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“Lunch on the boardwalk?”
“If you can put your head out of the boardroom for long enough,” Steve teased cheerfully.
It was hard to be in a bad mood on Isla Paradisa. Tony – locked up in meetings for half the day - had been missing out. Technically, the week-long conference, organized by and for the biggest industry names on the planet, was their excuse to be here – or at least, Tony’s excuse. But when he’d mentioned he was going, Jan had enthusiastically declared that the team was due for a vacation, and dragged them all along – blithely footing the bill to Tony. Not that Tony – or Steve, in his capacity as team leader – had been difficult to convince. The team could use a break after the last few hectic weeks, spent putting out various types of fires (literal and otherwise) all over the globe. And Steve knew that Tony – as much as he loved Stark Enterprises – wasn’t keen on spending the entirety or even the majority of his time smoozing with other corporate types.
“It’s a date,” Tony promised warmly.
The hot sun overhead was already merrily broiling Steve; no passerby would have seen if he flushed as they said their goodbyes. Still, Steve was thoughtful as he put his phone away. Tony had been saying things like that more often lately – or was that just in his imagination?
Steve didn’t want it to be just in his imagination...
Since he’d been planning to go down and draw on the beach, he had actual art supplies tucked into his art portfolio today, along with his shield – but the sights, sounds, and smells coming from the boardwalk had distracted him. It was situated right along the beach, so that in many places sand covered the wide wooden planks, and it boasted a myriad of shops and entertainments. Next to a stand selling gyros - and wafting out a mouth-watering smell of slow-roasted meat – a local was speed-painting scenes onto pieces of glass using only her fingers – but with such skill that Steve didn’t think he could have equalled them given a few days and the finest selection of brushes that Tony could afford. A little further along, a juggler was entertaining a small crowd of kids; past him, the wares of a hat-shop overflowed its interior and were displayed on amazing carvings of palm trees; past that, the carver herself was working on a five-foot wide model of the island.
Steve strolled along, taking in the smells – stopping to buy an iced, fruity drink at one vendor – and occasionally sticking his head into some of the shops. All of the buildings were covered in multitudes of flowers, bright, cheerful blooms growing up from planters stuck seemingly in every spare nook and cranny, and every time he made a purchase of some knick-knack or other – a few of the curious brushes he’d seen some locals using in a sand-castle building competition; a palm-leaf fan; hula-hoops for Jan, who’d mentioned yesterday that she’d wanted some – the smiling shopkeeper would load him down with a string of them, happily tying them onto the ones he already had. Tony was going to laugh when he saw him – but that was fine: Steve had more than enough to share, and he’d seen how those patrons of the informal cafes were gifted just as often, too.
He was nearing the end of the strip when one last shop caught his eye – or rather, its glass door did, reflecting the bright sunlight back at him so that he had to squint for a moment. Most of the shops on the boardwalk didn’t bother with glass; they did just fine with leaving all the windows clear and free so that air could circulate through the interior. But though this one didn’t bother with windowpanes either, it did have a glass door with the word Vintage etched into it, and a scrawl on a piece of driftwood overtop of the entrance proclaiming it The Wanderer.
Steve ducked his head inside – a small bell tinkled quietly – and let the door fall shut behind him. The interior of this shop was dim and cool, a sharp change from the brilliant sunlight outside. He’d been mistaken about those open windows; they must have been for the neighbouring shops instead, because from the inside, it was obvious the shop had none. As his eyes adjusted, Steve could see that the wares were both eclectic and completely unlike the other shops’, which tended to brand-new and hand-crafted items. This was more like what he’d expect from an antique store in Brooklyn. Clothing racks; tables full of knick-knacks... he approached an old globe, only to find that instead of the continents, it showed cartoonish bunny rabbits. Bemused, he twirled it, and as it came around the shapes shifted to... hearts?
Steve blinked, and twirled it again, but the hearts stayed. Maybe he’d not seen it properly the first time...
“May I help you?” asked an elderly-looking man – the shopkeeper, apparently – who was the only other person inside.
“I’m just browsing,” Steve assured him. But something about the way the man smiled – a bit distant, maybe, or a bit lonely – led him to add, “You’ve got a lot of really neat stuff here.”
The shopkeeper smiled. “Oh, well, thank you, sir. It’s just quite a lot of rubbish that I’ve picked up over the years, I’m afraid.” But when he turned his gaze over the shop, there was a fond look in his eye, and Steve followed the look, seeing it with new eyes. Hat stands, more clothing, posters, toys – the dim recesses of the shop extended quite a bit further that he’d have guessed from the outside.
