Steve tilted his head slightly to the side as he considered the sculpture. The small wooden plate below it named it 'Permission', but he could make heads nor tails of the two, jagged, metal pieces.

He took a few steps around the sculpture and was finally able to envision two people who were either fighting or dancing with each other. He would have called it by a different title, had he made it himself, but then again the great thing about art is that everybody can see something different in it.

He stepped away from the sculpture and walked on, occasionally glancing at an art object or stopping to admire it at a closer distance. Some were interactive, which was in fact the main idea of this exhibition: to make people interact. Steve however preferred watching other people's reaction to the art pieces, contrary to being part of them.

The next room he wandered into appeared to be split in half by a wall. It started in the middle of the door arch and split the room in two halves. Steve glanced at both sides and then chose the left side, thinking that when he left the room he could double back through the other side so he wouldn't miss any of the art pieces.

The side of the room he had chosen was rather empty. There was only a large screen mounted onto the middle of the dividing wall. It was the size of a mirror, but Steve could clearly see that it was a television screen.

Not the high definition of the television of the present and not even close to Stark TV's. The title of the piece was 'Meeting' and below it, it had the instructions to wait for another person to come stand on the other side and start a conversation without telling your name.

Steve wondered what the leaving out of a name was supposed to mean. Anonymity? He was about to walk on when another person came to stand on the other side. Steve halted, thinking he should at least be polite like his mother taught him and greet them before moving on.

The person on the other side was a woman. She looked to be about a head shorter than him and had long dark brown hair with a slight curl. Her eyes were a warm brown and she had an interested grin on her face. She wore something grey.

'Wow,' the brunette woman said. 'You're really beautiful.'

Steve floundered for a moment, not thinking the conversation, or any for that matter, would start out like this. Not to mention that the art piece also gave a metallic lilt to her voice. It made him think he was talking to an AI instead of a real person.

'Um… thank you?' he finally answered. 'Though I personally prefer handsome.'

That was right, right? Men were called handsome while women were beautiful? Or had that changed?

The brunette woman on the other side looked him over. Her eyes lingered on his chest and had a mischievous glint in them.

'I guess when you're that tall, people usually say that yeah,' she said. 'But I kinda call whatever draws my attention beautiful. It sometimes startles people, but I enjoy watching their reactions.'

Steve was now even more convinced that this was an AI. Was her purpose to compliment all visitors and record their reactions? Perhaps later he would come to a screen where he could see his own reaction. There had been a piece like that earlier on that showed a reel of people getting scared.

She tapped thoughtful with a finger against her chin. 'Quite often people think I'm not sincere, while I'm just commenting on a piece of jewelry or nice clothes. Wonder what's up with that? Perhaps they feel insecure of their own choices, or I simply don't look believable.'

She lowered her hand away from her face and motioned to her body. 'What do you think: do I look trustworthy or not?'

Steve now had to laugh. The AI talked a lot and he could figure out why people wouldn't believe her. People were at first glance always suspicious of anything digital, him included, though he had gotten over that rather quickly. He always had been eager to learn about new things, and technology was not an exception.

'Perhaps it's because they assume that your compliments are the result of a program running through several possible scenarios, resulting in a genetic compliment that holds no real emotion behind it?' he suggested.

So yeah, he paid attention to when Tony discussed things with Bruce, even if he always pretended to be sketching or reading while they were at it. Steve was good at multitasking.

The AI appeared to be impressed with his explanation and her brown eyes were blown wide open. The maker of this program had really done well with her emoting.

'You talk tech! You've got both looks as smarts! Awesome!' she grinned broadly, but then the grin suddenly fell away and her brow furrowed. 'Wait, I'm programmed?'

'Oh…' floundered Steve. 'I'm sorry. You were not aware of that?'

The AI now stared suspicious at him and pushed her hands in her pockets. 'What do you mean?' she demanded to know.

Steve recognized it to be a defensive move that Tony also used when he felt out of the loop. He glanced at the corners of the screen, thinking he had figured it out. The screen was probably Stark tech and the AI was, just like Jarvis, developed by Tony. Why had Tony not told him about this?

'I was asking you something!' the AI demanded to get an answer.

Tony making it would also explain her distinctive speech.

'I'm sorry ma'am. I didn't not mean to um… cause an existential crisis but-' Steve started to explain. He held his hands in front of him in the placating universal sign of surrender. He felt bad about this, but wondered if no other visitor had ever told the AI this. That seemed inconceivable.

'Ma'am?' the AI woman now repeated and her mouth fell slightly open before she closed it and stared suspicious at him. 'Okay… I could ask you to explain this, but I have a better idea.'

