Author's note: I've just realised I haven't been putting up disclaimers. Oops. Well, I own nothin' and am earning even less.

I'd like to dedicate this posting to the gorgeous people who humbled me with their beautiful reviews. I've never shared my writing with others before the last couple of days and I trembled at the prospect of discovering I suck, so you can imagine how I felt reading your feedback! Much love. PS: Sorry atl-criminal33, I hate to disappoint; but I hope you'll enjoy Tasha's role here anyway.

Captain Rogers burst violently back into consciousness so hard is was though he'd hit a wall going a hundred miles an hour. The world just erupted around him in a deafening clamour of sensations, noises and bright lights. A needle-sharp pain was lancing through his chest into his heart and his muscles strained against obstructive forces until his flesh felt pummelled and pounded. There was yelling and the sound of a man screaming which filled his head, adding to the terrible ache caused by the stars flashing at the backs of his eyes in the bright blur of tilting, whirling vision. His very first thought, if the word could be used to describe something that was all feeling, was that he'd been captured. And he wasn't the only one. His captors were torturing someone. Maybe even someone he knew and cared about. People were trying to restrain him and he threw them off, wrenching at the things holding him down. He had to get free and release whoever was crying out in such terror; they had to get out of here.

His restraints twisted, biting deeply into his arms and legs. As he struggled, he felt another being tied around his chest and he lost the fight against its tightening grip, clamping him down. He felt hands on his head, trying to keep him still, and was filled with the certainty that they were about to do something to him; the same thing they'd been doing to the other captive. Hydra scientists, wanting to subject him to God knew what unimaginable experiments in this ice cold lab. The screaming had given way to fear-wracked sobbing. He tried to turn his head to see where it was coming from but he was being held fast. There was a voice coming from directly above him but he wasn't listening until it seemed to strike with a dim chord of recognition. It didn't fit in this situation. It was low and gentle and in his mind he connected it with a pair of brown eyes that he trusted.

Without his permission, his body eased in its battle. The sobbing had stopped. In its place his own heavily-laboured breathing as his chest pressed rhythmically against the thick leather strap. A face swam into view above him, and he found those brown eyes he'd thought of looking at him from upside down. The face smiled a little sheepishly. "Sorry about that, Captain," it said.

There were other voices in the air and one of them muttered quietly "Oh god, he's bleeding everywhere." To which someone else replied, "Get that line out of his arm. Insert a new one over here and put some extra straps down so he can't do it again. You, come round here and clean him up." He winced at the weird dragging sensation from inside the crook of his right arm which, now his attention was drawn to it, was all sticky and warmly wet on his cold skin. The whole mid-section of his arm hurt cruelly, and there was similar but muted discomfort everywhere; in the backs of his hands, the crook of his left arm, his right forearm and the top of his left foot. He had to be stuck with half a dozen needles. He felt a pair of straps being fastened above and below the elbow of his left arm and gloved hands gripped his forearm. His breathing hitched with anticipation. Without meaning to he let out a quiet moan of protest. "No..."

"Sorry, Steve," the gentle voice apologised again, "we have to. Keep still this time. It'll help you get better."

There was a sharp, digging pressure as the fine metal shaft was pushed into his left forearm and he hissed through his teeth. "We have to get out of here," he said tiredly.

"No, we're exactly where we need to be. Don't worry."

Someone taped the new line into place. "Where are they?" he asked.

"Where's who?"

He couldn't answer. He didn't know. His people, he guessed. People who needed him. There were always people who needed him somewhere. This time he felt like maybe they were people he needed even more. But he couldn't think of them. His unit? His… "The team."

The face above him smiled. "We're here. We're all here."

"Is everyone safe?"

"Yes, Captain. Now, just take it easy for a while. I've got some work to do but you're in good hands and with any luck I'll be back soon with something to get you back on your feet."

"Okay," he sighed, still anxious. He squeezed his eyes shut. "Okay."

