Hindsight

The canopy of the Wakandan jungle was a verdant carpet of emerald green which stretched for as far as the eye could see—and Captain America's eyes could see pretty far. White swirls of misty cloud danced across the carpet, moving to the rhythm of shrouded air currents. Steve envied the mists. Here they tripped the light fantastic above a breathtaking, primal landscape… and he still didn't know how to dance the most simple of two-steps. The mists made it look so easy.

A knock on his bedroom door pulled him from his wistful thoughts of all the dances he'd missed. "Yeah, come in," he called.

King T'Challa and Scott Lang stepped into the room. Wakanda's protector had slipped into the role of King like the Black Panther slipped through the jungle; with a grace and confidence borne to a man who'd always known that, one day, he was destined to rule. T'Challa wore the mantle well; he'd had an excellent role model.

"Your Highness," Steve greeted him, with a small bow.

"Captain Rogers. I trust you are settling in?"

"I am, thank you." He lifted his arms, gesturing around the palatial room, to the huge bed, the furniture carved from ebony and teak, the expansive views from the sweeping balcony. "Your hospitality is second to none."

T'Challa inclined his head, accepting the gratitude. Dark eyes, once full of anger and machinations of vengeance, looked at Steve now with a peace which belied an inner ferocity and strength. "I have brought the device you have requested," the king said, indicating a box in Lang's hands.

"Any difficulty getting hold of it?"

"None. When I explained to Mister Stark that I wished for the opportunity to say goodbye, he was very sympathetic." A sad smile touched T'Challa's lips, smoothed away almost instantly. "He said he understood what it was like, to live with regret."

"I gave it the once-over, just to be safe," Lang explained. Scott had been luckier than most of Steve's team; his suit had protected him from the physical blows he'd taken during the fight in Leipzig. What bruises he'd come away with had already faded. "No telling what Stark might have put in there if he even suspected King T'Challa was helping us. But as far as I can tell, it's clean. You shouldn't find any nasty surprises waiting for you."

"Thank you, Scott," Steve said, accepting the box. He took it to the marble-topped table and opened it up. Inside were a pair of glasses and a rather thick book, the words 'Read me first' written on in black marker. He smiled inwardly as he picked it up. Page one was a long list of disclaimers and medical warnings. Operation of the device wasn't covered until page fourteen.

"You must be the only guy in the world who actually reads the manual," Lang teased. "Want me to give you a run-down?"

Steve nodded. "Please."

Scott picked up the glasses and turned them over, demonstrating several buttons. "This is On, this one's Off, and this one pauses. This tiny slider controls the volume. Overall, they're controlled via your thoughts; to move to a different memory, you just need to concentrate on it. The device takes a moment to boot up and tap into your brain, and a moment to disconnect safely after, so you should never just pull them off your head. The uh, manual mentioned something about potential neural trauma if you don't shut it on and off properly."

"Noted." He took the glasses and turned them over in his hands. They were nothing like the last glasses he had worn, a thick-rimmed, rather goofy pair that formed part of his disguise whilst on the run from Hydra, but that was Tony for you; he liked to do everything in style.

"Take as long as you need, Captain," said T'Challa. "We have a lot of preparation work to do. It will be a few hours, at least, before the cryo unit is ready."

"Alright. And thank you again. I really appreciate this."

"Good luck," Lang told him.

When the pair left, Steve stood holding the glasses for a long moment, appreciating the irony in the situation. Tony had created the device to help him deal with the loss of his parents, and now the same device—or at least, a second incarnation of it—would help Steve deal with his Tony-issues. A thought danced across his mind, like the mists dancing outside. Right now, was Tony back at the Avengers compound, standing with his prototype glasses in hand, planning to put them on and work through his Steve-issues?

The thought teased a small smile from his lips. Perhaps, in time, they could work through their issues together, without the use of these pale reflections. For now, the pain was still too raw. Steve was ready to move forward, but he didn't think forgiveness would come as easily to Stark as it had to Wakanda's king. Sometimes, Tony could be as uncompromising as his superhero moniker suggested.

With a deep breath, Steve donned the glasses and groped blindly for the 'on' switch. The result was immediate; a grid-like overlay projected itself onto the glasses, and he watched as the lines grew, filling with colour and pattern, a virtual reality that was indistinguishable from the real thing. His room in the palace fell away. The jungle fell away, as did the dancing mists, replaced by a whirl of colour and sound.

