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“Where are we going after this?” Peter asked over the comms.
“Mason’s,” Logan replied immediately.
Luke muttered, “The food sucks there.”
“That’s the place that occasionally has Labatt’s on tap,” Jan pointed out helpfully. “I don’t mind going there.”
Peter chipped in, “Are they going to be too busy? It’s Thursday.”
Tony knew exactly what Steve was going to say next and he didn’t disappoint -- “Cut the chatter. Focus on the mission.”
“What are we facing?”
Cap said, “Don’t know yet -- the Fantastic Four called in a disturbance near Columbus Circle and the police radioed us.”
“GREAT. Another fricken’ mystery fight,” complained Logan.
Tony didn’t care. They’d breeze through the fight and the team would go out to dinner and then it would be Friday and he’d be one day closer to asking Steve to move in. Steve had made plans for them on Friday night, which inspired Tony.
Big step for Tony. He never thought he’d ever get to this point in his relationship with Steve. Or anyone. It’s not like Tony had a great track record with relationships.
“We’re here.”
Peter swung into action while Tony hovered, ready to give air support. From what he could tell, there was a giant swirling cloud of debris and dirt. No actual fighting. Great. Some jerk causing a random pointless disturbance and messing with rush hour traffic.
“Any visuals, Spider-man?” Cap said.
“I guess I see a guy,” Spider-man reported confused.
Tony jumped in. “The police are reporting the guy has a huge W on his chest and is calling himself The Whizzer.”
“WHIZZER?” Logan repeated. Then nearly fell over laughing.
“Hey -- what’s the deal with the flamey guy that just flew in?” Tigra asked. “One of yours?”
“I can’t tell,” Storm said. Then she added disapprovingly, “Logan.”
“Whizzer,” Logan wheezed.
“People,” Cap said sternly. He leapt off his motorcycle and readied his shield.
“How many flamey people are there?” Jan asked.
“Don’t know -- it can’t be Torch -- he’s off planet with the rest of the FF,” Tony replied. Yep, definitely a Flamey Guy as a man covered in flames swooshed in.
“Toro,” Steve stated, his voice a touch strained. “It’s Toro.”
“CAP!!” Two women, one in a red costume and another in a gold costume, yelled as they ran right up to Steve. “It’s --”
“Toro,” Steve replied. “And Whizzer. Did they come with you, Miss America?”
“He rang the doorbell and when I answered the door, he went poof.” The woman in red said, flexing her hands. “I’d heard Toro was missing and you too! And Bucky!”
“Let’s stop them.”
Immediately the women started throwing trash and anything they could get their hands on into the path of the spinning Whizzer. Tony registered the costumes as being old-fashioned hero costumes from a time before spandex or ballistic nylon were invented. This was all very confusing.
“What’s that going to do?” Spider-man asked.
“Just do what they’re doing,” Cap said as he threw a pile of newspapers in the way. “Or find a way to spray Toro with water. Take your choice.”
Whizzer slowed down as he tripped over the debris, and then Toro dipped down and scooped him up. With a well-aimed combo of a rainstorm and spiderwebs, Storm and Spider-man pulled them down hard, smacking them into the street. Logan and Jan ran up to them.
“Are you okay?” Jan asked as Toro and Whizzer sat up, rubbing their heads.
Looking like a drowned rat, Toro asked, “What’s going on?”
And that’s how the worst thirty-six hours of Tony’s life started. It qualified as the worst since Afghanistan, because really, Afghanistan was the worst.
“How did you get here?” the woman in the gold uniform asked Toro firmly.
Jan whispered to Tony, “Is that Golden Girl? Did we travel back to the 40s or what?”
Steve frowned, then looked up at the sky as if calling on a higher power for strength or patience. He put the shield on his back and marched up to the crowd of Avengers and random heroes. All-Winners Squad, if Tony’s memory served him right.
