"Do you have student ID?"
Steve stared blankly at the woman behind the counter. She was in her thirties, the nametag on her shirt said 'Susan', and she could raise one eyebrow independently of the other, just like Bucky. She was doing it now, clearly unimpressed by Steve's continued silence.
"I'll take that as a no. One adult ticket, coming right up."
She returned her attention to the computer in front of her, and Steve shifted awkwardly on his feet. Four months in the twenty-first century, and he still felt like an idiot half the time. Did students need special identification? And why did it matter when you were just going to a museum?
"Do you want to add any of the temporary exhibits? The space shuttle, or the Spirit of St Louis?"
"Just the space shuttle, please," Steve replied. He'd already seen the Spirit, when he was five years old. His mother had brought him to Flushing Airport and held his hand while Lucky Lindy himself did touch and gos on the brand new tarmac. He could still smell the engine oil, still feel his ma's fingers carding through his hair. Seeing it again was asking for trouble.
"That'll be sixteen fifty, please."
Steve was starting to get used to the astronomical prices in this century. He was slightly less comfortable with the flimsy piece of plastic everyone seemed to prefer over cash. Tony had gotten him a Visa Platinum card, whatever that meant, and Steve handed it over with the same sense of embarrassed apprehension he might have if he'd given the woman a few Monopoly bills. Apparently, there was money on the internet, and the card talked to the internet. Or something.
"Steven G. Rogers?" the woman read off his card, chuckled, then glanced up. "Like Captain Ame – "
Her eyes met his, then widened. Her mouth hung open around the word America. It seemed she hadn't really looked at him the first time round. Steve fought the urge to sigh.
"… hello, ma'am," he said awkwardly into the stunned silence. One of the woman's coworkers was glancing over, the man in the line next to him was turning to look, and Steve suddenly felt hot all over. Tony insisted there were upsides to fame, but Steve had yet to find any.
"I'm, uh…" he stammered, cursing his pale Irish skin as he felt a blush rising up his neck, "just… here to see what I missed."
He gestured pointlessly in the direction of the space exhibit. One of the lunar modules was sitting next to the entrance; Steve recognized it from the books he'd been reading. Man had set foot on the moon, and he'd been sleeping.
Not that he was bitter or anything. He just wanted to see some damn spaceships.
"You're not here to see the plane?"
The woman's coworker had come to save her. She was about the age Steve appeared to be, and her red hair and green eyes betrayed her own Irish heritage. Her nametag read 'Clara'. Steve blinked at her.
"What plane?"
"They restored the Valkyrie," Clara explained, pointing down the grand entrance hall towards an enormous pair of double doors at the very end. "It's in the hangar at the very end of the Captain Ame – I mean… your exhibit."
Steve was getting very tired of feeling like an idiot in front of pretty girls.
"What do you mean, my exhibit?"
She looked taken aback.
"O- oh, um… the– there's been an exhibit about you here since the building opened in 1976."
And wasn't that something to unpack. Steve shoved this new, unwelcome information into the back of his mind to deal with later. Or never.
"Right. Um… I think I'll come back some other time. Thank you for your help, ladies."
He began to turn away.
"Wait!"
Susan was holding his credit card out to him. He stared at it for a moment, then sighed and took it back. One of these days, he was going to remember that it wasn't like cash, they didn't keep it.
"Do you still want to see the space shuttle?" she asked as he stuffed the card back in his wallet. A black and white photograph of Peggy smiled out at him from behind a clear plastic sleeve, and the tension in Steve's shoulders loosened somewhat. He didn't know where Tony got the picture, didn't even know when it had been taken. But Peggy's smile always made him feel better, even now.
"Um…" he hesitated. His schedule with SHIELD was frighteningly busy. He preferred it that way; it gave him less time to wallow in grief. But it did make catching up on all the history he'd missed a bit challenging. This was the first day off he'd allowed himself in weeks, and he really did want to see a few spaceships that were made by humans and didn't look like giant robot slugs.
"It's free for you."
Susan was now holding several tickets out to him. At this point, the little scene had attracted the attention of quite a few people waiting to purchase entrance to the museum. Steve furrowed his brow, then shook his head and pulled his card back out.
"No, I – I can't take those. If I go in, I'm going to pay for it."
