A/N: Okay, pardon me for my terrible knowledge of New York geography. And second of all, ugh, ugh, ugh, prepare for some monumentally bad writing.

Tony glanced at the clock and impatiently tapped his foot loudly, earning the side-glares and soft coughs from those around him. He ignored them. The mayor droned on and on, about this policy change and this vision, about this police corruption and this budget oversight, this credit, this bank, blah blah blah. Everyone knew the mayor was just some poor schmuck stuck in this position by his rich daddy and who didn't realize the first thing about effective government. Poor kid was stumbling over his feet, every single sentence contradicting each other.

He sighed and pulled out his phone, flipping through the screens idly. He switched it off and balanced it on his knee, bored as hell. Tony looked around at the others in the gallery, some completely asleep, others listening intently and scrawling notes in their little bound books, those suckers who think they can actually change politics through petition and knowledge and a strong platform. No, that's not how it's done anymore. Maybe there was a time when that was the case, but nowadays, if you have a bottomless bank account and leverage, that's how you make a change. Those who actually get on the stage, like poor Mayor McGee up here—those are the ones that are played like puppets.

McGee said something. People clapped. Tony stood up and exited the gallery, yawning loudly. He turned on his phone. Bright sunlight hit him full on in the face as he stepped into the modern and sterile-looking lobby, big soaring skylights splashing splotches of sunshine across the floor.

He grabbed a foam cup from one of the serving tables and filled it to the brim with coffee. Tony looked around. The people watching in the galleries were now milling around, the forum adjourned, some making small talk, others in heated engagements about the McGee's speech. A stream of middle school students flowed from one of the doors, loud, obnoxious, condescending. They gathered in a huge crowd just outside the doors outside, a reeking blob of hormones and gossip. And herding them together, calmly ushering towards the door, stood the most attractive man Tony had ever seen.

He swallowed to avoid spitting out his coffee, so strong his reaction. Tony wiped his mouth and threw away the empty and stained foam cup, straightening his tie. This was his one shot, never again would he ever see such a perfect-looking man. Tony smiled to himself. He could land this one.

Tony weaved his way through the crowd, deftly shouldering past bulging bags and drinks, careful not to collide with anything that could stain. He could hear a series of muttered curses following him as he jolted people of his way, trying to catch the man before he left with his gaggle of demons.

And of course, two steps away from the man himself, he trips over an extremely short seventh grader playing with her iPod.

An arm darted under his shoulder and lifted Tony up, placing him back on his feet again. The man smiled, bright blue eyes gleaming. Tony felt his knees turn to water.

"Whoa there, steady. Hey, Shelley, put that away, okay?"

Shelley glumly looked up him, then back down. She walked away, but put the iPod back in her pocket.

"Thanks for that."

"You're welcome. And how can I help you?"

"I was just—oh, um…"

Shit, he knew. Tony struggled to come up with an acceptable reason for strong-arming across a room for a middle school teacher.

"I just wanted to say that—I really like your—shoes."

Tony wanted to slap himself so hard in his face that he would taste his own fingernails for the next three days. The man laughed. He was blond, his hair not too long, but not military-cut short either. His eyes were a blue so blue that the Pacific would be self-conscious. He stood a good five inches above Tony's head, tall, very well-built, and perfectly proportioned, with that kind of body that would look good in a suit made from plastic bags.

"I'm not giving you my number if that's what you want."

"No, I—"

"Oh, come on, Mr. Stark, everyone knows about your habits."

Oh God, so he has a brain, too. Tony felt a bit of drool roll from the left corner of his mouth. Dammit, but he recognizes him! Maybe he could still spin this…

"I—okay, you got me. Yes, I do want your number, but I'll do coffee."

The man kept on smiling.

"I have to go, Mr. Stark, I have seventy-four middle schoolers to load onto two busses."

"Wait, but—"

"Diva Espresso, today at five. Try not to be late."

He shepherded the last two kids out through the revolving doors and onto the street, out of sight.

Rogers stopped by the main office.

"How was the field trip, Mr. Rogers?" One of the office ladies asked. Rogers shrugged.

"A bit loud, overall okay."

"Thank you for coming in on such short notice, Mr. Carlson was out today and he couldn't take them."

"No problem. It's in the job description. You take care."

"See you around."

