Okay, here's something to kick off July. I tried to give this story a refreshing twist from similar ones I've read. It's based in the happy AU after the first Avengers movie where everyone lives peacefully together in Stark (Avengers) Tower and there is no Ultron, or Winter Soldier, or Vision or any of the other stuff that tears them apart.
It's Christmas when Tony announces he wants to sponsor New York's Fourth of July fireworks display. Steve laughs and says that's still half a year away. Pepper frowns and wonders if that will be enough time. When New Year's comes around, Tony scoffs at the show, planning a bigger, better, brighter one in the summer. Pepper sends an email to the appropriate recipients regarding Tony's grand plans. Steve is forty thousand feet in the air, in a chair beside Natasha on the Helicarrier, while Fury briefs them on their next mission.
At the most random times, Tony will bring it up just to brag about it. When Thor lands with a resounding boom on the Tower's helicopter pad. When Bruce percolates a pot of coffee. When Clint microwaves a bag of popcorn. Natasha asks him what makes him so sure his fireworks display will be any greater than the usual one. "Because I know a thing or two about rockets and missiles," Tony replies with a rueful smile, tapping a finger lightly against the arc reactor in his chest.
Of course it can't just be a simple donation of a large sum to cover the cost. Tony Stark never does anything by halves. So naturally, there will be a party at the Tower. Anyone who's anyone will be invited for cocktails and a front row seat to the spectacle. He asks the Avengers if they have any additions they would like to be made to the guest list Pepper's prepared months in advance. Clint raises an eyebrow. "When we're not out saving the world, we're in the hospital recovering from saving the world. What makes you think we have a social life?" Tony shrugs and adds more names. Pepper crosses them out and adds others.
On a refreshingly sunny morning in May, Tony pokes Steve in the ribs and says, "You'll be there, right?" Clint lifts his head over the back of the couch and answers for him. Of course, it's Steve's birthday, where else would he be? Tony thinks that's a joke; what are the odds Captain America was born on July 4?
The months roll by and in no time at all, Steve is in high demand. Every state wants the honor of a visit from the symbol of American liberty to commemorate America's Declaration of Independence. An itinerary is composed, a strict schedule planned, a path through the continental states is plotted. The rest of the team doesn't see him for weeks, except for televised coverage of Captain America's Freedom Tour.
Washington D.C. is supposed to host Captain Rogers on July Fourth. Somehow, no one quite knows exactly how, though the press has no limit of guesses, Captain Rogers will be at the Stark Tower celebration event that night.
Every good business deal involves compromise and concession. So that is how Steve finds himself boarding a Stark Ind. private jet after a White House luncheon. Tony checks in to make sure he gets back early enough for the festivities. Pepper takes over the call and quietly asks if Steve really wants to be there, he's had an exhausting couple of months, and is he sure it won't trigger any PTSD episodes? Steve knows what that is, though it had a different name in his day. He doesn't think there should be any problem. After all, what are pyrotechnics compared to Hydra bombs?
Tony makes his rounds of the party, leaves a few inferior hands awkwardly unshaken, makes a couple clever quotes to the select press allowed access to the party, and completely owns the room by his mere presence. Pepper has an eternal smile glued to her face, even as she surreptitiously monitors the gathering and keeps things running smoothly. Clint selects a seat on the terrace and nurses a beer while he complains that the sunset takes too long. Bruce wants to explain the practicality behind waiting for dark but Thor interrupts with a rousing tale of his youth.
There's no mistaking Steve's arrival. Cheering, applause, flashing cameras, introductions, and even a repeat of The Star Spangled Banner. With smooth grace and inherent humbleness, he accepts the fanfare and endures the thousand jokes and puns he's already heard a million times. Tony poses for pictures with him and the guests eat it up. Finally, Natasha comes to Steve's rescue, pulling him away from the crowds for a supposedly private conversation. In reality, she hands him a beer he protests, pushes him into a chair, and leaves him to a short, precious moment of quiet solitude.
Then the sun dips behind the horizon, the sky darkens, and it's time for the show to begin. Tony weaves through the mob and finds Steve. He drags him to the front, assigning him a place of honor at the front of the balcony, an open spot with an unobstructed view. Then comes the breathless moment of expectation, conversations end in deference to the building anticipation. No one moves, no one speaks, no one breaths. It's quiet. It's calm. It's shattered with the fantastic launch of brilliant light breaking apart the night with an eye-catching display of colored sparks.
Everyone oohs and awes, clapping and whistling their appreciation. Clint throws a casual arm over Natasha's shoulders to bring her closer. Tony sips from his glass, content with the ego stroking his audience provides. Artificial stars scream into the sky, burning hot trails of chemical fire over the city, the streets, cars, buildings, people with necks craned for a glimpse of beauty. Steve watches silently, palms pressing against the railing of Stark's penthouse terrace. The glamorous showers of twinkling embers, blooming like exotic flowers, dazzling in a moment of spectacular red, gold, and emerald, is more stunning than threatening. He finds he doesn't mind it at all.
Until one rocket explodes with a heart-stopping bang, like the sharp crack of a rifle.
