Chapter 38

Steve half-expected Tony to rush off as suddenly as he had arrived; even in the best of times, he always had his hands more than full with Stark Industries publicity events, not to mention his never-ending quest to perfect his Iron Man suits.

But to his surprise, Tony had taken off his vest, unbuttoned his top button, and settled down into a chair at Steve's bedside to watch the news with him, talking a mile a minute and shooting sarcastic remarks at the TV every time a guest speculated something about recent events that they both knew to be wrong.

Then Bruce Banner called to see how Steve was doing and the three of them had a long chat on speaker phone, interrupted only by a nurse coming in to see if her patient wanted anything off the "clear liquids" menu and Tony's subsequent (and unsuccessful) attempt to charm her into bringing Steve some well-earned steak and potatoes instead. Finally, Bruce excused himself in order to get back to work, but he had hardly hung up the phone when there was a knock on the door, and Nat let herself in.

"Hey, Steve," she said, walking over and giving him a careful hug. "Still in one piece, huh?"

"You too," he observed, looking her over with relief. Sam had gotten it right; she looked tired and dirty, but unhurt.

"Heard we have matching scars now," she said conversationally, sliding her fingers through the gap between her jacket and her pants to rub the spot on her abdomen where the Winter Soldier had long ago left his mark.

"Yeah... I don't really scar anymore," Steve admitted to her.

"I hate you," she told him, tilting her head and gazing into his eyes with a too-sweet smile.

"Hey," Steve said, returning her gaze with studied sincerity. "I hate you, too. Thank you," he added as his nurse stepped back into the room to hand him his popsicle.

"Where did Sam get to?" Steve wondered out loud as he opened it up.

"I passed him on the way in," Nat said. "Sound asleep on a couch in the waiting room."

"Well, his day was about as long as mine," Steve said tolerantly.

"Don't talk to me about long days," Nat shot back indignantly. "I've been working my butt off while you've been laying back eating popsicles."

"That's all they're letting me eat, if it makes you feel better. Did you get a hold of Clint?" He hardly needed to ask; if Clint was still MIA, he had no doubt Nat would already be out there hunting far and wide for him.

"I did," Nat said reassuringly. "He's fine. Said he ran into a patch of trouble in Afghanistan, but he got out okay. He should be here soon." She set a duffel bag on the edge of the bed. It was Steve's own gym bag.

"What's this?" Steve asked curiously, unzipping it.

"Change of clothes and all that. I just came from your place."

"You thought of everything," Steve said with appreciation as he looked through the contents. His most comfortable sweats and a couple of white T-shirts, along with a change of nicer clothes for whenever the hospital released him. And everything was rolled up instead of folded, just the way he liked it. She'd even thought of bringing his newest book and a sketchpad with some good sharp pencils. "I think I'm gonna have you pack me up for trips from now on."

"I can't take credit," Nat said, giving Tony a friendly nod and then pulling over a chair to sit in. "Agent 13 packed it."

Steve froze, and then glowered.

"Come on, Steve," Nat said with a trace of impatience. "She was assigned to protect you."

"And spy on me."

"It's the job," Nat said coolly. "I spied on you too. Before we met. Did you know?"

"What?" Steve was annoyed, but was vaguely surprised to find he wasn't quite as annoyed as he probably should be. Was it because he knew Nat, while Agent 13 was practically a stranger? But of course he hadn't known Nat when she had done it.

Steve turned to Tony. "Did you spy on me?" he asked a little plaintively. Was there anyone who hadn't?

"God, no," Tony said, not looking up from his phone.

"You work for a spy agency, Steve," Nat pointed out. "What did you think was going to happen?"

"I don't know. That I'd be shown a little respect, I guess."

Nat took his bag from the bed, zipped it back up and set it in the corner. "She was pretty respectful, believe it or not. And you know how paranoid Fury is… but he never hesitated to give Sharon access to you. Probably says something about what kind of a person she is, don't you think?"

"Sharon?" Steve asked.

"That's her name. Agent 13's." Nat looked at him with arched eyebrow. "She's nice."

"You say that about every woman you try to set me up with."

Tony suddenly snorted from where he was sitting in the corner. "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You tried to set up Cap with an agent who was spying on him?"

