Chapter Text
Capitol Hill is bleached out in the winter months, the lawns yellowed and the trees bone-grey. Sunlight reflects sharply off the grey and white buildings, the wind snapping the flags clustered on the plazas and avenues. Knots of black coats and spidery camera equipment are clustered intermittently amongst the streets and especially around the steps of the Hart Senate Office Building, and more in the hallways and doors, and most of all outside Auditorium 3B, where Captain America is giving his testimony as to the events of April 14th, 2014, also known as the day neonazis rained out of the sky.
“So you maintain that your actions that day were justifiable?”
“Sergeant Wilson, Agent Romanova, Agent Hill and I directly prevented the deaths of over three hundred thousand Americans,” Steve says. “Among them two Justices of the Supreme Court, the Speaker of the House, the director of the FBI and the United States President, according to the INSIGHT target logs. Our actions uncovered a fascist conspiracy and preempted a massive terrorist action against the United States. Should we not have done that?”
“In light of recent events, Captain Rogers, you understand that it’s just not possible for you to operate as you have been. Not anymore.”
“You’re right,” Steve says. “There should definitely be a much more well-thought-out plan in place for dealing with superpowered threats. By the way, I’m retiring.”
“... Captain Rogers?”
“I’m out. I’m done,” Steve says, and he really hadn’t anticipated the rush of it, the genuine relief , like the first breath of air when your head breaks the water. “I’m turning in my uniform. I finished my time in the Army, and I’d say my contract with SHIELD was pretty resoundingly terminated. I’m going to be a civilian.”
“Captain Rogers - ”
“If there arises a credible threat,” Steve says, “then of course I will cooperate with the relevant authorities to resolve the situation. Until then, I am a private citizen." He straightens up. "If that’s all, ladies and gentlemen, I believe you’re waiting on the next testimony. It's probably more comprehensive and definitely more recent.”
Tony’s waiting outside the room with a coffee in his hand and four large men in suits at either end of the hallway. They have discreet little SI pins on their lapels and they seem to be keeping the press around the corners more or less with facial expressions alone. “Was it good for you, baby?” Tony says as Steve shuts the door behind him. “Need a cigarette?”
“Only if they’re Luckies,” Steve says. “And I don’t know. Ma always told me if I had to get fucked by that many guys then I gotta get the money up front, and now I feel I should’ve listened to her.”
Tony chokes, but discreetly. “Seriously? They made something stick?”
“Nah,” Steve says. “Bernie says if they could stick me they would’ve already.”
“Jesus, what’s with this phallic language, Rogers? Is this what happens when you get within eight hundred feet of the Washington Monument? Not that I can blame you, every time I come up here I black out and suddenly it’s three days later and I’m four states over with two congressional staffers and no memory of how I got there. I’m joking. That’s a joke. How’s Bernie?
“She’s great. Peggy knows her lawyers.”
“Yeah, she’s a shark like that.”
“She says since I was a contractor for SHIELD to begin with the only other thing they can try is a long shot about how the superserum is technically government property.”
“Pfff,” Tony says. “What are they gonna do, try and make you extract it? Say your body’s the property of the US government? That’s not gonna backfire at all. And if they do, they can get in line and sharpen their lawyers. Dear old Dad had his hands on you first.”
“Did he ever,” Steve says, just to watch Tony spit fancy three-billion-dollar coffee all over his fancy three-billion-dollar suit.
“Do not tell me things like that,” Tony squawks. “You can not tell me things like that! Do you want to pay my therapy bill? Do you? And only answer yes if you have the GDP equal or greater than a small South Asian country, because hoo boy, let me tell you -”
“I think that’s you, Tony,” Steve says, because a disgruntled-looking staffer has opened the anteroom doors and is looking at them like she’d rather eat her own shoes than continue forward but knows she has to do it nonetheless.
“Right. Sure. Don’t think this is over. I’m coming back to finish this,” Tony says, pointing a finger at Steve’s nose as he goes for the staffer. “I have a long memory and absolutely no sense of priorities. Hello, Nancy, have you missed me? I know, darling, me too. Let’s get this quinceañera swinging -”
The doors close behind him. One of the SI guys nods at Steve, so he goes over there, steels himself and walks though the snapping, flickering canyon of yelling and flash photography until he gets to the third door down the hall. He loses a few of them there, and then some more after the next door, and finally he’s in the hallway Natasha had showed him, somewhere near the back of the building where people with folders of papers go clacking past but no press photographers.
Sam looks up from his phone from where he’s sitting in one of the wide windowsills. “Hey,” he says, standing up. “How’d it go? We going to jail yet? Aw, shit.” That’s to his phone, which is lighting up in his hand. “Hang on, I gotta take this, it’s my mom.”
Sam takes the call, walking back to the window, and Steve turns around to go find the bathroom and give him some privacy when he comes face to face with - a familiar face. Jesus. Steve has to do a bit of a double take, because he'd heard, of course, but it'd been so long ago, and besides, to see him here - “Coulson?”
