This is a sorta not really associated with Jazz and Candles. I figured that it was perhaps a little too much romantic license. But I had fun with this, and I wanted to write it anyway. However, it can be read that way if you really want, and you squint a lot.
Pairings: Preslash/implied Steve/Tony. (Steve/Bucky if you squint and turn your head.) Implied Steve/Peggy
Summary: In a another life, he was Steve of the Dance. In this one, he's just plain old Captain America. (There's still rhythm in his chest, and they say that home is where the heart is.)
Steve has always associated the good times, the bright points in his life, with music. From the street fiddlers that would spill out on the streets for extra cash for something to do when he was younger, to the sound of his mother singing in the kitchen in those rare happy moments, of the blues singers in the speakeasies he'd sneak into with Bucky and the times with the commando's singing in pubs. He'd sit, shift his skinny limbs in place, tap his fingers and nod his head to the rhythm that would match his heart beat until even his asthma riddled lungs breathed in time to the music. But it was dance, wild reckless dance that was his true association with joy; something only finally realised when Steve was in the commando's - able to run and dance without panting. They had often taken shelter in local villages or gypsy caravans and everywhere he went, there would be a wild beat that would threaten to derail Captain America's reputation as straight up guy. Still, once the beat was in his blood, he found it hard to care enough to stop.
'Steve!" Bucky calls from his place over by the fire, near where Dugan and Morita are spinning two giggling gypsy girls around to the wild music's beat. There's a shit eating grin on Bucky's face as he jogs over to where Steve is sitting, nodding to the beat and fingers tapping in time to the music as he takes a grateful reprieve from Hitler's war.
"Not the usual kind of dancing, is it? But I think that even you could dance to this. Look, your fingers are tapping." He grins unrepentantly as Steve shoots him an unimpressed look.
"I can't dance Bucky, besides; I'm saving it for someone."
"What? For your dame? Come on Steve, don't be a stick-in-the-mud. Besides, this isn't even hall dancing where if you don't know the steps you're fucked. It's kinda more - wild. Less restrained. Look at those dames, they just move to the beat and let their skirts whirl, I don't see them doing the slide." Bucky nods in appreciation for their bare legs and unrestrained laughter. "Could do you good Stevie."
Steve looks up at him, feels the beat thrumming through his bones; wild and unrepressed, unrepentant and knows that if he starts dancing, there is the possibility that he might not stop.
He gets up anyway and Bucky gives a whoop of delight. "Atta boy Steve!"
At first he stands slightly to the side at what has become the dancing area, shifting in place, nodding his head and feeling the beat being to itch its way up his body. He feels slightly awkward but it won't be for long.
The fire sparks and the fiddle shrills as the accordion wheezes and the drummers grin their toothless smiles. Swiftly, Steve is pulled into the circle of dancing bodies as a young woman with hair black and soft as velvet, with wicked green eyes and skin the colour of cinnamon and weak chocolate, pulls him in by his arm. Then he is lost to the music, to the thrumming beat, the slim, toned stamping legs, be-chimed ankles and bare feet, whirling skirts and the reckless music of the gypsies.
Despite the fact that Steve can't get drunk and the rest of the commando's are happily lost to the strong caravan-brewed alcohol of the men, he experiences a release from the tension of being 'Captain America'. It's a good feeling.
They move on the next morning, but Steve can't keep his fingers still as they tap to the beat that has made himself its own. Despite the good natured flack he gets from the commando's, he doesn't regret the dance and the beat that has somehow wormed it's way into the fibre of his being.
He cannot dance on the battlefield- it is too rough, to fast, too full of blood and death, and when he fights, it is all fast movements and punches and throws that cannot be called elegant- they are far too viciously efficient for that. But there is symmetry in his throws, and a brutal efficiency in his movements. He recognises that with an artist's eye. He can't make killing an art form, and he can't make killing a dance, but he can make killing efficient. (And damn, that was something he thought that he'd never let himself say.)