"Why did you do that?" Steve asked, suddenly confused.

"Because she likes you," Nat said matter-of-factly.

"No, she doesn't."

"Yes, she does."

"No, she doesn't. I asked her over for coffee. She said no."

Nat snorted a little. "Dummy. Fury told her no close contact."

Steve was annoyed. "Then why did you put me up to asking her?" he demanded. Nat took a breath to answer, but Steve immediately held up his palms. "You know what? I don't even wanna know. I'm never gonna understand women, am I?"

"Don't even try," Tony advised dryly. "The moment you try to figure out what's going on in a woman's head is the moment your goose is well and truly cooked."

Steve stared at him.

"What?" Tony demanded. "It's true, isn't it?"

"Very," Steve said after a short pause.

"Women," Tony said, pouring a world of meaning into the word.

"Women," Steve agreed with equal fervor.

As one they turned to give Nat their best challenging stares. She just rolled her eyes and gave them both a look that clearly said pathetic before moving on.

"Anyway, I got your apartment all packed up and loaded into a moving truck," she continued. "Still trying to work out where to put it. You got plans?"

Steve's only plan was to start looking for Bucky the moment they let him out of the hospital, but this didn't seem like the time and place to go into all that, so he didn't answer.

"You packed up his whole apartment?" Tony asked, puzzled. "What for?"

"For one thing, it was a crime scene," Nat said. "That's where they shot Fury. And for another, Hydra knows the address. Figured he wouldn't want to go back."

"You figured right," Steve said. There were things about D.C. he had liked, but he found that he had cooled on it over the last few days. Maybe he should go back to New York. Not Manhattan, where S.H.I.E.L.D. had put him up after reviving him from the ice, but Brooklyn. Home.

Of course, Brooklyn wasn't the same anymore. Home didn't really exist. Still, he could go back. After he had found Bucky. Maybe they could figure out together how to feel at home there again.

"So now you're jobless and homeless? Please tell me you have a car to sleep in," Tony quipped.

"He has a bike," Nat put in.

"Can't sleep on a bike."

"And I kinda wrecked it doing battle with a Quinjet," Steve admitted.

"Jobless, homeless, vehicle-less," Tony said with mock sorrow. "Hey, send your stuff to my place. Stark Tower. I got a whole floor for guest bedrooms. I'll put you up next to Bruce. You too, Romanoff. There's plenty of room."

Nat smiled at Tony. "Thanks, but I have a hidey hole of my own. It's better that way, trust me."

"Cap? Looks like you get the pick of the place. And I got a Harley down in the garage you're welcome to. It's just gathering dust. I got a girl who hates getting helmet hair."

"Thank you, Tony," Steve said politely. "But I can get by on my own."

"Were you under the impression I was offering you charity?" Tony said with uplifted eyebrows. "You'd be doing me a favor. I could really use the extra security. I bet you'd be an ace at body-checking overzealous autograph hounds. I pay well and the benefits at Stark Industries are second to none. Insurance, stock shares, the whole shebang. I'll even let you use my lap pool."

Steve couldn't help but smile. "Sounds great, but… I never spent half the salary S.H.I.E.L.D. gave me, and a while back the Army finally sent me my back pay. Never saw that many digits in a bank deposit before. I've got enough to last me a while, and anyway, there's a trip I need to make. Not sure how long I'll be gone."

Tony shrugged. "Well, at least store your boxes at my place," he said. "It'll be safe there until you figure out what you're doing next."

Steve nodded gratefully. "Thank you, Tony," he said sincerely.

"What about Barton?" Tony asked, shifting his gaze to Nat. "Is he homeless now too?"

"Oh, don't worry about him," Nat said easily. "He has a hidey-hole of his own."

Tony's phone rang, and he glanced at the screen before putting it up to his ear. "Hey, Pep. Yeah, I know, the vultures are circling. You got the presser set up? Yeah. Okay, hang on. Hang on just a sec." He hurried out into the hallway to take the call in privacy.

Steve and Nat were left alone in the room. They exchanged glances for a long moment. Steve could feel the guilt inside him suddenly twisting like a knife, and it didn't feel great.

"What?" Nat asked with sudden concern, reading his expression.

"We have to tell him," Steve said, pushing past an odd reluctance to speak the words out loud.

