Chapter Text
Tony keeps sending Steve flowers.
Which would be weird enough if they were just bouquets left outside Steve's door for him to trip over when he got back to the Tower at night. Yeah. That would be weird. Steve would probably sigh a lot and ask Tony to please stop, probably while blushing, because this is Steve after all and somehow this is his life now.
But no, actually, Tony keeps sending Steve flowers while he's on missions for Fury. Top secret missions. To Russia, Afghanistan, China. Rough, usually mountainous terrain. The flowers usually appear when he's been on his own for days, sneaking up on the borders of some secret base, when even he isn't quite sure where he is anymore.
And sometimes they appear in the middle of a firefight. Like right now.
Steve raises his arm, catching the shield and throwing it again in one smooth motion. He's captured a gun from one of the AIM lackeys (who were never even supposed to know he was here, dammit) and he fires it at the technician to his left before he can raise his own weapon and get off a shot. The elevator door above the control station and to the right starts to open, and Steve's just getting a bead on the occupant while reaching out for his shield when he hears the unmistakable sound of a bullet hitting metal about two feet behind him.
Steve squeezes off a shot, taking down elevator man, spins on a dime and pushes the robot to the side as he gets off one last shot, right to the chest, and the last of the AIM goons is out for the count. (It's a stun gun, this time, for which Steve is infinitely thankful.)
He rises to his feet, letting out a breath and looking carefully around the remains of the control room. There's a computer, right where Bruce had suggested it would be. He pulls the USB key out of the pocket at his belt and goes to plug it in, and as he does so the robot moves itself between Steve and the computer.
This one is hovering in the air - Steve can't tell how, but it is, somehow. It's roughly cone-shaped, made of silvery metal; the base of the cone, towards the ground, is impaled in a sphere. At the thicker top is a glass-covered dome, and as Steve watches the dome slides up and thin arms with pincers at the ends extrude from the sides. The left pincer reaches up, plucks out a single tiger lily, and extends the flower toward Steve.
It tilts forward, like it's bowing. The dome falls shut and Steve can't help but think of a gentleman doffing his top hat.
He reaches out and takes the flower. "… Thanks?"
The robot hums, and a long sheet of paper extends from a slot in the front. Steve rips it off.
You're welcome, Cap! MWAH.
While Steve's reading this vitally important missive, the robot has zoomed off, flying up through the jagged hole in the roof, the result of one of the AIM tech's jittery fingers on the weapon they'd been developing.
Steve sighs.
That's the other thing: Tony's flowers are delivered by robots. Because of course they are.
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Later, when he's called in his abysmal failure at stealth and SHIELD has coptered in to take control of the facility, Steve wanders a few meters into the forest and calls Tony, connecting through SHIELD's portable cell phone tower.
"Steve! Hey! How's it going? I heard you fucked up Fury's plans again, nice job."
"Tony, what's going on?"
"Good question! You're usually the golden boy, it's not like you to blow something this - "
"One of your robots just saved my life."
"… what?" Steve can almost hear Tony blinking through the connection.
"Yeah, one of your dumb flower robots took a bullet for me in there. What's going on with them, Tony?"
"Oh. Um. You okay?"
"Yes! I'm fine! Tony, why are you sending flower-delivering robots to look after me?"
"It's not supposed to - they're just delivery - bullet, you said? Bulletproof? Is the robot okay too?"
"Yes, Tony, it took off right away just like all the others. Come on, what's -"
"Yes! Bulletproof! Awesome! That's awesome, I am a genius, Jarvis, make a note, add that to the catalog."
"Catalog? Tony, for the last time, what are you up to?"
"Ah, um. Well. You ever hear of a company called Wrylon Robotical?"
Steve leans back, knocks his head into a tree.
"Umm, it sounds kind of familiar. Something people told stories about? Race cars, I think? One of the guys used to go on about how hard it was to get parts for his Renault since the company - no - no, Tony, seriously?"
"Yep. I own their little mechanical asses."
"What - but - how? Didn't the company disappear or something?"
"Yeah, I don't know, I've been trying to work out exactly what happened. There's an empty lot in Missouri that was part of my parent's estate - well, technically, my mom's. I've never done anything with it, and no one's ever tried to buy it from me, so I kind of forgot it existed. Until two months ago."
"Hmm." Two months ago is when Tony sent Steve the first flower, a single rose delivered to the Yukon Territories by something that Steve could only describe as an AT-ST (since Bruce and Clint had forced him to watch Star Wars over Christmas).
"Yeah. There's a big factory there, all of a sudden. And a greenhouse. No people, no technicians, it just started churning out these robots and flowers. The first I knew of it was when Pepper asked me about the new website showing up as a charge to my corporate account."
"Wait, you're telling me you're, what, Rhoderick Wrylon's great-grandson? And you didn't know about this already?"
"Yeah, no, I dunno. I think he's my mom's great-uncle or something? Or maybe his wife was Mom's great-aunt? Look, by the time she was even born it was only an empty lot! All I know about this I've had to dig up."
"And you don't know why the company disappeared. Or, for that matter, reappeared."
"Nope, but I'm working on it. Cap, you don't even - this place is amazing. I can hardly believe it was built a hundred years ago. Perfectly clean energy powering thousands of robots remotely, all over the world - if I can crack this it'll make the arc reactor look like a coal-burning fireplace."
"Hmm." Steve frowns, and runs his hand through his hair. "Tony, it sounds too good to be true. Just - "
"Look, I'm being careful, all right? I don't know what this is, it could disappear from under me at any time, yadda yadda. But this is mine. It belongs to me, I know it belongs to me, and it's not going to hurt me. I have to figure this out - I have plenty of time, it stuck around for six years before. As long as no one goes crazy with the distance, this should last for a good long while. So you can just - just - "
Tony's voice drops, still into something less manic, more purposeful. " … just come home soon, okay?"
Steve sighs, drops his forehead onto his hand. "Tony, I -"
"And anyway, don't you think these little guys are just adorable?"