Steve has an apology to make.

Tony isn’t paying a whole lot of attention when Barton appears in his lab.

"Why is Bruce Banner still in New York?" Fury asks, in a tone that suggests he is barely managing to exercise patience.

Bruce isn't sure he wants to use a credit card Tony gave him. Steve isn't sure he even knows how.

In which Cap makes new friends, becomes an accidental Internet troll, swaps a lot of stories, and gives Bucky Barnes a hug.

Steve Rogers discovers the Grinch, but he already knew Dr. Seuss...

In which Cap makes new friends, becomes an accidental Internet troll, swaps a lot of stories, and gives Bucky Barnes a hug.

In which Darcy Lewis is actually Hel Lokisdottir, Queen of Helheim, and Phil Coulson is the badass secret agent we all know and love.

Thor takes a good look at Loki once he has hauled him back onto the quinjet, and realizes that there is something odd about Loki's eyes. Thor has grown and changed much in the last year, and no longer takes anything for granted. So he starts asking questions. It doesn't take long to figure out that Loki is not acting of his own free will. Tony Stark knows what it is to be forced to do as an enemy commands. Steve Rogers has seen the atrocities manipulative madmen are willing to commit. Clint, Logan, Bruce and Natasha have been subjected to said madmen. They all know what it is to lose themselves, and to seek redemption. Together, this band of broken heroes draws a line in the sand. They will not tolerate any tyrant, foreign or domestic. That includes Nick Fury and the WSC, who have used everyone on the team for their own aims. It includes Thaddeus 'Thunderbolt' Ross, who has hunted Bruce against all reason. It includes Odin, who treats his sons like commodities. And it includes Thanos, who has delusions of conquering Earth. Along the way, they learn to trust each other. They learn to help each other. They become a family.

Steve pauses when he sees the bizarre changes to Times Square. Well, what if he didn't? What if he got away and SHIELD didn't get him? He escapes. He learns. And in true Captain America fashion, he refuses to hide away and decides to take the fight to Hydra (because who else would capture him?) in the streets of New York, hiding among the Finest. Along the way, he picks up a rural hometown, a best friend who knows a little too much about the silver men, an old friend with new metal accessories in his fists, and a partner who doesn't freak out when Steve tells him Nazis are trying to kill him, please don't tell the Desk Sergeant? Oh, and at some point, he may just figure out that the weird guy at the coffee shop isn't gay, but is a SHIELD agent that's torn between turning THE CAPTAIN in and giving up the vacation this manhunt turned into.

They don't meet again until after they're both superheroes.

Jake Jensen is sixteen when he meets Tony Stark at MIT. He's nineteen when he joins the US army, and twenty-four when he becomes a Loser. Becoming a Loser is also when he happens to discover that DADT might apply. But that is not where this story begins. It begins on a cold, winter morning in Massachusetts, when a little girl with hair the colour of cornflakes meets her newborn brother for the first time. (In which there are evil toasters, all-around nerdiness, and ohana ).

Tony attends a wedding; Steve starts making a little space.

"Kid," says Tony Stark wearily, "Please gimme a reason Loki's been spotted talking to Spiderman that isn't 'I wanted to be his friend'. Please. Tell me you can do that." Peter hums. "I could?" "And that reason would be the truth?" Peter shrugs into his sweater. "If you wanted it to be the truth it could be." "That right there, that right there, is why I know it's gonna be a lie." *** Peter befriends Loki, and then some.

“Oh, fuck,” Squalo says, thankfully at about a quarter of his normal volume, as he tumbles to lean against the wall beside Xanxus. “This is like with that shitty Bronco all fucking over again, don’t you fucking dare.”