Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"I want to be very clear that I did not want you involved in this," said Nick Fury. "If I find out that you have in any way defamed, debauched, deceived, or defrauded Steve Rogers, I will personally hunt you down and cut off your balls. Slowly."

"I'm going to meet Captain America! I'm going to meet Captain America!"

Pepper put a hand on Tony's shoulder in an attempt to still his excited dance. "Yes, I heard you the first ten times, but that doesn't actually answer my question."

"What was your question?"

"Why are you wearing welding gear?"

"I'm going to meet Captain America! I'm going to meet Captain America!"

Sometimes, Pepper Potts hated her life.

Tony pointed to a red-haired man who was pushing a cart full of blood samples. "You!" he said. "I need your lab coat."

"Wha-?"

"Come on," said Tony insistently. "I'll pay you a hundred dollars for it. I just need a lab coat right now. I've always wanted to do this."

Tony donned the lab coat and used one arm to hold it up over his face, like a Vincent Price Dracula cape. "Welcome to the world of tomorrow!" he cried in a faux-spooky voice.

Fury glared at him. "You really thought a Futurama joke was the way to go? And give that lab coat back to whoever you took it from!" He turned to Steve, who was still standing awkwardly in his quarters. "Captain Rogers, for reasons that are not entirely clear to me at the moment, I am introducing you to Anthony Stark."

Steve held out his hand politely.

Nick Fury turned back to Tony. "Stark, I shouldn't have to remind you that this man is a national treasure. Try not to, you know, be yourself too much." And with that, he muttered, "I am not paid enough to put up with you people," to himself as he walked away.

Tony leaned on the doorframe. "Aren't you going to invite me in?"

Steve's quarters were small and almost completely bare, except for a clock (analog), a radio, and a rotary phone. Tony remembered from Fury's introductory statement that Steve had declined their offer of a nicer room. There were a few magazines on the nightstand – a Sports Illustrated and a Time – but the pages weren't ruffled in the slightest. If Steve had looked through them, he certainly hadn't done it much.

"So, uh…" began Tony. Captain American – Captain America! – looked back at him.

"Oh, right, of course." Steve pulled out the room's only chair from its Formica writing table and offered it to Tony before sitting on the edge of the bed.

Tony turned the chair around backwards and sat.

"Is this some kind of test?" asked Steve.

"Nah, not that I know about. Although I'm pretty sure Fury's listening in on us, just waiting for an excuse to mutilate me."

"Oh, that's…" Steve trailed off. This must be a joke he didn't get. "I just thought because…they took my gun."

"Yeah well," said Tony with a hands-up, I-didn't-do-it gesture. "Seems they're a bit worried about you eating a bullet."

Steve mouthed the words 'eating a bullet'. Apparently that idiom wasn't in use in the 1940s, but its meaning was clear enough. "I'm not going to… I wouldn't…"

"Yeah, yeah, I hear you." Tony nodded. "But see, I don't know how things were back in the dark ages, but nowadays we've got this thing called lying. So I don't think they care too much whether you say you're going to do it or not. What they want to see is you actually acting like someone who's, you know, not entirely regretting being alive. I'm thinking then you get your piece back."

Steve was quiet for almost a minute. Tony found this unbearable and began checking his stocks on his phone.

"Look," said Tony, after determining that there were no emerging market trends that required his attention. "They said you were having a little trouble with this whole future business and they thought that meeting me might help." Tony handed Steve the photograph he'd been carrying. They had told him, hard copies only, don't try to show Captain Rogers digital images. "That's Howard Stark," said Tony, pointing to a man on the high side of middle age, "and on the other side of the robot – er, big metal thing – that's me."

Steve gaped. The older man really did look like Howard. And the teenager really did look like the man standing in front of him. They really looked like each other, actually. It wasn't that he really thought they had been lying to him about the date; well, it wasn't like he really believed they had been lying, he had certainly thought it from time to time. But it was different to see evidence with his own eyes. "Howard's dead, isn't he?" whispered Steve, before feeling aghast at his own insensitivity. He should be offering condolences to the man's son, not focusing on his own grief.

But Tony stood up, nonplussed. "Yep, that he is. Anyway, I think they're babying you, letting you stay in here." Tony looked to the rotary phone and the radio. "And there's no reason at all for it. The future is incredible and just getting better. You just have to get out into it. And that's where I come in."

Steve smiled and it faintly registered with Tony that this was the first smile he had seen on Captain Rogers' face. "You sort of remind me of him, of your father."

"Oh, let's not say things we can't take back," Tony spun towards the door. "Grab your coat. It's all cold and modern outside."

"You know," said Tony, stretching comfortably into the back of his car, "that radio they gave you isn't really a radio. It plays prerecorded songs from the 30's and 40's."

"Yeah, I guessed that. It doesn't quite sound like a radio should sound. And I guess it would be weird for there to be a radio station now that just plays songs from back then."

"And one that gets perfect reception in an underground bunker?"

Steve laughed slightly. "Yeah, that too."

"So I say, no more coddling you. You've got seventy years' worth of music to catch up on which means you've got no time to sit around listening to Frank Sinatra."

Steve looked unnerved. This didn't appear to be a sinister plot, just a strange one.

"Anyways, I've written up a genetic algorithm that's going to help us find music you like. I'm going to keep playing different songs and you keep telling me what you like and what you don't like. And you're not allowed to dislike everything. Not only is it rude, it restricts the variability of the algorithm input and makes it damn near impossible to generate appropriate predictive coefficients."

Tony hit some buttons on his little handheld controller. It's a phone, Steve reminded himself as music began to play in the background.

"Just listen for a while," said Tony. "Now let's think about dinner. What do you want to eat? Favorite food, anything you like."

"Ah, er…tomato soup?" And then, because Tony was still staring at him, Steve added, "with grilled cheese sandwiches?"

"Okay, you've lost your choosing privileges. Happy, take us to Del Monico's. We're having steak. You like steak, right? Everybody likes steak."

"Sure, I like steak."

"And what do you think of this song?"

"Uh, it's all right."

"This isn't going to work if you're not honest. If you don't like it, say so."

"Okay, no, I really don't like it."

"All right," said Tony, "Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire gets a downvote. Next up on the random seven-decade playlist is Billy Idol's White Wedding."

"Thank you for dinner," said Steve sincerely. "It was a lot better than the food they have at the base."

"Of course it was. Del Monico's has the best steaks in the city. And no, thank you." Tony was a little tipsy.

"For what?"

"You're a legend," slurred Tony, who was apparently more than a little tipsy. "I grew up hearing stories about you. I had all the Captain America action figures and the posters and the bedsheets."

"There were Captain America bedsheets?"

"Sure!" Tony leaned in close. "I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable, but I'm wearing Captain America underwear right now!"

"HOW COULD THAT NOT MAKE ME FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE!"

Tony just shrugged. "'s good underwear."

Chapter Text

Before Tony left that night, he made some changes to Steve's radio. "It's going to playing a wide variety of music. Modern stuff, not just Top 40 music though, everything. Just say aloud what you think of it and the speech recognition software will keep track of your ratings for you."

Steve was a little unnerved. Was this like a telephone? Would Tony be on the other end of the phone all day? Didn't Tony have a big business to run?

But the next day, whenever Steve was in the room, music was playing and Steve was voicing his opinions. The radio first would announce the name of the song and who wrote it or what band was playing it. Steve tried to commit those to memory. He knew Tony had set it up to play songs that most people had heard of.

Chop Suey by System of a Down – "Um, no. This is too loud and it doesn't really sound like music."

Send Me on My Way by Rusted Root – "This is sort of fun. What language are they speaking?"

Hell Bent for Leather by Judas Priest – "I don't approve of the band name, but the song's not bad. Also, why is Agent Coulson staring at me?"

The Imperial March by John Williams – "Sounds like the background music for a radio show."

Fuck Tha Police by N.W.A. – "No, Tony."

What I Like About You by The Kinks – "Hey, this one's really swell."

Then there was some song by some guy named Eric Clapton called Tears in Heaven and Steve said, "This is a very good song, but I don't…I don't think I want to listen to it anymore. It's too sad. It's too…" Steve turned to address the radio directly. "Off. Stop. New song. Downvote. Bad radio. Bad!" The radio didn't respond, so Steve sat down on his bed to wait it out. Songs were only ever a few minutes. He would wait it out and try not to think about the fact that everyone he ever knew was dead.

Tony returned and corralled Steve out of his room, out of the S.H.I.E.L.D. compound, and back into his car.

They chatted amiably as Happy drove around, giving Steve a chance to simultaneously soak in the sights and listen to another round of unrelated songs.

"You know even the water tastes different?"

"It probably wasn't fluoridated in your day."

"Fluor-i-da-ted," repeated Steve, memorizing the word.

"Yeah, they add fluoride to the water now. It's a chemical that prevents tooth decay. I'm not going to pretend that it's the sexiest innovation, but it has its uses."

Steve nodded.

"All right," Tony pointed out the window. "There's a restaurant, restaurant, salon, laundromat, gas station."

"Criket," said Steve. "It's spelled wrong. What do they sell?"

"Cell phones. They're like, phones you can take anywhere."

"Yeah, S.H.I.E.L.D. gave me one, but I don't really have anyone to call."

"I'll get you a better one. They still run a few editions behind the latest tech."

"What's Total Tan?"

"You rent time in front of a special lamp that simulates sunshine so you can get a tan. Feels great. Also gives you cancer."

"Oh. Is that, ah, popular?"

"Yeah, pretty much." Seeing Steve's brow furrowed in disapproval, Tony added, "C'mon. Most people in your era smoked cigarettes. It's the same principle. Things that make you look cool also give you cancer."

"Hardware store, clothing store, pharmacy," pointed Tony. "See, might be different brands, but they're filling the same need the always did. It's not as unfamiliar as you think."

"What's Verizon?"

"More cell phones."

"Blue Wireless," Steve read aloud. "That's cell phones too, isn't it?"

"Right in one."

"Why do you people need so many different cell phones?"

"They don't," said Tony. "All they need is the StarkPhone. Everything else is a low-quality knock-off."

"I think I like this song."

"Upvote…what the hell is this?"

A prissy British voice responded, "Walkin' after Midnight by the Patsy Cline, sir."

"Thank you, JARVIS. Mark it up."

Steve was tilting his head to the side, looking warily at Tony's phone. "Did you just call somebody?"

Tony shook his head. "No, JARVIS is just the name of the, um, personality that runs all of my computers."

"Does everybody in the future talk to their machines?"

"Nah, but then, most people's machines aren't as great as mine."

"Why'd they paint over that parking space?"

Tony grinned. "Yeah, I bet they didn't have that in your day. It's handicapped parking, extra room for people in wheelchairs to get in and out of their cars."

"Well, that's a nifty idea."

"It's the law."

"I like that."

Half an hour later, Steve was still pointing out handicapped parking wherever he saw it.

"They gave me some magazines to read," said Steve, "and I was looking at the different advertisements in them. And, um, I was wondering…is," he could feel a blush creeping up "is there something wrong with men today?"

"You're going to have to be a little more specific than that."

"Well, they have ads for these medicines for, um, men's prob-"

"You mean boner pills!" interrupted Tony. He wrapped an arm around Steve's shoulders. "Just another miracle of modern science, my friend," he said in that same reverent, visionary voice Steve usually associated with someone who was about to try to baptize people. "Failed launches are a thing of the past, my friend. If you time it right, you can even get the drop on whiskey dick!"

"This sounds classy."

"It's the Backstreet Boys, Steve, really?" Tony shook his head in disappointment.

"If you don't like it, why do you have it?"

"First of all, because I am trying to introduce you to a wide variety of music. And second of all because Pepper changed all the settings in my car while I was, ah, incommunicado overseas for a few months." Because she thought I was dead, Tony thought, but didn't say.

It occurred to Tony, all of a sudden, that Steve Rogers might be the one person in the world who hadn't heard about his little mishap in the Middle East. There was something freeing about that. When Tony had returned from Afghanistan, everyone had wanted him to talk about his experiences. The FBI, the CIA, Homeland Security – they wanted to know everything about the terrorist cell: where they were located, how they were operated, what kind of resources of they had. Then there were the newspapers and magazines who wanted him to talk about all the thrilling details of his thrilling escape. (At one point, Tony had stopped granting interviews unless the publication in question agreed to write the entire story without the word 'thrilling'.) Then there were people like Pepper and Rhodey – okay, so it was only Pepper and Rhodey – who kept wanting him to talk about the other details: What was it like to undergo surgery without anesthesia? What was it like when they put his head under water again and again? What was it like to watch Yinsen die? All those goddamn details. And Steve Rogers wouldn't bother him with any of them.

So when Steve asked Tony where overseas he'd been, Tony just said, "Afghanistan. It's south of Russia."

