Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first clue is frozen solid in ice, which is kind of a dick move considering what the three of them are looking for. Bucky puts his fist straight through it with pleasure.

“I agreed to help you two look for it, I didn’t sign up for some second grade treasure hunt.” He grumbles as he hands Steve the plastic pill bottle.

“Don’t look at me, I’m not the one who lost it,” says Sam as he levels an accusatory look right at Steve.

Steve scoffs. He opens the bottle to pull out a folded slip of paper, “I didn’t lose it. All I said to Nat— I just suggested that maybe we find some ways to bond as a team off the field and I woke up this morning and it was gone.”

“If you let Natasha take the shield, you’re never getting it back.” Bucky says. Sam bites back a laugh—they’re still pretending to hate each other in front of everybody, even though Steve has noticed that it’s always mysteriously set aside when it’s time to rib him. And it’s much more often than he’d like.

“I didn’t let—”

Sam cuts Steve off, “Don’t start. Just read the clue.”

“I’m going to text her,” says Bucky, pulling out his phone to do so. “This is bullshit.”

“Ugh.” Steve says, eyes scanning the paper. “It’s poetry.”

“Give me that.” Sam snatches it from him. “‘The first step towards the mighty shield / leads to he whose heart he wields / defend, protect, and it shines bright / to banish those who haunt the night’.”

Steve doesn’t hesitate for a moment. “So Tony has it.”

Bucky’s phone buzzes.

“What’s she say?” asks Sam.

“‘Tell Steve to read carefully’. Whatever game you’re trying to play with her, pal, you’re going to lose.”

“I’m not trying to play a game, I just wanted her suggestions.”

“You know her,” Sam says sagely, complete with nod, “Plays with her food before she eats it.”

Bucky is laughing. Steve doesn’t think it’s very funny.

“She just must’ve not understood me.” Steve shrugs. “Maybe I didn’t explain myself right. Anyway, I’m just going to go get it back from Tony, so if you two jokers want to move along—”

“What makes you so sure Tony has it?” says Sam.

With a scoff, Steve snatches the pill bottle from Sam and scans Natasha’s clue again. Out loud, he reads, “‘Whose heart he wields . . . and it shines bright’. She’s talking about the arc reactor.”

“Who the hell else could it be? Nobody,” Bucky adds.

“Look past the literal, Steve.” Sam snatches the clue back. “You said yourself, it’s poetry. Whoever has it has a lot of heart, wears it on his sleeve, and he . . . ‘those who haunt the night’. Vam. . . pires?”

Steve grins. “Lost it a little on the end there.”

“Closer than you woulda got. What else haunts the night?”

“Everything.” Bucky says helpfully, not looking up from whatever he’s doing on his phone. “I used to. So did Natasha.”

“We’ve all run night missions,” says Steve, choosing for now to gloss over everything that he and Bucky are going to unpack in a long talk later. “‘That’s not very specific. But ‘bright heart’ is.”

Sam shrugs, unimpressed. “Sure, it’s specific, but it’s also Natasha. She’s got layers on layers, Steve. You know that. I bet you anything she’s counting on you going with the easiest answer.”

Steve sucks in a breath and slowly blows it out in a way he hopes accurately conveys how frustrated he is at the moment.

“Since Tony’s the obvious choice, it can’t be him.” Sam concludes.

“Yeah.” Bucky agrees, which is rare. Sam sees it too, and he’s just about to make some smartass comment and derail the whole thing when Bucky keeps going. “It’s right, so it’s gotta be wrong. Get with it, Steve.”

“Whatever,” Steve hisses, taking the clue again and stalking off. As he leaves, he calls over his shoulder. “I’m going to go get it back.”

Bucky and Sam watch him get into the elevator, presumably to take it down the workshop. They watch him glower at them as the doors close, hear the cheerful beeps fade as Steve descends to Tony’s domain.

Then the answer hits Sam square in the stomach like sour beer. He heaves a sigh as he looks up to the ceiling.

“What?” asks Barnes. He’s back to looking at his phone, probably stuck on whatever puzzle game he’s hooked on this week. Ever since Tony and Bruce switched out the screen for a “Hulk-proof” one that could suddenly withstand the arm even in the most frustrated of ragequits, Barnes and his precious device have been inseparable.

Sam levels him with a Look.

Barnes doesn't look up right away, and when he does it takes a second to really sink in. Sam can see the exact moment when it clicks and seeps its awkward, teenage tendrils straight into Barnes’s soul. “Ah, Christ.”

“Yeah.”

—

When Steve finds him, Tony is waist deep in one of his hotrods. The engine’s been removed. Pieces of it are strewn about, and as far as Steve can tell it was not taken apart in a very logical order. The chassis of the car is just a little too high—Steve thinks it might’ve been raised after production, because he remembers the model from his own childhood being much closer to the ground—so Tony just looks like a pair of legs, balanced high on the balls of his feet while the hood of a mid-30s Packard Twelve eats him alive.

Steve’s never one to waste an opportunity. He softens his steps, rolls his feet as he approaches, and once he’s close enough he clears his throat.

The metal clang is incredibly satisfying. Tony grumbles from the depths of the machine, “God— fuckingshit, ow.”

He waits as Tony extracts himself from the car. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Tony says back, rubbing his greasy hands on the greasy towel from his back pocket. Steve’s not sure what color it was originally. “This how you get your sick kicks?”

“Sometimes.” Steve grins. He loops his thumbs in his belt, because he’s just realized that the asshole route is probably not the way to go for this. Maybe it’s not too late to change course. “Hey, so I need a favor from you.”

“Yeah?” Tony saunters over to his workstation and picks up a can. He tips it into his mouth and gives a frustrated sigh when it’s obviously empty. Steve’s checking out the messy husk of the Packard when he hears the chk-sss of a new one opening.

“Yeah. I need the shield back.”

“What?”

He should’ve known Tony would play dumb. Natasha and him are probably in on it together, he can see it clearly in his head. Let’s pull one over on the old man, he’ll never know what hit him. Said old man is not amused at the thought.