Steve will never be a true dancer, despite the beat that tries to make him its own, but he is an artist, and in a way, dance is an art as well. He can recognise that. He can.
But in those moments before and after battle, when there is silence and pause, he moves his feet and lets his body shift to the beat that has made his body its home and he feels as free and as light as the air he breathes.
The words 'the Captain's busy' becomes synonymous with, 'No, you cannot see him, now beat it, pal, before we make this personal', which the preferred way to say, "The Captain's dancing. Now would ya give the fella some space?"
(Their Captain aint no pansy queer. He's just got his quirks. And even if he was, it's not like they're gonna make something of it. Cap's a swell fella. Dancing or no dancing.)
The beat is still there when Bucky falls, the 'one two three four five six seven eight nine and ten' of his heart slowing, stilling, until all that's left is a funeral dirge, and Steve's left with limbs filled with too much rage, and a beat in his head that won't stop sounding. The sound of drums and an angry staccato, 'onetwothreefour', pulses through his body. Fighting is the one thing that can make him feel better; Bucky's death made this personal and he'd make that death count, goddamn it!
Dance does nothing,
it leaves him,
and it was never there in the first place.
The rhythm is gone when all that is left is him and a plane that's about to bomb New York. Then, the only beat is that of his heart, 'onetwo, onetwo,' slow, faltering, and desperately fragile.
"You know, I still don't know how to dance."
And the lie feels good on his tongue.
When he woke, the beat had been gone so long, that he didn't even realise that it wasn't there. But even if he still had the beat, that thud of music through his veins, it would be clumsy and out of step with the world he's awoken to.
It grows on him slowly, it makes its home slowly in his heart with every breath, with every 'this is his normal', with every Team Building night, every early morning run with Clint, every spar with Natasha, every breakfast with Thor, every talk with Bruce and late night insomnia with Tony. Rhythm slips under his skin with every song on the radio that he's beginning to like until dance moves in him, but he does nothing but tap his fingers in time because he doesn't quite remember the rhythm and it's just a vague swell in his chest.
It grows until one day, he realises that he's home.
He's sitting in the avenger's common room in Tony's (Stark, dammit, stark) Avenger's Tower having a Sunday night wind down. The point of Sunday nights are 'to bond with each other, kick back, and enjoy some embarrassing shenanigans'. Last week it was bowling, ended when Steve accidently broke the pins, the back of the pin collector and the lane. (In his defence, He'd been distracted by a song on the radio and Stark's -Tony, Iron Man, Stark, Tony-Tony! It's Tony!- smile as he grinned at something that Bruce has said. The week before bowling, it had started off as a movie and finished as a drinking game called 'never have I ever', which Steve sort of won on default because he couldn't get drunk.
This week Clint had decided that they would have a Sunday night wind down on some electrical gaming device called a 'Whee'. He was fairly sure it wasn't actually spelt like that. But it was white and the controllers were tube like remotes which didn't need any cords, and the things that it could do made Steve boggle. Technology, even several months after his awakening, still has the capacity to amaze him.
Stark scoffed at the 'whee' and proclaimed that he could design better in his sleep, but frankly he had better shit to do, and game design was not his forte Franklin. So they all gathered in the tv room. After a couple rounds of miserably losing (only second to Thor) in a kart game, Steve gave his controller up to Bruce who took it with a bit of a nervous smile, and went to the bathroom.
When he came back after getting more popcorn as well as 'libations and sustenance of most cunningly delicious pop-tarts' for Thor, Steve found that they had switched to a different game.
It was a dancing game, and the beat of the songs, unknown, modern, but with a rhythm unlike anything else, was infectious.
