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The place is classy. Stylish. It feels expensive, without being over the top. The ceiling is high, the light subtle without being too dim, and the guests are dressed up without looking like they are all too rich to mingle with the normal population. In fact, this looks like normal population. There's a mix of young, older, men and women, business casual and Evening Out At The Theater. No Evening Out At The Oscars to be found, not even in that plain-but-actually-more-expensive-than-Belgium way that really rich people sometimes dress in. It makes this place comfortable enough for someone who isn't Really Rich to not feel under dressed in. It feels, when all is said and done, ridiculously normal.
Steve is pretty sure that this was one of the reasons why his companion has chosen this place for their meeting. Neither of them seems out of place here, which is an accomplishment considering how incredibly out of place both of them are.
It didn't take Steve all that long to find his bearing in his universe. He had known it was one of the countless parallel ones, not his own, the moment he washed up here, and that helped matters enormously. If anything, it continues to throw him how similar this place is to the dimension he comes from. If not for a few minor differences in their history he could have thought he was home.
It's only when he reads the papers that he can tell something isn't how it should be. The Avengers have a different rooster. Someone else is president of the United States right now. Captain America is in jail.
That one came as a bit of a surprise.
“I wouldn't take it too badly,” Natasha says when he brings it up. She's nipping on a glass of apple cider while Steve is nursing a coke. “From what I hear, people still think rather highly of him, which is amazing considering what he's doing time for. No one actually believes he's guilty.” She looks at Steve over the rim of her glass and he felt judged. Or naked.
He takes a sip of his own drink, then realizes that it makes him look uncomfortable and puts it down, then realizes that that looks worse. “I didn't really catch up with that story,” he says. “No time for that. I was mostly worried someone would recognize me and put me in jail as well.”
Steve is well aware that the actions of his counterpart do not reflect his own nature. There are universes out there in which all moral tendencies are reversed, universes in which he was raised by Hydra and became their loyal follower, universes in which the cultural development of the Unites States bred an entirely different understanding of ethics, and universes where everyone is just plain evil.
He has the impression this isn't one of those universes.
“Don't worry about that too much. As far as I know, he's in minimum security anyway and basically stays there by choice. No one would raise an eyebrow if he left; in fact, I think they'd cheer. That must have been the weirdest trial ever. Anyway, that half-finished attempt of a beard on your face helps a lot.”
Automatically, Steve brushes his hand over the five-day stubble on his chin. It really is amazing how much the addition or lack of facial hair can change someone's appearance. Natasha doesn't have that advantage, obviously, but she also doesn't have that problem, since no one would confuse her with her counterpart in this world. And obviously she knows that.
She has been here a little longer than Steve, who only arrived two days ago and has tried to keep a low profile. Hence the beard.
“Tony always shaves when he wants to go incognito,” he muses. “It's amazing how well that works. All the world's villains, fooled by a razor and a pair of sunglasses.”
“Ah, yes, Dude Me,” Natasha says, with a smile he can't interpret. “That never gets old.”
Natasha Stark, better known as Iron Woman. When Steve met her for the first time, yesterday, she was wearing her armor, and even though he noticed the more feminine curves it follows right away, it was still a bit of a shock to see her face when she took off her helmet. She, for her part, never thought that he was her Steve, either noticing some subtle differences or just gathering it from the way he stared at her. She originally thought he was the Steve Rogers of this universe, but did the smart thing and asked before jumping to conclusions.
They talked some, before agreeing to meet here the next day to talk some more. Fortunately Steve was wearing clothes nice enough not to get kicked out of this establishment when he got transported here without warning, and he managed not to ruin them in the two days he's been here. How Natasha got hold of this outfit and the make up is beyond him. Maybe she was wearing that dress under her armor, but it's not crumbled, and he was certain that the ear rings are a new addition since yesterday. Maybe she stole it, or had a stack of cash hidden away in that armor. Knowing Tony, that's not all that unlikely.
Always prepared for every eventuality.
She's wearing an elegant but understated dark blue dress that leaves her shoulders bare but has no cleavage, closing at her throat. No jewelery but those ear rings, and they are kind of off-putting only because this is sort of Tony, and it's almost impossible to imagine him wearing something like that.
