Daycycle 116 [ November 13 - November 26 ]

[computerized]

daycycle 116

[Nov 13 - Nov 26]

[OOC Plotting for this Daycycle can be found here.]
[The Charity Ball Entertainment post is here.]
[This DC has been extended through 11/26.]

Early Morning [0800 - 0900] — All Troubleshooters Report for Duty

No Special Troubleshooters have been selected for a mission this morning.

---

Morning & Afternoon [0900 - 1600] — Service Firm Positions
All Troubleshooters not assigned a mission should report to their Service Firm for their daily duties, unless specifically assigned a different shift.

Matt Murdock's office will be assigned to defend the most recent Specials accused of treason. He will not be allowed to contact the traitors directly, but he will be given the task of preparing his cases. He has 48 hours to prepare.

Jack Harkness has been selected to plan the entertainment for tonight's Charity Ball, thanks to the popularity of his performances during the Alpha Talent Show a few days ago. When he asks The Computer for help, several specials are assigned to him. Izzy Lightwood will be his event planning assistant and "Stiles" Stilinski will assist in MCing the night's event. Due to their popularity, all Specials will be approached about being auctioned off for dances in order to help raise money by Jack, Izzy and Stiles. They will also be asked if they're willing to take part in specially planned choreographed dances. Dance lessons will be provided for those that require them during the afternoon hours.

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Evening [1600 - 2200] — Citizen Improvement
All Alpha citizens are encouraged to better themselves through Alpha’s wide variety of educational, entertainment and cultural opportunities offered each evening. Attending these sanctioned events are not mandatory, but is highly encouraged by The Computer. Citizens choosing not to take advantage of these opportunities, have a growing number of other options available to them in how to spend their hard earned credits and free time.

Tonight’s event will begin at 1800 at the Alpha Museum of Fine Art and will be hosted by The Humanists Alpha Society for the Arts. Tickets to the event are 1000cr and can be bought up until an hour before the event begins. Attendees have been given special permission to wear Old Reckoning clothing for this event only, as long as it is the same color as their clearance level. Specials may notice that many of the Alpha Citizen's outfits have gotten key parts of Old Reckoning clothing wrong, with buttons instead of sequins, for example, or men wearing ties that are much too long and go to their knees. Alpha's Very Special Forces will be present to ensure the safety of those attending.

An entire wing of the museum has been cleared as a makeshift dance floor. In an attached room there are several tables covered in white tablecloths and set with the crystal and china that usually only graces Violet citizen tables. Along the wall is a massive buffet made with real food and including an elaborate ice sculpture. There is a bar in the corner where Alpha's finest spirits are being disbursed freely. For the first hour, the focus is on the food and mingling. The music playing is calming and instrumental. There are some that steal the dancefloor for a slow spin, but the majority of the attendees seem reluctant to move away from the buffet.

And then at approximately 1900, Jack Harkness will take the stage and begin the evening's real entertainment.

---

Alpha Curfew Restrictions
All Alpha citizens should be in their quarters within the Wagon Wheel by 2200, unless they’ve been given permission from a GREEN or higher clearance level citizen. Sleeping Aid gas is dispelled each night in the Wagon Wheel at 2200 to assist citizens in getting a productive sleeping period.

Confession Booths
There are hundreds of confession booths available around Alpha Complex if a citizen would like to communicate directly with the computer. Please use these confession booths to report mission statuses, report treason or terrorist acts, unregistered mutants, confess your trespasses against Alpha Complex, request propaganda or speak with Your Friend, The Computer, at any time.

Comments

[a_man_out_of_time]

When she tilts his head up so they can see each other, Steve nearly pulls away completely. His eyes, unsure of what too, wander adrift for a few seconds before wandering back. It’s not that Steve is afraid of showing her his vulnerabilities. It’s rather that … Steve doesn’t know how to hide anything in his eyes. It’s where you can always look to know exactly what he’s thinking, and he’s afraid that if they stay staring at each other for too long, Natasha will see straight down into his soul.