"Captain," the woman said with a nervous, yet genuine smile, "half the people who buy tickets only come here to see your stuff. You've done more than enough to support us."
She continued to offer him the tickets. He hesitated a moment longer, then reached up and accepted them.
"What – " he began before he could stop himself, "what's in there, anyway?"
"In the exhibit?" Clara clarified. "Oh, lots of things. All the Howling Commando uniforms, the original shield, his books, a lot of his cartoons – he was actually a really good artist, and – "
She cut herself off abruptly, looking mortified. Steve got the distinct impression this was a speech she gave to several hundred visitors a day.
"… gee, thanks," he said with a crooked smile he didn't even have to force. "The boys all thought my cartoons were kinda dumb."
The girl snorted, her face still red.
"… I mean… they are kinda dumb. But they're nicely done."
He let out a bark of surprised laughter.
"Ouch," he chuckled, clutching his chest in mock pain. "I'm wounded, ma'am, really."
Both women were smiling at him now. He counted that as a success. Time to leave before he found a way to put his foot in his mouth and ruin his bizarre and completely fictional reputation as a lady's man. His team had gleefully shown him several films and biopics about a Captain America who acted a hell of a lot more like Bucky Barnes than Steve Rogers. He was pretty sure that if he ever encountered a woman as beautiful as Audrey Hepburn – the only portrayal of Peggy he hadn't hated outright – he wouldn't be able to look at her, let alone kiss her.
"Thanks for the tickets," he said, holding them up with a smile. "It's all this way, right?"
They nodded when he pointed towards the lunar module.
"It wraps around and feeds into your exhibit at the end," Susan said. "You might want to give the last room a miss, the Valkyrie is in the hangar right next door."
"Unless you want to see it," Clara offered. "I'm sure the curators would be more than happy to give you a tour."
It was Steve's turn to let out a nervous chuckle.
"U- uh… I'm alright, thank you. That plane and I have already spent far too much time together."
The women nodded solemnly, as if they understood.
"Right, well," Clara said with an uncertain smile, "I should warn you, there might be some cosplayers wandering around. We've been getting a lot of 'em since the Valkyrie went on display."
Cause players. What the hell was that? Steve had no idea, but he felt as though he'd already used up all his stupid points in this particular conversation.
"Okay," he said simply, then smiled and set off towards the spaceships. He should have taken Nat's advice and worn some glasses. According to her, Superman's famously implausible disguise actually worked pretty well in real life.
Thankfully, the woman who took his ticket at the door didn't even look at him, let alone recognize him. Steve began to make his way down a dimly lit corridor, and a man's voice echoed out of hidden speakers all around him.
"We meet in an hour of change and challenge…"
Ethereal music was playing, the tinny murmurs of a crowd recorded on an old microphone. It sounded like the speeches Churchill used to give over the radio during the War.
"… in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance."
Steve had to hand it to the Smithsonian's museum curators. They sure knew how to tell a story. Over the next hour and a half, he was enthralled by the American journey into space – from President Kennedy's challenge to reach the moon in a decade, to Neil Armstrong's giant leap for mankind, to satellites and shuttles, and the International Space Station. By the time Steve arrived in the large hangar that was home to the Discovery, he was feeling invigorated. Humanity had come a long way since the forties. For the very first time, he actually felt lucky to be a part of the twenty-first century.
The rest of the Commandos had lived to see much of this. The Discovery first launched in 1984, when all of them but Falsworth were still alive. Steve wondered what they'd thought of it. Dernier definitely would have had thoughts about the solid-propellant rockets, and Morita would have been jealous of the satellite radios. Jonesy had actually been a part of the early space race, helping program the very first Apollo guidance computers. Dugan probably hadn't been that interested, once it became clear there weren't any aliens out there to fight. Not until recently, at least.
Steve stared up at the enormous space shuttle, stuck in a strange no man's land between awe and misery. This was… incredible. He wanted to share it with his friends. He wanted to share it with Bucky. But he was alone in a sea of strangers.
"Holy shit, man. I'm so jealous."
It took Steve a few seconds to realize that these words were meant for him. He turned slowly, brows already furrowed in confusion, to find…
Captain America. Standing in front of him with a grin splitting his half-covered face.
For a moment, the world stood still. Steve stared dumbly at the apparition, too stunned to even question his own sanity.
"Is that a mask?" the hallucination was saying, pointing at Steve's face. "Where'd you get it?"
