As all along, I love the fairy tale nature of this, the epithets and the profusion of recognizable characters put into fairy tale mode. The soldier and the smith are wonderful.

Thanks so much! This whole thing was really fun to write, and not just because it let me do Victorian/Fairytale Narrator Voice for thirty-something pages (I'd forgotten how much fun pastiche can be - I think my last Three Musketeers fic was, like, two years ago). It was really fun trying to find places to fit everyone on, and to work little references and allusions to comics canon in while still keeping it all fairytale-style.

I love that the soldier's journey brought others together as well.

It's funny - that part wasn't necessarily something I originally intended to do. This started out as just a Steve/Tony story, but it turned into an Avengers fairytale somewhere along the way, as I had more and more fun sticking cameos in. Once I had Wanda in the story, I had to put Vision in, and then I couldn't not give them a happy ending, and then when I had Bucky telling Steve what had happened to everyone at the end, I didn't want Sam to have to be all alone, so I had him and Bucky go off together (Clint, alas, was doomed to widowerhood by the original story's ending).