Chapter Text
The holographic schematic of the warp nacelle sparkled pale blue as it hung in midair, projected up from Tony's worktable. The top half was run through with patches of light and shadow, courtesy of the afternoon sun shining through the Manhattan skyline outside Tony's window. Tony spun the schematic around with one finger, frowned, and took a sip of his coffee. He grimaced and set the cup down. Yuck. That had gone cold... sometime. He couldn't have been working that long, could he?
Tony sighed a despondent sigh and rubbed two fingers over his beard. Maybe he'd misremembered the numbers. "Give me those power-consumption projections again, please, Jocasta."
The numbers obligingly appeared underneath the schematic, angled toward Tony's view. And they were, unfortunately, the same as he remembered. Tony sighed again and brought his fingers to his temple, trying to stave off the incipient headache before Jocasta noticed. He'd gone through three hyposprays of analgesics in the last week. It wasn't like he needed to account for his usage to a quartermaster or CMO anymore, but Jocasta did have a tendency to be a little snippy when he tried to substitute the miracles of modern medicine for proactive self-care. He supposed Hank—or rather, Hank's AI experiment, and hadn't that been fun?—had programmed her that way. It made a little more sense as a mindset for Starfleet officers. If you were in Starfleet, you owed it to other people—to your captain, to your shipmates, to Starfleet—to keep yourself in good working order and to let someone know as soon as you weren't.
Yeah, well, Tony wasn't in Starfleet. Not anymore.
Jocasta's face, the face she'd once had in reality, materialized on one of the wall flatscreens, golden-eyed with silvery-blue metallic skin. Her perfect, symmetrical features wrinkled into an apologetic frown. "Sorry, Tony, those are the numbers. That's the best I can do."
"It's not your fault," Tony said, and he felt only a little silly worrying about his computer's feelings. "But there's no way to generate a warpfield at all with those tiny nacelles, is there?" He squinted and stabbed a finger at the top. "Wait. If you minimize the Bussard ramscoops—"
"Tony."
"If you cut them down by, say, a third, then you can extend the nacelle housing—"
"Tony."
His attention drawn unwillingly away from this new breakthrough, he glared at Jocasta. "What?"
"Incoming call," she said, serenely. "Starfleet Command."
Tony's stomach plummeted. He wasn't late on the design yet, was he? No, no, it was only Monday. "Look, just tell T'Challa I'll have his ship for him by Friday, like we said."
"It's not Commodore T'Challa," Jocasta informed him. "It's Admiral Fury."
Oh, hell. The engineers, the scientists—those, he could handle. They had an understanding. They showed up, he helped them make starships, and then they went away. But if it was Fury... well, Fury wasn't going to go away. He wanted something. He always wanted something. The same something. And the answer was still no.
Tony ran his hands through his hair and then slammed the table controls to kill the projection. The holo winked out. He sat down. He folded his hands. He unfolded his hands. He put his hands under the table. His heart pounded, and Tony wished, like he'd been wishing for the past five years, that he weren't intimately aware of every single lurching feeling in his chest.
He was being ridiculous.
He cleared his throat, swallowed, and cleared his throat again. "All right. Put him on."
Jocasta's face disappeared, and the screen flipped to a few seconds of the familiar UFP starfield-and-wreath insignia. And then there was Admiral Nicholas Fury, in full uniform. There was a little more gray at his temples than there'd been the last time Tony had talked to him. They were all getting older.
Fury's one organic eye squinted at Tony, and then glanced around, taking in the rest of Tony's workroom. Tony could feel his own mouth curve into a smile; Fury had finally replaced the old leather eyepatch with something a little more cybernetic, because Tony definitely saw the gleam of optical sensors where Fury's left eye wasn't. It was amazing, what they could do these days with prosthetics and implants. And Tony knew that better than most people did.
Tony's own artificial heart didn't have quite so many bells and whistles, but at least it kept on beating. Fleet had owed him that much.
"Lieutenant Commander Stark," Fury said, crisply, and, yeah, it was going to be one of those conversations again, apparently. Lucky him.
Tony gave him a tight smile. "Retired, sir."
Fury smiled the same smile back, just as cagey. "You say that every time."
"Maybe this time you'll believe me," Tony said.
There was a quiet, amused huff of a laugh. The visual pickup refocused as Fury leaned back and then leaned in again, like he was changing tactics. Like he wanted Tony to think he was Tony's friend. Like this was a casual chat. "So, how's the design going?"
"I'll have the new Defender-class specs by the end of the week, sir."
"Good, good," Fury said. "Glad to hear it." He paused significantly and raised an eyebrow.
Well, the pretense had lasted an entire four sentences. Maybe they were improving. But now it was time to get down to it.
"Okay," Tony said, "so do you want me to tell you no now, or do you want to go to all the trouble of actually pitching it to me first?"
Tony knew damn well what Fury wanted: he wanted Tony back in Starfleet. He'd come up with more and more outrageous offers over the years. Last time it had been a bump to captain along with command of the newest Constitution-class ship out of drydock. Like he'd thought Tony could have actually wanted that. Fury had read the mission logs. He should have known what happened when Tony was in command. When Tony was responsible. He'd seen what Tony had been responsible for.
The last time Fury had asked him about returning, Tony had finally snapped. For God's sake, he'd told him. I was never Command track. I don't want to be in command of anything. There are a thousand people who are better than me and who are more qualified than me and who actually want that damn captain's braid. I just want my engines. With all due respect, sir, leave me alone.
But here Fury was again. Maybe he'd forgotten.
The look on Fury's face, a smile that was almost soft, was probably meant to be coaxing. "This one's different."
"You said that last time."
"This one's different than last time." Fury turned his hands palms-up, extending his arms until they went out of range of the visual pickup. There was something open and pleading in his body language, more open than he ever was. "It's not just because I want you back in uniform. It's because you're the best person for the job. Please, Stark. Tony. It won't hurt anything to listen."
It wouldn't hurt, a very small voice in Tony's head agreed. He wasn't committing to anything. Fury wanted to make the offer. He might as well let him. Besides, if he really pissed Fury off again, Fury might have a word with T'Challa, and then T'Challa wouldn't let him play with the blueprints for the new warp cores anymore.
Tony sighed. "All right. Hit me."
But Fury shook his head. "Not like this. Not over comms."
Tony's gaze automatically went to the readouts under the display, where the encryption keys were still cycling. Jocasta always encrypted every Starfleet call for him.
"You're on a secure line right now," Tony told him. "We're encrypted end-to-end."
"Not good enough. Be here in half an hour and I'll tell you in person."
Tony stared. Not only was the insistence on additional security strange—Fury hadn't even insisted on meeting him face-to-face when he'd offered him a ship—Fury was at Starfleet HQ. In San Francisco. Four thousand kilometers away. "Sir?"
Fury raised an eyebrow. "Is there a problem with that, Commander?"
"It's rush hour, sir. I'll be lucky to get a transporter slot at Grand Central in the next forty-five minutes." Even as he was saying it, Tony couldn't quite believe the words coming out of his mouth. He hadn't meant to say yes to any of it. He hadn't.
Sighing again, Fury tapped out a few commands on the nearest console. "Right. You now have priority clearance to the Presidio transit complex from Grand Central. Take the Starfleet queue. I'll see you at 1400. Fury out."
Before Tony could so much as protest, the screen went black. All he could see was his own face, reflected in the darkness. What the hell had he gotten himself into now? What could be so secret that Fury could only tell him in person? He had to admit to more than a little curiosity about that—and that was clearly where Fury would get him. Right in his sense of adventure.
Well, Tony told himself, there was only one way to find out the truth.
Thirty seconds after Fury ended the call, Tony realized that if he was going to wait in the Starfleet transporter queue, he'd need to be in uniform. It was all part of Fury's plot to get Tony back, wasn't it?
Goddamn you, Fury, he thought, as he stripped out of his civilian clothes and went to get his old uniform out of the closet. The boots were on the floor, the trousers in the drawer, and all the shirts and jackets were still hanging up, like they'd been waiting for him all along. He pushed away what had once been his standard duty uniform—there was no call for an engineering vest at HQ—and found the gold turtleneck undershirt and burgundy jacket. This one was his dress uniform. All the ribbons were still in place under the arrowhead insignia on the breast of the jacket, a multicolored riot of glory and honor, and Tony hated each and every one of them. Star Cross. Prentares Ribbon of Commendation. Starfleet Award of Valor. Starfleet Citation for Conspicuous Gallantry.
He would have given them all back if that could have made Alpha Sagittarii III never happen.
It wasn't possible. He had to live in reality. Tony stood there for a few seconds, eyes shut, and fought back the old familiar anguish, swallowing it down and pushing it back, before he could continue.
Right. He could do this. He was surviving.
He slid into the trousers, pulled the undershirt on over his head, and tugged the boots on. The heavy jacket fit just like he'd remembered it, the shoulder tab flipping over to secure the jacket closed. Jocasta obligingly shimmered one of the walls into a mirror, and Tony stared at his own reflection. He straightened up, shoulders back, and he realized that he had to tighten the belt and that there was too much fabric at his shoulders. He'd lost a little weight since the last time he'd worn this; it was probably all muscle mass. He hadn't exactly been keeping up on his hand-to-hand practice since he'd gone civilian.
He looked... like a Starfleet officer. Like someone he didn't ever want to be again.
Think positively, he told himself. It's only for an hour or two. And at least they gave up on those godawful single-piece jumpsuits before you retired. The red was much better, especially with the new engineering gold on the tabs and undershirt. But at least the jackets were red. Red had been for engineers back when Tony had gotten his commission, and he had come to think of it as his. So if all of Starfleet wore red now, that was fine with him. Tony had always liked red.
"Lock up after me, Jocasta," he said, and he headed out the door.
The groundcar ride was slow and the streets were congested. Grand Central was, as always, full of hundreds of commuters, rushing home to other continents or even other worlds. The crowd parted for him—uniformed Starfleet officer, clearly on an important mission—as he jogged past the gates to the lunar shuttles, turning instead to the on-planet transporters. At the Starfleet queue, he put his hand to the scanner. The usual acceptance flashed: Stark, Anthony Edward. Lt Cmdr. Identity confirmed.
The Sulamid ensign at the transporter booth turned and waved three or four tentacles in his direction as Tony, the only one in line, hopped up on the pad. The ensign kept several other tentacles on the controls.
"With permission, sir," the ensign said. "Energizing now."
The world went away in a swirl of blue light. When it came back, there was another very similar transporter booth, this one staffed by an Andorian lieutenant.
"Welcome to San Francisco, Commander," she said, graciously enough, in the tones of a long-practiced speech. "The shuttle to Starfleet HQ and the main Academy campus in Marin is just past the west exit. The UFP Council building is to the east. City transportation is to the south. If you have any questions—"
Tony smiled, lips closed, so as not to present a threat. "Thank you, Lieutenant. I'll be fine."
