It's not that Steve hates the future. He doesn't. There's a lot of good about it. But man… Sometimes the aliens and the technology make him wish he was back, stuck where they boiled everything.

But no polio. No polio is good.

—-

It's like a bad penny. A very bright, shiny, blue, cubic penny.

And Tony keeps waving it around like it's a toy.

"Tony." He says calmly, trying to not portray the anxiety he has about the object that cost him his life. Figuratively. "Put the cube down, please."

"I'm just saying, you let me attach a few wires and then bing bang boom we could figure out a way to utilize this power for good."

"Since we just got it back from Thor like three days ago, can we not bing bang boom anything until Bruce gets here?"

Tony grumbles, the usual response when they sic his babysitter after him. Not that Bruce has the power to stop Tony when he gets going either, but he helps. A bit.

He hears a bing.

Then a bang.

And then a boom.

He groans and throws his legs over the edge of the bed. While he's only in his pajama pants, he doesn't bother putting on a shirt because he makes a silent promise to himself that he's going to be back in bed in five minutes even if he has to tie Tony to a chair and leave him there to accomplish that.

He turns and looks, his shield resting by the nightstand. Something deep in his gut tells him to grab it, so he does. Slinging it over his arm and trudging out his door and down the two sets of stairs to the lab.

Smoke and electricity is vibrant in the air. Steve's sensitive senses pick up both in equal measure as he rounds the corner and sees the glass walls of the lab.

He can't see beyond the glass walls because the room is filled with smoke and he can hear the tell-tale sign of DUM-E spraying his fire extinguisher.

The door slams open from his force and he steps in. First things first.

"Tony? Are you okay?"

A cough and then a sigh, "Uh, yeah. I'm okay. Did uh, did I wake you?"

Now for the second part. "TONY, WHAT THE HELL, I told you to leave it alone! This is what I'm talking about! This is why Howard should have left it at the bottom of the ocean. You guys can't help yourselves." There's a strange silence and Steve lets out an exasperated sigh. "What are you stuck under?"

"The shelves." Tony answers with a huff.

He can't see the floor and he knows he heard a crash. "Is there broken glass on this floor?"

"Probably."

Steve doesn't make another sound but he silently throws up his hands in annoyance before walking over, wincing as he steps on something sharp, but ignoring it. It will heal. By feel alone, he finds the shelf and lifts it up. The smoke is starting to clear and he can see now that Tony's leg was caught and it's bleeding. "Are you okay?" He asks through gritted teeth.

"Yeah," and for once Tony looks apologetic, "I'm sorry. I know you said not to mess with it, but it was calling my name. I mean, not literally, but figuratively, you know?! It's like it wanted me to pick it up, to experiment on it."

The problem with that statement is that Steve believes him. The Tesseract has had a funny hold on anyone it's come in contact with.

"Where is it now?"

"Somewhere over there." Tony gestures, waving his hand to his left. He winces as he moves his leg, "It went flying."

Steve sets down his shield and begrudgingly walks over to where he points, trying to see the glow. He spots it just a bit to his right and he stoops, reaching out to pick it up. Here he was, staring at the thing he'd watched fall into the ocean right before he fell into the ocean.

His fingers touch the cold blue surface and he shivers, remembering the Valkyrie and how it felt to sink. And staring at the thing makes him feel a whole lot of things. Loss and longing and resentment at what it took from him. Would it be too much to ask to—

He feels the cube get hot, too hot and he's feeling strange, tingling, like he's about to get struck by lightning.

"Tony?" He calls, suddenly terrified that he might share the same fate as Schmidt.

"Cap?"

Is the last thing he hears before the sky gets too bright and he drops the Tesseract, trying to cover his face with his arms and the world grows too big, bigger than he can take in and the air is moving around him, biting at his skin and pulling him away from gravity. Flashes of the Valkyrie and the Chitauri and tentacles and trains make him wince as the sky finally cuts out.

He slams into the ground, body hitting something hard and metal with enough force to smash the air from his lungs. Adrenaline courses through him and he leaps up, the lab floor beneath his feet.

"Damn fucking Tesseract!" He shouts at the ceiling before turning towards where Tony was sitting a minute ago. But he's not there, he's standing off to his other side. He doesn't have time to address that fact at the moment, because he's too annoyed and too on edge to notice. "I can't even look at you right now." He snaps out. When Tony opens his mouth sto speak, eyes wide in shock, Steve just waves his hand angrily, "don't. Just don't, Tony! I've had enough! You keep doing this shit without any thought beforehand about what could happen and I just— I just can't."

