Chapter Text
The fear of the grenade is constant. When it finally explodes nearby, it starts with a shock wave and a fountain of fire and dirt. Then smoke, earth and stones raining down. There is a split second of immense fear, and then relief when there is no blood. It’s over. You weren’t hit. You can breathe. And then, almost immediately, you start fearing the next grenade.
This mission, in comparison, was mostly ear deafening silence. The village had been evacuated. Should have been deserted. I reach the first house, turn a corner and there is a single German soldier, armed.
Steve pauses, his fingers hovering above the keyboard of his typewriter.
“Tony is requesting your presence on the 89th floor,” FIRDAY announces, and Steve jolts in his seat.
He is still getting used to credit cards, instant meals, women wearing jeans and men acknowledging their feelings. Living with a magical ceiling voice is, he thinks, a rather large ask. He clears his throat, rips the pages from the typewriter. By some miracle, Tony managed to find an original one from the 1930s, so at least Steve can still use conventional writing methods. “Why?”
“He’s respectfully requesting that you assist in the refurnishing of the living area.”
“Respectfully?”
“I’m paraphrasing.”
Right. “On my way.”
He chucks the papers on his bed and moves to the door, nudging an empty bottle to the side with his foot. It rolls under his bed.
He steps into the hallway just as Sam steps out of his own quarters a few doors down, stretching. He grins when he catches sight of Steve. “Called to the frontlines, too?”
Steve smiles as he always does, though the words are hitting a little close to home right now. His head is still filled with images from the battlefield after spending the whole morning behind his typewriter.
-
“Not still writing that damn autobiography, are you?”
Steve levels Tony with a stern gaze. “I’m one of the few people still alive who fought as a soldier in that war, Tony. The institute for War and Genocide Studies wants me to…”
“Yes, yes. The next generations, intangible cultural heritage, yada yada. Can’t wait to read about all the medals you got for having the cleanest bunkbed and the most well-organized backpack.”
Sam snorts good-naturedly.
Steve raises his chin. “I told you, this chapter about our mission behind enemy lines in Renesse is particularly tricky to—"
“Tell you what’s tricky.” Tony points at their giant corner sofa. “Getting this monstrosity all the way to the other side of the living area.”
“Why, again?” Sam asks.
“Weren’t you the one always complaining that our seating area doesn’t catch enough sunlight in the evening?”
“That was Clint.”
“Right, Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Come on, Rogers; show us the muscle, hot stuff.”
Steve rolls his eyes but does push up his sleeves. “Next to the balcony doors, then?”
“Let’s start there, yes.”
They spend about half an hour rearranging the furniture. Or rather; Steve spends about half an hour rearranging the furniture while Tony and Sam bicker about yet another unfamiliar thing called ‘feng shui’. The couches and armchairs end up near the balcony doors. The long dinner table is moved closer to the bar.
“Good, yes, good,” Tony says, clapping Steve roughly on the back. “Anything missing, Rogers? Wilson? Sky’s the limit. Anything.”
“I want an aquarium,” Sam says. “Ceiling high. With angel fish and a skull at the bottom.”
“Anything,” Tony repeats, “except pets.”
“They’re hardly pets. They’re floating decorations.”
“Shame on you,” Tony says. “I’ll just hang a baby mobile over your bed. There’s this cute little baby shop right across the street, the one with the actual live bunnies hopping around in the window display. I’ll get you a gift card and you can find yourself a baby mobile. I hear contrasting colors are the way to go. They’ll stimulate your bird brain.”
“Steve, I’m filing a complaint,” Sam says. “This is workplace bullying.”
“Probably, make a joke about tidy bunkbeds,” Steve advises. “That will divert his attention back to me.”
Tony chuckles.
-
He takes the car east, loops through Brooklyn, through the street where he used to live, where tram overhead cables and phone wires used to criss-cross against the sky. He pulls over for a second and glances up at the window. That’s where his mother used to sit, keeping an eye out as he played Cowboys and Indians in the street with his older brothers. You’re not supposed to say ‘Indians’ anymore, he has been told. ‘Cowboys’ is still okay.
He drives on until he reaches the quieter parts at the edge of the city, parks his car in the usual spot by a Costco wholesale in a quiet neighborhood where well-maintained houses sit politely spaced apart.
