Frayed Lines

In which Steve is a hormonal teen.

A loud ringing in the room woke Steve up. He stretched, noting that it was probably noon outside, and stumbled over to the phone.

"Hello?" He yawned. "Sam? Did you get my text?"

"No, it's your other favorite flying man." A sarcastic voice Steve didn't know he missed came from the other end of the line. "Stark?" He stared at his phone disbelievingly.

"Did Sam give you this number?" He questioned. "Yeah. He said you didn't want Widow or Raccoon to have it so he gave it to me." Stark replied. "Don't worry, I can keep a secret. And by the way, kudos to you. I didn't know you were so tech savvy."

Steve could hear the smirk in his voice. "What?" Steve asked.

"You know, ditching your phone at your house. Widow was going to trace it." Stark replied. "They've already found me. At a club, I have no clue how she found me this time." Steve said thoughtfully.

"Well she probably used the GPS system on your phone to track you. Even if your phone is turned off, as long as she knows your number, she can send out a GPS pulse to track wherever you are and what your destination plan is." Stark was about to continue, but Steve stopped him there.

"Son of a gun," He said. "There's no way to stop her?"

"Your best bet is to take out your battery." Stark said thoughtfully. "As long as you leave the phone in like a trash can somewhere and get a new one, she won't be able to trace you. But if she gets ahold of it again, it wasn't me." Stark chuckled.

"Okay, thanks. I'll call Sam and ask him if he was the one who let it loose." Steve sighed.

"Don't be too hard on the poor guy, Steve. That woman has wiles."

Steve laughed, "Trust me, I know."

"And you better be careful Rip Van Winkle," Stark cautioned, "because the Back in Black crew is on the rampage. And Widow was seriously pissed when she found out that you weren't headed to Mount Rushmore, which is where she thought you would go next."

"I'm about to head there right now." Steve smiled. "I haven't been yet. A... friend convinced me to go see the view on the way to Arizona."

"You mean that big state of nothing?" Stark sighed. "Coming from me, I think Manhattan is connected to Malibu by a large desert and the only way to go is by plane."

Steve smirked as he started to clean up around the motel room. "You are a true man of the people."

"They need a role model to aspire to," He replied. "Alright Capsicle, I gotta go before the Dynamic Duo see that I'm talking with you, take care old man."

Steve wasn't given a chance to reply before he disconnected. He frowned a bit before dialing Sam.

"Hello?"

"Did you give Nat my number?" Steve demanded, not even bothering to say hello.

"Woah there cowboy. Slow down. You're the one who skipped town and didn't eat your chicken soup like a good boy Cap." Sam argued. "Besides, what do you expect me to do when all you say is 'Gone fishing.' ?"

"I expect you to at least keep it. I try to leave one time and all of you are on my tails. Even after Nat and Bucky skipped town a few times doing who knows what, you never went after them!" Steve raised his voice a little, angered. "Sometimes I need a break from the dumb asses who keep screwing up my goddamn life. Being Captain America, the perfect person that everyone in the whole fucking country looks up to isn't so easy. Just stay out of it if you even want me to come back."

He hung up there and rubbed his hand on his face, sighing. Since when was he so at ease with saying curse words? And when did he start acting like a hormonal teenager? 'At least they won't be after you.' he thought to himself. But now he really didn't have anyone to confide in anymore. 'I mean, who would want a leader like you? Old fashioned, selfish, rude, uptight, and a fucking Boy Scout. Since when did Boy Scouts become leaders?' All of the negative thoughts crowded his brain, overwhelming him.

Quickly packing up, throwing his phone out, and leaving the room key on the lobby counter, he hastily clambered onto his bike and rode towards the direction of Mount Rushmore. 'Maybe... they would be better off without you.' a voice echoed in his head. 'Wouldn't death be so much easier than the stress of being Captain America?'

He immediately pushed that thought out of his head. No way in hell was he going to commit suicide. As he neared the park, various tress surrounding the road made him think of the days when whole forests teeming with wildlife were in the place of malls and factories.

People crowded the park and everyone seemed so happy. Lucky them.

"Ticket for one." He grumbled to the man. he nodded exchanged the ticket for money and walked into the park.

"Sir. I'm going to have to stop you there." A park ranger put his hand in front of Steve's chest. "You have a backpack and we need you to go through the bag check line." He then continued to point towards a line under some tents. Yet Steve didn't want to wait that long, considering the line was pretty big.

"Son, don't stop me from going this way." He sneered, something he never thought he'd be able to do.

"And why is that?" The park ranger asked, reaching for his walkie talkie.

"Wouldn't want to stop Cap, now would you?" Steve lifted his leather jacket and surely enough, the vibranium shield was tucked safely underneath.

"O-of course not." The ranger sheepishly knocked on the shield. "Go ahead Cap, have a nice day."

For once on this journey, Steve was grateful he had his shield.

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Bucky and Natasha pulled up to a small motel on the outskirts of Keystone.

"You sure the signal is coming from here?" Bucky asked skeptically. Natasha rolled her eyes.

"Yes, now come on. We have a Cap to bring home." They neared the room the signal was coming from and unlocked it with one of Nat's pins. The room was empty, but there was a small light coming from one of the trash cans Bucky was standing by.

"Nat, c'mere." He lifted the phone out of the trash and unlocked the phone to find it on the google Maps page.

"Looks like we head to Yellowstone." Smirked Natasha.

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A/N: Whew. My thumbs hurt xD. Anyways, thanks for reading and tell me what you think of this! Btw, the picture up top is what Steve looks like with his disguise. Just put some big framed glasses and green eyes and you got it!