Because it's absolutely clear that this is Tony there, in a way. Not some unrelated woman who took his place in that universe, not a sister he doesn't have in Steve's reality, but a version of who Tony Stark would have been had he been born as a girl. It's all there in the way they move, in the inflection of their words and they way they look at Steve when they say something they expect him to take badly. It's in the way they carry themselves. It's in what's in her glass. This is an environment for light drinking, some alcohol to lift the mood without going overboard, but she's drinking cider from a glass designed for cocktails, and Steve thinks that their history has to be the same to some extent.
He keeps staring at the cloth covering her chest, wondering if it's hiding a glowing disk set into her sternum, and doesn't even realize he's doing it until she says, “You must come from a world where women don't exist, judging by how you don't seem to ever have seen a pair of boobs before.”
She smirks. Steve feels himself blush, and he splutters like a teenager. “I'm sorry. I didn't... It's just, I was wondering. Do you have an RT in your chest?”
“A what?” she asks, at the same time surprised and genuinely curious. “I've had lots of things in my chest throughout my life, but that doesn't sound familiar. What is it?”
“It's...” How does Steve even explain it? “It's something to do with repulsor technology. Tony uses it to keep his heart beating.” She said she had lots of things in her chest, so does that mean she's had to deal with as many heart problems as Tony had? “It's got more to do with his brain, though. He gave himself brain damage to erase all the data of the SHRA database from his mind so Osborn wouldn't get it.” Steve nearly winches here. It sounds wrong, so say it like that.
Natasha looks just very interested. “To erase the database? Huh. I admit, I have taken similar precautions, just in case, but I didn't think I'd ever have to use it.”
She sounds appreciative, if anything. It's disturbing.
“You know about the database,” he observes.
“Sure. We collected the identities of a lot of people who weren't happy about it. The least we can do for them is keep that information out of the wrong hands. I planned for that from the beginning. It's good to know it'd work.”
Steve isn't comfortable with the way she talks about effectively lobotomizing herself so casually. “So the SHRA happened to you, too.” That's only marginally more comfortable to think about. He tries to imagine this woman, in her armor, on the battlefield, facing him, and it's very easy. He imagines himself throwing punches at her while she wears nothing but her golden underarmor, like a second skin, and he just can't.
How did they fight their battles, then? Did they actually sit down and talk? Did To- Did Nataha take advantage of his unwillingness to beat an unarmed woman to get the drop on him? Not likely – Steve knows plenty of ways to defeat an opponent without throwing punches, and if the other him and Natasha are as much as Tony and him as it seems, he'd know all of her moves, having taught them to her.
Or has this woman eroded her Steve's nerves and affection so much through her actions that he would let go of his principles and punch away anyway? Tony has always been able to bring out the worst in him, after all.
He remembers his fist connecting with Tony's face, just days ago. The memory brings back the anger, and his eyes seek out the spot on Natasha's cheek where he saw the fading bruises yesterday, now perfectly covered with make up.
He wouldn't. He knows that. There are many ways for bruises to appear on the face of a superhero. Steve can see faded white scars breaking the tan of her bare arms, a thin line running from her eyebrow to her hairline, visible only when her hair falls just so. Marks of a life of action. Steve knows the feeling of Tony's skin under his fists, but Natasha won't know the feel of Steve's fists on her skin.
She puts down her glass. It's almost empty. “As our Reed Richards has found out, most universes experience that event in one from or another. This one, too. I guess you know how that ended for your counterpart.”
“I didn't have a chance to learn a lot about him beyond the fact that he's in jail.” Steve isn't sure he wants to know, beyond what he can guess. This world's Tony Stark is dead. Steve's counterpart is serving time for murder. It's not that hard to figure out.
He dreads the moment he'll have to seek out this world's Avengers for help with getting back home. Natasha said she's certain the distortions will sort themselves out within a few days; she said she's gone through this before, with another universe, and that she had visitors from other dimensions in hers one time not long ago (A Steve Rogers who was President of the United States. Quite the difference to the poor bastard of this world.) and it never lasted more than ten days. He hopes she's right. He hopes he'll go straight home, without any more detours.
All in all, this is not too bad a world to visit, considering his own counterpart is safely out of the way and the version of Tony he met is different enough not to remind him of rage and betrayal every time he looks in her direction. Which he does more than he probably should.
