Thank you to my amazing reviewers: Terri'smind, Guest, Garfunkyel, Pickles, Zenoneel-Sarior, and DoublePaws! You're all wonderful and deserve good things.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: As I'm participating in Camp NaNo this month, expect me to vanish until the first Friday of August. Between that, a wedding, and a family reunion, I'm going to be slammed. Thanks for your understanding and I hope you enjoy this chapter!

So, who gets the reference I made with the chapter titles? A dream I had actually told me what to write in these two chapters and what to call them. After I finished I saw a connection between the contents of these two chapters and the message put forward by the movie I got the titles from. After all, what makes a monster better than going crazy/making plans to murder one of your teammates, and what makes a better man than putting the world before your own wants?

Disclaimer: I own nothing under copyright.


Chapter 8: What Makes a Man

"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."

J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

It was probably going to be an eternal thing, Steve thought as he was escorted to SHIELD's prisoner holding area, wondering how his life ended up like this. He wouldn't change it for the world. But today was very much testing that.

If it wasn't the panic of nightmares about Tony dying in Austria, it was the terror that accompanied yesterday's battle. He had been unable to sleep until Tony crawled into his bed and pressed their backs flush together, shivering despite his warmth. Waking up was no less worrying, the other pillow cold and genius nowhere in sight.

The summons came right after breakfast. While everyone else was headed off to do God knows what (probably sleep in their own beds) Steve got called to SHIELD.

Loki was asking for him.

This was a bad idea, Steve had acknowledged it the minute he was called and he thought so even as he walked down the hall to the most secure cell they had. He had never been one to resist the call of a bad idea. Especially one so curious.

There was still something regal about the alien, even defeated and tossed in a cell. The minute he saw Steve, however, the only comparison possible was to someone who very much wanted to leave the conversation they were currently having. "I was unsure you would come," Loki stated, getting to his feet.

"I originally wasn't," Steve said, crossing his arms.

"I see that you are not one for meaningless pleasantries. In that case, I will get to it," Loki said, which was welcome, "When you all were under the influence of the staff, I was able to see a little of what was in your minds at the time. In yours, I saw a dead man, the same as the mechanic but not."

Steve went cold. How could anyone have known that he was thinking of Tony? "What of it?" he asked sharply.

As if in surrender, Loki held up his hands. A little smile teased the edge of his lips. "Congratulations in breaking out of it. Not even I was able to until your green beast got to me," he said conversationally.

The pieces were coming together. In that moment when Tony and Fury were having it out, a little voice in his mind had whispered that Fury had a point and Tony would have been neck deep in this stuff if he still made weapons… Then his instincts started screaming. Protect Tony. The clash had paralyzed Steve, stopped him short and broken the control.

Now Loki wanted to know how he did it. Something about his phrasing niggled at Steve's mind, made him wonder… It was shoved to the back as the alien went on.

"This is not about me," Loki told him.

"For once," Steve snarked.

There was a flash of appreciation in Loki's eyes, but he shrugged concedingly. "I have done a great many things that I do not wish to think about. Perhaps I can begin my amendments with you," he said. It sounded like a (very unwelcome) come on.

"Sorry, I'm not into horses," Steve taunted. It had been one of the first stories he found when he was looking for myths about the Norse gods.

For once Loki reacted like a human and rolled his eyes. "Humans, honestly. Not everything is about sex," he said, disparaging, "I meant something else. Something much more important to you."

"Like what?" Steve asked cautiously. Whatever it was, it couldn't be good. This was Loki. He was called the God of Mischief for a reason.

The alien smiled deviously. "Time is a delicate thing," he said, "but, if you're careful, it is possible to change the past."

Steve's brain ground to a screeching halt. Changing time… Loki was offering to help him save Tony, as repayment for what he did here.

His logical mind immediately balked at the idea, it was too good to be true. The very idea was enough to get him drunk on the possibilities. And that was where his heart betrayed him, thudding so loud and fast he was surprised it wasn't visible through his shirts. Anything was possible, and if he said yes…

"I'll think about it," Steve said and turned around, ready to go.

"Your scientists expect to have the transport ready by the week's end," Loki warned. He had a time limit.

The only acknowledgement Steve gave was an absent nod as he walked out the door.

In front of the guards he put on his Captain America face, but on the inside his head was buzzing and stomach flip flopping. Even as he walked through SHIELD, accepting words of thanks and admiration for the actions of the day before, he wondered if he should work with the alien in their cell.

