"where feet may fail"

A/N: Written because I am fairly cynical about the fact that Steve is able to swim so well in the First Avenger.

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The battle was going well so far. It was chaotic, and it was violent, yes, but it was being kept within the boundaries that Cap had set. Those on the ground were keeping on top of the action rather than being bogged down by it, and those in the air were able to keep the invaders busy enough that most of the buildings weren't being torn to pieces.

For the most part, anyway.

The guttural roar of the Avengers' big green Other Guy echoed wildly for the whole city to hear (whether it was from anger or plain enjoyment none of them knew), and with enough force to shake the pavement several yards below him he landed on the side of the skyscraper. The alien he was chasing had time only to let out a squeak before the Hulk's strong hands crushed its chest, taking out a large chunk of stone with him as he slammed the creature back.

Below him, back to back with Black Widow, Captain America spared a split second to look up before catching his shield. "Move!"

At his command Natasha lithely sprang from her crouch, having just taken down one of the creatures, and used his fellows' distraction to her advantage, taking out two more in the time it took for the stone to fall. As she landed a familiar shield went spinning past her to hit a third. Leaping over the sizable chunk of broken skyscraper Steve looked up again.

"Watch for friendlies, Hulk, yeah?"

The Captain's dry remark garnered a low growl of acknowledgement from the Hulk and then the Other Guy was gone again, leaping away to take care of a sizable cloud of the aliens currently flying by. The one he'd crushed fell bonelessly to the ground, narrowly missing the two Avengers on the ground.

The street was temporarily quiet, a welcome reprieve. Having sidestepped the body as it landed, Cap shook his head with a quiet sigh.

Natasha smirked. "At least he acknowledged you this time."

That, at least, garnered a small grin. "Better than some others, anyway."

It was rare that Cap made a jab at his teammates, but Natasha's smirk widened for a moment. Then they were back to fighting again, diving into the fray of battle as they tried to reach the rest of their team.

These were creatures very unlike the Chitauri had been during the battle of New York four months ago; where the Chitauri had been coordinated and sleek in an odd way, graceful despite their bulk, these creatures were large and humanoid, covered in short sleek "fur" (it didn't really look like hair, and it really didn't feel it either, but that was what it looked like), and had long gossamer wings which really didn't do a whole lot for coordination. If considered they seemed a bit like bumblebees.

"Where the hell did these guys come from anyway?" Tony Stark's annoyed voice crackled over the comms, loud in their ears and overlapping with the familiar whine of Iron Man's repulsor rays. "I mean, we were having a normal day, right? Perfectly normal, and it's like life has it out for us to never have those."

"Cut the chatter, Stark," Cap said, the previous rare flash of humor gone. He leaped over a last chunk of rock and had to land awkwardly and unbalanced when another one of the creatures jumped out at him from a shadowed alcove, hissing its anger. Cap didn't think, only acted: using his still-shifting momentum he leaned on his left foot and swung his body into a perfect pirouette, throwing his shield at the same time.

The creature shrieked when its wings were severed and it fell with a crash into the pavement below.

Natasha finished using her Widow's sting on one of them and turned, looking to see if there were any others in their general vicinity, and her eyes widened.

"Steve!"

Too late. Cap's shield was knocked aside as a second creature crawled out of nowhere, shooting out of the shadows with a screech of anger and heading towards the Avengers' leader, long sharp claws bared for pain. Before Natasha could move, before Cap could even see what she had warned him about, the creature had snatched him up.

"Damn it!" Natasha sprinted away, aiming to reach the rest of the Avengers. She and Steve hadn't been that far away anyway. "Guys, one of the aliens took Cap. Tony, Thor, can you see them?"

The comms crackled again. "Nope. Jarvis, see if you can pick 'em up on our scanners."

"Corner of Fifth," Cap's voice said in Natasha's ear. She could barely hear him over the sound of rushing wind and the battle still raging around her.

"We're coming to get you, Cap." Hawkeye's steady voice replied. Clint was the best at keeping an even tone no matter the situation, and it was he who most of the time kept them from panicking if things took a turn for the worse. Him and Steve, and it was funny in a messed up way to hear said Captain reply just as calmly as Hawkeye had.