“Come on Tony, I know you have it.”

“I don’t. Why would I? Wait—you mean you don’t have it? Did you lose it? Ha!” Tony laughs, a short, crisp one, and starts pouring the contents of the freshly opened can into the old one. Steve watches him and briefly wonders how long that particular cycle’s been going on.

“I didn’t lose it.” He says as calmly as he can. “I just want it back.”

“You are being uncharacteristically evasive, Rogers.” Now Tony’s brandishing the empty can at him like a wand. Steve is very much over this. Natasha’s going to get his operations paperwork for the next week, at least. “Not like I can just pull a new one out of my ass. Kind of a collectible—”

“Tony.”

“Okay. Okay. Let’s look at this like adults. When did you last see it?”

“Last night.”

“Ooh, a midnight heist! Who’s the suspect?”

“You.”

“Okay, well, I’m telling you—not me, cross that one off your little list. Next?”

Steve takes a deep breath, hoping to somehow recharge his patience. He shrugs. “I—I asked Natasha if she had any ideas as to how we could bond as a team—”

“Bond, or ‘bond’?”

“Just a normal bond, Jesus H., Tony.” It comes out as a kind of huff. He takes another second to compose himself and hope he doesn’t sound too indignant. “I went to sleep last night with the shield in my—in my apartment, don’t look at me like that—and when I woke up, it was gone. I told Sam, and Buck, and they said they’d help me look for it.”

“So where are tweetie-bird and tweedle-dee?”

“They didn’t think you were the answer.”

Tony takes a sip and does that face of his where all his features try to scrunch together. Steve takes it to mean he’s thinking. Stark opens his mouth, closes it again, nods his head contemplatively, and then says, “Okay, now you’re making even less sense than before.”

Steve goes over everything he’s already said, and only understands what's been left out after a moment or two. “Oh! She left us a clue. Here.”

He slides the scrap of paper across the worktable. Tony picks it up and reads, mouthing the words to himself. He has another of those quick, sharp laughs and says, “Oh my—oh my God, she’s sending you on a treasure hunt. This is hilarious.”

“Yeah, it’s sure killing me.” Steve deadpans.

“Oh come on, cheer up. It’s not as hard as you’re making it out to be.”

“I know. Give me the shield.”

“Okay, maybe not that easy. I can see how you got that, the whole ‘bright heart’ thing. And I’m flattered, but it’s wrong. And I do know who it actually is, which you would know if you actually read like, the whole clue instead of focusing on just the two words.”

“How about you, in all your infinite genius, just tell me the answer?”

“Whoah, hey, did you hear that? Did I hear that right? Hold on, give me three seconds—”

Steve says nothing, and instead takes the clue back. Tony’s fiddling with a hologram, no doubt wanting some kind of record function. He whose heart he wields . . . defend, protect. Banish those who haunt the night.

“Oh. Oh!” He exclaims. It clicks in his head, and he’s already halfway out the door when he calls over his shoulder, “Thanks, Tony!”

He’s fairly certain he hears a grumbled, “Yeah, sure, anytime,” trail behind him as he leaves.

——

Barnes lost rock-paper-scissors, which means he has to knock on the door. Sam is torn between whether he should be gleeful at watching the kid get the shit scared out of him by Barnes looming in his doorway, or miffed that he’s taking time out of his day to acknowledge that the kid is a key part of this in any way.

Natasha is the one who set the whole thing up. That’s how he knows he’s right.

Barnes is getting impatient—and if he’s gonna be honest, Sam is too—so he knocks again, with the side of his fist instead of with his knuckles. It comes out sounding a little like cannonfire.

The inside of the room springs into action. There’s a scuffle and a series of quick steps, and Peter Parker flings open the door with a startled, “Ah!—oh, h—hey. There. Hi.”

“Hi.” Barnes says back, absolutely emotionless. He’s doing it on purpose to intimidate the kid a little. It’s working. Normally Sam’s equally parts unnerved and exasperated by the robot act, but right now, in these specific circumstances, he almost kinda likes the guy for being able to pull it off so flawlessly.

“H—hi.” Parker says again. “Mr. Barnes. And—uh, Mr. Falcon. Wilson. Falcon? Uhm. Wwhhu— What-—Can I—Can I help you guys?”

“Can you?” Sam tilts his head and crosses his arm across his chest. “We’re here for the shield.”

“The . . .shield?” The kid is looking between them like the answer is written on one of their faces. “I—I don’t have it. Oh! The shield! No, I don’t.”

Barnes is giving Sam a look out of the corner of his eye. Unsurprisingly, Sam is busy picking through that roller coaster of an answer to find any usable meaning. “So, you do or you don’t?”

“I don’t.” Parker says confidently, and then immediately wilts a little. “Kind of.”

“Kind of? Barnes echoes.

“IIIIIiiiiiii don’t have it, and I don’t know where it is, but—” he stops, and nods to reassure himself, “Yep. I don’t have it, and I don’t know where it is.”

“But . . .?” Sam leans in and motions for the kid to continue.

Parker glances between them again. His bug-premonition-sense-whatever is probably telling him it’s a trap. He’s squirming, and tries to casually lean against his door frame with his arms crossed. “Why do you— why do you guys think it’s me? Wh— maybe, maybe I’m not involved. With . . . whatever this is.”

Barnes deflates a little bit. Not in the disappointed way, in the way that a pufferfish sucks its spikes in: you know it can and will still hurt you if it wanted, just maybe not right this second. It'll take its time. He tilts his head to the side and narrows his eyes. Sam sees what he’s doing, drawing out the response to give the kid more time to panic and backtrack. It’s supremely entertaining, actually.

But Sam has better things to do. At the rate this is going, he’s going to miss his show. “You have another clue, don’t you.”

Parker lets out a breath like he’s a popped balloon that can finally relax. “Yeah, yeah I have the next clue. Let me— hold on, I’ll go get it.”