He has an mp3 player that Tony set up for him. When he made the request, Tony said it was old-fashioned as heck except he didn’t say ‘heck’, and that Steve should put the music on his phone like a normal person. But Steve still has a flip-phone, his catching up goes faster in some areas than others. So Tony got the mp3 player and patiently walked Steve through how to use it. Those are usually the moments when they most get along: when Steve asks Tony for help on something. Probably because those are the rare moments when Tony doesn’t see him as an authority figure that he needs to rebel against. Perhaps he should just base his entire Tony-Stark-Strategy around that from now on.
Tony only put marching cadences on the mp3 player. That was probably meant to be a joke, but Steve still hasn’t replaced them; ironically, they make him feel like a normal person. Most days, he feels a bit like he is in limbo. Not military. Not civilian.
He goes running in the watery February sun; down curved roads flanked by trees, past a harbor and fishing piers, across a footbridge and then up along a narrow path. He does a hundred push-ups overviewing the water, breath frosting on each exhale, as someone blares yellow ribbon into his ear.
He tries not to think about the meeting he’s supposed to attend tomorrow.
On his way back, there’s a dog that always comes up to the chain-link fence to greet him. Mixed-breed, greyish brown. Fluffy. He pokes his fingers through the fence to scratch the top of his head. “Hey boy. Cold, huh?” He squints up at the windows. This dog is always outside and the lights in the house are always off, drapes closed. But he looks well-fed so it’s probably fine. “I’d take you home, but I’m afraid my current landlord has a no-pet rule,” he says.
His fingers are numb from the cold when he reaches the car and he breathes on them for a few minutes before finally sticking the key in the ignition.
He passes through Queens on his way back.
He is pulled up at a traffic light when he notices a civilian leaving the sidewalk and walking straight up to his car, carrying a shih tzu on her arm. Steve lets his face fall into the usual polite smile and rolls his window down. He isn’t in the mood for selfies, but maybe she didn’t recognize him. Maybe she’s just coming up to warn him about a broken taillight.
“Hey, why’d you bench Spider-Man, dude?” she asks.
Steve blinks. “Excuse me?”
“Crime is up in Queens. No one has seen him in, like, what is it, two years?”
“Three months.”
“If he’s dead, release a statement or something, let us know what’s up.”
“Spider-Man is not an Avenger.” He has had to explain this a million times and tries not to let any exasperation leak into his voice. He is Captain America right now, which means smiles and polite words. “I don’t control when he does or does not appear, and I am not aware of his current whereabouts.”
“Don’t you have, like, a group text?”
“I have a flip phone, ma’am.”
She looks at him like he just spoke Spanish.
“I’ll see if I can look into it,” he promises vaguely.
-
“I can’t believe it.” Tony pauses by the kitchen island, shakes his head at him. “The man who won awards during the war for the cleanest bunk bed is leaving muddy footprints all over our tiles.”
Steve glances down at the trail of dirt, then lifts one foot to check the soles of his running shoes.
“He won awards?” Rhodey asks, stacking plates together.
“Didn’t you know?”
This new running joke is probably not going away any time soon. “Apologies,” Steve says. “I’ll find a broom.”
-
The heartbroken parents of fifteen-year-old Eugene Thompson, the New York teenager who died three months ago, are calling for the case around the tragic accident to be re-opened. Thompson died after a fire broke out in their home. New York vigilante Spider-Man carried all three residents to safety, but Thompson succumbed shortly after due to the effects of smoke inhalation. The fire was deemed an accident, but The Thompsons are now calling for an investigation into the activities of the masked vigilante himself. Spider-Man, who never responded to any requests for a witness statement and disappeared from the public eye, has over—
Tony huffs and swipes away from the article with a dismissive gesture. Three months ago, Spider-Man attempted to save a family in Bayside from a fire. He almost succeeded, managing to drag the parents and their son to safety, but the son had passed away before ambulances arrived. Spider-Man has been mysteriously MIA ever since, and Tony has FRIDAY alert him whenever the vigilante is mentioned on the news. He jumps every time he gets a notification, but it’s always this sort of useless nonsense. “Bruce, honey,” he says, pushing into the lab. “This is getting outrageous. I’m livid. We need to get sample 03534 under the microscope again and crack this case.”
“Gloves,” Bruce says mildly.
Tony puts on gloves. “Watcha doing?”
“What I’m supposed to be doing, since the university is waiting for my findings. I already threw away too much time to engage in your… passion project.” There are five petri dishes neatly lined up on the table in front of him. Most likely, poor Brucey has spent the entire morning dropping fluids onto other fluids and seeing if anything reacts.
