Work Text:
“You waiting on the big guy?”
Steve glanced up from the little sketch that he’d somehow managed to disappear into. Immediately, the speed and noise of New York City crowded around him again, taking up all the oxygen. Like someone had grabbed the back of his head and forced it underwater, like the constant stream of illuminated information was literally getting into his eyes, flooding his lungs, forcing everything else out-
He tried to swallow it down.
In the centre of all this sensory chaos there was a woman. At a glance, his brain supplied the word waitress – although even that had a grubby film of insecurity over it, now. Is this what waitresses wear, these days? Does she have a job that didn’t even exist in the forties, a job that everyone in this café would instantly recognise, a job that was so far removed from waiting tables that she’d be amused or even offended by his mistake? Did they even have waitresses, anymore?
And that was before he got to considering what she’d actually said.
You waiting on the big guy?
Steve had never realised just how lost you could get in six short words.
Was that a turn of phrase now?
Was that a reference to something specific?
Was it a joke?
Was it a genuine question?
She spoke as though he should know what she meant…
Six words, and maybe three seconds in total, and already Steve was drowning again.
So, once again, he put on his bravest face, and steeled his whole body, and tried his best. What else can you do?
“Ma’am?”
“Iron man,” she explained. “A lot of people eat here just to see him fly by”
Iron Man. There was an unpleasant curling in Steve’s gut when she said it – but hey, at least he understood that reference.
Or, no… no, he didn’t. Hence the unpleasant curling in Steve’s gut.
Yes, he’d been told the story of Tony Stark and his miraculous escape from an Afghan cave – but that didn’t mean Steve understood. In fact, listening to Coulson explain the whole Iron Man thing might’ve been the most torturous conversation he’d had in the 21st Century. He’d had to interrupt every sentence at least three times, we’re at war with who? Since what happened in New York? The ten who’s wanted Stark to design a what? With a what wired into his chest? Why? Steve had seen Coulson getting frustrated with the stop-start nature of the conversation, never able to get his flow, obviously wishing that Steve would just shut up and listen. Steve had tried that. He’d tried quietly listening while Coulon spoke an alien language, casually referencing technology that Steve had never heard of and politics he wasn’t familiar with and dropping in pop culture references that he’d forgotten Steve wouldn’t get. By the end of it, Steve wasn’t entirely sure if Iron Man was a robot or if Tony Stark was an android. So he’d had to ask Coulson to start all over again, which hadn’t made things any less frustrating at all.
As a result of all this, there was now a bitter taste in Steve’s mouth any time someone mentioned Iron Man. Which was probably why it felt as though people talked about him all the time.
Steve tried to remind himself that none of that was actually Tony Stark’s fault. Not out of any empathy towards Stark, who was no more than a concept in Steve’s head, but because of a standard he chose to observe himself. Personalising his anxieties like this felt petty. Even wanting to lash out at a stranger, simply because that stranger was confusing and unfamiliar and seemed to symbolise everything that scared Steve about the world… it all seemed very un-Captain America. It fell into that category, along with jealousy and insecurity and everything else that Captain America wasn’t motivated by. Don’t be ridiculous. He was a grown up, after all.
He would not lash out at this woman for mentioning Iron Man. It wasn’t her fault, either.
“Right…” Steve managed. “…Maybe another time.” He reached into his pocket, taking out what still seemed like a ludicrous amount of money to leave on a café table… but the guidebooks were all consistent. This was what money was worth, these days.
Tony Stark’s net worth is estimated to be around 12.4 billion dollars.
Steve hadn’t spent much time looking at Stark’s file, yet. He’d been too keen to get to Peggy’s file, and Howard and the Commandos – people he’d actually known. But, even at a glance, certain details had leapt out at him…
12.4 billion.
It was a preposterous number. Farcical. Made up. A millionaire, twelve thousand times over. Steve couldn’t imagine it, couldn’t comprehend it – like looking up at the stars…
Tony Stark was handsome too, Steve remembered, an entirely different discomfort churning in his stomach…
But that one was easy to stomp down.
That discomfort was at least familiar, one of very few anxieties he remembered from before he was frozen… not that Steve was going to think about it. He knew not to think about this one. He’d closed Stark’s file the second that word had occurred to him, covering the picture before he could even form a full image of his face…
But you keep trying to remember it now, don’t you…?
