Steve was exhausted when they returned to the Tower, but he wasn't at all surprised to watch Tony make a beeline for the elevator and, most probably, the workshop.

He also wasn't terribly surprised to find Bucky waiting outside his bedroom.

Bucky gave him a long once-over, and said, "Went that well, huh?"

"Not right now, Buck—"

"Duo didn't come back with you," he said, then added, "Neither did Sam."

That made Steve turn to look at him. They haven't talked a lot about Duo since he came to the Tower, but he was almost certain that the last time they talked about him, Bucky had called him "Maxwell."

He opened his door and went in, then pointedly held it open, waiting for Bucky to follow. There was a bare hesitation, but Bucky followed, and he looked antsy.

Steve shoved that aside, stripping off all the weapons and protective pieces first and foremost. He didn't carry as many weapons as Natasha or Clint or even Sam might, but he did carry a few in case of emergencies. It paid to be prepared.

"Sam's in the hospital," he began, then wandered to the bathroom.

"Is he okay?" Bucky demanded, not hesitating to follow him.

"The doctors think he'll be fine," he said.

"But you're back?"

"Hill told us we weren't allowed to stay in China." He pulled off his shirt with a little more force than strictly necessary because that still pissed him off.

"And since when does someone telling you that you can't be somewhere ever stop you?" Bucky asked.

Steve closed his eyes and sighed. "Since we're already on probation. Everything Tony's done for us so far would be ruined." A fact that Hill had informed them of in no uncertain terms. Tony didn't even like Sam that much, and he wasn't any happier with being forced to leave him than Steve had been. "Spider-Man needed to get home too," he added as an afterthought.

Bucky looked away from him as he finished stripping down, tossing the filthy clothing over the tub to be dealt with after he scrubbed the sweat and dirt of the mission from him. The shower started automatically. Steve knew it would be the perfect temperature and pressure before he stepped in, and even though he knew it was FRIDAY keeping tabs on him, not Tony, it grated.

"So what happened? News says there was a Gundam sighted in the park you guys went to."

Stepping into the shower, knowing it wasn't going to make Bucky go away, not with the unanswered questions, Steve let the water wash over him, wishing it could wash the stress away with it. "It was a Gundam," he said. He didn't bother to pitch his voice to carry over the shower; Bucky would be able to hear him just fine.

"Okay…" Bucky drawled the word out as if it had multiple syllables. "That still doesn't explain why Duo's not with you."

"He was allowed to stay in China."

"But you weren't?"

"Duo's a Preventer, not an Avenger. He's the liaison, officially. Apparently the Chinese government likes Preventers a lot more than it likes Avengers." It was grating that exactly these kinds of border-protecting and politic-playing were the kinds of things Steve was worried about when he first refused to sign the Accords. It wasn't right that people told the Avengers when they could or couldn't help people. Governments shouldn't be the ones making those decisions. He didn't like to see his concerns being played out. He grabbed his shampoo and began to scrub it through his hair.

"So Duo stayed with Sam?"

"No," Steve said. "Since when are you so curious about Duo?" he asked, irritated at having something else unexpected being thrown at him.

It took Bucky long enough to answer that Steve almost asked again before he finally said, "We've been sparring, a bit." The answer was reluctant and cagey, and Steve was pretty sure he didn't want to know why Duo made Bucky act cagey. He may not want to know, but he could only imagine how much Tony would lose his shit if he knew that Bucky had spent time alone with Duo, sparring of all things.

"Buck…" he said, sighing, feeling every one of his ninety-plus years emotionally even if he didn't physically.

"It's… nothing," Bucky said, defensive. Which meant it was definitely something.

Steve didn't think it was his place to tell Bucky that Duo was a Gundam pilot, even though he suspected that Duo would tell the rest of the Avengers when he got back.

If he came back.