“The web stuff is not a passion project, Bruce, you know. You know how insane the chemical make-up of it is, and we might never get our hands on another sample now that Spidey’s gone.”
“You’re welcome to take that table over there and work on it.” Bruce points at a table in the far corner, even though there is a perfectly good empty chair right next to him. Rude.
“Help me out and I’ll treat you to something outrageous at lunch, something with caviar. I’ll cook it myself.”
“You can’t cook,” Bruce says. “I’ve seen you. You’re incapable of following a recipe, because you’re only capable of not doing what you’re told.”
“Don’t underestimate me, dear. I’ll simply get out a recipe for pancakes and end up making caviar on toast, I know how to trick my brain into getting the result I want.”
“I promised Nat I’d have lunch with her.”
“Fine, lovebirds.” Tony fiddles with the focus knob of the microscope and sets his face into a pout. Bruce is the only person that expression still has an effect on at times. “Come on, look at these big brown pleading eyes. I need you. Chemistry was never my strong suit. I’m more of an engineer.”
“You have a PhD in biochemistry.”
“Well, sure, I know the basics.” He knows he needs Bruce if he wants to crack the mystery of Spider-Man’s web fluid. They finally had something of a breakthrough yesterday. Their most recent attempt at recreating the substance is still sitting in a test tube on top of a set of scales. And the whiteboard still has— Tony freezes, his hand floating out to grip Bruce by the elbow. “Bruce, what in god’s name is that?”
Bruce frowns at him, then turns.
Tony points at the whiteboard. “That right there?”
Bruce puts on his glasses before standing from his chair and shuffling closer, squinting at the board. “Um, your calculations from yesterday. They look fine to me.”
“They’re not my calculations, I didn’t finish them!”
“Are you sure?”
“Darling, I’m a genius. I’d like to think I have the mental capabilities to remember whether or not I—"
“Yes, all right,” Bruce says, before shrugging. “Well, I didn’t do them either. Can’t help you there.”
“The hell? FRIDAY, who did these calculations?”
“Mr. Peter Parker finished them when he was in the laboratory early this morning,” FRIDAY informs him.
A short silence falls.
“I see,” Tony says. “No. Actually, I don’t. Who the hell is Peter Parker and why does he have access to my lab?”
“Mr. Peter Parker is on your cleaning staff.”
“He’s a cleaner?” Tony asks, his nose scrunched up. “My cleaner did this math? What is this, Good Will Hunting? Where is that guy right now, is he in the building?”
“He is having lunch in a supply closet. 42nd floor, east wing.”
-
Tony flings the door open, revealing piles of toilet paper. A vacuum cleaner. A full laundry basket. And a sullen teenager sitting on an overturned bucket with a sandwich in his hand.
Tony notices the exact moment when the kid realizes who has rudely interrupted his lunch, because the boy’s eyes widen slightly – and then he scowls deeply. “Oh. You. What?”
Tony leans against the doorframe, shoving his hands into his pockets as he studies the kid. “Peter Parker?”
“Yeah?”
“How old are you?”
“What do you care?” is the hostile reply.
“Because I don’t remember agreeing to hire kids on the cleaning team.”
Peter Parker takes another bite of his sandwich and says, around a full mouth: “I’m just here for my community sentence.”
“Huh,” Tony says. “Why?”
“I spray painted ‘superheroes should go fuck themselves’ on the side of this building. Got caught.”
“Better luck next time, then. Were you in my lab yesterday?”
“I was in several labs,” says the kid dismissively.
“Did you mess with my calculations?”
“I corrected them, if that’s what you mean. Today is my last day, and the thought of leaving them up like that, half-assed, gave me angina. So, yeah, sue me.”
“Sue you; so you can get another community sentence?”
Peter grumbles a bit but doesn’t seem to have a good comeback for that.
Tony opens the door wider and steps to one side. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’ll go back up to that lab and tell Dr. Banner to give you yesterday’s notes on the time-dependent biomechanical properties of four different implanted synthetic materials, and I want you to read them, comprende? I’ll be upstairs in a bit.”
The kid makes precisely zero effort to get up. “What if I don’t want to?”
“Then I guess I’ll have to give you a bad performance review for the community sentence. What happens when I do that, you get sent to jail?”