And Steve – it was like a freaking miracle! – just tipped his head to the side with a vague curiosity and asked, "Oh, is it nice there?"

"Nah, kind of chilly."

"Museum of Modern Art," read Steve, pointing to a bus advertisement. "Could we go there sometime?"

"We can go there right now. Happy, if you please." Tony held his hands up like a conductor.

"It's pretty late," said Steve. "Isn't it closed?"

"Not for me, it isn't."

A few generous donations/bribes later, they were strolling through the otherwise deserted museum. Steve seemed content. Tony was bored.

"Another great thing about the future is all the medical advances."

"Yeah, you told me."

"No, not just Viagra. You realize that almost no one in the U.S. dies of infectious disease anymore? I mean, there are people who are at death's door anyway and an infection finishes them off, but hardly anyone just gets an infection and dies."

"You're telling me that nobody ever gets sick?"

"People get sick, but not like what you're used to. There's been no polio in the U.S. since the 70's. We have vaccines for whooping cough, rubella, measles, meningitis. We actually eradicated smallpox from the face of the earth. Think about that. We took a disease and we wiped it out."

"What about tuberculosis?" asked Steve cautiously.

"Still around, but rare in the industrialized world. Besides, we've got drugs that can cure it."

"So nobody dies of TB anymore?"

"Well, most people who get it can't afford the drugs or can't get access, so yeah, people still die of it."

"Oh."

Tony either missed or ignored Steve's disappointment. "And you should see some of the other things we can do medically nowadays. We've got machines that can take pictures of your brain. We've got robots that can do surgery on microscopic blood vessels. We can keep people alive for years with no kidneys!"

"Tony, I'm impressed, I really am. I just…" Steve settled onto a bench in front of an enormous blue square. He turned back to face Tony. "You would love to be in my position, wouldn't you? To just show up seventy years in the future?"

"Of course. I could see all the new technologies. I wouldn't have to face up to anyone who saw me do something embarrassing. I'd make a fortune in interest." Tony ticked his reasons off on his fingers.

Steve gave a sad sort of smile. "I think Howard would have said the same thing."

Tony looked up at the artwork. "So. Blue square, huh?"

"Yep. Blue square."

Chapter Text

There was history in music, too.

Tony hadn't specifically removed songs related to history and politics. Hell, that would have taken out half the songs from the 60s and 70s. It also would have taken effort and motivation and that really wasn't Tony's style.

The first time history popped up was, surprisingly, with the song Mambo #5. Tony was personally amused when he heard Captain America singing along under his breath about "a little bit of Monica in my life," but an inner voice of conscience (that sounded oddly like Rhodey) told Tony he would really have to step in.

Which is how Tony Stark ended up explaining the saga of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky to Captain Steve Rogers.

"It sounds very inappropriate," said Steve, "but I guess I don't know if that's illegal."

"Well, look at it this way. Inappropriate is an etiquette error, like wearing brown shoes and black pants. Clinton's actions were a little more substantial than that."

"Oh?"

"Brown shoes and no pants."

Steve had a hard time getting his head around the Vietnam War. His last memory was of everyone supporting World War II, so it was hard for him to imagine the drafts and the protests that formed the basis of Ohio and Fortunate Son. When Orange Crush came on the playlist, Tony finally took pity on Steve and held back from mentioning the role that Howard Stark had played in the development of Agent Orange.

When Tony and Pepper had started dating, she had made a few very reasonable requests. One was that, at certain times, he give her his undivided attention. She didn't expect it all the time, or even that often, but it drove her nuts when Tony tuned her out. He didn't mean to do it. He tried to listen to what she was saying, but sometimes she was talking and her mouth was so beautiful that he found himself just staring at it and then he was watching it go up and down and he started to think about pistons and how they could be made more efficient and then Pepper would realize he wasn't actually paying attention and Tony would apologize and Pepper would sigh.

One of the very few times Pepper had very reasonably requested that Tony give her his undivided attention was immediately following sex. And Tony had agreed to this request because it was very reasonable. He was on her side on the issue. It was totally fair and absolutely what a guy should do. He was absolutely committed to this principle. He was.

He just didn't have very good follow-through.

Tony looked at the clock, then back at Pepper. The bedsheets framed her curves nicely. She was wonderfully curvy. Tony looked to his phone. The green light was blinking, which meant interesting new mail; routine correspondence was filtered and indicated differently. Tony looked at Pepper, then back to the clock. Technically they had only finished twelve minutes ago, but Pepper was asleep! Surely he wasn't expected to lay here and pay attention to her in her sleep.

As quietly as possible, Tony thumbed through incomings on his phone. Ah, it was an email from Coulson.

DEAR TONY STOP
AGENT COULSON TAUGHT ME HOW TO USE ELECTRIC MAIL STOP
HE SAID IT IS FREE SO IT DOESNT MATTER HOW MANY LETTERS I USE STOP
THANK YOU FOR TAKING ME TO THE ART MUSEUM STOP
I VERY MUCH ENJOYED IT STOP
SEE YOU SOON STOP
SINCERELY STEVE STOP

"It's time," said Tony, "that you learn how computers work. I don't think you can understand the modern world any other way." He was holding an opaque plastic bag with something big and rectangular inside.

"They're teaching me to use computers. I sent you an electric mail yesterday. I don't know if it's arrived yet."

"Okay, first of all, it's electronic, not electric, and in any case, people just say email. Second of all, they arrive pretty much instantly. And third of all, there's a big difference between knowing how to use a computer and understanding how they work." Tony put his bag down on the table. "It's not as complicated as you think. You know how telegraphs work, right?"

Steve nodded cautiously. Howard used to do the same thing – ask him a reasonable question, and then launch into a whirlwind of jargon and equations. Steve had always wanted to pause him and remind him that he had been an art student before becoming a soldier.

Almost as if he had read Steve's mind, Tony pulled a sketchbook and a package of black markers out of his bag. "My dad always said you liked to draw. Draw something. Something simple."

Steve picked up the art supplies immediately but asked, "What does this have to do with computers?"

"Patience, young Jedi," said Tony, but he failed to heed his own advice. He crowded around Steve, looking over his shoulder.

"It's just my shield, Tony. You wanted something simple." Steve handed over the sketchbook.

"Yes, yes, it's a very nice shield," said Tony absently as he dug back into his bag.

(Steve was a little offended. It was more than just 'very nice'.)

"Here." Tony pulled out a transparent piece of plastic that was gridded into small squares. Steve had seen these before, overlain on maps or surveillance photographs. Tony put the plastic over Steve's drawing. "Now, think about a telegraph. The button can either be down or it can be up. Two choices. We'll call them zero and one."

"Why not one and two?"

Tony's expression fell between perplexed and disdainful. "Because that would be wrong. Anyways, let's say you wanted to send this drawing through a telegraph. For every square that is at least 50% black, you send a one. For every square that's less than half black, you send a zero. And then you just work across the rows in order and you can send the picture through a telegraph. And it would look," Tony fiddled with his tablet, "something like this." He held up the tablet screen which was now displaying a blocky scan of Steve's shield drawing.

Steve stared, not so much stunned by what he saw on the screen as by the fact that he was pretty sure he understood how it got there.

"That's what it means to digitize something. You turn it into digits, numbers. All computers are is billions and billions of miniscule telegraph switches, encoding things as numbers and doing math with them."

"That's…not so bad."

"What's shush-ee?" Steve pointed out the window.

"Sushi," corrected Tony. "It's a Japanese food."

"Oh." Steve looked momentarily uncomfortable before flattening his face into vague disinterest. "I know," he forestalled Tony's explanation, "we have a good relationship with Japan now. It just takes some getting used to."

Tony shrugged, blithely unconcerned. "I could find you some individual Japanese people to hate if it makes you feel any better. Hiroki Kuroda pitched for the Dodgers. I hear he's kind of an asshole."

"I don't want to hate Japanese people." Steve paused. "And don't talk about the Dodgers."

Tony laughed. "Okay, on the downside, the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, but on the upside, no one cares about baseball anymore, so it really doesn't matter."

Steve glared.

Most people tended to think of Captain America as a very 'surface' sort of person – not shallow of course, but not really introspective either. Of course, thought Colonel Fury, history remembers deeds, not thought, so Rogers would probably be remembered as a man of action no matter how pensive he had actually been.

They hadn't expected brooding.

They hadn't known what to expect, of course. Fury had a few shrinks on payroll who made some predictions that were completely worthless. One had persisted in blathering on about 'cases like this' until Fury had called him out and asked him how many 'cases like this' he had actually seen.

At first, he had seemed overwhelmed and shocked all the time. Now he had good days and bad days. Fury would almost feel ready to give him back his gun, but then a bad day would hit and he would see Rogers through the security cameras, sitting cross-legged on his cot, running his fingers along his shield for hours on end.

Colonel Fury had been extremely skeptical that Tony Stark's involvement would actually improve the situation if for no other reason than he was extremely skeptical that Tony Stark's involvement could improve any situation. Though to be fair, he admitted that his other problems often seemed small when Tony was around, but that was because Stark was always busy causing bigger, more immediate problems.

So he was pleasantly surprised when Rogers actually seemed to respond well to Stark. Surprised and worried, because Fury would bet his good eye that Stark wasn't taking this responsibility as seriously as he ought to.

This was confirmed when he Nick Fury decided to visit Rogers' quarters.

Steve Rogers was furiously practicing some sort of basic touch-typing exercise, with a magazine draped over his hands to keep him from looking at his fingers. The familiar Mavis Beacon peered out from the screen offering praise and occasional corrections.

When Fury cleared his throat, Rogers immediately stood at attention.

"Sorry, Colonel. I didn't hear you come in."

"It's all right," said Fury breezily, "you looked pretty absorbed in that."

Rogers nodded. "Tony Stark set it up for me." He glanced back at the computer. "He said that lady is trapped in there until I learn how to type. I'm sure he was just joking. I mean, I'm pretty sure he was joking. I mean, that is to say, I think it's more likely that he was joking than that he was serious, but just in case, I…" Rogers gestured back at the keyboard.

"I see." Fury's brow jutted forward and he suppressed a sigh. "As you were, Captain."

Chapter Text

Pepper keyed in the entry code to Tony's lab. "Remember that thing, where you were going to meet me at the restaurant, and I ended up there by myself, looking like an idiot?"

"What?" Tony looked up from what appeared to be a bird's nest made of copper wire, mixed with glue and holographic projections.

"Have you been here all night?"

"It's night?"

People were people, no matter the century, but Tony felt it was his responsibility to help Steve work out the specifics. S.H.I.E.L.D. had put together some kind of packet underlining the basics ("dames" = quaint, "Negroes" = offensive), but there were so many shades of subculture untapped. That's where Tony came in.

This included everything from attempting to explain Hammerpants and air quotes to teaching Steve why he should never wear a fanny pack ("Because if I saw you wear it, my worldview would explode.").

"You should have shaken his hand, Steve."

"I don't know how it is today, but in my time, you didn't touch people like that. You should be nice to them, sure, but you don't…"

"Is this some kind of Bible thing?"

"No! I just don't want to catch whatever he has."

"It was a tattoo, not a disease."

"All over his face? Who gets a tattoo like that!"

"And that," said Tony, pointing to the left, "is-"

"Drag, yeah, I know."

Tony stunned Steve on practically a daily basis. This was the first time Steve had stunned Tony. "How is it you know drag, but you don't know tattoos?"

"I know tattoos. I just didn't expect anybody to be thick enough to cover their whole face with one."

"Yeah, that was not actually the part of the question I was focusing on."

"They had drag in the 40's. There were these balls in Harlem."

"You went to drag balls?" Tony had read every Captain America biography ever published in English and about 60% of one written in French. There had been no mention of drag balls; Tony would have remembered that.

Steve was getting red-faced and he was shrinking back in his seat. "I never went. I just knew they existed."

"Su-ure," hummed Tony sarcastically. "I believe you."

"It's true!" Steve was starting to sound a little desperate. "I was trying to join the army. I wouldn't have risked that."

"Hey, relax, it's all good. I'll kidnap you and take you to a drag show sometime and you can blame it on me."

Steve took a deep breath and hoped that Tony would at least warn him first.

The plan was for Coulson to take Rogers down to the post office to get some basic identification documents. S.H.I.E.L.D. would handle all of the complicated ones, of course, but there was no reason that Steven Rogers shouldn't have a non-driver ID and a passport in his own name. They would change the year of his birth, of course, but it made sense to stay as close to the grid as possible. There was only one wrench in the plan: Rogers himself.

"I'm not comfortable with lying, sir," said Rogers.

Fury ran his hand over the smooth curve of his head. "What do you say if they ask you about your name?"

"I say that my parents were patriotic people," Rogers recited.