Steve shook the thought away and tried to smile at the waitress.
“The tables yours for as long as you want it,” she assured him kindly, turning away to clear the table beside him. “Nobody’s waiting on it. Plus, we’ve got free wireless.”
“Radio?” He asked, before he could stop himself. The waitress turned to give him that look of almost angry confusion, and Steve tried not to wince.
Oh God, he hated this.
And sometimes it would occur to him, like a rising tide, that it could never end. That unlike any other agony he’d struggled through, there was simply no getting through it. No counting down the minutes until he could tell Bucky all of this. No waiting until he was back in his own bed, in his own world. No reason to keep trying, keep his head up… until when? For what? So that he could earn the right to keep on trying, for the rest of his life?
Beside him, a harassed woman was trying to negotiate two over-tired children into sitting at the table that had just been cleared. Steve glanced up and saw a group of people hovering by the please wait to be seated sign. Before he looked to check he knew that every table in the place would be full.
Nobody’s waiting on it, he remembered, with a rueful smile.
In the forties, that would have been a simple kindness. A little white lie, to make Steve more comfortable, just because he looked a bit sad. He would’ve known that, in the forties. He’d have taken it for granted. But now… Was the waitress being sarcastic? Was that a famous line, from the infamous movie, the jerk that wouldn't leave the restaurant? Maybe those people weren’t waiting for a table, maybe they were all waiting to … book something online, or something… something that everyone else here would immediately know…
Not that it mattered. Steve was leaving anyway.
As he finally stood up, and shrugged his way into his jacket, he happened to glance at the man at the front of the queue. Steve didn’t see his face, but he could tell from his gestures that he was telling the waitress, never mind, I’ll go somewhere else. Well, that’s what that would’ve meant, in the forties… But Steve was tired of over thinking things, and he’d run out of energy to care about whether strangers thought he was an idiot, so he went with it. He waved to the waitress, it’s okay, I’m leaving. And, mercifully, he recognised the response – a grateful nod, before she turned to the new customer and gestured, no need for that, come right this way.
Steve wasn’t thinking about the waitress, or the customer, by the time he walked away from his table. He was closing this awkward chapter in his head, already thinking about where he was going next and all the reasons that would also be awful…
He glanced up, purely by chance-
And Sweet Jesus Christ.
Steve stopped.
He stopped walking, he stopped thinking, he stopped breathing, for a second.
There was a blinding flash of purely human feeling. An instinctive response, nothing to do with the moment or Steve’s place in it – a physical, bodily reaction, first and foremost.
Steve had happened to look up and catch the eye of the most beautiful human being he’d ever seen in his life.
…The most beautiful man.
Shit.
That second response was equally instinctive – like pulling your hand away from a hot stove. Steve literally took a step backwards and looked at the floor. There was a hot surge in his chest, an uncomfortable mix of old and new, an ancient anxiety in a strange new world.
Someone had mentioned, in passing, that ‘it was legal now’. Steve couldn’t remember who – he’d looked at the floor then, too. He hadn’t known whether he was supposed to smile or not. Whether he was allowed to. He’d wanted to, of course. He’d always thought that it should’ve been legal, even without his… personal interest. But that personal interest in the issue had always meant he couldn’t voice any objective opinion… just in case anyone wondered why he cared… in case anyone spotted that it wasn’t only women Steve noticed, or got tongue tied around…
He knew that he wasn’t supposed to think those things. He’d known that for as long as he’d known that those things, existed.
When he was a kid, a homosexual was a pervert – a sex criminal. Unnatural, people said, in a horrified creeping tone. Even though Steve had never understood that reaction, and had always thought it was unfair, it was none-the-less a social fact.
Jesus, if Captain America had been caught doing… anything like that – it would have been the scandal that broke a million children’s hearts. They’d have renounced him, burned the comic books… locked him up.
Having a SHIELD agent casually mention that it was legal now did nothing to ease decades of social conditioning. It didn’t tell Steve whether he could smile at that news, without outing himself as a sympathiser to a fringe movement. It didn’t say anything about whether you could still be fired or denounced or cast out for it…
It didn’t tell him whether this beautiful stranger was about to punch him for staring like that. Whether everyone in this café would think he had a point…
And then the beautiful stranger spoke.
