Steve took a drink of coffee, staring out over the New York harbor at the Statue of Liberty. He'd grown out a beard to make it harder to recognize him and so the stares were a little less now than they had been when he'd first retired. This was his little morning devotion, coming out here, sitting at the table in the quiet, saying a prayer or two, drawing and thinking till he ran out of thoughts. The owner knew him and didn't mind if he loitered. Steve had saved his grandfather in the war apparently, which made Steve feel old but it was useful.

"Her name, Mother of Exiles," said a familiar woman's voice from behind him, "from her beacon-hand glows world wide welcome."

"Daisy," Steve said, feeling a smile form on his face as turned around to see Daisy in a business casual blouse and slacks, holding a cup of coffee in her own hand. And then he saw the press badge and the smile fell off his face. "What're you doing here?"

"Oh, don't get so defensive," Daisy said, taking a sip of her coffee. "Not here for a story, just getting some coffee, checking the view."

"Nat tell you it was good?" Steve asked.

"Nah, the fact that I saw you as I was walking by did," Daisy said, plopping down into the empty chair across from him.

"Please, sit down," Steve said, closing his drawing book.

"I knew you wouldn't mind," Daisy said, slumping back in the chair. He didn't mind, though he still thought it was a little rude. At least Daisy treated him like a peer and not something between a holy relic and a grandpa. "How's art school going?"

"Good," Steve said. The kids at the art school definitely did not treat him like a peer. To be fair, he thought of them as kids, so tall talk from him on that front. "Did the Johnsons come through that way?"

"Don't know," Daisy said, "You know my dad's a bit unstable, we exchange letters, haven't thought to ask. The Rogers?"

"No," Steve said. In a lot of ways, Daisy's family situation was the opposite of his own – By the age she'd met them, he had buried his. "The Rogers have been in New England since the Mayflower or near enough, got my middle name from my Grandpa, named for the general his dad fought under. His dad's name was Andrew, his dad's name was George, you get the picture. Mom's family were German, got here in time to see the statue. She said it was the most stunning sight she'd ever seen. To be fair, she was six at the time, not a lot of competition."

Daisy looked at Steve and her forehead creased, the sort of look people got whenever they remembered everybody he'd loved was dead or in a nursing home, made Steve feel like a wounded lion. "She must've been cool."

"Yeah, she was. Would've liked that you remembered the line from Lazarus. Made me memorize the whole thing."

"She wasn't offended by the line about wretched refuse?"

Steve laughed at that. He hadn't even thought of that, but it did sound a little suspect when you thought about it. "Mom hated Europe, said it was, well," he took a sip of his drink rather than reference it directly. It was a low opinion, didn't need to be repeated. "Part of why her family came. Immigrants had it real tough back then, although at least they weren't Irish. She liked that the statue said everybody was wanted, everybody belonged. Except aristocrats. Mom didn't like aristocrats, either."

Daisy grinned, "Yeah, keep that storied pomp!" A comfortable silence stretched for a moment before Daisy got very serious again. "How're you really doing?"

"I'm doing okay," Steve said, holding up his sketchbook. "Grab a drink with Ward every week, Nat stops by when she's in town. Visit Peggy when it's my turn to make it to D.C. Draw mostly full time, I can always sell it, get a bit better every day. Life's not bad."

"You're bored shitless huh."

"Language."

"Sorry," Daisy said, actually managing to blush a little bit.

"At least you don't treat me like a preacher all the time." Steve said, feeling badly for having embarrassed her. "I'm bored, yeah. How about you, how's life as a muckraker treating you?"

"Oh gosh," Daisy said, "The expectations have been so high! I mean, Rising Tide blew open SHIELD. So I got this job doing investigative stuff and I'm okay at it, whistleblowers trust me, but I just constantly feel a little bit outclassed. Like, I'm not supposed to break into buildings or round house kick people routinely any more, but those are some of my best skills."

"I know exactly that feeling," Steve said.

"Here's to us," Daisy said, holding up her cup over the table. "May we find some buildings that need breaking into!"

Steve gave her a look.

"What? Too aggressive? Alright fine, here's to us," and then she motioned to him to finish it out.

Steve held up his cup and said, "May we be put to good use,"

"May we be put to good use!" Daisy agreed, knocking her cup into his.

----

"Woh, okay," Steve said holding up his hand to Ward after they reached the end up of the lap. The grass of the park was green in the early summer light. "I think that's all the running I can do."

"Take away the Extremis and this is what is left," Ward said, shaking his head and coming to a full stop.

"Your feet are also made of vibranium," Steve said, sitting down, soaked in sweat. "But I don't miss the shots."

"Nobody misses the shots," Ward agreed, plopping down next to him. "Do you miss the service?"

Steve shook his head, "I haven't missed out on anything important, don't miss fighting some random schmucks for some minor international grievance."

"I get it," Ward nodded. "The fire's kind of gone out of the work for me."

Steven grunted. Ward had mentioned a few times that Garrett was being a, well, that he was being difficult. Garrett was like a father to Ward, had taken him in when he'd had nobody – Steve got how important that was, even if the dynamic with Bucky had been different. "I'm sure you could find other work, but I doubt you will."