"I can't break its hold—hands are too strong." There was a flurry, a moment of silence, as if he were trying to escape it.

"Don't think you'd survive a drop like that anyway, Gramps," Tony said. "You really need to learn how to fly."

There was a low grunt, whether it was from amusement or effort none of them knew. There was no trace of humor in Cap's voice when he replied—it was clear that Steve was still solely focused on the battle itself and not his predicament. "Tony, I've just passed Sutton Rd—"

"Oh, that street has a great shawarma joint—"

"—you're running pick-up now, and everyone else keep these guys detained—"

And then he abruptly cut off in mid-sentence. "Cap? Cap, hey, answer me! C'mon, this isn't the time to give us the silent treatment."

For a split second the comms crackled with static again, ominous in its white noise, and Natasha heard the Hulk roar in frustration at the silence from their leader. Natasha's heart was flying in her chest, not completely from adrenaline, running as fast as she could to the thick of the fighting, hoping, almost praying—and then Steve's voice came one last time for all of them to hear.

"Shit!"

And then silence.

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The water around Steve was hot and frothing but to him was cold, completely freezing, and it was driving him into a state of panic. He didn't know how it quite happened but he had realized just after trying to issue orders to the team of just where the alien was taking him and he had really fought to get away then. One thing led to another, and the creature's hold had been too strong to break even with all of his serum-enhanced strength, and they had gone into the writhing water of the Hudson together.

He thought he had the right to swear before he landed. He really did, and sometimes his life really wasn't fair.

There was one very specific tiny little secret that people didn't know about Steve Rogers. A very obvious tiny little secret when you really thought about. It wasn't written down anywhere; it wasn't something never thought of as important in medical records, and the army certainly never asked him about it.

See, the tiny little secret that was so very obvious was that Steve Rogers couldn't swim.

Growing up an asthmatic weak-limbed kid had never been the best option to learn, and it was difficult in the city anyway to find a place to swim. The local pool had been available, sure, but it was still cost money to go and if Steve ever spent money he earned it was either to help his overworked mother or go to the rare basketball game with Bucky. Swimming had never been an interest of his.

He sure wished he had learned now.

The murky waters of the Hudson closed over his head; beside him he could feel the vibrations of the alien struggling beside him, clearly just as lost as Steve himself was, but it was too late to worry about it. The world was upside down and backwards, shimmering with the filtered light of the sun, confusing and eerie, and the only thing he could remind himself was to not breathe in.

Then the panic started. The water turned cold, biting into his skin, freezing his limbs. He was back on the Valkyrie, and the icy Arctic water was running into the shattered cockpit. He had been knocked unconscious from the initial impact, hitting his head on the edge of the console, and it had been the ice that had awoken him.

Steve had never told anyone how he had drowned and frozen. The medics and consolers he had spoken with had automatically made the assumption that the water had filled the ship quickly and that had been the end of it.

It hadn't been.

Whether or not it was the strength of the glass he didn't know but whatever it was the open view glass pane hadn't broken away completely. The water had come in, yes, but not so quickly. He had woken, dazed and confused, to find his left leg had been broken from the impact and his right bleeding from a gash, and bright red staining the frigid water by his head.

It had already started to freeze.

And he had tried to get up, had tried to move, terror steadily growing when he realized what was going to happen, but his legs had already been stuck and the water was steadily rising, choking his breath from his lungs at its glacial temperature.

It had been slow.

Ice covering his mouth, coating his throat, filling his lungs, freezing his heart. And he had struggled, and fought, and wept, and finally he had given up. He was going to die.

Drowning was not an easy way to go.

And here he was, drowning for the second time in his life, unable to figure out up from down with an alien dying right beside him, and the terror was no less than it had been the first time.

This time, however, the water came all at once.

This time, the end came quicker.

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"Damn it!" Tony's voice was strained with the knowledge that he had so far failed to find their wayward Captain, even with Jarvis frantically scanning for any signs of Steve's unique bio-signature. He had flown over so many streets and buildings, passing the ruins of the battle still half-heartedly raging in the streets of Manhattan, and had found nothing.

