Or at least he’s hoping it’s temporary.
“Can I come?” SJ asks, and Steve hesitates for a moment.
“Probably not the best idea,” he says cautiously.
“But if you find a way home, I want to say goodbye,” SJ says, and Steve feels his already weak resolve crumble.
“Seven?”
“He’ll probably only follow us anyway,” he concedes, and turns towards the door. “Let’s go.”
“Come on then,” Steve says letting go of SJ and leaning back. “You walking or hitching a ride?”
“A ride,” SJ replies immediately. “I tried walking to the mist once with Sticky. It’s really far.”
“You don’t have to come,” Steve reminds him, but he’s crouching down anyway, balancing easily on the balls of his feet. SJ immediately scrambles forwards onto Steve’s shoulders, cool palms clamped on Steve’s forehead. His heels kick against Steve’s chest and he shouts with laughter as Steve straightens up, hands going to SJ’s ankles to steady him.
“Don’t wriggle,” he says, and laughs himself as SJ curls forwards over his head to look him upside-down in the eye.
“You’d catch me,” he says confidently. “You’re a superhero.”
Steve lets go of one ankle to poke SJ on the nose. “Even superheroes need to be able to see where they're going.”
Kicking his heel against Steve’s chest again, SJ obediently leans back, fingers sliding into Steve’s hair. Steve can barely feel his weight on his shoulders, and part of him is honestly struggling to remember the time when he must have been just as small and light.
Taking hold of the wayward foot again, Steve steps forwards after Seven, remembering to duck through the doorframe as he does. He navigates the stairwell carefully as well, though SJ is just as vigilant and leans forwards every time there’s a doorframe or a spot of ceiling that’s a bit lower than the rest.
He finds Seven waiting for them just outside the building on the stairs, watching as two more younger Steve’s tear down the road past the building, red faced and panting. Steve slowly descends the stairs, frowning slightly as he watches them go.
“SJ, how many younglings are there around here?” he asks
“Fifteen,” SJ replies promptly. “In our group anyway.”
“Who’s the youngest?”
“Park and Pond,” SJ replies. “They're both six.”
Seven looks at Steve, also frowning. “Yeah, we’d noticed,” he says, correctly guessing what Steve is thinking about. “If we were so sickly as a kid, why aren’t there more younglings?"
“Why is the youngest six?” Steve finishes as he falls into step beside Seven. His fingers flex gently on SJ’s ankle, an unconscious reflex as he thinks of his shield. It’s disconcerting being anywhere without it, and he still finds himself absently reaching for it every time he gets up to go anywhere.
“Doesn’t quite add up,” Seven admits. “And now with you showing up, it’s another thing that doesn’t quite sit right.”
“How long have you been here?” Steve asks thoughtfully.
“No idea,” Seven says. “I just…I remember my life, and I remember my death, and then there’s this. It’s a bit…I don’t remember getting from there to here, and it feels like I’ve always been here, but I know I haven’t. I’ve got no sense of time.”
“Doesn’t seem quite right either,” Steve muses, tilting his face up towards the sun and squinting slightly. The weather really is glorious, much more so without the usual traffic and noise and pollution that is usually present on a summer day in New York. Not that this is better; hell, if he wanted sunshine and fresh air he’d take a vacation or move, not go through a near-death experience in an effort to make New York more environmentally friendly.
“Well, no-one ever knew what happened when we die,” Seven reasons. “This could be perfectly right for all anyone knows.”
Steve thinks of the lack of younger Steves, how there’s no-one else to be found anywhere. Seven is right in that no-one can ever truly know what happens to people when they die, but this whole situation is starting to seem more and more off with every new thing he finds out. It’s unnerving but also gives him hope that he’ll be able to get out and back home.
He listens to Seven and SJ talking for a while, content to be quiet with his thoughts and observations as they walk in the direction of the mist. He sees more and more versions of himself as they progress, but he’s now so used to it that he doesn’t so much as look twice. There appears to be more Steve Rogers that are in civilian dress in this area, and he feels a wistful pang go through him as he watches a couple throwing a baseball back and forth, dressed in jeans and t-shirts, laughing and larking about.