“Captain Rogers,” Coulson says, inclining his head. He looks exactly the same as he was, a balding man in his forties with a perpetually mild smile. “Do you have a moment to talk?”
Steve’s still trying to figure out the most polite way to say so how aren’t you dead when Natasha materializes beside him, expressionless. She'd showed up in DC in what must be a wig, her hair shoulder length and red again, her face made up, looking so perfectly done it's like she'd just reached into surveillance footage of herself from last year and extracted a perfect double. Steve didn't know how used to the buzz cut he'd gotten until she covered it up and he's got to quit the double-takes he keeps doing at her.
Coulson doesn't start, but he does blink at her. “I’d like to see your ID, please,” she says politely, like she’s talking to a complete stranger. Steve glances at her again, his guard going up. Natasha’s brand of hostility doesn’t look like much until about ten seconds into the subsequent mayhem and violence, but he’s learned the signs.
He turns back to Coulson, who has calmly produced a badge that to Steve looks exactly like standard issue SHIELD. “What can we do for you?” Natasha says, still in that polite voice.
Coulson nods at Steve. "I was hoping I could talk to you about your future plans, Captain."
That doesn't exactly sound like something Steve's dying to hear, but Natasha doesn't tell him to go fuck himself so Steve inclines his head. "What about them?"
Coulson looks Steve in the eyes, a steady, honest gaze. “SHIELD isn’t gone,” he says. “We can rebuild. The need for our capabilities, for the work SHIELD did, isn’t gone. And we need you.”
Steve stares at him, but that seems to be the end of it. He might be imagining it, but Coulson's mild face might even look a little hopeful, which - really? Even apart from everything else, who decided that now was the best time to go and ask him about it?
And Coulson's clearly expecting an answer. To a proposition to rejoin SHIELD. Rebuild SHIELD.
Steve looks out the window, across the hall. Despite the glare of winter sunlight he can just make out the one of the American flags hanging outside the building. From here it looks blurry and indistinct.
“I was clinically dead, on the operating table,” Steve says, still looking out. “For about six minutes. I’d lost too much blood from the wounds sustained on INSIGHT 3 and it stopped my heart. I was clinically dead in the ice, too - no brain waves, no heartbeat. But you knew that.” He looks back at Coulson, not really bothering to have an expression. “That’s twice I’ve died for my country, and it didn’t stick. They say third time’s the charm, but I didn’t expect you to be the one to tell me to try it.”
That’s not much of an expression on Coulson’s face anymore either. “You wouldn’t have to take on combat, if that’s no longer your interest.”
“Then what did you want me for? Paperwork?” Steve tips his head. “Fundraising, maybe? Bring back the bond show, raise a few bucks?”
“A command role, Captain, is actually what we were thinking.”
“Pardon my frankness,” Steve says, “but if I get put in charge, something tells me a lot of people on this hill won’t like it. And after I start making decisions, I think you won’t either.”
Coulson watches him for a second longer, then nods acceptingly and extracts a card from the pocket of his shapeless suit. “If you change your mind, Captain Rogers, please don’t hesitate to call.”
“Yeah,” Steve says, taking the card. “I won’t.”
“And you as well, Agent Romanova. You know how to get in touch.”
“Mm,” Natasha says.
“In that case, thank you for your time, Captain, Agent, and I wish you the best of luck,” Coulson says, and turns and walks away.
They watch him go and become just another suit, disappearing down the hall. “What was that?” Steve asks under his breath.
“Not sure yet,” Natasha says. She takes the card from his hand, looks it over and pockets it. “If you do end up trying to contact him, call me first.”
“Is it just me or was that dude eight different kinds of creepy?” Sam says, coming over to Steve’s other side, phone still in his hand.
“Not just you,” Natasha says.
“Oh good,” Sam says. “I was starting to worry my freak-o-meter for this shit was broken. Aw, come on,” he says to his phone again. “I swear to god, you tell your family you're going to testify before Congress for five minutes and they freak the fuck out. Hold on, I have to take this.” He swipes. “Sierra? What’s up? Did your flight get in okay?”
“Sam,” Steve hears a woman’s voice say, in deeply accusatory tones. “Why is there a Lamborghini parked in Mom and Dad’s driveway?”
Sam’s eyes bug out. There’s a couple minutes where Steve’s pretty genuinely concerned he’ll have to perform the Heimlich. "What," he manages, very strangled.
“Wow,” Natasha says, as Sam gets on with asking his sister lots of half questions that mostly end in expletives. “Your Bucky really has a sense of humor, doesn’t he.”
“Yeah,” Steve says, just as there's a vibration from his own pocket. It's the pink phone, he knows without looking. He digs it out and glances at the name on the notification and can’t help his slowly spreading smile. “He really does.”