Once upon a time, Steve would have jumped at the chance. The word 'yes' would have been out of his mouth before Loki could have even finished his offer.

Now, things were more complicated. While he had loved the Tony of the 1940's and always would, he was fast falling for the genius who hid behind his creations in the present. What would happen to this past-future version of Tony if he did it?

What would happen to the rest of the world? Would Bucky still have fallen from the train? Would it have been Tony instead? Would HYDRA have won because the SSR didn't have his suicidal rage fueling him through ever more insane missions?

Wait, the SSR. Howard. Peggy.

As he walked across the parking garage to his motorcycle, Steve smiled grimly. After Tony died and Bucky fell, Peggy had been the one to both encourage him and tell him when he was being stupider than usual. According to Tony, she was in a nursing facility in DC and had relatively common lucid moments.

Before anything, Steve pressed the icon on his phone to call Tony. Half thankfully, he got JARVIS instead.

"I apologize for the inconvenience, Captain Rogers, but Sir is in the middle of a particularly delicate part of repairing the Mark VII suit. Is there anything I may help you with instead?" the AI asked, unfailingly polite.

Steve's shoulders slumped, though he wasn't sure whether it was in relief or disappointment. "Can you give him a message when he's done?" he asked, fishing through his pockets for keys.

"Of course," JARVIS answered, not quite condescending.

"Tell him I'm headed out of town for a couple of days to see Peggy, in DC. I'll be back soon," he said carefully. He didn't want to give the wrong impression, but couldn't have Tony know too much. As always.

"I will be sure to tell him," JARVIS reassured him.

"Thanks, JARVIS. Bye," Steve said absently as he pressed the 'end call' button. That done, he patted his motorcycle and then straddled it. Kickstand up, he put in the key and revved her up, relaxing at the familiar sound.

It looked like Steve was going on a road trip. Good thing he had some vacation time stocked up.


Finally, the most exhausting meeting of Bruce's life was over. All he wanted to do was go back to the Tower, eat his weight in rice and beans, then snooze on one of the amazingly comfortable beds that seemed to be around every corner there. For all that Stark Tower looked cold and sharp, there were little comforts everywhere.

It had taken two hours to even convince everyone in the room that they need a plan, never mind to actually figure one out. Three options had been put forward, depending on the circumstances.

The first and easiest was to get Thor to deal with Cap from a distance using his thunder, or at least to disable him so that he could be brought into custody. The second was for the Hulk to be brought out and turn him into star spangled mulch (which Big Green very much didn't like the idea of but relented on). The third and most favorable, but least certain of success, was to hand Steve an impossible mission and send him out to get killed. Depending on who and what was available, other plans had been discussed and all too often involved one of the spies getting closer than they should in order to stab him in the back- literally.

No one had liked that they would eventually have to put these ideas into play. Not even Fury, who was usually the first one to prepare for rogue agents. By the time the final resort was completed (trick Steve into the Hulk's cage and drop him in the Mariana Trench) the entire rest of the team was slouching in their seats.

Even Clint, who had brought this issue up, looked the sort of guilty and tired combination that only came from necessary actions that he still regretted. The way his chin rested on his crossed arms, folded over the table, made him seem tiny.

"Let's hope we don't have to actually use any of these damn plans. Dismissed," Fury told them once the last variables were covered. He rubbed the side of his face with the eye patch.

There was still a great deal that could go wrong, Bruce thought with an unhappy grimace. He had mentioned what Tony said in the helicarrier lab about Steve knowing more than he should, but there was little to be done about that. There was no knowing what he was aware of and what he wasn't. Where that was concerned, they'd have to fly by the seat of their pants.

Natasha's suggestion of sending him out after the Winter Soldier was looking better and better by the minute.

When Bruce heaved himself to his feet, his spine popped in at least five places. He rubbed at his back and considered that maybe going back to the Tower really was the best idea. His alter ego left him tired at the best of times, and the day after two transformations and fighting aliens didn't qualify as that.

"Doctor Banner, I'd like you stay a few minutes," Fury said. He hadn't gotten up, just stayed leaning back in his chair.

When she passed, Natasha gave the scientist a pat on the shoulder. It must have been for luck.

"What did you do?" Clint asked, but was the glare his employer shot him had him hurry away without an answer.

Once Thor had left, tossing his box of pop tarts and all the wrappers in the trash on the way out, silence filled the conference room.

Bruce couldn't help it, he began fidgeting with his pen again. "If this is about destroying the helicarrier yesterday…" he trailed off, an apology at the tip of his tongue.