And of all the things he could have said, he chose to say-
“I know you.”
And, for a start, that meant Steve had to look at him. Social interaction hadn’t changed that much since the forties. That was the first panic.
And, Christ, it was actually painful.
Steve wasn’t sure he’d ever felt this socially awkward. He had no idea where to look – how not to look at those eyes… impossibly wide eyes, the most beautiful shade of golden brown, fringed by inky black lashes… Steve felt his chest tighten, his mouth suddenly full of fluid. He tried to swallow subtly. And then the second panic, the utter confusion of those three words.
No one here knew him.
That was the problem, the literal story of his life right now.
He wanted those three little words more than anything, because he knew he couldn’t have them-
And yet.
“Um, I don’t think so, sorry,” Steve mumbled, looking down again.
…but he felt like maybe he did.
It was madness, of course. This man wasn’t Coulson or Fury – ergo, Steve didn’t know him. And yet, something about his face felt immediately familiar…
But it couldn’t be. It literally couldn’t be.
A face he’d seen on the television, maybe. A model, from an ad on the subway or a magazine he’d flicked through… it didn’t feel right, but it had to be. Nothing else made sense.
“Excuse me,” Steve managed, barely loud enough for anyone to hear, as he made to walk away from this awful situation-
The snap of cool, slender fingers around his wrist.
Steve stopped again. He looked down at his arm, staring incredulously at this total strangers’ hand grabbing hold of him – touching him, as though anyone said he could-
Was he allowed to get angry about this? Was this how people behaved these days – was this perfectly reasonable, now?
“Let me buy you a drink,” the stranger said – with such confidence. Such unremarked, unquestioned ease… “Please?”
Several panics, then.
The ingrained, age-old fear of the attraction he felt for this man. Not knowing how he was supposed to react, what he should be inferring… what he should be feeling, about any of this.
The modern, high-definition terror of everything around him, the confusion he felt talking to anyone, his compete and total ignorance of everything that anyone said.
The entirely inappropriate rush of elation, and subsequent plunge of inferiority, that this person should be interested in him…
And, above all that, the simple panic that he didn’t know how to say no.
“Um. Okay,” Steve heard himself say. God, why did I say that?
“Okay?” The stranger clarified, raising an eyebrow.
“Okay.” And again?
But, yes, apparently Steve was saying okay. He stepped back towards the table he’d just stood up from, and slid back into the seat he’d just vacated, and took an intense interest in the salt shaker as the beautiful man sat down opposite him.
“So,” The stranger began. “Drink?”
“Oh. Um. Coffee?” Steve spoke to somewhere over the man’s shoulder, feeling like he’d picked a word at random from a foreign menu. He felt his cheeks burn. Get a grip Rogers. You know coffee.
“Coffee,” the stranger confirmed with an amused smile, as though he found Steve quaint. It set Steve’s teeth on edge. He already hated hearing that tone from people.
“Thank you,” he bit out, shifting slightly under a ripple of irritation. He didn’t like this man. This total stranger, with his overwhelming sense of entitlement and his patronising manner.
…and yet.
The stranger finally broke eye contact with Steve to wave to the waitress, and Steve took the opportunity to look at him properly. A bit older that him, Steve guessed – mid to late thirties, maybe? Clean shaven, tanned skin… those eyes, of course… and lovely lips, full and dark and shaped like a smile… and a mop of shiny dark hair that was swept up in places, and flattened down in others – and, now that Steve looked closely, shimmering slightly…
“Glitter,” the strangers voice snapped Steve out of his train of thought. He felt a rush of shame heat his skin. Caught.
“I’m sorry?”
“I’m covered in glitter,” the stranger sighed. “And, no, I have no idea how it got there.”
“…you have no idea how it got there?” Steve repeated, carefully.
“No. I, ah, I got dumped last night. I remember that. And then I remember thinking it would be a great idea to go out and get hammered. And then I remember waking up in a motel in New Jersey, covered in glitter,” the stranger explained, in the same easy patter. “Also, I had a beard, last night, and now I don’t. So… yeah, not sure what happened there.”
