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It was several days before Steve learned exactly who had caught up to him in Times Square and delivered the bad news. Ex-military, absolutely. The man's words and bearing had let that fact cut through Steve's panic--had actually helped damp down his terror and confusion.
High-ranking, too.
"Nick Fury," he said, offering his hand. No man of Fury's color had ever made this gesture to him, which threw Steve off for a split second. He hoped the strength of his grip made up for the delay. "I'm with SHIELD."
"Steve Rogers. But I guess you knew that."
Though the disorientation of his awakening made him feel like his head was stuffed with cotton wool, Steve still flinched when a siren whooped from a side street, followed by a long blast of a deafening horn.
"Why don't we head back inside where we can talk. I expect you'll have some questions."
Nodding, Steve fell into step beside Fury, who asked him, "Do you recognize where you are?"
The buildings were so tall he couldn't find anything familiar in his surroundings. The area was blocked off to traffic, with scattered metal tables and chairs. In a center island rose a structure with long lines of people snaking from it. Breadlines? The mood of the people was all wrong for that. A bright red bleacher rose up behind the small building, and at its foot -- Steve released a gust of breath. There was something he knew. The large stone Celtic cross and the figure of the soldier-priest in his trench coat.
"Times Square," Steve said, and the layout of the streets, now barred to traffic, took on a familiar look.
"It's changed some," Fury said wryly.
Fury led him through a phalanx of vehicles that hadn't been on the pavement when Steve had come this way before. Steve found something forbidding about the gleaming black finish on every one, all of them with darkened windows. No less disconcerting were the men and women in dark suits and dark glasses who stood at ease beside them. Fury nodded briskly as he and Steve passed through their ranks, and Steve lost a step as he turned to eye the vehicles, both strange and familiar.
Seventy years.
A quick mental sum brought him an impossible answer: he was in the 21st Century now. Steve stumbled to a complete stop. Distress over a missed connection and long-ago plans became overwhelming grief. Peggy couldn't possibly be--
Despite the eyepatch, it took no time at all for Fury to notice Steve had fallen behind. He paused, turning halfway. "Almost there, Cap."
Steve had a less charitable reaction. Pull yourself together, soldier. He drew himself up and nodded to Fury, matching his long stride down a side street which was not the one Steve had taken.
Leading him to an unmarked door next to a standpipe, Fury slid an ivory colored rectangle into a slot to release the lock, and they were in. The rectangle got them into an elevator that looked like it could house a piano, and allowed Fury to press the button for one of the upper floors.
Steve wasn't sure if bypassing the phony recovery room was Fury's intention, but he was grateful. Right now Steve didn't need the reminder of a world he'd lost, flimsy as one of the movie sets he'd battled his way through as a fake hero.
Once the elevator delivered them to the 44th floor, Fury led the way to a door he opened the same way he'd gained entrance to the building. Pausing just inside, he picked up a small plastic box and at the press of a couple of buttons, the lights came up and a curtain moved slowly across the glass wall at the other end of the room.
"You can adjust this any time you like, but I thought the view might be disorienting at first." Fury gestured to a big leather sofa in the center of the room. "I can give you the tour later, but you probably have a lot of questions. I'll try to answer them."
Steve had so many, in fact, that they piled up in a bottleneck in his head, but he eventually got some answers.
2013.
Peggy's dead, though not so long ago. She was 91.
So is Howard Stark, and all the fellas he fought with in the Howling Commandos.
World War II didn't end all war any more than the first one did. Hitler took the coward's way out, and Japan--well, the scientists didn't stop with the creation of one super soldier. He couldn't imagine the devastation Fury described.
SHIELD was the successor to the SSR, renamed after Russia got to be the USSR and the similarity was a little too close for a senator with an agenda. Waving a hand in dismissal, Fury said, "You'll get around to reading about that."
Steve appreciated the way Fury approached his questions. He was a straight talker, no bull, but he was invariably kind without being sappy. Steve recognized in him the respect one soldier gave to another. He grew to like Fury a lot over the next few days. He'd apparently drawn duty as Steve's guide to this new world, but he didn't seem to be troubled by it. He appeared a couple of times a day, bearing not just briefing packets but art supplies, books, movie disks, cards, a chess set, food and, in the evening, beers.
"I know you don't get a buzz off this stuff, Cap," he said the first time. "But I like it for the taste, too, and figured you might."
Truthfully, he wasn't that fond of it, but he enjoyed the ritual enough to have one or two while they played chess or talked. Fury seemed to sense his lack of enthusiasm, so each time he brought something different, from the brands he remembered like Schaefer to foreign beers and something he called microbrews.
Fury let him take the lead, whether Steve was inclined to ask questions or swap war stories or settle into a morose silence. The longer Steve was a guest of SHIELD, the more he settled into a sullen mood until the evening Steve batted an opened bottle onto the floor and strode to the window, taking in the glare of colored lights and the pulsing glow of traffic below his feet.
"What does SHIELD want with me?" he demanded. "What are you people planning for me, or is that strictly need-to-know?"