"Anyone asks, that's what we talked about in here," Fury said seriously, recovering quickly from the emotional drain of the previous conversation. Or maybe he hadn't been as affected as he looked. It was hard to tell with him.

"We're talking about something else?" Bruce questioned. He wasn't sure what else there was to talk about. Everything within his two specialties (physics and hulking out) were already dealt with.

The smile Fury gave was so polite it was sarcastic. "Now you're getting it," he said.

"What else could you possibly need me for?" Bruce asked with a nervous laugh.

The file Natasha had left on the table was indicated with a scarred finger. "The fight destroyed a lot of Manhattan, including the cemetery where this guy was buried," Fury said, satisfied, "A lot of graves displaced. Joseph and Sarah Rogers, empty caskets for Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes… and this guy. They're going to get reburied soon, but before they do, we need Starosta's DNA." It was a simple and elegant way of getting around the ethics of digging him up. And more disquieting than not.

"In case you've forgotten, I'm not that kind of doctor," Bruce refuted with a sigh. Why did everyone seem to think he was?

"You're as good as," Fury shot back.

Admittedly, Bruce had spent as much time looking at DNA as studying anything else over the past decade. But that wasn't what he really wanted to know. "Why me?" he asked.

It took a minute of withstanding a full force glare to get an answer. "Because I know you can keep a secret," Fury finally said grumpily, "The Army would lose their damn minds if they found out we were opening up a decorated war hero's casket for this. But we need to know who this is, now more than ever." He tapped the autopsy photo for further emphasis.

Carefully Bruce didn't look at it. He couldn't. But he could understand why finding out more about this man was important. "Fine. When can I get access to the body?" he asked with distaste.

Satisfied, Fury got up and waved for the scientist to follow. "Right now," he said.

This certainly wasn't what Bruce expected from today, he thought as he paced down the hall. In the elevator he jumped; a voice had declared that, "Doctor Banner is not cleared for Project Mayor."

Nonplussed, Fury said, "Override, Fury, Nicholas J." He leaned on the back of the elevator, for all appearances at ease.

"Project Mayor?" Bruce asked. He shuffled to the side of the car out of habit.

"Starosta is Czech for 'mayor'. It sounded random enough," Fury explained with a hint of humor.

Nothing more was said, and the elevator made no further stops. The lack of bland music was somehow dissonant. When the doors finally opened, Bruce couldn't wait to get out.

The basement they landed in was just like any other, but creepier. There was no flickering from the eye watering brightness of the fluorescent lights, no water dripping. Not even a hint of damp teased Bruce's sensitive nose, which struck him as unnatural. The complete unremarkability was doing a number on him.

"So what's the official story about why you have his body?" Bruce asked when he realized that it was a legitimate concern. If anyone found out, he needed to know what to say.

"We volunteered some of our empty storage to contain the bodies," Fury answered as he slid his key card through an electronic lock, "Keep them from spreading disease and all that. They're supposed to be reburied next week." He snorted, not believing a word. The backlog of what needed to be done in New York was already tremendous.

One coffin was separated from the rest, laid out on a table under a light fixture. The metal was deeply dented on the top, probably with the weight of the soil, and the corners were corroded with rust. Even at this distance the stench of the rotting corpse within could be smelled.

At a nearby table Bruce donned PPE, plus an apron and hair cap for good measure. Considering that this corpse was nearly seventy years dead, any bit of his DNA could damage the samples.

"I need help to get the lid off in one piece," Bruce warned. He could get it open, but that would be like ripping a can of tuna open with a butcher knife.

Wordlessly Fury pulled on gloves and positioned himself at the foot of the coffin. "On three," he said.

They counted down together and at the same time tugged on the lid. It came off with a screech of the metal and a clang as it hit the table.

The minute his job was done, Fury slunk away to stand near the wall. The shadows certainly made his sinister glaring more effective, though bright purple latex gloves evened it out a little.

"Oh god," Bruce groaned and automatically put his nose in his elbow.

Fury had the right idea when he stayed well out of the way. The smell made Bruce's nose drip in his mask with the intensity and unpleasantness.

The sight wasn't much better, bones with bits of rotting flesh clinging stubbornly on. A shock of short brown hair stuck out from the top of the head and the mouth gaped in a mockery of a smile. On the body, the uniform Starosta had been buried in was in tatters. Even the fabric lining of the coffin was stained and shredded with age and terrible conditions.

A gleam of metal caught Bruce's eye and the second he didn't feel ready to pass out from the fumes, he leaned in slightly to see what it was. "Was Starosta married?" he asked, surprised.