Rogers walked out into the brisk weather, a little chilled, but his cardigan trapped the heat well enough. He walked two blocks north, turned left, and continued for another three, unlocking the door to a large corrugated metal building. An abandoned warehouse.

The insides smelled like dust and drying paint. He coughed a few times and pushed through another set of doors into a long, short room, a large table in the center and a wardrobe on his left hand side. Someone painted the walls an ugly shade of green since the last time he stepped in here. It looked disgusting, but at least he didn't have to look at the profane graffiti that usually adorned the walls. Rogers stripped down, replacing jeans with sharply pressed dress pants and a suit jacket for his cardigan. He strapped a large, gold watch onto his left wrist and pulled taut a blazingly white silk tie.

Rogers pushed through the double doors, right into the main warehouse loading bay. Clint had started already half an hour ago, Rogers only late because the buses were stuck in traffic. A man's bloody and raw back glistened in the harsh light, Clint's boot on top of him, the man himself eating a snack wrap and scrolling through his phone.

"Nice of you to show up."

"Traffic."

"Ah."

"What do we got?"

"Nothing. Guy won't turn."

"You're stepping on his back. His face is in a bucket of water."

"Oh, this guy? He's been cold for... six minutes, I'm guessing."

"Why haven't you cleared the body?"

"I want to make sure he's not a world record holder."

"Get him out of here, Barton."

"Whatever, boss."

"Where's the other guy?"

"Tied up, northeast corner. I haven't started on him yet. Out cold, still."

Clint heaved the body over his shoulder, the man's cold face turning blue, all color removed from his lips, and walked out the door from which Rogers entered. Hauling the still body from the corner of the room into the center, Rogers pondered his role in society. He was a substitute teacher, working twice a week, making a substitute teacher's pay.

But most substitute teachers didn't double as a mob boss.

The man on the floor stirred as Clint walked back into the door.

"Clancy's loaded the body. Do you need him to wait for this one?"

"No, tell him to go ahead. We might need a bit of time," Rogers said, bending down to take a better look at the man, judging about how long he'll last. "What'd you get from the last man?"

Clint shook his head.

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I couldn't tell if he was sitting on it or if he honestly didn't know. Anyway, he's gone, minus a few fingers and most of his teeth."

Rogers winced. Clint shrugged.

"Plus, he was annoying."

The man on the floor was nearly lucid now, his eyes slowly opening, growing wide, then closing again, as if doing so would get him out of here.

"Who's this?"

"Quincy MacDonald."

"What's he in for?"

"He's rolled on a couple of operations out in Midtown. Potato farmer over here was muscle for Richards."

"Richards? The man from the gala?"

"Yup."

"Which ear does he chirp in?"

"We have no idea."

"So how do you know he's rolling?"

"Richards' facing twenty to life. This fucker here decided was the only man in his op not locked up."

"That doesn't mean he leaked."

"There's more. Richards had a blame system in place. Anyone leaks, he knows whodunit. Every man gets certain info, and only that man. If someone reports to the police, Richards knows which man he gave that info to. Most of it's shit, but it works. Our lawyer got a letter out of the slammer with this man's name on it."

Rogers frowned. He liked Richards. The man on the floor writhed against his bonds, eyes darting, muscles straining to break the tight cords that would never snap. He struggled to speak through the duct tape firmly plastered over his mouth.

"And the cherry on top? Guess which dumbass testified."

Rogers sighed. There's simply too much stupidity in the world.

"So Quincy. How's Richards doing? Tell me why you're here. And maybe we'll let you walk out with all twenty digits and an ice cream cone. I have a few in the back."

He's not walking out of here with all twenty digits. Or an ice cream cone. But he did have some in the back. Rogers leaned over and gently peeled the duct tape from his face. Empathy move.

"I don't know what you're talking about, this jacked up guy right there—"

"Who are you calling jacked up, you bitch on steroids," Clint challenged. Rogers silenced him with a nudge.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"So why do I hear someone telling me that you rolled on him?"

"I don't—"

Rogers picked Quincy up, hauling him clear off the ground, Quincy's feet dangling an inch off the floor, scrubbed clean despite the amount of viscera previously spilled over it.

"Yes, you do, Quincy," Rogers whispered, smiling with that smile that he knew freaked most people out. He hated using it, but it worked, more effectively than he cared to admit. Hey, if the shoe fits. "I want you to be a good little boy and tell me why you rolled, and on whose payroll you're on."