It was the Captain America from the USO days. Brightly colored wool costume, none of Howard's reinforced body armor, blue ski mask with those stupid silver wings, Steve hated those wings…
"… fuck, man, did you get surgery?"
The apparition had a strong New York accent that grated on Steve's fraying nerves and reminded him of the boys who used to corner him in alleys and call him a filthy immigrant. He took a step back. Captain America laughed.
"Damn, you're a crazy son of a bitch. That's dedication right there, I gotta give you props."
The man might as well have been speaking gibberish for all Steve understood. But then he thrust his right arm forward abruptly, fist clenched and knuckles up. Even seventy years on, that could only mean one thing.
Steve's body moved on instinct; a fluid motion of furious power. He knocked the fist aside with one hand and lashed out with the other, landing a solid punch on Captain America's nose. The man dropped like a stone, and Steve immediately ruled out the hallucination theory. Hallucinations didn't bleed. Or cry.
"Fuck!" the man shouted as he curled in on himself. "Fucking fuck, what the fuck, man?!"
This… impersonator – yes, that was the word – wasn't a terribly inventive cusser. Dugan would have been supremely unimpressed.
"You broke my nose!" the man cried as blood spattered the concrete floor in front of him. "The hell's wrong with you?"
"What's going on here, gentlemen?"
A security guard in an ill-fitting uniform had arrived. He gave Steve a single, unreadable glance, then looked down at the impersonator.
"This asshole clocked me!" the angry young man spat, voice muffled by the hand he was using to stem the flow of blood from his nostrils. "I was just giving him a fist bump – "
"Hate to break it to you, kid, but I don't think Captain Rogers knows what a fist bump is."
There was a moment of excruciating silence. Steve watched the young man's eyes narrow, turn back to him, then slowly widen.
"… Captain Rogers?" he repeated, voice shaking. Steve grimaced and shifted on his feet, turning to the security guard.
"What's a fist bump?"
The man shrugged, eyes twinkling with suppressed amusement.
"It's, uh… like an informal handshake. You just…" he bumped his two fists together, "do this."
Steve blinked.
"Why?"
"Why not?" the guard replied, not even hiding his smile now. "It's what all the kids are doing these days, you'll get used to it."
That was a… surprisingly refreshing attitude. Steve was used to people explaining things to him in quiet voices, as though he was a particularly slow child. It was nice to know that at least somebody thought he was capable of adapting.
"Oh my god, Captain, I am so sorry."
The impersonator was back on his feet now, mortified and bleeding profusely. Steve winced.
"No, I – I'm sorry. I shouldn'tve…" he let out a frustrated huff. "I shouldn't have reacted that way. Are you alright?"
"Yeah!" the young man said brightly, nodding his head and showering the front of his shirt with blood. "Totally fine."
"I understand if you want to press charges," Steve said, reaching for his wallet. When Tony had given everyone on the team a stack of business cards for his personal lawyer, Steve had been confused. Then Clint headbutted a man on the subway for getting 'all up in my business' and the reasoning became clear. In a way, it was nice to know that Steve wasn't the only one who was a bit jumpy.
"No no no, not at all," the impersonator said, shaking his head. "It's fine, I was being a dick, I completely deserved it. 'Sides, not many cosplayers can say they've been punched in the face by the real Captain America. You just gave me street cred for years, man, thank you."
Steve stared blankly at the man dressed like his past self. There was that phrase again – cause players. And why was he using the name Dick like it was an insult? And what on God's green earth was street cred?
"Jesus, Dan, what happened to you?"
It seemed the impersonator – Dan – hadn't come to the museum alone. Three other young men were approaching rapidly, one jogging in front of the others. Steve almost choked.
Green fatigues, so much cleaner than they should be. A dark-skinned man wearing Jonesy's rank on his lapel, a heavy-set boy with a mustache and a bowler hat, and…
"Jimmy?"
The name was out of Steve's mouth before he could stop it. It was the same build, the same clothes, the same haircut, the same goddamn face, down to the thin beard he was always trying to grow. He was wearing a heavy radio backpack and a headset, and Steve knew he was dead, but he was there, he was right there…
Then the man turned to look at him, and the illusion was shattered. Different eyes stared out at him, the wrong shade of brown, with none of the dry amusement that always seemed to dance through Jim Morita's expressions. 'Almost sounds like you missed me,' Jimmy might have said. But the only word that left this man's mouth was –
"Huh?"
