"Steve. C'mon, man, wake up."

All at once, there's sound and light and movement and everything aches, so sudden and sharp he nearly chokes on air. But he hasn't done that in years, and he regains control quickly.

"Steve?"

His vision focuses.

Clint is seated on the edge of the bed - a SHIELD hospital bed, that Steve himself appears to be stationed in - peering down at him with something like worry. When he knows he has Steve's attention, he smiles.

"Hey, man," he says, clapping him on the shoulder. "Your vitals were all over the place for a second there." He pauses. "Nightmare?"

Steve shrugs. "No, not really," he replies. "I was only thinking - uh, how long have I been here?"

Clint wiggles one hand in a seesawing motion. "Uhhhh, five days, maybe six."

"Six days!" Steve echoes, alarmed. The heart monitor at his side picks up as he tries to lever himself into a sitting position. What feels like a dozen stab wounds immediately make themselves known and he allows Clint to push him back into the pillows, gritting his teeth against the pain. "Shit," he manages.

"No moving for another day or so," Clint admonishes, expression creasing into concern. "Doc's orders."

"Okay," says Steve, "tell me what happened."

"Uhh." Clint leans back again, staring at the ceiling. "There was some new hotshot supervillain wrecking shit. Phil called you in with a bunch of agents. You went down. Now we're here."

"The villain?"

"Got away."

"The other agents?"

"In one piece."

"Have you contacted Tony?"

"Uh." Clint shifts awkwardly, face twisted. "Well..."

Steve jerks back. "He has called, hasn't he? It's not like him to -"

"No, no," Clint rushes to amend, "he's definitely called. Several times. So many times. It's just that -"

"It's just that your husband called," says another voice from the doorway. Natasha leans on the jamb, arms crossed, brows furrowed. She's in her uniform. "And Clint fucked up."

Steve feels himself tense, despite how his muscles burn as they pull taut. "What happened?"

"He made a call," she explains, tucking a stray curl behind her ear and sliding into a chair by the heart monitor. "Or rather, he took one, and wasn't prepared for what happened. You have to realize, Cap, that it's done already. There's no turning back."

There's a small bubble of panic in his gut, quickly expanding as she continues to avoid the truth. "What," he grits out, "happened."

"Tony called," says Natasha, watching him carefully, "from your work phone."

He freezes. "What," he breathes.

She frowns. "He called from your work phone. Said he had found it while cleaning and recognizes Clint's name."

Steve somehow finds it in him to laugh. "Tony?" he chokes. "Cleaning?"

"Said he was bored out of his mind waiting for you," and everything about Clint is subdued now - body language, tone of voice, eyes locked on the bed sheet. "He, he asked how you were."

"Steve," Natasha breaks in, voice impossibly gentle, "he thinks you're dead."

He slowly shakes his head. "No," is what comes out of his mouth, staring straight ahead, "he has no reason to think that. Why would he think that? I only -"

"I told him," Clint mumbles, and Steve's heart stops.

"Why?" he asks, voice strangely neutral. The two agents look at each other, nervous tells screaming at Steve's senses. They don't know how to break this to him, but he knows. He knows exactly what's going to come out of their mouths.

"We crushed a building set for demolition," says Natasha, still using that soft tone, the kind one uses when speaking to a scared child or wounded animal. "When Tony asked after you, Clint said you were inside. That we're still looking for your body. That - that no one else survived."

He repeats, "why?"

"I panicked," Clint admits, voice hollow. "I didn't - I wasn't expecting him to call my phone, and the world knows Captain America is dead, so I said you're dead."

"I am not Captain America," he says, and now his voice is loud. He's angry, he thinks, but feels strangely detached. He still hasn't quite worked out what they're telling him. "I am Steve Rogers-Stark, and I am a man with a life outside of SHIELD. I have a home, I have a lover, and you just - you just took that from me. Because you didn't think."

"Steve, I'm so -"

"No, you're not," he talks over Clint's apology, and he'll feel horrible about this later but he's feeling worse right now, and he can't be bothered to give a single fuck when he just learned that he won't be seeing Tony again. That Tony thinks he's dead. He's going to be devastated. Steve wants to get off this stupid mattress and go back to his own, wants to grab his husband and kiss him and reassure him and promise he's okay, that he's not going to leave him again, that he's sorry - "This works out well for SHIELD, doesn't it? Now I don't have a life, I don't have outside connections. I can be just like you two. Nothing outside of this organization. Nothing without your superiors to keep you in line. I was happy. I was - we were talking about having a family. And now I can't. Now I'm nothing, too."

There's a long moment of silence, broken only by Steve's ragged breathing and the beeping of the heart monitor. He's staring down at the dark splotches on the white sheet covering his body. Everything hurts.

"Phil's going to come by to talk with you about your last will and testament," Natasha says finally. She gets up, and so does the weight at the foot of the bed. She places a phone - his personal phone, the one that Tony designed solely for him - onto his lap. "Here's your phone. Communication has been disabled, but you can listen to your voicemails and read your texts. Tony - he called a lot.

"And for what it's worth? I am sorry."

The door shuts behind the two of them, and Steve closes his eyes. His fingers move automatically, unlocking his phone and accessing his voicemail box. His thumb hovers over the "listen" button; he squeezes his eyes shut tighter, so much that it hurts.

He presses the button.