NOTE: as some have noticed, yes, Erik is indeed this 'verse's version of Magneto, where he's (still) Wanda and Pietro's father, and he and Pietro somewhat resemble Elsa, instead of their screen versions. It's just meant to be a fun tidbit for now, confirming that Erik's around. He'll be in the sequel so don't hold your breath! :) And since I haven't said this for awhile, Thanks for reading!

CHAPTER 10

Mulling over what he'd heard, Steve watched the city pass by the taxi window without much attention. It was terrible to know the truth of what happened, but Steve was still glad to know. Lukas was trying to act normally, but now it was clearer what kind of pain he was in and why he kept avoiding the subject so assiduously.

Approaching the rest home, Steve saw a bright blue van with a radar dish on the top emblazoned with a tv station name. There was another across the street.

"Huh, what's going on? What're all the newsies here for?" the taxi driver complained. "Somebody fancy die?"

"I hope not," Steve murmured, thinking of Peggy inside. Had she got her beautiful time with her family, and now she was gone? No, surely it was something else. Reporters wouldn't be here for that. Maybe someone else had died, or there'd been a crime nearby?

"Looks like they're outside where you wanna go, you want me to pull over here?"

"Sure, that'd be fine." He handed ridiculous amounts of money through the partition and shoved open the door.

The herd up the sidewalk, milling around, looking bored and talking among themselves, turned into a mob the moment someone looked Steve's way and shouted, "It's him!"

Oh, shit, they know.

He'd thought he had more time. He'd been warned, but he'd expected that was a vague 'the public will find out someday', not 'there are reporters parked outside a nursing home to ambush him on the way in.' This was terrible. At least, thank God, Lukas wasn't with him right now.

For a moment, watching the eager group rush toward him, cameras at the ready, he wondered if he could get away with saying he was someone else. He didn't want to lie, but he also had no desire to give one of these sharks the time of day.

His phone buzzed with a text and he took it out to see Natasha: news broke about you, nurse on TV right now.

He had to laugh at her timing and put the phone back, as the first reporter came up. The attractive brunette woman asked breathlessly, "Captain Rogers? Are you really Captain Rogers? Captain America? How are you alive and so- so -" she fumbled for the word, her eyes drinking him in blatantly, until her voice spat out, "Not dead?" Then she shoved the microphone at him.

He said nothing, waiting until more reporters crowded around, bright lights in his eyes. All of them were shouting questions, until he raised a hand and they fell silent as if the Pope was about to speak. He cleared his throat. "Yes, I am Steve Rogers. I'm alive because I was in suspended animation – hibernation – in the Arctic ice. SHIELD recently found me there and brought me back. And I'm here to see some old friends. And that's all I want to say about it, except to ask you to give all of us our privacy right now. Thank you."

He started forward, urging the reporters to give way, even as they shouted other questions at him, none of it distinguishable until someone asked, "Is it true that the Ice Demon was also here and miraculously healed one of the patients?"

That struck him and he turned to confront the male reporter who'd asked. "Peggy Carter-Barnes, former director of SHIELD, is my friend, not just 'one of the patients.' She's over ninety years old and had an… improvement, but miracle is an exaggeration." He felt awful for denying it was a miracle, but he knew Lukas wouldn't want him to make too much of it.

The man smirked a bit. "So the Ice Demon was here?"

Steve glowered at him. "You'll have to ask someone else. Now, excuse me, I need to pass."

He pushed his way through the rest, ignoring anything else they said. Kicking himself for not telling the taxi to keep going, he reached the gate, where several security guards were now standing across the entry.

They let him in and one of the guards asked, sounding unimpressed, "This is all for you?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

"Crazy world. Go on up."

Bucky was waiting in the front hall. Steve thought it was strange he hadn't come outside and realized it was to avoid photographs. "Oh, man, I'm sorry about the circus, Buck."

Bucky raised his brows. "Did I see you actually talk to them? Big mistake, pal. They'll be all over you forever."

"What could I say? I couldn't say I'm not me."

"Well, you could, but I guess you wouldn't be you if you did. Well, better you than me, I guess. I made sure the home won't say anything, so hopefully it blows over, even if that nurse is now gonna make the talk show circuit for a week," Bucky muttered. "C'mon back to Peggy, and we'll all talk."

