Sam and Bucky were also overwrought at the moment and totally agreed with Tony's sentiments.

They joined in berating Steve for being careless and scaring them and endangering his life.

"I'm tired of following a leader with a death wish! Risking his life unnecessarily…" Tony shouted.

The shield was pulled away and Tony's falling fist was caught in an iron grip.

"The risk was necessary," Steve said calmly, nodding at boy and his mother who were surrounded by a growing group of displaced apartment dwellers. "And I don't have a death wish," he added. "I'm not afraid to die, but I don't have a death wish."

Tony pulled his arm away and scoffed halfheartedly. "You take too many chances."

Steve shrugged. "That's the way life is, the way my life has always been. I never got anything done without risking my life."

"Oh hell! Hell, hell, hell!" Bucky swore. He began to curse, loudly and long.

"Hey, there's a lady on this channel," Natasha scolded primly.

Bucky obligingly changed up his language, swearing in Russian, Ukrainian and moving though several European languages.

"Better," Natasha commented.

Tony and Sam stared at their comrade, but Steve just nodded. "Bucky knows. I've been living on borrowed time since the doctors said I wouldn't survive pneumonia when I was four. I was such a sickly kid, there were days I risked my life getting out of bed to use the toilet."

"When the weather was cold in the winter or full of pollen in the spring, he got up and went to school, even though his lungs might give out on him," Bucky said. "He ran errands and swept out stores to raise money, even though too much effort made his heart pound."

"I either had to lie in bed all day — sometimes I didn't have a choice," Steve admitted. "Or I had to get up and take my life in my hands just to get something done, just to make life worth living."

"I guess we all do," Sam realized. "Get up and go out our front doors, take a chance we won't be hit by a car or run into a crazy man with a gun."

"Life is risk, Tony. And eventually we die. Some people want to live a long life and die in their own beds. That always seemed most likely for me, but that was never how I wanted to go," Steve said. "If I die doing something worthwhile, I'll die satisfied."

"Well, try to postpone it, will you?" Tony said helplessly.

"I promise, since you asked politely," Steve answered.