He turned his face into the spray to avoid saying anything for a few minutes, to let the urge to spill a secret of Duo's pass. After a few moments, he pulled his face out and wiped the water away, reaching for the body wash. "I don't want to know what you're doing with Duo," Steve said, and he actually meant it. "But you should know that if you touch him, Tony's going to—"

"Go completely apeshit?" Bucky asked, wry and amused, which made the tightness in Steve's chest loosen a little. "Yeah, I'm well aware of how much I owe Stark. I wouldn't do anything without talking to him first."

Which meant he was thinking of doing something. That was not a complication Steve needed right that moment. "Please just… don't," he asked after a moment, scrubbing his skin harder than strictly required.

The air between them got heavy. Bucky said, "I… wasn't really planning on it." He got the sense that Bucky was giving him a hard look, but he didn't turn to verify. "What aren't you telling me about him? How was he on the mission?"

"Assignment," Steve corrected automatically.

"What-the fuck-ever. Duo didn't just stay because he's a Preventer, did he?"

Steve rinsed his washcloth as the shower did an almost too-good job of rinsing his body off. "It's… not my place to say."

The shower running was almost painfully loud in the silence hanging between them.

"Is Duo okay?" Bucky finally asks.

He didn't mean to snort, but he did. "He's fine," he assured.

"He wasn't a liability, was he?"

Most definitely not. "No."

"Then what aren't you fucking telling me, Rogers?"

Ducking his head under the shower to give a final rinse, Steve turned off the shower. When he opened the door, a towel slapped him in the chest. He caught it and unfolded it to dry his face, running it over his hair before he wrapped it around his waist, finally meeting Bucky's eyes.

"It's not my place to share," he said.

"Is he okay?"

There was real concern in his eyes. Steve wondered exactly how much time Bucky had been spending with Duo to be this worried about him. "Yeah, he should be fine. I don't think he had a scratch on him."

A bit of tension went out of Bucky's shoulders. "Know anything more solid about Sam?"

Steve shook his head. "I'd tell you if I knew. I just know that a Preventer doctor was seeing to him, and she assured us that he would be fine."

The exact words Dr. Po had used were If his head is half as hard as Maxwell or Chang's, he'll be just fine. Now let me do my job and stop trying to give the Chinese authorities coronaries by refusing to leave when they asked.

He grabbed his dirty uniform, brushed past Bucky, going to his closet to drop the uniform in the laundry and pull out clean clothes.

"Something happened," Bucky said, his voice almost accusatory.

"Just… learned a few things," Steve replied with a sigh, drying off quickly before pulling on clean boxers, followed by a pair of soft sweatpants.

"Things that aren't your place to share," Bucky repeated, clearly annoyed. "As cagey as you're acting, you'd think Duo was a fucking Gundam pilot or something."

Steve froze in the middle of pulling a T-shirt on for a moment, then finished the motion, staying.

"Steve?" Bucky asked, sounding unnerved. "Secrets have kind of gotten you into a whole world of trouble lately. You sure you want to be keeping more?"

"It's not my place," Steve replied, which they both knew was his answer. He'd messed up with Tony, but those were his secrets; this wasn't.

"Fuck," Bucky said after a moment, sounding disappointed.

Steve thought that summed it up quite well.

Sam woke up feeling like a truck hit him. "Did someone get the license plate?" he asked the nurse.

She turned toward him, a pretty blonde woman with her hair in twists. Her eyes made him think Asian in their shape, though they were a soft blue. She gave him a wry smile.

"Decided to join us again, Staff Sergeant?" she asked.

"Retired," he reminded. "And I guess? I'm not sure I made the right decision."

Humming as if that were to be expected, she sat down beside him from whatever she had been doing and shined a light in his eyes.

"Hey! Warn a guy," Sam says.

"You have quite an impressive concussion. You've been unconscious for almost two days. We were getting worried," she replied, ignoring his protest. "Care to explain to me why you're flying around out there, high speed, with no helmet?"

Sam blinked at her, feeling stupid. "If I fall, I don't think a helmet's going to make much of a difference," he told her.

She hummed again, but he got the impression she disagreed. "I see someone else went to the Gundam School of Subtle Self-Destructive Tendencies."

