A/N: Don't own anything… Here's a little one shot…Steve is struggling to not lose himself to his Captain America persona….Will the Team take notice, will they help…
My Name is Steve
Steve Rogers is struggling to remember who Steve Rogers is or who he ever was before the ice. When he was pulled from the ice seventy years after cashing his plane to save New York his thoughts circled around how mad Peggy will be for missing their date and never getting a chance to have their dance or share 'fond du' with her. But Steve was hopeful that he would get to see his Mom and Bucky again soon, so he says a quick prayer along with a whispered apology to Peggy as the water began to flood the plane killing little Stevie Rogers, the boy that never gave up but finally found a fight he couldn't win. Seventy years later when the SHEILD discovered him and thawed out his body it wasn't Steve Rogers that came out of the ice that day but Captain America, it's who they needed and though no one would ever say it out loud or even to Steve's face it is who they really wanted. Steve Rogers died and remained buried in the ice, or so he thought.
When Director Fury came to brief Steve about the tesseract and Loki, it wasn't Steve he needed it was Captain America. When Steve was taken on the Helicarrier and introduced to the other Team members it wasn't as Steve Rogers, no it was as Captain Rogers or Captain America because that was who they needed him to be. Fury, SHIELD, the Team of miss matched misfits needed a leader, a Captain, not little Stevie Rogers, no one needed Steve because no one knew him here in this time and only the legend and the myth of him survived the deep freeze.
The battle was hard and seemed never ending, Loki and the Chitauri were a formidable foe but eventually they were able to beat them back ending with Iron Man flying the nuke that was heading for Manhattan up into the worm hole before free falling back through to be caught by the Hulk and laid down at Steve's feet, at Captain America's feet.
After Thor and Loki were transported back to Asgard for Loki's punishment the Team seemed to scatter, leaving Steve alone once again, unsure of his next steps and feeling even more lost in this time.
Bruce happily accepted Tony's offer to live at Stark Tower and work in his state of the art labs. Tony also offered Natasha and Clint the same invitation when they needed a home base that wasn't SHEILD and then there was Steve. Though Tony and Steve got off on the wrong foot in the beginning they were able to come together in the end to defeat their mutual enemy and an open invitation was offered to Steve as well.
"Hey Cap, where you heading to?" Tony asks while Bruce waits by Tony's car.
Steve shrugs, "Don't know, I don't really have a place to go except to the SHEILD barracks"
"Well the tower doors are always open for ya Cap" Tony tells Steve while he offers his hand for a shake which Steve takes.
"Thanks Tony, I'll keep that in mind"
Their hands release and Tony give Steve a quick nod and walks over to his car as he and Bruce get in and drive off with a wave. Steve sighs before he turns to walk who knows where when he is stopped by a SHEILD agent that appears out of nowhere; apparently Director Fury wants an update and has some missions for Captain Rogers. Steve sighs again nodding his head as he is loaded into the back of an unmarked black van. They want Captain America, Captain Rogers and little Stevie Rogers remains buried in the ice deep down inside.
That was three months ago…..
Steve finally took Tony up on his offer for a place to stay with the understanding he would pay rent and food expenses or at least do some of the cooking which Tony argued till he saw that Steve was not going to budge on this, so agreed and began stashing Steve's rent and food expense payments into a private account under Steve's name for when he needs it and is now living full time at Stark Tower. He still goes on missions for SHEILD with Natasha or with Rudlow's Strike Team and sometimes Clint tags along if they need a bird's eye view of the situation. Eventually Clint and Natasha also decide to stay at the Tower as well when they were in town and need a quiet and safe place to crash or heal up away from SHEILD's ever watching eye. Quite often they would try and share a couple meals together when everyone was in residence, but outside of that Steve was left to his own devices, stumbling his way through the best he could.
Anytime the Team was together either training in Tony's state of the art gym, eating meals together or movie marathons, it's always 'Cap' this or 'Capcicle' that and Steve would just give a sad smile or sigh with a look of disappointment that the Team doesn't notice or doesn't want to notice letting it just roll off his back as there is not much that can be done about it, it's who his is now and it's who they want him to be, as Steve Rogers gets pushed further way from his grasp.
Everything finally came to a rather explosive head early one morning. Steve has not been sleeping well for a while as his mind was ravaged with nightmares and memories of the War, Bucky falling, drowning in the icy water that they were now his constant companion at night. So after waking from another rather painful and scary nightmare Steve gets up and heads down stairs to spend time in the gym beating on Tony's upgraded punching bags to the point of bloodying his knuckles before he finally stops. After a quick but scalding shower, Steve dresses and heads up to the main floor where the Team descends for meals and movies to begin pulling out supplies and ingredients to start working on breakfast.
An hour or so later everyone including Tony slowly begins to file in grabbing either juice, tea or in Tony's case a rather large mug of coffee before sitting down at the now loaded table of breakfast food.