When he realised where he was, Steve's breath caught in his throat. He'd put the glasses on to speak with Tony. He'd been expecting the Avengers compound. He hadn't been prepared for where else his mind might take him. He hadn't been ready for Lagos.

It was like watching his own nightmare. The dusty Nigerian street was full of frightened faces, but like crowds everywhere, curiosity overcame fear. As two men brawled in their street, crashing into stalls, breaking tables, taking chunks out of walls, they didn't flee for their lives, merely backed up to watch. Run, he thought to them. Get out of here. But they couldn't see him, and he wasn't here for them. He was here for himself.

It had been only a few weeks, but the memory of the fight was so fresh in his mind that he could still smell the aroma of food and coffee, still taste grit in his mouth from the dust kicked up during the scuffle. He stood in front of the crowd, watching as his past-self fought against a revenge-crazed Rumlow.

The fight turned to his favour; Rumlow went flying, then dragged himself to his knees, pulling off his helmet to reveal a scarred visage of twisted, melted flesh. Steve's heart pounded in his chest as he watched himself approach the Hydra mercenary, blood rushing through his ears as his thoughts raced ahead to what would happen next.

"I think I look pretty good, all things considered," Rumlow quipped, looking up at Steve through scarred eyelids.

Steve, the past-Steve of the memory, grabbed the front of Rumlow's shirt as real-Steve watched with a growing feeling of helplessness. "Who's your buyer?"

Rumlow gave him a twisted grin. "You know, he knew you. Your pal, your buddy, your Bucky."

"What did you say?" past-Steve demanded.

Real-Steve felt a familiar wrenching feeling in his gut at Rumlow's mention of his friend's name. God, how easily he had been played. How well Rumlow knew how to hit him in his weak spot. Hydra was good at exploiting the weakness of others. He took a step forward, pulling away from the crowd. "Don't listen to him, it's a ruse. Don't make the same mistake again," he said to his past-self. But his words went unheeded; not a single figure in the memory even acknowledged his presence. History was going to repeat.

"He remembered you," Rumlow continued, his hand slowly snaking up towards his vest's detonator. Real-Steve made a desperate grab for the hand… but his fingers went right through Rumlow's arm, and the image shuddered briefly before continuing. "I was there. He got all weepy about it… 'til they put his brain back in the blender." Real-Steve was torn. He needed to stop Rumlow, but he couldn't pull his eyes away from his own face. It was like looking at a kid who'd just been told the puppy he'd presumed had died was still alive and waiting for him to come home. And Rumlow had played him like a fiddle.

"Steve, don't listen to him," his real-self said to the stunned face of his past-self. "Focus."

"He wanted you to know something," Rumlow continued. "He said to me…"

Real-Steve closed his eyes and took his own advice, focusing on the moment. He reached out with his mind and felt himself connect to his own past. The Steve in front of Rumlow pulled back his arm, balled his hand into a fist, and punched the mercenary square on the jaw. Rumlow crumpled, his hands empty, and real-Steve let out a deep breath, finally allowing himself to relax. Around him, the crowd of Nigerians gasped, and when Wanda appeared seconds later, there was nothing for her to do but stare down at the unconscious merc.

Real-Steve's heart raced, but now he knew how to control what was happening, he decided it was time to move on. It had never been his intention to come here, to relive this moment, but clearly his own mind had needed a chance to redeem itself. Now that he'd learnt from his mistake, he recalled Lang's words, that the glasses were controlled with thought. With another deep breath, Steve thought of the Avengers compound.

This time, the device obeyed… though not in the way he had been expecting. He was at the compound alright, but now he watched his past-self sitting at a table with the rest of the team looking up at Secretary Ross. Tony was there too, away from the table, keeping to the periphery as if he didn't consider himself a part of the team anymore. Why had his mind brought him to this moment?

"The Avengers were formed to make the world a safer place," past-Steve said. "I believe we've done that."

Real-Steve smiled, nodding in agreement with himself. Even now, after Zemo and Siberia, he still believed that he and his team had done more right than wrong. You couldn't run away from a fight, because once you started running, they never let you stop. It didn't matter whether 'they' were the Nazis, Hydra, Zemo, or even just a plain ol' schoolyard bully. Nothing would ever change his mind about that.