Fury gave no sign of being rattled. "That remains to be seen. It depends on what you want."
Letting out a short, bitter laugh, Steve said, "What I want. Surely you have some plans for your super soldier."
"We really don't," Fury said mildly.
"Why in God's name did you bring me back?"
"We didn't," he said simply. "Well, we did bring you back to the States, but we thought we were bringing you for a proper military funeral and burial. It was as much a surprise to us as to you that you weren't dead."
His breath gusting out of him, Steve leaned heavily against the window. "My being here -- it's just accidental?"
"Accident, Providence, it's all up to your point of view," Fury said. "Actually, I had a plan. For tonight, I mean. I thought you might like to spend some time in the SHIELD gym. We've got a pretty sweet set-up down there."
It was there that Steve finally learned who Fury actually was. When they entered the huge space, Fury gave a piercing taxicab whistle and went from guide to drill instructor. "Out. On the double."
The sight of agents abandoning their activities and scrambling to obey would have been hilarious, had Steve been in any kind of laughing mood. There was a chorus of Sirs and a Director, sending Steve spinning on his heel to regard Fury.
"Director?" Steve echoed. "You're the director of SHIELD?"
"I am."
Steve hardly knew what to think. He'd assumed Fury was assigned to him by some higher-up, though he recognized that his guide enjoyed their visits as much as Steve did. The thought that someone as important--and as busy--as Fury undoubtedly was would carve out so much time to make Steve feel more at home floored him. Steve saw the times Fury would rub his forehead with exhaustion in a whole new light.
"Come on, Cap, I'll show you around."
There were parts Fury called "state of the art," like the pistol range. While he hoped to test his skills to be certain they hadn't deteriorated during his time in the ice, Steve was most drawn to the part of the gym with the boxing ring and training equipment. It reminded him of the hole-in-the-wall place Bucky had dragged him to when he decided boxing lessons would make him less a target--or at least less likely to be stomped to death. It didn't have quite the funk that Ruggerio's place had, yet it felt about right.
"Feel free to use it, day or night. I'll get you a key card that'll get you in whenever."
"Thank you, sir."
Fury scoffed. "What the fuck is this 'sir' all of a sudden? You know my damn name."
Grinning, Steve said, "Yessir, Nick." After a moment, he sobered. "Look, I want to say--things weren't always fair back in my day, and guys like me weren't always decent to guys like you. I don't have a plan yet, and I don't know if I'll be in yours, but I've got no problem serving with a Negro as my CO. I fought beside a guy in the Howling Commandos, and he was a standup guy. You've proven the sort of man you are in the last few days, and I'd be proud to serve with you. In case you were worried about any attitudes I might have."
Fury drops a hand on Steve's shoulder and grasps it. "I wasn't. You've proven the sort of man you are in the last few days, too." He drew closer, though no one else was around. "I'll fill you in on something, though. The word Negro fell out of favor some time ago."
"Oh. Forgive me, Nick."
"No need. I'm just saying, out there where people don't know where you came from, they won't get your intent. It's not a fighting word, but it'll likely get you the side-eye. Nowadays, folks say African-American, or black. Some black folk prefer one or the other, but neither one will get you in trouble. You hear talk on the news and such about the N-word. Now that's the same slur you heard back in your time. You may hear it in some of the songs popular now, by black artists. That's their word, their choice. But it's still going to get you a pretty damn unfriendly response."
"Sure." He wouldn't have dreamed of saying it back then, either. But the rest of it -- Steve felt like this century would never stop confusing him, but he filed the intel away in the Important! drawer of his mental filing cabinet, ready for the context that eventually made it all make sense.
***
The only time he ever laughed, it seemed, was in the gym with Thor. They could spar without holding anything back, and the sheer animal joy of going full out that Thor expressed at almost every clash was infectious, even when Steve wanted none of it.
Thor clearly knew it, because he often approached Steve in his darkest moods to spar. Steve had yet to find a way to deny him.
They had just finished a session in which Thor had, as Tony liked to say, knocked the foul mood out of him. Grinning broadly, he offered a towel to Steve as he wiped at his own neck. "Friend Steven, might I ask a boon of you?"
"Of me? I don't think there's anything I can do that you can't. But sure."
"I seek your advice as a Midgardian man. The anniversary of my lady Jane's birth fast approaches. I wish to bestow on her a gift both rare and precious, yet not something that would..." Thor paused, clearly searching his memory. "Ah. Freak her out."
Steve downed half the contents of his water bottle in a desperate attempt to stall. At last he went with honesty. "You do know the last time I had a girl was 70 years ago, and we didn't really have time to get to the presents stage."
"It matters not. You are a man of honor and kindness."
It was almost a physical blow to hear himself described this way. It felt off. Steve was a man of anger and bitterness these days, and there was little room for anything else. He pulled his thoughts together. "How about a pair of nylons?"
"What are these objects?"
"They're coverings ladies wear on their legs. Very sheer, like silk. They got real scarce during the war, and women went nuts for them when they got a pair. They must still be hard to get, because I rarely see a woman wearing them. I can't guess how much they would cost."