“But the years are what make it count,” Steve said, putting down his charcoals on a nearby table so he could pick up a ball-cap from one of the hat stands. The Dodgers logo, faded though it was, brought a smile to his lips. When was the last time he’d been to a baseball game? Maybe he could drag Tony out to one... it always did Tony good to get out of his lab. The Dodgers might not be at Ebbets Field anymore, but kids still played with sticks and balls, and you could still get a hotdog and cheer on your team. “I could really use a cap, though, if you’re willing to part with it.”
The shopkeeper beamed at him. “For you, sir? Fifty cents.”
Steve smiled – and then frowned. A black mark on the back of the cap caught his eye; he turned it around, and saw a signature that read, pretty legibly even if it was a bit faded, Babe Herman.
Wow. “It’s worth more than that!” he said, impressed.
“Of course it is,” the shopkeeper said, still beaming. “And that you know it is why you may have it for less.”
Steve refused to go red – he did – dang. Despite himself, he could feel the tips of his ears heating. “I just happen to be a fan, that’s all,” he protested.
“A fan, and a good man!” the shopkeeper half-sang, disappearing into the shadows of the shop. His voice echoed back: “Take it for free!”
Steve peered after him – just how far back did it go? He couldn’t see the end; it must not have been well-lit enough. “I can’t just pay fifty cents,” he muttered anyway, pulling out his wallet. Leaving a painful but fair number of bills on the table – it was Babe Herman – Steve took another look around. Feather boas, period dresses – he smiled at a familiar-looking one, even though he had to wince at the same time. The operation that had called for him to wear a similar dress maybe hadn’t been his best idea, back in the War, but it had paid off in the end – although he’d never looked at hair curlers the same way afterward!
“Years and memories,” he said softly. The shopkeeper – if he was still in the room; Steve couldn’t hear him – didn’t say anything. The shop seemed to brighten, somehow, at the words. Or maybe it was just the fond memory. Sometimes, in stores like these, he felt like an antique himself – but not this time. This time, he headed out into the island sunshine with a happy piece of history in hand, and looked forward to the future. After all, he had a date.
“Brighter than your usual, Steve! I like it,” Tony said later, as they sipped fruit punch on the boardwalk and lunched on BBQ fish kabobs.
“Well, I was gonna do my usual charcoal, but I forgot the sticks in this little shop, and then I couldn’t find it again,” Steve said, frowning slightly. He usually had a pretty good memory for locations...
Tony wiped his hands on a napkin and carefully held up Steve’s drawing – done in newly-purchased pastels, with rough shapes and colours cheery enough to match the boardwalk around them. Steve felt himself blush. “I like it,” Tony said firmly, and his smile was brighter than all the colours in the world.
“Ahh, I love these sorts of days,” Giant Girl declared, stretching her arms up to the sky – although not nearly as high as she could have. “The zoo is the best!”
“I don’t know, I always feel a bit weird here,” Spider-man said, sticking his thumbs into the ears of his mask and making a face at the monkeys in the exhibit. One of them tree-walked its way over to hang by one arm in front of the glass wall. In response, Spidey flipped himself up into a one-armed hand-stand, and earned himself a perplexed look from the monkey.
“Here you go, Steve,” Tony said, coming back with an ice-cream cone in each hand, and drawing Steve’s attention away from his teammates by handing him one. Sometimes these trips did feel a lot like babysitting; it was nice to be treated, instead. Though Tony was never the one he had to babysit – except when they went to a science museum!
At the moment Tony was in costume, like the rest of them, but since he had his face-plate up at the moment – the better to eat his own ice-cream with – he wasn’t really Iron Man. Besides, in Steve’s head, Tony was always... Tony.
“Aww, mom, can I have one too?” Spider-man whined, still upside down.
“That’s what your allowance is for,” Steve told him. The ice cream was already melting in the heat, so before it started dripping, he took a long lick all the way around the outside of the cone. Vanilla, with caramel swirl – his favourite. He grinned at Tony. “Thanks.”
Tony was staring at him, apparently oblivious to how his own ice cream was melting down onto his gauntlet. “No problem.”
He sounded a bit strange, and Steve was about to ask if there was a problem, when suddenly there was a faint scream from off in the distance – and then another. Steve sighed. This always seemed to happen on their visits to the zoo – to be fair, most of the time their visits to the zoo were because this was happening. This one, though, was supposed to have just been for PR.
“Ten to one odds it’s the lions again,” Tony said, flipping his faceplate down and chucking his ice cream toward the nearest trash can.