Bruce has given his controller to Clint as the archer, Stark (Tony), Natasha and Thor are all engaged in motions of 'wave your arms about and swing the hips' like the figure on the TV. Bruce was grinning with barely contained mirth. They looked ridiculous, their faces rictuses of different expressions; Clint's in amusement, Stark's in slightly slap dashed and wholly spurious boredom as he made the motions with just as much effort as everyone else, Natasha's in calm concentration as she made each move perfect, while Thor's expression was that of confused determination as he swung his hips with gusto.
The beat thrummed through his veins, quickening, shifting to a one two three, one two three of quickly awakening rhythm.
Steve sat on the sidelines, fingers tapping and arms almost moving at times to this new-again movement, occasionally laughing and making comments as the rest of the Avengers made fools of their selves. After a couple of rounds where, unsurprisingly Natasha led the scoreboards, closely followed by Tony and Bruce, with Thor and Clint taking up the rear, they have a break for a drink. Tony, Steve noticed, had broke into a light sweat while the rest of them looked fresh as daisies.
It had not escaped Tony's attention that Steve had done nothing but sit on the sidelines. "What's up Cap'? He asked, slapping Steve on the bicep with one hand while holding a remote in the other. "You haven't joined in yet for a twirl, the new fangled technology too much?" He teased, waggling the white remote at him. "Or do you just not know how to dance?"
If he'd been asked before, Steve might have shrugged and said, "Never got asked until too late" and then left the question there. But the rhythm was under his skin, long forgotten movement now beginning to pulse in his veins. He remembers the dance, he remembers the movement, and Steve gives Tony the crookedest of smiles.
"No. I've danced before."
"Huh." A brief look of surprise crosses Tony's face before he chucks the remote at him. Steve catches it by reflex. "Well come on, Cap'n Spangles. Show us what you've got."
Stark grins at him with the slightest bit of challenge. You're on.
The moves are simplistic, but they're there, and the beat in his chest seizes onto them and doesn't let go. He's moving, feeling a little foolish perhaps – it isn't quite the careless movement he's used to, but it works.
Hand up, swing the hips, twirl, jump to the left, step, step, arms up, controlled arms down, jump right.
Though he's focusing on following the moves on the screen, he's also aware of the stares from his teammates he's receiving. The devil winks in him slightly, and Steve can't help but ham it up a little, swinging his hips perhaps a little more than is needed. When he gets a complicated move right and makes it look easy, Clint gives a whoop.
"YEAH! Work it Cap'! Go Captain Dance Pants!" The team catcall at him, ribbing him in good fun, even as he feels the tips of his ears flush scarlet. He grins at them and himself over his shoulder, Clint has whipped a phone from out of his pocket and is probably filming him.
When the song ends, Steve acknowledges the team's round of applause with a ducked head and a blush that threatens to creep up his cheeks. He hands the remote back to Tony, not able to help meeting Tony's eyes with a little bit of bravo. "So, what'd ya think?"
Tony raises one eyebrow, slightly impressed, but like Tony always is, unwilling to let it go without a little elbowing. "Nice moves Cap', but that was just following along."
"Yeah, not as much freedom of movement as I'm used to. Guess I'm just not used to this new fangled technology." He grins at Tony's stunned expression, which the man quickly hides.
"Oh we are so getting you on singstar. Do you sing Steve, tell me you sing." Tony bounced up and down, his exuberant personality not letting him stay down for very long.
Steve grinned and shook his head, "Only bar songs Tony, but I can do you a rousing rendition of Putting on the Ritz.
Tony brightens, "Can you?"
"No." Steve laughs at Tony's expression as he droops playfully for a second.
"Damn." Tony says, "Dance off?"
Movement is thrumming in his limbs, Tony's grin is so wide and there is a warmth in Steve's chest like someone has trapped a flagon full of sun behind his ribs. "Alright Tony, You're on."
Even as he grins at Tony, mock stretching in preparation, the rhythm slips into his heart, and it was as if it never left.
Steve is, finally, home.
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(If you're wondering, yes, I do have the sequel to Jazz and Candles in the works. It will be here, how soon, I cannot say.)