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Literally everyone has told him to stop picking up wrong numbers.
Sam told him it was dumb, Nat told him it was dangerous, and Clint told him it was a waste of time. But Steve hates to think that someone wouldn’t notice they’d called the wrong number, and then there’d be a disagreement somewhere of “why didn’t you pick up my call?” and it only takes a few minutes to say, “Hello, this is Steven Rogers. No, there isn’t a so-and-so here, I think you have the wrong number, sir/ma’am. This is 616-704-1918. No problem. Have a good day!” And it's not like he gets wrong numbers all the time.
So when he’s curled up with a good book on a lazy Sunday afternoon and a wrong number calls him, he sees no reason not to pick up.
“Hello, this is-“
“The fire is mostly under control but I think dummy is going to go feral on me, and I mean Jarvis said this was a bad idea but I think he’s fritzing out on me, he asked me who you were like you aren’t my number two speed dial, and I just-“
“I’m sorry?”
“This isn’t your fault.” On the other end, there’s a muffled bang. “You explicitly told me not to do this, Rhodey, because you take it upon yourself to be my conscience and that’s great and everything but there are a lot of things on fire and what should I do?”
“Did you call the fire department?”
“I called Pepper and she shouted at me a lot and then I called you and- shit!” There’s a great clattering crash. “Fuck damn it, that took me like seventy-two hours to make- things are on fire, Rhodey, fix it!”
Steve blinks. “I think you have the wrong-“
“Set of priorities? I mean, yeah, probably, you’ve been telling me that since day one, but dummy’s gone rogue with the fire extinguisher and Jarvis is talking about raspberries when I ask him to unlock the doors and I’m beginning to think that this may have been something resembling or approximating a mistake.”
A little part of Steve is still urging him to politely inform the guy on the other end of the line that he has called the wrong number, but the sheer insanity of the call makes him ask, “What were you trying to do?”
There is a great gusty sigh. “I was trying to shrink the damn arc reactor and things blew up, okay, this is not my fault-“
“I really think you should call the fire department, and also-“
“Rhodey, you know they don’t answer my calls,” the guy on the other line says with exasperation, “They make me do it myself because I’ve filled my quota on fires for my life, and I told them there isn’t a quota, and then dummy hit them with a fire extinguisher which may have aggravated- no, dummy, don’t hit the fire- fuck, he threw the damn extinguisher into the fire, I’m fucked, I’m so fucked.”
What is Steve supposed to do? Is there protocol for this situation? Some guy’s house is on fire, he’s not equipped to handle this, and now the call’s been going on long enough that telling him it’s a wrong number would be weird, goodness- “Can you get out of there?”
There’s a scuffle. “The elevators aren’t responding.”
“Of course not, it’s a fire,” Steve replies. “Try the stairs or an emergency door. Or a fire escape.”
“Oh my God, I bet they call it that because you use it to escape fires,” Wrong Number Guy says, “This is like the day I learned cupcakes were cakes in a cup all over again.”
This is quite possibly the oddest and most fascinating phone call Steve has ever had the privilege of being involved in, and that includes the crazy woman who still calls him periodically with conspiracy theories about famous celebrities. “What’s happening now? Are you on your way out?”
“I’m still looking for the stairs.”
“You don’t know where the stairs are?”
“I always take the elevator! Hang on, incoming call from- Jarvis is down, still, oh my God, accept call, accept call, ACCEPT CALL!”
A new voice sounds over the line. “Tony, are you out of your damn mind? Pepper just called me saying you blew up your damn lab again and are scrambling around like a chicken with its head cut off for the third time this month and-“
“Rhodey?” Wrong Number Man asks. “But- wait, who did I call the first time?”
Steve winces. Whoops. “Uh, my name is Steve Rogers. I think you might have dialed a wrong number, but then things were on fire and I was trying to help?”
“You didn’t notice that it wasn’t me?” the other man, who must be Rhodey, asks.
There’s another muffled explosion noise. “A little busy here!”
“Get your ass out the damn- where are you?” Rhodey asks.
“My workshop.”
Rhodey growls. “Which workshop?”
“The workshop! Stark Tower, man, what other work-“
“I AM IN AFGHANISTAN,” Rhodey bellows. “I can’t go hauling your sorry ass out of your workshop-“
Steve does a brief mental calculation. “I can get to Stark Tower in a hurry. I live maybe twenty blocks down. I’ve got a motorcycle, could get there in a timely fashion, would that help?”
“We don’t know you-“
“Yes!” Wrong Number Man- Tony?- shouts. “Come here and bring scotch.”
Steve frowns. “I don’t drink.”
