Chapter Text
Steve was never a fan of cliched phrases. You know, the kinds like absence makes the heart grow fonder, all's fair in love and war and such. His favorite one to hate was a surprising one: The show must go on.
No, it shouldn't. Not everything in the world is dispensable or replaceable. Not everyone gets to move on.
He should know, because he surely hasn't. He swore furiously when a shot missed him and scraped by his ear.
Wallowing in self-pity during missions? Yeah, not a good plan of action.
"Head in the game, Cap" Natasha muttered in the comm and took down another masked 'soldier' with a vengeful strike. The ex-spy was being extra brutal in this mission. Actually, everybody was being brutal today.
It was the first mission since The Disappearance. That's what they called it now. Bucky would start growling every time somebody said kidnapping and Steve knew that Clint was just an arrowhead away from putting people down whenever they mentioned 'Possible assassination'. Natasha and Thor were acutely ignoring any talk related to it because they were in charge of keeping Bruce calm. Wanda, Vision, Pietro and Sam were given the assignment of recovering him. Recovering Tony. Who had been taken from under their noses four months back. Coulson had put his foot down when he chose the four Avengers. They were the most objective when it came to this mission. They were the safest ventures.
It went unsaid that they were also the only ones who would rescue Tony first and then kill the bastards who took him. The rest would probably do it the other way around in their rage.
"--I don't understand, Coulson! We can't even trace him--"
"--been a month now! What are we missing?--"
"--no, Buck, you can't kill Fury. No! Stop--"
"--can't stop looking now. It's been 2 months but we can't stop--"
"--It's all my fault. God, Pepper, I can't do this--"
"--WHAT DO YOU MEAN NO?! I SWEAR TO GOD FURY--"
"--it's better that we don't go. No, Clint, we aren't the best to do this--"
"--first sign of him and you call me. Jesus, Sam, everybody is losing it here--"
"--we have to take a mission. We can't-we have to be engaged in something--"
Steve knew that he was worse than his team but he wasn't ashamed of that. He didn't care if the people found it 'weak' that Captain America was getting anxious over his boyfriend. Pepper had slayed the media when they tried to mock the Avengers for being 'emo kids with uncontrolled issues'. Coulson had taken care of the WSC when they had objected to keeping Avengers out of regular missions to search for one person.
None of the Avengers cared about what the world thought about them right now. They had proven it by supporting each other constantly, silently. Nobody was let to be alone. They couldn't do that, not when one of their own was lost to the wind.
"How many fuckers more?" Bucky grunted as he threw another smug Hydra minion into a wall. Bucky hated Hydra missions with a fury of a volcano. But he couldn't sit out of this one. With the team split between two missions, he had to swallow the bitter pill and work against the monsters who put him through hell.
"Depends on how many explosions you see," Clint snarked back over the comm. He was taking particular delight in bringing down group after group of the crazy freaks here. With no Tony to share his madness, and forced to sit out of the rescue search, he was inching towards insanity with every arrow that left his quiver.
"Tis getting long now Steven, may I simply bring the wrath of Mjolnir on them?" Thor boomed from about a mile across from Steve. The Captain had told them to not wipe out the entire area without discovering the latest shitfest Hydra had conceived. They needed to get inside the fortress and gather any piece of evidence.
"HULK END NOW!" the roar was angry but Steve understood the sentiment nevertheless. They had been trying to dash through the ever-growing army of Hydra goons and infiltrate into the inner tower. Steve could see his team reaching their limit's end. They could break down the tower, with Thor and Hulk on their side. But something, some instinct told Steve that they shouldn't do it yet.
"No. There might be hostages. Concentrate on getting a soft spot," Steve reiterated and swung his shield viciously, letting his anger seep through his movements.
"If there are hostages, they're gonna be dead anyway," Bucky spat, struggling to keep his composure as he clenched and unclenched his prosthetic arm. He had become particularly affected by Tony's disappearance. He could see Steve breaking every day without the idiot. He also felt insecure himself with the loss of the snarky buddy he could count on always. The arm was reminding him of Tony and this place was reminding him of his brain-washing - neither of them were going well for the suckers who tried to fight Bucky Barnes today.