He storms out of the lab, only briefly thinking about his shield. Whatever he'll grab it later. He sighs, leaning against the wall briefly and lifting his feet. A few cuts and shiny pieces of glass are embedded in his feet.

"Jarvis?"

The building stays quiet, and Steve briefly wonders if Tony is so annoyed at him for yelling that he is denying Steve access to the system. But no. Even Tony isn't that pety. Usually.

"Jarvis?"

Still no answer. He shrugs and limps down the hall, not wanting to push the glass in any further.

He's about to hit the elevator button when he hears the telltale click of the alarm about to sound. A second later, his hearing is confirmed as red lights flash and the elevator shutters in place.

He grits his teeth, the Tesseract probably summoned some psycho with its stupid space problems and its bad luck tendencies. Instead of taking the elevator, which isn't an option anyways, he pushes through the stairs and starts making his way down. He is pretty close to the top and hadn't heard any glass breaking, which means the intruder is most likely on the lower floors.

Now he wishes he had grabbed his shield from where he'd set it down.

—-

He makes it to the bottom floor in good time and sees nothing out of the ordinary. He pushes out into the lobby where security eyes him strangely. It only briefly hits him that he's still in only his pajama pants.

After realizing nothing is amiss in the building he sighs and turns back to the door that lets him into the private staircase taht runs all the way to the top. He scans his hand and goes to pull the handle when it beeps red at him.

His eyes narrow and he tries again.

Red. Not green.

He tries a single more time, before he glares at the ceiling. "Jarvis?" He can feel the security guard eyeing him and starting to inch closer, so he tries one last time, only to get a double red flash. "You're on his side!?" He accuses Jarvis, "after everything tonight?" Jarvis stays silent and Steve feels more betrayed by Jarvis than—-

And suddenly it hits him that Tony had set the alarm off on purpose. Get him to run around and get him stuck out here in the lobby in just his pajamas looking like a half wit, All because Steve yelled at him. And maybe Steve did go a bit overboard with his tirade. But he's just so tired of the antics and the problems of the future. He just wants one day where he's not cleaning up someone else's mess.

Anger rises up way too fast. He takes a deep breath and tries to calm down. He and Tony didn't always get along. Almost never. But he thought they were past this kind of crap. He tries one more time and it denies him.

"Fine!" Steve shouts at the camera he can see in the corner, "Fine, you wanna play it like that? Then fucking fine, Stark!" He throws his hands up in annoyance and then storms out of the front glass doors.

They close with too much force. Shattering as they slam against their frames. But he's too pissed off to care. So he keeps walking.

—-

Tony Stark is minding his own damn business when a giant angry half-dressed blonde man drops into his lab. Appearing as if from nowhere and then jumping up and yelling at him.

Except the man seems to know Tony. And Tony's sure he's never met him before. Because the man is 6 foot 4 and built like a tank. A really really good looking tank. Then the man is disappearing out the lab door like he knows where he's going and it takes about a minute for the panic to set in. Which is when Tony sets off the panic alarm.

Not five minutes later, as Tony rewinds the footage from the lab, trying to figure out what the hell just happened, now locked very securely in his lab, and thankfully all the other Avengers are out on a mission, he gets a buzz from Security.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, uh, hi, Mr. Stark? There's a guy down here? He seems pretty angry, is he… Is he a guest of yours?"

The way he says 'guest' makes Tony wince, as if he might have been having some sort of late night liaison with the blonde behemoth.

"No." Tony snaps, "he's an intruder. Get him out—"

He hears the sound of yelling and then shattering glass and he can hear the guard grimace. "Uh… he broke your front doors."

Tony blinks. "My brand new front doors? The ones I got that are shatter and bullet proof?"

"Those are the ones, sir."

Tony just hangs up.

—-

Steve stalks along the sidewalk shoulders bristled in annoyance. And people stare. Of course they do.

Whether it's because he's half naked or because he's Captain America he's not sure.

Maybe both.

Probably both.

Why are we getting a panic alarm for the tower?

Natasha texts.

No reason. Accident.

He does not reveal that he was messing with the Tesseract when he'd been expressly told not to. He was a bit surprised when they all left for a mission and hadn't needed him. Allowing him alone time with the cosmic cube as it were. But they'd asked him not to mess with it till they got back.