Miss America said, way-too-cheerfully for the circumstances, “Hey, it’s Cap! This explains everything – you and Bucky have been missing for a couple of weeks and we’re in the future and you’re in the future –”
“Maybe it’s not our Cap,” Whizzer said. “It could be their Cap.”
Tony sighed. Time travel. People from Steve’s past. This was going to be hard and weird. He noticed in the corner of the HUD Logan stealthily sneaking away. The rest of the team would probably be better off joining him at the bar.
Steve looked at them all. “How did you get here, Maddy?”
“Betsy and I were at Headquarters. We went to answer the door and flash, bang – here we are in the street. Is that what happened to you, Cap?”
“Toro? Bob?” Steve asked.
Toro and Whizzer, who was the Bob in question, looked at each other. Bob said, “Something similar – I don’t remember much.”
“Same here,” Toro said. He was looking at Cap very closely. “Is that what happened to you? You went off on a mission and have been missing –”
“No, not now,” Steve said curtly. He looked around. “There’s a lot to go over. Storm, can you take care of our guests? I’ll debrief with the police and go back to the Tower. We’ll get this sorted back there.”
“Will do,” Storm replied.
“You’re a liar, you know that?” Toro suddenly snapped at Golden Girl.
“Not now,” she hissed back at Toro.
This was going to be a very, very long day, Tony decided.
~~~~~
Back at the Tower, Ororo had corralled the time-traveling Squad into a conference room with food and drinks for the debrief. The Squad were a variety pack of unhappy and angry. Tony asked her, “Do you know what’s going on?”
“No,” Ororo confessed. “They’ve been arguing since they got here.”
Time travel was hard enough to solve – he had to figure out how to send them back. But his Avengers didn’t know why the Squad were here to begin with. Or how they got here.
“I found this while I was helping the police,” Peter said as he came up to them. He was holding two small dolls who resembled Miss America and Golden Girl.
They exchanged knowing looks. “Okay, guess Puppet Master just hit the top of the list,” Tony said.
“He can do time travel now?” Peter asked. “Does someone keep a scorecard on this stuff? So people know what’s going on?”
Tony walked into the room, noticing that the arguing had died down a lot, even though Toro was shooting daggers at Golden Girl. Grabbing a donut from the table, Tony settled down in his usual chair. Peter and Jan filed in. Bruce opted to stay in the lab and both Tigra and Luke had disappeared.
“Where’s Cap?” Toro asked, suspicion all over his face.
“He’ll be here shortly,” Ororo explained. “He just sent a text that he was finishing with the police.”
“It’s be nice if someone could explain what’s going on?” Miss America – Maddy - explained. She was sitting next to Bob.
Cap showed up in uniform, cowl over his head and clipboard in hand. Steve usually wasn’t at all this formal at for debriefings anymore. But now there was a weird energy in the room that Tony couldn’t figure out.
“Puppet Master,” Tony said as he tossed the dolls at Steve.
“He does mind control, not time travel,” Steve replied.
“Still working on that part –”
Cap nodded. He put down his clipboard on the conference room table. Toro crossed his arms over his bare chest. Steve then wrote down the facts that they had on the whiteboard on the wall. Nice, neat handwriting. A pleasantly normal team debriefing with everyone definitely trying to avoid answering any questions.
Toro coughed and glared. A little thread of fire appeared around his ears. “Aren’t we going to talk about the elephant in the room?”
“We’ll get through it all,” Steve promised. “I’ve written down everything we now know. Anything need to be corrected?”
“Your name isn’t there,” Maddy said. “Or Bucky’s.”
“But Cap seems to have been here a long time already since he has a team here,” Toro said.
“That’s awful, Cap, if you’ve been stuck here for years,” Maddy said.
Steve dutifully wrote down their names on the board. For some reason – probably something to do with not wanting to mess with the past – Steve didn’t want to clear up what he was doing here or answer any of Toro’s pointed questions. “This is what we know. So what we need to know now is how Puppet Master managed to time travel and what are his plans?”