Steve stumbles back, suddenly transported to the war. Back to constant danger and never ending death. To the long firefights and desperate conflicts with enemy forces too great, too powerful. The stench of smoke fills his nostrils, his pulse stutters, breath rasping against parted lips. Pain curls, nauseating and thick, in his stomach. Memories thrust themselves at him, images wedged between his mind and his eyelids, superimposed over the flashes of multicolored light dominating the landscape.
He staggers through the crowd, past the rich guests and their fancy jewelry, the kind that catches the glittering glare of fireworks, traps it in diamond before dispelling it in shattered pieces across the polished flooring. There's interrupted darkness, shifting shadows, press of bodies packed together, bone-jarring, brain-numbing, chest-thumping thunder and it's just like it was seventy years ago. Steve swears he can feel the blood oozing wet and warm beneath his uniform.
It seems as though the crowd will never thin. Too many spines and legs and bare shoulders. Chairs and couches, tables sagging with food and carts loaded with drinks, artwork and decoration and no peace no respite no escape. He only makes it as far as the hallway. He might have gone farther if he could have. Maybe not. Either way, he ends up falling to his knees in the honey-warm glow of the empty corridor, with the only thought in his mind to take shelter before Hydra's tanks roll over his body, break his skin with enormous tire treads, allowing all the blood to drain from his exposed arteries while they grind his skeleton to powder. He'll be an unrecognizable lump of mangled flesh, submerged in a puddle of blood in the name of patriotism and bravery.
Tony would love to relax and enjoy his success. He really would. Sometimes, he sinks far into a self-loathing depression, focusing on his mistakes and failures and shortcomings and flaws and everything seems bleak and hopeless and nothing will ever be right again because he deserves every bad thing that happens to him and maybe it would be easier if he put a bullet in his supposedly genius brain and saved the world from himself. But tonight is not one of those times. Tonight, he's reminded of why life is worth living. It's about remembering the past as you build the future. Inviting others to share in your success and sitting back to watch them enjoy your wealth. Right now, on this terrace, with the fresh summer air caressing his face in approval and each delighted exclamation echoing the shrieks of scintillating rockets, he knows he's Tony Stark and he is awesome. But when Steve knocks into him, eyes wide in the brief second of illumination, Tony realizes that some things are more important than confidence and enjoyment. So he finds a flat surface on which to deposit his unfinished drink, the booming explosions the soundtrack to his decision.
It takes him a moment to navigate the interior room. To check the generous amount of seating setup for convenience. He almost gives up. Almost goes back outside to the palpable excitement of every thrilling shell as it gives way to fizzling dots of unpredictable radiance. But something propels him forward, keeps him moving past the initially fruitless search. That same unnameable feeling draws him to the doorway, out into the solitary hallway beyond. What he finds dries his mouth and he immediately feels unqualified.
Steve is jammed tightly to the wall, back flat against it, legs drawn defensively to his chest, forehead mashed on his kneecaps. His hands are squeezed over his ears in a futile attempt to drown out the roar of the fireworks' report. After first glancing around for the help he knows isn't there, Tony cautiously approaches the soldier to kneel beside him. He doesn't know what to do. To speak or be silent. Touch or not move. Stay or leave. In the end, he lays a silent hand on Steve's quivering shoulder and stays with him until the reverberating thunder stops slamming into their secluded corner of the Tower. He wonders if he should feel guilty. But Steve was okay. For the beginning. The first part. The introduction to the longest, loudest, brightest firework show in New York's history. Later, when Tony is alone with his robots and a tumbler with two fingers of scotch in it, he'll feel bad about it. But right now, there's just not time while he's focused on Steve.
The grand finale starts. Tony's hand grips harder as Steve shakes his way through the concussive blasts. Finally, after minutes, eternity, seventy years, the barrage ceases. The applause takes off, climaxes, slows and stops. A moment of quiet settles then, like the last traces of pyrotechnic smoke drifting, tranquil, until they dissipate, relinquishing the sky to the stars. It's then that Steve raises his head, cheeks flushed with adrenaline, eyes dimmed with embarrassment. Resuming the party, voices murmur in conversation, glass clinks, feet step and life carries on. Tony stands, reaching out to pull Steve up.
Steve uncurls and Tony chokes on a sharp inhale. Because Steve's middle is painted in glistening crimson.
Clint makes no effort to mask his frustration when he informs the team of superheroes in the spacious hospital room that his search yielded nothing but a picked lock in an empty penthouse apartment within sniping distance from Stark Tower. The capable nurse edges her way around the gathered Avengers, unworried because her patient will make a full recovery. Bruce wonders how something like this could have happened. Natasha vows in her native tongue beneath her breath that the person responsible will pay. Thor declares the act cowardly and dishonorable. While his friends express their reactions, Tony pulls a mysteriously procured birthday candle from his pocket, stabs it into a square of watermelon purloined from the hospital-provided dinner, and ignites the wick with a smuggled lighter. He holds the offering out to Steve, who accepts it with a smile that assures Tony he has nothing to feel guilty about.
"Happy birthday, Cap."
(Yes, according to the MCU, Steve's birthday really is on July 4. Coincidence or fate?)