In Peggy's room, she was sitting in the armchair by the window, with her feet up and a blanket over her legs. Steve smiled to see her out of bed, his smile widening in greeting as she turned her head to see them come in. As Bucky closed the door behind them, Steve went to kiss her cheek. "You look beautiful."

"Such a flatterer," she answered, but she smiled back, and Steve was pleased.

Bucky perched on the edge of her bed, while Steve pulled the small chair over.

"This moron," Bucky told her, "was outside talking to TZM, of all damn fool things."

"Steve. The media is a tool, not your ally." Peggy shook her head and waved her fingers. "Never mind, the genie's out of the bottle. We deal with it."

Steve grimaced and confessed, "I was stupid. They mentioned Lukas and I think I gave it away he was involved, too."

Bucky and Peggy exchanged a wordless look that Steve ached to see – there was so much there, levels of understanding and knowledge, that Steve hadn't had.

"He should stay away then," Bucky said.

Peggy nodded her head a little, thin silvery-white hair bouncing. "You can handle media attention. I don't know if he can."

Bucky tooked at Steve and explained, "What Peggy saw wasn't a memory of Austria like he said. It was recent."

"Yeah, I just heard. He lied to us."

"To protect himself," Peggy corrected, and she looked sad, gazing out at the garden. "Strucker. I told the CIA the whole family was dirty, but they didn't care; they used the father to smuggle behind the Iron Curtain. But even so, I never imagined they were Hydra. Or they would stoop to torture and medical experimentation. Or, to be fair," she let out a sigh, and glanced at Bucky, "that our own organization could be infiltrated."

He took her hand and held it. "It's not your fault, sweetheart. They came in after we left."

"We don't know that," she corrected. "Those traitors came in after we left, but that's all we know."

Steve wondered how they knew anything, being retired, but recalled Bucky mentioning they heard the gossip. And perhaps Fury had briefed them. But this was turning into them thinking it was their fault, and he wanted to shift the subject.

"Sokovia is one reason I came, actually," Steve said. "I found out because Lukas met the Maximoff siblings, the two kids who helped Romanoff rescue him." He glanced at the door to make sure it was closed. "They also found out they're related. Lukas said he could sense their blood connection." He didn't mean for it to trail upward in doubt, but Bucky nodded confirmation.

"He said he could do that with Queen Birgitte of Arendelle."

"Huh. Well, anyway, the point is, the Maximoffs said their father had claimed to be a prisoner of the Germans in the war. And he possiby had a superhuman power. He left the family when they were young, so he was alive at least until the 1990's. His name was Erik something, not Maximoff. They don't know his last name, but he looked like Pietro with blue eyes and white-blond hair. Either of you remember anything about that?"

They exchanged another look and Bucky shook his head. "Not that I can think of. That's not much to go on though."

"We obtained a lot of Hydra files," Peggy said. "There might be something in there. Although the Soviets took a lot, too."

"Russians, hon," Bucky corrected absently. "We should ask Sharon, you think?" he asked Peggy.

"Lukas wouldn't want any strangers-" Steve objected.

Bucky chuckled and slapped him on the shoulder. "She's not a stranger. Sharon's the only one of our family to go into SHIELD. She's Peggy's grand-niece."

"But-" Steve started. "I wouldn't want her to get into trouble-"

Peggy gave a dry laugh. "It'd do her good to get in a bit of trouble. Hill and Fury put her on the team yesterday to investigate the traitors. So she's already got a reason to poke into old files on Hydra. And she's smart enough to keep it to herself."

"Ah, that's how you know everything," Steve realized.

"Most," Bucky said. "Sharon tells me – us – a lot. But Fury talks, too; gives me the official line."

"Is he a good guy?" Steve asked. "He's been all right with me, but Lukas thinks he's a … well, I'm not sure what he thinks Fury is, but doesn't trust him. I don't know if there's any particular reason for it, though, other than the organization having too many traitors willing to torture a helpless prisoner. What kind of people was he hiring, that evil like that gets in?" He realized who he was speaking to, and grimaced in apology. "I didn't mean to attack you, I'm sorry-"

Bucky waved that away. "It's a fair question, and one I've tried to figure out myself. Peggy's right; we can't be sure we didn't hire any Hydra agents, either. Not when we were sure they were all but extinct." He paused, furrowed brow getting deeper lines as he pondered. "Nick has good intentions, I believe that. But like many spies, he has a problem sharing information, and he shades the truth like breathing. So," he shrugged, "trust his intenions, but don't trust he's telling you everything. His agenda isn't always yours."