“That’s obvious,” Betsy said. “Whoever this supervillain is – he wanted to control the All-Winners Squad. He doesn’t have Namor or Torch though.”
“He has to have Torch – he was with me when I was nabbed. Or maybe not – I don’t remember the last time I saw him,” Toro said. He tipped his head to the side. “I don’t remember anything from when I saw the flash to waking up on the street.”
“I don’t either,” Bob volunteered.
“Standard mind-control amnesia,” Ororo observed. “What does Bruce say?”
“I’ll take him the dolls and see what he can find,” Tony said. “What next, Cap?”
“We have a few hours left in the day. Let’s split up into teams – Toro and Maddy with Storm, and Bob and Betsy with Spider-man and Giant Girl. I’m with Iron Man. Mission – find out what we can about Puppet Master. We’ll reconnoiter here for dinner and debrief.”
“And then everyone will be home shortly,” Tony promised. He added, “Be careful – we’re dealing with time travel and don’t want to expose people to too much of the future.”
“All of us will go home,” Betsy said firmly. Tony’s stomach fell because he caught her meaning. Involuntarily he glanced over at Steve.
Steve waited until everyone was cleared out of the room. He clearly trusted that Storm would wrangle Toro. “We need to get them back home as soon as possible,” he told Tony, exhaustion clear in his voice.
~~~~~
Tony leaned against a lab table as Bruce began to run the first test on the dolls. Steve had split off to make a couple of calls in case SHIELD or the police or someone had a warrant out on the Puppet Master.
“How’s Steve doing?” Bruce asked.
Tony was the resident tech person for the team, with Bruce the resident hard science guy. He didn’t used to be the resident Cap expert. Except that’s how the team lived now. Tony was the go-to guy if the team had questions about Cap. Guess that’s what happens when you worked with your long-term boyfriend.
“He’s being cagey and weird about the Squad. He doesn’t want them to know his identity – Toro probably already knows.”
“Can’t blame him. I don’t want to run into the Squad either.”
“Oh? Right, isn’t Betsy like your great-aunt-in-law or something?”
“Betty and I weren’t married, and Aunt Betsy had passed when we started dating,” Bruce stated matter-of-factly. “Ross talked about her a lot. A Lot.”
“Lots of history they’re better off not knowing about,” Tony agreed.
Steve walked through door, cowl off. Even after all this time, Steve still had the power to take Tony’s breath away. Gorgeous, kind, larger than life and Tony’s boyfriend. Right now, stress was etched all over Steve’s face. “Jan called in a lead – rumors that Puppet Master made a deal with aliens to buy some strange alien clay with unspecified properties.”
“Ah, that’s what the spectrogram was picking up,” Bruce said.
“What next?” Tony asked.
“We round everyone up and we arrest Puppet Master.”
~~~~~
The team decided to head out first thing in the morning to nab Puppet Master. Steve fretted about Torch gone missing and whether or not Namor had been kidnapped. Toro said very decisively that whoever this Puppet Master was, he deserved all the problems he’d have with Namor. Steve didn’t eat with the team or the Squad that night, instead saying he needed to stick with Bruce as he analyzed the dolls.
No one exactly believed him. But Tony ran interference and put on an old-timey movie night for everyone to distract them all.
Steve was reading in bed when Tony returned to his room. “Thanks,” Steve said gratefully. “I hope you don’t mind that I just invited myself.”
Tony nearly blurted out that his house was Steve’s house. But that was for Friday night. He had the little box with the ceremonial keycard all set to go. He changed into his pyjamas.
“It was July ‘49 when they were nabbed,” Steve said. “Bob was nabbed first. Maddy hadn’t heard from Cap or Bucky in a week. I don’t know how Toro got mixed up in this.” Steve ran a hand down his face. “I thought he’d be in college. Or graduated. Not this.”
“You must have looked them up when you woke up?” Tony asked.