"Anything yet, Stark?" Hawkeye's cool voice came crackling over the com; Tony's sensors picked up an explosion behind him brought about by one of Clint's arrows.

He swallowed down a nervous lump in his throat. "Nothing yet." His voice was dry; it made his voice rough. He hoped it would make him only sound irritable.

The tension conveyed in the crackling of the comms, however, was a giveaway of all of their fears. The Avengers did not scare easily (as superheroes, they couldn't afford to be) and Tony Stark would bet his entire fortune that none of them would ever admit that they were.

"We must find our Captain. Quickly." Thor, his voice finally heard since Cap's silence, was loud and booming as he always was.

"Not shit, Sherlock," Tony snapped, his own fear sharpening his already barbed tongue. "And I've just been sitting and taking a break for the past few minutes."

"Knock it off!" Natasha ordered; she sounded like she was recovering from a long run. "Arguing isn't going to help us find Steve."

She was right, of course—she usually was, not that Tony would ever tell her that—but it still did nothing to calm any of their racing hearts because it had been almost five minutes since Cap's sudden silence and the Avengers still hadn't found him—

And what's more, crying out the first true curse any of the Avengers had ever heard him utter, they had all heard that Steve had been scared.

Truly terrified.

"Sir," Jarvis suddenly spoke up to Tony, "I have picked up Captain Rogers's signal."

"Show me," Tony said immediately, "and get us there, like, five minutes ago."

The signature reading was garbled, weak, as if composed of static, and for a moment the billionaire genius floundered in confusion until he figured out what his destination was. "Aw, hell," he whispered, then spoke aloud for the rest of the team. "Cap's gone for a bath in the Hudson."

"That's—good, is it not?" Thor inquired, grunting in effort as he fought off a small horde of the creatures. Lightning flashed briefly, followed by a rumble of low thunder, and two dozen charred bodies fell to the ground. "You Midgardians are adequate swimmers, after all."

"It could be," Natasha answered tersely, "if Cap was answering his comm."

Tony hovered, trying to find the exact location of Steve's heat signature—and dived headfirst into the water, glad that he had made his suit waterproof.

Ten feet down he found him, a ghostly grey figure drifting suspended in the water bleached of color. Unmoving. The body of the alien that had dragged Steve here was still feebly stirring another five feet down, and Tony was tempted to blast it with his repulsor rays just so he could relieve some of his growing anger. But that would waste valuable seconds.

"C'mon, Cap, don't be dead, don't be dead, don't be dead…" He repeated it over and over again, desperate for the man to hear him. He grabbed hold of the Captain's lax body and shot up as quickly as he could up to the surface, water droplets catching the sunlight as Iron Man reached the surface.

Oh god oh god oh god—

Steve wasn't breathing. Even without his suit's systems telling him so, Tony could tell. His skin was a waxy grey, open lips tainted blue. Jarvis's voice was loud in Tony's ears but he wasn't hearing a word, all of his attention focused on the fact that by every reading his suit was giving him, Steve was fucking dead.

"Thor," his voice was dark, shaking with fear and fury, but not grief, no, not that, not yet, "light all of these bastards up. Now!"

He landed on the nearest dock, laying his companion prone on the ground as he removed his helmet. Water was lazily drifting away in an ever-growing puddle around them, and immediately Tony bent over and started CPR, heart racing.

"Stark!" Natasha's strained shout finally cut through his frenzy. "Is he—"

"Dead. Damn it, he's dead, and I don't—I don't know if this CPR is gonna work—he's drowned, Natasha, that alien dropped him in the water and let him drown—"

An awesome bolt of lightning lit up the sky, blindingly bright and as hot as the sun, and Hulk's roar of fury followed in its wake like thunder. Thor's anger had finally broken its boundaries and with it his ability to keep a hold of his power. Aliens began to fall like fried flies all over the place as tendrils of lightning trailed everywhere, touching the pavement, licking the sides of buildings.

