Tony Stark knows all the stories of Steven Rogers before the serum. Everyone knows those stories. Everyone's seen the displays at the Smithsonian, the photos and the information of when Steve was 5'4 and 95 pounds. But for Tony, the photographs and the bare information just isn't enough. He has to see it for himself. Even though his own father was there at the site when Steve changed from Steve to Steve, and Tony has read all of his father's recollections of the incident, right down to how firm Steve's new abdominal muscles were under his hands when before you could count every individual rib easily, Tony needs proof. Physical proof. So of course he sets out to get physical proof. And the only way he can think of gaining this evidence is to turn Steve back to his tiny, sickly, pre-serum self.

Insomnia can be helpful sometimes, Tony thinks. It's taken him only two weeks of sleepless nights to figure out something that can turn back the hands of time without being harmful to their Captain. If his calculations are right, which they normally always are, then the effects should only last a day or so. Hopefully. Tony always tells people to never take his word for anything. This is one of those times.

Everyone in the Tower knows that Steve is up with sun, going for his fifteen mile run every morning, coming back like he's simply walked out to get the mail. Everyone else is normally up by that point, in the kitchen for breakfast. Steve makes himself a cup of coffee; black, one sugar. Tony likes the little sachets of sugar, because they're easier and he's lazy. Tony took this into account and cleverly formulates his time-turning science magic product to look like sugar. JARVIS tells him it should taste pretty close to it as well, but Tony isn't going to test it (obviously), and can only hope that it's close enough to sugar tasting and that Steve doesn't notice it.

Because someone else always has the box of sugar sachets with them - normally Clint, and Tony accuses him of sucrology, to which he always defensively says 'no', so Tony thinks his point is proven - Steve asks to be handed his little bag of sugar. Tony makes sure that morning that he has the sugar box, so it isn't suspicious when he hands Steve the time-turning science magic product bag (he really needs to come up with a name for it). Steve doesn't even look at it when he rips it open and dumps it into his coffee, stirring the liquid a few times before lifting his cup to his mouth and drinking half of it in one go. He needs to drink all of it before it takes effect, so Tony sighs and settles into spreading butter over his toast. Over the course of breakfast, Steve finishes his cup of coffee, and Tony sighs again and he waits for it to kick in. Several minutes later there is a sound of distress from America's golden boy.

"What is it?" Natasha asks, hands already moving to the weapons hidden over her body.

"I-" Steve says eloquently, looking around. "Everything's dulled. Colours." Tony understands this to be Steve's colour-blindness coming in - tritanopia, he has, where the spectrum is red, white, blue and black (Tony couldn't help but snort when he read that bit of information. How patriotic. He also learnt he wasn't born with it, but acquired it through head trauma, which worried Tony a bit). Of course, at that moment, their latest acquired assassin (Tony thinks they're starting to collect them) comes down the stairs and is immediately at Steve's side.

"Steve," Barnes says, looking at his best friend worriedly. It makes Tony want to gag. "JARVIS said something was wrong." Steve looks up to Bucky and frowns, rubbing his chest.

"My colour-blindness is back," he said, "and chest pains." His breathing starts to grow wheezy, and it's clear Bucky is starting to panic. Before he can do anything though, Steve's passed out, slumping forward onto the bench. Everyone in the room winces as his body starts to reshape itself; it's silent, but it looks so strange. Tony can't help but do a little internal jig at the fact that it worked, though he keeps the concerned look plastered on his face. Ten minutes later and Steve Rogers is still sitting in his chair, just a whole lot smaller. He blinks open his eyes - they look huge on his small, gaunt face - and sits up, looking around. He was in clothes too tight just before, and now he's swimming in them. He takes everything in with something akin to shock, and shit, Tony did not factor memory loss into this equation.

"This ain't 1935," he says, and for some reason, his voice - still the same as before, or after, depending on how you look at it - shocks Tony. You wouldn't expect such a deep voice from such a small body. He looks around at everyone. "Who are you?" he asks, and it's to the room in general. He turns to look at Bucky when the man places a hand on his bony shoulder.

"Bucky?" he asks, peering up at him. "What happened to you? Where am I? Is this some kind of joke?" Bucky glares at Tony, and so, naturally, Tony shrinks back a little. The assassin's face softens as he looks back to Steve.

"Do you remember anything?" he asks, and it's some kind of sick parody, to Steve asking Bucky the same thing several weeks after he turned himself in and was living in the Tower, just under a year ago.

Steve chewed his lip. "Last thing I remember was you goin' on a date with Mary-Ann from down the street, and you came home drunk as shit and passed out on the floor." Bucky quirks a little smile at that, so it must be something that he remembered, or has a vague notion of it floating around in his brain. But then he pauses, and tilts his head.

"I was eighteen, then. And you said 1935…" Bucky shuffles around so he's standing more in front of Steve, peering at his face. "You're seventeen."

Steve blinks like he thinks Bucky is stupid for only just realising. "Yeah. Turned seventeen three weeks ago, 'member? You took me to Coney Island and we watched the fireworks and pretended they was for me."

There's a round of 'aww's from the crew, and Bucky looks up and glares at them, though there's something fond in his calculating gaze. "I can confirm this isn't 1935," he said, as if it wasn't already obvious. Tony can understand laying it all out flat for the young Steve before them. And God, he really is tiny. His arms and hands look to be all skin and bones. His cheekbones look just about ready to pierce through the pale, thin skin of his face. Steve tilts his head as Bucky speaks, curious for more information. "It's 2014." That startles Steve, and Tony guesses it would
startle anyone who's suddenly thrust seventy-nine years into the future, surrounded by unknown people and futuristic objects, and a best friend who looks older, more worn, and suddenly has a robotic arm. He wheezes, and Bucky's quickly slipping his hand into Steve's pocket and pulling out a thin, white stick and a bulky lighter. He shoves the stick - asthma cigarette, Tony realises - in between Steve's lips and lights it.

"He always carries them. Habit," he says in answer to the unspoken question as Steve takes a drag from the cigarette and focuses on calming his breathing. Bucky gently rubs his back, his face a blank mask but panic clear in his body posture. He's always been an open book when it comes to Steve. The smoke from the cigarette smells pretty awful, and Tony knows he should run and get an inhaler, because those things are a load of baloney, but Steve starts to calm down after some time, drawing in lungfuls of strange herb smoke from his cigarette, his breathing calming. He relaxes under Bucky's hand after several long minutes and blinks up at him.

"How did I get here?"