Steve Rogers hadn't seen sunlight in weeks.
The safehouse was a nondescript cabin in the Canadian Rockies—borrowed from an old SHIELD contact who'd gone dark after the Accords. Wood walls, single generator, no internet, no cell signal. Just him, Bucky, Sam, and the quiet weight of choices that couldn't be undone.
He sat on the porch at dawn, coffee gone cold in his hands, staring at the mist rolling through the pines. The shield rested against the railing—dented, scratched, still his. He hadn't picked it up in days.
Bucky was inside, sleeping off another nightmare. Sam was running perimeter, wings folded for once. Steve let the silence settle, let it press on the bruise that never quite healed.
He thought about Leipzig again. The airport runway. The moment he'd looked across at Tony—saw the hurt behind the anger—and thrown the shield anyway. He'd won the fight. Lost everything else.
A burner phone buzzed in his pocket—only one number programmed, only one person who knew it.
He answered without looking.
"Rogers."
A calm voice answered—young, steady, familiar from the single encrypted message he'd received before Siberia.
"Kane."
Steve straightened slightly. "You've got nerve calling this line."
"Had to make sure you were still breathing." No apology, no deference. Just fact.
Steve's mouth twitched—almost a smile. "Takes more than a helicarrier crash to kill me."
A soft exhale on the other end. "Good. Because the world still needs you. Even if it doesn't know it right now."
Steve looked out at the trees. "World signed papers saying it doesn't."
"That's politics. Not people."
Steve closed his eyes. "You sound like you've seen this play out before."
"I've seen enough plays. And I've read the scripts." A pause. "You're not wrong to walk away from the Accords. But you're not right to think you have to carry the fight alone."
Steve's grip tightened on the phone. "You've been watching. The drones. The tips. The file on Zemo."
"Someone had to make sure the truth got where it needed to go."
Steve's voice dropped. "You could've come to me. Or Tony. Picked a side."
"I don't pick sides when both are bleeding the same people." Alex's tone stayed even. "I protect what's worth protecting. Civilians. Families. The ones who don't have a shield or a suit."
Steve looked down at the shield leaning against the rail. "And you think that's enough?"
"It's what I've got."
Silence stretched—long enough that Steve almost ended the call.
Then Alex spoke again, quieter. "I lost someone once. In a life that feels like a dream now. Watched the world break and couldn't stop it. I'm not watching it happen again. Not if I can help it."
Steve felt the words hit like a memory of Peggy's voice, of Bucky's laugh before the fall. "You're young to carry that kind of weight."
"You're old enough to know it doesn't get lighter with age."
Steve huffed—almost a laugh. "Fair."
Another pause.
Then Alex said: "There's a girl. She makes me want to come home at night instead of planning the next move. She reminds me there's more than the fight."
Steve's chest tightened. "Hold onto her. The world will try to take that too."
"I know." Alex's voice softened. "You had that once. Peggy. You still carry her with you."
Steve's breath caught. "How do you—"
"I read people. And history." A beat. "You don't have to do this alone, Steve. Not anymore."
Steve looked at the shield again. The star was chipped, the paint worn. Still his.
"What are you offering?" he asked.
"Not a team. Not a side. Just… an open channel. Resources if you need them. A place to breathe when the running gets too heavy. No strings. No registration."
Steve considered it. Long and hard.
Then: "Why trust me?"
"Because you still believe in something bigger than yourself," Alex said simply. "And because the people who believe that are the ones worth protecting."
Steve exhaled slowly. "I'll think about it."
"That's all I ask."
The line went quiet.
Steve set the phone down, stared at the rising sun filtering through the pines.
Bucky stepped onto the porch behind him—quiet footsteps, metal arm catching the light.
"Friend of yours?" Bucky asked, voice rough from sleep.
Steve looked back at the phone. "Maybe. Maybe something better."
Bucky sat beside him. "You gonna take the offer?"
Steve picked up the shield, turned it over in his hands. "I don't know yet. But it's nice to know someone's still trying to keep the world from breaking completely."
Bucky nodded slowly. "Kid sounds like he's carrying a lot."
"Yeah," Steve said softly. "He does."
They sat in silence as the sun climbed higher.
Somewhere in Queens, a young man with too many copied powers and too much borrowed time was probably holding the woman he loved, trying to believe there was still room for hope.
Steve looked at the shield one last time.
Then he set it down—gently—against the railing.
Not forever.
Just for today.
The fight wasn't over.
But for the first time since waking up in the 21st century, Steve Rogers didn't feel entirely alone in it.
(Word count: 1002)