Steve stumbled backwards. He didn't know what the hell was going on, but he was done with it. He was done.
"Captain – "
He turned around and immediately slammed into someone, knocking them backwards. Reaching out instinctively, Steve grabbed them by the elbows and pulled them upright. He suddenly found himself very close to a pair of annoyed brown eyes.
"Hey, watch it!"
A petite young woman was trying to push herself out of his arms. Her brown hair was held back with pins in a style Steve knew had gone out of fashion decades ago. Her dark green uniform jacket and close-fitting skirt were achingly familiar, as was the SSR insignia on her lapel. Just a hint of eye shadow, dark red lipstick, it was even the right shade –
"Could you get your hands off me?" Peggy demanded angrily. But it wasn't Peggy. This woman was American, her face unfamiliar, her eyes containing none of the warmth he'd come to rely on. It was only when she tried to yank her elbows out of his grip that Steve realized he was holding her rather tightly against his chest.
"Sorry," he said abruptly, forcing his hands open and stumbling backwards yet again. He turned to find the other impersonators staring at him, their faces a study in shock.
"S- sorry," he stammered again, shaking his head. "I… um…"
He drew in a shaking breath, gaze darting from the Morita lookalike to the man wearing Jonesy's uniform, past the still bleeding Captain America and the boy with the bowler hat to land, once again, on the woman dressed like Peggy Carter. She, too, was now gaping at him, something that looked like horror in her eyes.
"Captain Rogers."
The security guard's voice was deep, calm, quiet. A gentle hand settled on his shoulder, but Steve flinched out from under it. His breath was now coming in ragged, desperate gasps. The world was going fuzzy at the edges, blurry at the center. He needed to get out of here.
He turned on his heel and strode away. Someone was calling his name, but he ignored it. They could dress up like his friends, but they couldn't be them. His friends were gone. He'd been to their graves. He'd met their children, their grandchildren, met a whole lot of Stevens named after a dead man who hadn't died. Who might never die.
He was walking blindly now, his cheeks wet. Great. Fucking great. Captain America, crying in public. He swiped furiously at his face and blinked the tears back with militant determination. He just needed to get out of here. Go back to his apartment, change into running clothes and hit the streets. He always felt better after a marathon or two.
He made his way back through the space exhibit, navigating by memory. He didn't realize how fast he was walking until a gaggle of school children scattered out of his way like pins in front of a bowling ball.
"Sorry," he managed to choke to their startled teacher as he sped by. He could hear footsteps following him.
"Captain Rogers, wait!"
He wished they would stop saying his name so loudly. The last thing he wanted was to make a scene.
The space exhibit was clearly designed to be a one-way experience. Steve found himself dodging one confused group after another, fighting a current of people all the way back through the dark corridors. By the time he burst out into the lobby, he was trembling from head to toe and working very hard to keep his breakfast down. He did not need to put a cherry on top of this disaster sundae by vomiting all over the floor.
"Steve?"
It took much longer than it should have for his eyes to focus on the source of his name. Clara from the ticket desk was standing in front of him, brows furrowed with obvious concern.
"Are you okay?"
No. No, he was very much not okay.
"Captain Rogers!"
Shit. They'd caught up to him. Steve didn't want to turn around, he didn't want to see them again – these bizarre, pale imitations of his dead friends…
He saw the moment Clara noticed them over his shoulder. Her green eyes went hard, her expression darkened. The phrase small but mighty leapt, unbidden and ridiculous, into Steve's head, and he was forcibly reminded of his fierce Irish mother.
"Go on," the girl said quietly, jerking her head towards the door. "I'll take care of 'em."
Steve should have reminded her that he was Captain America for God's sake, he could take care of himself, they were just a couple of harmless impersonators…
Instead, he found himself nodding curtly and all but running for freedom. He leapt over the plastic barrier that herded new arrivals toward the ticket desk, sidestepped a bemused young couple, held the door open for an old man who gaped at him as he passed, and finally – finally – escaped into the open air.
