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“I have an idea. Can we just pretend the day ended with that really badass Superfriends pose we did?”
Stark had his hand in his face, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. Steve just tilted his head back, letting the bag of frozen lima beans slip from the cut on his forehead to cover his eyes.
“I liked the Superfriends pose,” Barton said. “It was a good moment.”
Barton was sitting on the counter of the medical waiting room they were all crowded into, his head ducked slightly to fit underneath the cupboards on the ceiling. Romanoff, the last Steve looked, had been sitting in a battered office chair pulled up next to his thigh, working her way through a cheap-looking wine cooler.
“Would have been better if we’d managed to put that arrow in Loki’s eyesocket,“ she said.
Thor made a wordless rumbling sound, and Steve didn’t have to remove the beans from his eyes to know that he was glaring at the Widow.
Despite being the only one of them who didn’t seem to need medical attention, Thor was on the examination chair. It was the only chair he fit in.
Dr. Banner was passed out on a cot that had been pushed against the far wall. Stark was sharing the space, crowded onto the foot of the cot with Banner’s feet in his lap. When an extremely harried medical tech had led Steve into the room, he’d looked around for a long second and opted to sit in a squeaky, wobbly little stool.
“All right, I’ve gotta cop to it,“ Stark said suddenly. “This one’s on me. My fault. You all had a good effort going there.”
The silence, already awkward, became more pronounced, and Steve could feel his brow furrow underneath the lima beans.
“You’ve always got to be the center of attention, don't you?” Romanoff said, and to Steve’s surprise her voice sounded fond and amused.
“If I hadn’t spazzed out, Loki would be in chains instead of sitting pretty with two weapons of as-of-yet-undetermined destructive power,” Stark said.
“The Tinker Toy in your chest hasn’t blipped for two years,“ Romanoff retorted. “I think it’s safe to say that it wouldn’t have 'spazzed' if you hadn’t done what you did to take care of that nuke. As unnerving as it is to think we’ll have to handle Loki again, I know I prefer that to massive loss of life.”
Steve tilted his head back up with a sigh, letting the frozen beans fall into his hand. “I don’t think anyone could’ve asked more from you than what you did,“ Steve said, meeting Stark’s eyes. “You were a distraction. But I got my ass thoroughly kicked by Loki because my head wasn’t in the game.”
“You were tired, Cap,” Barton muttered. “We should’ve had your back.”
“I let Loki distract me,” Steve responded. “You can’t help that your heart device malfunctioned, but I let Loki throw me off with a bunch of lies about—“ He broke off.
“Let me guess, he got personal,” Romanoff said. “Stuff he shouldn’t have known.”
Steve nodded. “He got in my head. If I’d held out we could have at least recovered the scepter.”
“You have all fought valiantly today,” Thor spoke finally. “Loki escaped because such is his talent, perhaps above all else. To bring him to justice was my task, and I have failed it, but without your intervention my failure might have been even graver than what we see now.” He looked around the room, taking time to make eye contact with all of them except Banner, who was snoring faintly. “For that, I thank you.”
“Well, thanks. Thanks for thanking us. You guys hungry? We had a good workout,” Stark said. “If you’re up for shawarma I’ll order in.”
Romanoff shared a glance with Barton and shrugged. “I’m going nowhere fast.”
“You ever had shawarma, Mrs. Smith? You seem like a worldly type.” Stark whipped out a phone.
“I don’t care what we eat as long as it gets here fast and is packed with carbs,” Romanoff said. “Pull the trigger.”
“You heard the lady, JARVIS,” Stark said. “I need you to connect the dots between a metric ton of shawarma, all of us, and a delivery person in want of a several thousand dollar tip. Make sure there are vegetarian options for the conscientious objector here.”
He nudged Banner’s knee as he spoke, and Banner came awake with a start. Stark leaned over, peering at his face. “Hey big guy, stay pasty, OK? We’re gonna feed you.”
“Tony?” Banner groaned. “Are you okay? I thought the Hulk hit you.”
“No, no. Hulk saved me.” Stark patted Banner’s shin.