"Geeze Cap were you hungry this morning, is there anything left in the refrigerator?" Clint says jokingly not noticing that Steve paused momentarily dropping his chin to his chest, his hands tighten into fists for a brief moment before he relaxes them again.
"Good Morning" Bruce says quietly to Steve as he makes his tea noticing Steve's reaction to Clint's comment and that he looks tired and worn down but doesn't say anything about it as he heads over to the table to join the others, but will mention it to the Team when a moment presents itself. Bruce had a bad feeling and he and his counterpart are not big fans of those kinds of feelings.
Steve brings over the last platter of pancakes to the table when everything goes south.
"Thanks El Capitan" Tony says releasing a jaw cracking yawn as he rubs his hand against the sore skin around the arc reactor.
"Yeah thanks Cap" were mumbled around the table before everyone begins to fill their plates not really paying any attention to Steve as he remains standing behind his chair frozen, gripping it so tightly that is starts to creek.
"Hey Capcicle, you want to unfreeze your patriotic ass and join us" Tony says with a snicker.
Steve looks over at Tony with hard eyes but his voice never goes above a whisper, "my name is Steve" releasing the chair and turns from the table to walk over to the coffee maker that he, to his upmost embarrassment, had to have Jarvis walk him through how to operate when he first arrived here all those months ago and pours himself a cup, his back towards the table his hands fisted on the counter.
Natasha and Clint share side glances at each other while Bruce removes his glasses and begins to massage the bridge of his nose. Tony was the only one that didn't register Steve's stiff body posture, harsh breathing or his harsh whispered tone so continues to push.
"What was that Spangles" Tony asks before taking a bracing gulp of coffee but Steve doesn't answer; now he has everyone's attention including Tony's.
"Cap" Clint calls out with concern and it is enough to finally push Steve over the edge as the porcelain coffee mug still full of scalding hot coffee is crushed in Steve's fist making the occupants around the table startle and jump at the sound and show of raw and unleashed strength before Steve turns to face the table, his hand now bleeding openly from being cut by the shattered mug. His eyes hard and pins each member with a painful and burning glare.
"I said my name is FUCKING STEVEN GRANT ROGERS!" Steve bellows before raking his arms across the kitchen island in front of him of everything including more glassware, a bowl of fruit, a porcelain cookie jar and other random items as they go flying across the room to fall and shatter onto the kitchen floor.
The Team sits frozen in shock at Steve's outburst as they watch him slowly slide down to the floor behind the island out of site and lets out the most heart wrenching sob they have ever heard.
"What the..." Clint let's slip out still frozen in his chair, but after a moment of absolute shock at what they just witnessed Bruce was the first to unfreeze, slowly getting up and making his way around the kitchen island to see a heart breaking site, Steve sitting in the middle of the shattered glass and porcelain from the cookie jar, knees pulled up to his chest his arms wrapped around them, head down sobbing as his bleeding hand goes unnoticed.
Bruce looks over at the table, "I need a first aid kit and blankets now" and with that the remaining Team members leap into action, breakfast forgotten. Tony heads for one of the kitchen cabinets to pull out the first aid kit, kneeling down next to Steve before opening it and passing it over to Bruce, they needed to get Steve's hand wrapped till they can get him down to the Medical floor to check for any of the mug pieces that could be imbedded in his hand. Clint and Natasha arrive next with several warm blankets from the living room and wrap them around Steve's trembling shoulders and across his knees, but Steve just continues to sob unaware of what's going on around him.
"Steve, buddy can you look at me" Bruce says softy trying to bring Steve out of his emotional tailspin noticing his breathing has become too fast for his liking.
Steve shakes his head trying to use his now bandaged hand to cover his face which Tony lightly grabs a hold of it and pulls back down to Tony's lap.
"He….he d-died in the ice" is all he can stutter out before passing out and sliding down further till his head lands on Tony's thigh.
"Steve…..Steve" Tony is shaking Steve's shoulder now panicked.
"He's not supposed to do that, is he supposed to do that?" Clint says shocked and now joining Tony in his panic at what he just witnessed and stares down at the now passed out Captain.
Bruce huffs and Natasha sighs as she pulls out her phone and steps away to contact Fury with a report.
Bruce looks over at Clint then Tony before reaching for Steve's neck to check his pulse, "Well Captain America may be invincible gentlemen but Steve Rogers is not and shouldn't have to be, now who's going to help me get him down to the Medical Bay"
It was 4 hours later when Steve begins to slowly wake and shift ever so slightly on the bed alerting the other occupants that he was finally coming around. Steve's mind feels foggy but he thinks something is touching his hand.
"Steve….Steve can you hear me….squeeze my hand, come on bud" Tony says.