Regretfully, Steve did the same. “No bet.” Oh, well. He could buy himself and Tony ice creams later to make up for it. He just hated wasting food. Spider-man had already launched a line and was swinging away into the trees, while Giant Girl concentrated and grew to twenty feet – a good size to be able to look over top of the exhibits and pinpoint the problem, while not being so huge that she’d risk being unable to see other people around her.
“It’s the lions again,” she reported, shielding her eyes from the sun. “And it looks like somebody let out the leopards again, too. They’re glowing... pink?”
Tony grabbed Steve’s hand; Steve stepped onto his boot, and with a practised motion, they were in the air, while over the comm. Steve called, “Avengers, assemble at the Big Cats exhibit!”
Later, while Tigra curled up with the lions, cooing over them and grooming their fur with her fingers, Steve watched with hands on hips as the police led the perpetrator away in handcuffs. The cat-talisman that had caused the problem – and nearly brainwashed Tigra into attacking the Avengers as well – had been crushed beneath Iron Man’s heavy metal boot, but not before everyone else, lacking metal armour, had received their fair share of scratches.
At least Hulk hadn’t been along on this outing. He hated it when animals got hurt, but at a few points Steve had been forced to give one or another a sock in the jaw, unless he wanted to lose a hand to their teeth. They’d be fine – he’d only hit hard enough to stun – but Hulk was a bit iffy when it came to understanding such things.
“Do we have all the other animals back in their enclosures?” he asked over the radio. Giant Girl and Spider-man had been overseeing that one, along with the evacuation of the zoo. Apparently, Cat-man’s talisman hadn’t been specific enough to open only the cat enclosures – it had let out all the animals, although thankfully only the cats had been enchanted with super-speed and super-strength.
“There’s oooone more zebra left,” Giant Girl reported, sounding frustrated. “Though I don’t know where it could be hiding!”
“Heeeere, zebra zebra zebra,” Spider-man chimed in.
“Well, keep looking until the zookeepers are ready to take over,” he said, giving the damage another surveying look.
“Aye aye, Cap’n.”
Thankfully, the damage actually wasn’t that bad. The Maria Stark Foundation would be paying for repairs anyway, but it was always nice when they could save the Foundation some money, and not just because it meant the zoo would probably reopen within the week.
The roar of the repulsors alerted Steve to Tony’s approach, and the next moment Tony landed next to him, cutting power neatly. “Why this zoo,” he asked plaintively, flipping the faceplate up. “The exhibits here are the best in the world! Stark Enterprises built them – these cats have just as much space as they would in the wild, it’s the same technology as our training room. It makes use of – what?” he cut himself off to ask, narrowing his eyes.
“What?”
“You’re smiling at me.”
“I... yes?” Steve said, and then he caught himself and started grinning. “Come on, I’ll buy you another ice cream and you can explain it to me.”
“Sure, go flirt while we hunt down the zebra,” Spider-man grumbled.
Steve felt the tips of his ears go red, and he had to look away for a moment. They were flirting? He hadn’t even said anything! And Tony talked about science and engineering all the time – it was one of the things Steve loved about him, even though he didn’t understand much of it himself: Tony was passionate about what he did. He’d probably helped install the zoo’s technology personally.
Tony looked a bit thrown, too, though, which was... odd. He usually didn’t mind being teased at all, even about romantic stuff. Unless... Steve’s heart sank, and kept sinking when Tony said, a bit too brightly, “I’ll help the kids, you buy the ice cream!” and immediately took off.
“Damn it,” he muttered.
“Language,” Giant Girl scolded him, and Steve reddened some more. Dang comms – always on at the worst possible moments.
He trudged back toward the nearest concessions area, knowing he was being ridiculous and pouting anyway. Even if Tony wasn’t okay with the idea of being more than friends with Steve, he was still a friend. One of Steve’s best friends. Heck, he’d bought Steve ice cream just half an hour ago. Steve would be okay with staying just friends – after all, that had been the status quo for years. He’d be fine. He would.
The shops were all closed, but there were staff inside and out, putting things away properly now that they’d gotten the all-clear to return. Most were bright, airy things, with floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall windows, displaying animal toys and games for kids, or t-shirts and key chains for tourists. The one right by the ice cream stand was different, though, boasting only a single (none-too-clean) window, and a faded fogged-glass door. The Wanderer, read the somewhat battered sign above the door. Steve frowned at it as he approached – hadn’t he seen the same shop just last week on Isla Paradisa...? He hadn’t thought it was a chain store.
“Anything I can get for you, Captain?” asked the teen working concessions, grinning cheerfully – well, she probably got to get off work early. Hopefully the zoo would still pay her – Steve would have to ask Tony about whether the Maria Stark Foundation covered lost wages for time due to the shutdown. Knowing Tony, it probably did, but it never hurt to ask.