As predicted, it’s a long walk back to the mist, growing steadily colder and more difficult as the landscape starts to change. The buildings grow more dilapidated; rubble blocks their path on more than one occasion. Soon they’re clambering over broken cars and toppled masonry, ducking under girders and electricity poles. It’s made marginally harder by having SJ perched on his shoulders, but SJ’s grip on Steve is tight and he doesn’t wriggle too much, so all Steve has to do is keep one hand one his knee and compensate for the added height and it’s not too tricky.
“What are you looking for?” SJ asks, looking up and around, expression somewhat awed. The grey hued buildings around them reach up, their roofs shrouded in mist. It makes Steve feel like they’re minuscule; ants walking around the feet of a city that reaches endlessly upwards towards the heavens.
“No idea,” Seven replies, and his voice is low and tight and it’s clear he doesn’t like being here in the slightest. “Anything.”
Steve doesn’t know what he’d been hoping to find back here, but it was definitely more than what he’s currently observing. This is where they’d all appeared, surely there must be a way through of some kind? A portal, a doorway? Or maybe they just materialised out of thin air, which wasn’t going to help him in the slightest.
His boots crunch on broken glass, loud in the stillness.
“Steve,” SJ whispers, and then coughs, the sound swallowed up by the mist. His heels press back against Steve’s chest, his hand reaching down to grab Steve’s fingers where they rest against his knees.
“It’s okay,” Steve says, and lets go with one hand so SJ can hold his fingers, squeezing them briefly. He reaches up and lifts SJ from his shoulders, setting him on his hip instead, one arm looped underneath his thighs to easily hold him in place. SJ’s fingers fist in his undershirt, both front and back, and Steve briefly wishes he’d put up more of a fight when SJ had asked to come along.
“There’s nothing here,” Seven says, sounding frustrated. “Goddamn it, I wish I had my shield.”
“Does anyone?” Steve asks, stepping over a broken drain, one hand on the side of a truck-sized block of concrete to keep them steady.
“No,” Seven says shortly. “And that’s pretty telling, huh?”
Steve just smiles grimly and vows to never ever let the shield out of his sight again when he gets back. He’ll get Tony to glue the damn thing to his hand if needs be. SJ coughs again, letting go of Steve’s shirt to cover his mouth, eyes wide and uncertain.
They all fall quiet; the only sound is their boots on the rough concrete and the occasional cough from SJ. They press on regardless, pushing through the increasingly thick mist until Steve can barely see Seven anymore, walking only a few feet away, visible only because of the bright colours of his uniform.
They walk so far that Steve is certain they must have passed the place where he appeared, deeper into the mist than he was before. His side aches and throbs in phantom pain, recalling the agony of the injury that sent him here. He ignores it. Keeps going.
There’s a rustle, a soft sigh of noise. A breeze picks up, ruffling Steve’s hair and swirling the mist around them in tight eddies. Steve halts, looking around.
“That’s not normal,” he murmurs. Seven steps backwards, his shoulder bumping Steve’s. He doesn’t reply, and another stronger gust of wind pulls the mist around them again, cool fingers tugging at their hair and clothes-
'Go back, Steve Rogers. This is not the way home.'
Steve whirls around, heart pounding in his chest. “Did you hear that?” he asks, but Seven is already stepping forwards whole body tense and ready to leap into action.
'This is not the way home. Not here, not yet.'
“Hello?” Steve shouts as the faint voice drifts through the mist again, distant and muffled. “Who’s there?”
“Who is that?” SJ breathes. “Steve?”
“There!” Seven barks, and Steve whips around just in time to see a dark shadow shift in the mist, the faint silhouette of what could be a person. Seven is off before Steve can get a word out, vaulting over the crumpled remains of a car and lunging forwards, and damnit, that's exactly what he'd be doing if he didn't have SJ to think about-
Another shadow moves in the periphery of Steve’s vision and Steve spins around to try and catch it, SJ gasping at the sudden turn. “Wait!” he bellows at Seven, but he’s gone, chasing the first shadow, or is it the same one moving too quickly to properly track-?
