Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers, or any characters associated with Marvel.

The Same Inside

"A hero? Like you? You're a lab rat, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle!" – Tony Stark

Steve was learning to hate Mondays.

Back in his day (and God, didn't that make him sound like the old man that Tony insisted on teasing him about), he didn't really have much preference for any day of the week or any resentment towards any day. Now, in this crazy time, he was starting to hate Mondays.

Because it seemed, at least to him, that geniuses tended to experiment on weekends and then on Monday, they would unleash their crazy experiments on others. When this was confined to the Tower and was the result of the two resident geniuses, Steve was fine with it (although every Avenger agreed to never speak of the time that Tony somehow gave the toilets sentience. Luckily the toilets had gone back to normal). When the crazy experiments came from kids who were in over their head or from actual villains, Steve had a legitimate problem. And it always happened on Monday.

Today's villain, who called himself Chaos Creator (which appeared to suit him), had apparently created some sort of ray gun that gave a variety of results since nothing that was hit with it ended up the same way.

Steve quickly threw his shield at the mailbox that had come to life and was currently attacking citizens like a rabid dog. The vibranium shield cleanly cut through the box and mail shot up and fluttered in the air. As his shield ricocheted back into his hand, he took the time to check up on the rest of the team, which had split up to deal with all of the chaos. "How's everyone doing?"

"Well, I'm picking off some carnivorous hamsters. I always knew those things were evil." Clint commented from wherever he was perched. "I've got eyes on Hulk. He's currently having fun smashing up some cars that turned into a robot straight from Power Rangers."

"That was fairly anti-climatic." Natasha commented, before explaining further. "A beam from his gun came out of nowhere, but all it did was turn a streetlight into a patch of flowers."

"I am merely knocking out some Midgardians that were hit. Some apparently want my brains, while others want me to father their children." Thor reported, a bolt of lightning showing his position.

"Holy shit. Real live zombies? We are totally keeping one." Tony decided. "The fangirls can't come home with us though. They're scarier than the zombies. Although, with them, there's a chance that they weren't actually hit." Steve looked up to see him flying overhead.

"Iron Man," Steve sighed, by now knowing that any comment he made about how inappropriate that was would be ignored. "Do we have any other of these little experiments of his running around? Or have you at least gotten a lock on his position?"

"Well, Spangles, he's seems to have held off on shooting everything he comes across, so we only have to deal with what we already got. I have gotten a lock on his position, too, so let's wrap this up. Pepper wants me to show my face at some stupid board meeting this afternoon." Tony said, quickly rattling off the coordinates.

"All right. Iron Man, you and I will go deal with this guy. Everyone else, keep on cleaning up whatever he sends out." Steve ordered, hearing affirmatives from everyone but Tony. Uh-oh. That was bad news. "Iron Man, don't confront him until I get there."

"Right, Cap." Tony replied in that tone that said, "I am about to do exactly what you just told me not to do."

Steve quickly rushed over to the location Tony had given.

You see, if Tony saw a solution to a problem, he tended to launch himself right into it without discussing it or going over any other options with anyone else. It drove Steve crazy. How was he supposed to make a strategy if he didn't know all of the variables? Or if one of his teammates insisted on throwing himself in danger without even thinking about it?

It was at times like this that Steve wondered about Tony actually being a genius.

Sure, with his ability to create technology that would have existed only in Howard's dreams he was obviously a genius when building, creating, or making a way out of a sticky situation.

Then he would not call for back-up, would throw his life on the line for no decent reason, or nearly get himself killed.

Steve had realized that Tony's file was clearly wrong when he put his life on the line to save the Helicarrier and then flew a nuclear missile into a wormhole to save New York. Tony was a hero and with the way he was so willing to put his life in danger, there was no way that he was as self-centered as his file made him out to be. Steve had apologized as soon as he could, and, sure, Tony had teased him about it, but after everyone moved into Avengers' Tower, the two had gotten close.

He had made sure to stick with Tony when he and Pepper broke up. She simply couldn't handle the danger Tony put himself in, but the two had remained good friends. Still, Steve managed to stop Tony from drinking two much, convincing the genius to help Steve catch up with everything he had missed.

And soon, Steve had found himself falling in love.

Of course, he checked with Natasha, who he knew could keep her mouth shut about his feelings, that such relationships really were all right today. He had never cared about what the gender of people who were in love was, but the general thought when he was younger was that it was wrong. Despite her reassurances, Steve still made sure to keep his feelings secret from Tony. Who knew how the genius would react?

Steve had no intention of letting Tony get hurt unnecessarily though. Unfortunately, given his nature, there was a high probability.

Hence the rushing to Tony's location.

Over the comms, Steve suddenly heard Tony cursing.

"He fucking used it again!" Tony said. "The electronics store got hit and now it's like Attack of the Computers."

"Almost there." Steve rounded the corner, took a single look at the situation, and let his shield fly.

Similar to the mailbox Steve had fought earlier, it seemed that all of the appliances in the near-by electronics had gained sentience. Tony had cell phones and tablets biting at the edges of his suit that he was trying to brush off while simultaneously blasting at the TV's that were approaching with cables crackling with electricity. Somehow, some laptops and cameras were flying around like annoying birds and swooping in to try to bash in Tony's head.

Steve swiftly cut through the throng, throwing his shield to push back the televisions and crushing the smaller items with punches and kicks. The bit of trouble he had had when he first tried using these things was actually coming in handy, and it was all too easy to get rid of the things, but there were a lot of them.

Fairly soon, Steve was almost near Tony. His shield had just taken out the last TV, but it had gotten stuck and hadn't returned. Considering it was mostly just cell phones and cameras left, that didn't seem to be much of a problem. Over the comms, Steve heard the other say that they were coming over, since the sensors indicated that the guy was still in Tony and Steve's area and all of the other things hit by the ray gun had been neutralized.

That was when Steve caught something out of the corner of his eye. Turning to look, he saw the Chaos Creator guy standing there, smirking. He was holding his giant ray gun in his hands, which kind of looked like the blaster from that Galaxy Quest movie, and it was clearly ready to fire.

Right at Tony.

Tony had his back turned towards the guy, so he had no clue about what was going on. There was no time to warn him and still give him time to get away. And Steve was not going to let him get hit, because there was no telling what it would do to Tony and there was no way he would let Tony get hurt.

He didn't even realize when he started moving, but once he did, he knew that this was the only way to make sure Tony stayed safe.

Steve launched himself at Tony, pushing him away and taking the blast himself.

Searing pain lanced through his body as the beam engulfed him. Luckily, he could also feel himself losing consciousness, so the pain wouldn't last too long. Distantly, he could hear Tony shouting his name and the others' voices coming through the comm.

Hopefully, he wouldn't end up a zombie like those other people. Then again, he had the supersoldier serum to protect him, so what was the worst that could happen?

His last thought before he lost consciousness was that he really hoped Tony was okay.

AN: So yeah, I'm not done writing this yet, but I'm going to start posting this so I get it in before Age of Ultron. This takes place in a world where the team started living together after the first movie, and the events of the following movies won't really be talked about because they haven't really happened.