That fit Steve's impression, and he nodded. "So it's not being paraniod to want to keep this Erik out of his view?"

"Maybe a little," Bucky said, with a twist of his lips of amusement. "But I think Lukas deserves his paranoia. If Erik does have powers, he's kept a low profile and I'm sure he'd like to keep it that way."

"There were always hints," Peggy added, her thin fingers twisting in the blanket on her lap. "Rumors that you and Lukas weren't the only ones with powers out there. The Soviets were desperate for their own supersoldier, of course, and they stole everything they could get their hands on. They produced that girl, your friend Romanoff, and girls like her, among others. But I would guess while we were focused on the Soviets, it was easy for some individuals to fall through the cracks."

"Especially if he didn't want to be found," Bucky said. "Let me call Sharon and have her visit after work and we'll tell her. Hopefully the vultures outside are gone by then, or we might have to meet somewhere else."

"You should go to Lukas," Peggy told him. "With Sharon and Lucy. No one will think anything of it." Her smile grew bright with mischief. "The best kind of secret meeting is the one everyone sees."

"Not today," Steve said. "He was upset when we were talking about the Winter Angel movie and took off. I don't know when he's coming back. Or if he's coming back," he amended. "He was upset."

"He'll come back," Peggy reassured him. "There's no where else he wants to be."

Since she'd had a peek at Lukas' thoughts, Steve had to believe her, but as the afternoon turned to evening without a word, Steve grew worried that she'd misjudged and Lukas had left for good.

She was proven right later that evening, when Steve was sketching a portrait of Peggy on hotel stationery and someone knocked on his door. He flipped the picture over and went to answer it.

To his surprise, Lukas stood there. He wasn't looking at Steve, eyes downcast, and there was something weary in his posture that he belatedly tried to straighten as the door opened.

"Are you okay?" Steve asked. Then realized he was being rude making Lukas stand in the hall. "Do you want to come in?"

Lukas slipped past him inside, and Steve shut the door. "I wasn't sure you'd be back. Where did you go?"

His tone was light and dry, even his expression seemed to match. "Nowhere. I walked the city. I stopped a robbery, freed some monkeys from the zoo, and had a young man attempt to teach me basketball. Nobody died, so I suppose it was a success." He paused, as if expected Steve to ask about the monkeys, but Steve wasn't interested in being diverted. As Steve let the silence draw out, not playing along, Lukas let the bemusement evaporate from his expresson, and without looking directly at Steve, said more flatly, "They told you."

"Natasha did." Steve intended to say more, but Lukas didn't let him, speaking in a rather dead tone of voice and staring towards the television as if he didn't have the will to pretend anymore, now that Steve knew the truth.

"I knew you would find out – too many people knew – but I just wish I could've spared you a bit longer."

"Spared me?" Steve exclaimed, incredulous at that. "I don't want to be spared."

Lukas shrugged. "There was nothing you could have done. There's nothing you can do now either, and you have enough to carry right now, without learning about this, too."

Steve could see what he was trying to do, but shook his head. "I can't do anything about what happened, no. And I get that you're trying to protect me in your own special way, but it's not true I can't help. I can help by being your friend, if you let me. And if you don't hide shit for my own good."

"All right."

Steve had to raise his brows at that abrupt capitulation. Lukas' lips twisted in a faint wry smile. "Not here to argue, Steven."

"Well, good. You want to sit? We can talk about it, if you want. Or not. I know you weren't big on sharing before." That was something of an understatement, since Steve had been finding out how little Lukas had told him during the war.

"We could talk of other things."

Which Steve figured meant Lukas didn't want to be alone, and gestured to the bed or the single armchair by the window. "Have a seat. We can talk about whatever you like. Or just watch TV and drink the little bottles in the refrigerator."

"On Fury's dime?" Lukas asked, heading for the armchair, and smirking. "Apparently I've corrupted you. I like it."

