Title: Rebirth

Authors: Syntyche and Bookdancer

Rating: T

Disclaimer: Marvel owns it, obviously, except the plot which is Bookdancer's and the words that attempt to fill it, which is mine. J

Synop: Awoken a staggering two decades after his plane crashed into the frigid ocean, Steve Rogers faces a lonely future until a trip to the carnival yields a surprising turn of events and a surprised Steve finds himself in charge of two wayward brothers.

Reviews: are awesome and adored.

Rebirth

By: Syntyche and Bookdancer

Chapter One

Tonight, he felt lonelier than usual.

As the shadows crawled across his darkening kitchen, dimming the clean but scuffed red-checked floor tiles, Steve Rogers realized that feeling even more alone was no small feat for a man as displaced in time as he was; a man who had been unexpectedly awoken from death and dropped into the unfamiliar with the adamant expectation that he pick up where he left off without any sense of transposition or hesitation at all.

Sometimes, that was just too much to hope for, even for Captain America.

The sense of weariness burdening his broad shoulders as he slumped at the small table was pervasively overwhelming, sinking into the deepest parts of his soul as intimately and thoroughly as the frigid water submerging his drowning body had invaded his form as it flooded the small, sinking place he'd been piloting over forty years ago.

Steve stared numbly at the sheaf of papers in his loosely clenched fist, wishing he could find the sense of peace, of contentment that had always eluded him; he should simply be grateful to be alive, there was nothing more to it: he had a home, a job where he helped people, a routine. His soul didn't have a right to ask for more.

But Steve, to his shame, hated it here. He hated the cramped noisiness of a place that was never still. He hated the clutter of too much in too small a space. He hated the smog that grasped heavily on to the breeze and crawled across his skin, leaving him ever feeling filthy and tired. He just hated … this.

Steve sighed gently and replaced the neatly-typed documents he was supposed to be studying back into their plain, unmarked file folder. He ought to be reading them, absorbing details for his upcoming assignment, but in truth he simply wasn't feeling motivated to do so - unhappily adding unwanted guilt to the staggering amalgam of despair battering relentlessly at his already cracked psyche. He should be reading his 'homework.' He should be geared up and ready to go at a moment's notice - he was the Super Soldier, after all, the go-to guy, the Symbol and the Legend and whatever else he'd been called that is embarrassing yet also true. The fact that he didn't fill committed to his awe-inspiring role tonight shamed him further, and Steve resignedly yet determinedly pulled out the folder again with a renewed sense of duty.

But the small words blurred before his eyes, though it had nothing to do with his eyesight and everything to do with the fact that he, Steve Rogers - Captain America - was lonely and exhausted and overwhelmed. Since being thawed and immediately put to work for SHIELD - the clandestine organization that had done the rescuing and thawing - Steve's vigor and sense of purpose, strong and brilliant at first, had slowly dwindled to a single-minded focus on getting the current job done and moving on to the next.

Steve knew his work with SHIELD helped people, and he was proud to serve. But his tenure with the covert operation wasn't quite the same as his very brief stint in the army, which had been his original dream: working alongside others for fellow man and country, boldly defending the innocent, quietly helping the helpless.

Working for SHIELD was more … of a grey area. He wasn't to know more than that the bad guys were bad and his job was to take them out using any means necessary. Steve was throwing himself on grenades not to save his squad or fellow soldiers, but to accomplish ends even he wasn't certain of, and he often wasn't even told the ramifications or end result of his bloody work.

It all left the soldier feeling a little sullied.

But Steve was determined to do his utmost to repay the organization that had taken him in when he'd been awoken over forty years after going to sleep, endlessly and - almost - tirelessly accepting mission after mission without a break as if he could atone for the unknown sins dragging him down into bleakness and despair. His SHIELD-assigned handler had taken notice and suggested to him on multiple occasions that he take just a little time in between assignments and stop hiding in his apartment or on base, that he shouldn't let his miraculously recovered life blur by as it had while he'd been inhabiting an iceberg for decades, but Steve was still dragging his feet about rejoining society, privately feeling that the less he knew of the world now, the less genuine ties to people he had, the better off he was.

And some times, he thought the world would be just fine without him. In fact, he knew it would, but at times he admitted to himself with trepidation that he thought about it more than was healthy, and those times were like this night, when the soldier was weary and alone, and his splintered self sighed for release from a world he didn't belong in, a world that clearly didn't want old-fashioned but was obsessed with shiny and new and persistently stretched the boundaries of decency and morality that were ingrained in every fiber of Steve Rogers' being.

The shadows darkening the floor reached his feet, stealing across his bare toes as Steve stared idly.

