Title : Childhood Memories Revived
Fandom : Avengers / Captain America
Characters : Steve Rogers & Tony Stark
Rating : PG-13
Written for the prompt : Captain America, Steve Rodgers, yoyo
Disclaimer : All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.
Childhood Memories Revived
He hadn't had many toys as a child; his mother and father had always done their best, but times were hard for everyone and food had been more important than toys. He'd always understood and never resented that fact. They had always loved him, found time to spend with him, to take him to the library or the free museums. When he'd been well enough, they'd taken him to the park.
He'd always had pencils and paper, even if it was already used on one side. So the day his father had come home with a yo-yo, in all its brand-new brightly painted wooden glory was a memory he would always treasure. He had spent hours mastering the most basic of moves. He'd started with the simple up and down, persisting until his movements were steady and even and seemingly endless. He'd learned to toss it out from his hand, bringing it back smoothly into his palm, no jerking or grabbing, no fear that it wouldn't land exactly where he planned.
He'd moved on to the sleeper and the forward pass, always knowing that what he wanted was to impress his friends and family by being ready for 'Walking the dog'. He was determined though, steps in a process. He understood that this was something that couldn't be rushed , there was no point in trying to get to the end before he'd mastered the steps. It was something his mother had taught him, when he'd been frustrated with his drawings. Practise and focus. Repeat the bit that's hard over and over again until it becomes second nature and then you can move on. He'd applied the theory to his yoyo skills as well.
It was something he'd never stopped, just like his drawing. Tucked in the corner of his pack as he'd left for war was a yoyo. Not a yoyo, but THE yoyo, the one his father had bought all those years ago. That most treasured of possessions. It still came out when he was alone, a way of steadying his nerves. Sometimes he would try the more difficult tricks; walking the dog, orbit launcher or around the world, all his attention on the yoyo, mind emptying for a while of all the stresses and pressures of his life now. Other times, he would fall back on the easy, the mundane simplicity of the basic moves, a way to calm himself with routine while he pondered all the different ways of getting through the days ahead.
His yoyo was a part of his life, a necessity to get him through. He'd never lost it, until the day he took the Red Skull's plane and crashed it into the ice.
He'd woken up in a strange new world of glitz and noise, flashing lights and incessant action. A world of demands on his time and attention that made no sense, that offered no respite. He was worn, the edges of his self frazzling under the pressure. He found as much retreat as he could with paper and pencil, but it was not enough.
He worked out in the gym, going through punch bag after punch bag, destroying them in his quest for respite. Fury complained about the damage, but he couldn't stop himself.
Then one night, Tony appeared. Unusually quiet, he stood in the doorway as Steve took apart yet another punch bag, watched silently as Steve staggered spent to the wall, and dropped down to a crouch, head in his hands. Tony crossed the room and dropped to sit down beside him.
"I guess a whole lot has changed since you were around before and it's taking some getting used to," he said in his usual cut to the chase manner.
"You think?" Steve replied sarcastically.
"Ooh, very twenty-first century of you there, Cap! Picking up the modern vibe as you go."
Steve turned away, trying not to rise to the bait, knowing that he had been as out of line as Tony had. He breathed slow and steady.
"Sorry," Tony said, suddenly.
Steve's head twisted sharply to look at his companion. The apology was unexpected to say the least.
"I guess it really has been a lot to take in and maybe I should cut you some slack."
"You don't need to do that, Tony. I don't expect you to do that."
Tony's head tilted to one side. "My father and I weren't close . . . I figure things happened between the end of the war and me being born and my mother becoming . . . what she was . . . he wasn't the man you knew." He sighed for a moment. "I was looking through his stuff. I've done it from time to time in the past, but usually with a different intention in mind. Before I was looking for his ideas, his thoughts, to see if one of his half-baked crackpot ideas were now within the realms of possibility. He had plenty of good ideas, but he couldn't put them all into action. Too soon to find the steps between and not as good as me to be able to build them himself. I know, I know you think I'm conceited, but I really am that good."
"I know you are. It doesn't make you any easier to work with," Steve muttered quietly.
Tony smirked," You're probably right. Anyway, my point. The point that I've distracted us both from, my father's diaries. I went looking for something different this time."
"Really, what was it?" Steve sighed. "Do I want to know?"
"You. I went looking for Steve Rogers, for the real Captain America . . . maybe you're not the man I thought you were. Maybe you're not a genius, but you are stupidly, stupidly brave. You think nothing of heading behind enemy lines on your own and coming back with men who'd been left for dead. You are the man I admired as a kid, but now you're a man out of his time and maybe the rest of us can't really understand that. Maybe we never really will."
"It's the past, Tony, not a different planet. All this," Steve waved his hand aimlessly, "it was potential then; now it's reality. We just didn't know then how far we'd come, how much would change."
"Howard's diaries mentioned you used to like these . . ." Tony slapped a bag in his lap. "I figured there wasn't really any of your stuff left from then and it's not the kind of thing that anyone would expect you to want so I guessed you wouldn't have one. He said he thought you used to figure stuff out with one of these."
Steve frowned, no idea what Tony was talking about. He opened the bag, read the label on the packaging and looked at the lurid green plastic within. It was nothing like the yoyo he'd had before, but maybe . . . maybe it would still work like it had used to. He opened the packaging, taking the weight of it in his palm.
"So did you do tricks?" Tony asked with a smirk.
"Some . . . it's been a long time though." He stood up, hefting the yoyo a couple of times before letting it drop and rise a few times. He tried an "Around the World", followed it up with "Walking the Dog".
Tony clapped slowly, "Neat. For someone who hasn't practised in sixty odd years, that's really not too shabby. But you might want this. . ." He tossed a book that Steve caught deftly in his free hand.
Flipping it over, Steve read, 'How to Master Championship YoYo Tricks : The Art of Yoyo Playing'. He looked at Tony.
"Just in case they came up with any tricks you didn't already know. Should keep you going awhile."
Steve smiled, "Thanks, Tony."
With a flourish, Tony waved off the thanks and pushed himself up, leaving the room swiftly. Steve watched him retreat. He wondered if Tony had realized just how much it meant. He hadn't realized that Howard had known that he had the yoyo, so he had no idea at all what Tony would have read. He decided that perhaps that wasn't worth worrying about; perhaps he was being offered chances now : the chance to get to know Tony, the chance to rebuild a life in this strange new world.
He let the yoyo drift down from his palm, gently jerking it back up again until he'd got a slow and steady rhythm going. One by one he tried all his old tricks, working out which ones he still had mastered and which ones he would need to work on. His eyes drifted to the book, tempted by the lure of new tricks to work on.
He would have time. They had given him that – time – and he owed it to his friends and family in the past to make the best of it, to build new friendships, new allegiances. Maybe he owed to Tony to start with him, together they could be a driving force, united they could make the Avengers strong.
He flicked through the pages of the book, settling on a trick he thought would impress Tony. He would master that and then they could talk.