When he got upstairs and hit daylight he started shivering, because it was summer in San Francisco—a cold day, as always. He'd gotten too used to New York. Still, the wind off the water was brisk and refreshing, and the day was surprisingly clear; the bridge stretched out before him all the way to the Marin headlands, where the Academy buildings nestled among the dry summer-golden hills. Tony walked to the railing, stared out at the bridge, and took a few deep breaths. In the distance, a seagull screeched.
Tony had loved this place, once.
He'd spent four years at the Academy, just like everyone else did. It had been good. It had been great. Of course it had. He'd learned so many things, made so many friends, and he'd been proud to join Starfleet. He'd been proud to take that oath. Part of him still was. It wasn't that Starfleet had failed him, or let him down.
No, he was the one who'd failed them.
Something wretched and cold twisted in his gut. His artificial heart pounded harder, and he gripped the railing, white-knuckled. And here he was, thinking of going back? How could he?
It was just an offer. It wasn't binding. He wasn't signing his name in blood.
He'd listen, and then he'd go home.
The office door whooshed open, and Fury looked up from behind his desk, sliding the PADD in front of him off to one side as he registered Tony's presence. The smile on his face was polite and perfectly innocent, like he wasn't even going to acknowledge how much he'd won by sheer virtue of Tony even showing up in San Francisco at all.
"Commander Stark." Fury motioned him in. The door shut behind him. "Right on time."
Tony felt himself straightening up and reflexively dropping into parade rest. "Admiral."
Fury waved a hand. "At ease. Sit down. Can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea? The drinks synthesizer has finally mastered Tellarite tea. It's very good."
Tony perched on the edge of the closest chair. No sense in getting too comfortable. "No, thank you, sir."
Even as Tony was tense, everything about Fury spoke to an unworried, unhurried calm. His uniform jacket was undone at the shoulder and he leaned back.
The surface of Fury's desk, which had been doing its best imitation of antique walnut-inlaid oak, faded to a smooth holoemitter black when Fury stretched an arm out and tapped the table controls.
"I trust I don't have to tell you," Fury said, "that what I am about to reveal is classified." Tony nodded. And then Fury smiled again, even wider. It was an odd look on him, like he wasn't actually hiding anything—or at least, not hiding much, anyway. "What I haven't made clear is that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."
"You said that last time. Sir."
Fury raised an eyebrow. "I already told you. This one's different."
He tapped the table controls again, and a holographic readout came up between the two of them, a virtual sheet of paper perpendicular to the table, its text glowing blue. Fury spun it so the translucent words faced Tony. And Tony stared, because... he'd read them before. He'd written them before.
"Federation Journal of Engineering," Fury said, as if Tony hadn't recognized the letterhead above the article title. "2282. Volume one hundred twenty-one. Issue two. 'Towards a unified approach to transwarp and other post-warp theories.' By Anthony Stark, Lieutenant Commander in Starfleet, retired." Fury looked up and brushed a finger through the air where the article floated. The footnotes and acknowledgments at the bottom of the page rippled. "It's not my area of expertise, you understand, but I'm given to understand that this was quite the sensation in the engineering world, four years ago."
Surprised, Tony blinked a few times and stared. It was definitely that article. Of everything Fury could have asked him, he hadn't been prepared for this. He hadn't expected to come in and talk about an old theory that had gone nowhere because he hadn't had the resources to build a working neo-transwarp drive and prove that he hadn't, in fact, been crazy. If he had still been in Starfleet or if he'd been affiliated with one of the major civilian yards, sure, maybe. But he was just Tony Stark. And—not that there was a nice way to put this—most of the people who had known him had been trying to decide if he was actually going crazy after Alpha Sagittarii.
He still couldn't figure out where Fury was going with this. "If by 'sensation' you mean that I nearly got into a fistfight with Commander Scott of the Enterprise during the question period of my talk at that year's Federation Society of Engineers conference on Rigel IV," Tony said, "then, yes, I suppose it was a sensation."
Oh, Scotty had been pissed. And they'd kept fighting across the responses sections of the journals for a couple more years. Tony's math had checked out, as far as anyone could tell without building the damn thing. But Scotty had won out in the end; it had been his transwarp theory used to inform the construction of the new engines on Excelsior. Tony still suspected those cores were going to destabilize the dilithium. But that was what Fleet had gone with. He couldn't really fault them; unlike the competing transwarp design, which could be retrofitted into an existing nacelle housing, Tony's proposal needed a ship built from the ground up with his engines in mind. But the power generation on a ship like that would have been absolutely incredible. Better than anything else, for its size. That ship would have been the fastest thing around. Not that he was ever going to be able to prove it.
"Mmm." Fury sat back in his chair and folded his hands in his lap. "But you never built one of these... neo-transwarp engines, did you?"
What the hell? Fury had to know the answer to that one.
"No, sir." It still smarted a little. "Fleet didn't bite, and so of course no one else wanted to. Excelsior's transwarp drive wasn't based on my work. They only built the one Great Experiment. And I don't exactly own a shipyard." But really, Tony thought, Fury must know this already.
A very small smile lifted the corner of Fury's mouth. His once-impassive expression shattered as the smile grew wider. "What if I told you that we hedged our bets?"
The engineering article disappeared, and the holotable exploded into life. Between the two of them, stretching to the ceiling, was a blueprint for a ship Tony had never seen before. Not in reality, anyway.
As Tony watched, the blueprint quickly blew outward into three dimensions, into a wireframe schematic. The ship was recognizably Starfleet, but beyond that, all similarity to existing classes disappeared. It looked like someone had taken a Constitution-class ship and pulled it like taffy. What should have been a familiar circular saucer section was a long ovoid disk, set off from the engineering hull at a more obtuse angle than most ships: the disk was further forward, but not as high up. But the strangest thing was the design of the warp nacelles. The most notable feature of the design, the nacelles came up from the engineering hull and stretched forward over half the saucer, looming over it and then back again, along the length of the engineering hull and into empty space. Since the saucer had been extended, the design looked balanced and even elegant, with an odd kind of swooping, sleek beauty, but it also looked like some joker had pasted on the nacelles from another ship entirely, a ship that was supposed to be three times as big.
It was Tony's design.
As Tony watched, the wireframe was filled in with solid gray hull, with running lights, with dimmed, deactivated bluish nacelles in the housing... and then the background started to develop. A starfield. And then more metal, wrapping around the entire ship. Scaffolding. Not just scaffolding—drydock housing. And, at the very bottom, the soft reddish curvature of planetary atmosphere. Mars. The Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards.
It wasn't just a design. It was a ship. It was already a ship.
Tony tipped his head back to stare at the space above them as the camera view tightened, coming around below the ship to let her sail above their heads. The ship. His ship.
Tony was aware that his mouth was hanging open. "You bastard," he said, awed, admiring. "Fury, you bastard, you built her. You built her and you didn't even tell me."
Fury inclined his head in something that might have been a nod. "You were a civilian, Stark. Generally speaking, we don't read civilians in on classified construction projects."
Tony wasn't even listening. He was staring up at the holo as the camera drew closer and swung up and around the ship to the top edge of the saucer, where the name and registry number should have been. They were blank. They'd be the last thing to go on, with the rest of the final paint job.
"What's her name?" Tony's voice came out of him in one mesmerized breath, and goddammit, Fury had him where he wanted him and he hardly even cared. She was his. She had to be.
Smiling more widely, Fury tipped his hands up, palms out, toward the display. "Commander Stark, let me introduce you to the USS Avenger, NCC-2108. First of her class."
Avenger. He liked that. It fit. She looked fierce. She looked fast.
Tony squinted at the ship, trying to estimate relative size from the surrounding drydock and the shuttles and suited workers that drifted around her. "How big is she?"
"The Avenger's on the small side," Fury said. "Ten decks, 240 meters long—but a lot of that is the nacelles. We're fitting her out for a crew complement of 100, and even so there won't be a lot of spare room. The crew will be living in each other's pockets. She's small, but she's quick. She'd better be, with those engines of yours." He said it almost like a threat: unspecified retribution would descend on Tony if she wasn't.
"She will be," Tony said. He could practically see it now. "She'll be maneuverable as hell, with power to burn. You're thinking courier?"
Fury nodded. "Courier. Rescue. Some diplomatic missions, as well. Anything time-sensitive." That covered a lot of ground. "She'll be well-armed, with enough power for fairly heavy shielding—but with the right helmsman she'll be fast enough to dance around anyone who tries to take a shot at her, if it comes to that."
There wouldn't be any of the power tradeoffs Tony was used to. No sacrificing engines for shields, or vice versa. They could have everything. She was going to be amazing.
He needed her.
He'd designed those engines. He already knew them better than anyone. Fury couldn't just pass her off to some poor jumped-up lieutenant, fresh off a stellar research tour, where the most exciting things that happened in Main Engineering were the weeks you occasionally got to hit warp five, or six if you were really daring. Fury wasn't just going to hand off a ship that could breeze past the transwarp threshold to someone with no relevant experience.
But—
There had been an oath.
Not the oath he had made to Starfleet, but no less serious. This one, he'd made to himself, sitting alone at his dining table. After. Shirt open, staring down at himself. Chest still half-raw. After the surgery, but before the docs had gone over the scars with a protoplaser, erasing the mission from his skin as if that could efface the rest of it. A glass in his shaking hands, a glass that absolutely definitely did not contain alcohol, because he might have been fucked up but he wasn't an idiot and he didn't— he didn't do that anymore.
I'm never going back, he'd said, and he'd raised his glass to a roomful of ghosts. It was my fault and I'm never going back.
He knew more about this ship, about these engines, than anyone else could. If the mission went sideways—and Tony knew, oh, he knew, that it could—he was the one person in the entire Federation who could keep this ship flying. Fleet would have come up with technical manuals, working from his specs, but it wouldn't be the same as absolute bone-deep knowledge. Anyone else Fleet could assign would, of necessity, be working on an unfamiliar system. He was the best choice.
People had died because he was there. He couldn't take the risk that more were going to die because he wasn't.
And besides—that ship was his.
"You want me for chief engineer."
Fury's nod was an infinitesimally small quiver of movement. "Chief engineer, yes. There's a promotion in it. You'd be a full commander."
Tony cleared his throat. He should have taken Fury up on that drink. "I'm not saying yes." He coughed. "I'm not saying yes yet. But I'm not doing this without Rhodes. Lieutenant James Rhodes. He's my second, or I'm not going. I assume I'd get to pick my department staff?" He didn't know how close they were to launching; it was possible Fury just wanted to slot him in.
"Within reason," Fury agreed. "There's the usual crop of ensigns, but the lieutenants will of course be at your discretion."
Another page of text appeared, facing Tony. Transfer orders. Not just any transfer—Rhodey's transfer. With Rhodey's signature and thumbprint at the bottom. And a promotion. Lieutenant Commander. Good for him.
"He already said yes," Tony realized. "You were planning this."