Reaching for the the minibar door, Steve paused – the contents were terribly expensive, and it wasn't just his 1940's sense of money which told him that, and since drink was wasted on both of them it was even more overpriced – but then he thought about how Lukas had walked right out of the hotel, blank-eyed from the reminder of what he'd suffered. He thought of himself, transported to the future, and he grabbed two of the small bottles. "We deserve it, I say. They can bill my nearly seventy years of backpay if they want."

"Knowing bureaucrats, they probably will." Lukas held out his tiny bottle to touch Steve's to toast. "To the future."

"Hopefully we see it the ordinary way."

It was only one swallow, briefly warm in the stomach, and then gone. "I think we need another one," Lukas suggested, tossing the bottle into the trash.

No minibar bottles were safe that night, including the ones from Lukas' room hauled from next door in the ice buckets. Not drunk, but mellow by the drink and the late hour, Lukas ended up flat on his back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, while Steve sat slumped against the headboard. The television was playing a movie that Steve would be more interested in if they hadn't chopped it up with fifteen commercials every ten minutes, so he muted it.

As the silence lingered, Lukas murmured, "I never wanted to lie to you, it's just… some things are hard to talk about."

Steve glanced at him. Lukas' eyes were closed, his hands folded together around an empty bottle of whiskey across his stomach. If this was Lukas starting to talk, Steve had to be careful. "I'm sure. But I'll listen."

Lukas shook his head once. "Natasha told you what happened. There's nothing more to say. I just seem to be reacting badly to it."

"Seems to me you're just reacting," Steve corrected and wriggled himself down the bed next to Lukas, trying to be close enough to be comforting without touching him. "There's no good or bad about it. But I do think you're not seeing they're different."

"I know they're different. Sokovia was mere days. It was nothing." He lifted only his fingers to flick them in dismissal.

"It wasn't nothing."

Lukas snorted. "It was. They did the same Zola and Schmidt did before and worse. They were children playing at it."

Besides the obvious truth that it was not 'nothing', Lukas was missing the point. Steve shook his head. "But you didn't have your healing, Natasha said. Before, Schmidt and Zola, they hurt you more and for a long time, but you knew you'd heal. You knew you wouldn't die, so there was hope you could escape or it would end some other way. Which it did. But without your powers, you didn't know any of those things. That was different."

Either too lost in memory or pondering what Steve had said, Lukas didn't respond at first, except to rub his inner wrist with the opposite thumb. When he did speak, it was in a murmur so soft Steve nearly missed it. "Before, I knew what was happening, but it felt more…distant."

Steve remembered that first meeting and Lukas telling him to remove the tube that was poisoning him. He was about to suggest that was why Lukas could handle it better, when Lukas gave a dry laugh. "I should have thanked Zola for poisoning me into numbness, before I broke his neck. I did kill him, you know."

"I suspected you did, somehow."

But Lukas wasn't listening, caught up in his memory. "Thor killed Strucker. I wish he hadn't, so I could. I know that shocks you. Because you're a good man, Steven. But I'm not. I want to kill him, I want to tear a hole in his chest and watch him die, but he's dead. They're all dead, and that should make me feel better, but it doesn't." He hurled the tiny bottle into the wall hard enough it broke a chunk of plaster off.

"Hey." Figuring that was enough talk about horrible things, Steve took a hold of that hand and drew it away between them. "You're safe here, I promise. Lukas, do you hear me? I will never let anyone do that to you again."

Lukas took a moment to answer, lips quivering before he managed to speak, "I know. And I promise the same to you." His hand clenched to a fist, pressed against the sheet. "I will kill all of them who threaten us. All of them."

The frightening part of what he said weren't his words; it was the flatness of his voice that gave the promise. It was cold, implacable, and inhuman in his willingness to fulfill it. Steve knew there was no sense in reasoning with him, only in trying to ease the fears driving that rage, so he renewed his grip, wrapping his hand around Lukas' fist, and said, "You won't need to. We're safe."

Very slightly, Lukas nodded, and more importantly, his hand relaxed. At first he let his hand rest beneath Steve's, not minding the touch enough to pull away. But as Steve dozed off, he felt long fingers nudge their way between Steve's and curl inward, to hold his hand more definitively. It could've been Lukas drifting off to sleep, clutching whatever he happened to be touching, but Steve smiled to himself and didn't move away. The touch anchored them both, and nightmares passed them by.

..tbc...