“I did,” Steve replied with a sigh. “I know what happens to all of them. And – and –”
Tony slipped under the covers and worked his way over to lay his head on Steve’s shoulder. “It’s awful.” Steve was starting to get that look in his face that said I-woke-up-from-the-ice-and-my-life-is-hell.
“They’re my friends, Tony. Heck, Betsy even saw me before I got the serum. Toro – I fought side-by-side with him for years. He’d be devastated knowing about Bucky.” Steve shuddered. “I’d worked with Maddy and Bob a couple of times. They think I’m their 1949 Cap – Betsy and Toro know who I am.”
“Whizzer.”
“Bob,” Steve stated with a slight smile. “It’s not that bad of a superhero name –”
“In the 40s.”
“I know – and Betsy knows – that Puppet Master didn’t grab 1949 Captain America. Jeff is off somewhere having a nervous breakdown.” Steve held Tony’s hand as if that was the only thing grounding him to the here and now. “She and Toro both have said they want me to come back with them. I can solve a lot of their problems and do some good work.”
“Steve –”
Steve pressed a kiss onto Tony’s hair. “I don’t want --”
Tony, who had been able to finish Steve’s sentences for the past three years, knew what Steve was thinking. He pulled Steve against him, figuring that all Steve wanted was some high-quality cuddling as comfort.
~~~~~
They ran the raid on Puppet Master’s house in the morning. The raid was fast, efficient and led expertly by Steve. The only catch was that they were delayed slightly because the Squad were baffled by the Avengers grabbing coffee to go from their favorite coffee shop before leaving for Astoria.
Logan was the one who found the Captain America and Bucky dolls on a workshop table. He gave them to Steve. Steve hefted the Captain America doll in his hand, looking contemplatively at it.
“Wow – that was great,” Toro said. “Good thing Torch wasn’t here.” He set the Torch doll on fire, in case Puppet Master activated it. “That’s what it’s like to be led by someone who knows what they’re doing.”
“Toro,” Betsy warned.
“That’s why we love Cap,” Maddy said.
Tony winced. They all wanted Steve back with them. Tony loved him so much that he couldn’t lose him. He thought he knew what Steve was thinking, but he’d seen the smile on Steve’s face, the practiced way he worked with the Squad. It’d be easy for Steve to go back with them.
Steve broke from the knot of SHIELD agents. ““Back to the Tower, everyone,” Steve ordered.
~~~~~
Ordinarily, the Avengers would having a celebratory lunch and going over the high points of the fight. Instead, the team was left hanging in the lounge as Steve herded the Squad over to a conference room, the one with the two-way mirror.
Tony realized that Steve had also put on the room’s mics so the Avengers could hear what he said. Steve was planning something. Hopefully it wouldn’t break Tony’s heart.
Toro, for once, turned off the flame, Bob (Tony refused to call him Whizzer) and the women sat down around the table. Tony pondered if Toro had ever had a wardrobe that was more than a pair of speedos.
Steve sat at the head with the pile of dolls in front of him. “So,” he said, stumbling over the word. “So, as soon as you split the seams on the dolls, you can go home. That’s what our scientists said.”
“And you too,” Toro added, looking at the Captain America doll.
“It’s not going to work for me. I didn’t come to the present with an activated doll like you and Bob.” Steve then took the cowl off. Maddy and Bob gasped slightly, like they were shocked by what they saw, while Toro was grimly self-satisfied.
“Glad to see you, Steve,” Toro said finally, with a big smile.
“What happened, Steve? You look older,” Betsy said. “Not that old, but you know, older.”
Right, Betsy and Toro knew Steve when he’d been what, 23? 24? They Avengers had just celebrated Steve’s thirtieth birthday a few months ago. Tony couldn’t see the difference -- and he’d been there when Steve woke up and he didn’t look a day older. Maybe it was the haircut.
“It’s not the Puppet Master – he’s not the reason I’m in the present. I’ve been here for the past six years.”
“I knew it!” Maddy exclaimed. “The Puppet Master messed up and brought you back earlier.”