"How would I procure these?"
"I'm not sure how it works these days, Thor. Back in my time, fellas had to know a guy who knew a guy." After some additional thought, Steve snapped his fingers. "You know who'd probably know? Natasha. When she's on a mission, she might need 'em for her undercover wardrobe." The thought that she might also need them to throttle a bad guy or two flitted across his mind, but he left it unspoken.
"This is a brilliant suggestion." Thor boomed. He cast a look toward the ceiling. "Friend Jarvis!"
Steve sometimes thought Thor assumed Jarvis was the Stark mansion version of Heimdahl.
"Well met, Thor Odinson," Jarvis replied. This was a relatively new development. The AI's voice also took on a more hearty intonation whenever he spoke to the Asgardian. The change was a little disconcerting, but Tony had greeted it with glee. "How may I assist you today?"
"If you would tell me where I might find the lady Natasha, I would be most appreciative."
"Ms. Romanoff happens to be en route to the gym with Mr. Barton at this moment, sir. Estimated time of arrival approximately 1.2 minutes."
Clapping Steve on the shoulder, Thor said, "A most auspicious sign. My thanks, friend Jarvis."
"I am but honored to serve," Jarvis responded without even a whisper of his habitual dryly sarcastic tone.
When Natasha and Clint entered, in the midst of an animated conversation, Thor strode toward them and clapped each on one shoulder simultaneously. "Friend Clint! Lady Natasha! You look well."
Natasha seemed to be smothering a smile. "You too, Thor."
Clint offered a smirk. "It's just our good fortune that nothing has happened to either one of us since we saw you at breakfast."
"Indeed!" Dropping his voice to a dull roar, he drew closer to Natasha. "Lady, I have a most urgent request. Can you tell me where I might procure a pair of nylons?"
Well-schooled as her face normally was, Natasha's brows shot upward. "Nylons?"
"For my lady Jane. The captain has recommended them as a most coveted gift among Midgardian ladies."
Natasha's control began to crumble, and a faint giggle escaped her, half drowned out by Clint's snort.
"Nylons," Clint repeated. "That's awesome."
"They were hard to come by during the war." Steve felt his face beginning to heat up. "Women were crazy for 'em. Anyway, they still seem pretty rare, so I thought Jane would--"
Her amusement has built as he spoke to full-out laughter. She fanned her hand in front of her face as if trying to drive away offending cigarette smoke. "Forgive me, Steve." With an effort, she stifled her laughter, elbowing Clint sharply. "That was rude. It was actually a reasonably good theory, given what you knew then and what you've observed. You just missed out on a few decades of social changes. Nylons came back after the war, but then someone came up with the idea of pantyhose, which were huge. Then the late Sixties and Seventies came along, and a lot of women just viewed them as uncomfortable trappings of a bogus feminine ideal. These days, if women aren't wearing them, it's most likely because they don't want to."
"Not to mention it would be about as sexy as giving her a toothbrush," Clint said. "They're, what, $2.99 at any drugstore."
Steve's embarrassment was so completely swept aside by the tidal wave of Thor's own crestfallen reaction that he couldn't even feel mortified. "Captain, I fear we have much studying to do to understand such complexities of modern Midgardian life."
Steve grinned ruefully. "You said it, pal."
Natasha patted Thor in the center of his chest. "Yeah, but you get major points for not saying 'complexities of modern Midgardian women.' For that, I'll tell you exactly what to get her. Dinner and theater tickets. Even if she hates it, it's only four hours of pretending she doesn't, not months or a lifetime."
Shifting her wrapped bundle of knifes from under her arm to her petite hand, she nodded at them and swept on into the gym, a laughing Clint following in her wake.
***
Pepper Potts did wear stockings. Steve noted this after the conversation with Natasha and Thor -- he'd in fact noted it before. Her position as Tony Stark's right hand had played something of a role in his theory that they were rare but attainable, if money were no object.
At this moment she wasn't wearing her business suit but a long and very shiny gown with a slit that went partway up the front, which had given Steve the opportunity to note the presense of nylons. Pepper had fifteen minutes ago swept down to Tony's workshop to yank him away from his latest project, get him upstairs to the shower and make sure he was clothed and his hair smoothed down. Steve, who'd been hanging out in the workshop sketching, drew their exit as a scene from an Our Gang short, with a very tall teacher-Pepper dragging Alfalfa-Tony around by his ear. Now Pepper was straightening Tony's tie, which didn't make him look that much more grown.
"I don't know why I couldn't just leave on what I was wearing," Tony groused. "I had a Van Halen shirt on. It's the VMAs. All the cool kids will look like slobs."
"The cool kids won't have the slightest idea who Van Halen were," Pepper said.
Tony laid a hand over his heart. "You have cut me to the core."
Patting his cheek, she said, "You'll heal. Come on. Time to move."
After they were gone Steve wandered into the kitchen to make himself a sandwich. When he was midway through fixing it, Natasha and Clint came in to rummage in the icebox -- refrigerator, darn it! -- for some beers. "We're going to order a pizza to watch the VMAs, if you want to join us," Natasha said. "We can make that some pizzas. You might want to hold off on the sandwich."