He just… hadn't listened. Whoops…

All three of them step off the gangplank of the Quinjet that night and they look tired and grimy. Tony greets them with a cheery wave.

"How was Georgia? The country. Not the state."

They all just glare at him tiredly, which is normal and they head past him towards their quarters.

"Wow, not even a 'hello dear, how was your day?' Geez. What a grumpy bunch."

None of them answer except Natasha who flips him off. He rolls his eyes and heads back down to his labs, hoping to figure out the mystery man before it becomes a bigger issue.

—-

If he'd had any brain power whatsoever, he would have let Tony choke in that damn lab and stay crushed under that shelf. But no, he's the fucking babysitter of all these traumatized heroes on this team. He's taken a whole lap around Manhattan. Ignoring the looks and the few phones that point his way. Knowing he'll regret the pictures in the tabloids tomorrow. But he just can't seem to care.

The end of the loop brings him back to the tower and he thinks of his motorcycle in the garage. If Tony won't let him back in, at least he can take that so he can stop walking on his messed up feet. He'd sat on a bench and eventually worked the glass out, mostly. But he knows there's a few shards still in there and walking so much isn't helping.

The garage door is open as suppliers drop off their loads for the morning and he walks in, nodding to the guys he knows. They stare at him dubiously and he decides he needs to find a shirt pronto.

He's walking towards where the Avengers keep their vehicles when Clint exits out the back door.

"Clint!" He calls, relief coursing through him, "thank goodness. Clint, can you let me in? Tony's being Tony and I just—"

"Who are you?"

Steve stops in his tracks, looking at the man. "What?"

Clint raises an eyebrow, "Um, do I know you? How did you get in here?"

Realization sinks in, "Not you too. Come on, don't do this to me. Whatever he's paying you, I'll double it, okay?" Clint's face is staying in its confused state and Steve has to remind himself that while Clint acts like a goof, he's actually an incredibly skilled spy/assassin. "How did he convince you to do this, huh? He was the one messing with the tesseract and you're on his side?"

Clint's eyes widen briefly at the mention and then his face is back to stone. "Dude, I don't know you, and I'm going to need you to leave. You can't be here."

Steve sees the man set his hand on his hip. And although Hawkeye is known for his bow, he's also trained on every firearm known to man. So Steve narrows his eyes, "that's how it's going to be?" He throws up his hands, "Fine." And he stalks back out of the garage, bare feet protesting.

—-

Tony hears the elevator ding open and Clint steps out.

"I thought you were going out?" He asks, sipping at his cup of coffee.

"I was." Clint says slowly, "then I got accosted by a half naked guy in the parking garage."

"You what?" Natasha asks.

Tony feels his heart sink to his toes. "Uh—"

"And he accused you of messing with the Tesseract." Clint's voice cuts through the room and he winces. Feeling the presence of the one person he particularly didn't want to know that fact appear behind him.

"You what?"

He turns, eyeing the terrifying woman with forced casualness, "What, we're going to believe the word of some hoodlum from the street?"

Peggy Carter eyes him suspiciously, "a random man off the street finds his way to the Avengers parking garage by chance and accuses you of doing something very in character? I've known stranger."

"Yeah well, not all of us fought against giant tentacled monsters." Natasha quips.

Carter doesn't look away, she stares Tony down, "I told you to leave it alone. Did you?"

"Uh—"

"ANTHONY STARK." She snaps, "It's like I'm speaking to a child, can you not behave on your own for five seconds?!"

"Geez, you sound like the crazy guy." He pouts. Only to stop and snap his mouth closed immediately.

But he's in a room with three spies. And they don't miss a detail.

"Excuse me?" Natasha asks, ""what crazy guy?"

"No one."

"The crazy guy? The big blonde terrifying one I just saw? That crazy guy!?" Clint narrows his eyes, "Do you know this crazy guy?"

"I don't know him."

"You just said you spoke to him."

Tony huffs, "more accurately I would have said he yelled at me and then stormed off!"

"Where was this?!"

He winces, sighing and then sinking into a chair. "My lab."

"What!" The three exclaim.

"When?" Natasha asks, stepping closer.

And that's when he gives in and tells them. "I was… uh… messing around with the tesseract while you guys were on the mission."