“Ugh. Fine,” the boy mutters, before wrapping up the remains of his sandwich and gingerly getting up from the bucket, rumbling mutinously under his breath.
“Today, if you please.”
“Give me a moment, all right, I have bad knees.” Peter shakes out his legs. Tony hears the joints crack.
“Sure, old man.”
-
He raps his knuckles against Steve’s bedroom door. The heavy clattering of Steve’s typewriter abruptly dies away. Seconds later, the door is wrenched open, only a few inches. “Yes?”
Tony flashes a smile. “I changed my mind about the living room. The couch needs to be moved back to the bar. …Woah — look at that glare. Kidding, honey. Just came up here to say I’ve granted this little kid access to my Avengers research. FYI.”
Steve opens the door a fraction wider. Not too wide; as if he doesn’t want Tony to see the mess; as if his room would actually be messy and not absolutely spotless. “What?”
“I’m just informing you, our righteous captain, as per protocol. You know how great I am at following protocol. It’s the thing we most have in common.”
“Stark, what are you talking about? What kid?”
“Cute little kid.” Tony holds his hand up, somewhere around hip-height. “Harmless.”
Steve says nothing, just looks at him.
“Okay, full disclosure, his name is Peter Parker, he’s here for his community sentence because he vandalized some property, I don’t know, somewhere—”
“Tony!”
“—but he’s smart, so I made him go up to my lab and read my notes on Spider-Man’s webfluid instead.”
Steve sighs loudly. He opens the door even wider and leans one arm against the doorpost, his eyes sharp. “What did he have to say about that?”
“He didn’t like it. But he went quickly enough after I told him I’d give him a bad performance review.”
“That’s a little unethical,” Steve chastises. “Practically blackmailing him.”
What a surprise. Here comes perfect Steve Rogers with his infallible morals. “Listen, it’s not like he gave a damn either way.”
Steve takes a careful breath in and lets it out, just as slowly. “I’ll come down and meet him later.” Cross-examine him, he probably means. “I want to get this Renesse-chapter done, first.”
“Godspeed.”
-
When Tony returns to the laboratory, Peter is sitting at a table in the middle of a lab, looking down at a pile of Tony’s notes with a disgruntled frown on his face. Bruce looks up from his petri dishes and gives Tony an absolutely exasperated look that Tony feels he really didn’t deserve this time.
He pulls out a chair to sit down next to the kid. “Found them, did you?”
“It’s cold in here,” Peter grumbles instead of replying, pulling his jacket tighter around himself.
“Any thoughts?”
“Your handwriting is an abomination.”
“I have three doctorates. Bad handwriting required. I took a class in my first semester that taught me how to master the illegible scrawl.”
“Nice excuse. A little heavy on the brags.”
Tony grins and leans forward on his elbows. He’s feeling unusually giddy. He doesn’t often have a conversation with someone who can keep up in more than one way, and certainly not a teenager. “How’d you feel about the parts you could read?”
Peter thumbs at the edges of the papers. “You’re trying to recreate Spider-Man’s web fluid.”
“Yeah, I know what I’m trying to do, thanks, kid.”
“You’re not even close to the correct formula.”
“Yeah, I know that, too,” Tony said. “You… You just understand everything I’ve written here, then?”
“No.” Peter points at Bruce. “Dr. Banner told me. I’m not rain-man. I can’t take one glance at your work and solve all your problems, I’m just some high school kid. I don’t know what you want from me.”
“What can you do?”
Peter gives him a pointed look. “I’m very good with a vacuum cleaner.”
“Too bad. You’re staying.”
Peter sniffs, dismayed.
“Are you always like this, or just in a bad mood today?”
Peter’s shoulders hunch. He looks self-conscious, suddenly, and tired. “Just tell me what I need to do to get out of here a.s.a.p.”
Tony rolls a pen his way. “Keep reading. And make notes.”
-
Dear Mrs. Romanoff,
I’m afraid it is impossible for me to give you a diagnosis via email. I really can’t say for sure that the procedures you underwent would cause these kinds of symptoms. I strongly suggest that you come down to the med bay so I can examine you properly. I understand that your medical history is of a very personal nature, but I hope you know I guarantee 100% confidentiality.
Helen Cho.
There is a disheveled woman in the lobby. She is wearing two different color socks (conclusion: lack of personal structure), wears shoes that are of good quality but badly maintained (conclusion: recent financial setbacks), and her coat is buttoned wrong (conclusion: left the house in a rush this morning). And she is reading a book with a smiling baby on the cover and the words ‘survival guide’ in the title (conclusion: new mother. Probably?).