He hurried down the steps and practically jogged along the sidewalk, head down and fists clenched. He waited for a break in the traffic, then dashed across the street and onto the muddy grass of the National Mall. The Washington Monument loomed in front of him, lit up against stormy September clouds. Steve could feel the humid promise of rain pressing down on his shoulders. He gulped in the heavy air, hands shaking as he fumbled for his phone. He needed a familiar voice. He needed it. But Tony was in California; knowing him, he wasn't even up yet. Natasha was on a mission in Europe somewhere. Bruce was who knows where, Thor was on another planet, and Clint had accidentally dropped his phone off a helicarrier a few days ago.
Steve hesitated for a moment, then called the only local number he had. Putting the phone to his ear, he screwed his eyes shut and came to a halt, half hoping he wouldn't pick up.
It rang twice, then –
"Hey man. What's up?"
Sam Wilson's friendly voice should have calmed him down. Instead, Steve's chest tightened even more. This was a mistake. He'd barely known Sam a month; it wasn't fair to lay this sort of baggage at his feet.
"… you alright?"
Steve cleared his throat forcefully. It would be rude to just hang up.
"… yeah," he managed to choke out, forcing a smile into his tone and hoping it didn't make him sound hysterical. "I- I'm fine."
"… okay…" Sam did not sound convinced. "What's going on?"
"Um…"
Steve knew, intellectually, that he was breathing too fast. But knowing this and actually doing something about it were two very different things.
"Where are you?"
There was concern in Sam's voice now. Steve tried his best to assuage it.
"National Mall," he managed curtly. "I just, uh… d- do you wanna go running tomorrow?"
Sam met this non-sequitur with his usual grace.
"You bet. I'm gonna smoke you this time, though, be prepared."
There was absolutely no way Steve's strangled laugh sounded normal. He could almost hear Sam's eyebrows furrowing. He needed to hang up before things got even more awkward.
"Right, see you then."
He pulled the phone away from his ear and stabbed the end call button with a shaking finger. The phone slipped out of his clammy grasp and fell, unheeded, to the ground. His vision was tunneling. He screwed his eyes shut, pressed the heels of his hands into them, and grit his teeth.
Pull yourself together, Rogers. You're being ridiculous.
But he was fighting a losing battle with his lungs. Dimly, in the back of his mind, he recognized the sensation. Before the war, before the serum, before everything, Steve Rogers had been nothing more than a skinny, sickly kid who couldn't breathe right. His asthma not only made him unfit for military duty – it also made him unfit for factory work, for farm work, for any work that might have given him a reason to feel anything other than shame when he saw men younger than he was get their marching orders.
This wasn't asthma, though. This was what came after.
Panic.
Steve's legs were about to give out. He managed to get to one of the many benches that lined the gravel path and collapsed onto it. Bucky's voice kept ringing in his head, talking him through it like he always did.
Head between your legs, pal. That's it. Just hang out there for a bit, take it easy. Everything's going to be fine. I'm right here.
I'm right here.
A wretched sound tore its way out of Steve's throat, halfway between a sob and a scream. Bucky wasn't here. He'd never be here again. The only things Steve had left of his best friend were a few grainy photographs on the internet and an empty grave at Arlington beside his.
A distant pain in his scalp told Steve he should stop pulling at his hair. But he couldn't seem to loosen his fists. He could hear someone gasping, crying, calling for God's mercy, and he knew it was him but he couldn't stop it. His eyes were fixed on the gravel between his boots. His chest was seizing, his body was shaking, his throat was so tight it hurt.
In a way, it was a relief when the rain came. The first drop landed on the back of Steve's neck and slid lazily under the collar of his shirt. It was followed by another, then another, and another. Hurried footsteps on gravel told him that people were running for cover. He could feel his jacket soaking through, then his jeans. Water slipped through his fingers and into his hair, trickling down his forehead and dripping off the tip of his nose.
The deluge seemed to last forever. By the time it abated, it had washed the city clean of any lingering summer heat, and left Steve Rogers wrung out and exhausted on a park bench. A sudden shiver ran down his spine, shaking him out of the stupor into which he'd fallen. His wet clothes were sticking unpleasantly to his skin, and he could already feel the temperature dropping in the wake of the passing storm.
"Um… Steve?"
He blinked. There was a puddle at his feet now, slowly seeping into his leather boots. He raised his gaze slowly, finding a pair of mud-splattered sneakers in front of him. His eyes followed skinny jeans up a small frame covered by a bright yellow raincoat. Peeking out at him from under the oversized hood was –
"… Clara?"