Betrayal had never felt quite so good before.
"Let's just say," Fury allowed, "that I anticipated your needs." The transfer order disappeared from view. He sat back, leaning into his chair. Casually. Too casually. "Indulge me, if you will: if you could staff this ship, who would your fellow officers be?"
Tony frowned. "That would be up to you, sir. You and the captain, once you've chosen the captain."
"This is an unusual situation," Fury said, and Tony had no clue what kind of situation could possibly lead to this—him, an engineer, recommending senior staff? But he didn't think he should question it. God, it would be his ship and Fury was asking him to cherry-pick Fleet's best and brightest to serve with? Fury must really want him. "And your recommendations," Fury added, "will be thoroughly considered."
Who would he want? His dream crew. Who would he pick?
It would be best, Tony thought, to start small, with the least senior of the senior officers. The lieutenants. He might be able to get away with more. And his ship, his engines, needed the best helmsman he could get. And then he realized he knew the perfect person. Tony's memory dredged up a pale-haired lieutenant, loud-mouthed, combative—but he could handle a ship like he'd been born to it.
"Lieutenant Pietro Maximoff for the helm," Tony said, decisively, and Fury just... nodded. Like he could have him, just by saying it. Wow. Okay. Time to push a little harder. "Wanda Maximoff, navigation." The twins worked best together, Tony knew, and Wanda had already been one of the best, by herself.
Fury nodded again.
"Barton, security." Clint was good. A little argumentative, but scarily competent, and an amazing shot. Why not?
Another nod.
Who would he put on communications? Jan. Of course. Jan. He wasn't going to do this without Jan, was he? This was his dream.
"Van Dyne on comms," Tony said, and Fury nodded immediately. But Jan wasn't going to want to go without Hank, and it wasn't like Hank's record was exactly spotless, what with Ultron. There was no way Fury would give him someone with Hank's past. But he had to try. "And Pym as science officer," he added. A lot of science officers doubled as XO, but Tony couldn't see either Hank or Fury going for that. Hank was iffy enough, and he'd be happy in the labs, anyway.
He held his breath and waited for Fury to refuse, because surely this...?
But Fury just nodded again. "Van Dyne and Pym. Done."
"McCoy for CMO," Tony offered, remembering the kindly physician from one of his first tours. He'd liked Hank. Fury wasn't really going to let him appoint senior command staff, was he?
This time Fury held up a hand. "You want McCoy of the Enterprise?" His voice was incredulous but not entirely unwilling, and the thought drifted through Tony's mind that maybe Fury would actually do that for him if he asked. What was going on here?
"Nuh-uh. Different one. Henry McCoy. No relation."
Fury's expression went blank, like he hadn't managed to place the name, and he brought up a file in midair on his side of the table. "I can't give you him," Fury said, but he had said it like he couldn't, not like he didn't want to. "He's six months out on a survey mission with the USS Graymalkin. I'll give you Doctor Donald Blake instead."
Tony hadn't heard of Blake at all, but he couldn't be expected to get everyone he named, could he? He shouldn't be expecting anyone. He'd just named five people—six, counting Rhodey—and they were all brilliant, and Fury had said yes. This couldn't be real. But Fury was still saying yes. He'd said yes to everyone except Hank McCoy. This was ridiculous. Fury must really want him to accept—but surely the captain would have their own opinion. The captain and maybe the first officer, but that was it.
Then it occurred to Tony that he'd forgotten a name on his dream team. Carol. They'd been fast friends at the Academy from the day they'd met in that flight sim training. They'd practically dragged each other through the Academy together. They'd made a terrifying pair in the junior-year tactical/diplomacy games. They'd promised to stay in touch. And they'd had two postings together, back when the two of them had been raw and green and nothing had hurt. Carol had seen Tony at his best—and she'd stuck by him at his worst, after Alpha Sag. And she was on Earth now, between postings, visiting family in Boston; they'd traded a few messages in the wake of the probe's devastation of the coastlines.
He couldn't think of anyone he'd recommend more highly for a command position.
"Commander Danvers for first officer," Tony said. Might as well dream big. "Ops if she'll take a department. But she's one of the best. If I can have anyone I want, I want her."
This was getting strange. Fury knew she was one of the best too. He had to. Everyone knew who Carol was. There were probably half a dozen ships fighting over who got her next. Heavy cruisers. The finest of the explorers. The most famous ships in Starfleet. Hell, maybe even the Enterprise. Fury wasn't going to put Carol on a courier mission on Tony's say-so. But Fury nodded. Again.
"You'll have Danvers."
That was absolutely it. There was no way Fury was going to give him everyone he wanted.
"Okay," Tony said. "Tell me. What's the catch?"
Fury had a hell of a poker face. "The catch?"
"This." Tony waved his hand. "All this. Asking for my recommendations. Letting me put together a crew. There's something else going on here."
"Two things."
"What?"
"There are two things going on," Fury said. "Hear me out." He opened his mouth again, and right before he spoke Tony realized what had been coming all along. He moved his hand, beckoning, in a way that was probably supposed to be encouraging. "Danvers will be ops and second officer. I want you for first officer. Chief engineer and XO. You'll double up."
If Tony hadn't known they were planetside, he would have sworn the gravity had cut out. His stomach lurched and the room tilted vertiginously around him. He wasn't— he couldn't— how the hell could Fury make him the best offer of his entire career and then ask him to do this?
Because he knew he had to offer you a lot, idiot, said the small hateful, mocking voice in Tony's mind. He knew you wouldn't take a Command-track position unless he sweetened the deal. So now it's plenty sweet. And you're falling for it. Aren't you?
He remembered command. He remembered responsibility. He remembered gritty sand crunching between his teeth, and screaming, and blood soaking his uniform—
"I can't," Tony said, and his voice broke and cracked in the middle of the word. He shut his eyes. "I can't. I'm sorry. I wouldn't— you know what I did. I wouldn't be good enough. It wouldn't be safe."
When he looked up, the holos were gone, and it was just Fury, across the desk from him. He was in San Francisco. He was safe.
"Tony," Fury said, and somehow his voice was gentler than Tony had thought it could ever be. "I read the reports. What happened to the crew of the Pandora was... terrible. I'm not denying that. But you did everything you could to save as many people as you could. No one could have done a better job. You acted with selflessness, courage, and bravery, befitting a Starfleet officer."
Snorting, Tony waved a hand at his chest, where the ribbons were arrayed. "Yeah, they gave me some medals. You probably heard."
"I recommended you for them," Fury said, implacable, and Tony blinked, because he hadn't known that. "You're good. You're very good. I know you know that."
"I wasn't ever Command-trained," Tony pointed out, desperately. "I'm an engineer. I don't even have the coursework."
Fury stared back, unfazed. "Half of it is instinct and intuition. The important half. Which you already have, in spades. As for the rest of it—" he shrugged— "we're not launching the Avenger immediately. We'd put you in a quick Command course at the Academy. You're not the only officer who's ever needed to retrack."
Great. From his memories of Carol complaining about her seminars, he had the idea that it involved a lot of discussing diplomacy, the Prime Directive, and mostly what miserable ethical decisions a captain might have to make someday. He wondered if he could cite relevant life experience as credit.
Damn him, he was already thinking about this.
And Fury hadn't even given him a good reason.
Tony bit his lip. "Why me?"
"Pardon?"
"Why me?" Tony repeated. "Why not Commander Danvers for first? You know she's good. If you're so determined to get me to go Command, then—" he swallowed hard— "then I'll take second. What's wrong with that?"
There was a dry noise of acknowledgment. "That's the other part of the... catch, as you put it," Fury said. "Which would be the Avenger's captain."
Fury's face was unreadable. This had to be bad. Maybe it was someone Tony had punched on shore leave in the years before he'd sobered up? No, no, then Fury wouldn't want him anywhere near this captain. He hadn't even mentioned a name so far. Which was odd. If it had been someone good—someone Tony knew, someone who wanted him as XO, Fury would have said. Wouldn't he?
"Did they ask for me?" Tony ventured.
But Fury shook his head. "He's never met you." This made no sense. And then Fury smiled. "Let's just say I have a very good guess about what sort of person might fit well with him. You're right that Danvers would be good," he added. "You'd be better. He's going to need someone clever and quick, who will back him up, but not mindlessly. Someone who won't be overawed." Overawed? Who was this guy? "Honestly, that could be either of you, but he's specifically going to need an XO who has a very high degree of technical competence; he has a few... gaps... in his skill set. With your knowledge of the Avenger's systems and capabilities, you are the natural choice. We haven't formally made him the offer, either," Fury said, and, okay, that was really, really strange. "I'm hoping that your enthusiasm about the Avenger will be sufficiently exciting."
The world was starting to feel unreal, like Tony was just a leaf drifting through the air. Like he was trapped in a holoprojection. Maybe he was still dreaming. "You want me to sell this project to the Avenger's future captain?"
"Yep," Fury confirmed.
"Who doesn't know me?"
"Yep."
"When you don't even know if I'm interested?"
Fury's one-eyed gaze was withering, as if to say we both know the answer to that.
"Fine. Maybe I'm considering it." The admission stabbed at him, and he hissed out a breath through his teeth. "So who is this mysterious captain of yours?"
With another tap to the table controls, another holo appeared in midair. It was a flat, two-dimensional image, head and shoulders, the sort of picture Tony expected from a personnel jacket. The man was Earth-human, probably about Tony's age. Light-skinned. Blond. Blue-eyed. Astonishingly good-looking, really. He looked like someone Tony might have seen somewhere once, but he couldn't imagine where. The man's eyes were bright, and, though he wasn't smiling, something about his face was just... friendly. He held himself in a poised, confident manner. He looked like he'd stepped right out of a Fleet recruiting holo on how to be a starship captain. Tony could definitely imagine seeing him in holovids. Or maybe in his bed. That definitely wasn't an appropriate thought about his putative new captain. Tony hoped that admiral from Betazed didn't still have the office next door. At least telepaths were probably used to this kind of thing, though.
But of course, telling himself not to have the thought was a surefire way to keep thinking it, and now all Tony could think of was peeling this guy out of his uniform, unzipping that jumpsuit a little more—
Wait. Tony squinted. The man's uniform was at least half a century out of date. Was this some kind of joke?
"This is Captain Steven Rogers," Fury said. He paused, and he raised his eyebrows, significantly. Like the name was supposed to mean something to Tony. It didn't.
Captain Steven Rogers. He didn't know anyone named Steven Rogers currently serving. There was only one Captain Steven Rogers whom Tony had ever, ever heard of, actually, and that was— that was—
Tony stopped. He stared at the uniform in the picture again. The man was wearing a dark blue jumpsuit, with the old command-gold visible in a thin piping at his shoulders. On the right side of his chest, within the division piping, he wore a captain's four pips, in the old, old, simple style of rank marking. There was an assignment patch of some sort on his left sleeve; Tony couldn't make out the details. The jumpsuit was a little bit unzipped—which had, understandably, drawn Tony's attention—and he wore a black undershirt beneath it.