Natasha can’t help herself. She pauses.
It takes the woman a few moments to register that she is being watched. She tears her eyes away from the book and looks up at Natasha, eyes widening slightly in obvious recognition.
“There’s a twig in your hair,” Natasha says.
“Huh?” She drags a hand through her hair, plucks the twig out and frowns down at it. “Right.” She looks up at Natasha again. “Aren’t you one of them, uh…”
“You have a child?”
She lets the book flop forward in her lap to look at the title. “Oh. Yes. It’s… It’s a challenge.”
Natasha inclines her head. It probably is.
“And I’m a midwife, you know. I can get everything right up until the moment the baby is born. After that, as it turns out, it’s absolute mayhem.” She squints at Natasha. “You are one of them, correct?”
“Them?”
“Superheroes,” she says, in the same voice someone would say ‘magical unicorns’ when they don’t actually believe in unicorns.
“Do you work here?” Natasha asks. Do they have a midwife on staff? Is there something Pepper neglected to tell them, perhaps?
“No, no. My kid,” and she points down at the baby book, “is somewhere upstairs, finishing up his work. I’m a bit early, but waiting to pick him up.”
Her kid… is probably not a baby, then. Natasha looks down at the book, then back up at her.
“Well, you know,” the woman argues weakly, “when they go off the rails a bit, it seems wise to go back to step one. Return to the basics. Page one rewrite. This chapter says toys with contrasting colors are a good choice to help their brains develop, so I think I’ll try that.”
“Off the rails, hm?”
“His low point was when he spraypainted ‘superheroes should go ‘f’ themselves’ on this building and was arrested for it.”
“Huh,” Natasha says. “Would you like to go grab some hot chocolate while you wait?”
“But… You are the Black Widow.”
Natasha can’t possibly explain herself, so she does what she does best and keeps her face blank. “I am aware.”
The woman looks down at her book, back up at her. “Okay. Hot chocolate sounds good.”
-
Her name is May. She has been a midwife for almost twenty years. She is a single mother and her kid — nephew — was recently arrested for vandalism. “So… Yeah. That.” she says as she stirs sugar into her coffee. Her expression is almost defensive, like she expects Natasha to admonish her.
“Right,” Natasha says, a bit sardonic. “I mean— I was absolutely wild as a teenager, too, so.”
May jolts a little, as if she remembers only now who she is actually talking to, and then smiles hesitantly. “Right.”
“No judgement.”
“Right.”
“You’ve never had a baby yourself?”
May smiles again, a bit more easily, licks her spoon. “You know how people can work in a— a bakery all day and come home every evening and go ‘If I even smell another darn croissant…’? Babies—Let me tell you something about babies.” She sits up straighter, waving her spoon around. “They think they’re so cute, but they’re all ego. Babies are little stinkers, little demonic shit-machines. And big-headed. Literally big-headed, which is why giving birth is such an absolute nightmare.”
Interesting. Very interesting. “Not a fan of babies, I gather. Sounds like you landed your dream job.”
May viciously stabs her spoon into the whipped cream. “It’s like going into law enforcement doesn’t mean you love hanging out with criminals. I’d consider myself more of a baby vigilante. I know how much of a menace they are, so I’m well equipped to help mothers neutralize the threat.”
“Do you freelance? What is the daily grind like?”
May’s expression grows into something incredulous. “Are you interested in a career change?”
Natasha slowly stirs her whipped cream into her hot chocolate. “Might be.”
“Being a superhero, not everything it’s cracked up to be? You wouldn’t be the first one to quit this year.”
“Are you referring to Spider-Man’s presumed career switch?”
“Yes,” she says. She is watching Natasha carefully.
“It was a serious question. Do you freelance?”
“I work at a hospital. Six days a week. Far too many hours, you know, obviously ‘letting my kid run wild’, or that’s what the police officer told me when I had to pick him up from the precinct.” She sounds bitter.
“Well, fuck him.”
“Cin cin,” May says, lifting her cup in acknowledgement. “That’s what I repeat every morning when I say my three positive affirmation things into the mirror like a nerd.”
Natasha softly knocks her mug of hot chocolate against May’s, observes her, and wonders what this woman’s secret is, and what her own secret is, because it feels like they both have one.