And maybe it’s because she can see the panic, but she’s hushing him before he can even say anything. She’s keeping his mind busy, speaking in languages he can’t understand, while using her body to help him remember how lungs can expand and how chests can rise. He understands. If he doesn’t know how to breathe anymore, she’d teach him, one inhale at a time.

Inhale, exhale.

It sounds easy. It should be easy, and Steve’s really trying but he can’t do it, at least not right away. He’s filling his lungs too much, he’s holding onto air for too long, and it’s not that he doesn’t appreciate her words, but the lack of consistent oxygen is making Steve groggy, and his mind feels so numb that he only hears some of what she’s saying.

But if she keeps going, if she doesn’t give up on him, the calm does come in the end.

A few minutes ago, Steve was terrified to meet her gaze, scared that he’d reveal what little secrets he had. But once Steve truly looks at her and looks into her, it’s the fierce determination he sees in Natasha’s eyes that starts to ground him. Love, friendship, and a fierce determination to keep him afloat. In that moment, Steve finally accepts that if Natasha knew everything, she wouldn’t abandon him. That thought alone steadies him in a way that Steve didn’t think would be possible tonight.

For a whole minute, he doesn’t stop looking at her, holding onto that sentiment in her eyes like the lifeboat he never gets when he crashes into water.

I’m not going to let you drown up here.

He remembers her saying that now, and there’s a slight twitch in his lips that’s nearly unreadable to everyone except Natasha. Under normal circumstances, Steve probably would have smiled, but right now, all he can do is look at her, his own eyes still moist, with a bit of awe and astonishment. He knows it’s a metaphor, and maybe it’s just coincidence, but Steve knows Natasha well enough to know that nearly nothing with her is coincidence anymore. Even if she didn’t consciously choose those words, something inside her has already picked up on the fact that he’d come up here to drown. In emotions, sure, that part he couldn’t control anymore. But also, in his mind, where he remembers exactly what the visceral pain of drowning feels like.

He doesn’t think about it very often, and it’s not because he’s afraid of it, or can’t bear the memory. It’s because he doesn’t regret his decision to go down with that plane. His conviction is as strong now as it was the moment he saw the water crack the windshields. The only thing he regrets, maybe, is the seventy years it put between him and the person he loved.

Steve nearly laughs when he suddenly remembers what he’d said to Bruce that night in Stark Tower, when he saw how he and Natasha acted around each other.

As the world's expert on waiting too long, don't. You both deserve a win.

Seventy years. Is that how long he’d wait again, before having the courage to love who he wants to love?

And suddenly, his strongest memory of the night returns, and Steve struggles to set it aside but he can’t this time. He can taste it once more, that imagined flavor of alcohol mixed with Tony’s mouth, and the sensation is so strong that it pulls Steve’s mind towards every single time he watched Tony return to the bar and drink and drink and drink-

“I hurt him, again — Tony.” His chest aches when he admits it, and when Steve gets to Tony’s name, he can’t even look at her when he says the word, but the way his voice sounds is honest in a way that’s hard to take. Grief. Shame. Guilt. They’re all there.

But he said the words. He can’t take them back.

Maybe the most striking part to Steve though, is how suddenly he realizes that he doesn’t want to.

[missromanova]

It doesn't register at first, what he means when he finds enough air in his lungs to speak. Natasha is too distracted in making sure that he's okay, and too wrapped up in keeping track of his inhale, to comprehend exactly what Steve had done, but instead of trying to comfort him anyway like others might and telling him that it's all going to be alright, Natasha stays silent. She doesn't know if it's going to be alright because she doesn't know what's happened, but she also knows that pushing him for more information isn't going to get her anywhere right now. Steve doesn't speak in riddles, he speaks in certainty and with conviction, even in times like this. All of the information that he's able to give has been given in that moment, and it doesn't take much for Natasha to think about her earlier interaction with Tony that night. Tony, who's okay but isn't good, and Steve, who spent the night watching Stark from across the room so intently that it was hard for her not to notice. She just thought that he was worried about Tony in the way that she was, but his comment has her thinking back at just how long Steve was staring at him, and just what kind of look he held in his eye when he did. Her own gaze goes off for a moment as she replays the image of it in her head, trying to pinpoint exactly what it is about it that seems off to her, and she realizes that the way that Steve watched Tony with gaze full of concern and something... else, is familiar. She hasn't seen that look, or experienced it, in quite some time now, but it's how Clint would look at Laura after calling Natasha over in the middle of the night because he was worried about her during the first pregnancy. It's how, after a mission, after things got too heated, Natasha would look at -