"Tony…he might not be awake enough yet, give him a minute" Bruce tells Tony as he looks over at Clint and Natasha who are sitting in the chairs around the bed that they had pulled up for everyone while waiting for Steve to come around.
"mmmmm" Steve moans.
Clint and Natasha are now on their feet, Natasha and Tony on Steve's right while Clint and Bruce are on his left. Steve moans again as his eyes begin to slowly crack open but quickly shuts them with a hiss as his hand comes up to shield his eyes.
"Jarvis, lower the lights down to 70% please" Tony calls out.
"Of course sir" Jarvis replies as the lights slowly begin to dim down.
"Okay Steve, lights are dimmed down now show us those baby blues that leaves all the girls squealing" Tony whispers to Steve causing Clint to snort and Natasha to roll her eyes at Tony and Bruce just rubs his forehead, it's been a long four hours.
In the four hours while Steve slept, Jarvis, once Tony over-ridded the privacy programing, informed them of Steve's sleeping habits or lack thereof, his night terrors and panic attacks, his exhaustion from being sent out on multiple missions with little down time between, of his long hours in the gym and general listlessness when not performing Captain America duties often referring himself to a dancing monkey. Natasha got back on the phone and demanded Fury give her access to the unedited reports on Captain Rogers before and after the serum which they all now read and were all rather surprised and very pissed off that no counseling was offered or a handler to help him intergrade into life in this time period.
"God no wonder he's lost and struggling" Clint commented as they watch Bruce struggle to keep Hulk at bay as both were very displeased with this uncovered circumstances and blatant abuse of power and disregard of their Team members health and well being.
"We failed him spectacularly" Tony states as he looks down at Steve as they all realize how young he looks.
Steve tries to open his eyes again, blinking rapidly trying to adjust his eyes before lowering his now cleaned and bandaged hand back down to his lap.
"Hey there…welcome back, how you feeling" Bruce asks as he monitors the medical machines that have been hooked up to Steve for the last four hours including a IV drip since breakfast and lunch have come and gone and Steve's metabolism demands constant intake to function properly.
"Tired" Steve says his voice hoarse from disuse.
"You want to sit up a bit" Tony asks which receives a nod from Steve before he closes his eyes again while Bruce pushes the button on the bed frame to lift up the top half of the bed so Steve is now in a more upright position.
"Nope…don't close those eyes yet…..you got some splaning to do Lucy" Clint says sounding like Ricky Ricardo. (from I love Lucy for those who don't know who that is)
Tony snorts as Bruce and Natasha roll their eyes at Clint as all four of them watch Steve clench his jaw tight and tries to turn away thinking they are making fun of him for his weakness. They all watch as Steve's chin trembles, he already lost Steve now they'll take Captain America away because he's weak; he'll have nothing left….
"Steve, talk to us…huh…we know we screwed up, but we are here now….please….whatever your thinking stop right now…that's an order soldier" Bruce finishes sternly but still runs his hand gently through Steve's hair, again realizing how young Steve truly is.
"Don't…." Steve moans out as his eyes begin to pool.
"Steve"
"Sorry….for mess" Steve tells Tony.
Tony sits down in his chair next to the bed so he is eye level with Steve now, "Hey…hey look at me...it's okay, it's already been cleaned up and I never really liked that cookie jar anyway…had my eye on a big Hulk one on Ebay for a while now, holds more cookies" Tony tells Steve causing Clint to snort and Bruce to huff at Tony.
Steve gives Tony a shy smile and Tony considers a great first step.
The four Team members have retaken their seats around Steve's bed preparing themselves for the difficult talk a head.
"Steve you feel up to answering some questions for us?" Bruce asks and receives a shrug from Steve.
"Okay, first of all we want to apologize for not seeing this sooner and will do better" Bruce starts.
"Not your fault just did what was expected of Captain America" Steve sighs as he looks down at this hands noticing for the first time one is wrapped in bandages and frowns at it trying to remember what happened.
"But you are more than the icon" Clint tells Steve as he is still looking down at his hand.
"We talked with Fury and there are going to be some changes going forward" Natasha states in her firm no nonsense voice.
Steve's head snaps up, they did it without even giving his a chance to do better, they took the last thing he has from him. Bruce looks over at the heart monitor that has alerted them that Steve's heart rate is sky rocketing to a very dangerous level.
"Steve….Steve look at me…" Tony holds Steve's head in his hands as Steve begins to buck and arch on the bed, his hands fisting around the bed railing crushing it like paper.
"No please…please don't take that away from me…it's all I have left…please Tony please…I'll do better…I promise….please" Steve begs as he lets out a painful sob while Bruce injects a clear liquid into Steve's IV. The Team watches as Steve slowly calms down and begins to relax back into the bed still begging Tony, his grip loosens on the now destroyed bed railing and finally falls back to a restless sleep.
"Geeze Bruce how much did you give him?" Clint asks.
