"I don't even know which one of them to be more furious at!" Tony snaps, throwing a screwdriver with too much force. It smashes against the concrete wall of the lab and the handle shatters, sending plastic shards in every direction.

Bruce looks up, startled at the outburst but stays silent. It had taken very little investigation to figure out the device. It was a brain monitor with an audio wire that would send increasingly debilitating shocks into Steve's brain and down his spinal column anytime the word 'safe' was spoken audibly. Something else in the device, the part that was made at SI had been being used to trip the part of Steve's brain that controlled memories. So they weren't sure what Steve was going to wake up or what he would remember.

After the group had been told and they'd each had their own appropriate meltdown, they'd done extensive full body scans on Steve's unconscious form. When he started to regain consciousness they upped the dose of drugs he was on to keep him under and continued their inch by inch search to make sure he was free from any other sort of device.

Once they were triple sure he was clean, they weaned him off and set him up back in his room in the tower. Bucky was there now with Natasha, hoping to be there when he wakes up, to see if he still remembered his revelation.

"He'll make it through this." Bruce says quietly.

"After everything he's been through in the last few months? It's a wonder he hasn't gone totally psycho." Clint deadpans.

"He is not going to go psycho." Tony growls, "I refuse to let this change our resident optimistic grandpa into another untrusting, jaded robot."

Clint and Bruce eye each other, eyebrows communicating while Tony focuses on the hologram in front of him.

—-

A text comes through:

He's waking up

The lab door swings close as they run out and up to his floor.

—

He's irritable when he comes to.

"Hey, Steve." Natasha says softly when she sees him blinking into consciousness.

He glares at her. His blue eyes piercing at each one of them ashe meets their gazes.

"How you feeling?"

"Like shit." He snaps. Rubbing at his eyes and still glaring at them.

It's funny. Or at least, it would be if this were a normal day and Steve Rogers was just grumpy. But this is: captured for almost a month, shocked, tortured, unwillingly mentally manipulated, starved, dehydrated, and drowned Steve Rogers. So it isn't funny at all.

"That's fair." Clint says. "Can we get you anything?"

"You can get out of my sight." He deadpans.

"Steve." Bucky admonishes.

"James."

"Oh, that's how it is?" Bucky says with mock affront, trying to lighten the mood, which is almost comical seeing as he's radiating the most tension out of all of them.

"It's okay to feel terrible," Bruce tries, "you've been through a lot."

"Thanks for your permission." Steve monotones, glaring at the doctor and then turning towards Tony, "what are you doing here? Don't you have some whiskey to drown yourself in?" Before Tony's eyes have even finished widening, he turns on Natasha, "What's with the sad face little spider? We both know the Red Room burned emotion out of you ages ago."

It's another one of those damn moments where absolutely no one can think of anything to say. But this time it's out of shock at the vitriol in Steve's tone.

Steve then turns to Bucky. "What are you even doing here? You're the one who told me I should quit the team, that you never wanted to see me again."

"What?" Bucky chokes, "Steve, I never said that, you've been unconscious for—"

Steve cuts him off with a wave of his hand. "Okay, you guys can go now."

"Go?"

"Yeah, the whole team pretending I've been asleep for another chunk of years? It's getting old. I'm not falling for that prank anymore." He sighs and his face is so angry and hurt that it takes Natasha's breath away. "I know I'm a joke to you. You've all made that abundantly clear to me." The nature of his comment throws them for such a loop that they stand still, unmoving and unspeaking long enough for Steve to sit up and stretch.

"I'll move my stuff out tomorrow." Steve says, he shifts and then groans. He pulls off the sheets and reveals his cast. "This happen after I got hit on the mission?"

"I broke it." Bruce whispers, "don't you remember?"

Steve furrows his brow, glaring at them, and then scoffing, "Okay, wow, that's a good one. You got me." He scoots towards the edge of the bed, sending his legs over, wincing at the motion but refusing to stop. He stands up, leaning with his hand on the head board. "Seriously, guys. I'm sorry I screwed up the mission, what else is new. I told Fury I was quitting after this last one. No need for you guys to try to talk me into quitting, I already did." He takes a step and stumbles. Clint steps forward, catching his arm and steadying him. Steve yanks his hand out of his grasp. "What the hell is going on with you guys right now? You spend the last 4 years berating me for whatever can possibly come to mind, and when I finally decide to quit the team you come here to pretend you care? Or— wait… am I on camera right now?" He glances around and his eyes settle on the tiny camera in the corner that FRIDAY only uses for security and emergencies. "I see, another video prank, Tony? Wasn't my humiliation on the last one enough?" He hobbles to the bathroom door, almost making it before tumbling to his knees, his cast groaning under the motion.