"Believe me, he can polish off both," Clint said.
"What are the VMAs? Tony and Pepper just left to go there."
"Stands for Vapid, Moronic Assholes," said Clint.
"It's an awards show." Steve had noticed Natasha took his education in modern ways very seriously after the nylons incident. "For music videos. Tony's getting some kind of honor for a piece of tech he made that revolutionized making them." She did roll her eyes a bit at that. "And I think he's presenting something or introducing someone."
"You definitely should watch with us," Clint said. "See what hellish level American culture has descended to since you were around last time."
"Now don't be cruel," Natasha chided.
Clint was probably right, but mainly Steve wanted the company, so he agreed and multiple pizzas were ordered. Bruce eventually turned up from his lab and the four of them sprawled around the new coffee table in Tony's newly rebuilt living room to watch.
"You're not gonna hulk out if One Direction doesn't win, are you?"
"Screw you, Clint," Bruce said amiably. "Just don't cry because Bieber's not on tonight."
"Touché." Clint raised his beer bottle in Bruce's direction.
Natasha scooted closer to Steve. "Justin Bieber and One Direction are both acts that pre-teen girls like."
"Did somebody accidentally turn on the SAP for old people?" Clint asked.
"Bobby soxers," Steve said, but Clint's expression made it clear he had no idea what this meant. "Swooning, screaming girls? Like Frank Sinatra had."
Clint's confusion had started to clear with the swooning and screaming, but at the mention of Frank Sinatra, his face clouded again, along with Natasha's.
"Aw, you never heard of him? We played a show with Sinatra at Radio City. Jeez, it was something. I've never seen so many girls faint in my life. I wonder what happened to him."
"Oh, he kept singing," Natasha said. "He was a star his whole life."
"Seriously, though, teenaged girls went apeshit for him? That's grandma music."
What language are you even speaking? Steve wanted to ask, but the program started and then he was rendered all but speechless by a nun with a square head and huge shoulders and a set of facial expressions Mrs. Danvers would be proud of. "Wait, what?" he managed. Then suddenly she was wearing a tight suit like Natasha might wear, if Natasha rolled around in a sandbox full of sequins.
"Lady Gaga," Natasha murmured. "Her thing is being outrageous. Lot of persona switches."
When her performance was finished, Steve couldn't even recall one note of the song, just a blur of changing clothes and wigs.
"Half a dozen costumes do not add up to one meat dress," Clint commented during a commercial.
"Agreed," said Bruce.
Natasha explained the meat dress to Steve, who could find nothing to say in response.
Next there was a flashing series of images every bit as choppy and overwhelming as Steve's first look at 2013 Times Square.
"How do people watch these?" Steve asked. "I can't even take in what I'm seeing."
"All this speed happened slowly, if that makes sense," Bruce said. "If you watch a movie from the Eighties today, the pace seems incredibly slow. Things just started moving faster incrementally. Commercials, videos, even sports. Lots of abrupt cuts, different camera angles. I think we've wired ourselves with a 5-second attention span."
"I don't even like watching TV and recent movies after a long sniper job," Clint said. "The change is too jarring."
They all quieted down because Tony came onstage next, looking snappy in his tuxedo, which Steve hadn't so much noticed while he and Pepper were in the room, but now that he was on the large-screen TV in high definition, Steve realized he could give Cary Grant a run for his money.
Tony pointed into the crowd, presumably at Pepper, and the pistol-like gesture reminded him again of Cary Grant. "See?" Tony said. "I told you none of the other kids were dressing up for picture day."
The wisecrack got a big laugh, and the camera cut to Pepper, who wore her trademark mixture of exasperation and affection. He introduced the next act, whose names (like all of them) meant nothing to him. Clint started doing what he called riffing, which generally meant rapid-fire jokes about things Steve had no clue about. Bruce and Natasha would sometimes join in, but it was when Tony was around that it got fast and furious and Steve would be lost in three seconds.
Onstage there was a huge teddy bear with a light tracking back and forth in its giant slit eye that made Clint exclaim "Toaster!" for some reason. Then a stairway dropped down from the bear's belly and a blonde girl popped out and Jesus God. There were dancing bear girls and the blonde girl suggesting dirty things with her tongue and even Clint fell silent when she set upon a dancer's caboose with hands and a tongue gesture and a slap. Before Steve could get his mind worked around that, a man appeared on the stage wearing a suit made of convict's stripes sewn the wrong direction. The blonde girl's costume disappeared to reveal flesh colored underclothes that looked like one of Howard Stark's polymers -- one of the ones he scrapped. As the guy sang something that Steve barely registered, the blonde moved around him, bending and tonguing and being humped by the guy in the terrible suit. Steve could feel the heat radiating from his face, neck and ears, though the others were too transfixed to look at him.
Clint finally cried out, "Oh foam finger, noooo!" He clapped his hands over his face, but kept his fingers splayed enough to keep watching.
