Steve stops half-way down to the basement, almost missing a step.

"It's all right," he says, automatically, sympathetically. It's not like slips like that don't happen almost every day. They still feel like knives corkscrewed into his chest, but people miss things. They talk about it. Just most of them don't miss seventy years all at once. He clears his throat silently and reaches the bottom of the stairs, where they open out again into a carpeted alcove and a narrow hall made of steel-reinforced concrete supposedly wired with several thousand volts behind the walls, just in case Hulk decides to try smashing its way out of the building.

Guilt and sorrow at the misuse of Erskine's work settle comfortably into the empty spot left by the reminder of Steve's own loss. "Well. I guess I should hang up, since I'm here."

It's really, really weird to talk to someone who's on the other side of a door just a short distance away with a tiny little phone that has no wires. Steve hooks a smile at nothing and makes his way to the end of the hall, still not putting the phone away. He doesn't like hanging up first.