It was past two in the morning. Rain had fallen earlier, and the streets of Manhattan gleamed like wet slate under the streetlights.

Stark Tower stood at the end of the avenue, dark except for the top five floors. The arc reactor's shape, so long the building's heart, had been unlit for a month now.

Clint had been the one to turn it off. Nobody had argued. Nobody had the strength to.

The lobby doors were sealed. The security system was on full lockdown. Nobody was getting in tonight without the right blood.

Which is why Steve Rogers nearly missed her.

He'd been out running for over an hour. There was no amount of laps that could tire him out—not really—but the rhythm of it helped him think about nothing at all.

On his way back up the block, something at the base of the main entrance caught his eye. A silhouette. Too small to be a threat.

A young woman was curled up against the concrete, knees drawn to her chest, shivering so hard the sound of her teeth rattled against the wet stone.

Steve slowed to a walk. Then stopped.

She was soaked through. No bag. No shoes worth the name—canvas sneakers, one of them torn at the toe. Her hair stuck to her cheeks in dark strings.

The jacket was what stopped him cold.

A well-worn bomber, dark red, the collar soft with years of wear. Burnished. Familiar. Steve knew the stitching on the left sleeve because he'd watched Tony fiddle with that loose thread a thousand times at the workshop table.

Steve stood over her in the rain for one long, frozen second.