"And is that true, soldier?"

"Yes sir."

"Then it's not a lie, is it?"

"Uh, I suppose not, sir."

Rogers was ordered to begin hand-to-hand combat training with Agent Romanov, mostly because Fury was getting sick of replacing punching bags, but also because he was hoping it would shut Romanov up about the lack of adequate sparring partners.

So now they spent 90 minutes every morning, carefully ghosting through strikes, deflections, and throws. Natasha didn't have the absolute strength to topple Steve when they were both stationary, and Steve didn't yet trust himself to attack her full speed. To an observer – and there were a lot of observers once word got out – their practice sessions looked like nothing quite so much as an ungainly synchronized dance.

Agent Clint Barton, apparently a pal of Romanov's, took it upon himself to assist in heightening the difficulty level by peppering them with a hail of blunted arrows at unpredictable intervals. Natasha dodged easily, but Steve was more used to blocking with his shield. He was gradually improving though, motivated to avoid the irritating victory rituals Barton engaged in whenever he managed to land a blow.

It was good to be working. It was good to be training. It was good to be doing something besides thinking and brooding and waiting for Dr. Balter to come by and take more blood samples.

Besides Barton's sarcasm and Romanov's occasional verbal instructions, there was very little talking. There was something like the beginnings of camaraderie, but mixed with too much reverence. Steve had overheard the shouts when Clint and Natasha practiced alone. Instead of the comparably sedate "Gotcha" he used in Steve's presence, Clint yelled, "Suck it, bitch!" when he was alone with Natasha and one of his arrows struck true. While Steve himself couldn't imagine speaking to a woman that way, he understood that it was affection, not aggression.

Back in the War, Steve had commanded a man they called Dum-dum Dugan when they were in polite company and Shit-For-Brains when they were not. The teasing marked him as a member of the group, not a target for cruelty. They called each other names to humanize each other, to bond. The agents at S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn't bring themselves to treat Steve that way, not yet at least. They were still too stuck on the symbol, on the saint they had been imagining for seventy years.

Which maybe was why he found he liked Tony so much, because Tony, even with his Captain America underwear (and Steve tried really hard not to think too much about that), liked to give him a hard time, didn't treat him like he was infallible. Steve was never sure whether Tony was just tactless or if in fact he enjoyed making Steve squirm. Probably a little of each.

See Exhibit A:

"Her name's Pepper."

"Pepper seems like an odd name."

"Didn't you have a sidekick named Bucky?"

"Yeah, I did." Past tense. And Steve had gone almost the whole day without thinking of Bucky, too.

See Exhibit B:

"You know," said Tony, "for a guy called Captain America, you sure don't like movies with America in the title." So far, Steve had failed to enjoy American Beauty, American Pie, American Pie II, Team America: World Police, or American History X. He twirled the DVD of American Psycho around his finger. Maybe sixth time would be the charm.

"I bet they make all kinds of things out of vibranium these days," said Steve as he carefully poked his sushi with a fork. He was willing to try new foods, and he had braced himself for the changed-international-relations-with-the-Japanese aspect, but no one had thought to mention the raw fish aspect. Sake, on the other hand, Steve found delightful. Just because he couldn't get drunk didn't mean he couldn't enjoy an adult beverage here and there.

Tony was using chopsticks to pick up and eat something called unagi. He had told Steve that he would only reveal the original nature of the slimy foodstuffs after Steve tried some for himself. "Nope, quite the opposite. It's incredibly rare and the few mines are in geopolitically unstable regions. We've got some pretty good alloys for blast absorption, but you, my friend, hold as much wealth in your shield as I do in a medium-sized offshore account."

"I don't know if I realized at the time how lucky I was to have it." Steve poked apart a roll with a fork and began eating individual grains of rice. "Your father was an amazing inventor. He made us these motorcycles…" Steve paused. "I've been reading more about the fut- er, present. It seems like you do the same thing, like you're a genius too."

"QUIT COMPARING ME TO HIM," said Tony in a polite and conversational tone of voice. Or at least, that was how he meant to say it, but the sake had apparently had other plans and now people in the restaurant were staring.

Steve looked confused. "I'm sorry," he said, though he wasn't exactly sure why he was apologizing. He had only said complimentary about Howard Stark. "I didn't mean to…"

But Tony was smiling again. "No worries. Now are you going to actually eat your dinner or just detain it indefinitely?"

Steve pointed out the window of Tony's car. "Are they…inverts?"

Tony finished tapping out an email on his phone, then looked where Steve was pointing, but a city bus was blocking his view of the sidewalk. "Are who what now?" The bus pulled off and now the sidewalk was empty. "What's an invert?"

"Oh," said Steve, "it must be an outdated term."

"So what's it mean, jelly bean?" Steve had noticed that Tony rhymed more when he was drunk.

"Well, ah…" Steve ran his fingers through his hair. He could feel a blush creeping down his neck. "Well, you know how some guys, they uh…you know, they don't have a proper interest in dames-"

"You mean 'gay'," interrupted Tony.

"Well, some of them are," said Steve, still uncertain.

"No, that's the word for it now. You're talking about men who fuck men, right? They're called gay and women who fuck women are called lesbians." Tony was doing it on purpose, being as crude as possible.

"There are…ladies who do that?"

"What, there were no lady inverts back in Middle Earth?"

"Not that I ever met." Steve looked profoundly uncomfortable.

"So what did you see that you were asking me about?" Tony put his hands behind his head and stretched back in his seat.

"Um, some men who were, I guess, waiting for the bus. They were holding hands and one was leaning on the other. I was just wondering if…"

"What, if straight guys do that nowadays? No, not really. Might hold hands for a ceremony or a prayer or something, or in some kind of sports thing, but not just standing around on the sidewalk."

"How do people know these days who's…uh…gay?"

"Gaydar. Designed by Francis L. Parkton in the 1980's. Brilliant device."

Steve's eyes went wide.

"Nah," Tony laughed, "I just made that up. Gaydar's just the name these days for intuition. Some people are good at it, some aren't. I apparently suck. Pepper is a fucking gaydar genius."

"Oh." Steve was quiet for the rest of the ride back to S.H.I.E.L.D.

When Steve walked into the training room the next day, he saw Agent Romanov putting on what looked like thick plastic plates over her clothes. "You told Stark you were afraid to hit me, yes?"

"I want to practice," said Steve, "but I don't want to hurt you too badly." He had already discovered that Natasha expected a certain baseline level of injury.

"His driver dropped these off this morning. Some kind of polymer." At Steve's wrinkled brow, she added, "I don't know what it means either, beyond an excuse for him to get my measurements." She finished strapping the last plate in place. "Hit me," she said, "or try to."

This was sparring. This was a workout. He still couldn't go all out, but he could land punches without breaking bones and he was satisfied to hear Natasha hiss "Cretin!" when his swing went wide.

Chapter Text

Tony was just oppositional by nature; he always had been. When he was a kid, Jarvis (the real one, not the AI) would tell him to have a nice day and Tony would reflexively shout back, "You're not the boss of me!"

Since that time, Tony had matured considerably. That was his opinion, anyhow.

Which is why when Director Fury commanded him to do something he had been planning on doing anyhow…

"You don't own Steve and you don't own me. He's not a little toy for you to trot out and show off and keep forever in his mint condition packaging because I know that's the kind of kid you were, Fury, weren't you? No fun at all."

"Steve?" Fury raised an eyebrow, clearly feeling that one of his least favorite people in the world should not be on a first name basis with a national hero.

Tony shrugged. "He's only Steve until I get him an appointment with that doctor on 5th street. Then he'll be Stephanie."

"Since you seem so terribly concerned with his well-being, let me put it to you a different way. He is going to go through with these interviews. He is going to do them whether you help prepare him or not. I know you have amazing PR people coaching you Stark – there's no other way you could have pulled all the stupid stunts you have over the years and still have any public credibility left. Should you wish to share any of that wisdom with Captain Rogers, I'm sure he would appreciate it."

There was finally enough data from Steve's music ratings for Tony to begin running preliminary single subject cluster analyses. Sometimes the common thread among the songs in a cluster was fairly easy to identify. Steve liked Beatles songs written by George Harrison. Steve liked Toby Keith (who didn't see that coming?). Steve liked retro swing music and rhythmically similar songs that would normally be classified as Salsa. He continued to like Zoot Suit Riot even after Tony told him the song was produced by a band called the Cherry Poppin' Daddies and even after Tony explained what that meant.

Some clusters took a little digesting. Steve seemed to consistently like songs produced by bands that were specifically assembled to appeal to fourteen-year-old girls. He upvoted the Backstreet Boys, the Monkees, and Menudo. Tony didn't judge, but seriously, he had been expecting the living embodiment of the American spirit to have better taste than Tiger Beat magazine.

Occasionally, Tony had to exert mental effort to find the common thread that held certain clusters together. There was a cluster of over a dozen songs that ranged from the Offspring's Million Miles Away to Blur's For Tomorrow to Simon and Garfunkel's Scarborough Fair. He spun back and forth through the cluster, listening to bits of each. Oh, they all had two distinct melodies sung at the same time. Kinky.

S.H.I.E.L.D. had assigned Steve a counselor even though he insisted he didn't need one. The woman, Agent Santos, had pointed out that hardly anyone in an organization like S.H.I.E.L.D. thought they needed mental health supports and yet there were four full time psychologists on staff, all with full schedules.

He found that he liked talking with her. All he did was tell stories: stories from the war, stories from Brooklyn when he was a kid. He pointed this out after a few sessions – if all he was doing was telling stories, why did he need to tell them to a professional?

She smiled. "There are two ways to go from there. One is that when you tell stories to your friends and your colleagues, a good guy like you pays attention to how your stories are affecting them. When you talk to me, you don't have to worry about that. The other way we can go is I can start being more directive, but I usually reserve that for clients who are mentally ill, whereas you're simply having a reasonable reaction to an unreasonable situation." She paused. "I'm really just here to give you a chance to grieve for the people you've lost and for the era itself."

Steve really hated all of the psychobabble that had apparently become commonplace in his absence, buy some of it did make sense. Grieving for the era. Losing his time wasn't the same as losing Howard or Peggy or Bucky, but it wasn't so different either. It was the same idea of something permanently gone, irretrievable. "Everything was more straightforward back then," he said, "You worked hard, you took care of your family, you fought Nazis, you went to church. It was simpler. Now, everything is so complicated, like we're at war, but not with a country. So what are we fighting, an idea? It's just, it's very different."

Agent Santos had listened patiently while Steve elaborated and Steve felt that he finally had words for why the future made him so uncomfortable. So he repeated a summary of his monologue to Tony.

"Bullshit."

"What?"

"Bull. Shit."

This was not the reaction Steve had expected. "Are you calling me a liar?"

Tony shook his head. "You think it was simpler because you were ignoring the complex parts. You know the Allies killed civilians, right? Intentionally flooded valleys without any thought to evacuation. Burned Dresden to the ground. You know the Black soldiers were paid less than the White soldiers, right? How simple do you think it was for them, to fight and die for a country that wouldn't even give them equal rights?" Tony had never been terribly interested in history, but his mind was sharp enough that he remembered whatever facts had been placed before him. "'You work hard, you take care of your family,'" Tony quoted Steve. "How many guys did you know back in Brooklyn who beat their wives or their kids and nobody thinks it's their place to intervene and the police won't even take a statement? It's really simple as long as you're not the one getting beaten. I mean, Steve, you were surprised to see those guys with cerebral palsy in the park last week. You think there weren't people with CP in the 30's? No, they were just locked up in institutions, which I guess is simpler, but you know, sucks for them."

For the first time since meeting him, Tony could see why the Nazis had been terrified of Captain America. For the first time since meeting him, Tony could see what Steve Rogers looked like when he was angry.

"Happy, pull over please." Of course Steve was still polite to Happy.

"Steve," said Tony, "don't be stupid. We're at least fifteen miles from S.H.I.E.L.D."

"You think I can't hike fifteen miles?"

"I think you can't hike fifteen miles without drawing attention to yourself. And the media have to be handled carefully in something like this. We can make them love you and that'll make your life ten times easier. Or, you can march off and have a dozen kids with camera phones post your image all over and the whole thing will get rolling with the pundits calling you a hoax."

Steve was stubborn, not stupid. He sighed and leaned back into his seat, resigned. "The media wasn't this much of a pain in the 30's."

"Amen to that."

"So this is the internet," said Tony. "Think of it like a long distance library, except 90% of everything is porn."

Steve squinted at the screen and slowly moved his cursor in a circle.

"Here's what you need to know. One: Nigeria does not have a monarchy, so anyone who claims to be a Nigerian prince is a liar. Two: If it is flashing colors back and forth, don't click on it, and it's lying. Three: If it's not flashing colors back and forth, it's still probably lying and you shouldn't click on it. Also, you didn't win anything, no matter what anyone says. Four: Stay away from 4chan."