“Maddy, it was mission in ‘45. The Puppet Master had nothing to do with it.”
“You knew about that, didn’t you, Betsy?” Toro needled.
“We’re not here to blame people.” Steve splayed his hands on the table. “Bucky and I were sent on a mission at the end of March ‘45. I ended up – in a stasis and I am here now.”
“Cap, we can fix it,” Toro said. “Tell us and we can –”
Tony could tell from the way Steve was holding his body that this was incredibly difficult for him.
“He’s going back?” Peter asked, a note of significant worry in his voice. Tony looked around at the rest of the team, who clearly had the same concern.
“He would have said something to Tony,” Ororo said, though not as confidently as the team would have preferred.
Tony turned back to the conference room window.
“Wait – what happened to Bucky?” Toro asked. Steve didn’t reply. Toro’s face fell. “He had plans, Steve.”
“We all did, Toro,” Steve replied.
Toro turned to Betsy. “You knew – and you never said anything. Namor was right.”
“The government has its reasons,” Betsy said.
“Hell – that’s weak –” Toro started.
“Who have we been working with?” Maddy asked.
“No one is supposed to know what happened,” Steve continued. “Toro – I know that this doesn’t look good, but Betsy only knows because she was recruited to help find another Captain America and Bucky to fill our place. The information about my mission is highly classified.” The other part -- you’re not going to know in your lifetime -- was left unspoken.
“Our Captain America is Jeff Mace – he’s – he’s on vacation,” Betsy blurted out.
Toro looked supremely unimpressed and reached for his doll. “He’s not my Captain America.”
Betsy opened her mouth and then closed it. “We could use you, Steve. Tell us how to find you.”
Steve shook his head. “You don’t have the technology to find me,” Steve said gently. “I couldn’t tell you how to fix it anyway.”
“We could use you back home, where you belong, Steve.”
“I understand,” Betsy said. “Jeff says carrying the shield is the hardest job one could ever take on.”
Steve took a deep breath. “It’s been great seeing all of you again. I can’t lie and say I’m not tempted to go back. But --”
The four at the table hung on Steve’s words.
“I have a life here. I had to rebuild and adjust. And, someday, I’m going to marry the best man I’ve ever met.” Steve smiled when he said that. “I’m needed here. The world -- and all of you -- moved on without me. I know that each of you will carry on the fight against injustice and those who would destroy others for power and money. I am proud of what you will all accomplish.”
Tony felt at that moment that Steve wasn’t going to be very pleased when Tony gave him the small wrapped box with the keycard at dinner later that night. Steve was hoping for a ring. He was going to have to make some calls to fix that.
Betsy and Maddy had started to sniffle, with Maddy dabbing a handkerchief at the corners of her eyes. Bob put a hand on her shoulder. Toro screwed up his face, then dropped his shoulders.
“You could tell us more,” Toro said. “Like -- I want to hear more about this love of your life and that you fell for a guy, Steve. Is that Iron Man, right, you’re sweet on?
“I don’t know how this version of time travel works, but we can’t tell you about the present,” Steve said. He handed the rest of them their dolls.
“Goodbye,” he said to them as they slit open their dolls and disappeared.
“I knew he’d stay,” Jan said as the Avengers shuffled off to go do other things.
Tony walked into the conference room. “That was very brave of you –”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Steve said miserably.
Tony slid into the chair next to him, put an arm around his shoulder and pulled him close. “Then we won’t. Do you still want to go out to dinner tonight? We could order in instead –”
“No, no, I set up plans for tonight that I don’t want to cancel –”
“Oh,” Tony replied. Oh, he hadn’t thought of that – if Steve had planned to ask him, not waiting for Tony to ask, there was no way that Steve would ever leave for the past.
He sat up. “I’m really looking forward to dinner,” he said to Steve, meaningfully.
“So am I,” Steve replied, just as meaningfully. And smiled at Tony for the first time in hours.
Their lives, their shared future, were back on track.