Steve had the strangest idea that, actually, he might’ve liked this man, if he’d met him in the forties. That, if he’d been allowed to take any of this at face value, he might’ve found it funny. Refreshing, even, to talk to someone this open and unpolished. But he couldn’t take it at face value – and he couldn’t work out what this man could possibly want from him. Why he would share this much with someone that he didn’t know, whether he was trying to goad a reaction out of Steve… or which one. As such, Steve wasn’t charmed and amused in this man’s company. He felt uncomfortable, and cornered, and quite sure he didn’t like him.
And he didn’t have the first clue what to say to any of that.
“So – I feel like I know you,” the stranger said again, when he’d left just long enough for Steve to feel awkward about the silence.
“You really don’t,” Steve tried to smile, “I’m… new, around here?”
“Ohhh. That was very general hospital,” the stranger observed, with a grin.
Steve heard his own voice, much younger, echoing from his memories… is this a test?
Okay, Captain Rogers, let’s see how well you’re assimilating. Load ambush simulation one; gorgeous man, uncertain social scenario, pop culture bombardment level two. Initiate.
And Steve knew this wasn’t a set up. Amongst other things, he had undeniably, bafflingly, done this to himself. But he couldn’t help the way his fight or flight response kicked in. He couldn’t stop himself from feeling like he was suddenly in the middle of a combat.
“I’m sorry?”
“…it was just very enigmatic,” the stranger explained, an edge on his voice that told Steve he’d failed test one. “I didn’t think people said ‘I’m not from around here’ in real life.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Steve mumbled.
“Hm. So, what is your name?” The stranger demanded, in a way that Steve objected to.
“Steve.” He answered, too formally.
And the stranger frowned, and pulled his bottom lip under his teeth… and then softened… and then smiled…
Steve’s heart skipped a beat. But before he could place his panic, the stranger told him,
“Tony.”
“Tony,” Steve repeated, involuntarily.
“Steve,” the stranger – Tony – grinned. Steve felt like he was making fun of him. “So. Steve. Where are you from, then?”
“… Lots of places.” Steve sighed, wishing his coffee would turn up so that he could drink it and go-
“But that’s a Brooklyn accent.”
Steve felt an oddly mundane twinge of interest at that. A casual sort of intrigue that felt entirely out of place in his current situation, like turning to ask someone, sorry, did you just say you went to Penn State? in the middle of a bloody battle. It was… weirdly comforting…
“… I was born in Brooklyn,” Steve told him, finding it a little easier to smile. “But everyone says I lost the accent.”
“Uh-uh,” Tony shook his head. “There is a definite Larry King quality on the low notes.”
Well, that’s two for two pop culture tests missed, Steve thought, irritably.
“…I can’t hear it,” Steve told him.
“So how come you’re in New York?” Tony went on, too quickly.
“Oh, um. Work,” Steve responded, lamely. He could see the waitress approaching with their drinks, like the captain of a lifeboat.
“What do you do?” Oh yeah, that would be the obvious follow up question. Steve kicked himself.
“Oh, it’s a… boring, and… complicated government job.”
“Try me,” Tony challenged. Steve felt what may have been an irrational spike of anger.
“No,” he said, simply.
…And Tony smiled-
Oh, thank God, the waitress. The coffee.
Steve made far too big a show of accepting the drinks and saying thank you, he knew he was. Anything to put some conversational distance on the table.
“So, what do you do?” Steve asked, firmly, before Tony could say anything else.
Tony blinked those impossibly long eye lashes.
“You’re kidding me, right?”
And Steve remembered the twinge of familiarity he’d felt before. It dawned on him… this man was famous. Steve was supposed to know who this was.
Shit, shit, shit.
“I am not kidding you,” Steve spoke oh so carefully. And then Tony’s lips curled into a smile…an infuriating, superior smile… an undeniably sexy smile-
God, Steve hated himself right now. Also, possibly Tony.
“Well, I was CEO of the world’s foremost arms-manufacturer-turned-renewable-energy-research conglomerate,” Tony teased – and Steve knew that he knew all of those words, if he’d had a moment to separate them all out. But as one string of syllables, it was just a mess.
“Sounds exhausting,” Steve muttered, before taking far too a huge gulp of far too hot coffee.
“Well, I don’t do that anymore,” Tony carried on, like he was hinting at something.
“And hence you have more time to…” Steve gestured vaguely towards him, “get…shaved and covered in glitter…”
…Why the fuck did you say that?