-
I reach the first house, turn a corner and there is a single German soldier, armed.
As per protocol, I ensure
Considering the context of
There is not much time to
His eyes
Steve has switched from his typewriter to pen and paper in the hopes that it will somehow make a difference, that forming the words in a different way will make some of them stick. But it has been an hour and all he has to show for it are scratched out, half-formed sentences.
He flings another paper aside and exhales. This is ridiculous. He has other duties that are being neglected because he is failing to do something any five-year-old can do: put letters on paper in a somewhat orderly fashion. Perhaps it’s the meeting tomorrow that is throwing him off, making him restless.
He’ll get it done. Later.
-
Peter Parker.
Steve gets to the lab just as Bruce barrels out, flustered, aggravated. He almost bumps into Steve, flails, and Steve holds out an arm to steady him. “Yeah, thanks,” Bruce mutters, readjusting his glasses. “It’s like Holmes v. Moriarty in there. I’m pulling back. Good luck in the trenches.”
More war analogies. Great. Steve pats his arm and steps past him, inside. Tony is there, arguing about spiderwebs with some teenager who is flushed with anger. This must be Mr. Parker.
“… not yours!” Peter hisses. “You are acting like a spoiled little child.”
Steve watches Tony make an attempt to extract some papers from the boy’s clenched fists. “All right, all right. I retract the ‘finders keepers’ argument, I’m just saying. I could improve on that formula. Make it heat resistant or something. Prevent another Bayside incident. Everybody happy, right?”
“If you don’t want another Bayside incident,” Peter says through clenched teeth, “then maybe consider giving up on this research all together.”
Steve clears his throat.
Despite Tony’s deep chasm of resentment towards even the tiniest hint of authority, it still has the desired effect every time. His mouth snaps shut, and he releases the papers so abruptly that Peter stumbles back. Tony shoves his hands into his pockets and turns and then, of course, glares at Steve. “Captain.”
Peter says nothing, just clenches the papers to his chest.
Steve keeps his gaze on the boy. “I do hope you’re not attempting to abscond with Avenger intel there, young man?”
Peter has the grace to flush. “I— No, sir. It’s just stupid.”
“What is?”
Peter squares his shoulders, meeting Steve’s eyes. “Spider-Man was a failure as a superhero. I don’t understand why you would want to emulate his tech.”
“He was not,” Tony says, looking outraged. “That is slander. Once again, I might add, after the spray-painting. J’accuse. Another week of community service for you.”
“The spray painting wasn’t slander, I resent that,” Peter snaps. “Slander is spoken. Written down, it's libel. And Spider-Man was a failure. Mr. Rogers knows what I mean. He said it at the press conference.”
Steve doesn’t remember saying anything like that, but something else has him more curious. “You spray painted our building?”
Peter’s mouth twists and he looks away. “It was a lapse of judgement. I was… out of sorts. But my opinion stands. All this galivanting around in costumes… I don’t see the point and it just gives me a headache.”
“All right, grandpa,” Tony says, clearly amused.
“Why did you do it?” Steve asks.
“I was angry.”
“At us?”
Peter doesn’t respond anymore. He just stands there with the papers hugged to his chest, shoulders drawn up.
“Will you give those back now?” Tony prods. “Look, if it upsets you, I can find you something else to do, tomorrow.”
Peter exhales. He steps forward and drops the papers down to the table, rearranges them into a somewhat neat pile. And then he says, without looking up, “today was the last day of my community sentence.”
“Oh,” Tony says, and falters momentarily. “I didn’t... Well, forget that. I’ll create a position for you. An intern, or something. I’ll pay you. You can start next week.”
“I’m sorry. Have I, at any point today, given you the impression that I enjoy working for you?”
Tony blinks, with the kind of surprised look on his face that people get when they aren’t used to being told ‘no’. “You… You don’t want to work for me?”
Peter gives him a withering glare, but at this point it’s more tired than heated. “For a genius, you catch on fast. Can I just…? My backpack is still in that supplies closet.”
“But—” Tony starts.
“Dismissed,” Steve says.
Peter practically flees the room.
“Go easy, Tony,” Steve says. “He’s just a child.”
Tony slants a grin his way. “In the space of two hours, he has complained that the room is too cold, my music is too loud, I spend too much time on my phone and that his joints are stiff. He is not a child. He is an absolute grandpa.”
“He is just a child,” Steve insists. His heart is hammering in his throat.