"The files didn't say," Fury replied, "What are you seeing?"

It took some delicate work (and ignoring his skin crawling) to get the jacket, then shirt unbuttoned. A gaping hole in the chest greeted Bruce, large and deep enough to see the spine. Usually the lungs and other organs in the chest were a good place to get DNA from corpses, as they were protected from most damage by the ribs. That obviously wasn't going to be the case here.

"I can try the hip, but otherwise I think the left ring finger is my best shot at getting samples," Bruce reported, "He's wearing a ring and that might have protected the bone on that finger." Even through the mask he could taste the rot. There was no way he was eating again today.

"Get whatever you need so we can close this guy up," Fury ordered, exasperated, from several feet away.

Undressing a corpse was one of the most awkward things Bruce had ever done. He wondered how morticians were able to have sex even as he unzipped the pants and pulled them slightly down. Luckily all he needed was the hip.

That was accomplished relatively quickly and out of a sense of misplaced decency, Bruce fixed up the corpse's pants before he moved to the hand. With a prayer for forgiveness, he cut the ring finger straight off and shoved it into a bag. If possible he'd put the ring back before they reburied Starosta.

The coffin couldn't be closed up fast enough for Bruce's tastes. Even then the smell stayed, and he knew he'd need a shower before he decided to head back to the Tower. At the very least Steve and Thor would be able to smell this on him from a mile away.

"I'll show you to the lab you can use for this, and then the locker room," Fury said dryly. When he sniffed himself, his brow furrowed.

"We both smell like old dead guy," Bruce observed as he tossed everything but his gloves in the trash bin by the door. As long as he was holding the sample bags, he needed those.

Luckily Fury had his hands free to operate the elevator. He took them to the sixth floor where they dropped the bags, and then the main one where decontamination and the showers were. Not for the first time Bruce wondered how there was always spare clothing in his size, when he stepped out smelling like berries and Axe. (Someone had left their products behind, and he couldn't help a slightly hysterical giggle when he realized the shampoo was named Hydra-licious.)

Once in the hallway, Bruce had a new question. He didn't dare ask how many copies of the same outfit Fury had in his locker, including coat and eye patch. What he did ask was for a ride back up to the sixth floor.

Instead, a key card got slapped into his hand. It had no picture or other personal information on it, unlike Fury's, instead reading out 'Guest' with a bar code. "Don't you dare lose that," Fury threatened.

"I won't," Bruce said, looking over the card with interest.

Making his coat flare like that when he turned around probably took an enormous amount of practice, Bruce thought as he absently watched the Director walk away. Alone in the hall again, he went back to where he remembered the elevator as being.

Once more in the lab, he got the machinery up and running. Between that and preparing the samples for testing, Bruce sighed. This was going to be a long day.


When Steve stepped into Peggy's room, he smiled. "Hey, Peg," he said, shoving his hands awkwardly into his pockets.

The woman in the bed went whiter than she already was, almost the same shade as her hair. "I must have fallen asleep again," she whispered, and it was Peggy's voice despite being husky with old age.

"You're awake, I promise," Steve said, and tried to keep his heart from breaking. While they had never been romantically involved, he had always admired Peggy as a soldier first and a woman second. He had always thought she would end like so many in that time, on the battlefield. But she hadn't, and now the battlefield was in her own mind.

"That's what you always say," Peggy sighed. The tears in her eyes were alien.

"If I always tell you you're awake, this time I'll prove it," Steve said. The steps forward he took were slow and cautious, to not startle her. He withdrew his hands from his pockets and when he was within arm's reach, offered one.

At first Peggy looked distrustfully between his hand and his face. Hope soon won out, however, and she reached out. Her hand, soft and thin and spotted with age, ghosted over his before she took the chance and gripped it firmly.

"See? You're awake," Steve said. He blinked back his own tears.

The most alarming thing happened then: Peggy began to cry. "I waited so long," she sobbed into her free hand, "So long, Steve. What happened? Why didn't you come back before?" Her brown eyes were lucid and watery as she looked at him, commanding as ever.

Steve took a seat at the bedside, resting his hand (which was still being held captive) on the bed by her hip. "I didn't wake up until this time last year. Since then it's been… kind of wild. Power armor in Malibu, aliens in New York," he summarized, half joking.

"Tony told you I was here, didn't he?" Peggy asked, calming down. She still sniffled once or twice, but regained her admirable control quickly.

Steve reached over to the bedside table and offered a couple of tissues so he could hide his face for a few seconds.