Peggy glares at him but he just sighs and keeps going, "and suddenly there's a boom, and this guy pops outta nowhere, and he just starts ranting about me. To me. Calling me out for not thinking before I act, and he's acting like he knows me. Then he's leaving and I freak out, hitting the panic alarm but then he's using the stairs and he's out the door and he—"

"Is that why the front doors got broken?"

"Yeah." Tony answers miserably, "but I don't know him. I swear I've never met him in my life!"

"But he knew your name." Clint says, "and mine."

"We're Avengers." Carter sighs, "everyone knows our names."

"But—" Clint starts, "he didn't say Barton. Or Hawkeye. Or anything like that. He didn't even act like seeing me was a surprise. He just... Called me Clint. Like he's known me for years."

"Did you run his face through facial recognition?" Carter asks, her hands going to her hips in the 'I'm going to figure out this problem don't get in my way' position.

"Yeah…" Tony says in annoyance, "I did. And there's no matches."

Peggy stabs a finger at him, "are you forgetting what Thor said? That cube manipulates space! You could have opened another portal and brought an alien here! A bad one!"

Tony winces. It wasn't false.

"I want to see the footage."

He sighs and leans back in his chair. "Jarvis?"

Certainly, sir.

The wall lights up and the projection shows Tony's lab. He's typing at his computer, wires hooked up to the tesseract when there's a blur of motion, like the air shifted just right to reflect all the light in the room and suddenly there's a loud boom. And a man appears, hitting the ground and popping up equally as fast. "Damn Fucking Tesseract!" The man yells, turning to yell at Tony before storming out of the room.

Then Tony speeds forward to the tirade in the lobby and the way he slams the doors, causing them to shatter with ease.

"That's it." He says, turning back to face them. "I don't—" he stops, his eyes on Carter's face. Who looks like she's seen a ghost. "Peggy?"

Her hand adjusts the screen, scrubbing back in time to the lab as he walks out, "his feet are bleeding." She says, pointing out the trail he leaves, "why?"

Tony squints, "I don't know, I didn't notice."

Natasha glares at him, "you mean as you walked from your lab to the elevator you didn't notice a trail of blood!?"

"I was preoccupied!" He huffs, "and the cleaners came before I went to that floor again!"

"And they didn't ask about blood!?"

"They're used to cleaning up a lot." He grouses. Tony turns to Carter whose eyes are still trained on the screen, "you uh, you notice something we didn't?"

She shakes her head, blinking away from the screen, "no." She says quickly, "no, it can't be. It's nothing."

"What can't be, Carter?" Clint asks.

"He just…" she scrubs the screen back again, finding the best angle of his face, "he looks so familiar. Like someone I used to know. Back in my time."

Natasha grins, "this guy have a name?"

"Yes." Carter snaps, "he did. But it's not him. This man is much too tall and broad. And if he hails from outer space then most definitely not."

"He's a big blonde alien who knows us? Other than Thor?" Clint quips, "great."

"Well," Carter starts, "we have to clean up Anthony's mess. Again. So we find this man, bring him back and send him home before his crazy spreads."

"How do we find him?" Natasha asks.

"He's pretty dead set about getting back in the building, I'm sure he'll stick around." Clint muses.

—-

Steve hides most of that day. In parks or on rooftops. He could steal a shirt and pay them back later. But for some reason he can't seem to get himself too. He doesn't want Tony to win by forcing him to do something so unnecessary.

So he hides and he sleeps, the sun beating down on his bare skin as it sinks lower in the sky.

"No where." Natasha says flippantly, throwing herself onto the common room couch. "If the guy wanted to be found before, he's changed his tune."

"How do we find someone that doesn't show up on facial recognition?" Clint asks, "he could be anywhere by now."

Tony sighs at the narrowed gaze Peggy sends his way, "I'll find him. I'll use the footage from the lab to start searching the street cameras."

"Yes." She says with an eyebrow raise. "You will."

—-

It takes less than another day for him to pop up. They see him on a parking garage camera, jumping from one rooftop to another, leaping down the fire escape deftly before he lands with a graceful thud to the ground.

They all stare at each other briefly before Clint shakes his head, "aliens."

—-

"Hear you've been trying to get into Avengers Tower?"

Steve turns, eyeing the red-head at the end of the alley. "Natasha, thank goodness." He stands, wincing a bit at the glass that's now stuck in his feet with healed skin over it. "Please tell me Tony hasn't turned you against me either."