The world didn't need him.

After all, what could one man do?

There were still bad guys - there would always be bad guys - but the people Steve loved, the familiar things he knew, are mostly gone now, and that which he did know was slowly being eroded by the passage of time that had drained them while he's been buried beneath an iceberg. A normal man wouldn't have survived the crash, let alone the subsequent deep-sea burial. But Steve Rogers was far from normal.

Steve again replaced the folder and grabbed his shoes and jacket decisively, slipping into the well-worn leather that should have been replaced by now. There was one place he used to distance himself when the uneasy voice in his mind started to get too loud, and thankfully it was only a short walk to the on-base gym; it was only a little after five when he first put his wrapped fists to the familiar solid weight of the punching bag, but it was almost seven when his handler found him: a dark-skinned man with piercing eyes that saw more than seemed possible, Nick Fury was a man assured of his purpose in life and rested securely in the knowledge that he was every day living up to his ideals.

At least, that's how it felt to Steve, and he was man enough to admit that he occasionally felt a little wryly put off toward the other man because of it.

"Rogers! What the hell do you think you're doing here?"

Sweating, panting, pushing cluttered details of assignments past and present from his over stimulated mind, Steve turned to face Fury, perspiration pouring down his face, dampening his blonde hair and adhering his sleeveless t-shirt to his slick skin uncomfortably.

"Is that a rhetorical question, sir?" he asked dryly, raising an eyebrow inquisitorially.

Fury stared him down, unamused; he went so far as to cross his arms over his chest and glare tautly and Steve found himself straightening unconsciously, stiff shoulders snapping back as his spine realigned itself neatly.

"Did you or did you not just return this morning from assignment?" Fury demanded, and Steve nodded smartly.

"Yes, sir."

"And did I hear correctly that you - without my approval - accepted another mission set to fly out at 0400 tomorrow morning?"

Steve shifted uncomfortably. He hadn't meant to go around Fury; his orders had simply come from higher up. "Yes, sir," he replied quietly.

"Go home," Fury ordered, abruptly dismissing Rogers' automatic yet weary protest. "You're not shipping out tomorrow."

"I have no home, sir," Steve responded before he could stop himself, the damning words falling from his lips with the rawness only a man who believed in utter honestly was capable of. Steve dropped his gaze, embarrassed he had admitted to this weakness, and waited for Fury to berate him for it. He should. Steve deserved it.

Instead, Fury's strident voice softened fractionally. "How many assignments in the last four months, Rogers?" he demanded quietly, and Steve was troubled to find that his tired mind couldn't come up with a solid answer. He shook his head, mouth open slightly but no words made it through. Fury nodded as though this confirmed what he already knew, and he reached into his briefcase for a stack of slightly crumpled flyers that he stepped forward to shove into Steve's hands.

"Just get out of here, Rogers," he said. "Find something else to do besides work and working out." He snapped his briefcase shut, spinning the tiny numbered dials to lock it. "Don't come back til 0600 Monday morning. Am I clear, Captain?"

Too startled to do more than nod numbly, Steve answered, "Sir. Yes, sir."

Fury gave him a grimly pointed look. "Then start walking, Rogers. 0600 Monday morning. Not a second before."

OoOoOoOoOo

Steve showered and pulled on clean clothes, walking absently toward the door as he flipped through the leaflets from Fury. An immediate, furious blush sprung to his cheeks when he realized that the first few advertisements were for places he couldn't see himself ever frequenting: even the inky black silhouettes of unclad women printed on the paper made him feel a little uncomfortable. There was also a flyer for an antique car show, and one for a traveling carnival, and Steve stared at the last two with a furrow digging into his brow.

In the end, he chose the carnival for the simple reason that he didn't feel like being reminded he's a classic like the cars from his time period. And the carnival isn't far; all of the advertisements were for places within walking distance, but it was growing late on this Fall evening and stars were already starting to dot the twilight.

It was a quick walk and Steve could hear the cheerful music and giddy shouts of milling attendees as he approached the cordoned lot littered with brightly colored tents. The enormous big top standing at the far end of the field rose high above the others, and there were hundreds of chatting, laughing people crowded onto the cluttered and trampled grass.

Steve stood at the entrance. He almost turned around, almost just went back to his dark, empty apartment with only the uneasy voice in his head to keep him company …

Steve paid the admission fee and entered the Carson Carnival of Traveling Wonders.

OoOoOoOoOo

Please review and let Bookdancer know what a great idea this plot is! Daddy!Steve trying to raise teenaged!Clint? My feels are on super-holiday! ;D