"Tony, I don't even know what a 4chan is."

"Do you know what a goatse is?"

Steve shook his head.

"And if you stay away from 4chan, you can remain in that blissfully ignorant state." Tony turned back to the monitor. "Now, I have bookmarked a few websites that you might find useful. This one is UrbanDictionary. It lets you look up modern slang, but about half of the definitions are lies, so check that out. Here's Wikipedia. It's just an encyclopedia, but anyone can change it. See," Tony began to type his own name into the search box, "it says here that wealthy industrialist Tony Stark has testicles the size of Valencia oranges."

"Did you put that in there?"

"Hey, you're catching on! I also updated the entry on S.H.I.E.L.D. to indicate that Nick Fury once kept a hobo captive in his basement for almost two weeks just because he wanted someone to play him in table tennis."

"I'm not sure I'm seeing the point of this internet thing. You said it was like a book, but it sounds like a book that's completely inaccurate."

"You can't prove that Nick Fury didn't kidnap a hobo."

"Hey, you mind if Pepper meets us for dinner tonight? I'm kind of in the doghouse, man."

"I don't know that one," said Steve, gesturing at the idiom's presumed airspace.

"Means she's pissed at me."

"Why is she angry?" Steve apparently considered 'pissed' a swear word and avoided using it unless it was really called for.

"In the short term, because I neglected to sign a bunch of papers, I used her toothbrush, and I forgot…something important, I don't remember what." Tony shook his head. "In the long term, because it turns out that saving someone from flying killer robots is not actually a solid basis for a relationship."

"Oh," said Steve vaguely. He felt he should say more, perhaps something encouraging, but he wasn't sure whether Tony was joking about the whole flying killer robot thing.

"Anyways, taking her out to dinner and introducing her to Captain-fucking-America will go a long way toward mending fences."

"Don't call me that."

"Right on. So, I'll have Pepper meet us at the restaurant?"

"Uh…" Steve hesitated. "I'm not sure if I'm supposed to, uh, be meeting people. Aren't they trying to keep me hidden for now?"

"Actually, they want you to be on the talk show circuit soon, so you might as well get used to it. Besides, Pepper doesn't count for blowing your cover. She knows how to keep a secret."

"Yeah," said Steve, still not sounding enthused. "That's a good skill to have."

"He was delightful," said Pepper. "You were an ass."

"Was not. I was contributing to conversational diversity."

She rolled her eyes. "I don't know what I was expecting, but he seems like a really down-to-earth guy. I shudder to think what you've been putting him through."

"Ah, it's not so bad. He's a quick study. He'll be up and texting in no time. Now we just have to find him a girlfriend and he'll be ready to roll."

"Tony," now she sounded stern. "Don't interfere with things like that. Let him move at his own pace."

"You saw how uncomfortable he was talking to you. If he moves at his own pace, he's going to be lapped by lethargic snails. Lethargic snails riding turtles. Lethargic snails riding turtles who have some kind of neuromuscular disorder."

"I'm serious, Tony, you should let him be."

"I'm not going to take him to a strip club." Well, he wasn't only going to take him to a strip club. "I'm just going to introduce him to some nice wholesome young women that he can take to the malt shop or monocle polishing or whatever oldtimey people do on dates."

"Tony, I don't think…" Pepper trailed off, either uncertain about what to say next or uncertain about whether she should say it. "I don't think he's interested in women. I'm pretty sure he's got a crush on your dad."

"You're telling me that CAPTAIN AMERICA is a GAY NECROPHILIAC!"

Pepper smacked him lightly across the back of the head. "Don't be stupid. For him, he last saw your dad a few weeks ago."

"Yeah, but…it's a free country and all, and anyone with a broadband connection knows that there's some pretty crazy tastes out there, but how could he fall for-"

"Tony Stark, I have known you for a very long time and I have seen you make some very poor decisions. I don't think you get to judge anyone else's sexual proclivities."

Chapter Text

As Happy drives him back to S.H.I.E.L.D., Steve thinks over and over, "She knows, she knows." Tony had said she was good at guessing these things. And the way Pepper was looking at him. She knows.

He goes to take a shower because it's the only place without cameras. He thinks of Howard while he jerks off and when he comes, he feels like the worst man in the world because now he's not just disrespecting Howard, he's dishonoring Howard's memory too.

He doesn't want the new and exciting and modern. He wants familiar, so he buys a Hershey bar and some M&Ms from the vending machine even though he's not really hungry. The Hershey bar is fine. The M&Ms are fine except they have blue ones now. Tony had told him that, had told him that the company had invited everyone to vote on what the new color would be and Steve had been okay with that because he reflexively approved of anything that involved voting, but right now, Steve wanted his pack of M&Ms to be just like it used to be so he picks the blue ones out and put them aside. He'll deal with them later.

Steve lies on his cot, face down. Tony had made some changes to the radio so he could control the music by talking to it now, so Steve asks it to play I've Got Rhythm by Gershwin because he always liked that song and because he doesn't want it to start playing any of the other stuff.

Steve covers the back of his head with his hands as if protecting himself from artillery fire. He didn't quite know why he does that.

She knows. She knows and she'll tell Tony and then Tony will tell, well, everyone probably. Everyone will know, and then what would happen? At best, they would just ask him to leave S.H.I.E.L.D., leave the army, keep everything hushed up so they could preserve their notion of Captain America even if Steve Rogers wasn't quite right. And then where would he go? He has some money, back pay, and it looks like plenty to him, but of course everything is much more expensive now and if he's honest with himself he really had no idea how much utilities and living expenses cost these days. But even besides money, he's still lost in this time. Tony is the only person he really knows well, and even if Steve is starting to get the hang of typing and cell phones and remote controls, every time he leaves the S.H.I.E.L.D. building he sees twenty things he still couldn't place. And he wouldn't be a soldier anymore.

Steve is good at thinking ahead, at planning for the worst case scenario. It's one of the things that makes him a good tactician. But now he's feeling panicked and that won't help anybody. Maybe Pepper doesn't actually know. Maybe she knows but she didn't tell Tony. Maybe she told Tony, but Tony will keep it under wraps.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

He had been so careful to never let it show. He had finally been getting the hang of this 21st century thing, had finally started to go whole days without thinking that everyone he knew was dead. He has a friend now, Tony. Things were going okay and now this.

Steve starts to pray that things will work out, that no one will know his secret, but then it occurs to him that this may not be a very worthy thing to pray for, especially given what his secret is, so he switches to the Lord's Prayer and puts a lot of emphasis on "thy will be done."

"Don't you dare ruin this for him," says Pepper.

"Ruin what? I'm not ruining anything. I don't even know what I'm not supposed to ruin and yet here I stand, ruination-free."

"Tony, I'm serious. He's a nice young man who's been through a lot, and I know how you get about things with your dad."

"What things? I have been nothing but polite on the issue. He asked me how Dad died, I told him 'car crash.' That's it. None of the nasty details. I just think that a nice young man like him could aim a little higher, like maybe he could fall for an ex-con with a skin condition."

And Pepper sighs because Tony still doesn't get it.

They go to bed at the same time. Pepper falls asleep quickly. Tony stays up for hours looking at schematics.

When Tony finally falls asleep, this is what he dreams:

He is young and Yinsen is an adult but they are both the same age. His father hands him a gun and it's definitely Stark tech. His father tells him he has to kill Yinsen, because it'll toughen him up. He takes a step backward and there are hands on him and then his head is going underwater again and again. And he's sure his father knows the way out but it's in a map in an atom. And he is still hooked up to the car battery and when the water touches the leads oh god it hurts it's like his skin is trying to get away from him and-

Pepper is waking him up. She's got one hand on his shoulder and an arm crossed over his chest. She's talking to him, telling him that it's a dream and he's okay.

Tony stands, says nothing, and goes down to his workshop. He knows he's breaking one of Pepper's very reasonable requests – that when he gets like this he talk to her at least a little instead of getting drunk or getting lost in his work, because Pepper knows him well enough to know about both of his addictions. He knows it's a reasonable request, but he's never been very good with follow through.

When Steve got up in the morning, he felt calm again. Whatever will be, will be. He was lucky, really, that he got to serve in the war at all. Anything else was just gravy. So he went back to the routine he had gradually developed. First calisthenics in his room, then breakfast. Practice typing for thirty minutes, study history for an hour. Sparring with Natasha. More typing, more history. A little time to draw before lunch.

Agent Barton sat down next to him in the mess. No, cafeteria. They call it a cafeteria.

"Hey." Steve smiles.

Agent Romanov sits across from both of them. "Coulson is looking for you, Clint," she says.

"Yup. That's why I am cleverly not where he would expect me to be."

Steve squinted. "He wouldn't expect you to be in the lunchroom at lunch time?"

"You ever seen me in here before?"

"Point taken."

"Besides," said Barton, "Coulson would never deign to hunt me down. He enjoys pretending to be in charge."

"I can't believe you just used the word 'deign'," said Natasha. "Do you have a Word-of-the-Day calendar now?"

"Bite me," answered Clint. He turned. "So, Rogers. Word is they've got you running around with Tony Stark."

Steve nodded. "He's just teaching me about the current technology and culture and such." Not wanting to diminish Tony's efforts, he added, "He seems like a nice fella."

Clint gagged on his beef stroganoff. "Ha! He's a real arrogant sonofabitch. Not that he doesn't know what he's doing, but he's not a tenth as amazing as he thinks he is." Clint took another bite, to replace the one he coughed up. "Of course, no one is a tenth as amazing as he thinks he is. He's got his uses, though. I like it when Stark stirs up trouble because it gets Fury off my case."

"At least Stark doesn't wear a purple skirt," said Natasha.

"That was one time."

Steve laughed. He was glad to be a part of their banter. "It does sound like he's invented some pretty incredible stuff."

"No one doubts that Stark is brilliant," replied Natasha. "I mean, he invented a new power source while he was a POW in an Afghani cave. He's just unreliable. What it comes down to is that he's not a soldier. Most people around here are uncomfortable with someone that powerful they cannot depend on." She shrugged. "Then again, most people around here have dodged a bullet or won a firefight with Stark tech, so perhaps we shouldn't complain."

"Clint?" said Steve, "not that I necessarily support your…uh…but I ought to mention that Agent Coulson is standing in line at the salad bar."

"Shit!" Clint ducked under the table.

Tony Stark hadn't spent much time in malls since, well, actually, he had never spent much time in malls. He rarely did his own shopping and when he did, he was usually looking for something either too obscure or too high-priced to be found in a conventional shopping center. But it was a good way for Steve to see a whole lot of modern brands and products.

"What's that store?"

"Victoria's Secret. I can't go in there. Some stupid rule about not trying on the merchandise if you don't intend to buy it. Or something about photography. Or both. I really don't remember. It wasn't important."

"Huh?"

"Hey, you want a pretzel? I want a pretzel. Let's go get pretzels."

"Hey, look, kids going to see Santa. That's good to see."

"Steve, I…I hate to be the one to tell you this, but that's not the real Santa Claus."

"You are aware that there's a difference between being old and being stupid, right?"

"I've heard that, but it never seems to sink in."

"They have a pet store inside this shopping center?"

"Hmm," Tony's eyes were pointed up, shifting back and forth as if he were doing math. "When's your next meeting with Fury and how many lizards do you think you can fit in your coat pockets?"

"I think I'll never get used to all the advertisements." Steve pronounced the word 'advertisements' with the accent on the second syllable and a short-i sound. "I'm already in the store. Why do they think it's necessary for them to plaster every available space with ads?"

"For the same reason I've been setting you up with modern music," said Tony. "There's a saying in advertising: familiarity breeds contentment."

"I think you've got that one wrong, Tony. It's, 'familiarity breeds contempt'."

"Nope, my version's right. Tested by real live scientists with lab coats and clipboards and everything. When you see the same ad over and over, it gets familiar and you feel a little better about the whole brand. My idea is that when you hear a song that you've heard before, instead of thinking, oh no, not one more new thing to stress about, you think oh yeah, I've heard that before, no worries. The world'll seem a little more familiar and you can relax and get on with having fun in life."

"Tony?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm still not filling Director Fury's office with lizards."

"Goddamnit, Steve."

They were walking slowly through the mall and Steve was thinking about what Natasha had said, that Tony had been a POW in Afghanistan. Steve had caught up with enough history by this point that he knew Tony's three-month visit hadn't been a sightseeing tour. Maybe Tony didn't like to talk about it. That was fine with Steve. As far as he was concerned, the future had far too much emphasis on talking about everything. So he decided to approach the subject obliquely and let Tony decide where to go from there.