"Nope." She says easily, "he's ready for you to come back." And something about the way she says that makes his shackles rise. He looks her over and he notices something.

"What's going on?"

"What do you mean?" She asks innocently.

"You're acting strange."

"No, I'm not."

"Oh yeah? Then why is the gun that's usually in your thigh holster on your hip?"

Natasha glances down and then up at him, and something unreadable crosses her face. But she shrugs and speaks calmly, "I always wear it here."

"No you don't. You wax long about gun placement all the time! You only wear it there when you're on the defensive. I swear if that's some tranq cooked up by Tony so you can drag me unconscious back to the tower, I swear—"

"It's not." She says quickly, something close to surprise reflecting in her eyes. "He wants you to come back to the tower on your own accord."

He glares at her but then nods, "after Tony unceremoniously locked me out?" He waits but they don't say anything. So he huffs, knowing there's something else going on. But he's tired, hungry, grimy, still only in pajama pants and ready to be back at the one place that even has a semblance of home. "Okay, let's go."

He follows her to a car, and she gestures for him to get in. Steve slides into the backseat where Clint is sitting, facing him. He glares at the archer, "remember me yet."

"Yep." The man says succinctly.

Steve rolls his eyes and settles back, "great."

They roll up to the tower and he gets out, walking to the pad to scan his hand, when he pauses, "if I scan is it going to beep red at me?"

The two assassins glance at each other briefly, "uh, yeah…" Natasha walks forward, scans her hand and then opens the door as it flashes green.

Steve rolls his eyes and follows after her. Natasha pushes a floor button and he goes to push his own floor level.

Her hand blocks him faster than he expects. They stare at each other momentarily. "What are you doing?" He asks.

"What are you doing?" She asks calmly back.

"I'm trying to go to my floor," he grits out, "this joke is getting really old."

"What joke?"

Steve turns to the archer and waves a hand, "the whole pretending not to know me and keeping me out of my room? What, does Tony have some big embarrassing thing planned for me in the common room?" He gestures to the button illuminated on the pad and he sees them exchange another unsure glance. "What is it! I don't get why you guys are taking his side! We all agreed that him messing with the Tesseract was bad!"

Before they can answer, the door dings and opens, dumping them into the common room.

Steve glares at them, tired of them acting like this and their weird behavior. He can feel their eyes on him as he walks directly to the cabinet that holds the bowls, pulling one out. Then he moves to the drawer that has the silver ware.

Except it's filled with measuring spoons and other utensils.

He turns around, "what, Tony's trying to piss off Bruce, too?"

They glance at each other again. He's getting real tired of that.

"Who?" Natasha asks, her face a mask except one raised eyebrow.

Steve narrows his eyes, "oh what, did Bruce yell at Tony too? So we're both getting the stranger treatment?"

The elevator dings again and they swivel their heads towards it.

Tony steps out, a tablet in his hand and his eyes wary.

Steve's about to chew him out for this too long held joke, until someone else steps out from the elevator, causing his heart and his breath and his entire world to come to a halt.

He can't help but stare, feeling like his whole world is reeling, too hot and too cold and everything's too much. And suddenly more fury rises then he's ever felt before.

"How dare you." Steve snaps, pointing at Tony, "you think this is funny? Some sort of hilarious prank?" He sets the bowl down with a clatter and he steps back, rage and sadness and desperation at the sight of the love of his life's face on someone else's body. He can tell it's not her. Too tall, too muscular. Must be wearing one of those Shield meshes.

All four are staring at him, but she's looking at him like she's seen a ghost, which he can say is about how he feels.

And suddenly it's too much. No good person, tenuous friendship or not, would treat another person like this. "You want me gone? You want me out of the tower, then fine. I'm gone."

He steps away, not even able to look at her as he walks to the elevator.

"Steve?"

The voice makes his entire body go rigid.

He turns slowly, finding her eyes on him. And he tries to search for a voice filter, or a device playing her voice, something he can pinpoint to say that Tony is fabricating that sound. The way she sounded, desperately sad, as he told her he had to 'put her in the water'.

But she steps forward, her face in total disbelief, "Steve? Is it you?"

He flinches back, the sound of her speaking to him, young and youthful and alive is too painful to bear.

