The morning had started out ordinary. A crisp Manhattan breeze, the distant blare of taxi horns, the low hum of conversations near the crosswalk outside Avengers Tower. Y/n had Ollie’s hand in hers, his small fingers warm and fidgeting, when the world erupted.

Tires shrieked. A black SUV swerved off the street, jumped the curb, and barreled toward them with the kind of speed that left no time to run. Pedestrians screamed. Somewhere behind them, a horn blared. And then Ollie moved.

The boy stepped in front of Y/n, planted his sneakers against the pavement, and caught the front end of the SUV with both hands. Metal crumpled around his palms like tinfoil. The impact should have crushed him. Instead, Ollie let out a sharp grunt and threw the vehicle across the street. It flipped twice, crashed into an empty newsstand, and came to rest on its roof.

Silence fell like a curtain.

Steam hissed from the wreckage. Broken glass glittered across the asphalt. And not thirty feet away, just stepping out of a convoy of black vehicles, the Avengers stood frozen. All of them. Because they had just watched a ten-year-old boy throw a two-ton SUV like it was a dodgeball.

But Steve Rogers wasn't looking at the wreckage. He was looking at Y/n. The woman he'd let go ten years ago. The woman he'd never stopped loving. And then his gaze dropped to the boy still standing protectively in front of her — blond hair, blue eyes, that same stubborn set to his jaw.

Steve's shield arm went slack at his side. His heart slammed against his ribs.