No one in Starfleet had worn anything like that since the goddamn Earth-Romulan War.
And Captain Rogers—
It couldn't be.
This was a joke. This had to be a joke.
"Captain Steven Rogers," Tony repeated, shakily. "Captain of the USS Invader during the Earth-Romulan War. Hero of the Battle of Cheron."
Fury nodded. "That's him."
"I have two problems with this, sir," Tony said, and Fury looked at him, patiently; he knew damn well what Tony was going to say and had clearly decided to let him say it anyway. "One: the war ended in 2160. A hundred and twenty six years ago. Unless he's got some Vulcan blood in him, Captain Rogers shouldn't still be alive and kicking." Tony's hand dug into the arm of his chair. "And two: he shouldn't be alive now, after the war, after Cheron, at all. The Invader was destroyed in that battle."
In his Academy days, Tony had written a paper for his Strategy and Tactics class; they'd each chosen a particular commander and had to pick apart their decisions at an engagement. And Tony, he was remembering now, had chosen Rogers at Cheron.
Cheron had been an interesting battle. Not only had it been the decisive victory of the war, it wouldn't even have been won without Rogers. Or so Tony's thesis had gone. The Romulans had always outnumbered the Federation—or rather, the Earth/Vulcan/Tellar/Andor alliance that was to become the Federation—with hundreds of fast little ships. But at Cheron they'd also brought capital ships. And they'd set them against Earth's starships. The Romulans had beaten down the Earth side, with major losses, and ChR Sseikea, the Romulan flagship, had been bearing down on the nearly-defenseless USS Oriskany, one of Earth's few remaining heavy cruisers.
The Invader hadn't been a heavy cruiser. She hadn't been much of anything. Small. Fast. Maneuverable. Lightly-armed. But she'd been the Earth forces' good-luck charm, of a sort, because before Cheron she'd just kept winning. Rogers had been good. Or lucky. Or both. His grasp of tactics had been like no one else's, and Tony remembered reading that they'd tried to offer him other ships, further promotions, and he'd refused. There'd been some quotation about how he'd just wanted to help people. To save people. To do what he could. And this, he'd said, he could do.
Oriskany's captain had been quoted about that moment at Cheron, afterwards, saying that she'd thought that the Invader's luck—Rogers' luck—had finally run out, and she was about to take all of them down with her, in her misfortune. The Invader had already been heavily damaged and was weaponless. She shouldn't have been a threat. The Romulans clearly hadn't thought she was.
And when Sseikea had been ten seconds out of her main battery range, closing in on Oriskany, Invader had used her one remaining weapon: herself. Rogers ordered a collision course, his comms officer bade Oriskany farewell, and Invader rammed Sseikea broadside at nearly full impulse.
Neither ship survived.
Tony had never been able to imagine the courage it would take to do that, to sacrifice himself in a split-second for what he believed in. But Rogers had done it. It was like something out of those twentieth-century comic books Tony had loved as a child. A real hero.
With the loss of the Romulan flagship, the tide of the battle had been turned, and then the war, and they owed it all to Rogers. Rogers, who was most definitely dead.
Tony dragged his attention back to the admiral. Surely there was some other explanation. This couldn't be that Captain Rogers. Still, that explained why Tony thought he'd looked familiar; he must have seen a picture of the man once.
"Ah." Fury smiled. "Well. Yes. You are correct about both of those points, Commander. To an extent. But I assure you that Captain Rogers is alive. I met him yesterday."
Okay. Tony was smart. Tony could work through this. Setting aside the issue of how any human who'd fought in the Earth-Romulan War could still be alive—if this man were really Rogers, he would have had to have survived Cheron. And that was where Tony's brain stalled. Again. "Sir, the Invader was confirmed destroyed."
"No." Fury's correction was calm. "She was presumed destroyed. Which was a fair assumption at the time. There was no visual data, but the course she'd charted was a direct collision with the Romulan flagship, and she dropped out of all telemetry at the time of her predicted collision. Sensor readings taken after the battle revealed high levels of radiation consonant with both a failure of quantum singularity containment—from the downed Romulan flagship—and a warp core breach, assumed to have destroyed the Invader." His expression was grave. "They were finding bits of Romulan hull for years afterward, but the Invader was so small, comparatively. We'd always assumed she'd been vaporized in the matter-antimatter chain reaction."
Tony's mouth was dry. "How—"
"One-in-a-million chance," Fury said, grimly. "They never actually hit the other ship. They managed to eject their whole warp core assembly. That was what hit. And they still had shields when the shockwave hit them. But it wiped out everything. All systems. Hull breaches on every deck. No comms, no power, no reserve power, no gravity, no more engines, and she was venting oxygen. No way to send an emergency signal. And everyone was dead except the captain—who was honestly fairly close to death himself, truth be told."
Hell of a way to die. Oh, every spacer had to be prepared for it, of course, the possibility that you'd die alone in the dark, slowly, as your air ran out, with no way to signal for help. Depending on how much air you had left, you might have hours or even days to ponder your impending doom. Tony had decided a long time ago that he'd rather put a phaser to his head first. Another reason he wasn't cut out for command.
But Rogers had clearly made another choice. Maybe there'd been escape pods. A lifeboat? No, not on a ship that size. "What happened?"
Fury pursed his lips. "It turned out that exactly one system on the ship still had power, because it had redundant backups for precisely this eventuality. The Invader's sickbay had an emergency medical cryo tube."
Oh, God. Tony could picture it now—this man in the photo, Captain Rogers, bleeding and half-dead, emergency rebreather over his face, crawling through the wreckage of his dying ship in the darkness, floating past the bodies of his crew, to get to the one thing that still worked: the cryogenic stasis tube. And all alone, he'd climbed in, shut the hatch, and locked himself into suspended animation, into the cold embrace of the future, not knowing if he'd ever be woken, or if he'd die when the system finally ran out of power...
"He froze himself," Tony said, very softly. "God help him, he froze himself and waited for rescue."
"He did," Fury agreed, in the same quiet tone. Tony watched as Fury breathed in and out, slow and even. A sigh of regret, perhaps. "And we never even knew he was out there. But then we stumbled across him. A salvage crew working the Cheron system found what was left of the Invader two weeks ago. The cryo was still functional. Just barely."
Tony's mouth opened and closed. "Is he— is he—"
He didn't know what to say. Captain Rogers of the USS Invader was alive. It wasn't every day you heard a thing like that. It was almost unbelievable. But he'd always been lucky, they'd said. He'd always been good. And, well, it seemed he'd been the luckiest, after all.
"He was in a bad way at first," Fury said, and Tony looked down to see his own white-knuckled hands gripping the arms of the chair. He was leaning forward, he realized. Fury's manner shifted and was almost soothing, like it had been earlier. "It took us a while to bring his core temperature up safely. This old cryo is touch-and-go. Not much better than those twentieth-century sleeper ships." Tony suppressed a visceral shudder. "But we got him eventually," Fury continued. "Fixed up the original damage from the battle, as well. He spent a week or so drifting in and out of consciousness. Doctor Blake took excellent care of him."
That was the doctor that Fury wanted to give him on the Avenger. And, come to think of it, this was why Fury wanted his input on personnel—because Rogers wouldn't know anyone from this time. And this was why Fury was being so particular about who Rogers' XO should be; Rogers was going to need someone to cover for the century of history and technology that he didn't have. For God's sake, he predated the entire Federation.
And Fury really thought Tony—washed up, fucked up, broken, and retired to boot—would be the best person in all of Starfleet to be second-in-command to Steven Rogers, hero of Cheron?
He... he didn't know what to say to that.
"He's conscious?" Tony asked, instead.
Fury nodded. "He has been for a few days. We've been running tests. Trying to get him caught up on what he's missed. He seems to be taking the future shock remarkably well. Nice guy."
"And you want me to talk to him?" Tony pressed, just to make sure. "You want me to... recruit him to Starfleet?"
Another nod. And Fury must have seen a bit of his trepidation, then, because his voice went soft yet again, and Tony hated himself for welcoming the sympathy. "Tony. I'm not asking you to reactivate your commission this minute. This is the offer I've made you. The ship. The crew. The mission. And the captain. Just talk to him. See how the two of you get along. See if you hit it off. See how he likes the idea of it."
"If not me, then Danvers?"
"Then Danvers," Fury confirmed. "But I have... a sense about these things."
Well. Tony supposed he could give it a try. At least he could say he'd met Steven Rogers. That'd make a story for his nonexistent children. "All right. Where is he, and when do you want me to meet with him?"
"Starfleet Medical," Fury said. "And you can go any time you want. Right now, while you're here, if you want. He's not busy. I think he'd like the company."
Before Fury had said those words, the idea of meeting Rogers had been daunting, but it had been almost pleasant from a distance. But only from a distance. Starfleet Medical was on the far side of the Academy campus. Tony could be there in fifteen minutes. In fifteen minutes, he could meet one of his lifelong heroes—and the only non-fictional one, at that. What the hell was Tony supposed to say to a man who'd given his life to save Earth? Hi, I'd like to be your Number One. I have zero command qualifications. Let me tell you all about how my last captain died in my arms because I just wasn't good enough.
Yeah, that was going to go over stunningly well.
Tony stood up dizzyingly fast; the chair shot away from under him.
"Excuse me," he managed to say. "I think I should go."
"You're going over there now?"
A possibility for a reprieve drifted through Tony's mind. A temporary stay of execution.
"Nah." Tony pasted a cocky grin on his face and tried to quell the churning of his gut. "I think I'll head to Mars first."
"Mars?"
"Utopia Planitia," Tony clarified, still grinning. "I'm gonna go see my baby."
Fury glared up at him and folded his arms across his chest. "Stark."
"I assume I've got clearance to see the Avenger now."
"Commander Stark."
"Good chat," Tony said, babbling as he backed out of the room. The door opened. "Great talk. Thank you, sir."
The last thing he heard before the door closed was Fury's exasperated sigh, and, yeah, this was already getting to be just like the old days. Fast.
Tony wasn't sure if that was a good thing.
Passenger clearance to the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards and a berth number that fell into the range for one of the Yards' skunkworks projects flashed onto Tony's PADD about twenty seconds after he stepped off the transporter pad at the Luna farside complex, heading for the in-system shuttles. Which was good, because at least Fury wasn't going to turn him back at the metaphorical gate.
No one so much looked at him on the Mars shuttle. He was one of a half-dozen officers filing aboard. They all quietly took their seats. No one gave him a second glance: he was just some lieutenant commander, headed out to Mars. Tony could have been the kind of person who did this every day. Everyone else probably assumed he was still serving. Why wouldn't they? They didn't know him. Sure, maybe his uniform had a few more ribbons than most, but that didn't mean he was anyone special. Just another officer. Tony shivered. It would have been so easy for this to be his life again.