Even now, Peggy knew him too well. "They really are the same, aren't they?" she asked, accepting the tissues. She dabbed under her eyes before tossing them in the trash bin by the nightstand.

It was impossible to deny. "The Tony we knew is a future version of this one," Steve admitted in little more than a whisper.

There was a fond smile as Peggy shook her head. "That was how I knew something was wrong in here," she shared, tapping her temple with two fingers, "When I started remembering a man who didn't exist, I went in right away to get checked. Who knew what HYDRA or Leviathan had been able to do to me before my retirement? It… didn't turn out as I expected." She grimaced at a bland watercolor positioned in front of the bed.

"Is it wrong that I'm grateful you remember?" Steve asked. His breath caught as he considered his reason for asking.

"If you or I were anyone else, I would say so," Peggy answered.

Gratefully, Steve gave the thin hand a squeeze. It was startling how careful he had to be now, how much more delicate Peggy was. Before he had to control his strength, just like with everyone else except somehow Tony and Bucky, but there was some leeway. Now her bones crunched at what felt like the touch of a feather.

"Tell me what happened after I went down," Steve requested. He needed to hear her voice wash over him again, lulling him as close to contentment as his roiling heart could get. Back then it was one of the few things that helped him.

Though she knew exactly what he was doing, Peggy let him get away with it. Instead she told him about her fight against what remained of HYDRA, then a shadowy organization called Leviathan. There were tears in her eyes when she recounted the school she had come across in Europe where girls were trained to kill each other ruthlessly and handcuffed to their beds at night- and Steve lost his breath when he realized that was probably where Natasha was trained.

Happier memories followed. Marrying Daniel Souza, the crippled agent who had always regarded her as an agent and a lady, having three children with him, and experiencing all the joys of being a family. Watching Howard finally settle down, and then the strange feeling she couldn't put aside when he fought over Tony's name so hard he had to stay at her place for weeks. Seeing her children grow up and have their own children, and watching Tony sprout into a genius that could only have come from his father.

That certainly explained why Tony laughed when he heard about Howard's secretary throwing herself at him the one time, Steve thought. She and Howard had eventually married; she was Tony's mother.

"Sometimes I think he married her just because it would be kissing you by extension," Peggy joked.

"When you kiss someone you kiss everyone they've kissed?" Steve guessed. He wondered how many lips he'd kissed by extension, between that one time he and Bucky had experimentally locked lips as teenagers and Tony's less than chaste past.

Chuckling in agreement, Peggy continued to tell him about helping Howard found SHIELD and their agreement that it be named in Steve's own honor. It was seriously touching.

"No wonder the name makes no sense," Steve teased.

In mock outrage, Peggy smacked him on the back of his hand.

His playful attitude dropped when Peggy told him about Howard and Maria's death in a car crash in 1987. "He wouldn't say so, of course he wouldn't, but Tony was devastated. Any chance he had of gaining his father's approval was gone," she said, distant sadness in her voice as she recalled the events.

Yet again, Steve wondered what happened to his old friend. From the sound of it Peggy didn't know either. If anything, her words made the transformation from doting father to cold patriarch more puzzling. "I knew that they didn't have the best relationship, but it does explain Tony's attitude when they were in the lab together," he admitted. Yet another piece was put in the puzzle.

"It must be so lonely, knowing the truth but unable to tell. Unless you have?" Peggy's gaze sharpened and suddenly the face he remembered was glaring straight at him, overlaying her current one.

Steve had to squeeze his eyes closed to rid himself of the image. "No, it seemed too dangerous. As much as I can I've remembered what Tony said back then and kept to it," he said. He had wished for so long that he had another option…

The smile Peggy gave him was sympathetic. "If anyone can figure out what the right thing is and do it, you can," she assured him. Quiet strength that never waned shone out at him.

"Thanks, Peggy," Steve said, and meant it in more ways than he could say.

He had his answer now.


Long didn't even begin to cover Bruce's day, actually. By the time he got out of that lab he was all the hip bone samples shorter, without a full DNA profile, and it was dark. Content to let the equipment analyze the finger overnight, he took the ring back to the Tower with him.

It took a remarkable amount of guts to ask to be let into Tony's lab. After seeing the corpse of a man who looked so much like his friend, and taking his jewelry, it felt weird to anticipate seeing almost that exact same face smiling at him. "Long time no see, Mean Bean," the inventor greeted him cheerfully from a work bench.