“I really thought he hit you,” Banner muttered, turning to face the wall.
“Definitely not. I’d have noticed. Keep dreaming though, maybe next time. You’re vegetarian, right?”
“Not even a little bit, no.” Banner pulled a jacket over his face. “Just wake me up again when the food gets here, I don’t care what it is.”
“Sure thing. JARVIS, any takers?“
Stark’s phone responded— a voice with cool, electronic tones. “Indeed. I’ve taken the liberty of purchasing all the remaining food items from the restaurant that caught your eye earlier. The owners would like to know where they should direct their delivery people.”
“Ah. The penthouse is trashed, yes. What about the guest floor, is that doing all right?“
“Yes, sir. You may relocate there now if you please.”
“Excellent.” Stark clapped and stood, shoving Banner’s feet off his lap. “Barton’s got his Neosporin, Cap, you bring your lima beans — Thor, you done bleeding on that bandage?”
Thor looked down, peeling his borrowed t-shirt up to reveal his abs and also the bandage covering his stab wound. “It is well,” Thor said. “Loki inflicted far deeper wounds than this in jest, many times.”
“Then we’re good to hang out somewhere less depressing,” Stark said. “You’ll like it. I don’t think there’s even any structural damage there.”
“You do not require further attention from your doctors?” Thor asked.
“The arrhythmia’s cleared up, blood pressure and heart rate is normal,” Stark shrugged. “Beyond that, there is only one expert on the arc reactor, and I can do my scans better anywhere but here. Romanoff, you just grab that entire bottle of Aleve they gave you, we’re keeping it. And I’ll take this,” he added, wheeling Banner’s cot out in front of him.
—
“And then, aglow with righteous fury, the Lady Sif approached the knave with the goat in tow, and tossed the beast into the man’s bed, which went as well for him as you might imagine—“ Thor stopped to drink something brown and alcoholic, which he downed like it was Gatorade, and to let his audience chuckle.
“Then she said, ‘Here is your bride, fool. Seal this sacred bond with a kiss,’ and lest any doubt the zeal of the Lady Sif you should all know she let neither goat nor man leave that bed until a kiss had been bestowed. ‘Twas a most bloody kiss,” Thor finished, and they all cackled.
Natasha laughed loudest of them all, surprisingly to Steve, who had thought she was the most reserved of the lot of them, but it seemed that was only a strong professionalist exterior— or the flush of several glasses of peach sangria overtaking her natural reserve.
“I really, really need you to introduce me to that woman,” Natasha snickered. “Better yet, she should come stay here awhile.”
“Aye, the Lady Sif is always pleased to test her mettle against another warrior of her sex. I do not know when I could arrange such a meeting, however. It may be some time.”
“Why’s that?”
“The traditional bridge between our worlds, the Bifrost, is broken. My father summoned a great deal of power to transport me to halt Loki’s transgressions in this realm, but the Tesseract was needed to bring me back.”
“Oh. Dude.”
“In truth, I am almost glad,” Thor said. “Had we succeeded I should have returned to Asgard immediately, and I would not have been able to see the friends I made in my first visit here.”
“You need a place to stay, big guy? I’d say you can crash on my couch but I don’t think you’d fit, and also I can do way better with my accommodations than a couch,” Stark said. “You’re all welcome to stay, as a matter of fact. This floor has several guest suites.”
“I don’t know about that. I’ve already got a permanent roommate in my body,” Bruce said, taking another lazy bite of food. “Not sure that kind of cohabitation should stack.”
“Your place in Calcutta wasn’t exactly a semi-detached townhouse, doc,” Natasha said.
“Yeah, but I didn’t have to share my milk.”
“We can expand the space to be a little less in each other’s pockets,” Stark offered. “Tower’s being renovated anyway, I’m sure you all noticed demo has already started.”
“Look, I can’t do it,” Bruce said. “No way. People are out for my blood, literally the government wants my blood. I gotta go back into hiding.”
“I’m not actually homeless, I just kind of look like it,” Barton said. “I’m definitely not pretty enough to be a kept man.”