Steve never would have thought he'd breathe a prayer of thanks to see a commercial. The silence from the Avengers was so complete that it seemed to swallow the sounds of the ad.
"Well," Bruce said after a long pause. "That happened."
Steve wondered if the embarrassment of his friends was because of the performance or because he was in the room with them.
He decided he'd rather not know.
***
It was a piercingly clear and beautiful morning, one of those days when it was possible to taste fall on the air. Steve ran the length of the Hudson River Park down to Battery Park and back. By the time he returned, Clint, Natasha and Thor were midway through breakfast and a conversation about Tony. Steve waved a greeting and started rummaging in the fridge.
Clint said, "It's just Stark being a douche."
Emerging with a carton of eggs and a jug of milk, Steve asked, "What's a douche?"
Thor thumped his glass of orange juice on the table, much less delicately than Jane had trained him. "I will not countenance such misogynistic slurs in the company of a lady."
Massage-what? Steve thought. Conversations in this century were like the traffic in Midtown: fast and nerve-wracking and potentially deadly.
"My beloved Jane despises this word. She and Lady Darcy had a sharp disagreement concerning it just this week."
"Wait," Clint protested. "How is it an anti-woman slur if we always use it on men?"
His manner suddenly turned more hesitant, Thor said, "I must confess I have yet to understand the particulars. Verily, Jane's wrath is reason enough for me."
"I don't mind it at all," Natasha said mildly as she spread butter on her toast. "It's very accurate. Like an actual douche, a douchey man claims to be good for a woman, while in reality he's not only completely unnecessary but he also causes a world of irritation and worse."
Clint gave a melodramatic shudder. "Entirely too much information."
How could that be? Steve was still completely lost. "Sorry, I don't know what an actual douche is." He hoped he was not about to regret the admission.
"I had the very same question, my friend," Thor boomed. He tore a chunk off a full baguette with his teeth and said around it, "It is an infusion that ladies use to cleanse the innermost chambers of their womanhood."
"Oh god oh god," Clint groaned, and Steve found he had to agree.
"It's marketing bullshit," Natasha stated. "Woman's bodies--"
"Oh god!" Clint repeated. "We're at the breakfast table. And look, Steve's ears have turned magenta. Just stop."
Steve hastily replaced the eggs he'd plucked from their container and put them and the milk jug back in the fridge. Grabbing up his glass of milk and a box of Pop Tarts, he made a quick, mortified retreat.
Sometimes, as Tony said, hauling ass was the better part of valor.
***
Steve and Bruce were lounging in front of the television set when Clint and Natasha returned from their pre-mission briefing. Steve was only half paying attention to the program, sketching a battle scene to attach to his latest field report. At least there was nothing on that required eyeball bleach (a phrase he learned from Tony after what he called the teddy bear orgy). It was something with animals -- Bruce preferred Animal Planet, with the marked exception of shows about animal rescue.
Natasha and Clint looked like they'd gotten a little gamma-enhanced rage as they stormed into the room.
"We need to talk, all of us," Natasha said without preamble.
"Jarvis, where's Stark?" Clint asked. "Workshop?"
"Yes sir. Shall I--"
"I'll get him," Clint interrupted. He strode for the elevator without another word.
"How about Thor?"
"At SHIELD with Jane, as far as I know," Bruce said. He'd taken on his studied air of calm.
"Fuck! Jarvis, do you have her number?"
"Dialing now, Agent Romanoff," came the response.
Thor got barely three words into his customary greeting before Natasha cut him off. "Thor, we need you here at the tower."
"Is there a battle, Lady?"
"No, Thor, but it's crucial."
"I shall make haste."
"There's going to be a battle," Natasha muttered darkly, crossing her arms and cocking her hip.
Steve and Bruce exchanged a glance. Steve had never seen her do such a poor job of reining in her emotions. Though it made him feel disloyal, he had a pang of worry for Bruce's reaction when Clint and Natasha finally revealed the cause of their rage.
Trust Clint to voice it all in the most blunt way possible. As he and Tony entered the room, he said, "Well, Doc, I hope you took your Prozac."
"Clint," said Steve, and the change was immediate.
"Sorry, Doc," Clint said. He rubbed his hand over his mouth, and Steve saw that Clint's hand was shaking.
"What's going on?" Tony asked.
"Wait until Thor gets here," Natasha said. "We're only going through this once."
The crack of thunder that announced Thor's appearance seemed a fitting beginning for whatever this conversation was going to be.
"All right, we're gathered," said Tony. "What's the story?"
"You all might want to sit," Clint suggested.
"The important thing is, might we all want to drink?" Nobody took it as a joke. Tony clearly didn't mean it as one.
"Probably," Natasha admitted. "But sit the fuck down so we can tell this."
Mjolnir thumped heavily on the carpet as Tony and Thor did as directed.
Still standing, Clint and Natasha eyed one another for a long moment before Clint looked away.
She nodded then, taking in a deep breath and letting it out. "It's Coulson."