It take sa second but he regains his bearings, swiveling to Tony, "I can't believe you would stoop this low." He hisses, pain cracking at his voice, "what, she's a robot? A good actress?" He scoffs out a humorless laugh, "You stored you aunt Peggy's voice just to find the right time to torture me?" He looks to her, and he closes his eyes, listening for a heartbeat. It's there, steady and thrumming. So he opens his eyes and he points at her, "I don't know who you are, or what he paid you, but don't you ever impersonate her again. Maybe you just look eerily similar, or maybe you're wearing a shield mesh but don't—" his voice cracks and he growls in frustration, her staring at him in shock, "— don't you ever dishonor Peggy Carter like this again."

Then he turns, intent on grabbing his shield and a change of clothes and never stepping foot in this tower ever again. He makes it two steps before a hand grabs his shoulder. He shoves it off, ready to yell at Tony or Clint or whoever was going to try to stop him and try to get him to laugh it all off as just a joke.

But it's her.

The fraud.

So he just glares at her and steps again. Only to be yanked back. He turns now, anger rising. "Don't touch me." He orders, feeling his shoulders straighten and voice drop, "don't you dare touch me."

"Steve, I—"

"No!" He cuts her off, "no, you don't get to speak." He turns to leave again only to find the hand grabbing his elbow.

"Stop!" She says, her voice slicing through him, "Steve—"

"Let go of me." He growls. Not turning to face her.

When her grip only tightens, he slowly looks over his shoulder and fixes her with his fiercest glare, "I'm going to ask you one last time. Let. Go."

And suddenly her face and her grip hardens. "No."

Quicker than a flash he yanks his arm from her grasp and turns to face her. "Touch me again, and I won't hesitate."

And something quirks at her eyebrow, "you'd hit a woman?"

"I'll hit whoever is necessary." He says, "since clearly you can't follow instructions."

Her mouth opens in a scoff, and he turns to leave. Not actually wanting to hurt this person who made a terrible decision to play into Tony Stark's hand.

When his feet are suddenly being swept out from under him, and he hits the floor with a thud.

Indignation and his temper flares as he sits up, eyeing the woman who stands still, as if she hadn't moved a muscle.

Slowly he gets to his feet and he's done. So done with this day. He turns to leave again and almost makes it to the stair door when he hears her approach, listening for a possible attack this time. She's almost on him and he turns, jumping over her sweeping leg, and swooping down, grabbing her grounded leg and pulling it out from under her, causing her to topple backwards, sprawling backwards on the ground.

He hears three distinct gasps, but he doesn't have time to look as she's already back on her feet, throwing a punch towards his jaw. He leans back and it flies over him and he turns, catching her in the back with an elbow. She goes sprawling forward this time, but she doesn't fall, righting herself and whipping to face him.

He turns to Tony, "what you hired a fighter?" He turns to her, "sorry lady, but the real Peggy was a way better fighter than you. Try again next time."

Her eyes widen in disbelief and three more gasps sound off as he turns to the door, trying to leave for the 15th time.

But a whoosh tells him she's not finished. Suddenly he's dodging, rolling sideways and jumping up, flurrying back and forth as she places jabs and hooks much faster than a normal human should be able to. He gets a shot in on her ribs and she chokes out a sound of surprise at the hit. And he remembers to take a deep breath, he can't actually go harming this stranger, no matter how strong she seems or how idiotic she's behaving.

She barrels towards him, toppling them both in an old boxer's move and they hit the ground, cracking it.

"Hey-hey!" He hears Tony call, but he can't focus on that, because she's on top of him, her knees pinning his waist down and she's fighting to get his hands, trying to gain the upper hand. But he knows this move. He bucks his hips high, unseating her balance and then grabs her knees, shoving her back and away from him, hard. She flies back, landing on her backside and looking furious at him.

They both get up slowly and he turns to Tony, defenses dropping, "what the hell is this? I don't get the point of all this! What is—"

That's when she lands a punch to his jaw. Taking advantage when he isn't paying attention.

The punch rattles his brain, knocking him back and against the wall, which he puts a torso sized dent in. He keeps himself from sliding to the floor, but just barely. His fingers ghost to his chin where blood is dripping from his now split lip. He looks up at her, her eyes as surprised as his must be. Her closed fist clenched in her other hand as if she got hurt punching him.

"Who the hell are you?"

He glares at her, "who the hell are you."

They stand there for a moment before Steve looks over to Tony, "seriously, seriously, I'm done with this joke. Please. Just tell me what the hell is going on."