“Could I grab a couple of ice creams?” He began working his wallet out of a pocket – never the easiest job. Sometimes he thought maybe his pants were too tight, but he didn’t like giving villains an easy grab point...
“I’ve got you covered,” she assured him, and then again when he began to protest. “Don’t worry, my manager’ll be fine with it – you guys saved the zoo today!”
“It’s what we’re here for, ma’am,” he said solemnly with a wink, as she began scooping cones. But his eye was drawn back to the Wanderer. That conversation he’d had with the shopkeeper – it had sounded like the items meant something to the gentleman, but if it was just another chain store... well, he supposed the one didn’t exclude the other. “That shop been there long?” he asked the ice cream girl.
“Huh?” She glanced over her shoulder. “What – that one? I dunno. I didn’t even realize there was a shop there.” She gave it a long, measuring look alongside him, then shrugged and turned back to packing on a third scoop for the second cone. “There ya go.”
“Thanks,” Steve said, reaching for his wallet again.
“Nuh-uh. I told you – on the house!”
Steve smiled at her, a bit sheepishly, and turned back in the direction of the Big Cat enclosure, beginning to lick his ice cream cone as he did so. He took a few licks of Tony’s, too – it was starting to melt already.
He took a last look over his shoulder before he turned the corner, but couldn’t spot the Wanderer. There was the ice cream stand – there was the last key-chain-and-trinket store... where had it gone?
“Are you eating my ice cream?” Tony asked indignantly over the comm., a second before he landed beside Steve.
“It was melting, I was just keeping it from dripping,” Steve protested, and in the ensuing banter, he forgot all about the shop. Tony was more important any day of the week.
They wound up getting the entire team ice creams before they finally went home at 9pm – without finding the dang zebra.
“He’s headed for the Eiffel Tower!” Tony reported.
Above, the growing mass of black clouds swirled over Paris, centring on that landmark. Lightning flickered among them, travelling inward, focusing – and then, down, followed by a deafening crack of thunder. Transformers exploded; street lights sparked and gave out; and the lights of the City of Love went dark.
“<Go, go!>” Steve shouted at Parisians who hadn’t had the sense to run already. The winds were reaching gale-force speed – it wasn’t safe to be out on the streets.
He kept running toward the Eiffel Tower, but Giant Girl – growing to dwarf the tower itself – got there long before him. “I think you should take a time out, Thor,” she boomed, her voice several octaves deeper than it normally would be, as only happened when she reached truly gigantic proportions. “We don’t want to hurt – ow!” She doubled over, barely missing taking out the Eiffel Tower with a knee, clutching at her nose.
“Gotcha,” Iron Man said, sounding smugly satisfied. He must have retrieved the mind-altering scarf while Thor was punching Giant Girl in the nose. “Hey, big guy, back with us n– whoa!” A bright line across the sky marked the path of Tony’s sudden reintroduction to Parisian soil.
Steve grit his teeth and continued forcing his way forward – hard work to manage without getting blown flat to the side. This close to the Eiffel Tower the circular winds were enormous, and if he hadn’t had his shield to protect him from the worst of the effects, he’d never have managed to stand upright. “Iron Man, what happened?”
“I grabbed the scarf, but he’s still out of it,” Tony replied, sounding breathless. “I think this calls for desperate measures. Sorry, Steve.”
“Tony, no - !” Steve’s protest was cut off as a blown bicycle hit him at knee level, beneath his shield, clothes-lining him. As he fell, he saw an uprooted trashcan coming right at him – he raised his shield, but he no longer had any traction, and the hit sent him right through the window of the nearby shop, where he landed heavily on a hat stand.
He’d have some interesting bruises later, he decided, as he did a very quick mental check. But nothing was broken – at least, none of him was broken. He was pretty sure the hat-stand was toast. Also, despite the fact that he was pretty sure he hadn’t hit his head, he must have, because he was now lying in a rather disordered shop, but one that was completely calm insofar as the wind was concerned – though through the glass door (which had the word Rétro etched into it) he could see a car being blown by outside.
“<Oh, my, Captain America!>” exclaimed an elderly female voice, and Steve looked up to see a tiny French woman, wearing a severe pantsuit and a hat with a pineapple on it, about to descend upon him – either to help him up or to beat him with her hat, he didn’t know, so he pulled himself to his feet before it could happen.
She clasped her hands and looked at him, starry-eyed. Apparently, it had been the former. “<Sorry, ma’am>,” Steve apologized, rubbing at his head. He’d felt the glass break beneath his weight, but... the shop didn’t even have windows, and the door was definitely intact. Well, maybe she was some sort of minor sorceress – there were a fair number of low-level magical practitioners in Paris, according to Dr. Strange.
