Angst, Warning: near drowning

Steve had heard the saying that when one is in their last moment of life, their own history will flash before their eyes, and they will see a replay of their years one last time. He had thought of that right before the plane crashed into the ice over seventy years ago, but he could never remember if that moment happened for him. He had the rare gift to come back to life from that experience of his own finality, and he tried so many times to take himself back to that space in his mind to answer that question, but he couldn't get there. He had come to assume that it was just something to make people feel better to expect it in their last minute, and he decided that it never gave him any consolation anyway.

You had heard stories about people under tremendous duress becoming almost superhuman when they needed to, like the story of a mother lifting a car off of her child, or stopping a moving car to keep from hitting a loved one, but you had never seen that moment for yourself in anyone. Sure, you had watched Steve save countless people with his strength, but it wasn't the same; that's who he was and the power was his so it wasn't unexpected. His abilities had always astounded you, and to be near him in action was a thrill to take in, but never once had you considered what it might be like to be in his place.

~~~

It wasn't that Steve had an aversion to ice, per se, but when he was standing on it as it cracked and splintered beneath his weight, nearly at the center of a frozen lake, he couldn't help but hate the stuff. If he could just make the pounding heart beat stop ringing in his head, he might be able to think his way out of this. If he could stop his hands from shaking, he might be able to convince his fingers to open the pack on his belt to find his grappling hook so that he could secure himself before he fell into the icy water below.

"Steve!" you called out to him from the shore. "Don't move! Tony's on his way, he can grab you!"

"Dammit," he groaned under his breath, looking to you and back, seeing what he was out here to do in the first place. This was supposed to be a quick rescue; a group of kids had gotten themselves stuck on the ice of the lake behind the compound when their snowmobile weighed too much and it began to break under them, much as it was doing to him now. They were following his orders, lying flat and silently as he worked, but he could tell that they were getting too cold as a haze of blue spread across their lips. Hearing another loud splinter that echoed across the lake, Steve carefully dropped himself down to lay still, trying his best to distribute his weight. "How far out is he?" he finally answered.

"Five minutes! Sam is farther out!"

"Oh, god," he panted, feeling his panic begin to surge, "not now. Come on, Rogers, pull it together. Five minutes...you can make it five minutes."

Even from so far away, you could sense that something more was going on with Steve. He didn't scare easily, and right now, he looked terrified and you felt helpless to get to him; if you went out on the ice to try, it would certainly crack more and could send you both falling into the freezing water. His hands moved carefully, and he pulled his hook from his belt, securing it to the line in another compartment so that he could throw it, but he must have shifted too much; the cracking of ice grew louder and more ominous, this time not stopping. The last sight you had of Steve before the lake swallowed him whole was the look of absolute horror in his eyes and his hand uselessly reaching out for you.

"Steve! No!"

~~~

There's not enough time. I gotta put her in the water.

It was remarkable how quickly the cold was spreading and rendering Steve immobile; perhaps it was the fear that was holding his muscles hostage and not the cold itself, but no matter what the cause, he was sinking like dead weight into the darkness beneath the sheet of ice over the lake, and he couldn't pull himself back towards the light.

We'll have the band play something slow.

If he could just get his mind out of this loop, playing the last moments of his first life over and over now, he could try to save himself. He could hear Peggy's voice over the crackling speakers of that old plane, and he could see the ground coming closer as impact neared. It was like he was there again, reliving that moment, about to be frozen in time just as he was right now if he couldn't pull himself together and into action. If he couldn't stop this panic, it would be his end. He couldn't hold his breath much longer, and the chill was seeping into his chest.

~~~

Rational thought was gone as your feet began to move. Rational thought was a joke that you shook off when you laughed aloud in your sheer, unadulterated panic at the prospect of dying to save him. It wasn't a conscious decision, it was a reflex; it was a mother lifting the car from her child kind of reflex, and now you understood. You loved him enough to take this risk, and you loved him enough that if you didn't try, you wouldn't want to live without him anyway.

The cold was already working its way through the soles of your boots after standing in place for so long, so when you kicked them off as you ran so that their weight wouldn't hold you back in the water, you barely noticed the sting of the ice through your socks. Your down jacket was the next to go, as was your pack of supplies; it was all useless and would slow you in getting to him. He had to be so far down now that even reaching him was unlikely, but you had to try.

There wasn't a second of hesitation when you came to the edge of where he had disappeared, spearing your hands out in front of you and diving in head-first.