Oh.

Oh.

It hits her with the power of a train, like being plunged in a vat of cold water, and every hair on the back of her neck stands on end as her eyes snap back to Steve's face. She's studying him this time, analyzing every line in his face and every micro-expression he makes in search for confirmation... but she doesn't need it. It makes sense. Lord, it suddenly makes so much sense.

Natasha had her suspicions about Steve before tonight, but not because of Tony. She's never said it aloud, because she's never found it to be relevant, but she felt as if there was something there not between the two Avengers, but between Steve and Bucky that drove him to search so passionately. It wasn't until Natasha actually because Steve's friend that she realized that's just what he does, but it's always been a question in the back of her mind; one too irrelevant to think too much about and one too dangerous for someone like Steve to acknowledge, even if she did ask. She knows what it was like when he was young, the beliefs and systems that were in place, and being persecuted for emotion isn't something that Natasha is unfamiliar with. But it runs deeper than that for him, and she knows it; this isn't just about feelings for a man. This is about feelings for Tony, and that makes it complicated. Worse. They were already broken because of their own stupidity on both ends, and for Steve to feel like he had wronged Tony in some way meant that he must have done something outwardly about whatever connection he's recognized between them. The way she sees it, there are only two options; he told Tony how he felt, or he pulled away. If it was the first then Tony would have had to let him down easy and that's why Steve is here, on the track trembling in the arms of a woman quite literally half his size. If it was the second, though, then that would explain why Tony drank the entire bar and why Steve feels as if he hurt him; Tony doesn't drink when he feels bad about hurting someone's feelings. He drinks to hide his own. That's her answer.

"Steve..." She wants to tell him that this is too much. She can't do this, this isn't something that Natasha is good at. It's something that she can relate to but on a level that she doesn't speak about, and she told herself she would never speak about because it's a level of pathetic weakness that she swore she'd never let the outside world see again. Let it rot. Keep it in, let it die. That was the plan, and yet to stick to that plan it would mean that she would have to pat Steve on the shoulder and tell him that it would all work itself out. She would have to take the trust he's putting in her, and return it with an outward wall of closed security, and that's not why she's here. Natasha has already promised that she won't let him drown, and she's quickly realizing that it's a promise she might not be able to keep. Friends, though, do their damnedest to try, and if she can't give Steve his own lifeboat then she can at least invite him into hers. Maybe they'll both sink... but then, at least, they'd drown together, and that's better than leaving him alone. He taught her that.

The sound of her dress against the ground can barely be heard as she moves, this time shifting herself so she can sit in front of him instead of beside him and keep his attention. Something has changed; the compassion in her face has gone, but not for malice. Her brow is pinched with uncertainty and now she can't look at him, instead staring at the space between them with the corner of her lip between her teeth. She doesn't know if she can do this, but she knows that she has to. So it seems that she'll find out. "You can't-" she stops before she can even begin, her lips pressing together in a thin line before she inhales deeply through her nose.

'Stop.
Breathe.
Disconnect.
Go.'