"Tell me Captain, do you know where Thor and Banner are right now?" Ross asked him. And at that moment, Steve knew why he was here. At the time, he'd bitten back his response because he didn't want to rock the boat. Now he knew better. His friends weren't here to defend themselves, so he had to do it for them. "If I misplaced a couple of thirty-megaton nukes, you can bet there'd be consequences." Ross turned away, readying the next part of his speech. "Compromise. Reassurance. That's how—"

"Excuse me," past-Steve interrupted. "But did you just compare two thinking, feeling, sentient, moral beings, to a pair of mindless weapons of mass destruction?" The rest of the team turned to him, surprised etched on their faces. "How about misplacing a cop, or a security guard? Would that wake you up at nights? Because that's what we are. Not weapons, to be turned against the world by the first bad guy to come along, but people dedicated to preserving the peace.

"No, I don't know where Thor and Doctor Banner are," he continued. "And I don't need to. They are people. Individuals. They have earned the right to go where they please without reporting their every movement to me. What do you think, that they need to be fitted with tracking collars? That they should hold up their hands and ask permission before leaving the house? That the rest of us should be kept under lock and key so you know where we are at all times? Y'know, hearing you now, I'm actually glad I don't know where they are. And I'm glad you don't, either. I know they're not a threat. Not to me, and not to the innocent people of the world. But to the criminals, the thieves and the murderers? Yeah, those people have a reason to be afraid. And your fear about their whereabouts speaks more about your allegiance and your priorities than anything you've said so far. Compromise? Reassurance?" He held up the copy of the Accords, its weight heavy in his hands. "A leash. Control. And you know whose song you're singing there, don't you?"

The scene froze, the overlay shimmering as the memory tried to compensate, to come up with a new event spawned by the changing situation. But there was no pattern for this, no way for the memory to move forward and adapt to what he had said. Instead, it skipped forward, to the next scene, to something that it could deal with. As the briefing room faded away, real-Steve felt a moment of peace and satisfaction. He should have said it the first time around.

It was the compound again. The team had congregated in the main living area to discuss the Accords. Watching from the outside, real-Steve could see more than past-Steve. He clocked how small and worried Wanda looked. How Tony really had made up his mind even before coming here. How well Nat hid her concern, and how troubled Vision's eyes had grown.

"I have an equation," the android spoke up, drawing the gazes of everyone in the room.

"Oh, this should clear it up," quipped Sam.

"In the eight years since Mister Stark announced himself as Iron Man," Vision began, "the number of known 'enhanced persons' has grown exponentially. And during the same period, the number of potentially world-ending events has risen at a commensurate rate."

"You're saying it's our fault?" past-Steve asked. The Accords were in his hands again, still heavy, still a ball and chain waiting to be clipped around the ankle of everybody who signed them. Real-Steve watched, and waited for the moment he needed to change.

"I'm saying there may be a causality. Our very strength invites challenge. Challenge incites conflict. And conflict breeds catastrophe. Oversight… oversight is not an idea that can be dismissed out of hand."

"Boom," Rhodey gloated, as the android made his point for him.

"Just a moment," past-Steve said under real-Steve's mental influence, before Nat could call out Stark for his silence. The more real-Steve made the adjustments, the easier control of the glasses became. Now, he barely even had to think about how to change things. It just happened, a near-natural process. "Let's think about that statement. Don't get me wrong, I'm as anti-catastrophe as the rest of you. But strength? Challenge? Conflict? That's not something we created. That's not even something unique to mankind. That's nature. It's how evolution works.

"In 1943, the strength of Hydra forced the US and its allies to put together the Strategic Scientific Reserve, so that we could fight back. It's the program that ultimately led to Doctor Erskine's formula being perfected, to my creation, and eventually, to the end of the war. No, the war wasn't pretty. They were dark times for the whole world. But threats like that will always exist. Maybe they exist in response to our strength, or maybe our strength grows in response to their existence. We can try to avert catastrophe wherever possible, but we can't change the nature of… nature. It's how we grow. How we change. And yeah, it's hard, and unpleasant. But oversight isn't going to remove that. All it's going to do is tie our hands. If challenge, conflict and catastrophe are directly caused by our very existence, the only thing which will put an end to them, is an end to us. I don't know about the rest of you, but for me, that isn't an option. We exist, not just as a group, but as individuals. It's up to us to deal with that ourselves. If I put myself in someone else's hands, I'm nothing more than another weapon to be aimed and fired at somebody else's will."

The overlay flickered again as it adapted to the new input. The memory skipped, but it didn't skip very far. A slight blurring, a few movements, and now Tony was in the kitchen, pouring himself a coffee, bringing up the image of a smiling, dark-skinned young man. Real-Steve stepped forward, to look at the photograph more closely. This was it. The moment where he had lost half of his team. Until now, the dead of Sokovia had been faceless victims. Tony had given the victims a face, and a name, and a background. Charles Spencer had become the poster-boy of Tony's campaign. Of his guilt.

