OK, so this bit wasn't supposed to be a standalone chapter, but it kind of got away on me and it seems to need its own space - a bit angsty for me, but I quite like it.

Reviews and follows continue to be appreciated and savoured. Thank you all for sticking with me.

Chapter Seven

"Tony, there's nothing more to be done now. You should get some sleep." Steve said firmly, indicating that he did not want to hear any more about what had just been said.

Despite every fibre of Tony's being screaming at him to argue about the Captain's fall-back plan, he understood the pragmatism of the suggestion should the worst come to the worst: It didn't mean he had to like it though.

"Last resort only, you promise?" He was concerned at the slight hesitation before Steve inclined his head in assent.

"Grab a couple of hours Tony. If you're good and have something to eat as well afterwards I'll talk you through using the coffee maker." Had that come from anyone else, Tony would have assumed they were being patronising and responded accordingly, but the Captain had a fond strictness in his tone that suggested it was an order being conveyed as a suggestion to which the genius would be wise to accede. Tony felt himself forced to agree, he was so tired he knew he couldn't argue anything coherently and they did at least have 24 hours to come up with another alternative.

"How'd you learn to use that machine anyway Cap?" Tony asked as they walked to his room.

"I read the instructions", Steve grinned as he watched Tony settle himself into a comfortable looking armchair (he had refused to remove the suit out of the quite reasonable fear he would be unable to remember why he should put it back on were he to do so).

"Instructions? That's a delightfully old-fashioned notion."

"I'm an old-fashioned guy."

"Don't forget delightful…ugh did I just say that? I really need to sleep."

"Does that mouth of yours ever shut up long enough to let you sleep?"

Tony yawned, propping himself round with cushions and looking tired enough to be able to manage on a bed of nails. "None of that walking in through walls to check on me now Mother. I promise I will take a nap."

"Sleep tight." Steve chuckled.

"Don't do anything stupid while I'm gone." Tony murmured, starting to doze.

The choice of words awakened memories in Steve of the last time someone had said that to him; memories of simpler times, when he at least knew who he was, recognised the world around him and had a friend who cared about him as a person rather than a propaganda construct.

"How can I? You're taking all the stupid with you." His wistful reply was barely uttered so as not to disturb the now sleeping man.

Steve left the room and returned to his haunt by the huge lounge window, looking out at the city he'd once known so well made him feel much less trapped but once again reinforced, as always, just how far from 'home' he really was. This time, as his eyes raked the skyline for familiar buildings, he was more keenly aware of the sense of loneliness than ever after the company and conversation of the last few hours.

When he'd first awoken he'd been overwhelmed and shocked: Everyone he'd 'died' to save when he'd gone into the ice had since passed away or was near death rendering his sacrifice almost meaningless for him; he'd missed 67 years of progress and change and recognised very little of this society, even the language was different; he'd been launched into a battle with extra-terrestrials almost instantly and expected to cope with leading heroes who were better equipped, more aware of the threat and more capable than he was; but the worst thing (the constant fear that beset him) was that not only was he little more than a fossil of a figurehead for a team that, otherwise, may not be seen as socially acceptable, but that if he failed at any point he would be consigned to a lab for 'study' to see if they could replicate the serum he'd received and put it into someone more clued up and capable for the 21st Century leaving him with no purpose whatsoever.

The fear had worsened constantly as he'd become trapped by the doubled chains of his own grief and his singular inability to find common ground with the few people he'd had some contact with: They were all so busy, they had lives and outside contacts of their own. He couldn't even leave the tower without feeling like a stranger in an even stranger land and this was his 'home' city; he'd felt lost with the technology and the modern references that defined current communication.

Up until he'd seen the devastation that his absence from the timeline would most likely cause, he would have seen his erasure from the 21st Century as a merciful release: The ultimate blameless suicide, causing no hardship or pain to another individual and restoring his death to when he'd believed it had happened. Steve Rogers wasn't a quitter but he'd been severely tested since he'd been pushed unceremoniously into a time not his own. His plan to plea bargain had first occurred to him shortly after the preliminary hearing: Seeing it as what he'd heard Clint call a 'win-win scenario'.

….and then he'd got a glimmer of hope. A few short hours of connection with the one human being in this time who represented the most tenuous of links to his past…not much, but something.

Steve could freely admit he'd been disappointed when he first met Tony Stark, but, in retrospect, he was now able to acknowledge he'd been entirely unfair. Tony wasn't Howard, but then Steve had wondered frequently over recent weeks how much help to him Howard would have been? It wasn't like they had been close, not how Tony seemed to think they were at any rate: Steve had admired the confident, charismatic genius but Howard had only briefly seen the real Steve Rogers and now, when he was finally able to frame his relationship with the man from a distance, he realised Howard's interest had always been along the lines of a proud artist eager to display his greatest work of art or, perhaps, he saw him the way Frankenstein saw his monster (without the anti-social tendencies obviously), an achievement to be paraded and gloried in. Supplementary reading of articles he'd not had access to during the War had shown that the elder Stark's association with the project had boosted his profile way beyond that of his competitors and cemented his place as first choice for all the ensuing Government contracts.

Nonetheless, Tony's name had offered Steve (initially) the rarest of things in his first experiences of the new century in which he found himself – something familiar. He now realised it had been an unrealistic expectation and his first impression was that the man exemplified all of Howard's good and bad points exponentially. But, since the altercation aboard the helicarrier, Steve had realised that he'd been unreasonable in clinging to that expectation the way a drowning man grasps for a piece of wood with no thought to its suitability for the task of keeping him afloat.

He'd subsequently tried to apologise, but manners were, apparently, as obsolete as he was in this new time.

Even back when he'd got himself into fights he had no chance of winning and had only been saved by the timely intervention of Bucky, he had never felt so lost and needy as he had during those first few weeks after the Chitauri invasion: Captain America was never 'lost and needy'. But Steve Rogers was. In this alien (to him) environment, when there wasn't a tangible enemy to fight, that's exactly what he was.

…and therein lay his real problem. In the eyes of everyone who saw him, only Captain America had survived the ice: Steve Rogers was the same nobody he'd always been. He felt like he'd arrived at a party knowing no-one but with everyone having a preconceived impression of who he was and how he was supposed to be. Captain America was able to cope, never showed weakness and, most certainly, had no character flaws, Steve Rogers, on the other hand, had plenty in his estimation and right now he was being selfish, deliberately so. Despite knowing that Tony needed to sleep – desperately – he wanted him to wake up and take him away from this spiral of misery. He wanted to know whether the genius saw his breakthrough with the phase modulator as just a science project gone well, as Steve imagined Howard would have, or if what he'd seen of the man over the last few hours was something that might just make persevering with the 21st Century worthwhile.

Steve sighed, a glimmer of hope had come out of nowhere and out of the most unbelievable circumstances; it might not even be that, if he was back as things were and the threat were gone, would things revert to how they were before?

Steve laughed….at himself.

"May as well be a fool all your life Rogers, however long it lasts."

It was a fundamental part of him that quelled anything else, he couldn't help it: Hope! He knew, even before he'd finished his own train of thought, what his decision would be – whether it was in his power to affect the outcome or not, while he had hope, no matter how faint, he'd keep trying.

So the drowning man kept swimming for the smallest piece of wood with just the faintest of hopes that it would support him when he got there.