AN: Just a one shot focusing on Steve and Tony's first meeting, and the quickly ensuing relationship, as told from the eyes of Steve Rogers, Clinton Francis Barton, and Fury, Nicholas J.
Captain Steven Rogers heard the voice before he saw the face. The voice that he'd so clearly heard yesterday. The voice that had jokingly spouted fondue cracks at the innocent captain. The face he'd seen yesterday grinning mischievously at him and jerking his head towards Peggy and making faces. He heard Howard Stark.
Steve wasn't used to the 21st century. 70 years, he'd lost. He was still having trouble processing that. He'd been asleep, he'd been frozen, for 70 years. All of that time was virtually nonexistent to him, as if it had never happened. But it had. He'd missed 70 straight years. That hurt, it stung, all that lost time, but it wasn't that that hurt him, truly. It was the fact of the life he hadn't lived in those 70 years. He missed the people that he'd lost, that he'd left behind. He missed Peggy Carter. He'd just seen her yesterday, yesterday it felt like. But yesterday for him was in the 1940s. He'd just heard her voice, inviting him to dance. And he'd promised. He'd promised her that he'd be there. And he wasn't. He'd promised, and he broken that promise. Steve Rogers never broke his promises. More acutely, he felt the loss of Bucky Barnes. His best friend. His best friend that had died... He'd put of the fact that it had happen. He'd put off the guilt, thinking that maybe if he didn't fully admit it, if he didn't fully think about his best friend slipping through his grasp, his Howling Commando crashing to the ground below, Bucky Barnes dying, then maybe it wouldn't be true. Maybe it wouldn't really have happened. But now... 70 years later... He was forced to come to terms with it, to realize that Bucky wasn't coming back. He was never getting that dance.
He'd broken his promise to Peggy, that she'd get her dance. And he'd broken his promise to Bucky. That's what 'I'm with you 'til the end of the line' meant. It meant I'll always save you. It meant I'll always be there for you. It meant that 'til the end of the line, for better or for worse, they would be together, friends, always. And Steve had failed him. He'd missed his hand, the bar on the train snapping, sending his best friend plummeting. So Steve coped like he knew how. He remembered, and sometimes he didn't remember, and drew. And almost vainly, he tried to catch up on history. He had missed a lot.
He was doing one of the things that Steve Rogers did best when he heard the voice that distinctly Howard, but also very not-Howard in the same way. His pencil was delicately moving across the pages of his half-filled sketchbook - the man, the agent, the nice one, Phil Coulson, he was called, had given him a new one. He drew to remember, because if he forgot them, if he forgot Bucky and Peggy and the Howling Commandos and his old boss back when he was being trained and Erskine, maybe no one else would remember them and even their memory would die. So he drew them, and he drew things. He drew to remember, and he drew to forget. When he heard the voice, the Howard/Not-Howard voice, his delicate pencil lines were crafting whom he immediately thought it was. Immediately stunned because Howard was dead, he was dead, he'd died years ago, his pencil soared through his fingers and clattered to the ground beside him. Howard/Not-Howard was loudly talking to someone else, and the someone else happened to be Agent Coulson, the nice man who'd given him the sketchbook.
"Mr. Stark, please, he's adjusting, he's not having visit-"
"Horseshit! He's Captain America. I am going to meet him and we are going out for pizza and maybe a little bit of fondue."
With a loud bang that reminded Steve all too much of a bomb going off, of a metal bar bending and bending and breaking, the door of the room he was in - the room he'd woken up in - slammed open and bounced against the wall. Steve shot to his feet, his sketchbook sliding off of his lap and falling to the ground, the pages fluttering in the sudden burst of wind. The man who looked so much like Howard, the man who certainly wasn't Howard, grinned. It was a grin that Bucky Barnes would have immediately tagged 'shit-eating'. he got the immediate impression they would have been good friends, him and Buck. "Hello," Howard/Not-Howard said with that shit-eating grin. "I'm Stark. Tony Stark. You're Steve Rogers. We're going out for pizza. And maybe a little bit of fondue."