"…He wanted to make a difference, I suppose," Stark was saying. "I mean, we won't know, 'cos we dropped a building on him while we were kicking ass."

"You mean, while we were trying to stop the genocidal AI that you developed without consulting the rest of the team?" past-Steve interrupted.

This time, there was no need for the glasses to adapt. Steve's own memory provided the response he knew the real Tony would have given; Stark ignored him, taking a long sip of his coffee before turning to address the team.

"There's no decision making process here. We need to be put in check, and whatever form that takes, I'm game." Real-Steve saw it, then. The look in Tony's eyes. It was the same look Sam had worn, when talking about Riley. It was the look in Nat's eyes when she'd discovered who'd been pulling the strings from behind S.H.I.E.L.D.'s throne. The look Steve had seen on his own face, the first time he'd glanced in a mirror after watching helplessly as his best friend plunged to what should have been his death. Pure, undiluted, gut-wrenching, jaw-breaking, sleep-ruining, guilt. "If we can't accept limitations, we're boundary-less, we're no better than the bad guys."

"We need to be put in check, Tony? Or you do?" asked past-Steve, putting down the hard copy of the Accords. "I regret what happened to Charles Spencer. I regret what happened to all of them, all of the people we couldn't evacuate in time, all the ones we couldn't get on the helicarrier. I was willing to end my life there, to die trying to protect them. But I can sleep at nights because I know I did everything I possibly could at the time. There was nothing more I could have done, nothing else I could have given, and we paid a heavy price for your mistake. Barton was nearly killed. Wanda lost her brother." The young woman's eyes glanced down at her hands, which trembled ever so slightly in the new version of the memory. "But I don't remember Wanda making a genocide-bot. Nat didn't make one. I didn't make one. Rhodey and Sam didn't play any part in that. But we all cleaned up a mess that you created.

"For the part he played in creating Ultron, Banner left. I can't blame him for that. He walked away because he didn't want to deal with this. But you didn't, Tony. You're still here. You're still connected to the Avengers… and yet you're not really a part of the team. You want to stick a leash on us and hand it over to some smarmy politician because he sold you a book you think will absolve your guilt? Let me tell you something; it won't. Only you can do that, and you have to do it by accepting the guilt and making it a part of yourself. In the meantime, you can't expect the rest of us to agree to this Faustian deal just because you want a quick-fix for your guilt issues."

Tony watched him. Everybody watched him. And past-Steve continued with real-Steve's hindsight.

"Tell me something. If you felt like this, why didn't you suggest oversight straight after Sokovia? Why didn't you hand the reins over to somebody then? Do you want to share with the group, or should I? This was never really about Sokovia, was it? Underneath it all, it wasn't even really about Charles Spencer, though I do believe you genuinely feel guilty for his death. No. This was all about one thing."

The glasses anticipated his thoughts, blurring the patterns, fast-forwarding to another room, this one dimly lit and surrounded by glass windows and doors. On the wall outside were a dozen security monitors, each showing the same thing; Bucky, in a cage. It made Steve's gut twist again, as it had on the street in Lagos. He had come so close to his friend… and yet, he was still so far. Separated by walls and floors and glass and restraints, and Bucky's stubborn refusal to let him help.

Past-Steve and memory-Tony were seated at another table. This was it. The heart of the issue. The real reason why Tony wanted to hand over the reins. Not because he wanted to absolve himself of the deaths he had caused. Not because he wanted to hand over responsibility for what might happen to his friends in the future. This.

"Is Pepper here?" past-Steve asked. "I didn't see her."

Tony squirmed in his chair. "We're… kind of… well, not kind of…"

"Pregnant?"

"No, definitely not." Tony finally looked up. "We're taking a break. It's nobody's fault." That was Tony-speak for, "It's my fault."

"I'm so sorry, Tony, I didn't know," past-Steve said, in genuine sympathy for his friend. He knew what it was like to lose someone you loved.

"A few years ago I almost lost her, so I trashed all my suits," Tony explained. "Then we had to mop up Hydra… and then Ultron—my fault." A brief sardonic smile pulled at his lips. "And then, and then, and then… I never stopped, 'cos the truth is, I don't wanna stop. I don't wanna lose her. I thought maybe the Accords could split the difference."