Natasha isn't, strictly speaking, beautiful; not like Sharon is, or Jan, or most of the women he's surrounded by in his life as if looking like a model were some kind of requirement for heroics. That is something that he becomes aware of as he takes in the details, but didn't think before. He was too distracted by the fact that this is Tony, but female, to notice all the things that keep her from meeting the standards of what society considers feminine beauty these days. She's all straight lines with not enough curves. Her breasts are distracting to him only because he didn't expect them. Her hips aren't much wider than her waist, and while she's on the thin side, it makes her look bony rather than slender. The muscle tone of her arms, while understated and lean, could never be mistaken as something that's only there as a result of staying in shape; she knows how to use these muscles and everything about her bearing makes that clear. The lines of her face are a little too harsh, her jawline a little too sharp, and wile her haircut – longer bangs framing her face, shorter in the back – looks elegant and expensive, all Steve can see is how this is the hairstyle of a woman who doesn't want her hair to get stuck in her armor when it closes around her.
And yet there is something about her that's almost blindingly attractive. Her smile, the way she carries herself, so confident and self-assured even here, the level of attention she gives every single of his movements. Her eyes, blue and framed by long black lashes, are so much like Tony's Steve can barely look at them.
“How did it end for you?” she asks.
“Bloody,” Steve replies curtly. Then, because the way she looks at him leaves him no other choice, he elaborates. There are lots of details that he brushes over, but she gets a rough overview. Tony's support of the SHRA. His own opposition. Who fell on what side. He doesn't mention the death of Happy Hogan, not wanting to reopen old wounds if that happened to her as well. Watches for any kind of reaction when he mentions his meeting with Tony in the ruins of the mansion and the resulting fight that resolved nothing, but she doesn't show anything but detached interest there. He finished with the final battle, the epiphany he had when a bunch of non-powered bystanders pulled him away from Tony's prone form in the burning city, and how he was arrested and then assassinated on the way to the courthouse, using that last bit as an excuse for not offering anything on the aftermath.
“I see,” she finally says. “Seems aside from who lived and who died, your world and this are pretty much identical. And here you are, not looking dead at all.”
“I got better,” he replies shortly.
“Your Tony must have been ridiculously happy about that.” She states that as a fact. As if she could possibly know how destroyed Tony has been by Steve's death. (Not something he likes to think about these days.) Maybe she does.
“I wouldn't know. He deleted his memories, remember? So when he woke up and I was there he didn't even know I'd been gone in the first place.” And that felt like betrayal, too. “I take it that didn't happen to you.”
“No, in my world the SHRA went over peacefully. I helped getting it on track, then dropped out for the most part, leaving it to Reed, until it was time to smooth out some kinks and make it acceptable for everyone. No fighting.”
“Is Steve Rogers dead in your world?” Steve asks, at once. He cannot imagine a world in which he would not have fought that, not unless it was vastly different from his.
She smiles, amused, a little sad, a little wistful. “No, he's fine. Probably not missing me a lot right now, but continuously upright and breathing.”
“Then how did you get him to agree?”
“I married him.”
Steve needs a few minutes to swallow that.
-
It almost makes sense, he eventually thinks. Tony has always been in the center of his world. He knows it does both ways. But to imagine that any version of him would betray his ideals over love is impossible.
“My Steve was opposed to it at first, too, if that helps,” Natasha explains over her second glass of cider. Steve thought about ordering something stronger than coke to wash down the news, but it wouldn't do anything for him anyway. He'd just be an asshole. “But he also loved me, and, well, the sex was pretty good.” She grins when he nearly chokes on his water. “There was a mutual interest to not fight, so I suppose he was just more open to my explanations than you, or the local Steve here, or most of you anyway.”
“So it's my fault, now?”
“We had to do a lot of compromising, both of us,” she continues as if he hadn't spoken. “But I could convince him that the SHRA was necessary to avoid worse. We changed it later, when we could; by now the status quo is almost as it was before, even though the law is still in effect.”
“I can't believe it was that easy.” He can't. He doesn't want to.
“It wasn't. There wasn't just us to consider, there were a lot of people involved, all the clashing opinions. Our marriage did help bridge gabs.”
“Like a political marriage between kingdoms?”
“In a manner of speaking. Except we really did love each other. I knew it couldn't last, but it was good for a while. We were good.” She smiled at nothing.
“So I take it you're separated now?”
“We are.”
“What happened?”
“Life. We're incompatible, and I suppose we should have known better. Our approaches to solving problems are too different, and it's not always possible to find a compromise. I make sure that the world keeps turning, and Steve makes sure that's a good thing. That sounds good in principle, but I always knew eventually we would come to a barrier we couldn't overcome.”