The process happens almost instantaneously, one that she wishes she didn't still need, but she does, and she uses it. She says nothing aloud, but suddenly, she can look at him. "You can't be upset with yourself for feeling something." 'Hypocrite. Irrelevant. Continue.' "For being human. ...I remember my first friend. Her name was Anna, she was a year older than me. She taught me how to braid my hair." The vague quirk of a smile that pinches at the corner of Natasha's mouth isn't real, and she doesn't know why she does it. Sometimes she can't shut off the need to be someone else; especially in the moments where she's being herself because that person is, more than anything, a stranger to her. "I met her when I was eight, as soon as I was recruited to the Red Room. She slept in the bed next to mine, we were... handcuffed," she stops for a brief moment to clear her throat, but she continues quickly, "to the bed frames with one hand so none of us ran away or got out of bed without permission. At night, though, sometimes, if one of us was crying, the other would try to reach over with our other hand. We would try to touch each other's arm, just so we knew that we weren't alone. She was better at it than I was. Longer arms." She says the last part like it's a dry joke. Like humor can be found in something like this, but it's that part of her that can't shut off when she feels exposed. When some animals get backed into a corner they bite; others camouflage.

"They let us get close, watched us grow together. Anna helped me settle, she was... good to me. We were good to each other, always, and when I turned eleven they started to thin our numbers. It was expensive, feeding all of those little girls, and you only want to spend your money on the horse you know is going to win a race or two. They would pit us against each other but it's not - it wasn't like other sessions. These weren't for practice anymore, you killed your opponent or you were killed. See, we thought we were clever." Natasha's gaze had fallen again, and when the wind blows her hair into her face this time she lets it. She wants as much of a veil as possible. "We thought that, if neither of us fought, they couldn't make us. The first two girls did that and they were both shot... defiance was never an option back then. We knew that. So we all watched as each pair went up and only one girl walked away, or neither walked away... either way they were opening up a lot of beds, I don't think they really cared in the end. And then it was my turn, and they put me up against Anna. I didn't want to." The last part is tacked on quickly and for a second, a fleeting moment, Natasha's voice cracks on the tail end of the last syllable. Of course she didn't want to. No little girl wants to find themselves in that position, but she still needs to say it aloud. Natasha still needs to justify it.

"Neither of us wanted to get shot. So we fought, and I killed her. That's when I learned that friends weren't something that I was supposed to have. Emotional connection is only allowed when approved. No matter how I felt about it, and that followed me. Even after Clint made the call he made and I came to SHIELD, that followed me, and Clint became the exception to the rule, not the change. And then there was you." It's only then that Natasha manages to look back up at Steve and push her hair behind her ear, face stoic with a lack of expression that doesn't come from training, but comes with necessity. "And I felt important, and trusted. Then Tony, and Thor, and then there was -"

That's when she stops again, and the mask cracks when her tongue darts out to wet her lips quickly and her brow furrows. The frustration that's there now is with herself, but not because she has to keep stopping. It's the content, not the delivery. "And then there was Bruce, and Bruce was different. He was sweet, and gentle and kind and I couldn't hurt him, Steve." There it is... the true reason, the one that started Natasha's spiral downward in the first place that she's never been able to say aloud. The change in pitch is angry this time, and Natasha can feel the heat rising to her eyes as they begin to burn. "No matter what I did or who I listened to or who got a hold of me I couldn't hurt him. It was impossible, and that made him - he made me feel-" the sentence finishes with a grunt of frustration and she can feel the warmth running down her cheek, a tear that she struggled to keep to herself. Her hand moves quickly to wipe it away, skin smeared with black from her mascara, but now that she's speaking she can't stop. If she stops, she'll never start again.

"It made me feel safe, like there was finally something that I found that I couldn't ruin. If we were ever put against each other I would lose, not him. If we refused to fight and we both got shot, he'd be okay, you know? He'd never get hurt because of me, and that made me feel... normal. Human. I felt like a person." It's the only way she can explain it to this day, perhaps because she still can't fully understand it. She can't comprehend how deeply she felt what she felt for him. She doesn't bother wiping away her tears anymore because it's pointless, and Natasha isn't crying because of Bruce. She isn't crying for Bruce, she's crying because she's furious with herself for being so foolish. She's smarter than that. She was supposed to be smarter than that.