The kid disappears into his room. Barnes clears his throats, but Sam doesn’t give him the satisfaction of an answer, so Barnes plows on through the silence. “Just how many of these things do you think there are?”

Sam sighs and takes a moment to think about it. “Hopefully? Two. One to throw us off the scent and show us who’s boss, and this one’ll be the real answer. Realistically, though . . . ?”

Barnes is nodding. He picks up right where Sam trailed off. “We’re going to be doing this the rest of our damn days.”

“Probably.”

“Hey!” Steve steps out of the elevator and heads their way. “Figured it out, finally. You guys talk to Peter yet?”

“He’s trying to find his clue.” Barnes nods to the open door. Parker’s room is, predictably, a complete disaster. The kid himself is practically flying around inside as he digs through piles of clothes, books, and — is that a stack of VHS tapes?

Nevermind, Sam doesn't really care. He looks Steve dead in the eye and raises one eyebrow.

“What?”

Sam tsks. “Aren't you forgetting something?”

Steve's gaze goes a little distant, like he's thinking. He pats his jeans, back pockets and then front, and pulls out the pill bottle. “No, I’ve got the first clue— it’s right here.”

“Why don’t you try ‘You were right, Sam. I was wrong, you're so smart and incredibly good looking, and I'm sorry I ever doubted you.’”

Barnes barks. Or laughs. Sam’s not sure.

With a huff, Steve says in a quick breath, “You wereright, Sam, sorryIeverdoubtedyou.”

“Yeah, what about the rest?”

Steve ignores him and leans into the doorway. “Peter, you need some help?”

Without looking op, Peter answers, “No thanks, Cap, I’m-! Cap!” Then he stands up straight and trips over himself coming back to the door. He tries to close it a little bit, obviously ashamed of the mess inside.

Steve gets right to the point. “What’d Natasha tell you?”

“Some . . . stuff.” Parker cautiously glances up and down the hallway like she’ll just appear in the edge of his vision if he lets his guard down for even a second. Sam, who has been on the receiving end of things when Natasha’s in the mood to spook people out of their skin, can sympathize. The kid gives a sigh that’s almost pitiful. “I don’t know how much I’m allowed to say.”

“You can start with the little poem she gave you.” Barnes says lowly.

“Poem? No. No, she just gave me a watch and said you might come looking for it. Oh my God, is it — is it stolen?” He’s grasping his own wrist now, where sure enough there’s an expensive-looking, thick-banded timepiece — the kind that’s usually marketed to men who’ve got at least 10 years on him.

“Is that it?” Steve says gently. Well, it may seem gentle, but Sam knows better. There’s an undercurrent of frustration that’s going to power him through the rest of the week. Stark really needs to figure out how to tap it, Sam’s willing to bet that Steve’s never-ending exasperation would change the renewable energy game.

“What watch?” Parker says quickly. He sees where all three of them are looking and gives an embarrassed laugh. “Oh, this watch! Yeah, this is it. Kinda . . . forgot I was wearing it.”

He unbuckles it and hands it to Steve, who immediately starts looking it over. “Did she tell you anything else?”

“Uh, kind of? She said some other stuff that I don’t really remember, but I remember the watch! That’s it, that’s definitely your clue.”

“Why would she use a poem and then a wristwatch?” Barnes says. It sounds more like he’s thinking out loud than actually expecting anyone to answer him. Steve flips the watch over and shows Bucky the back. “Ah.”

Sam leans a little bit more towards them to try and catches a glimpse of an engraving that’s a couple of lines long. It’s probably another little poem, a second clue in the same format as the first. How had Natasha even thought of that? Why go out and acquire — Sam’s not going to say buy, he knows who he’s talking about here — a brand-name watch or convincing copy, get a custom message engraved on the back, give it to Parker and convince him to be in on it, all while writing out the first bit, slipping it in a pill bottle, and freezing it in a block of ice? Did she throw this plan together just last night, when Steve talked to her? Is she one step ahead of them, making it up as they go? Or has this plan been lying in wait, and this seemed like the perfect moment to strike.

More importantly: does Natasha Romanoff ever sleep?

“I can— I can help!” Parker suddenly says, startling the three of them out of their quiet trains of thought. “Not that you need help, obviously, but if you need another hand?”

Barnes claps the kid on the shoulder. Sam almost sees it in slow motion, his arm coming down fast and deliberate like a mallet driving in a stubborn nail, but at the last second Barnes lets up and it turns into a squeeze. To his credit, the kid doesn’t flinch, even though Sam’s pretty sure there a pressure point right near where the metal thumb and first finger are pinching. “We’ll be alright, kid.”

Parker swallows. “Yep.”

Chapter Text

“I have no idea about anything anymore.” Steve mutters angrily as he, Sam, and Bucky find a relatively quiet lounge tucked away in an obscure corner of the complex to regroup.

“What's it even say?”

With a sigh, Steve sits down in a plush chair and leans back to dig the offending thing out of his pocket. It's a men's watch, the fancy newer kind with smaller clocks inside the big clock face, day of the month, all sorts of colored markings in order for whoever-it-is to stay informed and on top of relatively arbitrary information. It's a round watch face, but a square display. Steve supposes it's to make room for more of those little micro-clocks — one of which, a little red and white toggle down in one of the corners, makes him think of a compass.

It's the engraving on the back that's bothering him the most. The lesson he learned from the first clue about making assumptions is niggling at him, and it's getting real frustrating real quick. He reads out loud, “To he who sky and thunder yields / has little need for swords or shields / a mighty fall, the hearts of men / the world he stands for once again.”

“Can you sound any more morose about it?” Bucky rolls his eyes and reaches out a metal hand, “Gimme.”

Steve hands it over obediently.

“So, if we learned anything from the last clue—,” Sam is looking pointedly at him. Steve huffs and doesn’t return his gaze, “—It’s that it seems like Thor, but it isn’t.”

“Of course it isn’t, that’s too easy,” snipes Bucky. He’s inspecting the watch very closely, running his thumb— the human one— over the lettering. Steve doesn’t know what he’s looking for, but trusts him to do it. Signs of Natasha’s tampering, maybe?