"I don't know you." Tony snaps at him, his face still in disbelief as he blinks back and forth between him and the false Carter standing a few feet away, "none of us know who you are. Except… I guess her?"

Steve looks up at the woman who is staring at him like she's being torn in two.

He turns to Natasha and Clint, "you're going to play along with this, that you have no idea who I am?" They just stare at him and he feels unease and anxiety grow, "JARVIS?"

Tony chokes out a gasp, "how the hell do you know about Jarvis?"

Steve straightens, "where is Bruce. He won't stand for this. He can't."

Clint huffs out an annoyed breath, "we already asked Bruce who?"

"Bruce Banner." Steve growls out.

Tony wrinkles his nose, "Bruce Banner.. like Dr. Bruce Banner? The physicist?"

Something about the eeriness of that question, like Tony has never actually met the guy makes Steve's stomach turn.

"Are you—" the woman starts hesitantly, "are you Steven Grant Rogers?"

Tony makes a choked sound.

He glares at her, "I've heard enough from you."

She steps forward, pointing at him, "are you or are you not Steven Grant Rogers!"

He doesn't flinch, even though he can tell her other fist is ready for another fight.

"Congrats." He says flatly, "you can read a history book."

"Don't be smart with me." She accuses, "how did you get this tall? And strong? What happened?" She turns to Tony, her voice a bit hysterical. "I read Howard's files, they said he died in the 50's!?"

Tony furrows his brow, "what? Peggy, that's not Steve Rogers. I've seen pictures okay? That guy was a runt!"

The woman in front of him turns and eyes him like he's glass that might shatter, "Steve? Are you Steve Rogers or not?"

And suddenly things don't feel so normal, "what is this?" He asks hoarsely, "what's going on. This isn't funny."

"No one's joking, dude." Clint says from off to the side.

"Carter," Natasha asks, "who is Steve Rogers?"

And it sickens Steve that he can see no deception in that question.

The impersonator swallows, covering her eyes with her hand, "he and I fought together in the war. He was supposed to receive the serum but he got shot right before—" he feels his own eyes widen as well as his team's, "he recovered and Howard built him a machine, the Hydra Stomper. We fought side by side—" she turns to him, her eyes sad and reserved, "—until the day at the castle, when I stepped through the portal. He was the last person I looked at before I lost 70 years. When I came back, the files said that he had died in a fight against some maniac named Zemo. He and the machine were…" she pauses, her eyes growing strangely fearful, "they were never found."

"My dad talked about Steve all the time." Tony adds softly, "he hated when he went MIA."

Steve's chest feels tight, a feeling of gravity losing its hold on him. "No—" he chokes out, "no that's not what happened. What are you—"

"So you are Steve?" She cuts him off, "Steve Rogers?"

Instead of denying them the story, forcing them to admit they already know it, he finds himself telling them.

"I didn't get shot. I got the serum, and I fought alongside Peggy Carter to bring down Hydra. I defeated Schmidt but—" even now it aches in his chest, "until I had to—" he winces, his bare chest feeling even more exposed, "I got lost. in the arctic. For almost 70 years."

The woman, whose own chest seems to be having trouble taking in air, looks at Tony, "what is going on, Anthony, what is happening."

The man looks helpless, "I told you! I zapped the Tesseract and suddenly he was there! I didn't do anything!"

Steve looks up, "what?"

The woman looks at Tony for a moment, her face unreadable but her eyes calculating. "If the Tesseract could deposit me in another place, and then back—-" she turns to Steve, "is James Barnes alive in your universe?"

Steve winces, "no, he— he died in the war. Fell off the train in the alps on the Zola retrieval mission."

And when the woman clutches at her heart, absolutely stricken he suddenly starts to feel his pulse race, "are you—" he pauses, feeling his breath thin at the thought, "are you, he's— is he alive? Here? Are you real?" He stumbles back, resting against the cold wall, "what— what is this?"

The woman, who he now might actually believe is— his heart beats wildly, erratic in its anxiety at the thought, looks at him, "I think you've jumped." She looks at Tony, "I think he jumped universes. Schmidt was pulling that monster from somewhere else, So Steve could have got pulled from somewhere else too."

"You're trying to tell me there's parallel universes out there?" Clint asks incredulously.

Tony shakes his head tearing at his hair before looking up at them, "I don't know, I mean—" he looks at Peggy, "dad speculated you had to have gone somewhere, he just…" Tony's eyes trail to him, "did you know my dad?"