He could hear the continued presence of the other people moving around and sometimes they spoke about him. The woman who'd ordered the removal of the needle in his right arm continued to command the room, and was quick to have someone fetch an insulating blanket. None of them spoke to him, and he was too scattered to be able to ask them what was going on, not to mention completely exhausted. He hadn't been like this since he'd almost died of pneumonia when he was fourteen. In fact, when one of the figures came closer, he recognised her as one of the nurses who'd worked on the ward back then; with her violently red hair and lips and an expression too severe for someone so young. She'd made a boy a couple of years younger than him cry. What was she doing here?

Everything was white and clean and there was glass and bright lights, making things even harder to look at. It was all just a vague impression of a place. The smell of cigarette smoke had crept into the air, and among the business-like voices of medical staff he heard the familiar chatter of men. He turned towards it and caught the sideways sight of Corporals Hague and Adamson perched on the worktop by the sink and sitting on a fold-out chair respectively, mumbling round cigarettes and throwing down beaten up old playing cards. Adamson said something he couldn't catch and the two of them burst out laughing loudly.

"Hey," he tried to call out, his voice coming out much too softly. "Hey." They looked up. "What hospital is this?"

Adamson leaned closer, "Uh?"

"What- What hospital is this?" he repeated, trying to speak up.

Hague snorted. "Hospital? You should be so lucky." He looked down at his hand of cards and tutted.

"What?" asked Adamson absently.

Hague moved his cards to his other hand, and Steve could see from here that they were glistening with blood, which was leaking from the cuff of Hague's shirt. "I'm getting blood all over the cards, aren't I?" he said, annoyed.

"Wait…" Steve shook his head, forcing himself to stay awake. How could it be so cold in here? "Where are we?"

"We're over the Atlantic," one of the medical team said, passing him.

"His body temperature's dropping again," said someone else.

"Turn the thermostat up. And get another insulating blanket; whatever this stuff is, it's gonna keep lowering his core temp until the bods in the lab work out how to stop it. Let's not have to resort to adrenalin again."

"Over the Atlantic?" Steve echoed quietly.

"Aw, dammit." Hague's left arm was soaked up to the shoulder, blood dripping from his fingertips.

"At least you got to go home," said Adamson. "They couldn't even find my teeth."

Further away, there was the sound of a door opening and a low voice asked, "Would it be alright if one of us sat with him?"

There was a pause of consideration. "Alright, but just one. We can't have you getting in the way." There was a brief discussion, then the door closed again, and a moment later a woman came into view. She was beautiful; her face framed by jaw-length, deep red hair. She looked at him with dignified affection.

His brow furrowed. "Natasha?"

"Hey, Steve."

"What are you doing here?"

"We're at SHIELD," she explained. "We were on a recon mission with Clint. You were shot with some darts, do you remember?"

Given that nothing she'd said made any kind of sense, no, he couldn't say he did remember. He'd been on so many recons; which one was this? "Is that where Hague got injured?"

She frowned gently. "Who's Hague?"

"I think it might be too late to do anything about it. I remember the General sending a note to his parents."

A second insulating blanket was hustled around him. "He's starting to shiver again," said the man who'd brought it.

"Good. The adrenalin must be helping," said the boss from somewhere beyond his feet. And they were right, he had started shivering again. The reflective silver blankets rustled and whispered as he trembled under them.

"Wh- Why is it so cold?"

"The toxin seems to be metabolising your body heat for energy," said Natasha.

He gasped. "I feel strange."

Natasha tensed at his side. "What's wrong?"

"Temperature just dropped another degree."

"I don't know." Everything dimmed; the clean white sinking into pale, lifeless grey. The light was filtering weakly through the water at the windows. "No."

"What is it?" she urged.

The ice water was swirling around his legs as it rushed in and he strained against his bindings. "The Valkyrie."

Adamson laughed, jerking a thumb at him. "Listen to him. He forgot where he is."