Her smile doesn't reach her eyes. It's a Tony Stark smile that Steve has seen many times before and always hated. “So,” he says. “Did your world ever have to deal interdimensional incursions?”
The music changes. Natasha stands and extents her hand. “Care to dance?”
Steve looks at the hand like it would bite him. “What? Why?”
“Because my Steve will probably never dance with me again, and you'll never dance with your Tony in the first place, and I want you to know what you are missing.”
Steve wonders what her intentions are. He knows he shouldn't, but she's Tony, just female and about to disappear from his life forever, and the temptation is too great not to.
It's a slow song that's playing, but not too slow. Natasha pulls him close and they settle into position quickly, soon moving across the dance floor with practiced ease, as if this wasn't a first. Steve finds his heart is beating a little faster than it should; his hand, splayed over Natasha's back, keeps finding the smooth wells of scars where her dress leaves the skin bare.
“Extremis?” he murmurs, hoping she has no idea what that is.
“Ah, yes.” She leans back into his arm, trusting him to keep her upright. “It's inactive. Too bad – it was so convenient for preventing scar tissue.”
Steve wants to ask what happened but can't bring himself to. He loses himself in the dace for a while, musing on how he has expected this to be a struggle for leadership but she's following his lead easy enough. It's just a dance, though. It doesn't mean anything.
He's seen Tony dance often enough, knows the grace he can display with the right partner. He never thought he would qualify as such a partner, but people keep staring at them from the tables lining the square, and Steve doesn't think it's because they recognize either of them.
This close he can smell Natasha's perfume. It's subtle, so faint that he didn't notice it before, but impossible to ignore now she's all but pressed against him. Something neutral, almost leafy. It's natural in a way he didn't expect from a person always surrounded by technology. But it suits her, somehow.
It seems to emanate from her hair, which is very close to his nose. She's tall, and wearing high heels. The music slows down and so do they, and Steve changes the position of his hands, moves them up her sides over the silk of her dress, to where he can just barely feel the sides of her breasts as a gentle curve against his palms...
Their lips nearly touch before she turns her head away. “No,” she says, not unfriendly, but with finality.
“I'm sorry.” Steve takes a step back. “I misunderstood.” His heart is still beating too hard. He wants.
“I'm the one who should apologize.” The moment is over, so they are moving back to their table. “I suppose that was misleading, what with my reputation and all. But, well, I'm technically still married, even if it's technically to you.”
“You're separated,” Steve points out.
“Even worse. This makes me look desperate, and it wouldn't be fair to him. Aside from that I am still trying to swallow the brand new information that my breasts are obviously the only thing that my husband loved about me, so forgive me for not being in the mood.”
Steve stares, startled. “What?”
She signs. Stands beside the table without sitting, and so does he. “Couples always talk about how they would love each other even if one of their genders were reversed. Romantic and mushy and usually not possible to disprove, so where's the harm? I guess I should consider myself lucky for this exclusive intel I got on our relationship status in another universe.” Her lips twist into something that doesn't even pretend to be a smile. “So my boobs prevented a war. I'm not entirely sure there's a victory for feminism to be found here.”
Steve is still staring. He's staring to feel insulted. “I have a specific sexual orientation that Tony happens to not meet while you do. You can't hold it against me, or your Steve, that I'm straight. So's Tony. So are you.”
“I'm not,” she tells him. “I can't speak for your Tony, but if he's anything like me, he's been breaking his own heart over you since you thawed.”
At some point Steve will have to stop staring. “You're not?”
“Hell, no. I don't even pretend to be any longer. Aside from Steve, the only person I ever wanted to marry was a woman named Rumiko. She died.”
“Yeah.” Steve nods slowly. “I remember her. Tony loved her a lot.”
“I guess she didn't make it in your world either?” It's barely a question. Natasha sighs and looks sad, then she looks bitter. “That's doesn't prove anything about your friend's sexual orientation-”
“Tony's not my friend,” Steve interrupts her, and she looks at him like he's just proved a point for her, even as she continues, “and it's not what matters here.”
“It's not? Because I just got the impression that you hold it against your husband, and me, that we're physically attracted to someone who happens to be the matching gender for our preference, and not to someone who's not.”