"I told him things about myself that I had never told anyone, he knows things about me that I - I can't get that back. I can't get that back from him, it's his now forever whether I like it or not and I trusted him with that. And it doesn't matter what he did with it and how it all ended, because what matters - Steve," she's come to the end, and the wet laugh that Natasha manages to give this time is one of realization. It's genuine, and she moves closer to take his face in both of her hands this time, her eyes wet, and hurt and frightened, but still hopeful. Somehow, there's still good intent there, and it's not for her; it's for him, because of course. Of course it didn't work for Natasha, because she's Natasha and she was stupid to think that it could, but it can work for Steve. If it can work for anybody, it can work for Steve. "All that matters is how it made me feel and it felt... human. I wasn't anyone else, I was me and for the first time in my life that was okay. Feeling, and caring, no matter what I was told or what it would have meant for me ten years ago, was okay, and it was worth it. Do you understand what I'm telling you? It's worth it."

Hands fall from his face and Natasha wets her lips again before sucking in a rattling breath, her eyes tinted with the signs of her crying and cheeks streaked with black ink. "It's not going to be easy and I'm not saying that it is, but sometimes you need to let go and realize that it can be worth it." Natasha isn't sure if this is the first time that she's ever given advice that has nothing to do with covert operations, but if it is she certainly doesn't sound it. Her confidence is strong and steady, and it's weaved within every word. "It isn't about pros and cons, it's not about who's better with than without or risk and reward - none of that matters. It's about you, and him, and finding someone who makes you better than you are when you're alone. And he does that for you. You do it for him, I see it. When you two are working, really working, you're better than you've ever been apart. When you're on opposite sides of the field you can spend all day knocking each other over but when you're both on the same side? I've never seen you fail, and that's not just teamwork. I know teamwork. That's something else." She's seen the change in both Tony and Steve after they met each other, and she sees how different they are when they're around each other. It's significant. They're just too wrapped up in their own self doubt and fear to notice.

"Don't let anything from your past tell you how to feel. You've never let anyone tell you how to live, so why would you let anyone dictate how you love?" Her jaw sets firmly, flexing with a effort to bite back another sudden wave of emotion that catches her off guard. "I still can't braid my hair. Don't let them do that to you."

[a_man_out_of_time]

In that moment, when Natasha’s eyes lock onto his face, looking at every twitch and tremor for confirmation of what she’s just put together, she gets what she’s looking for. Even if she doesn’t need it, now that she has the context, everything is right there on his face.

The way his lips purse, like his body is so used to hiding this that it’s closing his mouth on his behalf, just so he can’t say anything more. The way he can’t look at her, but for just a split second, he looks up like he’s checking in with a higher power. And god, even the way that he glances down when she says his name, his eyes not looking at the track but through it, all the way to the bottom of the earth, like after he’s checked in with the best he needs to consider the very worst. Maybe that’s where he’ll end up, after all this.

But eventually Steve’s eyes make their way back to her. Small lines form between his eyebrows when he realizes that something’s different now. There’s a recognition on Natasha’s face that wasn’t there before, and he can see her struggling as she shifts her body, as she looks away.

“It’s okay … Natasha-“ His voice is choked and quieter this time, because his last five words were all that Steve could manage, and these three are being pushed out through sheer willpower. But it’s important to him that Natasha knows that she doesn’t have to say anything. That it already means something to him that she hasn’t stood up and left. But the uncertainty on her face right now — he wishes it doesn’t kill him, but it does. On any other night, about anything else, Steve Rogers would never even think to doubt her resolve to stay, but tonight, when he’s realized how much he’s lied to himself over the past two days, Steve can’t help but wonder if maybe he'd given himself too much credit, and that she’s reconsidering-

Natasha speaks again before he can finish his train of thought, and Steve’s glad honestly, to give her his full attention. It’s easier than putting that attention on himself, but more importantly, Steve is listening because he can tell Natasha is opening up in a way that just doesn’t happen, and if she trusts him enough with this part of her, he’s going to make sure that he’s damn well listening.

