I DON'T KNOW WHO I AM ANYMORE; I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO
BUT YOUR EYES LIGHT UP WHEN YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT ME
AND I THINK I MUST BE DOING SOMETHING RIGHT
Steve Rogers thinks he's fated to be in the same room as Elizabeth Stark and not have her notice him.
He wonders what to make of the fact that everybody notices him when he walks into a room, Captain America's face imprinted in their memories. Everyone but Elizabeth Stark. He wonders what to make of the fact that whenever they're in a room together, she's always the last to notice him.
He doesn't know that her eyes find him first when he walks into a room. Doesn't know that her eyes promptly look away in fear of being caught.
He's hiding in the museum dedicated to him. SHIELD is compromised and he's no longer America's National Hero but rather America's Most Wanted. Fury is dead, he cannot go anywhere without HYDRA agents attacking him and there's a supersoldier, another supersoldier that's running around the place.
He feels ashamed that he didn't see this coming sooner. He feels ashamed for involving Natasha and Sam. Feels ashamed for not beating this new supersoldier. Feels ashamed for working with the very people that got him in this mess in the first place.
He has the rug pulled out from under him and he doesn't know how to deal with this. Doesn't know what to do next, doesn't know where to go after this, and doesn't know who to go to. He just wants to go back to the time where the worst weapons were guns and the hardest wars were between countries. A time when aliens were simply myths and God's were found only in storybooks.
"That's Captain America!"
Steve's eyes zone down to the small, thin boy pointing at his statue. He can see the boy's bones and his face is hollowed and he has a sickly look that reminds Steve too much of the boy he used to be before the serum.
The boy tugs on the hand he's holding and Steve Roger's looks up just as the owner of the hand laughs.
He doesn't think he'll ever forget the way Elizabeth Stark laughs.
"I know Owen, I know. Are you sure you want to use your wish to come here?"
Owen looks at Elizabeth, uncertain and fearful, "I thought you said the last wish thing didn't matter."
Liz bends down to his level placing her hands on her knees to support herself, "I did. And I meant it. Nothing's going to happen to you for you to need a last wish."
Owen nods once, firm and absolute before he turns around to see the Statue of Steve Rogers clothed in his war gear, standing tall and proud.
Steve Rogers doesn't know where that man went. He thinks they lost him in the ice, forgot to grab him out. All Steve feels now is lost and confused.
"They said you met him," Owen doesn't look away from the statue but talks to Liz.
Elizabeth Stark, millionaire, surgeon, owner of several hospitals in the country, wearing loose jeans and a graphic t-shirt with her hair pulled to the side, sits down and crosses her legs at one of the most prestigious museums in the country ignoring the looks of admonishment she receives from the elderly patrons touring the museum at this time.
"I did."
Elizabeth now has Owen's full attention, "How was he like?"
She takes a good look at the boy she's been treating, the boy who's been in her hospital for five months now, a boy whose very survival depended on a single surgery. She remembers herself; the girl with the fire running through her system, the girl who dreamt of being a superhero, the girl whose dreams were crushed when she heard about Captain America's perfectness and realized she'd never amount.
"Captain America is very bossy." It's the first thing that comes out of her mouth. Owen raises his eyes in shock and the sightseers reading the articles beside her also stop, presumably to defend the hero they spent almost their entire lives idolizing.
She keeps going, "He's a little angry; sometimes at my brother, sometimes at himself, a lot of the times at the world. Sometimes he acts as if he's better than everyone else, as if he knows all there is to know."
Steve Rogers doesn't realize he's moving closer to the woman sitting down in the middle of the exhibition bad mouthing about him to a little boy and receiving more than a few glares from the elderly visitors.
She clasps onto the boy's hand and she doesn't stop talking, "But Steve Rogers has your back when you need him to. He'll make you smile and laugh when all you want to do is cry, and he'll never make you feel like you're anything but human."
"Captain America may jump on buses and run really fast and jump really high but Steve Rogers is still very human," she pokes Owen's stomach, "just like you." It procures a laugh out of him.
"Captain America is not so bad but I think I like Steve Rogers much better."
She lifts herself from where she's sitting and bends down so that she's at eye level with the boy who was burned by life at an age far too young, she bends down so that she's at eye level, making it look like she's telling him a secret.
She tells him loud enough for Steve to hear the rest of the sentence, "But I like you the best."
Owen clasps onto her hand again and this time, it's not out of excitement or fascination but because he's been outside for all of twenty minutes and his body has decided that the boy who deserves everything doesn't get anymore.
"Say what," Liz holds onto the boy a little tighter, "when all this is over, how about I take you to see Captain America?"
Owen beams at her through his pain, "I want to see Steve Rogers."
She smiles back at him, sending small flares of heat through his body that will ease the pain momentarily, "You can see anyone you want. I'll take you to them."