"I'm not—"

Rogers tossed Quincy town, watching him fall down heavily with a grunt, hands not free to support himself.

"A3," Rogers called out. Between Clint and him, they had a code that told them what kind of extraction method to use. The A's were beating related, B's were humiliation, C's were exposure related, D's required tools (sans the baseball bat and the crowbar, unless the crowbar is used for reasons other than beating), and E's were the "fucked-up" ones, as Clint called them. When Rogers first listed the D category, Clint winced at every single one of them, some of them he even refused to perform. So far, Rogers has never gone past D3, or drilling. By then, most people had either rolled or unfortunately, been too stupid to save themselves. If Clint ever was caught, Rogers expected him to roll over immediately. 'Don't be the hero,' he had told him. 'You'll just make yourself look dumb. And probably lose an arm or something. Don't try to make death painful.'

Clint kicked the man in the shin, right at the hollow where the bone was most exposed and snapped easily, not to mention extremely painfully. A sickening (and satisfying) crack sounded, followed by a howl of pain.

"McAllister, it's McAllister," Quincy made out through gasps of pain. Rogers sighed. He feared this would be the prolonged, bloody interrogation from movies. He had one of those two weeks ago, a long affair where the man wouldn't make a single sound, even when Clint had locked him into a tiny two by two by three box for twelve hours missing two fingers and most of his toes. They opened it up twelve hours later, and the man had passed, using the blood from his fingers to write "YOU LOSE" on the sides in scarlet, raggedy letters.

Quincy panted on the ground, still moaning from the pain.

"Do you have a family, Quincy?"

"Wife, three kids in Brooklyn," he spoke through gritted teeth. "Why? Don't touch them, you bastard, if you—"

Rogers glanced at Clint. Clint nodded. So he was telling the truth.

"I won't touch them."

Rogers couldn't bring himself to kill Quincy. The man had a family, for crying out loud.

"Send him home."

"Rogers—"

"Thank you, thank you so much, I won't roll on you, I swear by my life, I—"

"Get him out of here."

Clint rolled his eyes but complied. Steve checked his watch. He had twenty minutes to change and get back Downtown.

Tony had his chauffeur drop him off two blocks away in an alleyway to avoid the whole arrival mess and attention. Most days, he would find the longest limo he could and have red carpets and everything, but not today. He didn't want anyone finding out about his little meet-up.

He found the place easy enough. The small, cozy room smelled nice, aromatic, chocolaty and a bit sweet. No bookshelves climbed up to the roof, no faux bricks adorned the walls, but they were simply whitewashed with a few blackboards here and there advertising specials. He saw the teacher sitting in the corner, reading a book. He had changed his clothes from earlier. Tony slid into the opposite seat.

"Hello."

"Hello, Mr. Stark."

"Stop calling me that. And I don't even know you're name."

"Rogers. Steve Rogers."

He held out his hand and Tony shook it.

"Did you want anything?"

"Plain black coffee, no sugar, no cream, if you would so please."

"On its way."

Tony stood up and made his way to the barista. She smiled at him and batted her lashes. Tony ignored her. He ordered Steve's drink along with an iced latte and sat back down. The barista had scrawled her number on Tony's drink. He smeared off the pen with his thumb.

"So what were you doing at city hall?"

"I needed to talk to the McGee. I got some letter the other day saying my building was too tall or some shit like that. Who does that? Who sends you a letter, three years after your building has capped off, saying that it's fifty feet too tall?"

"Most people don't own buildings."

"Well this fucker does. And I checked the code, Stark Tower is perfectly fine."

"Why the mayor? Shouldn't this be brought up to city planning?"

Tony waved off an errant fly.

"It's quicker through McGee. That guy's a real imbecile. He's been in office for what, two years, and he's pushed for what change, exactly? It's a miracle he even got into office with the platform that he had. Well, I say miracle."

Steve shifted uncomfortably.

"He does a fine job. Not great, but fine, if you ask me."

Tony shrugged.

"Be my guest. So, Steve, can I call you Steve? You're a teacher—"

"Substitute," Steve corrected, "substitute teacher."

Tony raised his eyebrows.

"Oh, okay, substitute teacher. I've always wondered, and pardon me for asking, but how do you guys get by?"