He barely recognized the croak that came out of his mouth. The girl's lips twitched in an uncertain smile.
"Hey," she said quietly, kindly. "I was hoping you hadn't gone far."
He stared up at her, too exhausted to care that he probably looked like a drowned rat. She shifted on her feet, then reached into the folds of her jacket and pulled out a plastic bag emblazoned with the Smithsonian logo, obviously pilfered from the gift shop. She hesitated for a moment, then held it out to him.
"We, uh… we thought you should have this. I was gonna give it to you when you came out, but…"
She shrugged awkwardly and shuffled closer, still holding the bag. Steve stared at her, then glanced down at it. Her lips twitched again.
"Go on. It isn't a – a bomb or anything. I promise."
Slowly, hesitantly, he reached out and accepted it. With one last curious glance at Clara, he pulled the top open and looked down.
A thick, well-worn book with red leather binding, now cracked with age but no less familiar. Loose sheets of paper stuffed between the pages, smudged with ink and mud and blood now faded, but still vivid in his mind – as vivid as the lipstick that still stained his lips when he woke from the ice.
His sketchbook.
For a moment, he couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. Then his chest heaved and he drew in a ragged gasp, reaching down and running shaking fingers over the paper. He pulled the book out and let it fall open.
It still remembered his favorite page. Either that, or this particular sketch had been on display for years, slowly breaking the location into the book's spine. He suspected the latter, because when he glanced up, Clara wasn't looking at the fanciful drawing of all his friends celebrating the end of the war in a London pub. She was looking at him. And she was crying.
"… I'm sorry," she whispered, crossing her yellow-clad arms tightly over her chest. "I'm sorry you didn't get to see that."
Steve was too stunned for words. Clara blinked rapidly and shot a furtive glance back towards the museum.
"… and I'm sorry about the cosplayers," she sniffed, turning back to him and fixing her gaze on the ground. "The – the people in costumes, I mean. They didn't realize…"
It was Steve's turn to glance back in the direction of the museum. There was a small crowd of people gathered under a tree further down the path. He could see the red and white stripes of the USO costume, the dark green of an SSR uniform, the huge radio backpack…
"They didn't mean to upset you," Clara said firmly. "It's just a – a thing that people do now. You guys were pretty amazing, and… " she shrugged, "this is their way of paying respect."
Steve didn't know how to respond to that. He turned back to Clara, mouth open, but the sound of crunching gravel saved him from the necessity of speech. Someone was running – no, sprinting – towards them.
A tall, muscular man skidded around the corner, thoroughly soaked and breathing heavily. He scanned his surroundings with frantic brown eyes, visibly deflating when his gaze finally landed on Steve.
"Shit, man," Sam exclaimed, tone caught between relief and exasperation. "Don't call a brother up sounding like you're 'bout to jump off a damn bridge, then turn off your phone. You trying to give me a heart attack?"
His words were met with shocked silence. Steve and Clara were both gaping at him. He glanced between them, then raised an eyebrow.
"What?"
His shoes were covered in mud and his Army t-shirt was plastered to his frame. It looked like he'd sprinted the entire length of the National Mall in the pouring rain. Shame flooded through Steve's body, hot and unpleasant.
Good job, Rogers. Now he thinks you're a suicide risk.
"I- I'm… I'm sorry, Sam," he managed to stammer, shaking his head and closing his sketchbook. "I didn't mean to scare you."
"Are you alright?" the ex-paratrooper asked, shrewd gaze darting between the sketchbook, Clara, and the cosplayers in the distance. Steve tried to force a smile.
"I'm fine."
Neither Sam nor Clara looked convinced by this statement. It was time to cut his losses.
"Thank you," he said to the girl, nodding at his sketchbook as he put it back in the plastic bag. "I really appreciate this. And, uh…" he stood up and edged his way around the bench, backing up onto the grass, "Sam, I'll, uh… I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"
"Steve."
There was a steely note in Sam Wilson's voice. He was examining Steve closely, probably noting the soggy clothes and red-rimmed eyes.
"You don't have to be fine. You know that, right?"
For a moment, the two men stared at each other. Then Steve nodded and turned his gaze to the ground, blinking rapidly.
"Yeah, I – I know."
"I'm glad you called me."