"Howard?" Steve nods, "yeah, I knew him."

"He alive?"

Steve grimaces, "no. He and your mother died in a car crash before I was pulled out of the ice… is he…?"

"No." Tony says, "he died of old age a few years back, mom just a year after."

"I'm sorry." But then he turns to Peggy, "is… Bucky alive here?"

She smiles at him, "he is. A bit ornery and forgetful. But he's still alive."

Steve crumples then. Hitting his knees to the ground hard and leaning forward. Hands over his eyes as he imagines the one thing he'd always regretted not being able to do. Save his best friend. The one who hadn't even wanted to go to war.

"You saved him on the train?"

She sort of shrugs, "I did catch him in a way, but you're the one who fell from the train that day. You in the Hydra Stomper. But we found you later. Got you back."

He looks up, and they're all staring at him with wide eyes, but he looks at Peggy, "was Bucky happy?"

Her eyes gaze at him softly, "from what I could gather, the three of them stayed friends. And while he took the loss of you rather hard, he was happy that you'd gone out fighting… like you'd always wanted." Her voice cracks on that last word, and suddenly his throat is tight again. "He married a nice girl and settled down. Has a couple of grandkids."

He leans back, his skin hitting the wall. Unable to formulate a response.

She steps forward and kneels, meeting his eye level. "And…" she looks at him, "am I… Is she alive?"

He nods slowly, "She's alive. Strong willed and a bit forgetful too. But she's alive."

Her throat bobs as she swallows, "and… in your universe… we cared for each other?"

His eyes shutter closed. "I loved her more than anything. And I never even got a chance to tell her."

He hears her breath shake and she lays a hand on his, causing his eyes to open back up. "I never got to tell him either. We'd only planned to go—"

"Dancing." He says in a whisper. Her eyes widen and then she's sitting back, "we planned to go dancing. But I didn't know how."

"I was going to teach him." She says hoarsely.

He looks up at Tony and realization hits that the man hadn't been pulling a prank on him at all. That this Tony Stark has never met him. "Sorry for yelling at you."

The man shrugs, "I get it."

Then he turns to Peggy, "Erksine?"

She shakes her head. He winces. "You too?" He nods.

"Phillips?"

Her face grows somber, "he died the same day as Erskine, in the shootout…"

Steve pales, "what? Where I'm from he died in the 80's."

She sighs, "I lost them both. And I almost lost Steve that same day..."

"The commandos?"

She smiles, "I had them. We were a ruddy good team."

That makes him smile, "so were we. She ran right along with us, no serum at all and she kept up, beat them even."

Her lips quirk up and she turns towards Tony, "you think he can get a shower? And perhaps something to eat and wear before we continue?"

"Course, course." Tony mumbles, "some of Clint's stuff might fit a bit snug, but it should do."

Clint nods, "here, come on, I'll show you."

Steve follows the man to the elevator, looking briefly back at the face of someone he wasn sure he'd never see again.

She smiles at him and he smiles back.

—-

Tony waits till the elevator door closes before turning to her, "Um, neither dad or Uncle Bucky or anyone mentioned you had a thing for Steve Rogers!"

She frowns at him, "I don't think it was well known. But…" she sighs, "I think after I left… Steve took it rather hard. Or so I gathered from what I could find in Howard's things… so I don't think they brought me up much. Then when he died…" she shrugs, "I don't know what would have made them think to tell you."

Natasha walks over, sitting at the stool on the counter, "are you doing alright? It's a lot to take in…"

"I'm not alright in the slightest." She admits with a shaky laugh. "How can I be? How is he here?"

Tony pulls up a projection and just shakes his head as numbers and footage of the lab scroll by. "I truly don't know. I wasn't making any progress, or so I thought. But when he landed, he yelled about me, his me, messing with the Tesseract too. So maybe it was them. Like, they did something to send him here."

"That's possible—" Natasha says with a smile, "I'm sure the other version of you is smarter."

"Hey!"

"Not now." Peggy chastises, "I—" she looks at the elevator, her tone growing sad, "what do we do?"

He grimaces, "I mean… if we pulled him from another universe… or if he jumped from his side accidentally, then that means his universe is down a super soldier. That's not a good thing for the good guys. We gotta get him back home."

She's quiet for a moment before she nods, and Tony thinks she doesn't quite trust herself to speak.

—-