"His brain's shutting down," Hague pointed out. "People have all kinds of hallucinations when they're drowning."

"I got out," Steve said breathlessly. It almost sounded like a plea. One that Adamson stamped on.

"Got out? You mean when people from the future dug you out and asked you to fight alongside a Norse god, a couple of spies, Howard Stark's robot-wearing son and a man who routinely turns into a big green monster?" He and Hague dissolved into raucous, almost hysterical laughter.

One of the monitors started beeping excitedly. The biting edge of the ice water was climbing his stomach as he fought to get air into his lungs. "Oh God…"

"And there was that big, floating, invisible helicarrier? And then the lot of them had to fight all those alien monsters in the middle of New York City," Hague carried on, trying to keep his voice steady before he lost it again. The laughter renewed with enthusiasm, Adamson giving Hague's shoulder a slap.

"Steve?" He gasped rapidly as the water line rose up to his chest, tilting his head back. There was a line of tubing across his face delivering oxygen and it bit into his cheeks. He felt a warm hand take his and he looked over at its owner, her face full of concern. "Steve."

"I never left the Valkyrie," he murmured hopelessly. The ice water lapped at his throat and shoulders.

"Yes you did," she answered, her voice firm. "SHIELD found you and brought you back-"

"There's no such thing as SHIELD. It's all in my head. I'm s-still drowning in the ice." The water was rising up his throat and he turned away from Natasha, clamping his jaws shut and closing his eyes.

Natasha squeezed his hand, railing against the feeling of helplessness. "I don't know how to convince you that's not true," she said quietly.

"Help me," he pleaded, his whole body quaking as he strained to kept his face above the water. He knew she wasn't real but she felt real and he couldn't help himself. "Help me."

"Doctor?"

"We're doing everything we can. We're just trying to keep him alive until there's an antidote. We can't afford to sedate him."

She turned back to Steve, leaning close. "Okay, look at me. I want you to stay focussed, okay? It really did happen. This is 2013. You were poisoned on a mission and it's making you see things that aren't there. It's understandable with your history that you're confused but you need to trust me."

Barbs of ice began to insinuate themselves through the sea water's surface. The needles in his flesh were like burning icicles puncturing his skin. "You're not real. You're just something I invented. There is no team."

"You think you imagined us? You think you imagined the last year of your life? All those little details?" She lowered her voice further, preferring that the medical team didn't overhear. "Did you imagine playing Splinter Cell with Clint last Thursday? Or last month, waking up in the middle of the night because Tony blew up the tenth floor of the Tower? Or that time we talked about Peter And The Wolf?" Her free hand went to grip his shuddering shoulder, her calm and confident eyes holding onto his, where her words had rekindled a guttering but beautiful glimmer of hope in the blue. "You could've imagined a team, Captain, but you couldn't've imagined friends." He was looking up at her now like she was his lifeline in a monstrous storm, steeling her resolve. "Do you trust me?"

Hague and Adamson's laughter continued without abating. Hague's blood had spread across the chest of his shirt over his heart and his face was a red raw mess where the schrapnel had taken out his left eye. The interior of the Valkyrie was darkening as it sank deeper into the ocean; it tilted, half-supported by the thick interlocked formations of ice which had broken its fall. In his periphery, a soft flicker of blue light heralded the presence of the tesseract. It snarled at him with the vocal chords of a chitauri, thrumming, out of sight. He swallowed, and nodded. "Yes," he gasped. He nodded again, mostly to himself. "Yes, I trust you. I trust you."

"Good. We're just gonna ride it out."

"You're right," he said, looking up at the ceiling. "Hallucinating or not, I could never have imagined the x-box."