"No," Ward agreed, looking out over the park. "I'm doing okay – I'm junior team lead under Rumlowe, so it's decent. Lot of drills. Not a lot going on really – All quiet from our perspective. There are domestic political disputes, but SWORD doesn't get involved in those."

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Steve watched as people ran past them, "Been a lot of those recently."

---

"Hey you guys," Daisy said, sliding into the booth next to Nat, "Sorry I'm late. Things have been crazy with India." The big Italian restaurant was Ward's choice, a sort of elegant, upper-classish establishment that Steve could only afford because his artwork sold.

India had been the latest government to slide into authoritarianism and Steve saw Nat sag visibly at the mention of it. They all felt a little beat down. It had been a bad couple of years for democracy. Even Ward looked uncomfortable and he mostly shrugged off that sort of thing, his disgust with politicians overriding everything else.

"It sucks," Steve said, by way of greeting, "We get it. Need a drink?" Daisy was the only one of them who could get drunk, so they'd gone ahead and ordered her a wine when she was late. It happened, Daisy's work was important, Steve got it. It made him increasingly frustrated, even, since he was mostly sitting around drawing and waiting for the world to end.

"Yes," Daisy said, grabbing the wine and taking a chug of it.

"Slow down there killer," Ward said, his voice amused.

"Mm," Daisy held up a finger and kept drinking for a long second before she put her drink down. "Not a killer, don't tell me what to do."

"Alright, well, if you drink it that fast, you miss the taste."

"Taste," Daisy said in a terrible high English accent, grabbing a napkin to dab her mouth, pinching it in a very lady-like way for Daisy, "Is an inferior substitute to insobriety, with which you super-soldiers must console yourselves."

"Her sentences are getting so much longer and more complex," Ward said to Nat.

"She's got word counts," Nat said knowingly.

"Glad to have you with us, Daisy," Steve said, elbowing Ward in the side. To his regret. He kept forgetting that Ward was basically made of the same stuff as Cap's old shield. He snorted at Steve and shook his head.

"It's so frustrating," Daisy said, immediately launching into a rant. "They do all this marching and complaining and they point out corruption and they get nothing. Heartwood might bestir herself to put something through committee but the Bipartisan Blob just chokes it right out again. America is watching democracy die right outside its window and it isn't even doing anything. One and a half billion people have lost the right to determine their own leadership in less than a year. America needs to stand up and doing something about that, not put it off in the name of expediency."

Steve looked down at his drink. Daisy's words were a reminder of that promise he'd made to himself when Roosevelt talked about the arsenal of democracy. He felt like he should do something – But these weren't wars, he couldn't sign up to go fight and that might have been a war crime anyway. Plus, Steve had the weight of a responsibility now, he needed to consider how his actions might reflect on the country.

Oh that was a lot of nonsense. He needed to stop making excuses and start standing up for what he thought was right.

"Daisy, when's the next march here?"

"You're gonna go?" Daisy said, suddenly very hyped up. "It's Friday, the organizers are whipping it together as fast as they can."

"I'm going," Steve said, "As myself. Not as Captain America. Just a guy."

Daisy nodded, "That'll work."

---

The crowd was big – Steve didn't think it was big enough. He couldn't see everyone, but he knew enough about group estimation that he thought there were thousands and thousands out for the sympathy march with India's democracy to the United Nations building in New York. There were a bunch of people out, anti-SWORD signs, anti-IMF signs, signs with what were to Steve ominous slogans like America First, and just a ton of signs that said things like, 'how long till it happens here?'

Like a lot of protests, it had a vaguely party atmosphere and there was a loose camaraderie that might attain to the feeling of a picket line in a good moment. But these people were all still too disparate, nobody knew anybody, and it seemed like Steve could go the whole day without talking to anyone if he looked ahead and said the chant.

It might've worked too, if Daisy hadn't appeared at his shoulder. Nat had taught her stealth too well.

"Daisy," Steve said, looking over at her. She was in a big coat to protect her against the November air, a press badge for the far-left outlet she worked for hanging around her neck. "I hope I'm not making it into the paper."

"Wouldn't want to scare Captain America off with a camera or a quote recorder," Daisy said, walking in step with him as they moved through the crowd.

"It's nice to be at one of these again," Steve said, reassured that Daisy wasn't going to expose him to the press. "I haven't been to a protest since '41."

"I've been to so many in the last year," Daisy said, her eyes scanning the crowd in the way Steve would expect from an agent looking for threats. "They're fun, big ones like this are kind of samey."

"Well, big ones like this are the kind that can work," Steve said, the procession moving along amicably.

Just then they heard a megaphone announcement, "They're saying we can't go ahead – The United Nations is having an emergency session."

Daisy was instantly pushing towards the front of the crowd, but even though she had super-powers and could probably beat most people in the fist fight, she wasn't very big and the crowd was fairly thick. Steve grabbed her hand and pushing his way through the crowd to the front, "Don't put this in the story," he said, as they moved forward to the front of the crowd.

"It's embarrassing so don't worry," Daisy said, following closely behind him.

Soon enough, they were making it to the police barricades, which were apparently actively swelling. Soon, Daisy had spotted a leader of the protest and walked up to the gray haired woman in a SWORD into PLOWSHARES shirt, flashing her press badge as Steve hung back. "What's happening?"

"Asgard just arrived in Norway."

"You mean Thor?"

"No," the woman said, "The whole population of Asgard."