And he really wanted to hate Tony for laughing at him – but he couldn’t help feeling like he deserved that one.
“That sounds like something Fox would commission during sweeps,” Tony giggled. Steve thought of an Agent Fox he’d met, right after he’d come out of the ice… for various reasons, he thought it was unlikely that Tony was talking about her.
And then, as Steve was scrambling for anything to say to that, a beautiful redhaired woman magically appeared at his side. Steve wasn’t sure whether to be mercifully pleased of the reprieve or panicked at the new challenge.
Why was my lunch table never surrounded by gorgeous people in the forties?
But, for whatever reason, this woman didn’t have the same effect on Steve as Tony had. He could at least look at her without feeling it in every part of his body. So, he decided to go with ‘reprieve’ and focus on the new stranger.
“Ma’am?”
“Oh, what’ve I done now?” Tony moaned, from across the table. Steve looked back at him, and realised that he was looking at her, that they knew each other. Well, that was a relief. Maybe he could duck the hell out of this now, and leave the beautiful people to it-
“I’m not here for you,” The woman narrowed her eyes at Tony, and glanced back at Steve.
She was here for him.
Well. That was…
Better. That would be less of a struggle than Tony had been, surely.
…No, it was, it was better.
He didn’t want to keep talking to Tony.
He didn’t.
“Well, then I’m leaving before you stab me in the arm with a needle,” Tony told her, with exaggerated cheerfulness – and then looked directly at Steve. “And you want to watch out for that, by the way.”
…Was that a joke?
“Ignore him,” the woman told Steve, as Tony slid out his chair in one fluid motion, turning on his heel with a flourish… and then just away…
Okay, Steve loved the way he moved. No denying that. Unfortunately.
“So, you’ve met Tony Stark?” The woman was still talking, as Steve tried to right himself. He glanced back up at her.
“Excuse me?”
“Tony Stark,” she said again.
“What about him-m…” And it dawned on Steve, at last.
He had only the most fleeting memory of Tony Starks picture – a man with a goatee, and without glitter in his hair. But, now that she said it-
Of course it was.
And, with that revelation came a wave of humiliation, like watching himself while he was drunk. Realising all the things he’d said that he wouldn’t have said, if he’d known what he was saying.
And then a shard of outrage, as he realised… Tony had known who he was, the whole time. Tony Stark was Howard’s son, and known to SHIELD. Someone had probably told him that Captain America had been found in the ice – and, even if they hadn’t… he’d seen Tony recognise him. The flicker of thought, the smile when Steve had said his name…
And Tony hadn’t said anything. That was immediately annoying.
And…
But that’s a Brooklyn accent.
And Tony hadn’t heard that. Tony just knew Captain America came from Brooklyn, same as everyone else did…
God, why did that hurt his feelings so much?
“He didn’t tell you who he was?” The woman asked, sounding genuinely surprised.
“I know who he is,” Steve sighed, coming across more bitter than he’d meant to. Then he caught her eye. “I don’t know who you are, though.”
“Natasha Romanov,” she smiled warmly, sitting down in Tony’s seat. “Nick Fury has assigned me as your liaison.”
Oh, yeah. He remembered Nick saying. Although Nick had called her a buddy… and apparently picked up on Steve’s dislike of the term.
“Oh, yes. Hi,” he managed, feeling his ribs relax. Someone who knew who he was, at least. Someone who was here for unambiguously professional reasons.
Someone he could look at, without feeling suffocated by his own skin.
“There’s a mission?” He asked. But Natasha shook her head.
“Oh, no, I just wanted to introduce myself,” she assured him.
“Oh. Well, hi,” he smiled more naturally. Compared to the last test, this was positively enjoyable.
“…So, Tony’s kind of an ass, huh?” She carried on, casually-
And, how about that, Steve felt a pang of indignation on Tony’s behalf. Which was especially odd given that he’d just been thinking that himself.
“He’s, uh… eccentric?” Steve frowned. “You know him then?”
“Oh, yeah – SHIELD sent me under cover as his assistant for a while last year.” Nat breezed… it left a stale taste in Steve’s mouth.
“You were spying on him?”
“Basically,” She agreed, easily. “I mean, there were reasons – but, essentially, yes.”