"Tell him what?" Nat asked.

"You know."

"No, I don't. Tell him what?"

Steve tamped down a pulse of annoyance. "Nat, you're too smart to play stupid."

"Well, enlighten me, O great leader of the Avengers."

Steve drew in a slow, deep breath. "We have to tell Tony about his parents."

Nat was silent for a moment, sucking on her teeth. "We don't know anything about his parents," she said at last.

"Well, we kinda do."

Nat scoffed at him with visible impatience. "Yeah, Steve. Sure. We got some vague insinuations and a jumble of pictures that Arnim Zola threw in our faces while he was trying to distract us from noticing that he was launching a missile at our heads."

"He wasn't lying."

"You don't know that," Nat said firmly. "He was Hydra, he led them in secret for decades right under S.H.I.E.L.D.'s nose. We're talking about a guy who learned at the feet of Johann Schmidt, Steve. Zola's a coward and a liar. You know that better than anyone. You're really going to take anything he says as gospel truth?"

"He used Bucky to disrupt history for the last 50 years," Steve said deliberately, working to control the anger he still felt just thinking about it. "Zola's story matched everything you told me about the Winter Soldier. If they used him to assassinate scientists like the one you protected, why wouldn't they use him to take out Howard Stark too?"

"Why would they?" Nat shot back.

"Howard was a thorn in Hydra's side as much as anyone else at the SSR."

"What, so they killed an old man 50 years after the war ended? Out of sheer revenge? When maintaining secrecy was paramount for them? Doesn't make sense, Steve."

"Hydra was in the business of predicting who was going to make trouble for them, and then taking them out proactively," Steve pointed out. "Maybe Howard was on the verge of inventing something that would endanger their goals."

"That's a lot of maybes, Steve. And it's not like we can ask Barnes about it now."

"I'm gonna work on that," Steve said with quiet determination. "As soon as I get out."

"If he's even still alive," Nat said.

"He's alive," Steve said softly.

Nat gave him a long look, her eyebrows drawn together. "We were lucky you washed ashore before you drowned. I'm sorry, Steve, but... chances are good your friend went down with that helicarrier."

"No," Steve said simply. "I hit the water hard, but I saw him for a second before I blacked out. He dived in after me."

Her eyes went wide. "You mean he's still out there, running around loose?" Nat abruptly sat up straight, her hand going to where her Glock was concealed under her jacket. "Steve, he could come back for you!"

"No," Steve said firmly. "It isn't like that now. Tony said there were boot prints in the mud where he found me. Bucky dragged me ashore, he saved my life. He could have killed me there without breaking a sweat, without even being seen, but he didn't. I broke his conditioning, Nat. I reached him. He's his own man again."

"Steve, wait a minute. Just wait." Nat held up a hand, her face tense. "That's a really big assumption. Okay, so maybe he decided not to kill you, but if Hydra caught up with him again afterwards, they're just gonna to put him back through the wringer. I saw what happened to the girls who tried to run from the Red Room, okay? People like that don't just let their puppets go. I was lucky I had S.H.I.E.L.D. to protect me when I bailed. Barnes doesn't have anybody."

"He has me," Steve said sharply.

"You don't even know where he is!"

"I'll find him. You still have contacts back in Russia, don't you? Can't you collect anything and everything they have on the Winter Soldier? If I could pick up on his patterns and his methods, maybe I can figure out how and where he's likely to hide. Hydra's weakened now. We threw them into chaos. We might be able to get to him before they do."

She let out a noisy breath of air. "That's a really big 'might.'"

He looked her straight in the eye. "Nat, if the Red Room took you captive again, I'd move heaven and earth to get you back."

Her face softened. "I know you would," she said more gently after a beat.

"Will you help me?"

She looked away from him and shook her head a little as if in disbelief at his stubbornness... but then she smiled almost against her will and finally said in a tone of good-natured resignation: "You know I can't tell you no."

Steve was relieved; after everything that had just happened, he was starting to realize that he couldn't take anyone's friendship for granted anymore. But Nat's support was even more of a comfort than he had expected. Peggy was right all along: It would have been a mistake for him to go it alone.

"But we should keep it quiet," Nat said firmly.