Thor shook his head. “The offer is kind, Stark, but I desire to resume my courtship with the lady Jane Foster whilst the chance yet remains,” he demurred.
“I’m not gonna be the only one to hang around you, I know how that looks,” Natasha said.
Stark sighed. “Yeah, alright, I see how it is. You crazy kids are too cool for school. What about you, Captain?”
Steve blew out a long breath. “I… don’t know.” He wanted to shrug, wanted to mention the vague notion he’d had of getting on his motorcycle and going to see the rest of the country he died for. He just didn’t seem to have the energy.
“Fury’s been wanting me to pick up missions for SHIELD,” Steve said instead, turning to stare out the windows at the city below, buzzing with emergency workers and faintly smoking. “I guess I’ll take him up on that. Get back in the game.“
Nobody said anything for a long time, and it was almost silent except for the sounds of Banner still chewing his shawarma. Steve’s head hurt.
“I have reconsidered,“ Thor broke the silence. “In this realm it is important to make amends for the destruction you cause. I must help the people here repair their city, and it would be best to take respite nearby.”
“People are kind of frothing at the mouth right now,” Romanoff pointed out. “It couldn’t hurt to put in some visible volunteer hours, maybe release a statement.”
“With Loki on the loose, it might be a good idea to knock the rough edges off of this teamwork thing,” Barton said.
“You really want to drag me into this, huh,” Bruce groaned. “Did you miss all the times the U.S. Government has sent tanks after me?”
“SHIELD is on your side, Bruce,” Natasha said. “That’s not nothing. And Fury wasn’t the only person unimpressed by Ross’ performance on bringing you in.”
“Seriously, between SHIELD’s pull and my legal team, we can keep the government off you. My legal staff is terrifying, practically inhuman— Natalie here fit right in,” Stark said. Natasha nailed him in the face with a pillow, and Steve, funnily enough, found himself smiling.
“Alright, we’re set up and good to go. Fury’s going to release the helicarrier footage to us at a later date, so for right now it’s just what JARVIS has been able to compile from OTS footage and the Tower’s own surveillance systems,” Stark explained, walking in from the kitchen and gesturing one-handed at the screen array in front of them. “And I brought popcorn.”
It smelled amazing. Steve’s stomach growled audibly, and Tony leaned over the couch to pass the bowl to him.
It tasted amazing too, and made him feel a little better about the idea of facing the footage of Loki handing him his ass.
“Let’s start with the stuff from the Tower,” Natasha said, and reached over to steal some of Steve’s popcorn. “We’ve more or less got a bead on how everything happened up until then — start with all of us returning here after the nuke, we can track ourselves in the footage. JARVIS, can you throw up timestamps please?”
Timestamps appeared in the bottom right corner of the footage, frozen on a shot of them all cornering Loki from the viewpoint of the elevator. Tony ducked out of the room again and returned with two more bowls of popcorn, handing one of them off to Natasha, who promptly stole a piece from Tony’s.
“JARVIS says there’s a lot of anomalous footage for us to review as well, stuff he doesn’t think can be pinned entirely on Loki,” Tony said, and sat in the chair next to Steve. He was warm, Steve noted.
“How many hours of footage have we got here?” Steve asked.
“There are roughly 6.7 hours of footage for review, Captain Rogers,” JARVIS responded.
“Start it up, J,” Tony said. “I’m gonna review the diagnostic for the arc reactor, a little light multitasking.”
Will you be able to fix it? Steve wanted to ask. The thing had stopped working twice in as many hours that day, and it had left him feeling unaccountably anxious about the state of Tony’s heart. He doubted Tony would appreciate his anxiety, though.
The footage started rolling. “I’ll take that drink now,” Loki’s voice said, and Steve cast one last look at Tony’s face, lit from under by the glow of his tablet, before focusing on the task at hand.
It didn’t take long for the first anomaly to show up — down in the lobby, while Secretary Pierce was trying to get Tony to hand over the Tesseract.