"Let's hope they're not," the familiar voice from the sky almost made Steve almost miss his target and get killed. Thor had no such qualms; he completely missed his target and blew up the group Clint was aiming at. Eh, Hydra Hydra everywhere, not a Hydra to spare, Clint thought before spotting the three new additions to their team.
"Sa- Falcon?!" Steve corrected his slip-up and saw that Sam, Wanda and Vision were joining them. He didn't see Pietro but a second later, heard him.
"I'm in!" the elder Maximoff shouted into his comm "Hey, Birdies, time to be Santas!"
Before anybody could question anything, Sam and Vision flew past them and hovered over the fortress for a second before finding the opening Pietro had marked. Steve saw them dash into the hole.
He saw Wanda use her powers to manipulate the soldiers on the ground and make them clash with each other. Clint was already calling Thor, who was now picking him up and dropping into the hole Sam had used.
It was almost a terribly synchronized move that happened after that. Steve, Natasha, Bucky and Hulk seemed to have understood the same thought simultaneously. Wanda had taken just one look at Steve and commanded, taking charge of her new puppets effortlessly.
"Go."
In a fraction of a second, Natasha was stopping Hulk from entering the fast falling building and Bucky was racing with Steve to get into the haunting place.
They seemed to have finally found their missing Avenger. In a Hydra facility.
Steve was forcing the crumbling Steve Rogers part of him behind the much needed Captain America. He could already hear Pietro's angry shout and didn't bother to wait for Bucky to catch up anymore.
Bucky saw Steve launch over the stairs and sped up his own legs. If they had hurt Tony even an inch...
The ex-sergeant was having a rapid onslaught of flashbacks but drowned them under the only concern right now. He had to get his friend out of here right now. Bucky really did hate the Hydra missions, but if anything happened to Tony Stark today, he would make it his personal mission to burn them to the ground entirely.
When Steve skidded to a stop at the door of the room Pietro's voice came from, he felt the most violent bout of nausea hit him. It didn't help when seconds later, Bucky crashed into him from behind, still high from his adrenaline. He distantly heard Bucky swear ferociously.
"Fucking hell."
Well, that was probably the best description of the visual in front of them, Steve thought faintly before his feet moved forward involuntarily.
Clamped to a dentist's chair was a frail and unbearably spare looking Tony. His eyes were closed, possibly due to exhaustion or being knocked out (Steve was not thinking about anything else). His upper body was naked and his lower half was covered by-
Steve was never more thankful for Thor's cape. The red of the silky cloth was terrifyingly dark against the bloodless looking body but Steve was sure that nobody could stomach the reality he was suspecting right now.
The supersoldier heard Bucky edge forward and stand next to Clint who was trying to calm him in hushed whispers. But Steve knew that Bucky wasn't looking at Tony's body. He was looking at the machines hooked to his body.
"Don't touch them," Steve heard himself saying in a voice that he was certain should never belong to him "Call-Call Bruce. We need Bruce."
They couldn't risk yanking out any wires or tubes without knowing what would happen. They couldn't make a mistake right now. Steve could feel the other men in the room physically ground themselves from touching Tony or the machines. Clint's bow was twanging nervously and Thor was muttering under his breath, which was the human equivalent of a normal tone. They didn't understand the language but knew that the Norse Prince was sending fervent prayers for strength to the All-Father.
Vision had flown out of the room, presumably to bring Bruce in. He was the best candidate for the job, with his voice reminding Hulk of Jarvis- a calming familiarity needed to stay stable. Steve though, was most thankful to the calm body that came to stand beside him silently.
"We got a lead from Stuttgart, from a stray AIM facility," Sam said softly, keeping his voice strictly professional and calm, "There was a rookie there, Erwick Schwatz, who got too drunk and was heard spilling strange things. One of our men there sent us a tip and we had a little chat with him. Wanda was the one he seemed to be most comfortable with, so we let her do the questioning. The AIM base had data that were linked to a Hydra experiment. Coulson was able to help with the location decoding."
"Steve, he's going to be fine," Sam said finally, his years of experience with traumatized men making him a stable force, "We got him. He's with us now. But we need to keep our heads."