Tony scrolled through his messages as the pilot released the docking clamps. Fury had provided a list of everyone Tony had just recommended to him, their names filled into pending transfer orders, with the short notation at the top: just tell me when.
Great. Tony blew out a long breath. No pressure there, huh?
As the shuttle's impulse drive kicked in, another message came in, with no commentary: he had access to Steven Rogers' basic personnel jacket and service record, some information redacted for security reasons. As he scrolled down, he saw the file header: the same image Fury had shown him, a captain in a century-old uniform.
Tony wondered if that meant Rogers had his file as well. Probably. And with his luck, all the old drunk-and-disorderlies would still be in there along with Alpha Sag. Well, that was going to make him look even better.
He closed Rogers' file. He wasn't going to look at it. He wasn't going to think about it. He was going to go see his ship. The ship. Maybe not his. He shouldn't get attached. But whether or not he took the offer, he could at least see her.
Thirty minutes to Mars could have meant plenty of time for second thoughts, but Tony had fewer than he'd thought he might; the excitement that rippled through Tony had only the slightest nervous edge. Even with everything that had happened, he was going to go see a ship he'd designed. He couldn't not look forward to that.
Soon enough, the red planet was in view. The shuttle swung around and made a smooth docking at one end of the Utopia Planitia complex. The Fleet Yards had started on the ground, at the Utopia Planitia plateau itself, but when they'd built the orbital facilities they'd kept the name. Some of the smaller ships were started on the ground and launched later, when they were closer to completion, but the big starships—of which Avenger was probably one—were built stem to stern in space, born in this very spot. And he'd seen more than a few ships built and launched, over the years—but they'd never been his.
When he disembarked from the shuttle, his fellow occupants moved past him, heading with assurance to their destinations, or meeting their companions here at the docking bay. After everyone else had left, there was a lieutenant still standing in the arrival hall. She was wearing a regular duty uniform, but her blond hair was a little mussed in a way that suggested she'd probably been wearing a pressure suit twenty minutes ago; she stood with her feet planted apart, like someone used to wearing magnetic boots. She looked like she was waiting for someone, and he was the only one still here.
"Lieutenant?"
"Welcome to Utopia Planitia, sir," she said, smoothly. Her demeanor projected calmness, coolness, control. Typical Yard worker. Hard to rattle. Tony liked that about these people. "I'm Lieutenant Robin Chapel, liaison for the Avenger project. You'll have to forgive me, Commander. We had no idea anyone from Admiral Fury's office was coming until we got the message an hour ago. It's 1300 now, station time. There's nothing particularly exciting prepared for the rest of the day. Just some power tests." Her blue eyes went wider; her voice was tinged with apology.
Oh. She didn't know who Tony was.
Tony smiled and let the rush of gratitude wash over him. She hadn't recognized his face. She hadn't looked at the medals and tried to figure out what he'd done. She just thought he was some bureaucrat looking for an update and she was starting to worry that they wouldn't have anything to show him that anyone other than an engineer would care about.
Luckily for her, that was what Tony was there for.
"Relax, Lieutenant," Tony said. "I'm not here for a formal progress report. I just want to see the ship. Maybe get my hands dirty, if you'll let me." When he paused, she was staring in incomprehension. "I was the one who did the initial design," he added.
And now Chapel was grinning. "You're Tony Stark?" she asked, and Tony thought maybe that was the happiest anyone had ever sounded about meeting him in... years, probably.
"That's me."
"Oh," she said. "Oh, wow." And then she laughed. "Chief Ballinger is going to be thrilled. Come this way, sir. Let me show you your ship."
Chapel herded Tony into a second shuttle.
"You're lucky you're here this week, Commander," she said, executing a smooth takeoff. The shuttle dropped down, relative to the station axis, heading for one of the partially-closed bays; they must have moved the ship since the holos Fury had shown Tony had been taken.
"Oh?"
Chapel didn't look up. "Mmm-hmm. We just got the air in." That was probably why the Avenger was in a bay; the oxygen hookups were always massive. "Power, lights, and air. It was vac suits for everyone up until last week."
"Glad I missed that, then," Tony agreed. In the back of his mind, the part that was starting to busy itself with the day-to-day minutia of how am I ever going to join Starfleet again? the thought drifted by that he actually needed ten more hours of suit time to keep his EVA license for the year. It would be a shame to be a chief engineer without one.
He couldn't seriously be considering this.
"Well," Chapel said. "Here we are."
The little shuttle dove again and swooped into the open end of one of the bays, and—
The Avenger hung in the center of the bay. She was small; the drydock was designed to accommodate ships that were easily twice her size, and she looked even smaller for it. But she was sleek, powerful; that much was evident from the length of those huge nacelles, the way the disk was tapered to even out the future warpfield bubble. She was going to be fast; she was a Thoroughbred in a stable of plow horses. She was Tony's dream given substance, exactly as he'd pictured her.
She was beautiful.
Tony didn't realize he was reaching out until his searching fingers bumped the transparent aluminum of the window. The impact startled him.
He realized he was smiling.
He knew then that he was already gone. No matter what Captain Rogers was going to think of him, he had to have this ship.
Tony's booted footsteps echoed on the deckplates as he followed Chapel along the Avenger's corridors. He'd done the basic design of the ship, true, but he hadn't done a deck-by-deck breakdown, so this was all new. He did, however, have a good idea of where Chapel was leading him. The ship was clearly still unfinished; the metal was unpainted, and most of the bulkhead panels weren't yet installed. They were stacked neatly on the deck, and the gaps where they should have been were showing exposed, long, twisted cables and circuitry within the walls. The duotronic relays gleamed, and Tony gave them an admiring once-over as he passed them. They were the new ones, with reduced data transfer latency. Every other engineer was going to be so jealous.
He saw what Fury had meant about the ship being a tight fit. Tony had been on big ships once, Constitution-class ships, even the old ones, from before the redesign. Back then it had seemed their corridors had gone on for kilometers, wide and spacious. These corridors were a little tighter, and the doorways spaced closer together. There wouldn't be room for any of those flagship luxuries like massive rec decks. If he was lucky, there'd be a rec room with a tri-D chess set. It would be fine. He'd served on smaller. Besides, the smaller Avenger was, the faster those engines could push her.
They turned a corner, and Tony stopped dead in the doorway and tilted his head back at the sight. Main Engineering. It was one of the few rooms on a ship that needed space, and it got all the space it deserved: a long, high-ceilinged room stretching forward, like the nave of a church. Tony wanted to kneel and bow down, humbled in the face of the glory of science. At the far end of the room, which was walled with the flat panels that would become power and energy readouts and ship cutaways, was the main matter-antimatter intermix chamber itself. The heart of the ship. Tony's design. Only an engineer would have known how the column was different, but any engineer would have been able to spot the differences instantly: it was feeding more antimatter into the reaction chamber than any other warp drive. That was the key to Tony's neo-transwarp theory: given a very particular nacelle and disk design, they could hit final stability for a warp bubble at a different, higher-energy point than any existing warp theory had predicted, allowing them to break the transwarp threshold with ease. That was also the unbelievable part of Tony's theory.
Well, he'd find out soon enough if he was right.
Oh, Starfleet had tested the basic injection process on a smaller scale before building this—or so Fury's reports had said—just to determine that the drive wasn't going to explode and kill them all, but that had been entirely lab-based. This was a real ship. His ship.
Tony had drifted all the way across Main Engineering before he was really aware of moving, and he had a hand stretched out over the safety railing to rest on the middle of the column, the dilithium containment chamber. It was empty now, of course, and the column was still dim, but it was so easy to imagine the drive pulsing with light and energy.
It was so easy to imagine himself here again. In charge of all this.
"Commander," Chapel was saying. "Commander." She sounded like she'd been trying to get his attention for several seconds.
Tony turned around. Taking his hand off the drive was like ripping it away. "Sorry," he said, and then he registered that Chapel was standing next to a man he didn't know, an older man in an engineering non-com's uniform.
"Commander," Chapel said, "this is Chief Ballinger, foreman of this project." She glanced at the non-com. "Lenny, this is Commander Stark. He designed the warp drive. And the ship to go with it."
Ballinger grinned wide, wide, wide. "Pleasure to meet you, Commander," he said, and out of his mouth came an old New York accent so extraordinary that Tony had thought he'd only heard it in period holodramas. He was going to like this guy. "I've been saying for months I wanted to meet the sonuva— uh. The man who designed this."
"Well, every centimeter of that reactor assembly is absolutely my fault." Tony grinned back. "Did you want to shake my hand or punch me?"
There was a dawning respect in Ballinger's eyes. Tony recognized it as thank God that Fleet hasn't sent me an idiot who doesn't know bow from stern. "Depends on if she'll fly, sir."
"Oh," Tony said, feeling confidence curl through him. "She definitely will."
And then Ballinger turned around to watch two pressure-suited techs maneuvering a heavy float pallet, and clearly doing so at mismatched speeds. "Hey, hey, hey! Baldwin! Baldwin! Not so fast! Hey, Robbie! Slower! Come on!" The hapless Baldwin slowed down, and Ballinger turned back and shrugged at Tony, with one of those half-indulgent, half-apologetic hey, you know, they're kids, what are you going to do? expressions on his face.
Tony pictured himself standing here surrounded by a pack of equally-confused fresh-faced ensigns. This could be him. He could be here.
To be honest, it sounded... fun.
"So," Tony said. "I was going to ask for the tour, but now I'm wondering if you might benefit from another pair of hands down here. I promise I know what I'm doing. I won't weld the plasma conduits together."
He hoped Ballinger wasn't going to ask why. It was only a half-formed notion in Tony's head, that the Avenger would really be his then, if she could be something he'd built.
Ballinger clapped Tony on the shoulder, a slap that jarred him up to the jaw. "Well, you're a damn sight better than any of those other officers Fury sent us. Right this way, sir. We'll put you to work."
Ballinger hadn't been kidding about putting Tony to work, and Tony had been more than happy to spend the entire rest of the afternoon helping run the emergency power conduits between Decks Seven and Eight. They'd pulled up half the decking as they'd gone, and Tony had spent a good three hours literally hip-deep in circuitry. He'd built something. His hands had shaped this ship. So despite the ache in his lower back, he was feeling pretty damn good about the day. When—if—he took the chief engineer job, he'd still be seeing the insides of conduits and endless banks of relays along with kilometers of Jeffries tubes, but he'd likely be seeing it all mostly after it had been blown to hell. It was refreshing to get a look at the Avenger while everything was still, as the phrase went, shipshape.
At the end of the workday the chief had even let him do something relatively big, in the grand scheme of things: he'd let him climb up into one of the nacelles and run the last few meters of power conduits into the main emergency power junction and try the test-cycle simulation for jump-starting the warp intermix from emergency power only, a task that involved pulling half the bulkheads in the starboard nacelle junction room open again and running more cable. Tony had done it in three minutes, which was respectable for a ship class he'd never had his hands on; his standard for himself had been two, before. There was room for improvement.