That’s a whole bit that Steve’s still having trouble wrapping his mind around. When the hell did Natasha have time to do all of this? They only talked last night, and it’s not like Steve’s exactly an early-to-bed-early-to-rise kinda guy — he’s more of the I-can-go-a-few-days-on-just-naps variety — and he remembers it being pretty late.

Although, thinking back on it, she had seemed pretty suspicious. Steve hadn’t thought much of it at the time, because Natasha always seems a little suspicious, it’s her job to be. She’s got schemes within backups within contingencies and he respects the hell out of her not only for coming up with them in the first place but also the sheer fact that she’s sharp enough to keep them all straight. But last night? She was all smiles. She even reached out to pat his arm when he was pitching his own idea for team bonding. (He still thinks some kind of extreme ropes course would be great. There’s got to be a reason all those high school groups are always on about it.)

As long as he’s known her, Natasha’s the type of person who tends to keep physically to herself unless it’s needed by the mission, by a teammate in distress, or in rare instances, by her. Their conversation yesterday didn’t seem to fit into any of those categories — unless it did .

The sudden realization that this is something Natasha’s been planning , that it’s a scheme being played out — that he was played like a fiddle — makes the competitive fire in his chest flare to life. He wants to get her back. He needs to find the shield. Now.

In front of him, Sam and Bucky are either having a conversation or an argument. Steve sighs. They’re both great guys, but honestly the every time the two of them are together without a life-or-death situation to occupy them is like watching two soaking wet cats fighting to push each other back into the bathtub. It’s not pretty.

Sam is exasperated. “How do you know Thor’s not even here?”

Bucky takes a deep breath — not the calming kind, the kind that Steve imagines a dragon would take right before it breathes fire. “Have you looked out a window ? Can you see? It’s all blue skies and birdsongs out there—”

“Oh come on, it’s not like the dude brings stormclouds with him wherever he goes , he’s basically a big golden retriever—”

“— and he isn’t even relevant anyway, he’s not the answer! ”

“Then why are you getting so worked up over the fact that him being here doesn’t mean the whole Eastern Seaboard gets drenched? Do you like being wet and miserable?”

“He’s the goddamn God of Thunder , Wilson! What the hell do you think that means?!”

Steve grips the armrests of his chair and prays for patience. It doesn’t come instantly so he takes matters into his own hands instead. “Will the both of you shut the hell up and focus ? Jesus!”

They both shut up and stop laying into each other to turn and glare daggers at him instead. He doesn’t care — the silence is almost sweet enough to taste. Steve takes a deep breath and gathers himself. “It’s not Thor. We know that from the first one. So , who is it? Who else — does ‘sky and thunder yield’?”

“ Unless .” Sam says, and Steve can tell he’s gearing up to switch arguments. Briefly he wonders if Sam gets off on being antagonistic — but only when Bucky Barnes is around. “Unless it is Thor, and she thinks that we won’t think that because of the first clue.”

Steve shakes his head and takes the watch back from Bucky. “Thor hasn’t been here for at least a week.”

They both sit up sharply, and that’s when Steve knows he’s stepped in it. Bucky leans forward to jab a finger in Sam’s direction. “I told you —”

“Oh, don’t you even start —”

“Do either of you listen at all when you’re in briefings?” Steve gets two offended scoffs. Great, he’s always such a big fan of being told how large a stick he’s got up his ass, and now he gets it in stereo. He sighs. “It’s not Thor. So. Who is it?”

“Who else’s had ‘a mighty fall’?” Sam has his arms crossed, clearly still dug in on his latest theory.

Bucky, the bastard , jerks his thumb right at Steve. Steve makes sure to give him a Look to know how not amused he is. “Well obviously I don’t have it, or we wouldn’t be doing this right now.”

“Gimme the clue again.” Sam says.

“To he who sky and thunder yields / has little need for swords or shields / a mighty fall, the hearts of men / the world he stands for once again.”

“It’s gotta be down to a metaphor again. Like ‘whose heart he wields’ was supposed to be like ‘heart on his sleeve’.”

“‘Sky and thunder yields’. One of the fliers?” Bucky says.

Steve shrugs. “Maybe it actually Tony this time.” He’s so wrapped up in clues and wordplay and half-metaphors that is almost makes sense to him for a second. Plus there’s no way Tony Stark would not want to be part of pulling one over on Steve Rogers.

Sam starts holding up fingers. “So it’s a flier, someone who doesn’t use swords or shields—”

“A gun.” Nods Bucky.

“We don’t know that. Could be Vision.”

That doesn’t sound right. Steve shakes his head. “But ‘the hearts of men’. Vision’s based on JARVIS’ programming.”

“And wasn’t JARVIS based on a real person?”

Steve chews it over for a moment. Not because it doesn’t make sense, but because he’s not sure how Natasha could convince the Vision to go along with this.

He hears Bucky mutter, “‘The world he stands for once again’.”

It’s like an epiphany. Steve sits up so fast it’s almost like he’s squatting right over the chair cushion instead of actually sitting on top of it.

“It’s not Vision. It’s Rhodes.”

—

Colonel James Rupert Rhodes is, unsurprisingly, one of the only members of the team who can pretty much always be found exactly where he’s supposed to be.

He’s standing with his arms crossed in front of a holographic display. Steve’s not entirely who the bigwig he’s talking to is — it’s been a mess after Ross “resigned” (read: was fired, thanks to a certain scandal hitting the Net that Steve’s sure Tony and Natasha had nothing to do with). The image on screen is of a woman with a tight bun and an even tighter smile.

“Well, thank you for your time, General Wuntch. It’s been a pleasure” Rhodey says, in such a way that Steve immediately knows that it most definitely hasn’t been.

“Likewise, Colonel.” The woman on the screen collapses into a thin line of projector light, and then the screen itself disappears.