"And that's what this is really about," said past-Steve, before Tony could move the conversation along to his father. "That's why your support for the Accords is coming now, and not right after Sokovia. You want your girlfriend back, and you're willing to put a leash on the Avengers to try and show her that you've changed, that you're more responsible, that you won't go flying off into the jaws of death without saying goodbye… and that if you do, you didn't go of your own accord; you were sent there by somebody commanding you. That's the guilt you're trying to absolve yourself of. Not Charles Spencer's death, not what happened in Lagos, or New York… the guilt you feel because you can't choose between protecting the world, and being with the woman you love.

"You're not like me. You can't accept the loss and make it a part of yourself, because you're used to having everything you ever wanted. You're not like Barton. You can't step away and give it up, and let others shoulder the burden while you live the quiet life. You want both, but you haven't realised yet that you can't always have both. Sometimes, one thing has to be sacrificed, and you know as well as I do that sacrificing your own life is easier than living in a world in which you've sacrificed something you love. This isn't about the Avengers, Tony. It never was."

Again, the glasses had no blueprint for this. They didn't know how Stark would react to Steve's words, because not even Steve knew that. The technology behind the glasses was clever, but limited by its user's knowledge. But that didn't matter. His personal catharsis was almost complete. He couldn't change history, but he could get some of it off his chest, stop it from squeezing so tight. There was just one last thing he wanted to see.

The scenery blurred for a final time, whisking Steve from the comfortable office in Berlin, to a cold stone floor in Siberia. Once a Russian missile silo, more recently the secret base from which Hydra ran its Winter Soldier program, the silo was a frigid hell, and Steve was in the deepest layer of it. Literally. He watched his past-self as Tony Stark flung him into a pillar.

"Stay down. Final warning," said Tony.

All his life, people had been telling Steve to stay down; school-yard bullies, Colonel Phillips, Johann Schmidt, Hydra, Nick Fury… stay down; you are not enough; get with the program… but there was only one person in the whole world Steve had ever stayed down for, and it sure as hell wasn't Tony Stark.

Past-Steve pushed himself to his feet despite feeling like one big bruise. Sure, he ached. He hurt. But he'd had worse. And he still had a reason to fight. Something to push back against. Someone else to stand up to. Someone worth protecting. Lifting his hands into a fighting position, he panted, "I could do this all day."

Real-Steve stood back and watched. Every thought, every emotion, every second, was still raw in his mind. He watched as Tony raised his glove, repulsor ready to blast him into unconsciousness. He watched as Bucky, realising his friend was in trouble, struck out with his hand, taking a feeble swipe at Stark's boot, a weak attempt to distract him. He watched as Tony turned to kick Bucky across the face, sending him rolling across the floor. He watched as a switch was flipped inside his past-self's head. Suddenly, nothing hurt anymore. There was just an angry fire blossoming in his mind. You didn't kick a man when he was down. Not when he was injured. Not when he was defenseless. Not even an enemy. And especially not Steve's best friend.

For the first time in his life, he'd given in to anger, and it had nearly consumed him. It gave him strength where he'd thought none was left, strength enough to crack open Stark's armour and raise his shield above his head for a final blow. Real-Steve watched as past-Steve made a choice, and denied the anger the hold he had let it take. He could have killed Tony. For the briefest, most minute of seconds, had wanted to kill Tony. In place of Stark, he had seen only the men who had hurt his friend, a long line of them stretching back across the decades, their faces blurring into a caricature, and beneath it all a skull as red as blood.

But he couldn't do it. Couldn't let himself do it. Doctor Erskine had chosen him for this because he was a good man. Because he wasn't a killer. If he gave in to hatred, he would be no better than Stark. No better than Schmidt, and Hydra.

Then, it was over. Past-Steve was walking away, helping Bucky up, leaving behind the shield that, for the first time ever, meant nothing to him. Let Tony keep the shield; Steve had something better. He had friends.

There was no flicker as the glasses tried to adapt to the memory, because the memory remained unaltered. He regretted nothing, not even his anger and loss of control, because he had been tested, and though he had only his own scale to measure by, he knew he had not been found wanting.

Reaching up with his fingers, real-Steve switched off the device and waited for the memory to disappear from view. The silo fell away, along with the cold and the snow, and the grid lines imposed on the glasses. When at last he took them off, and put them back in the box, he realised several hours had passed. How easy it was, to get lost in the desire for a different outcome; a better world; a more comfortable way of dealing with things. It had been an interesting experience, one he knew he would never repeat. Sometimes, it was better to live with a little pain, than to be soothed by comforting lies.