And Tony was still here—stationside, at least. There were transitory personnel quarters in the main section of the complex, and Chapel had been happy enough to arrange billeting for him. He'd stay here a day or two, maybe. Get to see the rest of the Avenger. Come up with something to say to Captain Rogers that didn't sound so damn pathetic.
Lying in bed, Tony tapped the far bulkhead with his foot. His head was barely two centimeters from the other bulkhead. He didn't have any kind of window, and this room that Strausser—another one of Chapel's non-coms—had shown him to was more or less a bare metal bunk with barely enough room to stand up straight. It would do. He'd had worse.
It had been a long day. He shut his eyes.
And then he was there again.
The air was too thick, and his body was too heavy. Everything was dim underground; as the guards dragged him through the tunnels, the occasional ventilation shafts carved overhead revealed the barest glimpse of clouded violet skies shaded by massive, towering trees. He tripped, and they dragged him through the gravel anyway.
Once, he'd thought he was going to learn the turnings, make a map, plan an escape.
He was never going home.
If he gave in, Yinsen would have died for nothing. The others would have died for nothing. And he was going to die just the same, but he'd die with his oaths intact.
They'd cuffed him again today. They'd put his hands behind his back. His wrists were galled, scarred, rubbed raw over the scars.
The guards shoved him forward into the same room, the same room as every day, dropping him face-first into the dirt, where he could barely see the edges of all their scavenged Federation technology. Everything they wanted him to assemble and reassemble in the most awful of ways. He didn't move as they turned him over, ripped open his bloodstained uniform, attached the leads to the ports they'd sunk into his sternum.
They were smart enough to know they couldn't kill him and get what they wanted, but that didn't mean they couldn't make it hurt. They'd started with direct stimulation of the pain receptors. But they'd been running that particular torture device with a repurposed phaser battery, and they'd run it dry. Days ago. Maybe weeks. So they'd had to switch to their own technology. And that was when they'd figured out they could manipulate the shrapnel that had been oh-so-recently lodged in his chest.
Then they'd done the surgery.
"Greetings," said the same voice from the other side of the room; the vocoder of the Universal Translator they'd stolen rendered it, as always, with harsh coldness. They all used the same speech pattern, but Tony squinted into the shadows and thought he saw the huge dark eyes of the first interrogator. They were always the worst one of the lot.
Tony said nothing.
"Again," the interrogator said. "We require access to Federation technology. You will produce for us a Federation warp drive and the designs necessary for mass production. You will produce for us Federation weaponry. You are a Federation engineer. You will tell us everything you know."
Tony coughed. Spat blood. "I refuse."
The interrogator tilted their head. Their fingers moved toward the control switch. "Describe the theory and construction of a so-called 'planet-cracker' bomb."
The Prime Directive was more important than his life. This was what it meant to be a Starfleet officer.
Tony lifted his head. "Stark," he rasped. "Anthony Edward. Lieutenant Commander in Starfleet, United Federation of Planets. 34445464." It was the only thing he'd told them. A spark of heat sizzled across his breastbone, a mild rebuke. He drew a gasping breath. He started again. "Stark, Anthony Edward. Lieutenant Commander in—"
The interrogator flipped the switch.
Everything was fire, his chest burning and burning, and he couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe, oh God, he was going to die here in the dark, he was going to die like the rest of the crew. He was convulsing, head thrown back, scrabbling at the dirt, wrists scraping the cuffs, and he was screaming and screaming, the sound echoing through the caves.
Tony's eyes shot open. He was soaked in sweat, gasping for breath, and his throat was raw. He'd been screaming again. He sat bolt-upright and slammed the lights on, as bright as they could go.
He'd thought he was getting better. He hadn't had that dream in a few weeks. Served him right for thinking about Alpha Sag so much today.
It was five years ago, he told himself. You survived. You made it. You're not there. You're safe. It's 2286. You're in Mars orbit. You're at Utopia Planitia. They're building your starship. No one is going to hurt you.
Deep breaths. In. Out. In.
His heart, the new heart Fleet had given him afterwards when they'd tried to put him back together again, pounded in his chest.
Maybe this was a bad idea. He couldn't go back, could he?
Regardless, he wasn't going to get any more sleep tonight. He fumbled for the PADD next to his bed, and the first thing he brought up, without really intending to do it, was Rogers' personnel file.
He scrolled past the picture Fury had sent him, expecting the usual birthdate and birthplace. Huh. Those were redacted. Not just redacted. REDACTED BY ORDER OF UNITED EARTH FORCES, the file said, in blaring blue letters. That predated the Federation. The data had been redacted since Rogers had joined Starfleet. That was... well, that was strange. Oh, there was plenty of information on the battles he'd fought in the war, everything Tony had already known, but it was like Rogers hadn't existed before he'd joined the military. Starfleet had been the military then, anyway.
Tony frowned. There had been a lot of classified work going on back then, during the war—hell, a lot of it was probably still classified—and it was possible Rogers had been mixed up in something big. Some kind of Intelligence work, maybe. Whatever it was, it clearly wasn't Tony's business.
There were a few things at the beginning of the file that he hadn't known; Rogers had started out as a MACO, with—apparently—a direct commission as a captain, the reason for which was again probably covered in the redacted section. There were commendations, and then they'd... shunted him off to Starfleet. From the ground forces to the space forces. Hell of a lateral transfer. And then they'd given him the Invader.
Tony supposed that sometimes things like that just happened in wartime, but that had to be the strangest battlefield promotion ever.
He supposed that he could ask Rogers about it when he met him. If. If he met him. Dammit.
And then he scrolled down further, and got to what Fury had been telling him about Rogers' miraculous survival, with some psych reports attached. Rogers seemed to be taking the future very, very well. He didn't seem to be suffering too many ill effects from having frozen himself in his broken ship. The evaluation stressed how well-adjusted he was. The perfect Starfleet officer.
Tony was pretty sure that he himself had seemed absolutely fine for the first few days after he'd gotten home, after they'd gotten him a new heart. Until they came in with the medals they'd wanted to pin on him. His shipmates had died. He'd killed Yinsen, he'd killed his crew, and Fleet wanted to give him a goddamn medal.
Maybe, the thought drifted through Tony's mind, maybe Rogers would understand. Fury said they'd work well together. Maybe it was because Tony already knew what it was like to lose everything, and he was still here. He'd been where Rogers was. He'd done it. Granted, not particularly well, but he was surviving. He could help.
They could help each other.
Rogers was going to need someone to have his back. Someone who understood, in some small way, what it was like when everything went to hell. Someone who—hopefully—he could come to trust. If not Tony, it would be Carol. And Carol was a good officer. Carol was a great officer. A great friend. But she hadn't been on the Pandora. She couldn't know.
He scrolled back up, to the picture of Rogers' face.
Damn you, Fury.
He'd go back to Earth tomorrow.
When Tony stepped out of the turbolift at Starfleet Medical, he saw immediately why Fury had tried to get him to see Rogers first. Two bored security lieutenants stood on either side of the turbolift doors, and they wouldn't let him onto the floor until they'd checked—retina and thumbprint, damn, they were taking this awfully seriously—that he was on the authorized visitors list. The entire floor, a warren of larger private rooms, was quiet and devoid of activity.
They hadn't even been letting Rogers out. Guilt washed over him. Defiantly, he clutched the PADD at his side a little tighter and stood up straighter. He was going to be the model Starfleet officer, the perfect officer who could convince Rogers to come with him. He'd had a little bit of a speech prepared, a few of his most persuasive arguments. He wasn't going to be the man who'd been screaming himself hoarse last night as he struggled out of his dreams. He could do this.
"He's down the hall and to the left, sir," one of the lieutenants said.
Rogers was the only one on the floor? With no one to talk to? All alone in the future?
Tony should have come yesterday.
"Thank you," Tony said, and he strode confidently forward.
At the far corner of the floor, Tony stopped before the one occupied room. He ran his hand through his hair, swallowed, ran his hand through his hair again—he was sure it was a mess now—and pushed the button. Relax, Stark. He's only the hero of the Battle of Cheron.
"Come on in," a man's voice said, a warm, friendly baritone. "It's open."
As Tony walked in, someone who must have been Rogers rose from the chair by the window, leaving a PADD on the table next to him. Perhaps as a concession to the old uniforms, someone had given him a dark blue shirt and pants. And then Rogers turned and smiled and the entirety of Tony's prepared speech flew right out of his head.
Oh, Rogers had been attractive enough in the pictures, but they in no way did justice to the reality of him. He didn't look like someone who'd just barely survived a hundred years of cryo. He was strong, muscular, perfectly built, as if the universe had set out to make the ideal physical specimen of humanity. His features were deeply carved, and his bright blue eyes were warm and friendly, sparkling with intelligence. There was a polite smile on his face, and even that was stunning; Tony couldn't even imagine the full force of this man's regard.
Fury had called him a nice guy. That wasn't even close. He looked like... goodness incarnate. Like one of those knights in Tony's old favorite stories. He looked like a hero. Like looking at him, you knew he was going to be a good man. The best. Tony thought maybe he'd never understood the word charismatic before. Looking at him, Tony just wanted to... follow him. Dear God.
And then maybe follow him to bed, Tony thought, dazed.
Rogers' gaze flicked to Tony's shoulder and wrist, and then back to his face again, slowly enough that Tony knew he had to be consciously recalling the rank markings. "Is there something I can do for you, Lieutenant Commander?"
"Uh," Tony said. His mouth didn't seem to be working. His brain didn't seem to be working.
Rogers took a few steps closer and peered at him, concerned. "Have I done something wrong? Is there some kind of security problem?"
The words security problem tripped something urgent in Tony's mind and his brain finally rebooted. He glanced down at himself and couldn't see how Rogers had come to that particular conclusion: he had gold tabs and security had green. But it was an honest mistake, especially from someone who had seen these uniforms for only a few days. Rogers had probably seen a hell of a lot of security personnel since he'd woken up, and no engineers whatsoever.
"No," Tony said. "No, uh. Sorry, sir. Not security. Engineering division."
Rogers' brows drew together in confusion. "I really hope I haven't caused an engineering problem." His mouth curved more in an awkward smile and stop looking at his mouth, Stark, you're just embarrassing yourself. So much for his plan to present himself well.
"No, no, no!" Tony said, hurriedly, holding out his hands as if he could forestall any difficulties with his own body. "No problem." He sighed. "Okay. Trying this again. I'm Lieutenant Commander Tony Stark."
The smile on Rogers' face was wider. "Nice to meet you, Commander." And nope, Tony was not going to be able to resist that smile. Everything in him went shivery and hot. "I... assume you know who I am, then." But Rogers held out his hand anyway. "Steve Rogers."
Tony took his hand, and shook it, and never wanted to let it go. Rogers' grip was strong, and he clung to Tony's fingers for a little too long. Poor guy was probably touch-starved. Tony just happened to be around.