Tony swallowed hard, fisted hands pumping feverishly at Steve's chest. "C'mon, Cap, wake up, just wake up, you can't give up like this—" One two three four, one two three four, over and over again. Natasha appeared like a ghost beside him; to her credit she barely hesitated, kneeling on Cap's opposite side and tilting his head back, trying to open his airway. Her eyes were flinty—it was clear she wanted nothing more than to murder several more of the aliens where they stood.

After two more chest compressions, her mouth twisted and abruptly she leaned over, opened Steve's mouth wider, and shoved two long fingers down the super soldier's throat.

Steve choked, his body automatically reacting in its gag reflex as it tried to rid itself of the object in its way, and with it came a lot of water. His back arced up and off the ground as he began to cough and choke in earnest, and finally Natasha removed her fingers from his mouth and helped Tony turn him into his side so that the water could run onto the pavement beneath them.

He was still unresponsive.

"Damn it," Tony whispered. "How soon is a medic team going to get here?"

"Three minutes, twenty-two seconds, sir," Jarvis said in his ear.

From all appearances, Steve didn't have two minutes. From Natasha's pale face, Tony gathered she didn't think so either.

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They got a heartbeat. Finally. Nearly a minute later, and one minute fifteen seconds before the medic team reached the dock, Tony managed to catch a pulse. Faint and fluttering, but miraculously there, and Steve's worried teammates could have wept with relief. And then the paramedics were there, bundling Cap up and placing an oxygen mask over his still-blue mouth, and hustling him away.

The rest of the Avengers, dirt covered and sore and exhausted, made their own way to the hospital. It was slow-going and the silence hovering in the air was strained. Natasha's face was coolly detached, hiding whatever fears she had underneath a veneer of ice; Clint was likewise stony-faced, but he kept close to Natasha's side. Thor, his long hair tangled and soot-stained, still looked like he could blow a hole ten miles deep into the surface of Manhattan if he was given the chance. The Hulk, having found that all of the aliens had been finished, had slowly calmed down enough that soon he had shrunk into Banner, who was even more grave than usual.

They had come close to losing one of their own today. Too close. Sure, there had been some close calls before—fighting as a team for the past four months, there were bound to be those moments—but none of them had been effectively dead.

Especially not Captain America.

"There wasn't any trauma," Tony said quietly in the silence. The team sat spread around the room that the hospital had placed Steve in as he recovered. "No blows to his head or anything to confuse him underneath the water." He leaned back in his seat, head resting none-too-gently on the wall behind him.

Thor, seated on the floor closest to the bed, shook his head. "And why does that matter where our Captain is concerned? What spell was placed upon him to bring such confusion?"

"There wasn't any spell, Point Break." Tony's voice was rough. "He drowned because he doesn't know how to swim." He shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. He needed a drink. "I knew Cap was a damn idiot but I didn't think he'd be stupid enough not to tell us that. Not drowning on us would be really nice, you know?"

"Stop it, Tony," Bruce chided him softly from his seat. "He clearly didn't think it would be an issue. We can talk to him about it later."

After he's woken up.

The clear warning in the scientist's voice successfully quelled the billionaire's sharp tongue for the moment but oh boy, was Tony going to have words with their smart-but-so-incredibly-dumb leader soon. Now that the moment of crisis had come and gone and Steve had started to breathe again, Tony's fear had slowly melted away and left a surprising amount of anger behind.

It had been an hour since the doctor's had taken a look at Steve, after they had finished pumping his stomach of excess water and making sure he wasn't going to die by dry drowning. Luckily the serum in his body had helped heal broken blood vessels and the raw air passages that his body had irritated trying to expel all the water that had very nearly killed him. He had gone without oxygen for nearly eight minutes and that was certainly a concern for the doctors but Steve had survived seventy years in ice without brain damage so he wasn't so worried about that.

He just needed the moron to wake up so that he could yell at him. "Did any of those aliens survive?"

Clint shook his head wordlessly. Thor's anger and the Hulk's rage had dealt with the last of them.

Tony sighed and went back to staring at the opposite wall.

He really needed to punch something.

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A/N: Part 2 coming very soon. I apologize if some of the medical or CPR procedures were off—I have never had to perform CPR on someone and certainly not after they've drowned. All mistakes are my own.