“I’m really just saying, that guy was shifty as hell,” Tony said, watching as Pierce grabbed his own forearm. “Aaannnd there I go. Ouch.”
“Shifty?” Steve asked.
“Weird. He practically had the shakes about getting the Cube from me,” Tony said absently. “Wait, — you guys saw that, right? No one kicked the case, it just went flying, and…”
“Who the hell is that guy?” Natasha frowned, her eyes tracking the man in SHIELD gear who had scooped up the case and was headed for the stairs and, coincidentally, the fire exit.
But no sooner had his hand touched the door than it flew open off its hinges, an irate Hulk bursting through roaring about the stairs. The man took the Hulk-force door to the face and the suitcase went flying, the Cube scattering across the floor to land squarely at the feet of the worst possible person.
Loki, to Steve’s surprise, actually looked down at the Cube and around at everyone else before snatching up the Cube and vanishing.
“And just like that, the genocidal alien goes free,” Tony said, lips tight.
“That did not look planned,” Steve said, tapping his fingers on the rim of the popcorn bowl. “Whoever that was trying to steal the Cube originally was headed away from Loki.”
“I’ll see if I can get an ID on him from SHIELD, but the damn place was swarming,” Natasha scowled fiercely. “I can’t believe this — Pierce should never have intercepted the ongoing transport of two such volatile objects. There were civilians all over that lobby, police, private security. Anything could have happened — anything did happen.”
Natasha was typing fiercely into her own tablet, fingers flying as she clicked over the keys. “And I’m starting to feel like whatever happened to your arc reactor was no malfunction, Tony.”
Tony nodded. “It’s too neat. Yeah.”
“Can’t believe this,” Natasha muttered again. “Those agents on Loki are getting the reprimanding of their lives. They could have secured the Tesseract if they’d been paying attention, and instead no one even noticed Loki was gone with it until Thor said something.”
“Diagnostics on the reactor say it was just a misaligned switch that came out of place — sent me into cardiac dysrhythmia. A very dramatic distraction if you can do it on command.”
“And is there any way that could have been triggered from the outside?” Steve asked.
Tony gestured loosely. “I mean, no. That’d be a heck of a thing for me to build into the device keeping me alive. You’d have to literally get your finger in there and push.”
Natasha sighed. “Still. That’s too perfect to be a coincidence.”
The footage of the lobby was still rolling, but the main players were gone: now there were just SHIELD agents, scrambling to set up a perimeter and secure the things they lost.
“Where does Loki show up next? The fourteenth floor with me?”
“There is more anomalous footage first, Captain,” JARVIS said. “The entity believed to be Loki intercepts the STRIKE team that was in possession of the scepter at the same time as the Loki downstairs comes into possession of the Tesseract. The footage is highly concerning for many reasons.”
“Don’t get prone to overstatement on me now, buddy,” Tony said.
The video feed of the lobby whisked away, the audio fading out quickly, and was replaced by a feed from the elevator.
“No. No hitches at all, Mr. Secretary,” Agent Sitwell was saying. The elevator doors opened, and Steve saw himself step on.
The uniform isn’t that bad, Steve wanted to say.
“I thought you were coordinating search and rescue,” the Sitwell on screen said.
“Change of plans,” Loki replied in Steve’s voice. “I just got a call from the Secretary. I’m gonna be running point on the scepter.”
Sitwell didn’t seem to buy it, and there was a brief back and forth.
“I’m gonna have to call the Director,” Sitwell insisted.
“That’s okay — trust me,” Loki said. Then he leaned forward as if to whisper, Sitwell ducking toward it. “Hail Hydra.”
Cold shock punched into Steve, as nasty and frigid as crashing that plane in the Arctic had been. No.
No, no, no.
They were all still watching the footage, unable to look away, but none of it seemed quite able to process in Steve’s head. The SHIELD agents simply handed the scepter over and let Loki walk away with it, and not a one of them seemed disturbed to have heard a phrase that should have died not long after Steve did.