"Nice to meet you too," Tony managed to say. "It's an honor, sir."
Rogers' expression shuttered then, going distant, and he dropped his hand. Okay, Tony thought. Bad move. Tony thought he could pinpoint, now, Rogers' smile growing fake, the slightest hint of desperation in his eyes. He didn't want to be an honor.
If anyone understood what that felt like, it was Tony.
"So, Commander," Rogers said. "What can I do for you?"
Tony had prepared for this moment. Admiral Fury sent me, he'd say. I have a proposal for you. Starfleet would be overjoyed if you wanted to continue to serve. We need captains like you, sir.
"Do you want to go out to dinner with me?"
That was... really not what he'd meant to say.
Rogers stared. His lips were parted slightly in surprise, his eyes rounded, and Tony was struck by the thought that this was real, that maybe for the first time since waking up in the future Rogers had felt something that wasn't confusion or grief.
"Excuse me?"
He didn't quite say it like he was opposed to the idea; it sounded like he hadn't expected it. But that was more wishful thinking, maybe.
It was at that moment that Tony realized he was going about this all wrong. He wasn't one for stirring speeches. He wasn't that guy. So if he was going to win Rogers over, he was going to do it the Tony Stark way: by being as charming as hell, and very possibly also extremely enthusiastic about warp engine design. The full Tony Stark experience. If Rogers was going to work with him, he might as well see what he'd be signing up for.
So Tony smiled wider. "Look," he said. "I'll level with you. Admiral Fury has a proposal he'd very much like you to say yes to."
Rogers' jaw tightened. "I don't—"
"But I know this is a lot to get used to," Tony added. "And I know they've had you locked up in here since you woke up. So I thought maybe I'd take you out, show you around, feed you something that isn't hospital food. Show you the sights. It's better than—" he glanced over at Rogers' reading material, still displayed on his PADD— "history books. And then, if you want, we can talk about what Fury has in mind." He smiled again, his very best smile.
"Are you allowed to do that?" Rogers asked, frowning. "Let me leave, I mean. There are guards."
Tony shrugged. "Probably." He glanced down at his PADD and tapped out a message to Fury: Can I take Rogers out to play? A few seconds later the response came back: As long as you don't break him. Tony looked up. "Fury says yes." He hoped his smile was sufficiently dazzling; Rogers was still wide-eyed. His day had gone from boredom to a new world in an instant. "Do you like seafood?"
Rogers blinked at him a few more times and patted at his pockets like he'd forgotten something. "Seafood would be great, but... I don't have any money."
Well, he hadn't gotten very far in those history books, had he?
"Welcome to the twenty-third century," Tony said, chuckling. "There's no money."
"What?"
"There's no money," Tony said again. "Also we've solved world hunger. Did you get to the chapter about the replicator yet?"
Rogers was still staring in awe. "No money?"
"Nope. Come on, this way," he said, motioning Rogers toward the door. "You first."
"Thank you, Commander."
"Call me Tony," he said, and, yep, that earned him a look. "Really," he added. "I'm either off-duty or retired. Not sure which."
Rogers frowned again. "How can you not be sure about that?"
"Depends on what you have to say later," Tony said. "But either way I am definitely Tony. Please."
And Rogers treated him to another one of those smiles, bright and warm and real. Tony was going to need to develop some kind of defense against those, because he was going weak in the knees just from Rogers looking at him.
"All right, then, Tony," Rogers said, softly, and Tony just wanted to melt. "Show me the future."
They ended up at Alioto's, at Fisherman's Wharf. It was a little touristy, sure, but what was Captain Rogers if not the ultimate tourist in this situation? The restaurant staff, accustomed to dealing with Starfleet officers wanting to have a working dinner, had led them to an out-of-the-way table. The view could have been better, but at least it was private. At Tony's suggestion, Rogers had gone for the cioppino, and he was now methodically scraping the last of the stew out of the bowl like he didn't know where his next meal was going to come from, after having polished off most of the calamari appetizer and almost all the sourdough bread. Meanwhile, Tony was only halfway through his crab. Some of that was nerves—he wasn't really very hungry—but still, Rogers was ravenous. How much could one man eat?
The majority of the meal had been spent in silence, with occasional praise of the food; it hadn't seemed fair to talk about work when Rogers had fallen on the food like he was a starving man. Tony supposed he had one hell of a daily caloric intake, with muscles like that. For God's sake, stop thinking about his body.
Rogers glanced around the table like he'd just now figured out all his food was gone. He was eyeing Tony's plate of crab with the air of a man who would definitely not be against some more food, if it were offered, but knew better than to ask.
"I take it you liked dinner," Tony said. And then he pushed his plate over. "Here."
"No, no. I couldn't possibly—"
Tony smiled his most encouraging smile. "You definitely can. Do they not feed you at Starfleet Medical? Go on."
Rogers hesitantly pried out some crab meat out of the shell, like he'd never tried this before and had been imitating Tony. "Mmm," he said, surprised, and he definitely hadn't had crab before. Tony felt an odd swell of pride. "This is really good, thank you. And, yes, they feed me. I just— I eat a lot. I'm sorry."
He said it like he was honestly ashamed about needing to eat so much, and Tony wondered where in the world he'd grown up that this had been such a problem. Maybe things really had been different a century ago. Maybe Rogers hadn't come from Earth? Some of the colonies, even in-system, had been awfully resource-poor.
Wherever it had been, it was classified. And that was strange, too, but that made it officially not Tony's business.
"No need to be sorry," Tony said, just to see Rogers smile at him again. "It's my pleasure."
Okay, Tony might have a problem here.
After dinner, of course, there was dessert, but halfway through his cannoli, Rogers stopped and looked up and set his jaw, firmly, like he was some long-ago soldier on a battle line, waiting for the order to charge forward.
"You can break it to me," he said, and something about his voice was so very weary. "Go on. I can take it. Who are we fighting now?"
"What do you mean?" That didn't make sense.
"The war."
Rogers had been happy throughout the meal; Tony was realizing that now, only in its absence. Rogers' once-bright gaze was frighteningly dull. Resigned. What the hell?
"There's no war," Tony said, confused. Hadn't Rogers been reading history books? "Do you mean the Earth-Romulan War? We won that. You won that, basically. It's over. It's been over for more than a century. I don't understand."
Rogers' face was bleak, set. "Not that war." He sighed. "Whoever we're fighting now. There's always a war. Isn't that your proposal? That's what Starfleet wants me for, right? That's why I was revived? That's why I'm here, isn't it?"
"No," Tony blurted out, off-balance, still confused. "No and no. No war. That was the last major conflict. We're a non-military organization. That's not what anyone wants you for."
That's not what I want you for, said Tony's lecherous mind, which could really just shut up any time now.
Rogers shook himself all over, a man coming out of a lethargic trance. "Then what?" His eyes were already a little brighter, his gaze more eager. Like he might be allowed to hope. Like he might be able to do something other than fight.
"We're explorers," Tony said, and he could feel himself smiling. He put his fork down, and spread his hands wide. "That's what we do. There's a whole universe out there, just waiting. There are so many stars, so many planets, so much beauty—more than any of us can even imagine. So many worlds, so many different species that we've never even said hello to yet. So we go there. We go everywhere. That's what we want you for."
Even as Rogers' face was shining, he bit his lip. "It's a kind offer, Commander S— Tony," he said, catching himself, and Tony thrilled to hear his name from Steve Rogers' mouth even as he knew Rogers was turning him down. "But I can't see how I'd fit in, in Starfleet, these days. I'm a soldier from a war that ended a long, long time ago. I fight. That's what I'm good for. That's what I know how to do."
He was saying no, all right, but he didn't look like he wanted to be saying it. The words sounded hollow, pro forma. His face was still, his gaze faraway, his body tight, held-in. Someone had told him this once, had told him he was a good soldier, had told him he could never be anything else, and he'd believed them because he'd known he'd been a good soldier, so they must have been right about the rest of it. Maybe he'd just needed a chance to be something else.
Tony could give him that chance. He didn't know this man, and he shouldn't have been able to read him at all, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he knew what Rogers wanted.
Tony swallowed hard. "That doesn't mean you can't learn to do something else," he said, and Rogers just lit up for a split-second, like a live relay, before damping down, hiding it all. "I've read your file," he added, and Rogers started to close off a little, straightening up, like he didn't want to be just a file. "You're a hero. I know you're good. I know you're brilliant. You can turn everything you know, everything you can do, to keeping the universe safe." This wasn't going to work; Rogers' gaze was more and more remote. "Besides," he added, a little sheepishly, "it's not like I know what I'm doing either."
This got Rogers' attention. He was focusing now on Tony, his full regard like the narrow beam of a phaser blast, hot and piercing. "What do you mean?"
He was going about this entirely backwards. Tony chuckled a little, ran his fingers through his hair, and slid his PADD between them into the cleared space on the table. "Let me start from the beginning. Or maybe from the end. My name is Tony Stark, and these days I design starships. This is the USS Avenger."
He tapped the holo controls on the PADD and the Avenger sprang up between them. In miniature she was a little less impressive than she'd been in Fury's office, and certainly nothing compared to the actual ship—but it would do.
And Rogers... smiled. Like this was the first thing he'd seen in the future that really delighted him. He reached out; his fingertip went through the holo, scattering light, and he hastily jerked his hand back like he thought maybe he'd hurt it, as the image reformed.
"You made her?" he asked, awed, like someone else might ask about a child, and Tony thought, dizzily, oh, he understands me.
And then Tony was talking, and he couldn't quite stop, and even though there was no way Rogers understood the finer points of matter-antimatter intermix ratios, much less transwarp theory, he didn't shut him down. In fact, he was nodding along. Tony trailed off partway through a description of how the nacelle design formed the thinner warp bubble shape unique to his theory, because there was no way Rogers cared as much as he looked like he cared. He couldn't. He didn't even know the first thing about modern engineering.
But Rogers just beamed at him. "So what you're telling me is—the Avenger is revolutionary, and she's your creation?" Tony couldn't remember the last time anyone looked at him like that, like they were awed to be in the presence of genius. He'd been a Starfleet engineer, for God's sake; geniuses and miracle workers were the proverbial dime a dozen. He couldn't have been anything new. But Rogers' eyes were soft, and it was so heady to be... wanted. Especially by someone like Rogers. Tony knew he was already falling. For his future captain. This was a bad idea.
Tony was practically the king of bad ideas, by now.
It would have been arrogant if he'd said so, that he was a genius, but he nodded, acknowledging the compliment. "She's mine," he said. "And Fleet wants her to be yours."
Rogers' enthusiasm—it had been enthusiasm, building on Tony's, he was sure—started to flag. He slumped in his seat. "I'm not asking for special treatment."
"Nothing special about it." It was sort of a lie, but it was for a good cause. "A ship needs a captain."