"You haven't told me much about Iron Man," said Steve, squinting curiously at a store that sold only baseball caps.

"I love talking about Iron Man. What do you want to know? Pepper says I talk too much about Iron Man. Not actually iron, if you want to be technical. It's made of a gold-titanium alloy, but more recently I've been adding small amounts of molybdenum and tungsten to stabilize the metal and prevent overheating."

"Molybdenum," repeated Steve, "that's what the Germans put in their Big Berthas so they wouldn't melt."

"Same principle. Did you know the elemental symbol for tungsten is W? Because the Germans called it wolfram. The repulsors actually generate very little heat, unlike all the moving parts. I was thinking of switching to a system of colloids for the contact surfaces in the joints." Tony suddenly paused. "Hey, Spencer's. I gotta take you there."

Looking at the shelves, Steve was not entirely certain that Spencer's reached 'gotta' level priority. They had some things that glowed in the dark without radioactivity, which was pretty nifty, a big plastic gun that shot air, and tiny metal tubes that could shine a little red dot on the wall or the ceiling. That was fine, interesting even.

Then there were other things that made Steve considerably less comfortable. There were a lot of references to cannabis. "Isn't that illegal?"

Tony glanced over at the bumper sticker Steve was pointing to. "Pot's illegal, but saying you like pot is perfectly legal."

"That doesn't make sense."

"You're tellin' me," contributed the store clerk, raising two fingers in what Steve had come to understand was no longer the V-for-victory sign, but now in fact signified 'peace'.

There was some kind of tube with two liquids inside of it, but they didn't mix together. Instead, one of the liquids formed big bubbles that floated up and down in the other. Steve stared.

Tony clapped him on the back. "You like lava lamps? That's awesome. Not my generation, but now I gotta buy you one. It'll be hilarious. You'll have the only quarters in S.H.I.E.L.D. with one."

"I don't-" Maybe it was all the obviously sexual toys and signs in the store, but the panic Steve had felt last night was returning. He really didn't need to stand out from the crowd at S.H.I.E.L.D. any more than he already did. "I really don't think-" His face was flushed.

"Ah, screw this," said Tony, tossing the package back onto the shelf. "Let's go get deep fried mall Chinese food."

Steve sat in the corner of the food court, waiting for Tony to return with more fortune cookies. When Tony came back, he dropped two handfuls onto the table. Then he turned a chair around backwards and rested his head on his arms. "So," he said, tearing open a plastic package, "Pepper says you like penis. How's that working out for you?"

Chapter Text

Tony had never been particularly good at reading facial expressions, though in all fairness, he had never put much effort into the task. At one point, he had attempted to develop a computer program which would distill affective information from a photograph of the face, but then he had realized that no one appreciated him snapping pictures in the middle of contentious conversations, so he gave up on the whole idea.

There were certain, frequently occurring expressions that he had a pretty good handle on: He could tell when Rhodey was fed up and when Rhodey was acting fed up but would really tolerate quite a bit more. He could tell when Pepper was about to give him more work to do and when she was about to complain that he hadn't done the work he was supposed to do.

Tony was really having a hard time parsing the expression on Steve Rogers' face.

It looked square-jawed and determined and squinty, with a good measure of deer-in-the-headlights and what-the-fuck thrown in. Steve's brow was narrowed and his lips were pressed together.

Unsure how to proceed, Tony cracked open his fortune cookie and munched on one of the larger shards.

You knew this could happen, thought Steve. You always knew this could happen. You should just be glad that your parents and Bucky and Dr. Erskine and everybody else aren't alive to hear it.

Steve felt a tightness in his muscles, the same urge to run that had possessed him when he had first awoken in the future. But he told himself, you're Steve Rogers. You're Steve Rogers and you don't run away.

You don't run away.

"I want to speak with Director Fury. I'd like to resign my commission quietly. I don't want to tarnish the reputations of the men I served with."

Taking another person's perspective was another skill Tony had never bothered to develop. "What the hell are you talking about?"

That was not the reaction Steve had been expecting. Now he had no idea what to say. He glanced to either side. The nearest people were a few tables away, but Tony wasn't exactly a quiet guy.

Tony started in on another fortune cookie. "Back up the truck here. So are you gay or not? I mean, Pepper's pretty good, but she's not perfect. We used to go to parties and play 'Really Bisexual or Just Likes the Attention' and she always did better than me but she'd miss one here and there. Or are you bisexual? Or you just like attention? Well, probably not that last one."

Now Steve really had no idea what to say. "I…" He picked up a fortune cookie package and turned it over in his hands. "I never, I swear…even, even when it was cold and the fellas would bed down in pairs and trios to stay warm, I wouldn't sleep like that because I didn't want to create any…" And he didn't. Always said that he was the C.O. and it wouldn't be proper, even if sometimes Bucky wanted to when he was stuck on thinking about Schmidt's prison and even if he never felt that way about Bucky and Bucky never felt that way about him.

"Seriously? Man, that's the oldest trick in the book. I used to do that when I was in college, tell a cute little coed that the heat was on the fritz and we should probably share a blanket and next thing you know," Tony snapped his fingers and smirked.

"I would never."

Tony shrugged. "What's your fortune?"

Steve opened the package and cracked the cookie. "It says, 'Gambling will bring you much sorrow.' and then on the other side it says my lucky numbers are 2, 5, 10, 11, 14, and 29."

"Well, that's some mixed fucking messages, right there."

They smashed the rest of the cookies and made stupid jokes about the fortunes.

"May your vision be as wide as your promise…in bed," said Tony.

"That doesn't even make sense."

"You do one."

"The wind that buckles the trees also stirs the waves…in bed." Steve scratched his head. "Maybe I'm just missing something."

"Normally this works." Tony looked personally offended that this batch of fortune cookies was not readily conforming to prepositional-phrase based humor. He sifted through the smashed cookie bits. "Oh, here's one. The man who is both firm and yielding succeeds at his task in bed." He tossed the fortune on the table. "Finally. Usually they all work."

Steve laughed, if only slightly. "So," he said, "what happens now?"

"It's up to you. We could go to Sears so you can see all the different appliances and tools and stuff. I really think we should watch Ghostbusters at some point, but it doesn't have to be today. Hell, we could fly to Florida and go to Disneyland if you really want. I have to admit, the thought of you riding the teacups does kind of crack me up."

"No, I meant, what are you going to tell Director Fury?"

Tony finally realized what he was being asked. "They have you studying history, don't they? Wasn't there anything in there about gay rights?" But as he was speaking, Tony realized that maybe there wasn't. Maybe they were just using textbooks, and if his own from high school and college were any example, they probably skipped the subject entirely. (Or so he assumed; he admittedly hadn't actually read them.)

Steve shook his head. "I thought things might be different now, because of those men I saw at the bus stop, but I didn't think-"

"It's utterly different. You can serve openly, legally speaking anyways – it might not be a wise PR move, but you can always finesse those things, believe me. Hell, you can get married if you want. I won't say nobody gives you grief about it, but most people don't, and the people who do are widely regarded as assholes."

"You can't joke about this, Tony. Please don't joke about this."

Tony found himself feeling oddly protective, which was ridiculous because Steve could easily snap him in half, but it occurred to Tony that even though Steve was born years and years before him, Steve was a good decade and a half younger in real terms. "Come on," he stood, "I'll buy you a drink."

"It's 1:30 in the afternoon."

"Never argue with me about alcohol."

"So," said Tony, putting a hand on Pepper's thigh, "you were right."

"I often am." She tipped her head back and kissed his nose. "What was I right about now?"

"Captain America's a little light in the loafers. More than a little. He-"

Pepper spun around. "You talked to him about it? Didn't I tell you to leave it alone? Oh god," she sighed, "you probably traumatized the poor man."

"I did not! I just…" Tony trailed off because it was difficult to describe the uneven blend of alcohol, fragmentary conversation, and Hanna Barbera cartoons that had comprised his afternoon with Steve. He ran his fingers along Pepper's leg instead.

She stood up, brushing his hand away. "I've got a meeting in L.A. at 9:15 tomorrow. Remember? The Lawson account?"

"Sure," he nodded absently, "Lawson account."

"You did write up your prospectus, didn't you?"

Tony was not an angry drunk by any stretch - though he could be a little mean when he was hungover - but it was still best for him to avoid serious conversation because he had a tendency to burst into bouts of unprovoked giggling, a behavior which tended to derail solemn discussion.

Apparently, the word 'prospectus' was hilarious.

"Tony, I gave you one thing to do. You had one responsibility. And tomorrow, I'm going to fly to L.A. and tell them what? That we really want their investment and we have no idea what we're going to do with it?"

"Well, I'm SORRY." Tony might have been shouting a little, another effect of the alcohol. "I'm sorry, I was too busy TRAUMATIZING Captain AMERICA."

They say you shouldn't go to bed angry, but Pepper had a 5am flight. Tony just didn't go to bed.

Steve closed his eyes to fix the image in his mind, then he lowered his pencil to his sketchbook and with a smile, he began to draw Howard Stark.

Chapter Text

"Jak-uz-ee?" asked Steve, pointing to a billboard.

"Jacuzzi," corrected Tony.

"Is it French?"

"I have no idea. It's awesome, is what it is. It's like a hot bath, but with these bubbles…"

"A bubble bath? Like for little kids?"

"No, no, you're missing the point. I'll have to just show you sometime. I have one at my penthouse." Tony winked.

Howard used to wink at him.

They're in a dance hall in Europe, the band is playing Benny Goodman, and Howard strides in wearing a smooth grin and a three-piece suit. He pauses as he walks past Steve and the tip of his tongue peeks out between his teeth with an acknowledging nod. Howard picks a girl, offers her his hand, and then they're dancing. He's a good dancer, a very good dancer and Steve's trousers were starting to feel a little tight. Howard swings the girl one way and another and when he's stretched out away from her, when his free hand is pointed right at Steve, he winks.

Or they're in the showers and Howard is wearing nothing but a smooth grin. Howard sings softly to himself and the water swirls around him. It's not hot enough for steam. It never is.

He says, "Window shopping, Captain?" and Steve realizes he must have been staring.

"Sorry," says Steve, "I was lost in my thoughts."

He looks Steve up and down and winks. "Nothing wrong with enjoying the view."

Or Steve is looking at page after page of minutely labeled diagrams. He never realized his shield was so complicated, but apparently every inch had been carefully planned. Howard puts his hand over the papers. He wags his finger at Steve. "Now, now," he says, "no one really wants to know how a magician does his tricks." He winks before rushing across the room to deal with something on fire.

Language had changed in so many ways. Steve approved of some of the changes, ones that had been made to be more fair or more courteous or more just. You didn't call someone an Indian giver anymore. When people of different races wanted to date or marry, you used a neutral term like 'mixed-race' or 'interracial' instead of a moralistic term like 'mycegenation'. And you added –American onto the end of just about everything. Steve got a bit over-enthused about that last one; it had to be explained to him that it was unnecessary to refer to Agent Romanov as a Female-American.

Some of the changes were neutral, things that no one cared much one way or another. Apparently nobody said 'whom' anymore. Tony told Steve he might sound a little archaic if he persisted in saying it, but probably no one would notice. There were words that people still understood, but they hardly ever used these days: courting, swell, hooch, sawbuck. And for reasons Steve didn't fully understand, apostrophes were no longer used exclusively for contractions and possessives, but now also took the role of warning the reader whenever a word was about to end in 's'.

Then there were new words, words that hadn't existed at all in Steve's time, or if they did, he hadn't heard of them. Words like laser, fax, and latte. All kinds of words for cars: Subaru, Hyundai, SUV, minivan. Those were the easier words to manage, the ones that had been invented while he was frozen. The words that Steve had the most trouble with were the ones that he knew, but had taken on a whole new meaning. Apples and Windows were computers. Blackberries were telephones. A sneaker was a shoe. A printer was a machine, not a person. Bush wasn't just a plant, it was also a president and slang for pubic hair.

Of course there was always lots of slang for drugs and sex and body parts, always had been. The reality was that Steve had never used much crude language; it just never felt quite proper. (Yes, he did swear now and then, and he hadn't necessarily minded listening to the incredible array of innuendos put forth by the guys in his unit, but he had just never had much of a foul mouth himself.) It was usually safe to assume that when Tony or Clint used a word or phrase in a way that didn't make much literal sense, it probably was some kind of vulgarity. Though Steve had been surprised when the internet confirmed that 'Harry Potter' was in fact a character from a children's book; it had just sounded so dirty.

It was time to start getting Steve out in the public eye. There had been talk of starting him out with an interview by Stephen Colbert to draw in the younger demographic, but Tony pointed out that Steve was not exactly fluent in sarcasm no matter what the era, so now the first rights were probably going to go to Dan Rather or Diane Sawyer.