“That's not my point. My point is that there's a big difference between, 'I love you, man, but I don't want to sleep with you' and 'Your tits are the only reason I didn't crush your throat you with my shield'.”
Steve flinches back as if she had slapped him. He wants to protest but she doesn't let him. “I thought about visiting this world's Steve in jail,” she tells him, conversationally. “But that seemed overly cruel, considering my history and his. But I'm beginning to think that you should.”
“I don't-”
There is a pulling sensation and then she's gone. The dance floor is gone, and so is the table, and the other guests. Steve looks around, finds himself in the elevator of the Tower. The place he was taken from when he dropped into that other world days ago. Natasha Stark-Rogers will never find out what he doesn't.
Once he's over the shock of the sudden displacement, Steve mostly feels relief. He won't have to deal with the other Avengers in order to go home. He isn't stuck there.
He left Natasha on a bad note, in a conversation they'll never finish, with accusations he can never defend himself against, and that doesn't st well with him at all.
He'll have to deal with it. It can't be changed. Now he needs to contact his Avengers to let them know he's back.
It's only been two days. Did they ever notice he was gone? Or has he missed anything important in those days? For the first time it occurs to him that maybe others were taken from this world as well. Or someone from another dimension ended up here. Natasha said that happens.
Once the thought is thought, it won't leave him alone. Steve hits the button for the Tony's workshop without conscious decision. Maybe he's there. He doesn't want to see him but he has to.
The elevator doors open, and, yes, Tony's there. Steve needs a moment to find him; he's in the back, and currently in the process of picking himself up off the floor amidst broken equipment. He looks shaken. He's bruised and blood is running down the side of his face and onto his shirt.
When he sees Steve, he flinches, and a part of Steve thinks he should be triumphant, but all he can do is stare at his lips.
'If he's anything like me...'
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“Is this you?” Tony asks back. He shakes his head as if to clear it. “Sorry. Of course it is. We've had visitors.”
Steve curses under his breath. “I've been a visitor somewhere else.”
“Figured. Glad you're back. You look okay.”
“You don't. Who did this?” Where were the others in this?
“Doesn't matter. I don't want to talk about it.”
Probably another Steve, if his reaction is anything to go by. Maybe Natasha wasn't the only one from her universe to get lost; maybe her soon-to-be-ex-husband has ended up here and all the pent-up anger he has to be feeling for her finally found a face it could punch.
Or it was one of the evil ones. That thought is a lot more comfortable. Or someone from a universe where Tony is evil.
Or another Tony. They'd hate each other. But in that case, Tony would have fought back and it doesn't look like he has.
If it is important, Tony will tell eventually. In fact, they should probably share their experiences with the others, just in case.
“I'll call for a meeting,” Steve offers. “I need to report back anyway.”
“Do that. Give me a few minutes to change.” Tony is wiping the blood off his face with the hem of his shirt like this is something normal. Steve can't stop looking at him. Natasha and him are so alike, there's no doubt they are the same person. And Steve just danced with Natasha, felt her body against his, wanted to kiss her. He still wants to kiss her.
Because she's a version of Tony who's got breasts instead of a penis, a voice whispers in his mind, and it sounds bitter. It sounds like Natasha.
Or because, perhaps, she's a version of Tony who hasn't hurt him.
He shakes his head and tries not to think about kissing Tony, who already moves and acts completely casual again, like whatever just happened to him never did. There's something about the way he moves that's a little off, but it's nothing wrong with Tony. It's a difference to Natasha that Steve didn't notice when he saw it in her. No, not a difference; it's just something in the way they move that is more pronounced in Natasha. Tony seems more laid back, Steve realizes – even when he's tense. Natasha's movements are more aggressive, somehow, like every gesture is a challenge.
It throws him, because something in him that formed when he grew up in the thirties expects a woman to be softer, more gentle than a man. The difference makes sense, though, if he considers that Tony is a superhero, and so is Natasha. Tony is a technological genius, and so is Natasha. Tony runs a company, and so does Natasha. But there's a glass ceiling in all of those fields that Tony never had to deal with. Steve can only imagine that Natasha is challenging the world with everything she does – daring anyone to tell her she can't.
“You're staring,” Tony tells him. He sounds wary. He looks tired, and his eyes are exactly like hers. The sight of him, despite everything, is comforting, and Steve hates him for never making things easy.
“Yeah,” he says. “I heard that before.”
12 June 2016