“Don’t bring him scotch,” Rhodey says sternly. “Tony, this guy could be-“
“I swear I’m not anybody bad,” Steve says, shoving a bookmark into A Clockwork Orange and grabbing his keys. “But if you need a ride to a hospital or-“
“If you get that man into a hospital I will personally pay you a thousand dollars,” Rhodey says. “By which I mean I will make Tony pay you a thousand dollars.”
Steve makes a face. “That’s really not necessary, I’ve got nothing else going on-“
“Stairs!”
“Tony, you designed the damn building, you think you’d know where the stairs are.”
That’s when the pieces click together in Steve’s mind and he realizes exactly who the wrong number is. Tony, an inventor working in Stark Tower who blows things up and can spend a thousand dollars like it’s nothing. “Wait… Tony Stark?”
“The one and only and partially on fire- but stairs! I’ll be down in a few! Ride up on your motorcycle, mystery man, and help me save my robots!”
“Okay, be there in a few.” Steve clicks the line off. “How did this become my life?” he mutters to himself.
Sure enough, when he cruises up to Stark Tower a few minutes later- weaving through gridlock traffic and earning quite a few honks and shouted swears- Tony Stark himself is standing outside looking at the building.
“To be honest, I was expecting dramatic plumes of smoke,” Steve said, walking up to him.
“Nah, then the fire department has to get involved. When it’s just my workshop, they don’t bother. Once I’m safely out, Jarvis sucks all the oxygen out of the rooms, kills the flames. Don’t need firemen,” Tony says without looking away from the building.
Steve shoves his hands in his pockets. “Can’t use sprinklers?”
Tony shakes his head. “They’d hurt my bots.” Finally, he turns to Steve and says, “Hi. I’m Tony Stark.”
“Steve Rogers,” he says, and extends a hand to shake.
Tony looks at it with a combination of amusement and confusion before shaking it, leaving oil and soot on Steve’s palm. “It takes a special kind of crazy to pick up a wrong number and-“
“I know, I know, my friends tell me not to do it but I just want to make sure they know it’s a wrong number!”
Tony blinks. “I was going to say ‘and not immediately hang up on the guy whose house is on fire’ but okay, that works too. Touchy subject?”
“My friends have been on my case about it ever since I accidentally picked up a wrong number and ended up listening to a woman rant about how Mandy Patinkin isn’t the real Mandy Patinkin but an evil doppelganger and how I was one of only four people who could save the world from his plot.”
“I don’t even answer my phone when I know who’s calling,” Tony says. “Who’s Mandy Patinkin?”
Steve lowers his voice a little and says, “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You kill my father-“
“Prepare to die,” Tony finishes. “No way that guy is taking over the world.”
Steve shrugs. “He got abducted and cloned six months, six days, and six hours after the Princess Bride first premiered and the Devil took his place.” He smiles a little. It was a creepy phone call, but it makes for a good story, so long as he ignores the fact that she still calls him with periodic updates. “My friends and I still crack jokes about the False Mandy Patinkin and the day of Mandy Patinkin reckoning.”
“And you still answer wrong numbers?”
“Yep.”
Tony blinks. “Okay. Well, I think the fire is out now, so I think I can go upstairs-“
“You sure? Your friend was pretty insistent that I get you to a hospital.”
Tony backs away a little, talking a mile a minute. “Who? Me? I’m fine, barely a scratch or singe or smoke inhalation- cough- I just need to go upstairs, you know, away from here, okay, bye-“
And he flees.
Well, that is- disappointing, Steve supposes. Tony Stark is- was- is an interesting figure, and he has- had- has a decent sense of humor, and he’s really cute. Steve wouldn’t have minded driving him to the hospital, but it wasn’t meant to be. Tony Stark Sets Workshop on Fire goes in the same box in his mind as Mandy Patinkin Cosmic Scheme/Rapture and he turns to leave.
His phone rings. Tony.
“Okay, so I have a crush on wrong number guy but he watched me blow up my workshop and I’ve only met him the one time, he’s going to think I’m creepy, help me, Rhodes-“
“Not Rhodes.”
“Oh.” There is a long pause. “So, I’ll just be-“
“Coffee?”
Tony squeaks. “Now?”
“I can see you.” Steve had turned to look back at Stark Tower, and yes, he could see Tony Stark pacing just inside the doors. He waves. Tony waves back. “No time like the present. Would save me a trip home and back.”
“I smell like smoke.”
“That is okay.”
“I also might be bleeding a little from the head.”
“We can get coffee after a trip to the hospital.”
“I think that might be best.”
“Good.”
“Great.”
“Awesome.”
“Fantabulous.”
Steve smiles. “You gonna come outside, or are we going to trade synonyms all day?”
He sees Tony run a hand through his hair. “Sure. So. I’ll, um. Be right out.”
“See you soon,” Steve replies, and hangs up. He has a really weird coffee date to go on.