House of X: New Birth (Twenty)
"Nick's already a pretty decent boss," Steve said with a sigh. "When Carter gave birth, he gave her more than half a year of paid maternity leave, and even a pretty generous childbirth subsidy. But my discharge pay and veterans' benefits still haven't come through. Guess they really can't get them approved."
"Of course they can't," Stark said. "The US Military hasn't had discharge pay for ages. And the premise for veterans' benefits is that you had to have been discharged normally, and you still have to meet a whole pile of conditions. Someone like you, who was already listed as killed in action, absolutely can't get them."
"And like you said, Nick counts as a good boss. Because in your situation, not only can you not get discharge pay, you might even be sued for defrauding them of death compensation."
"The problem is I never got any death compensation!"
"Just because it didn't land in your hands doesn't mean they didn't pay it out. As for where it went, that definitely can never be found out. I'm afraid they thought about using this to threaten you a long time ago, and Nick just blocked them."
Steve leaned back against his chair too, his face full of despair. "You're saying they didn't just block my benefits, they even wanted to sue me for faking my death to scam death compensation?"
"That's already the best-case scenario. In fact, I've heard rumors that the military considered publicizing you as a deserter who used fake death to escape the war and failed to fulfill his duties as a soldier..."
"But when I died, they went all out publicizing me as a hero."
"Times change." Stark shook his head and said, "When they can use you, of course