"I don't see why this makes you nervous," said Tony. "You were a publicity machine before."

"This is different. This is very different. It's not a thousand kids and their grandparents in a tent. These videos now get seen millions of times. By everyone."

"Let me ask you, have you ever lost over a billion dollars in a single press conference?"

"Um…no?" Tony thought in quantities of currency that were essentially unimaginable to Steve.

"Well, then you're already way ahead of me," said Tony, wiggling his eyebrows with a grin. "We're going to practice and you're going to charm them out of their very pants." He turned his head to the side. "Note to self – invent charm-proof pants."

"Okay, let's start with an easy one. Do you have a message for our fighting men and women overseas?"

"Are they going to start with that?"

"No, they'll probably end with it. But it's a softball."

"Okay. Ah, yes. Know that your country is proud of you, and is grateful for your bravery and heroism. Our thoughts and prayers are with you always."

"See, that wasn't so hard. How about this one: Do you remember anything from when you were frozen?"

Steve's face took on a distant look. "I…"

"Wait, stop. I'm not sure how that's going to translate with your head-face-thingy on, but you look too sad."

"I'm not sad, I just-"

"People want to know that you've suffered. It humanizes you. But they don't want to feel it. You can't look all haunted. Try flattening your forehead a bit. Now blink, twice slowly. Much better."

Steve did as he was told, wondering how he was going to remember all this. "No, I don't recall anything. The last thing I remember is trying to stop Zemo's ro-"

"The Nazi scientist Zemo. People might not recognize the name. Might as well start harping on the fact that you fought Nazis as soon as possible."

"The last thing I remember is trying to stop the Nazi scientist Zemo's rocket and then…" He shrugs.

"Ooh, I like that shrug, keep that. Are there things you don't like about the twenty-first century? Now here, you want to pick something sort of peripheral, something that won't really alienate anyone."

"Sushi?"

"No, makes you sound like you have old ethnic hatreds, which confuses people because they have new ethnic hatreds."

"I keep telling you Tony, I don't hate Japanese people. I just don't like the idea of eating raw eels."

"And I believe you. But it's not about what you say, it's about what they hear. Let's come back to that one. What do you like about the future?"

"All the equality." Steve's gaze was clear and bright. "When I woke up, there was an African American woman – I hope I didn't offend her too much when I thought she was an orderly, because she was the doctor. Those opportunities weren't available to everyone in my time, and now…I'm very proud of all the progress my country has made."

"That was great. That was really heartfelt, Steve, but I'm going to advise against it."

"Why?"

"Well, first because there would be a dozen people lining up to say that there isn't really equality and we still have a long way to go and that puts you in an awkward position. And more importantly, because it might lead back to gay rights and you probably want to keep your mouth shut on that. For now-"

"I thought you said things were different now."

Tony sighed. "Look, if you came out as gay, I would say about a third of America would think it was awesome and about a third would warm up to the idea pretty quickly. The other third, though, probably wouldn't. I just don't think that's going to be helpful when we're convincing the world you're really back and you're not a hoax and all of that." Tony shrugged. "On the plus side, you'd start getting letters from cute fanboys."

Steve was silent for a few moments. "Maybe I can talk about medicine and technology. Say I'm proud of all we've accomplished. The moon landing and stuff like that."

"See, you learn quick! If I can personally invade a West Asian nation and spin it so my stocks jump 20 points in the morning, you can look all noble and humble while the fourth estate kisses your ass."

Tony was standing out in the hallway, talking on his cell phone. "Well, I thought," he said. There was a pause. "But I-" He drummed his fingers against the wall. "No, that's fine. That's just fine. Hey, if that's what you want, right? Sure, good, great, fantastic." A very long pause. "I'm sorry. I really…I'll transfer all of the passcodes. Yeah, no, there's always more layers of security." A beat. "Lo-" He bites his tongue. "Goodbye."

Tony stuck his head in the doorway. "Let's go do something fun. Come on, what do you want to do? We could go to Vegas, we could go to Disneyland, we could go to Bermuda."

"I've always wanted to see Mount Rushmore."

"Why do I even bother asking you? Your ideas are uniformly terrible. I want to do something fun, not go to North Dakota and stare at a bunch of creepy oversized heads."

"Mount Rushmore is in South Dakota."

"Oh, really?" asked Tony in his most sincere voice. "Well, that makes all the difference. I mean, North Dakota may be a wasteland, but South Dakota is a freaking blow job in Times Square."

"How about you show me your workshop? I've still never actually seen the Iron Man armor up close."

"How about we do some liver tests and figure out the rate of alcohol infusion necessary to get you drunk? It's got to be possible. We may just need to find a more efficient method of absorption."

"That…sounds dangerous. And you're not a doctor."

"It's all math. I can do math. I'm really good at math. And at alcohol. I'm like an alcohol genius."

"I'd really like to see your workshop, Tony."

Without warning, Tony Stark spun around and pinched Captain America's cheeks. "I can't say no to you."

Steve might not have liked Tony's preferred thrash metal, but with a little persuasion, he could enjoy operatic speed metal, so they spent the evening with very little conversation, heads nodding absently in time with the incredibly loud music.

Steve was unnerved by the giant wheeled metal arm that kept following him around, seeming to point to things and nudge him along at regular intervals. He was pretty sure that Tony yelled at it, saying, "Dummy, I swear to god!", but given the noise, Tony might have said, "Gummy bears, my god!"

As it was, Tony showed him an endless array of gears and engines and computers, while downing an impressive amount of booze and yes, eventually turning the music down. Then he showed off an enormous holographic display that allowed the user to draw glowing lines suspended in open air; Steve was enthralled. When he finally paused from fiddling with every conceivable setting, he saw Tony, sitting at an array of computers, typing furiously in between swigs of whatever he was drinking and muttering to himself about 'that bitch'. Normally, Steve wouldn't approve of using that sort of language to talk about women, particularly when he suspected Tony was talking about Pepper, who was a perfectly nice lady, but Steve had a pretty strong guess as to the topic of their earlier phone call, so he was feeling tolerant. He walked around the perimeter of the lab, looking at various projects from a safe distance. He stopped at a picture of Howard, a very old photograph; he couldn't have been more than a decade older than he'd been when Steve knew him. In the picture, Howard's hands were out, framing some sort of profoundly complicated missile interior.

"That's so fucked up," muttered Tony, from across the room.

Steve turned back, surprised that Tony was still aware of his presence.

"That you would…god, that's so fucked up."

"You should probably go to bed, Tony. You're pretty drunk."

There was a little bit of meanness in Tony Stark. Not cruelty, just a little meanness, a little something that kept him from letting go, from letting things pass. Like a child picking at a scab, he just had to come back to things again and again, had to push, even if it hurt. He tried to keep it in check, he really did, but he wasn't always successful. And that was why he turned to Steve and slurred, "How could you fall for Howard Stark? I mean, I understand the others. The ones who just liked power and money and being an asshole apparently. But you're a nice guy. How could you like him?"

Of course. Things were different, but not that different. "He wasn't a… We never…"

"Fuck, are you kidding? You really think I care about that?" Tony scratched at his neck. "You want to know how he died?"

Steve nodded, cautiously. This wasn't going to end well.

"He liked to drive really fast. Said it reminded him of flying."

"In my day, he was a pilot."

"Yeah, well, he lost his pilot's license a few years before. He died because he was driving too fast and too drunk and I wouldn't have fucking cared if he hadn't taken my mother with him."

Steve said nothing. Howard was a good man.

"He died the way he lived: selfish, reckless, irresponsible, and drunk."

And because it hurt more than he thought it would, to hear that said about Howard, Steve heard himself saying, "I've heard every one of those words used to describe you."

"Fuck you."

Chapter Text

Tony stared at the door after Steve left. He wanted to be in his armor. He wanted to be Iron Man, but he was too wasted and it was too dangerous. He had actually installed some sensors to prevent him from donning the armor while intoxicated (again), but he really hoped he never had to rely on them.

Pepper was going to stay in California. Tony was just like his dad. Pepper was going to stay in California because Tony was just like his dad.

"I hate my life," he announced. Dummy made some sort of pneumatic noise that was oddly comforting even if it was just grease and gears.

Tony walked across the room – as long as he walked slowly, he didn't stumble – to get another drink. Why did he have to keep picking on Steve like that? Bad enough the kid lost everyone he ever knew, he didn't have to see their memories tarnished as well. It's not like it wasn't true. It was all true. Howard would have broken Steve's heart if they had gotten together, because that's the kind of man that Howard was. And Tony was just like him, though at least Tony had the good sense not to bring a wife and kids into the equation.

Tony put his glass down. If the problem was that he was like his dad, maybe having another drink was not a particularly good way to address it.

Tony called Pepper. It went to voicemail. He hung up.

It took a mix of subways and bus rides, but Steve successfully made his way back to S.H.I.E.L.D. alone. He didn't take any particular pride in the accomplishment; there were unsupervised twelve-year-olds jamming the aisles who were doing the exact same thing.

He headed to the gym and got to work destroying punching bags. Barton was there, in the corner, lifting weights, but he seemed content to ignore Steve's obvious desire to punch something into small pieces.

It was perfectly logical that there was a side to Howard that Steve didn't know about. He really barely knew the man. It had just been a childish crush. They'd never held hands, never gone on a date, certainly never kissed. They'd never even had a conversation that wasn't about work last more than a minute or two. They had mostly just talked about gear and Howard would compliment Steve for how precisely he could describe any functional problems and Steve would admire how intense, how focused, how brilliant Howard was.

Steve knew, now that he thought about it, that quite a few of the technicians working under Howard disliked his leadership, complained that he was demanding and insensitive, impulsive and mercurial. Steve had, with the perfect immaturity that comes from perfect inexperience, assumed that they were just joking, or perhaps that technicians were just whiny people by nature.

The punching bag broke. They must have put up stronger ones; it took a lot more effort to break one than it used to.

Steve heard a clanking sound. Barton putting away his weights.

"Hah! That's incredible. How much can you bench?"

"Depends on the reps. I normally do twelve to fifteen hundred for regular training." Steve had managed over 2,000 in a single lift, but there was no need to brag.

"You want to hear something pathetic? I do my strength training at night because Romanov out-benched me once. Once! And I never hear the end of it." He shook his head. "And I was injured," he added.

"She's a…powerful fighter." Steve did really want to have this conversation. He really didn't want to have any conversation.

"Damn straight. Never piss her off, man. Never." Barton took a swig of water. "Takes all kinds though, right?" He shrugged. "Jersey Shore is on in ten. Want to join me in the lounge? I like to watch it in HD."

"No, uh, thanks. Maybe some other time." Steve watched Barton leave, thinking about how it takes all kinds. When he got back to his quarters, he opened up the internet program and went to the Google site to run a search for Howard Stark.

Tony woke up in bed. His own bed. That was a good sign. He didn't even throw up in his sleep. Maybe he was finally growing up – people had been insinuating for decades that he ought to start acting like an adult eventually.

His head hurt and his…his face was wet? That was weird. He didn't mind getting his face wet under the right circumstances, but it usually dried by morning. He heard a soft hiss and water sprayed across his face.

Tony groaned loudly.

"On your feet, Mr. Stark." That voice was familiar.

"Are you coffee?" mumbled Tony.

"Coulson."

"If you're not coffee, go away."

Coulson sprayed him in the face with water again – at least, Tony hoped it was water and not some kind of creepy experimental mind control agent. Tony opened his eyes to see Coulson wielding a plastic spritzer bottle, like you would use to shoo the cat off the furniture.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Director Fury requires your presence and you failed to answer your phone." Coulson did something and the room became very bright and headacheful. "He doesn't like to leave things to chance."

"Why aren't you coffee?" whined Tony.

Tony sat in Fury's office. So that was the situation. Someone had gotten photographs of Steve entering the S.H.I.E.L.D. building. There were enough people in the world that some of them had to look like Captain America, but how many looked like Captain America and associated with S.H.I.E.L.D.? The photographs were in the hands of MSNBC for some godforsaken reason and they were pushing for an hour-long live interview with Chris Matthews.

Tony had been preparing Steve for short interview with soft focus lenses and fluff questions, not relevance, fact-checking, and tricky editing. In fact, Tony had been interviewed by Chris Matthews once himself, about 3 months after he returned from Afghanistan. The interview had only lasted 14 minutes, and when it was over, Tony had wandered back to the green room and collapsed on the neared folding chair while announcing that he felt as though Matthews had just fucked his brain with a railroad spike. Pepper had stood beside him and hugged his head, which put him right between her breasts; when he made a contented sound, she flicked his ear.

S.H.I.E.L.D. could refuse, of course, but the pictures were pretty good and if they didn't get out ahead of this thing, the conspiracy theorists would have a field day.

