This is not the Endgame

Turned away from it all like a blind man. Sat on a fence, but it don't work.

Steve met his lawyer after the day's hearing, accepting his overcoat and keeping a neutral look on his face, ignoring the press of cameras, lights, and reporters shoving recorders into his face. They walked out to the street where they could get cabs; they'd talked over their lunch break and there wasn't much to say now. He was done, thank god, and he never cared if he saw another member of Congress, either house, ever again. His appearance before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs had been difficult, as he'd expected, but the snipes at him personally, for reasons other than his actions during the Snap, Hiatus, or Unsnappening had rankled. All that most of the Senators had seemed to care about was getting their time before the cameras, grandstanding, rather than listening to what he had to tell them. He held the door of a cab for his lawyer and stepped back to wait for another one.

"Steve?" A familiar voice hailed him from behind. He turned to see Ava. His eyebrows rose.

"Ava. Didn't expect to see you here."

"Yeah, I wasn't planning on it, but I was following the hearing at work. It was getting pretty vicious. Took the afternoon off, thought you might like to see a friendly face." A cab pulled up.

"I would," he said, holding the cab door for her. "Can I take you to dinner?" She accepted, and they asked the cabbie for a recommendation; he took them to Ambar. It was crowded but not packed, and they talked about her trip down--she'd taken the midafternoon train, and she was going back on the late train. They each had salads, and Steve had mushroom flatbread as a starter--Ava tried a couple of bites--and she ordered almond-crusted chicken and he had pork tenderloin with a bacon peanut crust. Once the entrees were ordered and the waiter went away, the conversation turned.

"It was looking pretty brutal," she said. "I ran into Sarah, from group, at lunch. We talked about it, and she gave me the idea to come down for support. There were delays on the line or I'd have been here earlier. I hope you're not just being polite and would tell me if you just want to be alone."

"No, I can't tell you how nice it is to see a friendly face. I didn't actually expect it to be that bad, or I'd have asked Sam or Buck to come with me."

"I can't believe that that one Senator actually asked if the serum made you psycho."

"Like Bucky," he said, scowling at the slight toward his friend. "No, nobody's a psycho."

"I did like how you brought up the deferments he got so he wouldn't be drafted in Vietnam," she said. "And that great Thomas Paine quote about tyranny."

"From The American Crisis," he nodded. "'These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated,'" he recited from memory. "I've always liked that, and I immediately thought about that when I first found out that Bucky was called the Winter Soldier. It fits him to a T, he's no summer soldier." Steve had done his best to make sure the Senators, the press, and the people watching know that he was committed to these principles, the concepts of freedom that are so precious in the formative documents of the United States. But he'd delivered the quotation, straight-faced, when a senator wondered if Captain America was taking his character too seriously. He'd recited it, then added, "But I'm just Captain Rogers now, Senator. Sam is Captain America now, as good and dedicated a man as you'll find anywhere."