"Steve!" Both Bucky and Natasha shout, lurching forward and trying to help him. He flinches away from them and scoots until his back is against the wall. Pain is written across his face and he shifts his casted leg to a better angle.

"Can't wait to see that headline 'Captain America hobbles and falls to the bathroom'. It'll be a riot."

Tony is quickly losing patience. "Steve, this isn't— I don't know what Zemo or Beck have done but—"

"Beck? Zemo?" Steve shouts, "Don't you dare say anything about them. They've been the only ones who've been there for me, the only ones who haven't been making fun of me for the past 4 years."

Bruce is trembling. His hands fading to green and back.

"Get out of here." Natasha hisses. "Go take a walk."

Bruce bolts from the room and the rest stare at Steve like he's an alien.

"Okay," Natasha tries, softening her tone and holding her hands up in surrender. "Let's pretend I don't understand what you're saying. You're telling me, that for the last 4 years, you've been on the Avengers, and we have… been less than accommodating?"

The timeline kind of fits, but she needs to understand just what Steve believes.

"What is this some form of a prank? Group amnesia? You don't remember-" he stabs at Tony, "telling me that everything special about me came out of a bottle?" He turns to Clint, "you make fun of me for not knowing any pop-culture references as if that's my fault, as if I asked to sleep in freakin' ice for 70 years. And you," he looks at Natasha, "you always calling me old, or fossil, or shocking me when you know I hate it."

"What about me?" Bucky asks, his face contorted. "What have I done?"

Steve looks at him. Something like confusion flashes across his features, "you—" he screws his palms into his eyes and then huffs loudly, "you kept running away. I tried to find you, you blamed me for the train and for Zola and the arm, and I get it, that's my fault, but you told me you never wanted to see me again. So I'm really confused why you're here."

Bucky turns to Tony, "it's like he took minor moments, the worst moments, and made that to be his whole experience. Except how? He wasn't acting like this before the brain surgery."

"Excuse me?" Steve grumbles, "He is right here, and he can hear you. What brain surgery?"

"The device. It has to be. I'm going to go join Bruce." Tony bolts, his face pinched, hands in his pockets.

"See." Steve says, a humorless smirk on his face. "Can't even be around me for more than 10 minutes."

"And what have you done to deserve our hate?" She asks, sitting cross legged in front of Steve. He stares at her. "Have you been a terrible teammate, or Captain?"

Steve doesn't answer.

"Have you screwed up the missions we've gone on?" When he doesn't speak she continues, "have you gotten more people killed than we have? You've made fun of us, or been vile to the public?"

"See, Steve?" Bucky jumps in when his friend still sits there quietly. "You can't remember because it's not real."

His face turns into a pout, but there's a downtrodden expression that is real, "I don't really know what I did, you guys just hated me straight away."

Clint finally steps closer, resting on his heels. "Bucky?"

"Yeah?"

"Maybe you were right about the chair. He can't… we can't—" Clint looks at Steve, "if we knew something was wrong, and we told you we knew how to fix it, would you trust us?"

Confusion is the dominant expression on Steve's face. "Not really."

"We're going." Natasha's voice is raw as she speaks, her eyes dark and expression guarded. "Clint get the Quinjet ready, set it for Montana."

"Natasha—"

"Bucky, I know. You wanted him to have a choice. But he can't make a choice. Not a real one. You know I'm right."

"I—"

"What else?" She snaps, lifting herself off the ground and placing her hand son her hips, daring anyone to argue with her. "This is real. His reality isn't real. He can't make any willing decisions anyways!" Her voice is raising, "what would you like to do, Barnes? Let him live his life thinking this way? Or what is the other ones come back? Hell, what if they're still there?"

"This is the weirdest prank by far." Steve says, adjusting his leg again and going back to ignoring them.

"How could he have done this?" Clint asks, jaw clenched.