“Captain. Cap? Steve, come on buddy, breathe for a second,” Stark was touching him, his hands very warm on Steve’s shoulders. His voice sounded very strange in his ears. “Come on, take a breath in. In with me,” Stark urged, inhaling slowly, and it was only when Steve obeyed that he realized he’d been holding his breath.
Everything came crashing down on him.
“This isn’t possible,” he said, shaking. “It’s not. It can’t be.”
“I don’t understand,” Natasha was saying. “They just handed it over. He couldn’t have been influencing them without the scepter. Why did that work?”
“He said ‘Hail Hydra,’” Steve said. “They’re Hydra. That’s what Hydra says. They handed him the scepter because they’re Hydra.”
“That’s not a thing, is it?” Tony asked, glancing at Natasha. His hands were still rubbing up and down Steve’s shoulders. “I mean, neo-Nazis, you see those, unfortunately, but Hydra was a whole different beast. Nobody’s Hydra anymore.”
Natasha had her hand over her mouth. “Operation Paperclip,” she said. “The US Government recruited former Nazi scientists. SHIELD was in on it too, but that was ages ago, I don’t see how it could be related.”
“I may not understand everything about the modern world,” Steve said. “But that was not a joke or a mistake. That was Hydra. Whatever’s going on here, SHIELD is compromised.”
“Okay, let’s slow down a second. If that entire STRIKE team is compromised, plus Sitwell — and they’re taking orders from someone —”
“The Secretary, Secretary Pierce. Sitwell was on the phone with him. You said he was shady,” Steve said.
“Pierce is the only person I’ve ever heard Nick Fury call a friend,” Tony said. “I don’t think Fury even trusts his own mother, but he trusts this guy.”
Steve could feel his teeth grinding. “Maybe Fury’s in on it too.”
“Nick Fury is not a Nazi,” Natasha snapped.
Tony held his hands up. “Okay, look — Hydra, whatever this is — there has to be some record of it in SHIELD somewhere, and I just had JARVIS neck deep in every SHIELD secret that could be accessed from the Helicarrier. Let me modify the trace and send JARVIS code-crawling some more.”
“They’re not gonna be labeling their secret files with a convenient ‘Hydra Eyes Only,’” Natasha said. “What are you even going to be looking for?”
“We can start with stuff about the Tesseract and scientists from Operation Paperclip. Pierce said SHIELD has had it for 70 years, I bet you anything that’s a lot of what they would have wanted those Nazi scientists for in the first place.”
“What the hell do we say in our reports to SHIELD on this? Fury’s gonna be expecting us to turn this footage over,” Natasha said. “And if STRIKE is Hydra — do they still think Cap is one of them? They’re gonna want an explanation for him losing the scepter.”
“JARVIS can lose this footage,” Tony said, leg jumping. “As we saw earlier, malfunctions happen even to my engineering. But… so there’s maybe a secret Nazi book club inside SHIELD. What’s their goal?”
“I imagine it’s the same as it ever was,” Steve answered. His jaw was so tight it felt like it was creaking. “Control and death.”
“And here I was hoping we wouldn’t have to clock in today,” Tony said. “You’d think averting nuclear destruction and fighting off an alien invasion would earn you some vacation time.”
“I’m going to put out my own feelers on this,” Natasha said. “Not that I don’t have faith in JARVIS, but… If someone’s recruiting within SHIELD, they have to have a pattern, and if I can find it, I can infiltrate it.” Her fingers tapped rhythmically against the side of her tablet. “In the meantime, let’s see what other anomalies were hanging around earlier.”
The answer to that question was quite a lot, as it happened — including but not limited to footage of the Hulk half-heartedly kicking at a fire hydrant at the same time as he was also filmed enthusiastically using a Chitauri footsoldier as a flail, and JARVIS’ scans of the arc reactor picking up miniscule boot-shaped footprints on the inner mechanisms.
At first, their investigations about Hydra didn’t come up with much. Steve and Tony spent hours together over couches and tables, reading through old files and new ones where the only links were brief allusions to the Tesseract, or contributions from former Nazis.