An irrepressable smile spread across Natasha's face. She sat and talked to him for the next twenty minutes. She didn't think she'd ever spoken so much in one go in her life. But talking about things that'd happened since they'd met, particularly the most trivial details which had nothing to do with their work, seemed to have a grounding effect. She could tell he was still seeing and hearing things; he continued to react to things that weren't there. But she could also tell he was trying his best to ignore them in favour of her. He was holding his ground until eventually and very abruptly he passed out. The flurry of activity was immediate. They didn't want him unconscious in case he never woke up again. Natasha was ushered out of the way and she was forced to retreat outside where the others were waiting anxiously. Clint was standing with his back against the wall and his arms crossed, while Thor stood a few feet away and Tony paced the end of the hall aimlessly.

"What's going on?" asked Tony. "I thought he was doing better."

"Not better. Just holding it together," Natasha corrected. "He passed out."

"Perhaps a blessing," suggested Thor.

"Only if he wakes up again," said Clint, darkly.

"He is a great warrior," Thor argued. "He woke after many decades in the northern ice and cheated death three times this day alone. He will wake again now."

"He'd better," Tony added, as though the implied threat might be enough to make it happen. "If he didn't it'd totally throw off our chi."

Thor frowned. "What is our 'chi'?"

"Our energy," Tony explained with an expressive yet vague hand gesture. "Our team aura would be all lopsided."

Thor looked troubled. "That sounds ungainly. Would we still be able to fight?"

"Don't confuse the god, Tony," Clint scolded mildly.

"Has anyone spoken to Fury?" asked Natasha.

"He dropped by to glare," Tony replied, pointing at the glass doors of the medical room, presumably indicating the direction of Fury's gaze.

"And?"

"And he had no good explanation for why we didn't know about the satellite," said Clint. "But when he left, he looked like he was off to crack some heads."

"Well, I hope he saves some for me," Natasha muttered. "This little recon mission could've cost all three of us our lives."

"Good thing the Captain is willing to take a hit," agreed Clint.

Thor craned his neck in an attempt to see between the medical staff and Natasha turned to see what they were doing. "Looks like they're giving him more epinephrine." Tony made an unhappy noise, raking his fingers through his hair as he turned away to pace towards the back wall. "Intravenously this time," she hastened to add, "not straight to the heart." It had been harrowing to watch when they'd brought him back to life. He'd been clinically dead for almost seventeen whole minutes when the doctor had slammed that syringe of adrenalin into the Captain's chest, and he'd woken screaming and writhing against his restraints, dislodging the needle they'd inserted in his right arm. This time the hormone should be fed to him just enough to bring him round without further endangering his heart.

Natasha went and crouched against the wall next to Clint, letting out a weary sigh. "He'll make it through this," she said with soft certainty. "I'm starting to think the Captain can survive anything."

"You're damn right," Tony agreed suddenly. "He's got 'Stark' stamped on his ass. Stark things don't break. We have an awesome warranty."

All three of them had some comments to make about that assertion, with a whole list of dates and occurrances to back them, but they kept them to themselves. It would only have instigated a flood of justifications about trial runs and beta testing anyway. After a minute, Tony quit pacing and strode off down the corridor impatienty. "Screw this. I'm going to see if Bruce needs any help." He disappeared into the lift at the end of the hall and left the three remaining Avengers to wait.

They stayed standing for another twenty minutes before, one by one, they sat down on the floor, prepared to put in for the long haul. Once all three of them were seated it almost looked silly, like someone had stolen the chairs out from under them. In fact, Natasha surprised herself by becoming silently very cross that there were no seats here outside the emergency medical rooms. Logically, she knew that this was S.H.I.E.L.D; and should a S.H.I.E.L.D operative end up in one of these rooms, then it was more than likely any colleagues who might wish to wait for them would be otherwise engaged in dealing with whatever situation had caused the injuries in the first place. But none the less, it was presumptuous. What if the situation was handled quickly while the patient remained in a critical conditon? Did S.H.I.E.L.D assume that its agents didn't care enough about each other to be out here? Perhaps this wouldn't have bothered her before she joined the Avengers. Before she'd met Clint she'd been guilty of considering everyone, including herself, as disposable after a certain degree. After she'd met him, she'd made the effort to pretend to continue to think that way. Since Loki's invasion, however, her resolve to hold onto such beliefs was waning in the face of what she was discovering was a new kind of strength: the strength of a unit, where losing one of their own was simply not an option. So now? They should put some goddamn chairs out here.