Steve laughed.

"Odd jobs. I only sub three times a week. Other days I… I have other jobs. I'm a chauffeur on Sundays from ten till six, and a bartender from eight till two. On Mondays I sub, and then I'm a bouncer at the same bar I manned the night before. And so on. The pay from the subbing is negligible, but… yeah, the other jobs pick up the slack," Steve said, the lies coming out thick and smooth.

"Really. Huh. Ever thought about settling down?"

"Yup. And nope."

Tony checked his watch out of habit. Five-forty. "And what about you, Mr. Stark? How do you make money? I've never understood how CEOs get paid."

"I'm not the CEO, I'm the owner, thank you very much, as well as the chief and only inventor of Stark Industries. Stocks, mainly, that's how I do it, and patents. The patents are nice, considering the number I hold. I take a normal salary from the company, not too extravagant, but it's a good amount."

Steve nodded. They had been skirting around the elephant in the room; how Steve basically was the object of every single woman's desires ever, and how he was now sitting in a bar in Manhattan having coffee with New York's biggest manwhore and the world's richest and smartest man. What are the odds?

"I don't do this often," Steve acknowledged.

"Do what?"

"Go out."

"Do you get invitations a lot?"

Steve shook his head.

"Are you kidding me? With… that?" Tony asked in surprise as he gestured at Steve's body.

"With what?"

"Do you work out or something?"

"Sometimes, when I have the time. I know I'm fit, but—"

"Dude, I know people who would actually try anything for a body like that. Like, crazy voodoo rituals and the strangest concoctions you've ever heard of. Whale blubber and yogurt is a common one."

"Yuck."

"But seriously? You don't get asked out? You don't get numbers on your cup? Free drinks, stuff like that? Girls going up to you and literally bending over backwards just to try to get your attention?"

Steve shook his head again. Tony sighed. He tapped on the shoulder of the girl sitting at the table next to his. "Hi, sorry to bother you, quick question. Would you go out with him?"

"Yes."

"See?"

"Was that an offer?"

"No."

"Every time," she muttered, opening her book again and angrily biting her croissant.

"See?"

"Okay, that was one time."

Tony rolled his eyes, stood up on his chair and loudly cleared his throat.

"Hi, everyone, look up here—hi, yes, everyone. Okay, would you go out with this charming man over here? Wave for everyone, Steve, oh come on, don't hide."

"Oh my God," Steve groaned, hiding his face in his palm. But the entire shop murmured its assent, men included.

"Yeah, man, I'd fuck you," one brazen man called from the opposite wall. Tony sat back down in his seat and grinned.

"That was so very kind of you, Mr. Stark," Steve dryly droned.

"Oh, God, just call me Tony. "

Tony heard his stomach roar like a caged lion. He hadn't eaten since breakfast, and even that was half of an everything bagel plus an apple. "Hey, do you know any good steakhouses around here? I'm starving."

Clint paced nervously in the bathroom, wringing his hands. The boss would not like to hear this. The door opened, and Rogers stepped inside the cramped room.

"What is it?"

"Sorry to interrupt you, but—"

"Before you start, I just wanted to ask if you had any breath mints on you."

"Uh, yeah, sure," Clint answered, digging around in his pockets and handing Rogers a tin of Altoids. "But we have—we have an incident in Brooklyn."

"Shoot."

"Pryce's in the hospital with gunshot wounds and Purcell's… Purcell's gone."

Rogers' jaw twitched.

"What happened? And what do you mean gone?"

"We lost contact with Purcell at around the time we got red flags down in Pryce's district. We still don't know what happened yet. I have Wilsons and Nicks scanning for Purcell, but we're thinking it has something to do with—boss, hey!"

Rogers exited as quickly as he came in, the door swinging behind him.

Steve slid back into his seat, looking tense.

"Something wrong?" Tony asked. Steve had left in the middle of a divine prime filet; he didn't choose wrong, this place was as good as he remembered it.

"No, no, it's just… there's a little incident down in Brooklyn that concerns someone I know."

"What?"

"It's nothing. So what were you talking about?"

"Steve, I'm a bitch, but if you have to go right now, just go. The steak can wait."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Go."

"All right. I'll see you around."