But if they just threw Steve out there… Matthews wasn't going to just ask Steve if he had words for the troops. He was going to ask if Steve thought we should continue sending aid to Pakistan, if waterboarding was torture, if the treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo was constitutional – all issues that Steve couldn't touch without alienating a sizeable segment of the American public. Third rail kinds of questions. Matthews wasn't an asshole, but he was a consummate journalist. The people have a right to know and all that sort of crap.

So Fury needed to know. How prepared was Steve? What was his mental state like? Was there any instability at all remaining? (As if Tony, as if anyone could really assure him of that!) How was he doing with technology, with idioms? Did he have a good feel for the state of the world? Did he understand the political landscape at home?

And Tony's answer was always that Steve was better than when he started, but still had a lot to learn. Just three days ago, it had come out that Steve had no idea there were two Koreas, which given that one of them was governed by a violent, crazy dictator, was kind of an important piece of information.

Tony wished he could remember last night better. They had argued and it had left Tony feeling like shit. He was pretty sure that he told Steve that Howard Stark wasn't such a great guy. He tried to remember Steve's face, how he took the news.

"It's been a good long while, Mr. Stark, and what have you accomplished?" asked Fury. "The finest military asset on the globe now sings Carry on My Wayward Son in the shower."

"God, he has awful taste. Although in retrospect, it's not surprising he likes bands named after states." Tony popped out his phone. "Hey Jarvis, throw in some Marilyn Manson but tell Steve the band name is Maryland Manson. See if he goes for that."

A British voice answers, "As you wish, sir."

"And seriously, you're monitoring him in the showers?" continued Tony. "That's sick, Fury, even for you. And it's pretty bad when I get to call someone a perv." Tony shuddered and turned to the split-screen CCTV.

"Not in the shower. You can hear it from the other cameras. He's loud."

Tony felt like he was intruding. This was a very rare feeling for Tony. On one quarter of the screen, Steve was returning from his shower (he really had very perfect abs, Tony noticed), wearing only a towel, pausing occasionally to play air guitar. "See that? I taught him that. He was getting the hands mixed up." Then the towel came off and honestly, there was no justice in the world because Steve was bigger flaccid than Tony was erect. It wasn't so much arousing as fascinating. "I can't believe you video monitor this. I can't believe he puts up with it." Tony spun around so that he was deliberately very much not facing the CCTV.

"He's a soldier. He doesn't expect much privacy. And he was on suicide watch." Fury tented his hands. "But back to business. You had a job to do. And I don't think it's getting done."

"So?"

"So, I don't see why we should continue to allow you to…do whatever it is you've been doing."

"You don't own him."

"Technically, we do."

"He trusts me."

"You lie to him constantly. You had him convinced that 28 Days Later was a documentary."

"And that makes the times when I tell the truth all the more poignant."

"Mr. Stark, I do not like you."

"But Steve does," said Tony, blasé, hoping it was still true. "So I guess you're stuck with me."

"Hey Pepper, it's Tony. I miss you. I'm not like… I know you think that… Call me." He hung up.

"I'm not sure that now's a really good time to go on a trip, Tony."

"It really sucks, huh, that you can't really let loose, fight at full power?"

Neither man had said anything about their argument the night before. Tony had just instructed Steve to wear comfortable clothes, bring his shield, and get in the car. Now they were at the airport and Steve was wondering how Tony knew that he was itching to throw a punch without holding back.

"The body armor helps, but I know it's not a 100% solution," said Tony, as if answering Steve's thoughts. "Buckle up, Captain." Tony laughed. "No, seriously, you don't really have to buckle up. One of the advantages of a private plane."

They watched a few TV shows during the flight, ones that Tony felt Steve should know about. A few episodes each of Looney Toons, the Simpsons, Ren and Stimpy, and half an episode of Pinky and the Brain before the plane began its descent. Then Tony left the video running and stepped into the back of the plane where a dozen mechanical arms began covering him with red-and-gold plates. Steve gaped. He'd never seen the Iron Man armor with a person in it.

"There's a knapsack in that closet over there," said Tony, "no, the other one. On the left. It's got a map. I've arranged for an area of Yellowstone about two miles square to be closed to tourists. The boundaries are highlighted on the map. I'm told you'll have no problem working out the details. The pack's also got some miscellaneous camping stuff that I have no idea about. I was a Boy Scout for twenty-six minutes exactly. That sort of thing is officially not my problem."

"We're going camping?"

"Not exactly."

There was a series of thuds as the plane touched down and rolled along the runway.

"May I see your shield?" asked Tony. As he took it in his armored hands, he smirked, probably the closest he would ever come to an expression of awe. "Truly a work of art." Then he pushed open the cabin door shouting, "Yoink!" and took off into the sky, Steve's shield in hand.

Chapter Text

Steve grabbed the knapsack and leapt from the plane after Tony.

The pilot, apparently used to comparable shenanigans, seemed completely unfazed and patiently completed the landing sequence despite the fact that both passengers had already exited the vehicle.

Though Steve had every intention of simply charging Iron Man like a bull, he could see that the suit was at least 200 feet above the ground, and fading rapidly into the distance. Was this a test? A game? He dodged into the treeline and took a moment to get his bearings. He was surrounded by mix of deciduous trees and conifers, the former of which had lost most of their leaves – partial cover. The ground was moist with pools of brackish water. He opened the knapsack and found, as promised, a map of the park with a square region bracketed off by thick black marker lines, along with a hastily scrawled note reading, "Catch me if you can!"

Steve reminded himself that it would be wrong to kill Tony Stark.

Wrong, but very satisfying.

Besides the map, there was a compass, a little red box labeled "For extraction if emergency", a small stack of combat rations, and sundry camping gear. Steve shook his head with a little laugh. There were actual rations, not just miscellaneous packed food. Tony thought of everything.

Steve carefully repacked the bag, retaining only the compass and the pocketknife. As he began to make his way through the woods, he soon found an adequate branch which he broke off and began sharpening. Primitive, yes, but he was without his shield – there was no way he was going without a weapon. He registered Iron Man's flight path on the compass. The map said there were bluffs in that direction. Tony would probably put down there even if he didn't stay, so that's where Steve could pick up his trail.

These rations were called MRE – Meal Ready to Eat – and they were awful, just like they had always been. In Steve's day, they had been called C-rations and they came in flimsy little tin cans whose labels always fell off. There were only three varieties anyway, and they were all equally unpalatable, but the mealtime guessing game became a ritual in which the fellas in his unit would try to outdo each other with increasingly outlandish speculation. When they were in a good mood, one guy would announce that his can was going to have the world's best chicken pot pie and then another would rattle his ration tin and say it sounded like perfect ball park franks and another and another and so on. Bucky usually won with a string of adjectives that left them all hungry. When spirits were down, the speculation would become darker as well ("Mine's got squirrel meat!" or "It looks like half a pigeon and a shoehorn.") but complaining was fun, too, in its own way.

With no unit behind him, Steve could run full speed through the forest, without worrying that someone was flagging or falling behind, and while he couldn't run as fast as Iron Man could fly, he knew the armor had limited energy reserves and Tony had obviously put boundaries on the chase. A small area favored Steve, who was far more maneuverable.

He could do this. He knew how to handle this situation. He knew how to lure an enemy out, how to choose his battleground, how to fight on his own terms and win.

It really could have been Europe. The forest could have been lifted right out of France or Germany. If he just closed his eyes or held his breath, Steve could almost see the old army uniforms, could almost hear Bucky's nonstop banter. He can just imagine Bucky's head cocked to the side saying, "And then the dame, she says to the farmer that she-"

Steve's reverie was interrupted by a loud whistle overhead, followed by some repetitive thumping that he was pretty sure was the hallmark of techno music. Or maybe this was dubstep. Tony had insisted there was a difference, but maybe that was just another one of Stark's "hilarious" pranks. Why did everything in the future have to have lights and sounds blaring all the damn time? Why did blenders and toasters and radios need built-in clocks? Why did grocery stores have to sell a hundred varieties of ice cream? Vanilla and chocolate were plenty.

Steve pulled himself up by a tree branch, feeling the ghosts seep back into his head. Bucky was dead. Howard was dead. Peggy Carter and Dr. Erskine and Colonel Phillips were dead. Dugan and Jones and Morita were dead. That awful woman who lived in the apartment next to his back in the states, who always used to complain to the landlord that Steve played his radio too loud when Steve didn't even have a radio, she was dead. Hell, her son was probably dead. Everyone he ever knew, they were all dead.

Steve leapt with perfect timing, grabbing Tony's left boot and sending him spiraling to down into a shallow, rocky creek.

"I!" Steve caught Iron Man's faceplate with a right hook. "HATE!" He dodged under a repulsor blast and shifted his weight to put Tony off-balance before kicking the suit solidly in the stomach. "THE!" Another punch. "FUCKING!" He tackled Tony onto the cobbles. "FUTURE!"

"Yes," said Tony's voice, electronically altered by the armor, "but – be honest – how do you really feel?"

Steve landed another punch on the faceplate, finally not holding back any of his strength. "Give me back my shield!"

"Yeah, about that…" Tony tipped his head to the side and a repulsor blast shot straight out from his chest, flinging Steve backward.

Tony settled onto a rock underneath a cliff face. He knew he wasn't exactly the earthly incarnation of Bear Gryllis, but he had worked in the defense industry long enough to have some sense of the value of cover.

This whole mess was a gamble, of course, but Tony was nothing if not a man of odds. He knew there had been a time when Steve Rogers could have convinced his fellow soldiers to march into the sea wearing plate mail, but no one had really seen that side of him since he'd been reawakened. He lacked confidence. And no wonder: ever since they'd thawed the guy, they'd kept him busy with words he didn't know, technology he'd never seen before, and skills he didn't have. It wasn't a bad strategy, all else being equal, but they needed Steve to get in touch with his inner figurehead pronto and Tony was betting a little time spent hunting the most dangerous game was just what the doctor ordered.

He popped the gauntlet and glove off of his left forearm. There was a repair kit stored inside and although Steve's punches hadn't broken through the outer shielding, there was definitely some damage to one of the interior display units. And probably some bruised ribs, it felt like, but that could wait. He lifted the armor's faceplate, hoping that whatever was wrong with it could be fixed upside down and one-handed; fully removing and replacing the faceplate would be difficult and time consuming.

And then, fuck that hurt. Fuck, fuck, fuck that hurt. Steve came out of fucking nowhere, came barreling down on Tony's left side and Tony wanted it on the record that while he may have made some sort of startled, pained noise, it would not be correct to say that he shrieked like a little girl. He sounded more like a cat. An adult, manly cat.

"Wha- What did you take your armor off for?"

Tony tried to cradle his left arm, but it was hard to be gentle in a giant metal suit. It was obviously broken, snapped where the arm guard ended and the gauntlet was missing.

"I'm sorry…I didn't see it was off and-"

"Relax," said Tony, and he was pleased to note that his voice did indeed sound reasonably calm. "The suit injects me with painkillers when I get injured. I'm high as freaking kite right now."

"Where's my shield, Tony?" asked Steve, apparently willing to take advantage of the intoxicated.

"I buried it. It was too big to carry around." Tony giggled.

"Where's my shield?"

Tony was silent for a moment, then a small glowing drone, no larger than a pair of glasses, emerged from the suit's shoulder. "It'll lead you to your shield."

"We need to take care of your arm first."

The drone doubled back and whirred insistently. "I have feeling in my fingers, it's hardly bleeding at all. Go get your damn shield."

Steve hesitated. Tony giggled. Steve followed the drone.

By the time Steve returned, Tony had succeeded in building a campfire, though he seemed to have used pine needles as kindling; the smoke was thick and black and oily.

"He wasn't all bad," said Tony, still perseverating on their conversation from the night before. He was grinning with his eyes half-shut, clearly affected by the painkillers. "He saved my life from beyond the grave." Tony paused. "Although that wasn't really intentional. But you can count it anyway."

"Don't worry about it, Tony. We should really get you to a doctor."

"Yeah, yeah, don't nag me."

"Can you walk?"

"Of course I…it might be better if I rest a while. I never really calibrated this part of the system. It's obviously set a little too high." Tony giggled again. "High."

Steve busied himself finding more appropriate firewood even though he was fairly certain Tony's suit was temperature controlled. After several minutes, he sat down next to Tony. "I think the easiest way to temporarily splint it is to just put your gauntlet back on."

Tony nodded, absently.

"I looked Howard up with the Google website," said Steve suddenly. "Are all of those things…true?"

Tony refrained from correcting Steve's use of 'the Google website'; it would come across as quaint and endearing on a TV interview. "Some are, some aren't. I'd say most of it's true, or at least a certain spin on the truth." He picked up the empty gauntlet in his right and turned it from side to side, as if discerning the best plan of attack. "The thing with his assistant going missing, you read about that?