Steve knew exactly what position she was coming back around to, and he didn't like it. "Tony deserves to know what Zola said," he said. He put one hand up to stop Nat before she could contradict him. "I know. Maybe it was true and maybe it wasn't. Tony deserves the chance to decide that for himself."

"Steve, you are much too smart to pretend to be this stupid," Nat said with considerable feeling. "Do you want to get Bucky back in one piece or not?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Steve asked, nettled.

She leaned forward and stared into his eyes intently. "What do you think's gonna happen if Tony comes to the conclusion that Bucky murdered his parents? "

"Then we explain to him that Bucky was coerced-"

"Steve, come on!"

"It's a simple concept, Nat," he said calmly. "Tony's smart. He'll understand."

"Smarts have nothing to do with it. He's emotionally involved."

"And I'm not?" he shot back. "Howard was my friend. How do you think it feels to know Bucky might have killed him? We were all friends together. But I'm not gonna punish Bucky for something Hydra made him do."

"Tony's not like you," Nat said vehemently. "He thinks with his heart, not his head. I went undercover to watch him, remember? I wrote his psychological profile for S.H.I.E.L.D. He's narcissistic, he's compulsive, he's self-destructive-"

"That's the old Tony Stark. He's changed."

Nat scoffed. "Steve, it's been eight months since he went on live TV and told the Mandarin where he lived and practically invited him to come blow his Malibu mansion into a smoking crater! Which of course he promptly did. Tony nearly got himself and Pepper killed, and for what? Because his precious ego got bruised?"

"He got pushed to his limits by a terrorist. I'll be a friend, speaking to him as a friend-"

Nat's voice went quieter, but no less intense. "I've seen what he does to his friends. I once watched him go a round in his suit with Rhodey for the crime of telling him it was time to wrap up a party. His best friend, Steve. You think I want to see him do that to you? "

Steve was taken aback. "He did that?"

"You're talking about a person who has a history of lashing out at people who are trying to help him. He regrets it afterward, but he does it."

Steve knew he was grasping at a straw, but he grasped at it anyway. "Pepper's with him now. She helps him keep a lid on the drinking and all of that."

Nat gave him a look that was almost pitying. "How many stable, long-term relationships has Tony Stark had?" she asked pointedly.

Steve had no adequate response for that. He knew as much about Tony's romantic entanglements as anyone else who had access to the internet. Pepper was clearly the best of the lot, but if Tony ever drove her away...

"I know you have faith that Tony will get better, and maybe he will," Nat asked quietly. "But the question you have to ask yourself is: are you willing to stake your friend's life on that?"

Steve didn't know what to say. Part of him was lost in a vision of him and Bucky together in Brooklyn again, sharing an apartment and working out what to do with themselves now that S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra were gone, sharing the same griefs over the past, the same worries for the future and best of all, the same old laughs from the long-gone days before: the carefree Saturdays on Coney Island, the evenings spent sitting around the kitchen table enjoying their mothers' home-cooked meals, Bucky setting up yet another blind date for him and blithely assuring him that this girl was different from the others, this one wouldn't care how tall or short a guy was...

Just thinking about it made the beginnings of a smile tug at the corner of Steve's mouth. For so many years he'd been drowning in sobriety. First the war, then his traumatic arrival in the future, then Loki, then S.H.I.E.L.D., then Hydra... always a battle to fight, with no end in sight. Because in this place and time, Steve Rogers could never be anything but Captain America. Even in the eyes of his friends.

But it hadn't always been like that. Once he hadn't been a soldier at all. Bucky might be the last person on earth who could still see the complete picture of Steve Rogers: the ordinary as well as the extraordinary, his weaknesses as well as his strengths, all those years of history together that could never be shared by anyone else.

And even if the fighting wasn't over, even if the Avengers were called up again to face some new threat, next time it would be different. Next time he'd have Bucky charging into the fray with him. As a child Bucky had always been his protector. After Project Rebirth, the tables had been turned. But now they were equals. They could fight side by side, matching blow for blow, moving in sync together, maybe even sharing the shield between them. Two halves of one whole, brought together at last. It was a good vision. It felt right. Inevitable, even.

And then reality intruded on Steve's fantasy like a bucket of cold water on his head. What was he thinking? Bucky couldn't Avenge with him. Iron Man was an integral part of the Avengers. He'd show up to the same fights. And how could he ask Tony to work alongside the man who had killed his parents?

