Archive of Our Own

Chapter 1: The Perfect Stranger

Los Vengadores: the city that avenges. Not that she’s doing much avenging anymore. Maybe she did once, but these days, the people of Los Vengadores just keep right on hurting as the city looks on with the dead eyes of her broken street lights, letting that pain reflect and reflect on the cold, unfeeling glass of the windows of her high rises. If they were hurting bad enough, sometimes those people would come to a run-down office hidden away in one of those high rises. They’d heard from friends of friends that Tony Stark, PI, could get you that vengeance, that satisfaction of justice served and a world put to rights. But that had been a long time ago. These days the only thing I was raining vengeance on was my liver. The clink of ice in a glass and the oblivion at the bottom of a bottle were the only things between me and a memory of a dark cave in Afghanistan and some long cold vengeance of my own.

“Don’t let any trouble in, Pepper, I’m off the clock,” I said as I brushed past my receptionist’s battered pinewood desk on the way into my office. Pepper was a firecracker; long red hair and longer legs, but don’t be fooled by the pretty smile and the lilac perfume. She was all fire and ice cold, the kind of broad that’d burn you up inside just as you were freezing to death, a bombshell in stilettos and cherry-red lipstick. We’d had a thing once, but it was never meant to be. She was too good for an old lech like me, and easily worth double what I paid her. At the moment, she had her signature high heels up on the desk and was reading one of her harlequin romances, this one with a picture of a blonde woman in a green dress on the cover. I didn’t think Pepper had even heard me until she replied without looking up.

“You might be off the clock, Tony, but trouble’s got a way of finding you anyway. In fact, he already has.”

“He?”

“Says his name is Captain Rogers, and he’s waiting for you inside.”

A captain, huh? I always did love a man in uniform. I hung up my hat and trenchcoat and spat on my comb to slick down my hair. I probably still looked like hell, what with running on two days of no sleep and forty-four years of broken dreams and seeing too much, but a guy had to make an effort. Once I checked to make sure my black tie was knotted right and my suspenders weren’t crooked, I opened the door just as the first flash of lightning outside lit up the shadow of a figure looking out the window.

Trouble, Pepper said. Trouble wasn’t the half of it. Captain Rogers was a tall drink of water in an unforgiving desert of a world, a regular all-American heartthrob with a jawline made to cut glass and a face made to break hearts. Not a hair was out of place on his sandy blonde head, and when those baby-blue eyes took me in, he looked almost amused. It was like he’d known me all his life and it was all some big practical joke, the two of us meeting here. Joke or no joke, Captain Rogers must’ve been in real trouble to come all the way out here. And if the strange state of his clothes was anything to go by (Knickers on a man his age? And that sleeveless shirt was easily two sizes too small for him, not that I was complaining), he was a real fish out of water in Los Vengadores. The city didn’t take kindly to fish out of water.

“The retro look is good on you,” said Rogers, a blush just starting to heat the apples of his cheeks.

“I dunno what retro is, dollface, but I’m glad you like it,” I said as I walked over to the liquor cabinet. “Go have a seat, I’ll be with you in a moment. Want a drink?”

Captain Rogers didn’t move. In the corner of my eye, I could see he was frowning, looking my way like I was a piece that didn’t fit, like he was too young to realize the whole damn world was just pieces that didn’t fit. The city hadn’t crushed his spirit yet, but in a town like this it was only a matter of time.

“Tony, do you know who I am?” he asked.

“Glad we’re at first names already, darling, but I’m sorry to say I don’t know yours,” I said as I crossed the small, untidy room, filled with odds and ends from cases I’d solved and broads and fellas I’d burned hot for, for a time: a backgammon tile over here, a baseball signed by Sam “The Falcon” Wilson over there, an old dummy all the way back from my first case in the corner. Eventually I got behind my old, scratched-up oak desk, drink in hand, and sat down on the worn leather chair.

“I—,” the captain stammered, “When Pepper didn’t recognize me I assumed it was because she wasn’t the real Pepper, but you—”

“Whoa, slow down and have a seat, darling. I can tell you’ve had a rough time of it, what with the clothes on your back getting stolen on your way here. I can lend you a coat on your way out, if you like, but maybe first we can get to why a pretty fella like you came all this way to see a washed-up old PI like me.”

He hesitated, then came over and sat himself down on one of the cheap wooden seats across from my desk, the ones that I’d promised myself I would replace as soon as I got my PI business off the ground, a lifetime ago. The rain was starting to pound against the windows in earnest, but here in this office lit by the glow of the single light bulb gently swaying with the draft over our heads, it was like nothing in the whole damn city mattered except this poor kid and the trouble he’d brought to my door.

“Tony, listen to me. This isn’t you. You’re not a PI, you’re a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist superhero. You and everyone else who lives in the tower have all been put under a spell, and you need to come with me to break it.”

I suppose that’s what I get for saying I’ve heard it all before.

“Figures,” I said as I threw back some of the scotch, feeling it burn all the way down.

“You believe me?”