Steve’s barely taken a step out of where he, Bucky, and Sam were kind of awkwardly hovering in the doorway when Rhodes turns to face them. For just a second, it looks like the three of them are about to get the lecture of their lives — Steve feels his shoulders tense and he clenches his fists, ready to defend himself. But it’s only a second. Rhodes relaxes, like he remembers what face he’s wearing, and greets them with a warm grin and a gesture to the empty conference table beside him.

“You got a couple minutes?” Sam asks. That’s considerate; Steve winces a little bit on the inside, since he just strode in and assumed Rhodes has time for them. The man’s got two full time jobs, after all. Got his legs back and took off running.

The hearts of men.

“‘Course.” Rhodes’ braces whir softly as he makes his way around to a chair. “What do you need?”

Steve pulls the watch out of his pocket and slides it across the table. “Thought you might be looking for this.”

“Yeah, all day.” He seems genuinely surprised as he picks it up and slips it on his wrist. Steve realizes that it looks right , like a puzzle piece sliding back into place. Hey, he of all people can understand feeling naked when something you normally have with you is gone. Speaking of —

Bucky cuts right to the point. “Steve let Natasha take the shield, n’ she’s sending us on a goose chase to try and find it.”

“Hm.” Rhodes says. He doesn’t look at Steve accusingly, which to be frank is a damn breath of fresh air in Steve’s life right now, but instead looks thoughtful, twisting his watch on his wrist like he’s trying to get it to sit right. Like it doesn’t fit. “When did she take it? Wait — how do you know it was Natasha?”

Sam chuckles, “Oh it was definitely her.”

A t the same time, Bucky says, “She’s been texting me asking for updates on how lost we are.”

“So when did she take it?”

“Last night.” Steve takes a seat. “It was in my apartment, and this morning it was gone.”

“Wait, she broke in?” Rhodes looks impressed, but not surprised. He’s still fiddling with his watch. “I thought nobody was supposed to access each other’s private quarters without the occupant’s authorization? Jeez, she shorten the band, too?”

“There’s an engraving on the back now.” says Sam, sliding into a chair.

“An engraving?”

“Hope you like poetry about you.” Bucky’s still up against the doorframe. He’s got his phone out in one hand and is very concentrated on swiping upward with his thumb. Maybe some kind of pitching game?

Something doesn’t add up in Steve’s head still. “Wait, how long did you say your watch has been missing?”

“Just since this morning.” Rhodes shrugs. He gets the watch off and flips it over to read the back. After a moment, he scoffs. “What is this, a clue to lead you to Thor?”

“Your watch, it led us to you.” Sam says knowingly. He’s not going to force-feed the compliment.

Rhodes runs his thumb over the letters like he’s contemplating the bigger picture. Steve watches him, hoping a little to see the words sink in but mostly wishing that Rhodes would just magically hand over the shield from wherever he’s keeping it because Steve’s got a warpath to go marching down.

“Well, I don’t have the shield.”

Steve’s trying very hard to keep himself in check. He can tell by the way Rhodes is eyeing his clenched fist that it’s not working. “Steve, if I had it, I would tell you. I didn’t even know I was supposed to be a part of — of whatever this is.”

“So far it’s just been a couple of frustrating riddles and about an hour of watching Steve try not to blow his lid.” Bucky chuckles.

Sam looks like he wants to laugh too, but he probably doesn’t want to seem like he’s agreeing with anything Bucky says. Steve looks at Rhodey with his eyes narrowed. Not in suspicion, but probably more along the lines of a general resentment for the situation. “Then why would Natasha send us to you if you had nothing to do with it?”

Rhodes shrugs. He’s still fiddling with his watch.

“Has anything happened out of the ordinary today.” Steve says, it’s meant to be a question but all the emotion in his voice has been tamped down by how badly he needs to win this somehow. “Like, an encoded message—”

“Or a pill bottle frozen in ice?” Bucky finishes. He’s finally joining them, setting his phone down on the table as he sits.

“What?” Rhodes’ brow crinkles, no doubt trying to put all of these throwaways into context. “No, nothing, just the watch.”

The four of them sit for a moment. Steve clasps his hands together and closes his eyes.

“I think she sent you guys to a dead end,” says Rhodes. He’s sympathetic. “Wish I could help more.”

“How can it be a dead end if it’s your watch?” Sam leans forward, gesturing to the timepiece in question. “I believe you when you say you had nothing to do with it, but the other clue led us straight to it, and it led us straight to you.”

Bucky’s phone buzzes harshly on the tabletop and it ratchets the tension right up. Steve gives him a dirty look, but Bucky ignores him and reaches for it.

“It’s Natasha. Wondering how far we’ve gotten.”

“You better leave her on read.” Sam mutters.

“I’m inclined to agree, I think she broke it.” Rhodes is alternately pressing down on the engraved back of the watch and pulling at the edge like he’s trying to pry it off. “Does somebody have— maybe a pen, or something?”

Steve shakes his head. “Here, I can try it.”

“I don’t need to crush it, just pop it off. I think it’s glued on, that’s what’s making it fit so strangely.”

That would make sense. In fact, it would almost make more sense than Natasha making off with the shield, the watch, getting the latter actually engraved, and doing God-knows-what with the former. It would mean she planned this in advance enough to have a fake watch back ready. That placates Steve somewhat, but not much — because it also means there’s virtually no time limit for setting up whatever else she’s got in store for them.

Bucky’s leaning back in his chair, digging around in his pants. Steve can’t even say which pocket, really — there’s too many, Bucky’s preferred excuse-me-while-I-invade-a-small-nation-by-myself cargo look doesn’t change much from uniform to casualwear. Sam says it makes him look homely; Bucky maintains that it’s practical to be prepared. Steve’s been party to one or two heated “discussions” about it.

“I’ve got one of these,” Bucky says, and pulls a clean, thin, stiletto-style blade from Lord-knows-where. He does it quickly, silently — probably just to scare the bejesus out of Sam.

It works, kind of. Sam doesn’t shout, or stand up, but he does whip to the slide in his rolling conference room chair to face Bucky with one arm halfway up as defense. “Come on, man, what are you doing packing in civvies?”