"Steve, when you were captured in the mountains back in '43, and the guy was shocking you and he asked you if you wanted to switch places with Bucky, what did you do?"

"Natasha!" Bucky shouts.

"No, Barnes. We need to know. Which Steve we have." She turns back to Steve and raises an eyebrow, "So did you switch places with Barnes?"

Steve's face crumples, "how do you even know about that?"

Bucky sucks in a breath. "So you think you did?"

"What do you mean 'think I did'? I know I did."

Bucky's about to speak but Natasha cuts him off.

"And the alley, when you were 19, with the drunk man, did you get away?" Her voice is brittle, hoping for Steve's sake that he has the correct memory.

But the absolute terror in Steve's eyes, and the color draining from his face tells her that he still has every manipulated memory.

"We're taking him." She snaps, stalking out of the room.

Steve just sits there, dumbfounded.

—

Steve lays unconscious on the table in the middle of the jet. They'd had to sedate him after he refused to come willingly, and now they sat in deathly silence.

The Quinjet descends on the same field and they haul Steve towards the facility. Each feeling more sick with each step that leads them closer to the place of his torture.

—

They strap him down in the chair. And it's a sick and twisted sort of irony as they place the restraints over his arms and face.

"This is what hell must be like." Clint mumbles.

"Are we sure about this?" Bruce asks for the one thousandth time.

"You said the device has a fail safe."

"Yeah."

"You were the one who said that when we removed it, it activated one last memory manipulation."

"Yeah…"

"A memory where Steve lives in a world where we all hate him and we've convinced him to quit the team. Where Bucky has told him to disappear. Where he's been the failure of—"

"Okay, OKAY." Bruce growls. "I get it."

Natasha looks sick to her stomach as she powers up the machine.

—

Bucky takes over after everything is powered up and ready. He looks at the controls, familiar and terrifying all at once.

"If the basic designs haven't been erased, then I think I can get a full wipe, and hopefully not erase any of his base knowledge."

They look at him strangely.

He grimaces. "At first it was complicated when I stopped knowing how to do basic functions, like shower, eat, or tie my shoes, so they worked on erasing memories, but leaving motor memory alone. After a while, I was so well trained that they made me learn how the machine worked so I could use it on myself after missions." He looks up to find pained expressions staring back at him. "Sorry." He mumbles, "Too much information, I know."

He clicks through the computer and selects certain parameters, adjusts nozzles and types in commands. His hand hovers over the start button and he turns to them. "When this is done, we need to go back to the compound and get him in the memory machine as soon as possible. When my memory was wiped the first few times, especially with the serum, my memories would come back within days, and they'd have to start over. Eventually my brain stopped trying to remember because it meant pain, it meant another round in the machine. But Steve's brain will try to fill in the gaps as quickly as possible. So we need to get him in there and start feeding his brain real memories. They nod.

He looks back at Steve, unconscious, lying with his head back and face calm. "Sorry Stevie," he whispers before bringing his hand down on the start button.

Steve's body jolts under the electricity currents and his back arches, he lets out a groan that turns into a gasp.

"Stop!" Bruce calls, his face unreadable.

"We can't" Bucky rasps. "It has to finish."

—

The flight back is as silent as the flight there.

—

They roll a medical bed into the memory room in the compound and hook Steve up to the machine. They all take a seat and adjust their own headsets.

"You're sure this will work?" Tony asks.

"We'll find out." Bucky responds, sitting his chair next to the side of Steve's bed.

"What do we show him?" Clint asks, pacing back and forth, twiddling a straw in between his fingers.

"Right now, the necessities, and the good stuff. Okay?"

No one argues with her.

—

Bucky takes over first. Showing any happy memory of Steve and his ma, of Steve and Bucky playing during recess. Some they've seen before and others are new. Most of the memories are simple. Just pieces of their lives as kids. Meals at the Barnes', school days, learning to ride the neighbor kid's bike. Bucky shows Steve drawing, painting, sketching, anything to do with art. He shows them at Christmas time and Thanksgiving. While he doesn't show Steve with his ma's body in the hospital, he does show Steve them together at the funeral.

"I don't want him waking up thinking she's alive.." he whispers, not letting the memories stop.

—-

It's hours before they take a break. They hook Steve up to an IV and monitoring equipment. They all bring in cushions or mattresses and they sleep in the room. Whoever is on watch duty takes up the task of keeping the memories going.