The nurse, Owen's nurse walks into the museum then, prepared to take the boy and start his daily treatment. One of her Co-CEOs, Damien Scott, trails the pink-haired nurse, looking at her with thickly veiled disapproval.
When Owen and his nurse, Jamie, are out of sight, Damien looks at Liz, "What happened to not giving your patients false hope?"
"Owen's not just a patient."
"Liz, no one's just a patient for you."
He's right.
Elizabeth Stark had always cared a little bit too much to be considered healthy. Elizabeth Stark had always grown attached to people she should not grow attached to, loved people that would have never stayed, and cared for people even if all they wanted to do was break her into pieces.
Elizabeth Stark cared too much for a world that only had pain and suffering in store for her.
She stays behind after Damien leaves, promising to show up to the budgets meeting, promising to not yawn and fall asleep. She walks towards the back of the room and Steve Rogers holds his breath as she stands directly beside him, staring forward at the very few people in the room due to the day and time.
"As far as rebellions go, becoming a fugitive is a little too much, don't you think."
He snaps his head towards her, trying to figure out when she found him in the room of people. Trying to figure out if she knew he was there when she told the boy, Owen, that she liked Steve Rogers more than Captain America that sent his heart soaring with an unidentifiable emotion and his brain pondering in confusion.
She answers the question for him, still looking forward. "Saw you when I walked in. How people don't notice you when all you're wearing is a hat is beyond my understanding."
"SHIELD is compromised." It's the only explanation he has, the only fact he's absolutely certain about.
She seems to understand, "I got that."
She still doesn't look at him, opting to stare straight ahead, "But I kind of promised a little boy that I'll take him to see you and we're not doing it in the middle of a dark alleyway cause your running from the authorities so you better fix this Rogers."
He doesn't know what it is about a single woman that makes everything better, that makes everything clearer, that causes everything to make sense.
He nods and whispers, "Yes, Ma'am," under his breath. He can tell that she's itching to look at him and he is also wondering if he'd see gold in her eyes and he lets the curiosity win.
"So, Steve Rogers huh? If I didn't know better I'd say you have a crush on him."
Her eyes clash with his and the distance, or lack thereof, between them, allows him to see the faint gold that is slowly disappearing as the seconds tick by, replacing them with blue, each streak never the same shade. He wonders if it is odd that despite Elizabeth Stark being able to shoot elements out of her fingertips, despite her having the most distinctive hair known to humankind or having the most beautiful laugh, Steve Rogers cannot compare anything else to her eyes.
The same eyes that crinkle as she lets out a small snort before a laugh "Keep dreaming Captain."
He most certainly will.
She sobers up immediately as her phone vibrates, indicating that she has to leave, "But for real, are you okay?"
Elizabeth Stark had always cared too much for a world that didn't care, for people she barely knew, for things that no one else cared about.
Who's to say it's a bad thing.
Steve brushes his fingers with hers, it's a fleeting touch, barely there, but she can feel it.
"I'll be fine."
He is.
Up until he's got a couple of bullets that pierced his skin and he's on a barely flying Hellicarrier fighting his best friend whose supposed to be dead and trying his very hardest not to let the large aircraft, now under Hydra control, assassinate innocent people, two of which include a man who flies around in an Iron Suit and the woman who saves the planet one patient at a time.
Two of three targeting chips have been placed and he has the third one. He measures the distance between him and the panel and looks at Bucky. The soldier, without hesitation, lifts Steve up by the throat and crashes him onto the ground.
He supposes he took advantage of being a supersoldier. He realizes now, as he breathes through the immeasurable pain circulating through his system, that maybe he should have punched lighter, kicked more softly.
He gets up, the chip still clutched tightly in his hand, he doesn't have a choice but to get up and face Bucky head-on. He gets up despite the fact that this is killing him; fighting the only person he ever really had in the world, he gets up because he's a soldier and that's what soldiers do.
Bucky's vibranium hand combined with his own super strength brutally damages something when he punches Steve in the stomach.
He's sent doubling back and looks up just in time to see the silver fist coming straight at his face. Unable to move a muscle after that particularly bad blow to the stomach, Steve just braces himself, keeping his eyes open and face devoid of any emotion, for the inevitable pain that is promised to come.
Bucky's hand hits ice just inches away from his face. The ice doesn't crack against the force of the metal arm; against the momentum of the arm made of the strongest metal earth has to offer.
"So there's another one."
Both Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers look to the right to see Elizabeth Stark hovering over the sky by the Helicarrier. She surrounded by what looks like a stream of water with little streaks of flames running through. Although her posture is defensive, her face is full of humour; the carefree look that somehow seems to run in Stark DNA.
She lands, gently albeit not gracefully, and pauses when she notices that the fight has stopped and the two members involved is just staring at her.
She looks back and forth between the two super soldiers, "Are we going to talk it out? Because I'm totally okay with that."