Steve tossed a hundred dollar bill on the table and shuffled between the tables (giving Tony a pleasant view of his backside) and exited the restaurant. Tony pocketed the Franklin and set down his own credit card. He was a substitute teacher, dammit. He'd hand it back next time. The bell on the door jangled again and Steve ran back inside.

"I need a ride," he admitted.

Rogers got a call from Clint.

"If this is more bad news, I will—"

He remembered he wasn't alone in the car.

"We found Purcell."

"Is he…"

"Still breathing."

"How bad?"

"Beaten up pretty badly and close to drowning. Nicks fished him from the river with a bag of rocks tied to his feat. He was holding onto a pier."

"Jesus. I'm on my way. Which hospital?"

"Mount Sinai." Rogers broke off the call and sighed.

"Mount Sinai," he added, directed towards the taxi driver. Until this point, they had been heading in the general direction of Brooklyn.

A frown grew deeper on Tony's face.

"I don't mean to pry, but I have no idea what's going on."

"One of my friends was shot."

"God."

The taxi swerved across three lanes of traffic and nearly clipped the red light. Instead, the driver screeched the brakes down hard and sent Rogers and Tony face-first into the headrests in front of them. There goes the tip.

"No, you don't understand, I'm his emergency contact."

"Are you Shri Chandragupta?"

"I'm his… his colleague."

"Sorry."

"Fine, fine," Rogers growled, frustrated. Pryce was in there, twenty feet away, and Rogers couldn't even see him. Tony stepped up to the receptionist. He slipped a fifty. Then another when she didn't say anything. She cracked finally at two hundred.

"I'm going to go take a bathroom break," she announced loudly. Steve pushed through the double doors and jogged down the hallway, Tony behind him. He opened the door into the ICU and was startled by the sight.

"Hi, boss."

Matthew Pryce, sitting there, calmly spooning tomato soup into his mouth, a thick layer of gauze over his left leg and a bandage on the back of his hand, not to mention a nasty bruise covering his left side, but otherwise unharmed. He spilled some soup over his hospital gown.

"Shit, that burns."

"Pryce, I thought you were…"

"I was. Just not badly. Not sure what shit Barton fed you, but I'm fine."

"Did you see who shot at you?"

"Shot? What shots?"

"Clint told me you were shot."

Puzzlement clouded Pryce's face.

"I was biking and I hit a car."

Rogers stewed for a moment, Tony in the corner, seated in a flimsy plastic chair, thinking. Rogers threw open the door and stepped into the hallway. He angrily hit the speed dial for Clint.

"Barton," Clint answered.

"You have three seconds to tell me why the hell Pryce doesn't have a single ounce of lead in his body."

"What?"

"It was a goddamn bike accident, Clint!"

"No, there were three shots fired, two in quick succession, one two seconds later."

"Who gave you the info?"

"I—I heard them myself."

"What?"

"I saw Pryce go down. I took him to the hospital, and then went to go get you. And I still have no idea why you had to get a ride from Tony when I had a chauffeur sitting out on the street waiting for you. How do you think I got to the restaurant?"

"You're telling me that you saw, with your own eyes, Pryce go down in a barrage of bullets. And you took him to the hospital."

"I called the ambulance, staunched the bleeding, and then rode with Pryce to the hospital, yes. Three shots, two of them hit, one of them in his left hand and the other in the thigh. It missed the femoral by a centimeter. I didn't get the gunman."

"I'm looking at Pryce right now, and he looks perfectly fine. He claims it was a bike accident."

"What the hell?"

"Did you see your Pryce go into surgery?"

"Yes. I waited outside the door until the light went on that meant that they started cutting and slicing and whatever. Then I sprinted to the car and had them drive me to the restaurant."

"So now we have one Pryce dying of two gun wounds that you sent into surgery, and another one sitting right here ladling tomato soup into his mouth."

"I think I have an answer to that," Tony called, rolling a choking Pryce onto his side. "Code blue," he called, ripping open an intubation kit with his teeth. The monitor beeped loudly as Pryce's heart rate spiked, then flatlined, Pryce's organs failing all at once, his diaphragm stilled, his windpipe inflamed, his heart pumping nothing but air. Nurses rushed into the room, where Tony had already swabbed Pryce's neck with iodine, about to start a tracheotomy.

From his standpoint, Rogers couldn't see the chaos. He could only see the two tiny exit wounds, one on Pryce's hamstrings, and the other in the palm of his hand.