On the other hand... as he got a better look at the shop, a different thought sprang into his mind. That poster of Wolverine looked familiar, and so did that one, with the fanged pig’s mouth. They were even worn in just the same places. Steve had heard of chain second-hand shops, but surely they didn’t all have the exact same items? But that paper fan – he’d seen that on Isla Paradisa, and that toy wagon, in the shop at the zoo.
“<Oh, here!>” the shopkeeper exclaimed, bustling over to a rack of clothes – was that the Black Widow’s outfit? Steve stared as she picked out a long, dark casual dress with a high neckline, like something Audrey Hepburn might have worn, and shoved it into his hands. “<Take that! It should put your young friend to rights.>”
“My – what?” Steve asked, slipping back into English in his confusion.
The shopkeeper followed him easily. “It’s a causal dress!”
“A what?” He could see it was a casual dress, but she’d said it like –
“A causal dress. Put it on him – oh, well, you don’t need it to really be on him, but touching him – and then pull it off, and he won’t have cause. Or at least, not magical cause, forcing him to act so... contrary.” She fluttered a hand, blushing slightly.
He stared at her.
Outside, a few more cars went rolling past.
Well, it couldn’t hurt.
“Thanks, ma’am,” he said with a salute – she positively beamed at him - and, holding the dress in hand, he went carefully out the door. “We’ll bring it back after!” He hoped it didn’t get damaged – or if it did, that she wouldn’t mind getting a cheque back instead.
As soon as he left the shelter of the shop he was bombarded by both the wind – which nearly ripped the dress from his grip – and the chatter over the radio, which had suddenly resumed. “ – no sign of him, Iron Man,” Jan reported, sounding like she was talking with a bad cold (or, more likely, a broken nose).
“Keep looking,” Tony said grimly, which made Steve sigh with relief. Apparently Tony had either changed his mind about whatever he’d been about to do, or survived the doing of it.
The sigh was picked up over the line – “Cap!”
“I’m here,” Steve reported, yelling over the wind. “Iron Man, I need a lift – I need to get close to Thor!”
“Not a good idea! He’s busy melting the Eiffel Tower into a puddle of iron, but if you get too close, the current can arc across – and humans are nice and conductive!”
“Wolvie already found that one out. The one week Storm had to be on vacation,” Giant Girl lamented.
“You made my suit non-conductive, though, right?” Steve asked, going on a hunch.
“Yes, but - !”
“Giant Girl, time to take a page out of the X-men’s book. I need a fastball special!”
He barely had a moment before an enormous hand closed about him, holding him fast, and lifting him up, up, up, until he was about level with one of Jan’s eyes. She blinked worriedly at him. “Are you sure about this?”
“Sure as can be,” he replied. Tony hadn’t made her suit, Dr. Pym had, so that it would grow and shrink with her – and other than that quality, it wasn’t great armour. But his suit, even with the chainmail overtop, was different – and if he was in the air, he wouldn’t be a direct path to ground. He shoved his shield over his shoulders, where it would remain out of contact with his skin. “Three, two, one – ”
She launched him into the air. Immediately, the wind began to blow him sideways, but she’d tossed him at an angle to compensate – unfortunately, it wasn’t quite far enough, and Steve realized with a lurching stomach that he was going to miss Thor completely. Tony would catch him, though – Tony always caught him.
Or Thor would. The God of Thunder turned, his eyes crackling with lightning – literally – and dove toward Steve, hammer out and shooting sparks. Steve raised his shield; it was conductive, but it was also his best chance of withstanding a direct blow from Mjolnir. But in his other hand he had the wildly flapping causal dress, and as Thor flew at him, hammer-first, Steve ducked Mjolnir and shoved the open neck of the dress toward him, tangling it around his arm. Thor’s face contorted with rage, and he shook his hand free, sending both the dress and Steve hurtling upward toward the clouds.
Immediately, the wind died. Thor’s massive hand closed around Steve’s wrist, arresting his fall before it could even begin, and the sky began to lighten. “Steven?” Thor asked, his rumbling voice filled with confusion.
“Huh!” said Steve. “It actually worked.”
“The properties of this thing are amazing!” Tony exclaimed later. He still had his faceplate down; he was using the suit’s sensors to analyze the causal dress. He tilted his helmet up for a moment when Steve approached, though. “Where did you get it? And what happened to your headpiece?”
Steve frowned, patting at his hair with one hand. That was... a good question. He’d had it on earlier – had it gotten ripped off by the winds at some point? He recalled his hair being blown around after he’d left The Wanderer.