Natasha takes first watch.

She shows Steve moments from her childhood that she'd described to him but never shown. The happy moments. Ballet, a true love of her life, then finding her way back to America, meeting Clint, fighting for SHIELD, working for Nick Fury and fighting alongside him. She made sure to show him any memory she had of him in action. She wanted to make sure he still knew how to fight, to defend himself. She shows him the hours they've spent playing chess, the movie nights, the massive food orders. She even includes recent memories like his tasting games and the hearing elevator game.

When she can't keep her eyes open anymore she taps on Bruce and passes the watch.

—

He shows Steve his past. Hoping from country to country, learning new languages and meeting many new and wonderful people. He shares working on his multiple phD's and all of his favorite foods that he tried all over the world. He shares the memory of transforming into the hulk which makes Steve's breath hitch, but when he doesn't wake up, Bruce continues.

Then he shows them fighting together in the Battle of New York. Everytime Steve took down a Chitauri, or guided someone to safety, even their exchange about "that's my secret Cap, I'm always angry'."

It's past dawn when he wakes Clint.

—-

Clint is more at a loss of what to show. He has very few happy moments from his childhood and he runs out of those in less than an hour. So, he resorts to what he knows. He shows in depth his training to become Hawkeye. Every detail he can remember on his way to becoming the world's greatest archer. That takes significantly longer and after he's shown what he can, he moves on to the Battle of Sokovia. He remembers Cap fighting robots and tearing them to pieces with his bare hands, smashing them with the shield and making jokes with Thor.

Barton doesn't shy away from what happened to Pietro, but he wraps it up in the pride they both felt as Wanda's decision to join them.

He shares their food feasts with Thor and their small pranks around the Tower. He remembers that Steve took him around Brooklyn a few times just showing him where he used to live.

It's difficult to think of things that are wholly untouched by some sadness, or connection to something traumatic, especially during battles, but Clint does his best.

He finally taps out around 10am, Tony wakes with a start, but then grumbles about being too old to sleep on couch cushions.

—-

It's been 20 minutes since Clint has knocked out, and Tony still hasn't shown anything. He sits there, looking at Steve, who looks like a young twenty something just sleeping, without a care in the world. His expression is soft and at peace and it's such a rare sight that Tony has a hard time looking away, too worried it will disappear.

"Seems like everytime we've gotten you back, something bad has happened." He whispers. "What's it going to be this time?"

The room gives no response and he huffs at his own pessimism.

He shows his childhood. The good and the bad. His dad being proud of some of his accomplishments and drunk and neglectful at other times. He shows Steve his dad's Captain America collection and his days in the cave in Afghanistan. He switches between being taken to ice cream by Jarvis, and being kicked around on their missions. He tries to keep it light, always including the quips banter that flows from his mouth constantly. He shows their countless successful runs as a team and the few that they didn't do so well. He shows Pepper. How they met, how she saved him from his own demons and still does. He includes Happy and Peter and Rhodey. How each of them made him a better man than he could have hoped to be on his own… and that's where he hesitates. Because Steve belongs in that category too.

He shows their initial bickering that morphed into true friendship. He shows them arguing over technology needs and suit designs. Playing cards or going out on Avenger's press conferences. He shows Steve in action. Leading them as a team and holding himself to the highest of standards as their leader, the way he knows their potential and skills and maximizes it for the mission.

"Friday?"

"Yes, boss." The AI speaks softly.

"Is there a way to access footage and feed it through to Cap?"

"I believe so. Let me access the mainframe."

She does so. "What would you like me to show, boss?"

"Any footage we have of Steve just living. Nothing too personal. Just happy moments."

She shows him sitting in the common room drinking coffee and reading a book. Cooking a huge meal in the kitchen that he offers to everybody. Him vacuuming the hallway on his floor even though Tony has told him multiple times he has people for that. Him sitting next to the glass windows and watching the rain. The Avengers laughing as a group on the couch which Tony notices has only happened a few times. That needs to change.

She shows Steve working out in the gym and going down to the loading docks where he helps the crews offload equipment and other supplies.

Tony's mouth gapes, he didn't know Steve did that.

"Friday?"

"Yes, boss?"

His voice is a whisper when he speaks again, "can you show any moment where Steve makes coffee for me?"