Natasha, who has just blown her cover and waits for Nick Fury to scan his other eye feels a little bit of the fear she feels in a hidden corner of her brain slightly dissipate, "Is that Liz?"
Bucky charges at the glowing woman right then and Liz is forced to enter the Helicarrier to dodge the punch.
Another voice, also familiar, also filled with humour fills the void, "I'm here too. Romanoff, no leaking anything until I say so."
Steve pauses, "Stark."
The man in question zips by very briefly, opening his mask to make eye contact with his sister.
She, in turn, tells him, "I'm fine. Go help Nat."
She narrowly misses a bullet fired by Barnes and Steve doesn't remember the last time he felt so scared during a fight.
"Why do I need help?" Natasha complains, keeping her eye on Peirce suppose he does anything. She feels better with Tony on the way even though she'll never admit it.
Liz explains while dodging the punches of the Winter Soldier, also known as Bucky Barnes, a man that was supposed to be dead, "Because there are like thousands of SHIELD agents that are undercover in some pretty dangerous stuff and releasing SHIELD's secrets also means putting them in jeopardy."
Tony finishes for her, not that Liz was able to finish anyway after Bucky caught her by the hand that was creating small ice shields to protect her from his hits and twisted hard enough to evoke a scream. Hard enough for Steve Rogers to hit his childhood friend with the remaining strength he could muster, sending Barnes flying through the unstable Helicarrier.
"I'm just going to wipe some stuff out so no one dies unnecessarily. SHIELD's still done though, Nick."
Fury, who Steve didn't know was even there simply says, "Do it."
Back at the Helicarrier, Liz throws a flaming orb at Barnes, enough to knock him down for a moment.
She looks at Steve with wide eyes, "I'm not sure how hard you want me to hit your friend."
"Just don't kill him."
She reels back and the humour vanishes from her face. It takes Steve Rogers a moment to figure out why. It takes him less than a moment to clarify, "I didn't mean it like that."
She blinks away her relief and nods, "I won't kill him."
It sounds like a promise, a promise that isn't needed. But Steve just nods at her before running to the panel and replacing Hydra's targeting chip with his own.
"Hill, the chip is in."
Hill's voice is distraught over his earpiece, "Targets are still locked."
Steve panics when he sees the faint red spot on the middle of Liz's forehead, and she looks back at him, eyes wide. It's Tony Stark that ends up easing the panic, Tony Stark that knows what to do, Tony Stark that somehow always knows what to do.
"Lizzie, hook Jarvis to the panel and then reconfigure the whole thing."
His sister has no response but to run towards the panel and start searching for the wires. By some miracle, she bends just as a bullet whizzes past her head and hits the metal above her causing both her and Steve to look at the supersoldier who has recovered from the heat blow and is charging towards Steve and Liz.
She holds both hands up and constructs an ice wall that traps Barnes and the soldier punches relentlessly, creating small cracks in the frozen water. Liz knows that it is only a matter of time before he breaks free, only a matter of time before one of the three Helicarrier shoots her dead.
"Liz," She hears Steve's voice through the deafening rush in her ears at the constant use of her powers and she groggily blinks up at him, hands shaking and head pounding.
He traces the blood trailing down her neck from her ear, "Let go. Work on the panel, I got this."
She hesitates, remembers seeing the Captain being beat to a pulp before she showed up.
He grabs her hands, both of them, taking a moment to watch in fascination at the way the blue light emitted from her hands shines through his as well, "Let go. Nothing's going to happen to you. I'm going to keep you safe."
She lets go, immediately. It should be scary, the way she somehow trusts him indefinitely, the way she trusts him with her life so easily, the way she trusted him with her life even when they were fighting aliens in Manhattan in what seems like years ago.
And as he runs towards the super soldier that once used to be the only thing he had in the world and as she runs towards the panel she pauses halfway and calls for him, "Hey, Captain,"
He turns around, just for a split second, just because he knows Bucky still hasn't recovered from being trapped in an ice ball, turns around to hear her implore him, "Don't die on me."
He won't. He tells her that he won't.
And then he's fighting his best friend once again, not holding back his punches this time because Liz is right there, her back to the fight as she types rapidly on the holographic keyboard trying to reroute the Hellicarrier. He doesn't dial down on the kicks because he, for the life of him, cannot have Bucky reach Liz.
And then Liz is shouting and throwing her hands in the air in accomplishment when the targeting chips are successfully disabled before her face falls and she yells for Steve. Steve who is still busy fighting Bucky.
"Steve we need to get out of here. The aircrafts have a self destruct algorithm."
He sees her running towards him, before the whole aircraft collapses and all three of them are hanging on to three different beams, Liz at the very top, trying to get her heart rate to accelerate to a point where she can burn up in flames and save three people including herself.
He only has a moment to prepare himself for when the effort it takes to hold the beam becomes too much, and he falls.