Natasha joined them every now and then to spend a few hours trawling through new information. Sometimes she brought a new name for Tony to add to his algorithm. Frequently she brought in files about members of the STRIKE team, or Alexander Pierce, and tried to find where the dots lined up.
JARVIS, as it happened, was perhaps the most helpful technology Steve had been introduced to in this century. And they had literally been introduced, formally, the third or so time the AI contributed to Stark’s conversations with the rest of the team.
Unlike the human teachers SHIELD offered, JARVIS didn’t sigh at what Natasha called his “hunt-and-peck” typing style. Nor did he condescendingly congratulate Steve on remembering how to open an internet browser.
What he did do was supplement Steve’s laborious Google searches with recommended reading materials, links to library books, and YouTube video tutorials.
JARVIS remembered the preferred temperature of his showers, which was a little unnerving, and of his coffee, which was just nice. He helped Steve pencil in time to work on Tony’s hand-to-hand fighting between business meetings, and, when Steve thought his head might explode if he had to read about one more Nazi that went on the work in America after the war, Steve suspected JARVIS found reasons to encourage the others to visit him.
He was only slightly more helpful regarding dating in the 21st century than the online articles he’d warned Steve away from, but no one was perfect.
“Good morning, JARVIS,” Steve said. “My suite, please.”
The elevator doors slid closed, and Steve pulled out his phone with the vague idea of texting Tony to see if he wanted to go out for breakfast. It was a second before he realized the elevator wasn’t moving.
“JARVIS?” he asked, looking up at the elevator’s camera.
“Error,” JARVIS said. “Captain Rogers is already in the building. Please identify yourself.”
“JARVIS, it’s me,” Steve frowned. “What do you —”
Loki.
“JARVIS, where is the other Captain?” Steve asked, heart pounding. “Where’s Tony?”
“Captain Rogers is with Sir on the common floor,” JARVIS said. “Please identify yourself.”
“It’s me,” Steve snapped. “Steve Rogers. Code 34-44-54-64.”
“I am alerting Sir,” JARVIS said. “The other Steve Rogers also knew this code. He used it to access the second-level sub-basement.”
“Tony’s in danger. That’s not me up there, JARVIS. I’m the one who — you’ve got an alert set up to let me know if Tony’s not slept in 72 hours. You found me restaurant recommendations for team night, you — you helped me Google Stonewall and AIDS and gay marriage, JARVIS, take me up!”
“Ascending,” JARVIS said, and Steve’s stomach dropped as the elevator ascended far more rapidly than usual.
Ding.
The elevator doors opened on Tony Stark pointing one of his gauntlets, charged, at Steve Rogers.
A Steve Rogers holding Loki’s scepter.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” the other Rogers said, but Steve wasn’t listening.
He didn’t have his shield, so he launched himself at the doppelganger. “Get away from him!” he snarled.
The other Rogers backed away quickly. “I’m away,” he said defensively, and dropped the scepter on the floor. Slowly, his hands in the air, he kicked it towards Tony.
“I wasn’t lying earlier,” the other Rogers said calmly. “I’m here to give you the scepter. I was just going to leave it in the basement with a message, but I wanted to see you.”
“Me?” Tony scoffed. “That’s sweet, but when I offered you a drink I really was just threatening you.”
The other Rogers rolled his eyes. “I’m not Loki.”
“Well you’re sure as hell not me,” Steve snarled, and bent to pick up the scepter. It seemed to whir coldly in his hand.
“I actually am,” the other Rogers said. “I’m a you from an alternate future.”
“Bullshit,” Steve said. “If you expect us to believe —”
“Actually… maybe?” Tony said. Steve glared at him. “What, I’m just saying, it is theoretically possible. I bet I could crack time travel.”
The other Rogers smiled. “You can.”
Tony’s eyebrows shot up. “Ooh, plot twist. Bye now.” His fingers wiggled inside the gauntlet, a wave and a threat.
“Look, I need to tell you why I’m here,” the other Rogers said. “I need to make sure what happened in my world doesn’t happen here.”