She doesn't respond, just pulls up the footage. Clip after clip of Steve padding slowly towards the kitchen, sometimes wide awake, other times scrubbing at tired eyes. He works quickly and efficiently. Tony watches that he makes decaf sometimes, when it's really early in the morning, probably an attempt to get Tony to sleep.

There's a few times where Steve isn't fast enough to vacate the kitchen before Tony arrives, sometimes with his face glued to a tablet or fidgeting with something in his hands. These moments he watches as Steve's head perks up before the elevator actually arrives, hearing it coming and seeing him panic. He rushes, asking sure its set before ducking behind the pantry door, or racing to the attached common room and hiding behind the sofa. Tony doesn't know whether to laugh or cry at Steve, huge and bulking as he is, hiding behind the far arm of the couch.

Except Tony never notices, never sees him. Just goes about his way, drinking coffee and leaving minutes later. Steve always peels himself out of the hiding place and cleans up after Tony. Wiping the counter if there's a splash, throwing away the grounds, putting away the creamer or sugar if Tony used any.

Then he slips quietly out and back to his floor.

"Thanks, Friday." He rasps.

"Anytime, boss."

He blinks out of the memory to see Natasha and Bucky awake and watching the memories with him.

"Makes me wonder what other stunts he's pulled that we don't know about." She thinks aloud.

—

Bucky takes over again, showing missions with the commandos, his few sweet moments with Peggy during their missions. He shows their team camaraderie, and their trust in him as their captain. He shows Steve rescuing him from Azzano and whatever he can remember second hand from Steve showing Project Rebirth. He does include Erskine's death, and his trip on the Valkyrie. He doesn't want to, but things need to make sense for Steve. He needs to know why he has two sets of memories from different times.

Which is why he ever so carefully starts to show what happened to himself. He shows the fall on the train, his capture, a bit of the brainwashing, but then switches to modern day, when he and Steve meet and fight on the causeway and on the Insight carrier. Then he shows himself dragging Steve out of the water and making sure he's alive before leaving. He skips around only showing what's necessary to get to the part where he joins them in the compound.

He's happy to show the good days they've had since he came home with Steve. The games, the movies, the night they realized how much Steve missed being snuggled against and they bombarded him in his bed. The walks in Central Park and the times they sparred in the gym.

It's almost 6pm the next day when they've each exhausted all the memories they can think of that Steve needs to see. They have a lot more he'll have to watch eventually, but the agreement to keep it as happy as possible has stuck.

"When should he wake up?" Clint asks with a mouthful of breadstick.

"Anytime." Bruce says, taking Steve's pulse. "He's off the sedative and seems in perfect health. His leg bone is sealed back together, but the cast should probably stay on for the next few days."

"So now we wait." Tony grumbles.

"Now we wait." Natasha confirms.

—

It takes until 3 am for Steve to stir. The lights are dimmed low and everyone but Clint is asleep.

He's staring at a game on his phone, trying to stay awake when he hears a contented sigh. He glances up, expecting on of the others to have woken up when he sees Steve shifting in his bed. He freezes as Steve's eyes blink slowly open. His leg jerks out, kicking the warm body that's lying close to his chair.

A 'hmph' sounds and he kicks at it again.

Tony's low and sleepy voice growls, "Barton, I swear—"

"He's waking up," Clint hisses, watching as Steve continues to blink himself awake and give a big yawn.

Tony sits up, smashing his head against the side of the chair.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow." He seethes, rubbing at the side of his skull.

"Tony?" A voice they haven't heard in more than 48 hours speaks. "Tony, you okay?"

Bucky is awake in an instant. The voice of his friend like an alarm to his brain. He nudges Natasha who shoves Bruce. Within 30 seconds, all 5 of them are staring at Steve who sits there, in his bed, rubbing at his eyes and scratching at the back of his neck. He looks down at the med bed he's on and then around the room, his brows furrow in confusion. "I don't remember how I got here," he says a bit sheepishly. He looks up at each of them and smiles, a soft, and trusting smile across his face that none of them have ever seen before. It's genuine and easy going. He stares at the surprise on their faces and chuckles. A real laugh bubbling out of his throat.

"Geez, by the looks on your faces it must have been some mission." Steve says with a wry smile. "I don't remember anything, what happened?"

—-