They couldn't see a thing from out here. There was still a lot of activity going on and Steve was obscured by the medical staff's movements, so they had no idea whether they'd managed to revive him and, if they had, what kind of state he was in. But they hadn't heard any screaming, so at least there was that. The truth was that Steve was awake but he didn't have it in him to make any noise if he'd wanted to. The adrenalin was just about keeping him this side of consciousness but his awareness of his current surroundings was lost in the almighty thunderstorm taking place in his brain, stimulating sights, sounds, smells, tastes, sensations and emotions from dozens of conflicting memories all at once. They created a nebulous patchwork of nonsensical experience, erasing any grounding concept Steve might've had about the present or his identity. He was everything he ever was and none of those things. He was everywhere he ever was, and none of those places. He was in every time, every age, every state, every circumstance and because of all that he was nothing. Steve Rogers had ceased to exist. Outwardly, this manifested as a seizure. His whole body twitched and jittered with a million micro-muscle contractions, his eyes flicking back and forth like a dreamer in a REM cycle. And while his heart was rapid, it was rhythmic, not failing. The medical team didn't know what was causing it, and even after nerve-shredding half an hour, they couldn't stop it. But then, entirely by itself, the seizure expired. Steve went still, unconscious once more.

They didn't attempt to bring him round again. If anything his vital signs seemed more stable, and clearly what he needed now was pure, undisturbed rest. Feeling the presence of the Captain's teammates outside, the head doctor sent someone out to explain what had been happening and where things stood now. She was under instruction not to allow anyone in, and to persuade them, if she could, to leave for the time being, with the promise that they would be called on should even the slightest change occur. She was successful on the first point but predictably failed the second, and the trio remained where they were.

Hours trickled by. The medical teams changed shifts, and with the Captain's conditon apparently stablised, he was moved to another room for continued monitoring, where the other Avengers were allowed to stay with him. There were chairs in the new room, and even other, unoccupied beds they could've used. But Thor was a 'god', and Clint and Natasha were well-trained in the art of overcoming the need to sleep when they had a job to do. And in spite of everyone's inexplicable insistance that there was no job to do, they ignored all reassurances and advice.

Dawn broke with no sign of Bruce and Tony. At about seven, Clint left and returned with coffees and some breakfast and a while later they took it in turns to sneak off for a quick shower and a change of clothes. Clint and Natasha had still been wearing their gear from last night's mission, and it was good to get back into ordinary attire. By noon, the mood had relaxed to the point that they felt able to come and go a little and talk over cards. After all, it was Steve. It was looking pretty obvious to them that whatever had been affecting him, the worst was over, and his serum was merely taking the time to reboot him. As Thor had pointed out the previous night, if he could survive crashing a plane in the Arctic circle and lying frozen in a wreck for seven decades, he could manage this. And at about four in the afternoon, they were vindicated.

The first thing Steve became aware of were voices. Good ones. Familiar voices belonging to people he liked and trusted, interacting without urgency or worry. It sounded just like an ordinary conversation at the Avengers Tower. When he opened his eyes they were met with a white ceiling, and he followed the forms in his periphery to see Thor, Hawkeye and Black Widow sitting on and around the next bed playing cards. Clint had just been laughing at something Natasha had said when he saw Steve turn his head minutely and leapt up, dropping his cards on the bed to come round the foot of it. "Hey!" Thor looked up and Natasha turned to see Steve lying awake. They followed Clint's example, coming to Steve's bedside. "It's about time," Clint reproached warmly.

"Welcome back, Captain," said Natasha.

"Hi." The understated response uttered in such a soft, calm manner seemed remarkably sweet after all the drama.

"How do you feel?" asked Thor.