There was an awful weight attached to the statement, as if something terrible had happened, but everyone in the room knew the worst thing that could happen to him already had.
Her breath hissed in and caught in her throat. "He's alive."
A palpaple sense of confusion swept through the room as the Avengers tried to process this news.
"What?"
"All this time?" Steve heard himself say, which sounded like the stupidest question in the world.
"The fuck--?" blurted Tony, with an edge not unlike Natasha's.
"Surely this is exceedingly glad news," Thor said. "What troubles you so?"
"Fury lied to us," Natasha snapped.
"He's lied to us for months," said Clint.
"He needed us to bond as a team," Natasha added, her voice laced with sarcasm. "We needed something to rally around. That was his thinking."
"Bullshit," Bruce muttered, causing Steve to send him a sharp glance. But he looked like himself, an angry glint in his eye but no green.
Steve felt rage boiling under his own skin and wanted nothing more than to give it voice, but the effect it might have on Bruce -- he needed to pull things back a notch. Not to mention there was something a lot more important to be considered. "How is Agent Coulson? He's not back on active duty--?"
"No," she said, the word clipped. She pressed manicured fingertips to her lips, and Clint stepped forward from where he'd retreated.
"He's had a hard go of it, I guess. Enough blood loss to trigger massive organ failure. They no sooner had that improving than he got a raging infection. It's been a long struggle, and he wouldn't have known if we were there for a lot of it."
"At least that's what Fury says," Natasha pointed out.
"How is he now?" Bruce asked.
"Getting stronger," she said. "They're starting to talk about when he might be able to come back on the job."
"Were you able to see him? Can we see him?"
She favored Steve with a grim smile. "We were a little too furious to allow that today. But starting tomorrow, yes."
"But you and Clint are being sent on a mission," Steve said. "When do you leave?"
Natasha smirked. "That was Fury's story to bring us in and tell us."
Shaking his head, Clint said, "This is the mission. Telling the three scariest superheroes in New York. That fucking chickenshit."
"Wait," Tony said. "I see a problem with the math here. You say three scariest superheroes, but there are four of us getting the news. Is that intentional? Are you imtimating that one of us is not all that scary? It's not me, is it? Because I will go toe-to-toe with any of you here for scary cred. Except Natasha. She scares the crap out of us all -- we all know it, only some will admit it. Personally, I'd vote for Cap for least scary instead of me. He's good. I submit you cannot be good and scary at the same time."
Despite the complete lack of smiles from Tony's audience, the tension in the room had dropped appreciably. "Are you through?" Steve asked mildly.
"I could be."
Plans were made for a briefing by Phil's medical team the next day and priority established for visits. That accomplished, Bruce rose from the sofa. "I could use a little meditating time," he said evenly.
Steve stood too, but Bruce waved him off. "No, I'm good. Stay."
Bruce offered a little wave before the elevator doors closed, on his way to one of the sub-basement floors to the room Tony had designed for him. For all that it was reinforced to withstand a major earthquake or bomb, it really was a meditation space. Peaceful and inviting, yet there was little enough to damage if things went wrong. The best feature of the room, in Steve's view, was the lock mechanism. To get free once he was inside, Bruce had to solve a complex logic puzzle that changed each time. Any number of systems would have been easier and as efficient: voice recognition, biometrics, surveillance by Jarvis. But the logic puzzles made use of his brilliant mind, reminding Bruce who he really was and helping dispell his intense shame over the other guy's emergence. When Tony had explained the system to Steve, he'd realized what a leader Tony Stark could be if he only underestimated himself less.
Steve realized he was still standing in the middle of the room, the others' gaze on him. "I could use a little time to think myself." He wished he had a room as calming as Bruce's. He did have a place, but he had no desire to hit anything. More than anything, he wanted to get drunk.
On his way to his quarters, Steve remembered the temporary living room they'd used while the reconstruction was going on. It had a bar, he knew. Perhaps, if he was lucky, it was still stocked.
It was a pointless exercise, but Steve poured himself a Tony-sized drink and headed out to the terrace. A stiff wind was blowing up here, but Steve welcomed the chill.
It seemed wrong to feel so hollow when the main piece of news he'd heard was that Agent Coulson, against all odds, was alive and apparently on the road to recovery. But there was a sense of loss that came with the revelation, and it dredged up every other loss he'd suffered these last few months.
He headed back inside to pour another drink, and as he turned away from the bar, a voice startled him.
"What is this, Freaky Friday?"
Steve was thrown so off balance that his glass began to slip through his fingers. Reflexively he tightened his grip and the glass broke in his fist.
"Whoa, shit!" Tony bounded toward him. "Let me see."
"It's okay, it'll be fine," he said, embarrassed.
"Let me see," Tony repeated, reaching for his hand. "Jarvis, lights."
The pendant lights over the bar grew brighter as Tony rummaged one-handed in a drawer and came up with a bar towel, ice tongs and a first aid kit. Deftly he began picking glass from Steve's palm with the tongs, depositing the shards on the towel. Delicate as it was, this was nothing compared to the fine repairs Steve had watched him make in his workshop.