“I’m not packing, it’s just a letter opener.” Bucky’s not even looking at him as he hands the little blade over to Rhodes.

“Thank you, James.” Rhodes grins.

“You’re welcome, James,” says Bucky.

Sam, as usual, is a very bright man but somehow wildly ignorant when someone’s fucking with him. Specifically when that someone is Bucky. “And why do you just have a letter opener?!”

Steve wants to bash both their heads into the table: Bucky, for continually doing strange shit to get a rise out of Sam; and Sam, for constantly letting Bucky get a rise out of him. If it didn’t bother Sam so much, Bucky would stop being so antagonistic. And on the flip side, if Bucky stopped baiting him, Sam would stop opposing everything he does just on principle. But both of them are proud idiots.

“To open my mail.” Bucky’s saying calmly. He’s unlocking his phone.

“Oh, bull shit , to open your mail. You’d better not be texting Natasha right now.”

“Do you not have a letter opener, Sam? How do you open your mail?” Steve can see that Bucky is very clearly texting Natasha. He supposes he should be grateful that the two of them aren’t in on something like this together.

“I use my keys , like everybody else—”

“Why do you even need keys? All the doors are biometric.”

“Uh, for my car ?”

“Well, I hope you enjoy your raggedy-ass envelopes, then.”

That’s when Steve tunes them out and physically gets up to walk around the table to Rhodes’ side. The Colonel is focused on what he’s doing — probably to avoid scratching the actual watch back — gently working the round tip into the edge. He pries it up carefully, like someone who’s opening a beer bottle but wants to keep the shape of the cap. The fake back looks identical to the real one, aside from the engraved clue. There’s no glue or anything, like Natasha didn’t want to actually mess with the watch itself. Steve supposes that’s nice of her. It’d be even nicer if she handed his shield back over.

“There we go,” Rhodes says proudly, just as all four of their phones buzz at the same time.

The all look at each other warily, trying to determine if this actually means what they think it does. Bucky is the first to check the message.

Sam reads his out loud, “‘Now listen close, for those who hear’? What the hell? I can’t exit out of it.”

Steve gets suspicious. He digs for his own phone and sure enough, his lockscreen is blacked out with a terminal-command-type message in light blue: And you may find the mighty shield

There’s no punctuation or other lines. He looks to Rhodes. “What’s yours say?”

“The souls of those they hold most dear’. It’s another clue?”

“In four parts.” Steve and Sam seem to have the same idea at the same time. “Everybody, put your phone on the table.” 

It’s not difficult to put together, since it rhymes and it’s very obvious that Sam’s was the start. They’re all leaning over the table — even Bucky, who was reluctant to give up his phone until he realized that it was locked like everybody else’s — when Steve slides them into place. Once they’re lined up, all four screens black out and the full clue appears on each one:

Now listen close, for those who hear

The souls of those they hold most dear

And you may find the mighty shield

Where children play on battlefields

10

The number on the bottom fades and reappears as 9 . A countdown. Bucky snatches his and tries to screenshot, but curses when nothing happens.

Sam dives for a pen and paper from the conference room cabinet, “We gotta write it down!”

That’s smart, Steve didn’t even think of that. He was squinting, ready to memorize it, but sometimes it’s very easy to forget that not everybody has a photographic memory. Sam tosses the pen and paper to him. Steve’s managed to scribble it down by the time the timer hits 1 .

All four phones — all Starkphones, all the same model except for Rhodey’s, Steve notes idly — return to their home screen. Guess being a close friend of the inventor-slash-manufacturer gets you a leg up when new generations are released. Each of them now has a new text message. Thanks for playing! With two emojis: a kissy face and a hand doing the peace sign.  

Before Sam takes his back, Steve sees that he’s got Natasha saved under “Pippi Longstocking”. Bucky’s contact says “Deadly Ballerina #3” with the emoji of someone’s nails getting done. He briefly wonders what each of them have him saved as, but then he decides he’s happier not knowing.

“The other clues weren’t this dark, were they?” Rhodes asks.  

Bucky tsks and Steve swears he hears him say, “I can’t believe she thinks she’s edgier than me.” 

“No, they weren’t,” says Sam, back on topic. 

“Well,” Rhodes’ braces hum softly as he leans to slide his phone back into his pocket, “Can someone give me the time? Looks like your game master stopped my watch when she put the fake back on.”

Sam checks his phone and holds up the clock to Rhodes, who adjusts his watch to the second. Steve doesn’t know how he could’ve thought that it’d belong to anybody else in the complex, what with all the little gizmos and the compass and everything.

“So who do we think this is?” Bucky drawls, holding up the scrap of paper Steve chicken-scratched their latest clue on.

“I hate to cut this short, folks, but I’ve got to run to another meeting.” Rhodey says. “Here’s— this, in case you need it.” He flicks the fake watch back to Steve. It’s about the size of a half-dollar coin, with bent edges from where it fit in to the real watch. “This room should be open for a while, but I think Happy’s got a security orientation at three.”

“Thanks, Rhodes.” Steve holds out a hand.

Sam echoes him, “Yeah, thanks.”

Rhodes waves both of them off with a smile as he heads out. Bucky says nothing, but nods when Rhodes passes him.  

Steve closes the door behind him. It won’t do much, because it’s just a big sheet of clear glass in a thin wooden doorframe, but it makes him feel more secure. “Good thing we caught him. The clue must’ve been triggered when all our phones were near each other.”  

To be honest, he’s not sure that he likes that Natasha can get into his phone so easily. He’s never really trusted the things in the first place, but this is just more evidence against them. He wonders if she knows that Bucky has her listed as “Deadly Ballerina #3”. She probably does.

When he looks at his two compatriots, he sees Sam with crossed arms and narrowed, suspicious eyes. Preemptively, he sighs, because he doesn’t even want to know what offenses may or may not have been committed in that brief moment that his back was turned.

“We were at a dead end until you texted her back.” Sam says accusingly.