"I got wrapped up in some stuff," Bruce said vaguely. It was true enough. Reconstructing DNA from fragments was laborious, time consuming work that required attention to every detail.

"No need to say more, science bro," Tony declared with a flippant motion of his hand.

"If it's alright, I need to ask you a few things about metals," Bruce said, nerves crowding his stomach when he got to what he came here for. He fingered the ring in his pocket, making sure it was still there.

The inquiring noise Tony made as he flipped to another screen was a confirmation.

Bruce dug out the ring and offered it up. "I need to know what this is made of," he requested.

"Sure thing," Tony said, and gave the scientist a questioning look when he realized it was a ring. "Is there anything I should know about it?" He obviously meant to ask if there was a proposal in the making.

It took more than a little effort to keep from laughing. "No, nothing like that," he said, but did not offer up any more information.

"Too light to be silver, steel, white gold, or platinum…" Tony pressed the ring between his fingers and nodded to himself when there was no give. "Too strong to be aluminum…" He looked closely at the metal with his naked eye before putting on a pair of glasses, and then slipping it under a microscope.

As he hadn't been in the lab at Stark Tower before, Bruce took the opportunity to look around. It was certainly a technophile's dream come true, advanced in every way. Even the concrete walls and floor were interesting, clearly reinforced and possibly blast proof. Maybe he could stick around to use it like Tony had offered on the helicarrier... Now there was a thought.

Only fifteen minutes later, the ring was declared to be a titanium alloy. "Where'd you find this?" Tony asked, impressed, as he played with it, "Clearly handmade, not a common thing anymore where rings are concerned, but titanium only became popular in the 90's. So either you've found an artisan I'd love to get in touch with, or this thing is anachronistic." He tried the ring on each of his fingers absently.

"I don't really know what's going on. It's why I came to you." Bruce shrugged. The mystery behind Starosta was only deepening, with the ring analysis. How did a man buried in 1945 have this ring?

Tony let out a giggle when the ring slid onto his left ring finger. "Do you really need this back?" he asked.

The sight paralyzed Bruce. Ring sizes are widely variable between people, even of the same age, gender, and size. What were the chances that two people who look almost exactly alike would wear the same ring size?

"Brucie-bear? Everything okay in there?" Tony called.

The spell was broken. Less than amused, and more than confused, Bruce held out a hand to take the ring back. "Sorry, it's not mine," he said apologetically.

Reluctantly, Tony slid it off his finger with only the resistance that a well fitted ring gives. "Seriously, get me the name of whoever made this thing," he said, eyeing the jewelry with curiosity, "They're good with metal. It would be nice to trade notes."

Carefully Bruce tucked the ring back into his pocket. "If I find out," he promised. It was more likely than not that the original maker was dead by now.

Just who was Anthony Starosta?

As he watched Tony zoom around the lab with circles darkening under his eyes and mouth moving at a mile a minute, an idea took root in Bruce's head. Maybe Howard hadn't been an only child after all.

Only that DNA analysis would be able to confirm or deny the idea.


Two days after the initial offer found Steve walking up the corridor to Loki's cell again. This time he was certain, his mind set.

The alien certainly saw that. As he walked up to the clear partition, Loki analyzed everything with startling green eyes. "You've reached a decision," he stated.

"Yes I have," Steve confirmed. He stopped directly in front of where the alien stood, looking him dead in the eye.

"You'll take my offer?" Loki asked, his smile that of the cat that caught the canary.

"No," Steve answered.

The answer visibly startled Loki. "Might I ask why?" he questioned, head tilted to the side.

"He wouldn't want it," Steve said, relaying the truth that he had realized when visiting Peggy, "He wouldn't want me to chance destroying time itself for him. He'd want me to do the right thing instead of what I want to do. Even if that meant leaving him to die." He smiled at the alien.

Something in Loki's eyes was strange. "I see," he said, though he clearly didn't.

"Thanks for the offer, but no thanks," Steve finished, and turned to walk away.

There was no answer from the cell.

As he entered the corridor, it felt like a weight had lifted off Steve's shoulders. No matter how it made his chest ache, he had done the right thing. He was able to walk down the hall with his head held high.

Not even fumbling with his ringing phone on his way to the parking garage could disturb that. It was an unknown number but Steve picked up anyways. Serenely he answered, "Rogers speaking."

To his surprise, it was Bruce. "I have a few questions that only you know the answers to. When you can, I'm at SHIELD, lab four on floor six." He paused for a moment, as if deciding whether to say what was on his mind. "It's about Starosta."

Immediately Steve turned around and headed back to the elevators.