"I've got to say, this is preparation," Steve said, trying to push a little lightness into his tone.
"Secret of Stark Tower," Tony said. "There's always first aid in all the bars. Enough to handle most drunken injuries up to, but not including, getting thrown through a plate glass window. Though to be fair, I was completely sober the last time I was thrown through a window. So what are you doing here squandering some first-rate Scotch on a metabolism that doesn't appreciate it in the slightest? Shouldn't you have mangled five heavy bags by now?"
Steve made a move to pull his hand away. "Tony--"
Undeterred, Tony tightened his grip on Steve's wrist and drew it back into the light.
Steve resigned himself to Tony's attentions, asking, "How are Barton and Natasha?"
"They went off on their own a while ago. Probably brainstorming a couple hundred ways to kill Fury. I imagine that bastard's not easy to take down, but I have complete faith in Natasha."
Tony flicked a glance up at Steve's face, which seemed to confirm something for him. "Speaking of faith, I guess your trust in Fury is taking another hit right now."
"Any feelings I have are of lesser importance. Clint and Natasha have been working with Agent Coulson for years."
Tony's eyes narrowed. "Your mouth says, 'No seriously, it's no big,' but your face is a big fat blabbermouth. Civilians like me and Bruce, we have a healthy distrust for military guys and spies, so their kind of shit just pisses us off, but guys like you and Rhodey take dick moves like this extra hard."
Steve felt his jaw tighten and heat rose in his cheeks. "It's a slap in the face. That Fury didn't think the dozens of civilians Loki already killed were enough to get us to fight him. I can take the criticism of my leadership -- it could have been better. But it was an insult to the team's heart."
His mouth quirking, Tony said, "Well, Fury didn't get where he is by taking anything for granted. Which is not to say I'm defending him, because I'm not, and if you ever tell him that I said even this much, I will deny it to my dying breath. You can tell him I said he's a dick, though."
Tony sheepdogged Steve over to the sink, where he rinsed the cuts under cold water.
"See?" Steve said. "They're healing already."
"Well, now they aren't healing over glass bits." He gently wiped at Steve's hand with a fresh bar towel. "This isn't just 'My CO dicked over my team,' is it? There's something else to it."
Steve had to give him credit. Tony was more perceptive than he tended to let on. Still, Steve didn't feel inclined to tell him his sob story when he knew Tony had no liking for Fury. "My personal feelings, as I said, are pretty far down the priorities list here."
Tony did that eyebrow thing that turned everything into some kind of wisecrack. "You have personal feelings. Why, Cap, I never knew."
Heat reached the very tips of his ears. "I considered Fury my friend. The first few days I was ... back, he gave me a lot of his time. I didn't even know he was the director of SHIELD."
The cynical smirk vanished, leaving Tony's face surprisingly open, his dark eyes serious. Steve hadn't meant to elaborate, but he found himself speaking into the silence that Tony let develop.
"He'd bring over some beers and we'd talk, play chess, watch the Mets on television. I found out the Dodgers left Brooklyn before I learned Ronald Reagan ended up a two-term president. He brought me art supplies, better than anything I'd used in my life. I had a chance to forget for a while -- well, not forget, but to have everything fade to the background. It meant a lot. Now I find out he's been lying to me -- to all of us -- for months. And -- he thought we needed a handful of bloody trading cards to become a team."
"Which hurt worse?" Tony asked, so softly Steve almost missed it.
"What?"
"The lies or the lack of faith? Which hurt most?"
The question seemed like such an odd one -- at least coming from Tony -- that Steve was dumbstruck for a moment.
Tony waved away his own question. "It's not important. I get curious about other people's experiences. With betrayal." The uncharacteristic stillness of before was completely gone now, Tony fussing idly with items on the bar. "Pepper says the only time I ever pay attention to a wound is when I poke at it. But since this constitutes poking at yours, too, forget I asked."
It all belatedly clicked for Steve. "You were betrayed by a friend."
"Friend. Business partner. Substitute father." This last was addressed to the floor, as Tony knelt to sweep up the glass fragments. His idea of a well-equipped bar obviously meant hazard containment as well. "That's one guy, by the way, not three different ones. I'm not that bad at people, though I admit my blind spot for Obie was big enough for three normal people. He left a pretty big hole."
"What was worse for you?" Steve asked softly.
"Pretty much finding out that every time he slung his arm around me he secretly wished he was throttling me. Or just finding out he thought I was a complete waste of skin when I always thought he, y'know, liked me. Though I guess it all really falls into the category of lies too." Tony opened a tilt-out bin in the bar cabinet and dumped the dustpan full of glass into it. Then he popped up, nothing in his expression revealing that he'd just been speaking of an unthinkable betrayal. "Hey, I've got some Cubans stashed in here. Want one?"
"Cubans?" Steve eyed the cabinets, which were by no means large enough for even one smallish Cuban.
"Cigars, Cap. Among the best in the world." He pulled two from a humidor on the bar and used a fancy silver tool to trim the end from one, which he handed to Steve. "And they taste even better because they're contraband."