"Gundam School…?" Sam asked, feeling off-kilter until he remembered Duo's revelation in the Quinjet that he was a Gundam pilot. "How do you—?"

"Calm down, Mr. Wilson." She put a hand on his chest and pushed him back before he could really sit up. He went with the motion because trying to sit up made him very aware of exactly how much everything hurt. "I'm a friend. My call sign is Water, but mostly I go by Sally Po these days."

The name tickled at the back of his mind. "The second-in-command of Preventers?" he asked.

She smiled. "Got it in one, so it looks like the brain is still pretty much intact."

He blinked at her. "Why are you here?"

"I happened to be in the area visiting some family. I'm your doctor because you're an Avenger, China is still not happy that the Accords aren't signed, and Preventers are playing referee between Avengers and the rest of the world right now. For the sake of everyone playing nice, it's better if you're under official Preventer care," she explained.

His head felt like it would like very much to fall off his shoulders, and Sam isn't sure he'd be sad if it did, so the information took a moment to parse. "You're a doctor?"

"I am," she informed with another grin and laughing eyes.

"Like a real doctor?"

"I'm going to attribute that question to the concussion."

He winced and said, "Sorry."

"Yes, well, concussion aside, you are a very, very lucky birdie."

"Birdie?" Sam was getting tired of parroting her. "A Falcon is not a birdie."

"It's a bird, it's a birdie, ergo, you are a birdie. And you're still very lucky all you got is a lot of bruises and a nasty concussion considering it sounds like you were swatted like a bug by a mobile suit." She sighed. "You live with Tony Stark. Ask him to build you a helmet to protect that cranium of yours."

"I may live with him, but I wouldn't call us friends," Sam admitted.

"Then I'll have Duo ask."

"I'm sorry," Sam began, his head still whirling and hurting, "you know Duo? Duo Maxwell?"

"Reyes-Maxwell these days," she corrected, though she didn't sound particularly happy about it. "And yes, Duo is a good friend."

"I don't think he'd like to ask Stark for favors," Sam said.

She shrugged. "Not for himself, no. For a friend, he might."

Rubbing at his eyes, feeling every muscle in his arms and back ache at the movement, he asked, "Know him that well, do you?"

When he looked up again, she was giving him a shrewd look that reminded him of Agent Hill a little too much. "I said he was a good friend. If he's going to stick around Stark and the Avengers, we'll probably get to know one another better."

"So you know he's… a…" He trailed off, thinking that despite her earlier mention of Gundam that he shouldn't have opened the topic.

"I know what he is," she said softly. "Which is why I commented on the habitual lack of concern for your own well-being that you seem to share with them."

A knock sounded at the door, and Duo stuck his head in. "How is—oh, hey. I see our birdie is finally awake."

"You too?" Sam complained as Duo slipped in and closed the door behind him, a bag slung over his shoulder.

"Where do you think I got it from?" Po asked as an aside before refocusing her attention on Duo. "You look like something the cat dragged in," she told him, but she leaned in to give him a hug regardless. Duo did look pretty filthy, sweaty and rundown in general.

"Yeah, well, your lovely fiancé at least took my warning to find a better place to hide his toys to heart. I just didn't expect a two-day romp through Asian jungles to get back here," he replied. "He went back to your hotel room to clean up before coming by, in case you're wondering."

"That's because he is smart. I think I'd have preferred you swung by and made use of those facilities as well."

Duo waved her off. "There's a shower here."

"Yes, but not clean clothes," she pointed out, raising an eyebrow. It reminded Sam of Duo's ease with his friends at the Tower. "You're not 'borrowing' scrubs," she adds, complete with air quotes around borrowing.

"Really? Would I?"

"Maxwell, the question isn't would you, it's how many angry nurses I'm going to have to complain about you."

He put a hand over his heart. "I'm wounded, Sal."

"How about I make a deal with you. I will go get you some clean clothing, but you get to stay here and make sure that your most recent convert to the School of Thick Skulls and Dumb Luck stays awake for at least an hour, and you know the drill—"

"Wake him up every hour," he interrupted in the tone of someone who obviously had this routine down pat. "I know, I know." He looked her over. "You look tired. Head back, get a nap, see your grumpy dragon.