Bucky draws his shoulders back, ready to defend himself. “So? You’re welcome.”

Strangely enough, this is one quabble of theirs that Steve doesn’t think he’s going to stay out of. Mostly because Sam has a point. “Buck, are you in on this?”

“Do you think I’d be here if I was?”

If Steve is honest with himself, he’s never been very good at gauging when someone is lying. Especially someone like Bucky, who’s made a whole lifetime out of it and hangs around with Natasha, who is literally the spy.

But this is also Bucky , who he knows like the back of his own hand. He’d know if Bucky was lying to him — unless that also means that Bucky knows him just as well, knows how to seem honest and earnest when he’s really a filthy traitor who’s in bed with the enemy.

Steve feels his eyes narrow. All these thoughts are probably written right on his face like the world’s most furious book.

Sensing that Steve’s not going to give him anything to go on, Bucky leans forward and sets his phone on the table — face down. “Steve. Do you really think I’d want to spend a day stringing you two bumpkins around and getting my head chewed off?”

He not so subtly jerks his head in Sam’s direction for that last bit. Sam is not impressed. “Gimme your phone.”

“Why?” 

Something about that seems important, Steve thinks, that it’s “why” and not a flat-out “no”. Maybe it’s manipulative. Maybe it’s genuine.

“I’m going to check your messages.” Sam says, a neat 50/50 blend of honesty and spite

Steve sighs. “Buck.”

“ Alright ,” says Bucky very condescendingly, like Steve’s some kind of family pet begging for table scraps after he’s just eaten his own dinner. Like he’s doing Steve some big favor. The tone doesn’t really do much for Steve’s suspicion — and he can see it’s not doing much for Sam either.

Nevertheless, Bucky unlocks it and hands it over. To Sam, which Steve notices and counts as a point in the honest category.  

“Don’t— don’t scroll up too far.” Bucky says.

Sam gives him a look and scrolls up as far as he can. Steve reaches over his shoulder to scroll down until they reach the right time. They’re not looking to invade Bucky’s privacy, just get some answers relevant to the topic at hand.

Me (13:08:55): Yeah only need like 5 more cnadies
Me (13:09:03): Its gone now tho

Deadly Ballerina #3 (13:33:52): Why do I see you tweeting, don’t you have a shield to find?

Deadly Ballerina #3 (13:33:56): Done with Parker’s clue yet? :P

Deadly Ballerina #3 (13:36:27): Hey

Deadly Ballerina #3 (13:36:29): Listen

Deadly Ballerina #3 (13:47:15): Don’t tell me you’ve given up that easy 

Me (13:50:03): We r w/ Rhodes

Deadly Ballerina #3 (13:50:18): Finally. Does he have his phone on him?

Me (13:50:22): ?

Deadly Ballerina #3 (13:50:30): Don’t tell me I have to teach you to read too

Me (13:50:33): ?

Me (13:50:34): ??

Me (13:50:35): ???

Deadly Ballerina #3 (13:50:35): Just a moment

Me (13:50:37): ????????????????????????

Deadly Ballerina #3 (13:50:39): Jfc

Me (13:50:44): ?¿?¿?¿?¿?

No signal. Incoming messages may be delayed.

Deadly Ballerina #3 (13:54:17): Thanks for playing!! 

Steve knows the exact moment Sam’s done reading, because he can feel his eyes on him. It’s not a very implicating conversation and Sam knows it, but he’s still angry and still suspicious because he’s Sam Wilson and Sam Wilson holds a grudge like no one Steve has ever met. Except maybe Bucky.

Bucky reaches out to take the phone back. “Satisfied?” 

When Sam doesn’t hand it over right away, Steve snatches it out of his grasp to do it for him. He slides the paper clue between the two of them. “The quicker we figure this out, the quicker you two’ll stop squabbling.”

“Unlikely,” says Sam.

Bucky physically rolls his eyes at Steve with a very sarcastic, “Sir, yes sir.”

Steve is not in the mood. He crosses his arms with an angry sigh. “‘Now listen close, for those who hear / the souls of those they hold most dear / and you may find the mighty shield / where children play on battlefields’. Who do we think that is?”

“It says ‘where’,” Sam muses, “Might be a place.”

Steve’s about to lose it.

“Might not. There’re actually a disturbing amount of child soldiers around here, when you think about it.” Bucky finishes with whatever message he’s sending and sets his phone face down. Steve opens his mouth to snap something sharp and mean at him, but Bucky continues. “But since you asked, I think it’s Natasha. I don’t know if you picked this up, but she’s got a bit of an ego.”

Sam does that thing where he really, really wants to laugh but he also really, really doesn’t want to admit that Bucky is actually funny, so it comes off as a bit of a sudden coughing fit. “Natasha? Never .”

It does make sense, Steve’ll give them that. But if they’ve learned anything from the last two clues, it’s that it’s not who the first assumption is. They need to look harder. Fortunately, there’s a lot of former child soldiers on the team. Unfortunately? Steve’s not quite sure how to frame that one. He leans over the table. “I think the key is ‘those who hear the souls of those they hold most dear’.”

“So what, we’re looking for Bruce Willis now?” Sam chuckles.

“What?” Bucky manages to keep a straight face, which really isn’t that impressive.

Steve knows he’s doing it just to mess with Sam because he knows for a fact that Bucky’s seen The Sixth Sense because Bucky tried to strongarm Steve into watching it even though he knows that Steve’s not much into that ghost stuff.

“ Focus !” Steve snaps, because his patience is rice-paper thin right now. The other two are looking right at him now: Sam a little concerned, and Bucky a little proud. He takes a deep breath, trying to calm down, but instead it just stokes the fire in his stomach like a bellows. “Someone who lost someon— It’s Wanda.”

It hits him much faster than the other two did, and he knows in his heart that it’s the right answer. He’s halfway out the door when he hears Bucky say, “Guess all that rage is good for something.”