“Kind of risky to change things, isn’t it?” Tony asked. “How do you know it will end better?”
“Because it has to,” the other Rogers said flatly. “Besides, we’ve already changed things here.”
“We? We who?” Tony asked, glancing around like he was expecting a surprise attack.
“We as in my Avengers,” the other Rogers said. “Me and you. My you.”
“Future me time-travelled? Where is he now?”
The other Rogers’ face shut down, and Steve’s stomach froze. He knew exactly what the other him was about to say.
“He died,” the other Rogers said roughly. “He saved everyone, but he died.”
Steve’s head was spinning, burning. He wanted to demand the other Rogers leave, wanted to force him out, wanted, strongly, to say you can’t have him and give the bastard the boot.
“Awkward,” Tony said. He cleared his throat. “What happened? Does this have anything to do with Hydra?”
“You know about Hydra already?” Rogers smiled. “I hope that’s my fault.”
Realization dawned. “You said Hail Hydra on the elevator,” Steve said. “You knew Hydra was in SHIELD—”
“And I needed to get the scepter from them so that my Avengers could undo something terrible. We really were only borrowing it.”
“Then why’d you’d say that shit about Bucky?” Steve snarled. “I suppose you needed the distraction—”
“No, that’s true. And I can help him. You can help him,” Rogers said. “Look, let’s just put the scepter away and sit down. I’ll tell you everything I know about Hydra and Bucky and — everything else, too.”
It was something like three hours later when Rogers finished talking, when every detail was done and recorded for posterity by JARVIS, including a list of people who could — and couldn’t — be trusted to help them deal with Hydra.
Three hours and twenty minutes later, the other Rogers held out his hand for Tony to shake it goodbye. Tony clasped it.
Rogers pulled him into a hug.
Steve stiffened, but held back. It was a tight, warm, hug; Roger’s arms encircled Tony entirely and the front of his head was pressed against the side of Tony’s. Rogers’ eyes were squeezed shut tight. Tony, annoyingly, seemed to melt into it.
Eventually Rogers released Tony and stepped back, just as Steve had been seriously contemplating clearing his throat pointedly or something. Rogers’ hands trailed off Tony’s arms entirely too lingeringly.
“Take care of yourself, Tony,” Rogers said quietly. “This is goodbye for us. For me, anyway.”
Tony glanced at Steve, dark eyes bright with something unreadable. “Seems that way,” he said to Rogers. “I think I’ll keep my model, if it’s all the same to you.”
Rogers huffed out a laugh. “Right,” he said, raising an eyebrow at Steve, and Steve felt his ears go pink.
Oh.
“Good luck,” Rogers said. He stepped back, messed with something on his wrist, and vanished.
Steve blew out a breath. “You guys coulda told me I’m that annoying,” he said, coming to stand next to Tony.
“You’re not,” Tony said, bumping their shoulders together. “That guy doesn’t have me around to keep him humble.”
“Yeah,” Steve said. Despite the warmth of Tony’s shoulders still brushing his, he suddenly felt a little chilled.
“We should call the others back,” Tony said. “Figure out how we’re gonna expose Hydra without, you know, massive amounts of death and betrayal.”
“Definitely,” Steve said. “Banner only has to come upstairs, but Nat and Clint are at least a couple hours out. Thor will probably fly from New Mexico.”
“I can get a hold of the big two if you wanna text the Wonder Twins,” Tony offered, already pulling out his own phone.
“Sure. And…” Steve hesitated.
Tony looked up. “And?”
“And you should let me take you out. On a date. Romantically,” Steve blurted. “Sometime in between planning to take down Hydra and investigating this long list of future recruits we just got.”
“I mean, first of all, yes,” Tony said very seriously.
“Yes?” Steve breathed.
“Yes.” Tony agreed, grinning. He reached out and squeezed Steve’s hand briefly. “But second of all, me? Are you sure you’re not thinking of the Tony that did something really noble and self-sacrificing and died a hero?”
Steve squeezed Tony’s hands in his. “I think I’ll keep my model, thanks.”