"At the very least, I'm... rusty," Rogers said. The corner of his mouth twisted up. "All my experience is a century out of date."
"They're accounting for that," Tony said, and Fury hadn't told him so specifically, but given what he had planned for Tony, it was a safe bet. "You'd go back to the Academy for a bit, get a crash course in modern Starfleet, and they'd send you out there with an XO who would be... aware of your particular circumstances. Someone you can rely on. Someone who knows a lot about the cultural and technological differences. Someone who can teach you about the Avenger, too." As he was saying it, he was starting to understand why Fury had recommended him. He might have retired from Starfleet, but he could do this.
Rogers squinted. "You just told me the Avenger was the most technologically-advanced ship in the fleet. Cutting-edge. Where are they going to find anyone who knows anything about her?"
The question hung in the air between them for a few seconds, and then Rogers' eyes widened. He got it.
"Yeah," Tony said, softly. "That's the offer."
"You," Rogers murmured. "You're the offer." And then he smiled, amazed, like this was an unexpected gift. Like he liked the idea of that. But he didn't quite say yes. What did Rogers think of him? It had to be good. Tony would do anything to get him to keep smiling like that.
Tony coughed. "And this is what I meant when I said I didn't know what I was doing," he clarified. "Fury wants me as your first officer and chief engineer. I've never been Command track. Before I retired, five years ago, I was chief engineer of the USS Pandora. That's the extent of my command experience. My formal command experience, anyway."
Technically, he'd been the ranking officer for three months on Alpha Sag. Rogers really didn't need to know about Alpha Sag right now. Or ever.
He remembered the last time he'd seen the Pandora, streaking fire through clouded violet skies as she broke up in atmosphere and fell, blazing bright.
A very small smile played across Rogers' face. "It's still more recent than mine."
"The rest of the command crew would be very good," Tony added. "The best. Picked them out myself. I realize you only have my opinion to go on, but—"
"I trust you," Rogers interrupted, and then he stopped abruptly, like he couldn't quite believe he'd said that.
He'd known Tony for the span of a meal. He shouldn't.
"You seem like a trustworthy fella," Rogers continued, and who said fella unless they were in a twentieth-century holodrama? Maybe it'd had a revival. Slang a hundred years ago must really have been something. His smile now looked a little more awkward. "I've usually got pretty good intuition about people." And then he nodded to Tony's collection of ribbons, because Tony was still wearing his dress uniform. "Besides, I may not know what half of those are, but I'm guessing they don't hand them out for winning the gunny sack race on Sports Day."
Something in Tony stuttered and went cold—and then hot, and then he could breathe again, all at once. Like it didn't hurt quite as much to think about, when it was Rogers asking.
"Nah," Tony drawled. "It was the three-legged race. Good guess, though."
"Oh, gosh darn it," Rogers said, swinging his fist in mock defeat. "And I was so close."
The phrasing, the minced oath, was so quaint that Tony couldn't help but smile. Damn it, but he liked this guy. He was Tony's personal hero, sure, but he was real, too—and the real Steve Rogers, well, maybe that was even better than the guy from the history books.
Trust me, he wanted to say. Talk to me. I haven't been where you've been, but I know what losing it all feels like. But he couldn't say any of that. Not over dinner—over dessert—with Rogers not even finished with his cannoli. They were practically strangers.
Tony reached out and tapped the holo off; the Avenger disappeared.
Rogers held his gaze for a few more seconds, and then glanced away and took a bite of his cannoli.
They didn't talk about the Avenger again for the rest of the meal; the conversation retreated to discussion of the weather, how Rogers was feeling—and if he was feeling poorly, he didn't show it—and Tony was beginning to think he'd missed his opportunity as they exited the restaurant.
They walked side-by-side along the Embarcadero, eastward past the piers, and finally they paused, turning toward the bay. Rogers looked over at the shining water lapping against the piers, lifting his face up into one of the rare patches of sunlight as if he could photosynthesize. He hadn't seen daylight in a century, after all. He was smiling.
"You miss this place?" Tony ventured.
Rogers shook his head. "Wasn't here often enough to miss it. Maybe only once or twice. It was... a long time ago. Very different, then." He half-smiled. "There's still the water, though. The seagulls. Those damned noisy sea lions. Not everything changes. But it's not like I was here for long, either. So." He shrugged.
Huh. "You didn't go to Starfleet Academy, then? At all?"
"Nope," Rogers said. "I was a MACO." It was just like his personnel jacket had said, but there was the slightest hesitation in the words. "Went to West Point, for a bit. And then Jupiter Station, and then Luna." It sounded like a recitation of facts when he said it. He paused. "You don't have MACOs anymore, do you?"
"No need for them," Tony said. "No wars, no infantry."
Rogers looked a little wistful; his gaze went past Tony, trained on the endless horizon. "They always said that, you know. The Great War. The war to end all wars, they said. And then there was another one. There's always another one." Tony thought maybe Rogers had his history mixed up; wasn't that one of those old Earth wars? "But now I wake up and—maybe humanity got it right, finally." He shook his head. "Hell of a thing, to find you're... not needed."
The look in his eyes was faraway. Lonely.
"You're needed," Tony said. "Believe me. You are."
Dubious, Rogers' face twisted up. "How do you figure that?"
"You're a born leader," Tony said. "I can tell just looking at you. You could do something else if you wanted—we could find you something else—but you thrive on command. We don't need soldiers, but we do need captains. You want to be out there, with people looking to you. You want to take care of people. You want to help people. I know you do. That's what we do, and... there aren't a lot of people out there who can do that job. Not like you can. And I can help you."
It was easy to picture Rogers on the bridge of a starship, head up, confident, giving orders. It was terrifyingly easy to picture himself at Rogers' side.
He wanted this.
Rogers chewed on his lip. "If they hadn't found me, they'd have given someone else your ship, right? Starfleet can't be hurting for officers that badly. There must be enough people out there like me. People who have actually trained for this."
There's no one out there like you, Tony wanted to say, but it was too soon.
"So serve with them," Rogers continued. "Why not?"
He didn't know about Alpha Sag. He didn't know about any of it. Tony swallowed hard. "Okay, fine," he said, painfully awkward, and it was like ripping himself open, handing Rogers what was left of his beating mechanical heart. "You want the whole damn selfish truth? I used to be good at this. I used to be very, very good. One of the best. And then I left Starfleet under... less than ideal circumstances. Fury's been offering me everything under the sun for the past five years, trying to get me to reactivate my commission. It's never worked. Not before. But I— you— today— I look at you and for the first time I think, I think maybe I could do this again. I think maybe we could do this together and maybe we could be a team. I know you don't know me. I know there's no reason you should care what happens to me. But you want to be needed? Then I need— then you're needed. How about that?"
He'd said too much. He'd definitely said too much. That was Tony's problem: he fell too fast, too hard, and no one ever liked him as much as he liked them. Why the hell would Rogers care about him? Miserable, overexposed, he shut his eyes.
A hand landed on his shoulder. "Hey," Rogers said softly. "Hey. Tony?"
"Yeah?"
"If I don't take this mission, what are you going to do?"
Tony shrugged. He could feel the weight of Rogers' hand, pressing down, but something about it was a comfort. "The usual. Go back to New York. Redesign a few engines."
"You're from New York?" There was honest pleasure in Rogers' voice, and Tony opened his eyes to see Rogers smiling. "New York's... still there?"
"Still there," Tony confirmed. "I live in Manhattan. Born and raised. Decided to go back home after I got out."
"No kidding?" Rogers breathed, enthralled. "I was born in Manhattan," he added, like he didn't know that part of his record was classified. "Grew up there, before I joined the— the MACOs." He gave an exaggerated wince. "Of course, it's probably much nicer there now than it used to be."
It was a strange thing to say, because the entire New York metroplex had been pretty goddamn affluent for, well, centuries. Oh, well. Maybe Rogers just assumed everything was better in the future. "I should have taken you home with me," Tony said, and then he realized exactly how that sounded. "I mean, uh. Showed you around New York."
Rogers squeezed his shoulder. "I'd like that," he said, and there was no coyness to his tone, no artifice. "If you showed me around." He wasn't exactly flirting, but he wasn't exactly not, either. And he smiled. Like he liked Tony. Like Tony could be someone he liked. And he paused. "Maybe for shore leave sometime, huh?"
Tony blinked. "What?"
"Well," Rogers said, like this was all perfectly reasonable, "I assume we're not getting a lot of liberty from here on out. We've got a ship to launch, as I understand it. And I've got a lot of remedial reading beforehand." He patted Tony's shoulder once more and dropped his hand.
Tony realized he was smiling; it felt like he'd never stop. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt like this. "You're in?"
"I'm in if you're in," Rogers said, and his eyes glinted bright and determined. "You seem like a swell guy. And far be it for me to turn down the best chief engineer in Starfleet."
Tony held out his hand for a handshake. "Thank you, sir. Thank you so much."
But Rogers pulled him into a hug, instead. And they stood there, just like that, arms wrapped around each other, two weary souls just beginning to find comfort in each other.
And then Rogers pulled back and smiled a smile with an awful lot of promise in it.
"And Tony?" he added. "I'm off-duty too, you know. It's Steve."
"Steve," Tony said, and Rogers—Steve—let him go with the barest hint of a crooked grin. "Got it."
Caring was what got you hurt, he tried to tell himself, but he had the feeling that maybe it was already too late for that.
Waiting in the non-priority transporter queue back at HQ, Tony pulled out his PADD and tapped out a one-word message: Yes.
He hit send and all the air went out of him at once, a punch to the solar plexus, an irrevocable decision. He remembered his father's raised voice, the day Tony had announced he was joining Starfleet. It was that day all over again—and for all that he knew exactly what he was signing up for, this time, he still felt that same rush of elation, that spark of joy. He was going to go see the galaxy, and this time he was going to do it with Captain Steven Rogers, practically the only non-fictional hero he'd ever had, growing up.
Steve. He wanted Tony to call him Steve.
Tony stared at the message sent screen, waiting for Fury's reply.
His PADD blinked. Incoming message... from Carol Danvers.
Well, that was fast.
Tony, she wrote, by the Great Bird, what did you do? And since when are you a full commander?
He could picture Carol's face. She'd be smiling, he was sure.
Since about thirty seconds ago, he typed back. I'm coming back, Carol. A ship I designed. The best crew. And you won't believe who the captain is. Join me. He paused. What if— God, what if she said no? She had so many other offers, after all—she wasn't the one who'd fucked up her life. If you want, he added.
There was a pause. Carol was typing.
You idiot, she wrote. Of course I'm with you. You don't even have to ask.
There was another pause.
Just so you know, Jan will probably try to comm you in about ten minutes. She'll probably start crying. We missed you, Tony. Welcome home.
And then Tony was at the head of the line, stepping onto the transporter pad, and he tried to tell himself he wasn't going to cry as the beam swept him up.
He was going home.
And then he was really going home.