— 

Wanda, like Rhodes, is easy to find. Thank God . On the way Steve has to steel himself not to be angry, because he’s not , he’s not angry at Wanda . He’s . . . frustrated with the situation, with himself for being an idiot, and with Bucky and Sam for being obstinate and spiteful. He’d like nothing more than to have a couple of choice words with Natasha Romanoff, even though he knows going into that conversation that he’d lose. It’s the principle of the thing. He just wants to give her a piece of his mind. A big, fat slice of what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you .

Sam and Bucky scurry out of the elevator behind him. Steve thinks Sam is saying something about a deep breath, but Steve’s at the end of his damn rope and only barely remembers to knock on Wanda’s bedroom door rather than kicking it down.

He hadn’t exactly heard what was going on before — but all of a sudden there’s silence on the other side of the door.

Steve knocks again. Politely, with his first knuckle only. It’s a lot of restraint. “Wanda, it’s me. You have a minute?”

After a moment, Wanda opens the door wide. She’s smiling, a little hesitant — did he knock too hard? Whoops. He hopes he didn’t scare her. Wanda’s got a thicker shell than most of the team, and she doesn’t really come out of it around everybody. She’s been working on it, though. Steve’s proud of her.

But right now, as he watches her lips form the words, “What did you need, Steve?” in slow motion, something behind her glints red, white, and blue.

It’s the shield. It’s leaning against Wanda’s bed, and sitting next to it is Natasha. All of a sudden the fire in Steve’s gut settles into a cool, steely rage. He’s not sure if it’s Wanda’s doing or not. He glances back over — it isn’t, she just looks confused.

Wanda looks over her shoulder to see what he’s looking at. “Oh, yes, Natasha was just explaining to me the treasure hunt.”

“Winner, winner, chicken dinner.” Natasha grins, wiggling her fingers at them.

Behind Steve, Bucky mutters, “See, I was right.”

“Steve was right.” Sam sighs. Never one to miss an opportunity.

“You were both right,” says Natasha. “You can let them in, Wanda.”

Stepping to the side, Wanda nails Steve with a friendly smile, “It all sounds very fun. Clues and puzzles. I thought that maybe we could take something of Clint’s next time, but he doesn’t have very many things.”

“I could get behind that,” Sam agrees.

Steve, Sam, and Bucky make their way into Wanda’s room. He’s pretty sure it’s the first time Sam and Bucky have even been in here, but Steve likes it; she keeps it neat, and there are more things on the walls now than when she first moved in. More personal touches. The guitar in the corner is well-loved and cared for, rather than just an accent that the decorator might’ve thought a young woman would like. Wanda doesn’t seem particularly uncomfortable or defensive now that all of them are in her space, and that makes Steve glad. It also makes him want to set some parameters about private quarters being off-limits when this inevitably happens again.

His beeline for the shield is obvious — Steve goes for it anyway. Natasha steps in front of him and dramatically stops a running timer on her phone. “Well done, Rogers, you’ve set a team record.”

“I had help.” He quips, and tries keep his eyes off the shield. It’s right behind her .

“Here’s your prize.”

Steve tries not to be eager or dramatic about it, but he can’t help but reach out when she hands the shield over. He takes it in his hands and —

It’s wrong . He feels it instantly.

The shield she handed him is barely too heavy, like there’s some kind of device attached somewhere that only weighs an ounce or two. Steve checks it over — there’s nothing to be found. It looks perfect, the wear on the straps is in the exact same places, even the paint strokes on the front from his own on-mission repair of a minor scratch — the same consistency of the car paint he ended up using.

By the time he slides it onto his arm, he knows it’s showing on his face. Natasha tilts her head and innocently calls his name. “Steve?”

Steve slides it off his arm and offers it back. “I don’t like coming in second.”

“What do you mean?” She doesn’t take it — she knows perfectly damn well that he knows it’s a fake. He can see the glint in her eye. “Steve, you won. You figured out all three clues.”

He’s not playing this game anymore. It feels like forever is stretching out in front of him, with the shield on the other side of eternity. “Where’s the real one, Nat?”

“The real one?”

Behind him, Bucky, Sam, and Wanda have stopped scheming over what of Clint’s to steal and hide in the next version of this sick cycle. Steve can feel their attention boring into his back. It’s fueling him — he takes half a step closer to Natasha, using his full height to tower over her even though he knows she’ll never be truly intimidating. It feels a little like peacocking, but it feels good to have some kind of advantage. She looks straight up at him like she's the real super soldier here, and he's just some two-bit chump playing into her hands. He doesn't like how much it feels like the truth.

“Give me my shield, Nat.”

She laughs. “It’s right here—”

“Natasha.”

She sets it down and leans it against the bed again with the biggest shit-eating grin on her face. It’s such a smooth break between innocent player and game master that it takes Steve a second to notice that the switch has even flipped. “Tony has it.”

He can’t help but heave a frustrated sigh. “Are you serious?”

“He said he needed something to serve those little cocktail shrimps on for one of his benefits.” Nastah says flippantly, like Tony Stark is a force of nature that she’s somehow powerless to stop. “Who else do you think would make a fake so quickly?”

It makes sense, and he hates that. It explains why Tony was so relaxed about being disturbed, why and how the watch back was faked — it even explains why it was Rhodes’ watch.

“Why.” Is all Steve manages at first. It doesn’t even come out a question. “Why does Tony have it.”

“He’s been muttering about your shitty paint job for weeks. Told me he wanted a chance to fix it, but I knew you wouldn’t let it go without a fight.”

“So you needed to distract me.” He crosses his arms. Behind him is the very distinct sound of Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes choking back laughter. Even Wanda is giggling; Natasha must’ve told her everything.

“Hey, it worked.” She chuckles. “And these two little ducklings came too, that was fun to watch on the CCTV.” Sam stops laughing immediately. Bucky flips her off.

“I’m going to go have another talk with Tony.” Steve stalks to the doorway. He jabs a finger in Natasha’s direction. “When I’m done, though, I’m coming for you.”

“I’ll be waiting.” She grins, with all the certainty of someone who, when the time comes, will be nowhere to be found.