Steve found himself grinning crookedly. "Don't tell me that." But he leaned in toward the flame when Tony offered a lighted match.
"Whatever you do, don't inhale. And take it slow, that's the whole--" Tony stopped in the middle of cutting his own cigar. "You've smoked cigars before."
"Not one of these, but sure. Soldier, you know." Actually, Steve had smoked a Cuban cigar before, with Howard Stark. But he knew that telling Tony this would ruin this gesture for him. "But this, this is a whole new experience." He puffed and released a fragrant cloud into the air, relishing Tony's obvious delight in introducing him to this as much as the cigar itself. "So why are they illegal?"
"Trade embargo against Cuba. Fidel Castro, Red Menace, all that." He waved Steve over to one of the leather chairs in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, which had a view of the Chrysler Building, its shining crown reflecting faint streaks of pink from the coming sunset. "Wait, you don't know about all that, do you?"
"The missile thing, yeah."
"Fun times you missed. The whole red scare and blacklists and all."
"I'm glad. It's not what I thought I was fighting for." He studied Tony for a moment. "But we've grown past that..."
"Uh, not so much."
"Yeah, I didn't think so," Steve said.
"The more things change, the more they stay the same." Tony turned his attention back to his cigar, making a clear effort to shake off his thoughts and enjoy the indulgence.
After a few moments of companionable silence, Steve said, "You know what one of the strangest things is about being here now?"
"What, here?" Tony jabbed a hand toward his chair.
"No, New York, 2013."
"No, what?"
"Nobody smokes. Practically nobody. Back then, bars were full of cigarette smoke. Restaurants too. The streets. Everywhere."
"Did you?"
"Nah. Asthma. I got free smokes in the Army, of course, but I gave them away. It was a long time before I'd even try a cigar. Howard had to --" Aw, nuts! A possible save ran through his mind -- Private Howard, guy I knew in basic -- but it would be an insult to lie to Tony.
Besides, Tony's expression had already shut down, a phony smile plastered on his face.
Steve, for once, didn't overthink it. "I told you a lie."
Tony helped himself to a large amount of the Scotch in his glass. "I guess you did."
"And I was just belly-aching about--" He shook his head, disgusted. "I'm sorry. Your dad did introduce me to Cuban cigars. But this is a damn sight better."
Steve couldn't be sure if the surprise on Tony's face had more to do with his statement or his use of the word damn.
"Why's that?" Tony tipped his oversized glass up again in hopes, Steve surmised, of hiding his reaction to the answer.
After a long moment's thought, Steve said, "Your dad lived to impress people. Don't get me wrong, I liked him. But we never talked like you and I just were. Maybe it was the war -- everything was so serious and we were all so busy. Maybe."
"You don't think so."
Steve shrugged. "Sometimes I felt like --" He had to stop and think about this for a long while. "Like a means to an end. Howard loved to build things. He really loved to build things for Captain America. Sometimes I felt like Steve Rogers was just a fifth wheel."
"Wow."
Though Tony managed to keep his expression bland, Steve felt a strong sense of sadness coming from him. "I'm sorry, Tony, there are some opinions I should keep to myself, I guess. He was your dad."
"No, I just..." Tony set his cigar in the ashtray on the small table between them. Rubbing at his forehead, he muttered, "I used to feel the same way."
"I'm sorry to hear that." And he was. It was one thing for Steve to feel that way -- he was a grown man when he first met Howard, maybe a little unformed and naive, but he had a sense of himself. And later he had an identity as outsized as Howard's. The elder Stark had been a friend, not his everything. To be a kid -- Howard's kid -- and feel like an afterthought.... A bright flash of anger settled in his chest like a hot cinder. "It's just how he was. And I'm not saying that to absolve him, Tony. I'm saying it wasn't you. How he was, I guess it was -- what's that term you used the other day? Wired in?"
"Hard-wired."
"Yeah. That's what it was with him. Nothing you could've done would have made him a better father. That was all up to him, and he didn't pass the test."
Steve didn't know when he'd ever heard Tony this quiet. He could hear the rustle of fabric and the sound of a body shifting on leather as Tony reached for his cigar. Steve watched him coax the tobacco to relight and then shake out the match.
"Thanks for that," Tony finally said, so softly Steve barely heard.
"It's the truth."
"Oh, I know that," he said lightly. "You lie so badly." He blew a large smoke ring into the air.
Steve chuckled.
"I talked to Pepper before I found you just now. She's getting someone searching for a full set of Captain America cards. Probably several someones, in shifts. After she's done crying, of course."
"She knew Agent Coulson?"
"Pep and Phil go way back. She's an early adopter."
"Well, let me know when they come in. I'll sign every single one of them for him."
Steve wasn't sure if Tony's murmured response was "good plan" or "good man," but it didn't really matter. He simply took Tony's lead and settled back into the quiet of the evening (Manhattan quiet, laced with distant horns and car alarms), with fine Scotch and cigars and good company, with a close-up view of the now-lighted crown of the most beautiful skyscraper in the city.