“Hm,” Steve murmured, dropping his eyes again.
“We get on fine now,” Nat added, with a shrug.
“Even though he’s kind of an ass?” Steve asked, with more of an edge than he’d been expecting. Nat pretended not to notice it.
“Eh. Sometimes I even like him for being kind of an ass. Just so you know, Captain, Tony Stark is a law unto himself. He takes time to work out – that isn’t just you.”
It was a comforting sounding sentiment, at least. Even if Steve didn’t believe it for a second.
“Seems like he’d be a hard guy to work for,” Steve said for the sake of something to say… because he was scared that if he didn’t go along with the Tony is kind of an ass conversation, he’d find himself dragged into a different one.
“Wouldn’t know – I didn’t really,” Nat grinned, like it was funny. “…And, hey, at least he’s nice to look at.”
Steve felt the blood run up his neck, and had no choice but to look down at the table.
“I take it he knows you think that?” Steve said – because he’d almost said, ‘and doesn’t he know it’, and panicked over the wording at the last minute. Too close to agreeing with her, he’d decided.
“He probably assumes I think that,” Nat snorted. “But hey, I know he thought I was hot, so that makes us even, right?”
Steve was too focused on the place setting to spot the compassionate look that had crept into Nat’s features as she spoke, too awkward to notice the knowing edge on her voice.
“Oh, you two-?” He stammered, wondering if he’d misinterpreted some sort of couples banter and inadvertently insulted her boyfriend.
I just got dumped
…Or if he’d found himself smack bang in the middle of a situation he really didn’t want to be in-
“Oh God no,” Nat wrinkled her nose at silliness of the suggestion. Steve was immediately relieved he hadn’t put his foot in it… and then confused…
So, you both find each other attractive, and you like him really, but the idea that you’re dating him is ridiculous?
God, Steve hated the 21st Century.
“No, it was just… he met me, and he thought I was hot – which I am, by the way,” Nat carried on, with a breezy self-confidence. Steve couldn’t decide how seriously he was meant to take that. “I don’t know, maybe it’s a 21st Century thing. But him making that casual observation once doesn’t really mean anything. And, yeah, Tony’s attractive. And kind of an ass. And a great guy, really. But also, really, kind of an ass…” And she shrugged again.
She’d said it all in such an off-hand way that Steve didn’t stop to worry about what she was really getting at. He would have, normally. He was hyper-sensitive every time he found a man remotely attractive, so sure that everyone around him must see. But Nat was simply chatting. Talking about Tony as if he was someone she knew, as though she meant nothing more than what she was saying…
If he’d been more defensive in that moment, Steve wouldn’t have heard his other thoughts. He’d have been too busy wondering what Nat knew and what she meant and what she was about to say to really think about anything she’d said. To let himself wonder,
…Maybe it isn’t the end of the world to find someone attractive when you first meet them.
…Maybe no one will notice.
…Maybe no one would care.
A small comfort, but a comfort none the less.
And… weirdly…
He found that he disliked Tony a little bit less, when he thought that maybe he was allowed to find him attractive…
“Anyway,” Nat went on, cheerfully “I didn’t come here to talk about Tony Stark. I just wanted to stop by and give you my number.” And with that, she reached into her pocket, and pulled out a good old-fashioned scrap of paper. “Just to let you know, if you need anything or if you want to talk – if you need rescuing from Tony Stark again. Whatever.”
She was already standing up as she said it. Maybe she’d picked up on how done Steve was with the day. Maybe Steve should be concerned that he’d offended her, driven her away… as it was, he accepted her phone number with a dizzying sense of relief.
“Thanks. I’ll keep it in mind,” he breathed. Nat flashed a final smile and turned to leave.
Steve sat for a moment and waited for his headache to fully form. God, he needed to hit something. And to reread Tony Starks file. In that order.
He stood up with more determination this time, glancing down to find that someone had left a fifty-dollar bill on the table without Steve even noticing. He had no idea how to feel about that, either. He hoped the waitress was pleased, he guessed.
And then he caught the eye of an elderly man at the table next to him. A thin, grey haired man, with wise eyes under big, square-shaped spectacles. Steve smiled in spite of himself.
“I’m glad you got someone’s number,” the old guy observed, before turning back to his tea.
Steve had no idea why he laughed at that. But he did.