“There was this shop over by the last street,” he started to explain...
...but when they went to check later, The Wanderer was gone.
“I swear it was right there.”
“I believe you,” Tony told him, and Steve knew he did.
The shop didn’t stay gone forever, though. A week later, when Steve was hanging out in the park with Clint – up from the West Coast for a visit, mostly because everyone else on the West Coast Avengers had the flu and Clint was terrified of having to act as a nursemaid – Steve saw the shop again, right in the corner of his eye. For a moment he almost thought he was mistaken: he ran by this park almost every day – and he’d been here yesterday with Tony after lunch – and he was sure that there was just an alleyway in that spot... but when he looked at it straight-on, there it was: The Wanderer, still with Vintage etched into that same old glass door.
“That shop again!” he exclaimed, taking his eyes off the Frisbee they were tossing between them and staring at it. He heard a woosh behind him and caught the disc without looking for it.
“You have too much of an edge at this game,” Clint complained, because he was always competitive even when playing a game that required cooperation. He jogged over. “What shop?”
“That one,” Steve said. “Everywhere I’ve gone in the last month, there it is! Ever since Isla Paradisa.”
“I’m never forgiving you for not inviting me along on that,” lamented Clint – ignoring the fact that he lived in a mansion on the beach in California.
“I’m gonna find out what it’s doing,” Steve said determinedly, striding forward. “It was a real help back in France, but I keep losing stuff whenever I wind up in there.” Not that he’d lost anything terribly important – not compared to what it had given back to him. But... it was beginning to get a bit creepy, having the same shop follow him around everywhere.
“Oh my god,” he heard Clint mutter from behind him, as he straggled along in Steve’s wake. “Jeez. Tony, get your ass over here, we’re in – yeah, you would already know, wouldn’t you? Your boyfriend thinks he’s being stalked by a shop.” Clint’s phone squawked something that Steve couldn’t quite make out, although the tone was clear: embarrassment. The back of Steve’s neck burned. Maybe he’d been wrong about those ‘dates’. They were just trips to lunch or to the park or to dinner, after all – and heck, he was in the park with Clint right now. Stupid. He’d been stupid to think it was anything else.
“Yeah, sure,” Clint sounded amused, and sing-songed, “Whatever you say,” before hanging up.
Steve waited until the coast was at least mostly clear before jay-jogging across the road over to the shop. Not a practice he usually endorsed while in costume, without emergencies, but he was half afraid that if he went down to the nearest intersection, by the time he got back the shop would have vanished again. Behind him, he heard a screech of tires and a honk – “Hawkeye!”
“What? I’m blaming you,” said Clint, sounding cheerful and none-the-worse for nearly being run-over.
Steve pushed open the door with a jingle, revealing its by-now-familiar dim interior. It wasn’t all familiar – there was a (he was pretty sure) Chinese character painted on silk hanging from a wall where there had been a picture of an exploding apple before; the collection of urns had grown; one of the tables had been moved closer to the door; and for the first time, there was somebody other than the proprietor in the shop: a small cat, batting at a price tag hanging down from an incomplete tea set.
“Wow, the heart of darkness,” Clint deadpanned. Steve shot him a look. “What? I can read.”
“Hello?” Steve called. Before, the proprietors had appeared out of the interior gloom, but there didn’t seem to be anyone coming. He wandered back further into it, growing amazed at the size of it – past the counter, it spread out, with racks of clothing covering everything, and displays above them – something like a maze.
The door jingled again, and he turned to find himself a mere ten feet from the door. Either he’d completely lost his sense of direction, or there was something wonky going on with the insides of this shop – but he already knew that.
Tony stepped in, carrying the briefcase that always held his armour, but dressed in his usual workshop clothes – he must have come straight from it. And he’d come quick, although it hadn’t been an emergency. Steve wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a bad one. Maybe he wanted to clear up... but, no.
“Hey, Steve,” he said, sounding not at all defensive or embarrassed. He just sounded curious, as he glanced down at his other hand, which was holding his phone/latest Stark supercomputer. “What is this place? It’s killed my phone.” That he sounded indignant about.
“I thought your phones worked anywhere,” Steve teased him, but it wasn’t without a certain amount of surprise. Sure, it had killed his Avengers’ earpiece last week, but he’d thought maybe that was a one-off to do with all the magic in the air.
“Hey, maybe it is stalking you!” Clint laughed, pulling out one of the loosely rolled-up posters from the bins and handing it to Tony. “Another for the wall, Tony?”