She sniffed the air pointedly. "Go get a shower before I leave. You can borrow a gown until I can bring some clean clothes."

Duo rolled his eyes. "Do you know how many weapons I have on me?" he asked.

"I know you, so yes, I do. Now that I think about it—how did you get in loaded for bear?"

Watching Duo get fidgety and nervous was a new look on him. "Oh, you know… a badge can get you so many places…"

Po gave him a flat look. "You broke in."

He winced and put up a finger and a thumb about an inch apart. "Just a little?"

"You can't break in only a little bit!"

"Well, it's not like it was hard—"

"The security protocols are in place for a reason!"

"They would have bitched about all the weapons—"

"Because there are security protocols. Speaking of which, how did you even find Wilson's room—" She cut herself off at the sheepish look Duo gave her. "You hacked the personnel files, didn't you?"

"Why you gotta say it like that?"

"Those are protected records. You can't just hack into them!"

"In my defense, the nurse shouldn't have left a sticky note with her password at the desk. It's not really hacking if I didn't even have to guess—"

"They're protected files."

"And Sam's file was under his name and everything! Anyone looking could have found him easy peasy!" He motioned generally in Sam's direction.

Po rubbed her forehead. "So, of course, you had to change it," she said, sighing.

"Well, yeah. I mean, we're not exactly in super friendly territory here, Salls. If you hadn't been here to make the recommendation to bring us in, I don't think they would have let the Avengers in at all. Sam's files should be better protected than by a single password that a nurse with a bad memory keeps in plain sight."

Sighing heavily again, like she knew Duo had a point but didn't want to condone what he did, she said, "Tell me the name you put it under. I will make sure you didn't break anything else when you did it, and since there's a spare room here, you can get your ass in the shower, and then into a gown, and I will make it look like you're another patient."

Duo rocked on his heels, arms locked behind his back as if hiding something. She gave him another disbelieving look.

"Let me guess: you already did that."

"Maaaybe…"

"Maxwell—"

"Reyes-Maxwell—"

"Dammit Duo!" He flinched, and Po ran her hand over hair in obvious frustration. "I know that you have been undercover and doing things however the hell you want to do them for the last two years, but you are not undercover anymore and you need to start playing by the rules again."

Duo winced again, but he didn't actually look sorry, so Sam wasn't sure how much he intended to play by the rules. If were as much like his father as Sam was starting to suspect, the answer was probably not much.

If Sam could see it, Po definitely could. In a deliberately calm voice, she said, "I am going to validate that you did everything correctly when you updated Mr. Wilson's file and added yourself in. And then I'm going to get you a gown, and you are going to take a shower, and then you're going to behave and be a good bodyguard until I decide that Mr. Wilson can be moved. Are we clear, Darkside?"

Straightening at the use of his call sign, he said, "Clear."

"No shenanigans. And you had better both still be here when I get back."

"I—"

"Explicit promise, Darkside. Now," Po demanded, reminding Sam of what happened when one didn't get a clear, explicit promise from Duo Reyes-Maxwell.

Duo grimaced as if it physically pained him, but he said, "I promise that… I—we," he corrected, "we will be here when you get back." Her glare could have stripped paint. "Until you say he can be released," he finished, looking very put out.

"I'm holding you to that," she said firmly, turned on her heel, and stalked out the door.

Sam couldn't help but whistle, drawing Duo's attention back to him. "You know, I didn't see it before, but you are so Tony Stark's son."

He dropped his bag on the floor, then flopped into a visitor's chair while giving Sam a dirty look, he said, "Be glad you're concussed, or I'd beat you with a pillow."

"Make a habit of breaking into hospitals?"

"Breaking out of them, mostly," Duo admitted. He stretched his neck from one side to the other with loud cracks that made Sam's neck ache in sympathy. With the way his head felt, he didn't dare risk loosening it up. "How are you feeling?"