The longer she talks about Anna, the more Steve suspects that this story isn’t going to end well, but at the same time, he doesn’t understand why she’s telling him this. What are you saying, Natasha? But Steve doesn’t guess, or try preempt her by trying to finish the story in his head. He just waits, patiently, because she deserves that. His answer does come in the end. Bruce. Of course.

Suddenly, Steve feels trapped, because now he knows exactly where this is going, even if he doesn’t know what the path there will look like, and he’s not ready for her to teach him this lesson. But the panic that’s threatening to rise up again is being pushed down by something else he feels.

Steve’s always been at his best when he has someone else to think of in addition to (or let’s be honest, instead of) himself. Back when Bruce left, he’d asked Natasha how she was doing. He’d seen the way they looked at each other, even if he hadn’t known how far it’d gone and that Bruce had asked her to run away with him. Natasha though, she shrugged off his disappearance with such indifference that to this day, Steve had never believed it. He even pressed her on it in the beginning, but she hadn’t wanted to talk, and Steve knew better than to force Natasha into doing anything. In the end, he was forced to let it go. All he’d been able to do was make sure Natasha knew that if she ever did want to talk, he’d be there.

Now, she’s telling him more than he ever imagined she would. But it’s not only that. Steve can feel a deep sympathy spreading through his chest when he sees the tears trickling down her face. He can imagine exactly how that must feel, because his eyes are red and swollen and the skin on his cheeks is still raw from being dried by the wind. When she takes his face in his, he can see the cocktail of pain and hope mixed in her eyes, as if she wants nothing more than to offer a trade.

Natasha is giving him her memory and her feelings, as a gift to help him understand something. All she’s hoping for in return, is for Steve to find happiness. That’s it.

That’s it, and Steve knows it, and yet all he can do is look back at her with concern and self-doubt.

Do you understand what I’m telling you? It’s worth it.

There it is again. That path. The one that says he can love who he wants, feel what he wants, and that the world will keep spinning and he will still be him. He’ll still be Steve. She’s already gotten him to take one step tonight and Steve takes some comfort in the idea that he doesn’t regret saying Tony’s name in front of her. But that’s the only step he’s prepared to take tonight. The wall of suffocating emotions that’s threatening to separate who he was this morning from who he is now, it isn’t just something he can plow through with a strong arm and a running start. He needs the help of time.

But this conversation belongs to both of them now. As much as he knows she’s doing this for him, he can see on her face that it’s hurting her to be this honest. Everything she’s doing now goes against the nature that’s been trained into her, the one she uses as her most important weapon day by day, and she’s doing it for him, because she thinks he’s worth it.

When her hands fall from his face, there’s a moment where the only sound is the whistling of the wind, and Steve just reaches over and puts his arms around her, pulls her in, and holds her tightly against him. He wants be for her what most people see when they look at him: a strong and sturdy immovable wall, that’s hers to lean on whenever she needs. He’s lost the ability to use his words, but Steve can still use his actions.

This is their lifeboat now, and it’s his turn to row.

What he doesn’t expect is what comes next. Natasha’s noticed so much about him and Tony, and it shows, and it makes Steve wonder if everything had always been painfully obvious to everyone else, and that he was the only one too foolish to see it. He scrunches his forehead at the thought, and his eyes naturally close. Now, Steve needs this hug as much as she does. He needs someone to hold and protect, because being here for Natasha is the only thing that’s keeping him from falling apart as she talks — as he realizes that she’s saying out loud how he feels about Tony.

It’s a few hours too late, but Steve finally stops trying to hold this one piece of him in check, and he let’s how much he truly cares about Tony spread freely through his chest — and for a moment, it so overwhelming that it hurts, and his chest tenses to try to ease itself from the pain. “It's about you, and him, and finding someone who makes you better than you are when you're alone. And he does that for you. You do it for him, I see it.” He knows exactly what Natasha means because he’s seen it. Even before he started lying to himself, Steve’s seen it.