Who might have killed his parents, Steve quickly corrected himself. Under duress. But a sick feeling of unease was now spoiling his vision. What if Nat was right? What if Tony could not be made to understand? What if he went after Bucky? Tony possessed the most advanced A.I. in the world, not to mention practically unlimited financial resources. There was a very real chance he might find Bucky before he and Nat could. And if he did...

There was no chance Steve could let that kind of injustice stand. No matter how much he cared for Tony personally.

"I know how you feel, Steve. I feel the same," Nat said softly, putting her hand over his and giving it a gentle squeeze. "But we're not going to withhold anything from Tony, okay? Just delay it for a little while. Until we can find your friend and find out for sure what happened."

"Then we tell him everything?" he asked slowly.

"It'll be better for Tony that way," Nat said, and the confidence in her voice helped ease the knot twisting in his stomach. "Uncertainty makes everything worse. He'll handle it better if we can give him all the answers right away."

She was right. Steve knew how he would feel if he found out his parents hadn't died the way he'd always believed. He'd want answers too. A clear picture of exactly who needed to be held to account, and a plan to make it happen. Everything they needed for that was in Bucky's head. Maybe he could even remember exactly who had given the order. He and Nat could help Tony track the culprit down. That was what Tony needed above all else. Swift justice. A sense of closure.

"And even if things go south after all-" Steve started, and then didn't bother to finish. If the worst happened, at least then he would know right where Bucky was and could help him stay safe until things calmed down.

Not a lie. Not even an omission. Just a delay. Nat was right. It was the best way to protect Tony and Bucky. He could protect them both. And it wasn't about his need to have Bucky back in his life. It was about doing the right thing. For both of his friends.

The knot in his middle had eased, but for some reason it was still a weight in the pit of his stomach.

I'm not doing this for myself, he told himself firmly. I'm not.

"Okay," he said slowly to Nat. "We'll wait."

She nodded crisply, looking relieved. "I'll start tracking down my contacts in Russia right away." She jumped up as if to leave, but then she took a second look at Steve and hesitated. "Can I get you anything before I go?" she asked with a sudden solicitousness.

He knew why she was asking. He felt weird, with a vague kind of chill seeping down to his bones, and his wounds were starting to ache again. The painkillers wore off so quickly. He was tempted to ask her to call in a nurse to bring another dose, but he had already done that only a few hours ago. And there was a new nurse on duty and he'd have to explain to her all over again that his hyped-up metabolism burned through medication faster than normal bodies did. He found himself reluctant to do it. Sleep. What he needed more than anything was sleep. If he could just get warm enough, he'd be able to sleep for a while, and the more he slept, the faster his wounds would heal.

"Are there any more blankets?" he murmured. Nat strode over to the cupboards and rummaged around until she found a folded blanket and brought it over to him. She spread it over him, tucking the edges but carefully avoiding touching any of his sore places.

"Better?" she asked.

He nodded, and she put a comforting hand on his uninjured shoulder for a long moment before leaving his hospital room with a swift stride, all business. Steve found himself staring at the closed door in the sudden solitude. A gurney rattled in the distance.

I'm doing this for Tony, he repeated to himself as he leaned back against the pillows and closed his eyes wearily. He just got better from the PTSD after fighting the Chitauri. He just fought the Mandarin and almost lost Pepper. I can't throw something like this at him now. He's my friend. I can give him a rest. Just a little bit of normality. Until we know more. Then I'll tell him. I'm not doing this for myself.

He told himself that until he finally drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

But even when he woke up again a few hours later, feeling warmer and better-rested, the weight in his stomach was still there.

TO BE CONTINUED

Author's note: To those of you who asked about this story wrapping up soon and wishing you could get more... I'm ending it here because this story and my other one, The Third Life of Steve Rogers, are beginning to cover the exact same ground with the exact same characters, and I didn't see the need to duplicate efforts. So if you wanted more about the Carter family moving into the time periods for Age of Ultron, Civil War, Infinity War and Endgame... keep reading the other story! I've got it plotted out all the way to old Steve's reunion with the Avengers.

As always, feedback is welcomed!