Almost surprised to be asked, he said, "Like a truck hit me."

"Mobile suit's not far off," Duo pointed out. He hooked another chair with an ankle, dragging it over, and propping his feet up on it, leaning his head back in a posture that screamed exhaustion.

Trying to distract himself from his aching head, he said, "So… pilot, huh?"

It made Duo lift his head back up to look at him at least. "Sure am."

"We gonna talk about how that happened?"

"Stole it," Duo replied.

Sam blinked, not sure if he was surprised or not at the flippant answer, and Duo's grin could be because he was telling the truth or because he was tugging Sam's chain.

"Ten-year-old you stole a weapon of mass destruction?" Sam asked.

"Actually, seven-year-old me did that too, if you consider a normal suit to be a WMD, but I was fifteen when I stole my buddy," Duo replied. He was definitely amused now, but the easy and automatic answer made Sam think he was telling the truth. He laced his fingers over this stomach and watched Sam with eyes that dared him to call bullshit.

Deciding to roll with it, he said, "That tracks."

Duo actually startled. "That tracks?" he asked.

"Yeah," Sam said. "No one would have given a snot-nosed brat like you a WMD on purpose, so it tracks."

For a long moment, Duo just stared at him in disbelief. Just when Sam was starting to worry about having seriously offended or pissed Duo off, he threw his head back and laughed, giving a loud clap. "You are a special breed, Sam Wilson," he said.

They both startled when the door opened and Po returned. "I am certain I don't want to know what you said to get that reaction, but it appears that the files are in order." She walked over to Duo and handed him a folded piece of fabric that Sam assumed was a gown. "Now go get a shower and get changed," she commanded.

Despite his apparent exhaustion, he popped back to his feet, gave her a flippant salute, took the gown, then wandered into the room's small shower.

When the door closed, Sam looked at Po.

"He stole his suit?" he had to ask.

Her expression gentled into fond exasperation. "I have had that confirmed," she said.

Sam shook his head, chuckling, though he wasn't sure if it was because he was surprised or if it was because it made so much sense. "Never does anything the easy way, does he?"

Grinning, Po said, "No. It wouldn't be fun if he did it the easy way."

Po checked him over again for the ten minutes took to scrub himself down, then come back out, dirty clothes bundled in his hand. His braid was wrapped in a bun, so he hadn't bothered to wash it, not that Sam blamed him in that tiny shower with a dubious hot-water source. He was also in the gown, showing off his half-sleeve tattoos and the Jesus on his neck. Watching closely, he saw Po's eyes find it, but though her lips twisted in disapproval, she didn't say anything about it.

"Get in bed. Make sure Mr. Wilson is woken up every hour if he falls asleep. Don't harass the nurses. No stealing scrubs. You're stuck in that gown for the duration," she told him.

"Yes, yes, I got it." He made a shooing motion. "Now go see your fiancé, before he thinks I seduced you away."

She laughed. "We both know you don't swing that way, Maxwell," she said.

Putting a finger to his lips, he made an exaggerated shushing sound. "It's supposed to be a secret!"

Po laughed again, shaking her head. "Behave. I mean it. I'll be back in a few hours."

Duo stood where he was for a couple minutes, then went to his bag, dropped the dirty clothes next to it, and pulled out something else.

"Are those scrubs?" Sam asked in disbelief. "I thought Dr. Po said 'no stealing scrubs'?"

"Well, she did, but she didn't say 'put back any scrubs you've already stolen,' now did she?" Duo asked, a manic, infectious grin on his face. "Besides, I left money in the locker to make up for it."

Sam just had to laugh as he disappeared back into the bathroom to obviously exchange the gown for the scrubs.

Definitely Tony Stark's son. He was surprised to find the thought fond, and poked at it. Stark didn't do it with him, Steve, or Bucky, at least not that Sam had seen, but he had seen Stark pull similar mischief with Dr. Banner and Ms. Potts. He didn't know if Duo made him fond of Stark or Stark made him fond of Duo, but he supposed it didn't really matter; he was good with fond.