“No, doll, but I know what it looks like when the cats at the station send someone to play a joke on me. Who sent you? Was it Hill?”

“I’m not from the station. I live a few floors above you, and you’re one of my closest friends.”

“Well now I know you’re clownin’ around, ‘cause if what you said was true, there’s no way I’d just be friends with a fella that looks like you.”

The blush spread from the apples of his cheeks, like a rumor in a church on Easter Sunday. It was sweet, but it stung a little, having that reminder that at the end of the day, he was just a lost kid in a lonely world. The captain might have come here as a prank from the guys at the station, but he still had a look in his eyes that spelled ‘danger’. Something was weighing him down, something big.

I never could stay away from a pretty face in distress.

“Look, dollface, I know you might’ve come here to get an extra nickel in your pocket, but at the end of the day, nobody comes here ‘til they’re at the end of their rope. And judging by the look on your face and the way you won’t stop fiddlin’ with the arm of that chair, you’re not just at the end of your rope. You’re at the end of the pier and you’re about to step off. You’re not a looney and you’re not a floozy, so how about you tell me what’s really goin’ on that brought you here today. You can start by tellin’ me your full name.”

The captain furrowed his brow just as the lightning flashed again. And for a moment, I could see all the lines that had already etched themselves into his face, like he was a hundred-year-old man in a thirty-year-old body. I must’ve been wrong about the city not getting to him yet. He had a face like everyone got eventually in Los Vengadores: careworn and tired.

“My name is Captain Steven Rogers. Everyone calls me Steve or Cap. And you’re right. I’m here because I’m… I’m looking for someone.”

“Ain’t that the way it goes? Who is she?” I said.

“He is the man I told you about. Rich, brilliant, kind, never sits still. He’s got a razor-sharp wit that could cut anyone to ribbons but it’s covering a heart of gold.”

“Quite a fella. Where’d you see him last?”

“Here in this building, if you’ll believe it. That’s… that’s why I took the job to come here. I figure the more floors I see the better idea I can get of where he’s gone.”

“And when did you last see him?”

“Last week. Then he went out of town on a business trip to San Diego. But he was seen walking into the tower last night.”

“A missing lover in the tower, huh? Could be interesting.”

“No, we, um, we weren’t lovers.”

“But you wanted to be, didn’t ya, sweetheart?”

Steve said nothing with his words and everything with the shift of his eyes and the tightness in his jaw.

“To young love,” I toasted, then I downed what was left of my scotch. I took a pencil stub from a cup that used to be a gadget, back when I’d taken a stab at being an inventor, and wrote down a few notes.

“What’s your honey’s name?” I asked.

“T— Howard. Howard Krats.”

“And a description?”

“He looks a lot like you, if you’ll believe it. Strong build, goatee, brown eyes.”

“Glad to know he’s a handsome fella at least.” I put down the pencil, stood up, and gestured toward the door. “C’mon, let’s take a stroll.”

“Really? You’ll help me?”

“If he’s stashed somewhere in the tower and he turns up from us just takin’ a walk, that hardly counts as help now does it, doll?”

Steve let out a low chuckle as he followed me out the door. He said, “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to laugh. It’s just; T— Howard, he makes fun of me all the time, for using words like ‘doll’ and ‘fella.’”

“Your Howie’s got a strange sense of humor. Now c’mon. Where do you wanna start our Tour de Tower?” I asked as we left my office.

“Maybe we could take the elevator up to the top floor and work our way down,” said Steve.

Over my shoulder I heard Pepper snort. We both turned to look at her. Eyes still on her book, she said, “Captain, that elevator’s as likely to get repaired as I am to wear tennis shoes. Didn’t you notice on your way up?”

“No. I took the elevator here, so it must be working again,” said Steve.

That finally got Pepper to look up at me, a question in her eyes. It was the same one I felt in my gut. There was no way the elevator was fixed, which meant Steve was lying. But why was he lying about something so trivial?

“Humor me, darling, I’m an old man and I could use the exercise. Let’s take the stairs up a floor and start from there,” I said.

“Don’t look so old to me,” said Steve, a dangerous kind of smile playing across the corner of his mouth. I had a feeling that when it came to Steve, the only smiles he had were the dangerous kind. I was a fly and he was a pot of honey, and I could already feel myself starting to drown.

But that didn’t mean I had to go down easy.

Once Steve was out the door and out of earshot, I turned to Pepper and said, “Pep—”

“If you’re not back in thirty minutes I’ll call the station,” said Pepper, already back to reading her romance novel. “I’d ask if you’re planning on carrying, but you and me both know the answer to that one. So instead I’ll say don’t do anything stupid, Tony.”

Did I say she was worth double what I paid her? She was worth ten times that.

I put on my shoulder holster and checked the handgun inside was loaded, then pulled on my hat and trench coat for good measure, before I walked out the door to catch up with the captain. One way or another, I was going to figure out what had driven Steve Rogers to my door. At the same time, I vowed not to look too closely at what was driving me to him.