"He's here!" Pietro exclaimed suddenly and Steve heard feet shuffling from behind him. He didn't have the courage to look away from Tony yet. So he trusted the others to determine who the 'he' was.
A tired but determined looking Bruce Banner walked into the dingy room and went straight to Tony. Steve could see the scratches and dirt on the doctor's back but Bruce didn't seem to care about it at this moment. Steve was sure nobody did.
"We need to get him out of here immediately," Bruce said with a forced calm, his white knuckles the only hint of his raging storm, "I need to work fast. Anyone who can't be here, get out and get the Quinjet."
Thor looked at Steve uncertainly for a second before making the decision for himself. He was of not much use here. His cape was the only thing he could provide to his Midgardian brother at the moment and that was already given. With a soft whoosh the Thunder God went out through the gaping window.
"Barnes needs to leave," Bruce bit out, green partly tinging his arms but still under control "Pietro too."
Pietro shot one look to Tony and then Steve. He seemed to understand something because he wasn't there the next second. Bucky wasn't budging.
"No," he declared even before Sam could say something, "I can't."
"Bucky, brother you need to do this now," Sam pushed on, fervently looking at Bruce's hands working the wires and Steve's stone face, "You're can't help right now."
"No," this time was more a plea and Steve could feel his best friend looking at him. He knew why Bruce wanted Bucky out of here. If something went..if something went wrong, Bucky would have a relapse of his own torture memories. They didn't need a bloodbath here right now.
"C'mon James," Clint whispered, smartly using his first name to catch his attention, "He's gonna need all of us. We need to use our heads now. We need to get Tasha and bring Coulson here. Do this for us, man."
There was a moment of silence, a moment too precious to lose, but Bucky finally moved out with Clint. Not before dropping a word to Bruce though.
"You screw up and I'll kill you"
Bruce saw the ex-Winter Soldier force himself out of there and understood his fear. Bucky was one of the three Avengers with a personal taste of Hydra but the only one who had been forced to do it. Seeing another person, another friend go down the same path- Bruce breathed sharply and put his entire focus into his hands. If he screwed up, Bucky would never have to kill him. The guilt would do the job well enough.
Steve, Sam and Vision stood in horrifying silence as Bruce delicately pulled out one wire after another. Vision joined him when Bruce's hands faltered for a second, the sentient android's cool logic grounding the doctor. Sam didn't move an inch away from Steve, silently supporting his friend in what was the worst nightmare they were having.
And Steve? He was dying every second. Every second brought him flashes, imaginations of possible tortures Tony had gone through. He was growing detached from reality every time he saw Bruce pick out a tube from Tony's body. There were too many tubes and too less skin. Too many holes and not much blood coming out of them.
When Bruce maneuvered out a tube from below Tony's cape, Steve was sure he heard his soul getting sucked out.
And then finally, finally all the clamps, all the tubes were out and Bruce was calling for a stretcher. As if on cue, Natasha was walking in with a stretcher and Steve moved forward to lift Tony onto it.
A horrible idea, as he heard a squelch when Tony's body left the chair. He didn't have to see it to know that it was blood and other body fluids. The smell was enough to make any normal person throw up but they were Avengers. They simply placed Tony on the stretcher and covered him with the cape properly. Steve could have easily carried him out alone, but was thankful that Sam took one end. It was a small gesture but it helped Steve kick in his Captain America determination forward.
Once inside the Quinjet, the medics and Bruce took over again, silently pushing Steve to the side. He didn't go farther than three feet though and stood staring at the pale person on the stretcher bed. Tony, his brain supplied sympathetically, because this man was nothing like his Tony. This was a ghost.
Somewhere in his head, Steve could hear Natasha telling Bucky to breathe. Pietro and Wanda were huddled together, desperately trying to block out their own childhood with Hydra. Thor and Vision were flanking the Maximoff twins, silent guardians of strength. Clint was muttering something harsh to Coulson who was simply nodding. Sam was still beside Steve, always beside Steve. This was a ghost, Steve though to himself with a spark of determination, but it was their ghost to keep.
They had Tony back. That was all that mattered right? All's well that ends well, right?
Steve really did hate cliches. Because they were never true.