“Yeah, man, okay, calm down about it.” Tony gives him a bit of a searching look.
Steve looks away. He doesn’t know why this matters so much, and if he did know he’d probably not be able to explain it in words, and if he could explain he probably wouldn’t explain it to Tony of all people.
It’s just the meeting tomorrow. That’s all.
There is a small noise behind them, and Steve turns to see that Peter has reappeared in the doorway. He hasn’t gotten his backpack yet; he is fiddling with the zipper of his large coat and looks at Tony with a trepidation in his gaze that wasn’t there before. “Sir. You’re not really giving me a bad performance review, right? Because, you know… My aunt would freak out.”
About six different emotions flit across Tony’s face, and then his shoulders droop. “No, kid, I won’t. I appreciated your help today.”
“Okay,” Peter breathes, and then he rushes off again.
Tony turns to Steve with a look of wry amusement. “Look at that. You were right, of course. And you’re not even gonna say ‘I told you so’, are you? You’re too much of a nice guy to even do that.”
“I’m not…” Steve starts, and peters off into nothing. He’s tired and feels frustrated for undetermined reasons.
Tony picks a piece of paper from the top of the pile that Peter left behind and holds it up at him. “Look at this, Steve.” He taps his finger against a clutter of numbers and letters.
“Yes, I see,” Steve says. “His handwriting is awful.”
-
When they return to the living room, Natasha is rummaging around behind the bar. She lifts one of the bottles in their direction. “Tequila Sunrise?”
Bruce is already at the bar too, nursing a drink. He gives them both a wide smile, making it harder for Steve to politely excuse himself. “Not today,” he says, but he does reluctantly heave himself into a barstool. “Have one yourself?”
“Not today.” She sets a glass of water out for him.
“Romanoff not having her afternoon drink? That’s a first,” Tony says.
Natasha merely raises a single eyebrow at him, before starting on his tequila sunrise. “How’s the autobiography coming?” she asks Steve, sounding genuinely interested.
Steve gives a one-shouldered shrug, sips his water. “I’m stuck on a tricky chapter.”
“Do you want me to give it a read?” she offers.
“The issue isn’t with the parts I’ve already written, it’s with what comes up next.”
“Wanna talk me through it? We can do it on our way to Foley Square tomorrow morning.”
Steve sets his glass down, almost drops it. “What’s tomorrow?”
She gives him a puzzled look, a searching look, almost concerned. “Department of homeland security.”
Shoot. That coast guard thing. “I can’t, tomorrow. I have another meeting.”
She frowns. “What other meeting?”
Steve wasn’t prepared for needing an excuse and draws a blank. “It’s… confidential.”
Three pairs of eyebrows shoot up and Steve winces internally.
Natasha sets the drink down in front of Tony. “I can’t believe it. Perfect-attendance-Steve-Rogers double booked his morning.”
“It happens,” he says, irritated with himself for the slip-up but not wanting to let it show. “It’s fine. You can go by yourself.”
“Oh, it’s fine, is it?” Natasha says evenly, and she shakes her head minutely, but then changes topics. “So you all actually met him, did you? The delinquent? I ran into his aunt.”
“He was actually a nice kid,” Bruce says mildly. “Remarkably intelligent. I think Tony brought out the worst in him.”
Natasha smirks in Tony’s direction. “That’s his specialty.”
“You guys really got me pegged,” Tony says. He swirls his drink around in his glass as he grins, bright, uncomplicated.
“You should have heard the two of them arguing. Had me pretty vexed, not going to lie,” Bruce says.
“You’re sexy when you’re vexed, dear,” Natasha says with a twinkle in her eye.
“Must remember that.”
“I’ll remind you anytime.”
“Try not to actually fuck each other right here on the bar, my god,” Tony says lazily.
Bruce goes bright red. “Either way,” he says, a little louder than necessary. “Nice kid, but still glad it was a one-time thing.”
“Don’t count on it,” Tony says. “I know what all that looked like. Yeah, we spent most of the afternoon yelling at each other. But the kid did math even I couldn’t do. And I will find a way to get him back into my lab. Mark my words.”
Steve always does.
-
They lounge around the living room that evening, with the usual: more tequila, a deck of cards and a ukulele. Steve is conspicuously absent, despite Tony sending about four invitations up through FRIDAY.
“I don’t like the couches over here,” Clint says. “We’re too far away from the bar.”
Tony throws an olive at him.