“What – ” Tony had unrolled the poster the rest of the way and was now wearing a look of open amusement. “Ha, ha,” he said sarcastically, while Clint shifted his position to block Steve from getting around him and seeing what was on the darn thing. It was hard to maneuver without knocking over any of the rickety tables – or stepping on the cat’s tail, he thought with a wince, as he elicited a brief, angry meow. Tony took his time unrolling the thing fully, then flipped it around and held it up, waggling his eyebrows.
Steve buried his head in his hands. Of course there were still copies of those posters. He should have known. “It was one time,” he grumbled. Not that he’d had a problem with making posters to help the War Effort, but that one... it had three scantily-clad women hanging off of him, and he was sure severe artistic licence had been taken in drawing his face, because Edith had kept pinching his bum the entire time and he’d been too busy jumping to stand still.
There was movement at the upper edge of his vision, and he lifted his face when Tony said, “How much for it?”
“Two hundred fifty,” said the now-appeared shop-keeper – an elderly Chinese man, probably a first-generation citizen, judging by the faint accent he still had.
“Wow, for that?” Clint sounded surprised. “Jeez, Cap.”
“I’ll take it,” Tony said firmly, pulling out his black Amex.
“Two fifty grand,” the shop-keeper said – there was a faint note of panic in his voice now.
They all looked at him. Steve glanced slowly from the poster to the blush staining the man’s cheeks. He hadn’t really thought the shop was stalking him, but...
The bell above the door jangled, and Spider-man, in full costume, stuck his head in. “Hey, guys! I found Joyce.”
“Who?”
“The zebra from the zoo! Jeez, we spent all day looking for her and then she just wanders out of nowhere – ”
“What?”
“It’s not for sale!” the shopkeeper declared shrilly, and everything tipped sideways.
For a long moment, Steve wasn’t sure what had happened. He’d grabbed his shield out without thinking; Clint had bow and arrow ready, and the armour was already closing around Tony. But they hadn’t even been knocked to the floor – it felt like it for a moment, though. The cat hissed and took off, abandoning the blue apple it had been batting about.
“Toto, I don’t think we’re in New York anymore,” said Spider-man from where he was plastered to the ceiling above the door. Just outside, backlit by a brilliant full moon, was... the Sphinx?
“Okay, what’s going on?” Tony demanded, his faceplate turning from the shopkeeper to Steve.
“Oh, dear, oh, dear – ” The world went off-balance for another moment, and then the view was bright sun and palm trees with a smoking volcano off in the distance.
“Sir, you really need to calm down,” Steve said, striding forward so he could gently grab the shopkeeper’s shoulder. The man looked like he could have been blown over by a gust of wind. But Steve’s fingers closed on nothing – the shopkeeper squeaked, the world tilted again, and this time, as soon as they landed, the man faded out, like a bad wireless signal.
“New York!” Spider-man exclaimed brightly. “I’ll just – zebra.” He didn’t walk out so much as swing down and through the door, shoving it open – behind him, Steve could see that they were back over by the park, and... that was definitely a zebra standing beside one of the parking meters. Though Steve didn’t have a clue how Spider-man thought he could tell the animal apart from any other zebra – but then, sometimes he didn’t give Peter enough credit for his observation skills; the kid was pretty smart.
“I believe you about the freaky shop,” Clint informed Steve, the picture of nonchalance.
Steve rolled his eyes. “Thanks.”
“Still not getting any outside signal.” It was hard to tell with the Iron Man’s voice filter on, but Steve thought Tony sounded like he was frowning. He turned around and waved to Spider-man outside; Peter waved back from where he was hanging off of a lamppost, chatting on his cell phone – hopefully, calling the zoo. “Is this shop even in our dimension?”
A creaky sound made Steve glance over to one of the tables – there was that globe, the one that had seemed to change shapes on him. Maybe it could change shapes – actually, make that definitely: it was rotating now without anyone touching it, and the heart-shaped landmasses had turned into text.
Sorry to inconvenience you, it read.
“That’s okay,” Steve assured it. “I’d just like to know what’s going on.”
“Me, too.”
“Nah, I don’t really care.” Clint shrugged as both Steve and Tony turned to look at him. “What? You got it covered.”
“Go play with Spider-man,” Tony ordered him.
“Hey, not on your team anymore – ”
Steve frowned. “Clint.”
“Or yours, either, since it’s the same team – ”
“Clint!” they both chorused at the same time, and Clint shot them both a grin and left, whistling. Steve checked – probably a good thing he’d gone; the zebra had vanished and so had Peter. Although sending Clint wasn’t a guaranteed way to un-confuse anything...