OoOoOoO
Nicholas J. Fury, director of S.H.I.E.L.D, and his top marksman, Agent Clinton Francis Barton, codename: Hawkeye, were playing a round of poker, a pile of jelly beans sitting on the table in front of them, each man holding their own hand. Clint glanced up at Fury, his face passive. He leaned forward and, with one hand, pushed his small pile of multi-coloured jelly beans towards the larger pile in the center. "I'm all in," the archer said, leaning back in his chair, sliding down a few inches in it so he was slouching, studying the director over his hand of cards. Fury arched an eyebrow at his agent. Holding his cards with one hand, he reached out to push his remaining pile of brightly coloured candy into the center. The poker game was briefly interrupted when a flurry of movement and loud voices began echoing from the opposite side of the S.H.I.E.L.D office 'lounge area'.
"I'm gonna see him, Agent!" Of course, that would be Tony. Of course he'd want to see Captain America with his own eyes. His dad had worked with him. "Mr. Stark, please. Mr Stark, we've just defrosted him a few days ago, you should wait." As the composed nanny and his (albeit reluctant) charge (Phil Coulson had been appointed Tony Stark's unofficial handler, meaning he was the one who had to put up with him) moved across the room, the two turned to watch the argument. "La la la la la, I can't hear you, Agent!" Tony said, his voice raising, his fingers stuffed in his ears. Coulson sighed exasperatedly. "Tony..."
When the pair moved out of sight, Fury and Clint pulled their eyes back to the game. "Need to turn my hearing aid down," Clint said under his breath with a laugh. Resuming his movement, Fury pushed the pile into the center of the table, joining the remainder of Clint's. It was a rather impressive stash, one that Fury, Nicholas J. was going to enjoy eating in front of Clint. Clint's eyes fluttered up from his hand to Fury's one good eye. He leaned forward, sliding his cards out into view on the table. A queen, a 10, a 7, a 6, and a 4, all spades. The corner of his lip twitched. With a barking laugh, Fury dropped his own hand, spinning the cards so Clint could have a good look. 3 kings and 2 6s.
Clint threw his head back, thumping against the back of his chair, and groaned. Fury laughed, leaning forward, and with one arm, deftly moved the large pile of jelly beans to his side of the table. Picking one up, he popped it in his mouth a chewed. Clint cracked one eye open, sliding back up in his chair, when Tony Stark's voice echoed again through the lounge area. Tony Stark was pulling Steve Rogers by one hand through the large room, past the receptionist's desk, Agent Coulson trailing behind. "You're gonna love Chicago, Cap," he told the man behind him. "They have the best pizza. It'll be fun. We'll be there in hours." He continued chattering on, the good Captain looking all for the world quite confused. Weaving through the light smattering of people, Tony tugged Steve through the front doors. "Be careful with him, Tony!" Coulson half-heartedly shouted, slowing to a halt at the doors after they passed through. "Don't worry, Dad!" Tony said, waving his other hand without turning back. "I'll have him back by curfew."
Clint and Fury exchanged a look. "20 bucks on they get together in 3 weeks," the director offered. Clint arched his eyebrows. "You're on," he responded. "I'm betting a month. Captain's probably old fashioned and Stark's probably a bit of a conceited asshole-ish narcissist." Nick Fury laughed. "You got that right, Barton."
OoOoOoO
Exactly 3 weeks after the poker game, after New York, was just a normal day for most people. But not for Nick Fury and Clinton Francis Barton, world's greatest marksman, and those were the two people who mattered. So when the Avengers - and Coulson - were seated around the table for a debriefing with Fury at the head, Steve and Tony closer together than normal, Clint stood up from beside Natasha. Everyone's eyes were on him as he moved the length of the table. He paused in front of Fury, reaching into his pocket.
He pulled out a crumpled 20 dollar bill.
AN2: Favourites, follows, and reviews are love! Hope you enjoyed!