"More than a normal person should get and handle but I estimate it will only last for about twenty minutes before his metabolism burns through it" Bruce states bluntly as the stress of the situation is really starting to get to him.
Bruce was surprised when after only ten minutes, Steve was coming around again.
"Damn, if this wasn't such a serious situation I would love to get my hands on some of his blood to do some tests" Bruce mumbles under his breath as Tony arches an eye brow at him and smirks, science bro to the end.
"Steve you back with us" Bruce asks sitting down in his chair next to the bed.
"mmmmm" Steve moans out trying to pull his brain out of the fog yet again.
Finally Steve's mind clears enough to try and listen to what is being said, not realizing that all four of his Team mates are touching him in some way to help keep him calm and grounded.
"As we were saying, changes Steve….first will be counseling that you should have received as soon as you were out of the ice" Bruce begins to explain to Steve and holding up a finger as Steve opens his mouth to argue.
"Nope, just listen okay. The therapist will come to the tower, with a signed NDA" Bruce stops when he sees Steve's confusion at the abbreviation.
"A Non-Disclosure Agreement bud, basically they can't talk about anything they see or hear during therapy or around the Tower while here or Stark Industry will sue their pants off but not before losing their license for breaking patient confidentiality, okay" Tony explains and Steve nods his head as the Team let out a sigh of relief that Steve seems to be understanding and cooperating so far.
"Okay next is helping you integrate with this time, which has been an epic fail by all of us including SHEILD" Clint tells Steve, "and we figure you would rather not have a handler slash babysitter so we will be taking on this role till you are feel more comfortable" Clint finishes giving Steve's leg a tight squeeze who nods his head again.
"Can…can we keep watching movies like we've been doing?" Steve whispers, "I kind of enjoyed that"
Clint smiles brightly, "you bet…there's so many to get you caught up on but we'll take it slow because there is a lot and we don't' want to overwhelm you okay "
"Okay" Steve sighs as Natasha silently observes everything.
"So lastly, is the Captain America gig" Tony starts and Steve flinches and looks down at his hands again before feeling someone squeezing his hand. Steve looks over at Tony, eyes pooling with unshed tears.
"Just breathe Steve okay…." Bruce says laying his hand on Steve's arm.
"Natasha spoke with Fury letting him know what is going on and the ultimatum from our little band of misfits" Tony says with a smirk as Steve continues to stare back at him waiting for the other shoe to drop.
"He agreed to the much needed time off for the counseling and allowing you to get more comfortable and will only call for Captain America if it is a world ending mission, a Avengers Team mission where we can all be with you or you feel you are ready to pick up your shield again" Tony informed Steve who is biting his lip as eye pool up again.
"N-not losing s-shield?" Steve whispers.
"Nope" Tony says snapping the 'p'
"But the first two items on the list will happen as part of the third, do we have an understanding Steve? We don't want to lose you, Steven Grant Rogers, you. Do you understand" Bruce finishes Tony's thought.
Steve nods his head, "Thank you"
"Oh don't thank us yet bud, you have to survive shopping with Widow over here, movies and cuisine with Bruce, technology and engineering with me and Team training" Tony tells Steve with a cocky grin.
"oh boy" Steve sighs out and everyone chuckles softly.
"We will also make an better effort to use your first name, with the understanding that Cap or Captain may still slip out occasionally, okay?" Natasha tells Steve.
Steve gives a small smile and lets out a deep sigh, "I'll find him again, I'll get him back" Steve says quietly.
"Steve, he's always been there, just buried under all that frozen ice, it's time to let him thaw out to and be the man you are meant to be, not the myth not the icon and we will be here to help" Tony says quietly.
"Thank you"
"Now as your unofficial doctor, you need some more rest then after dinner you should be able to return to your own room and bed" Bruce tells Steve.
"M'kay" Steve says around a yawn.
Tony leans over and ruffles Steve's hair, "go to sleep, we'll take care of dinner tonight and start you on your new cuisine experience, what do you say Bruce, Mexican?"
"Mmmm, I could go for some tacos and enchiladas" Clint chimes in causing everyone to chuckle at Clint.
"Oh clam up birdbrain before you get nothing but birdseed for dinner" Tony fires back at Clint causing everyone including Steve to snicker and chuckle.
Natasha gives Steve's leg a gentle pat and a gentle smile before she leave behind Tony and Clint who are still arguing over what to order from the menu, leaving Bruce with Steve.
"Rest Steve, we got this and we got you" Bruce says giving Steve's shoulder a squeeze noticing he is already dropping off to sleep.
"Jarvis, please drop the lights down to forty percent, continue to monitor him and alert us if he becomes distressed. We'll be back down to wake him for dinner if he's not already up"
"of course sir" Jarvis replies as the light already begin to soften to allow Steve to sleep.
The end...
AN: Hope you enjoyed….don't forget to review….