“I wanted to say thank you for Paris,” Steve said. “You, um,” he glanced around the shop. “That was you, right? That causal dress really saved the day.”
Creak, creak: the globe slowly turned some more and Oh! ♥ appeared. The water of the globe turned faintly purple – was it blushing?
“And the hat was nice,” Steve continued. “But – ” it had to be asked, “Um, why did you take the zebra?”
The globe went a brighter purple, and, painfully slowly, turned some more. She wandered in! She was looking for her herd, but I could not find it. I could only keep her company. The script was thin, fine and slightly shaky, like a pen running out of ink. My sense of direction can be a bit wobbly when I’m not looking for a specific person.
“Oh.” So it had just been an accident, then. And from the brief glance at the zebra he’d gotten, she seemed to be in pretty good condition – her coat had been shining in the late morning sun – so obviously the shop hadn’t been neglecting her during her time in it.
He exchanged a glance with Tony – or, well, he tried to, but Tony had tilted his head to the side; then he flipped his faceplate up, and he wasn’t looking at Steve at all. “A specific – have you actually been stalking Cap?” he demanded incredulously. “I thought Clint had just had too much sun!”
“I tried to make him wear a hat, but he wouldn’t,” Steve said.
... I have many excellent hats here? the globe wrote meekly.
Tony looked like he wanted to facepalm, but was refraining – good thing, too; Steve had seen him once accidentally give himself a black eye doing that while wearing the gauntlets. “Stalking is creepy!”
He was nice.
“Oh my god, even the shop is in love with you,” muttered Tony, which... what? Did that mean what Steve thought it had meant? Because not everybody loved Steve – he knew that well enough.
I didn’t mean to be creepy ☹, wrote the shop.
“Look, it’s okay,” said Steve, trying to banish the awkwardness from his voice. But it was a bit hard to concentrate when Tony had just said that. “I really appreciated your help! But you can’t go around just wandering off with other people’s things, okay? Stealing isn’t cool.”
“Or stalking,” added Tony, still indignant.
But they so often don’t value them. The writing was smaller than before.
“It’s still their stuff,” Steve said, trying to make his voice gentle. “And maybe you don’t understand how much they value it. Some people... find it hard to show it, how they feel,” he added, the words slipping out before he could take them back. He hadn’t quite meant to say that much. He glanced away from the globe, over at Tony, and then had to glance away again immediately; the look Tony was giving him was far too evaluating. But, maybe...
Oh... oh! I see. The waters of the globe were now cherry-red and the script green, making it look somewhat like a large Christmas ornament. I am sorry. I didn’t mean anything wrong – I am very sorry. I won’t take anything without permission again, I promise.
“...it actually is,” said Tony, facepalming, and, “...ow.”
“Okay,” Steve said, glancing at Tony in concern.
The globe was blushing so bright now that the continents were turning some sort of puce; the water was lavender. I promise I won’t do it again. Please go away now. Even the writing somehow managed to look mortified.
“I believe you,” said Steve, taking a look around. The shop sounded – er, looked – pretty dang sincere. Plus, it obviously wasn’t a bad shop at heart; it had taken care of the zebra and been an enormous help with the causal dress, and now that it had had boundaries explained to it... he was pretty sure it would be fine, even if there was something else that he wasn’t getting. Though Tony obviously was – but he could ask him outside. “Come on, Tony.”
The door jingled over their heads as they left – Steve double-checking to make sure he hadn’t left anything behind this time – but before the sound of the tiny bell had faded away, the shop was gone from behind them and Steve was left staring over his shoulder at the alleyway that had been there before. He hadn’t even seen the transition; it must have happened when he blinked.
“Back to zebra-hunting, then,” Tony said, making a face. Then he made another face, one that Steve couldn’t quite interpret. “Steve... what you said about – people, finding it hard to show how they feel...” he trailed off, looking as awkward as Steve felt.
Awkward, and... hopeful?
“Well, I – yeah,” Steve said, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck, but meeting Tony’s eyes squarely. He just had no idea to say! Well, there were always the classics. “Um... when we find Joyce, do you want to have lunch?”
“I – sure,” Tony said, but he looked thrown by the change in subject, and disappointed.
“It’s a date?” Steve added. Tony blinked. “I mean – a date.”
“A – ” Tony stared at him, and then began to smile. Steve smiled back at him, and for a long moment, they just stood there on the sidewalk, grinning at each other like loons. Then Spider-man’s voice carried over from somewhere off in the park, complaining about Hawkeye’s zebra-catching technique, and they both broke away to glance in that direction – and then back at each other, still smiling foolishly.
“Sure, Steve,” said Tony, face bright and happy. “It’s a date.”