Steve screwed his eyes shut and shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.
"No, Sam, I… I don't wanna bother you with my problems."
"You're not bothering me."
It was said with such firm conviction that Steve couldn't help but believe it. He looked up. Sam's arms were crossed, his expression concerned.
"Why would you ever think that, Steve?" he asked quietly. "I know what you're… well. I don't know everything you're going through, but I know some of it. It's not the sort of shit you wanna go through alone. But you don't have to. Okay? You don't have to. I'm right here."
Steve's world was going blurry again. He blinked furiously, but there was no stopping it. He ducked his head and swiped at his eyes. Some superhero he was.
Footsteps approached, and a large hand settled on the back of his neck. Sam was nearly his height, and his arm felt solid and warm around Steve's shoulders. He shook the super soldier gently.
"Come on, man. Let's get a beer. You can show me your sketches and tell me how Fake Cap over there got two black eyes."
Despite the tears running down his cheeks, Steve found himself snorting with laughter.
"… he tried to give me a fist bump."
It was Sam's turn to snort, head falling forward onto his chest as he shook with quiet laughter. Steve looked up at him and slowly, hesitantly, allowed himself to smile.
"… that's amazing," Sam gasped, still snickering as he raised his head again. "How'd he react?"
"He thanked me!" Steve laughed, and suddenly he could appreciate all the humor of the situation. "It was so strange. He called himself Dick, and then he said I gave him street cred, whatever that means, and… Honestly, this century feels like a language I'm never gonna learn."
Sam grinned.
"Well, that is something I can definitely help with. Come on," he jerked his head towards the center of town. "Best way to learn a language is to drink with a native."
Steve hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
"Okay," he said quietly, smiling. "Yeah, that sounds good."
Remembering they had an audience, they both turned to Clara. She was watching their interaction closely, eyes sparkling and a smile playing at the corners of her lips.
"It was nice to meet you, Captain," she said, nodding to him. Steve felt his cheeks heat up again.
"Please, just – call me Steve."
Her smile widened.
"Alright, Steve. I hope we see you again at the museum. We have a lot more NASA stuff in the storerooms, I'd be happy to show you around."
"U- um… yeah, that – that'd be great," he stammered, voice suddenly half an octave higher than it normally was. Beside him, Sam valiantly tried to cover up a chuckle by clearing his throat. Casting around for a change of subject, Steve finally remembered the cosplayers who were still hovering in the distance.
"Clara, can you…" he cast a meaningful glance in their direction, "… can you tell them I'm sorry?"
She followed his gaze, then turned back, brows furrowed.
"Sure, but… you don't owe them an apology."
Steve grimaced.
"I think I might've… scared 'em, I dunno. I wasn't really thinking straight."
"You didn't scare them, Steve. They were just worried about you. I was, too, to be honest. You looked…" she hesitated, then shrugged, "… like you'd seen a ghost."
The words sobered him. Sam tightened his grip on the back of his neck.
"I did," Steve said firmly. "But I'm okay now. Can you tell them that?"
She examined him for a moment, green eyes searching his. Then she nodded.
"Of course."
"Thank you."
He shot her one last grateful smile. Then he allowed Sam to guide him away, arm still around his shoulders. They wandered across the grass and out onto the sidewalk before the ex-paratrooper finally spoke.
"So… Clara, huh?"
Steve let out a bark of surprised laughter, cheeks burning yet again. He turned to find Sam grinning at him.
"'Oh Steve!'" he sighed in a high-pitched voice. "'Let me show you my NASA stuff!'"
"Aw, come on, man!" Steve laughed, ducking out from under Sam's arm and shoving him playfully. "I told you I don't know how to talk to women."
"Hey, she seemed to like that bashful teddy bear thing you've got goin' on," the other man chuckled.
"Well that's good, cause that's basically all I got."
There was a moment of contemplative silence as they made their way down the sidewalk. Steve looked over to find Sam smiling at him.
"… what?"
"You're nothing like what I expected."
Steve blinked.
"Um… is that a good thing?"
"Yeah, man. That's a good thing."
Steve's smile grew to match his new friend's.
"Did you really run all over this place looking for me?"
"Yes, I did. In the rain. First round's on you, Rogers."
Steve laughed.
"Fair warning, I can't get drunk."
"Oh, that sounds like a challenge."