~~~

Steve thought that he had to be hallucinating; the darkness had taken his sight, and the pressure of the deep water had robbed him of his hearing, but he swore that he heard your voice reverberating through the water around him. He knew that he saw your face in the pitch black, and if he focused for just one second and quelled his panic, he could feel your skin against him when your hand closed around his. It was such a warm feeling within the cold that he reached out to have more, to feel you against him as his last sensation before there was nothing. The numbness was spreading up his arms and legs, and he clung to the feel of you one last time.

He clung to you so tightly, that you began to believe for the first time since diving into the water that you might actually save him. It was guaranteed to work when the beautiful light from Tony's repulsor lit the water around you as he crashed through the thick layer of ice. As much as you loved the feeling of Steve's arms around you and the safety that you had always felt there, you had never felt something so wonderful as the crushing hold of Tony's suit when he lifted you into the air and you took the breath that you thought you would never have.

~~~

"She was incomprehensible, for, in her, soul and spirit were one—the beauty of her body was the essence of her soul. She was that unity sought for by philosophers through many centuries. In this outdoor waiting room of winds and stars she had been sitting for a hundred years, at peace in the contemplation of herself."

Tony had been standing behind Steve for several minutes, unbeknownst to the man, listening to him read to you as he held vigil at your bedside. Steve had been reading for days, waiting for the right passage to make you open your eyes, if only he knew which one held the magic that could make it happen. "Hey, Cap," he finally greeted, "how is she today?"

"Same."

"Right." Tony reached down and held his hand in place, waiting for the okay to take the book from Steve's hands. "The Beautiful and Damned?"

"Yeah, she mentioned it a few times, and I found it in her room," Steve sighed, taking it back, "thought it was worth a try." He gently dog-eared the page he was on, taking care to bend only the smallest piece as to not ruin the paper before closing the covers and setting it on the table at his side. He brought his hands up to his face, rubbing against the stubble that had grown in with his lack of care about shaving. He wanted to cry, to scream, to throw up, anything at all to make the sickness in his stomach stop, and anything to make the pain numb like he had felt right before you saved him. "Tony?"

"Cap?"

"What the hell was she thinking?"

"Well," Tony inhaled slowly, choosing his words, "I think that she probably wasn't." Steve was about to retort and say how right he was, but Tony extended a hand to stop him. "She wasn't thinking, Steve. She was feeling. You know as well as I do that the heart does some pretty stupid shit when it doesn't let the brain talk, and I'm pretty sure that her heart took over on this one. She loves you, and there was no other choice. You'd do the same."

"Would I?"

"Yes, you would," he insisted. "Steve, come on, of course you would. You'd throw yourself into that lake without a second thought, panic, and then she'd have to save you all over again, securing years of rights to endless ridicule and your eternal servitude."

"She already has that."

All Tony could do was nod in agreement, giving his friend a gentle and understanding smile as best as he could, even though Steve's gaze had never left you. He looked down at the Captain's hands, noticing that they were wringing together incessantly in his lap now that the book was set aside. "Do you see anyone for your PTSD?" he asked quietly.

"I will be after this."

"Good."

"Do you?" Steve asked softly, finally turning to look at him. Tony quietly gasped but recovered his composure quickly; he had worked hard to keep his own issues in check, and he hadn't realized that maybe it was more obvious to everyone else than he thought.

"I'll give you his name," Tony replied. "I can come along to your first appointment if it helps."

"It would, thanks." Steve turned and took the book in hand again, gingerly opening it as to not force the binding too far. He knew that you would be pissed if he was careless with it, considering he really wasn't even supposed to have it. He flipped the pages until he found his marking, his finger sliding along the lines of text until he came to the point where he had left off. Tony remained at his side to listen in, leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed to try to quiet the sounds of your monitors and IV pumps to hear Steve's voice more clearly.

"It became known to her, at length-"

"...that she...was to be born again," you finished for him, softly in the strain of an unused voice. It took nearly all of your energy to speak the words, but they seemed to hold a deeper meaning now than they had before. Your eyes opened slowly, painfully dry, with tears wetting your lashes to combat the sting. "You were in my room."

Steve jumped up, tossing the book carelessly to Tony, who startled and struggled to grab it before it could fall to the ground. The feeling of his hands holding your face so gently was a welcome relief, finding their warmth again; the last time you had touched his hand, it was frozen and rigid, as if the life had gone from it. It was a terrible moment that you hoped to forget, but when his lips pressed to yours now, you thought that maybe you didn't want to; the fear of his loss made these seconds the reason why you would do it all over again.

As his lips found yours, Steve knew the same, that the fear of loss would drive him to save you if this had been reversed, as Tony had pointed out. Even if it did incite his panic and paralyzed him in his fear, and even if it meant that you would go on and he wouldn't, he would take comfort in knowing that if it really was right that his life would flash before his eyes in his true final moment, you would fill those memories and be there with him.