"Yes."

"He really had nothing to do with that. Well, he had something to do with it, but it was a good thing not a bad one. He didn't kill her or anything. The girl had an abusive boyfriend and she wanted to go off the grid, move far away to get away from him. He helped her with some of the…you know, finding a judge to change her name and stuff."

"Oh."

Tony tried to close the gauntlet around his left wrist. "Fuck. It won't fit. I think it needs to be set."

"Can't you radio for someone to come and get us?"

"And ruin the best camping trip I've had in my entire life?"

"You've never been camping before, have you?"

"Ah, no."

"Hold out your arm. I'm going to set it on the count of three." Steve lined up his hands. "One…" He pulled.

"FUCK! I thought you said on three!"

"If I waited for three, you would have tensed up." Steve grinned. "Old trick."

"I hate you and everything you stand for," grumbled Tony. He tried the gauntlet again. It was still a tight fit because of the swelling, but it closed.

"Are you ready to walk yet?"

"In a minute. I'm still contemplating amputation."

"I looked you up, too," said Steve idly, mostly to distract Tony from the pain.

"Well, that's all lies. I don't control the internet. One day I will, but now I don't. But one day I will!" Tony let out his finest villain laugh.

"You didn't mention that you…like men," said Steve, breaking twigs and tossing them into the fire. "Not that you had to mention that, I mean, that's private, but…" He paused and squinted. "It's strange, I think. You tell me it's all different, but it's not that different, is it? You tell me to keep quiet about it, even about topics that might lead to it." Steve shrugged. "If things are that different, why is it a secret?"

"You win this round, internet," said Tony, shaking his fist, "you win this round." He rolled his head back. "Look, I didn't mention that I go both ways because one, you're literate and I figured you'd stumble across the information eventually and two, because it would seem like I was hitting on you and I was dating Pepper at the time and contrary to popular perception, I don't cheat."

"Dating Pepper at the time?"

"Yep."

"She dumped you?"

"It was mutual."

"Right."

"And when it comes to your orientation, you can do whatever the hell you want. If I were you, I would probably blurt it out at random but you're a more private sort of guy and there are consequences. Ones you can choose to ignore and/or punch, but still."

"Come on, Tony. We've got to get you home." Steve stood and offered a hand to help Tony up.

"Yeah. Especially because you've got that interview tomorrow."

"What?!"

Chapter Text

Steve climbed into the car first, followed by Tony and Director Fury. Steve was dressed in his full Captain America costume with his shield resting on his lap. Tony wore slacks and a vividly red button-down shirt, with a suitcoat draped over his shoulders, partially obscuring the cast around his wrist.

"You ready for this, Captain?" asked Fury.

"Yes, sir." Steve's gaze was strong and his voice was steady.

Tony smirked. "See?" He looked at Fury and pointed his thumb back at Steve. "I told you there was nothing wrong with him that punching me repeatedly in the face couldn't cure."

"Why Mr. Stark," replied Fury, squinting with his one good eye, "I do believe I have the same malady."

"Hey Steve," said Tony, drawing a small plastic box from his pocket, "I want to show you something before you go on."

Steve looked at the device, feeling strongly that now was not in fact the ideal time for another technology lesson.

"This thing can generate an electromagnetic pulse. Warps all electronics within 50 meters. If you decide you don't like how things are going, just give the word and I'll erase their tapes."

"Thanks for the offer Tony, but I think I'll be okay." Steve grinned weakly. It was hard to read his expressions when half of his face was covered.

Someone called for makeup and Tony wondered briefly how much makeup was really necessary when only the lower half of Steve's face would be visible.

"I didn't know your garage door opener could create an EMP," said Fury, once Steve had been lead down the hall.

"Yeah, well, Steve doesn't know it's a garage door opener." Tony shrugged and put on a high-pitched cartoonish voice. "There was nothing magical about your eyepatch, Nick Fury. You assassinated all those communists all on your own. You just had to believe in yourself."

"Mr. Stark?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

Tony settled into a chair in the green room where he would be able to see the interview on closed-circuit display. Fury turned a chair around and sat on it backwards. They could see Steve walking onto the set, shield in hand as half a dozen staff fiddled with the furniture in an attempt to make the enormous height difference between Matthews and his interviewee less obvious.

Matthews strolled onto the set and introduced himself briefly to Steve with an ominous promise of "no hard feelings."

If Fury was nervous, he gave no sign.

Tony, on the other hand, felt his usual distaste for the press resurfacing and had a strong desire to obtain a detailed record of Chris Matthews' browser history. Just in case.

"Tonight, we present to you an exclusive first look at the man who claims to be the original Captain America, long believed killed in action during the Second World War. This man claims that the experimental serum which gave Captain America his incredible abilities allowed him to survive his injuries in a state of suspended animation only to be re-awoken by the shadowy and unregulated organization S.H.I.E.L.D. when they needed public support for their unpopular wa-"

"Excuse me."

"What? That's just the introduction. The interview hasn't started yet."

"But S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't intentionally revive me. They thawed me with the intent of collecting a tissue sample and providing me with a proper burial. They couldn't have had plans for me because they didn't know I was still alive."

"Well, that may be the line they've been feeding you. Don't you think it's awfully convenient?"

"Has the interview started now?"

Matthews gave a might-as-well sigh. "Let's start with this question. How do we know you're the real Captain America and not just some look-a-like dug up for PR purposes?"

In the green room, Tony was muttering invectives at Matthews, as if the mere force of his disdain could somehow travel through the walls of the studio.

"You don't," said Steve authoritatively. "You'll have to judge me by my actions."

"You could be a great guy," said Matthews. "Hell, maybe you're a super-fast, super strong mutant. That doesn't make you the Captain America of the 1940s."

"I am willing to submit to tests of my identity insofar as those tests don't place military secrets at risk."

"And why have you been hiding from the public if you were, as you say, 'thawed'," Matthews made air quotes, "two months ago."

Steve took a moment to plan his words, knowing that 'because I was depressed, overwhelmed, and grieving,' would be the wrong answer. "Because so much has changed in the time I was frozen and," he flashed a grin, "it took me a while to catch up."

"I see, well, let's talk about that: how things have changed. You claim you were born in 1917 and you 'died'," there were those air quotes again, "in 1945. What do you see as the biggest change between then and now?"

"I don't think I can narrow it down to one thing. It's like cousins: the same, but different. The music, the food, the clothes." Steve paused. "There's been so much progress. The technology is incredible. Sometimes I'm not sure it's really necessary," he added, thinking of some of Stark's gadgets. "And it seems like things are more…equal. There aren't segregated schools anymore. I mean," Steve smiled, "we have an African-American president. That's incredible."

They had moved into the phase of the interview that was dedicated to seemingly pointless questions about Steve's interests and preferences, what Tony had called 'human interest'. How did he feel about texting and bottled water, rap music and piercings?

"Music? Well, I like the Monkees, and Metallica, and the Colorblind James Experience."

"He doesn't like Metallica," whispered Tony to Fury. "He's playing the spread: one of his bands, one of mine, and one nobody's heard of."

It seemed so ridiculous to Steve. Why should it matter if he'd learned to play Farmville? (He hadn't.) Why would anyone actually want to whether if he liked television shows or still listened to radio shows? (Both, thank you very much.) It all seemed to be missing the point, as far as he was concerned. Captain America was a symbol, an idea. Steve just happened to be the guy playing the role and all those little details, those were things about Steve, not Captain America.

"You mentioned equality before. Are you aware that the military has recently repealed its controversial 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' rule?"

Tony didn't react. Maybe Fury knew, maybe he didn't, maybe Steve would start acting all weird and self-conscious on national television. Worse come to worse, Tony was pretty confident he had enough hardware in his pockets to actually pull off an EMP.

"I am," said Steve, "and I think that we should honor the contributions of all of our men and women in uniform," he said simply. When he was rehearsing the night before, he had pondered if he should add a comment about his own experience, but that had seemed…not wrong, but irrelevant, and now he knew why: because they weren't interviewing Steve Rogers, they were interviewing Captain America.

"What about those who say that this will disrupt unit cohesion?"

"In my day, they said that about racially integrated units. I had the honor of serving in one of the first such units and I can assure you, we made it work."

"If we were to roll back the Bush tax cuts, the marginal tax rate on the top 2% would still be considerably lower than it was in your day. Given the deficit, don't you think-"

"Excuse me." Steve held up a hand. "I'm still trying to wrap my head around a hamburger sandwich costing three dollars. I'm not the fella you want to ask about money matters."

"I'd like to ask your opinion as a military strategist on some current events." Matthews gave a half-smile and a laugh. "Are you up to speed?"

"You know, it's interesting. Right after I woke up, they wanted me to catch up on what was going on in the world, so they had me spend a lot of time watching the news. I got to admit, I was pretty surprised that there were news broadcasts that went on all day, every day. I thought there must be so much information. But it seemed like no matter how much news I watched, I never got any idea of how things got to be the way they are, the context of the situation. It seems like with 24 hours a day of time to fill, you might make time for some of that."

"Hah! Suck on that, Chris Matthews!" shouted Tony, rising from his seat. "Suck it like the two-bit syphilitic whore that you are!"

A grip glared at him while making a 'shh' gesture.

"Let's talk about President Bush's wars. From your perspective as a military strategist, should we have ever entangled ourselves in the Middle Eastern quagmire?"

"Should we continue military aid to Pakistan?"

"How should we have approached the Libyan revolution?"

"Do unmanned drones violate the Geneva convention?"

These were questions Steve could actually take a position on, though Matthews argued with him no matter what he said. It would have been an engaging discussion if the cameras weren't rolling and the lights weren't awfully hot overhead.

"Keeping with the theme of the Geneva convention, I'd like to discuss so-called 'enhanced interrogation' techniques such as waterboarding and whether you feel they have a place in America's foreign policy."

Tony's hand tightened on his chair. A word alone couldn't usually get a reaction out of him, but he was already tense, wondering how the interview would go. He could feel the hands on his head and- It was just a feeling. It would pass. It always did. He glanced at Fury, hoping his reaction had gone unnoticed, before returning his gaze to the monitor.

"The Geneva convention defines torture as acts that seriously threaten health or make the person believe that you've seriously threatened their health," said Steve. "For the first part, it seems like you should be asking a physician, not me. As for the second part," he paused. "There were rumors that the Japanese were doing that to their prisoners of war. I understand that those rumors were confirmed. You should be asking those men whether what they experienced was torture."

"Actually, there are several journalists who have agreed to undergo the procedure and-"

Steve shook his head. "That's not the same. The agreed to it, which means they could change their minds. It's the difference between fasting and starving."

Tony was staring at the monitor. Fury was watching Tony.

They moved on. The PATRIOT Act. Whether the military could take action without the consent of Congress. The nuclear test-ban treaty. Collateral damage.

Steve looked calm and confident as he walked out of the soundstage, but as soon as he got to the green room, he flopped onto a chair in a frankly undignified manner.

"How do you feel, Captain?" asked Fury coolly.

Steve covered his eyes with his hands. "Like somebody just…beat me upside the head with a railroad spike."

Tony grinned. "You've been talking to Pepper."

"She called last night to wish me luck. I hope that's not…" Bucky would have said it was a bit disloyal to talk to your pal's ex-girlfriend.

"It's all good." Tony patted him on the shoulder. "Now let's get out of here before I'm overcome with the urge to steal a roll of gaffing tape."

"Where are we going?"

"Quick stop, it won't take long," said Tony, obviously failing to answer the question. He was driving, despite his broken wrist.

"Does your arm hurt much?"

"Nah. It really wasn't a bad break."

That was clearly false, but Tony was apparently either determined to play the tough guy or unwilling to admit that he was still on heavy doses of pain medication.

Tony began turning left, then put on his turn signal. They entered a small, tree-lined cemetery. "Fury said they took you to Arlington and that cemetery in Brooklyn pretty soon after you woke up, but I don't think you've been here." He pulled to the side of the narrow road and got out of the car. Steve followed suit to see a long rectangular gravestone bearing the names 'Howard & Maria Stark'.

Tony didn't approach the graves, but for once, he didn't immediately start fiddling with his cell phone. Instead, he stared blankly to the side, cold air whistling quietly between his lips.

Steve walked slowly forward, courage and confidence drained out of him. It was so ridiculous, so childish, that this should matter so much to him. A crush, borne of a blend of simple lust and deep gratitude to the man who built the machines that had made him what he was. But nothing was ever simple. Howard was like the future: good and not-good, well-intentioned but incomplete.

The ground was cold and hard. Steve knelt down and prayed. By the time he stood, his eyes were dry.

"So," said Tony, "where to now, Captain?"

"Mount Rushmore." Steve waited for Tony's face to fall before adding, "then Vegas."