"I feel okay," he said, sounding just a touch surprised. "How long was I asleep?"

"About twenty hours," Natasha told him.

Steve noticed for the first time the feel of the restraints and a faint frown clouded his brow. "Was I violent?" he asked gently.

"Not exactly," said Clint. "You were hurting yourself by accident. Don't you remember?"

Even as Clint spoke, Steve closed his eyes momentarily as things felt into place. "Yeah. Yeah, I remember. It's just a little mixed up. Do you think maybe we could take them off now?"

"Sure," Clint replied and the three of them started undoing the restraints. It was almost funny how many there were.

When most of them had been released, Steve said, "Natasha…" She looked up from the ankle cuff she was undoing. "Thanks for…" He looked for the adequate words. "Thanks for talking me through it," he said earnestly. "Thanks for being there."

Natasha smiled. She rested a hand briefly on Steve's leg. "I should let people know you're awake. Bruce and Tony are still working on a cure. I'll be back soon," she promised before she left.

Steve shifted with his renewed freedom but immediately experienced the multiple tugs of various tubes and needles. "Yeah, try not to move too much," Clint advised. "You've still got a lot of stuff going on."

"Can you help me get rid of this? I'm pretty sure I don't need it anymore."

Thor's hands moved to pull up the tape from a canula in Steve's arm but Clint's hand reached out in a gesture of halt. "Now, hang on a minute. We don't know what any of this stuff does."

"Whatever they're for, the serum's already taken care of it," said Steve with confidence.

Thor looked to Clint for permission to continue and, after a moment, Clint gave it with a small nod, carefully going to work easing out the drip in the back of Steve's hand. Once Steve's arms were free, he was able to move more easily. He rubbed the needle sites gently as Clint removed the last one from his foot. "We'd better not get into trouble for this, Rogers," Clint threatened with mock-seriousness, sounding just like a kid at school getting caught up in some piece of mischief. Steve pushed himself up into a sitting position and pulled the oxygen tube from his face, brushing away the lingering sensation of the tape.

"Thanks," he said earnestly. "Look, I'm sorry about the woods and everything, I wasn't thinking clearly-"

"No kidding!" Clint was surprised into a laugh. "Steve, what the hell are you apologising for? You saved Natasha's life, probably all our lives."

"You engaged in battle with an invisible foe and won," declared Thor proudly. "Your victory is all your friends care about."

"Yeah. What he said," agreed Clint.

Steve smiled. "Okay, just do me a favour? Promise me this is real?" Clint pinched his arm hard. "Ow."

Clint grinned. "Ow? We've seen you get shot without so much as a word of complaint but a pinch on the arm and that makes you say 'ow'?"

Steve tried not to laugh. "Well, I've been a little under the weather recently."

"There is that," Clint allowed.

Steve stretched his back and shoulders, loosening them up after long hours lying still. He glanced at the door with a wince. "Do you think it's possible to get out of here before all those doctors come back and start poking and prodding me?" he wondered aloud.

Clint and Thor exchanged a look, mirroring the glint in each other's eyes. Thor regarded Steve with a wide grin. "There is only one way to find out."

Ten minutes later, Natasha returned to the ward with an unexpectedly large entourage. Having sought out Tony and Bruce, she'd decided it was best to inform the Director. And as the four of them, plus Agent Hill following in Fury's wake, had made their way back through the medical wing, a collection of blind-sided doctors and nurses had been forced to hurry after them, pretending lamely that they'd just been about to check in on the Captain themselves. But when this rather overwhelming gaggle of people reached the recovery room, they were faced with their opposite: no one. Natasha's instinctive tension was eased when she looked up at Director Fury's face. He almost looked bored.

"And this is when we've got him tied down," he remarked.

Natasha's smile was her own little secret.

The End

Author's note: Kind of a weirdly abrupt ending maybe? But I just like the idea of leaving things on a 'jailbreak'. I dunno, what about you? Let me know what you think. Read and review!