Ever since he met Tony they’ve fought, constantly, over countless things. Steve remembers how frustrating Tony can be, and how Steve's always told him as much. But he also knows that it’s those very frustrations that challenge him. Looking back, even on their very first mission, when Steve thought Iron Man was nothing more than a fancy metal suit worn by a hollow man incapable of thinking of others — Tony's mocking remarks was what prodded him to go looking for Fury’s secrets.

But god how they've grown. They learned to be teammates first, and then friends. Then Steve found himself actually missing having Tony around after each mission was over and the Avengers parted ways. And now, he can't help but wonder where Tony is, whether he really would be okay, and how, if something were to happen to him tonight and Steve could have been there to prevent it-

He hugs Natasha tighter at the thought, his fingers curling gently on the shoulders of his jacket on her shoulders, as he stares blankly at their surroundings, his cheek barely brushing against her hair.

If something happens to Tony tonight, he'd never be able to forgive himself.

But it’s what Natasha says to him at the end that really strikes Steve deep to the bone. Deeper even, than Natasha could expect. It’s not his file, it’s not in any archives, it’s not even something he’s told Bucky. Instead, it’s just a memory of a night when he was twelve-years-old, etched into his memory with an unparalleled purpose and conviction.

She’s right. He’s never let anyone tell him how to live, and there’s a reason why.
To Steve Rogers, there is always a bright line between what’s right and what’s wrong, and when it comes to fighting for his country, both against her enemies and at home, Steve has never used the law to determine his actions. Even before the one dozen forgeries he committed to try and join the army, Steve has always known that what’s right isn’t a choice the government gets to make for him.

He didn’t know it at the time, he’d only been twelve after all. Maybe eleven. But he’d been reading at the library close to closing time, and he got to a passage that struck him so much that he snuck under the tables so he could keep reading, even after the doors were locked. As a little boy, he’d been searching for what it means to love your country, and he’d somehow found the answer in the pages of Mark Twain. The passage wasn’t long, maybe just six paragraphs, but it was the foundation to everything Steve did and will do for the rest of his life.

‘I pray you to pause and consider,’ it began, but Steve’s favorite part was the middle. Twain wrote that in any country that claims to be a republic, its people are the most important, that they have a voice and reason and they must use and exercise that reason. That ‘it is a solemn and weighty responsibility, and not lightly to be flung aside at the bullying of the pulpit, press, government, or the empty catch-phrases of politicians. Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong…’

That night, he committed the entire passage to memory, even if he nearly got a beating the next morning for spending the night sleeping on the library floor.

Each must for himself alone.
Decide.
What is right.
And what is wrong.
It is a solemn and weighty responsibility.

It’s slow, the way his lips begin to curl, but Steve actually manages a soft smile, even if his eyebrows are still furrowed like he can’t even believe it himself. He releases Natasha from his grip, so that she can see him, but also so that he can cradle her face in his hands, and wipe away her tears. She’s helped him tonight, more than he can say.

He can still hear her voice repeating that phrase. You've never let anyone tell you how to live, so why would you let anyone dictate how you love?

Love has never been a priority in his life, because Steve has never believed that his own life mattered much. At most, he sees himself as another solider in the never ending fight for freedom and for justice, and whether he feels lonely or not, scared or not, loved or not, it doesn’t matter to him. It can’t matter, to a man who is always ready to sacrifice himself so that others might live.

He still needs time to process how he feels, Steve knows that. But for the first time since he rode the elevator up here, Steve doesn’t feel at the mercy of powers he can’t even see. He has agency — the very freedom of choice he’s willing to die for — and Steve sees now that this decision is his, and Tony’s, to make.

If it works out, or even if it blows up, either way, it should be their choice. Not God’s. Not the government’s. Not society’s. Not even the Computer’s.

“I won’t,” he finally gets out, and his eyes have a familiar tenderness to them that Natasha sees for the very first time since she followed him up here. And because thank you isn’t enough, and because talking is still too much, he pulls her in again.