She stepped out of sight of the screen and Steve blinked surprised at the unexpected ending of that conversation. It left him feeling disturbed and he wished he could call out to her and make her come back. At least so he could apologize for, well whatever had upset her so.

'I'm sorry?' he offered and leaned closer to the screen. 'I didn't mean to insult you.'

He quickly took a step back when he heard a familiar voice coming from his left side. 'Steve?'

His head whipped around and he stared surprised at none other than Tony Stark. The billionaire was staring rather flabbergasted at him.

'Tony? What are you doing here?' Steve asked just as startled..

Tony frowned and glanced from Steve to the screen in the wall and back to Steve again. He almost violently pushed his hands in the pockets of his expensive looking grey suit.

'Figures...' the billionaire muttered. '-should have known.'

'What are you…?' Steve trailed off and now also glanced suspicious at the screen.

'Well Cap, let me tell you one thing; you look absolutely gorgeous as a woman,' Tony suddenly told him. He had appeared almost disappointed at first, but now he had his trademark smirk on his face again as he stared, almost taunting, at Steve.

'Woman?' Steve asked, not knowing if he really wanted to know.

'Yup,' nodded Tony. 'From the other side you looked like a really tall, blue eyed, blonde woman-'

His hands left their pockets so Tony could gesture at his own chest. '-with great assets.' He let his gaze travel over Steve in the same manner the AI woman-who turned out not to be an AI but Tony-had done.

'I must say I'm a bit disappointed,' Tony continued, and didn't thát cause a spark of disappointment in Steve. Sure, he had been confused, but the art piece was really interesting and unexpected, and he had actually been a bit relieved to see his-well, friend? Teammate?-here in a place he enjoyed.

But then to be told by Tony that he was disappointed to see him… it hurt. He opened his mouth to defend himself when Tony, ever the chatterbox continued.

'Granted, you still are tall, blond, with blue eyes and busty,' he eyes glanced at Steve's chest. '-but sadly enough not a woman.'

'Well,' Steve answered curtly. 'To me you looked like a cute, brunette lady. So I can't say I'm all too glad with this revelation either.'

'I looked cute?' Tony was once again focusing on the wrong thing. 'Why didn't you tell me so?'

He fished around in his suit to retrieve his stark phone and pushed it against Steve's chest. 'You go stand there again and I'll go to the other side so you can make a photo of girl-me! This I got to see! I wanna bet girl-me is hot rather than cute though.'

Steve pushed the phone back. 'No Tony, I'm not going to do that!'

'Why not?' Tony asked looking rather perplexed to be denied.

'Because you can't just tell me you're disappointed to see me and then ask me for any favors!'

Okay, so Steve held a grudge. Sue him.

Tony stared for a moment bewildered at Steve's stern face, then the corner of his mouth quirked up. 'Okay, be honest here. Wouldn't you have preferred to meet girl-me instead too?'

'I thought you were an AI!'

'Meh,' Tony shrugged and joked: 'That's a mistake many make. But really, the only real disappointment I have is that I couldn't ask you out to dinner.'

'You uh-what?'

'-thought woman Steve was attractive? Yeah. I called you beautiful, didn't I?'

'That was the very first moment you saw me!' Steve crossed his arms, letting go of his annoyance and hurt. Tony would be Tony. 'Frankly, I feel insulted for female me that you only liked her for her looks.'

'I never said that!'

'Really? Well, I'm pretty sure she wouldn't go out on a date with you either way.'

'What! You can't say that! She totally would've!'

'She or rather I, thought you were an AI!' Steve repeated. 'I prefer my dates to be of flesh and blood.'

'Fine then. Considering I'm human and-'

'-that is still doubtful,' Steve interrupted him with a small grin. 'You wear that metal suit awfully much for you to be-'

'Oh har har!,' Tony was now to interrupt. 'What I was going to say is, let's skip this joint and got get some lunch.' He stared expecting at Steve, clearly expecting a positive reply. Steve knew him longer than today though.

'In trade for?' Steve asked rather dryly.

Tony tried to look innocent. Tried being the word here.

'In trade for a photo of girl-me?'

Steve was about to make him beg for it, but then his stomach let out an embarrassing growl. He sighed and covered his face with his hand. He felt defeated. 'Fine, give me your phone.'

He swore he heard Tony let out a 'yay' before the phone was in his hands again and Tony rushed to the other side of the wall to turn into the cute, brunette woman again.

Either way, Steve now had a date.

Steve Rogers is at an art museum and encounters an interesting character.

Published on 2016-04-15 on AO3.
Words:1912
Chapters:1/1 Notes:

This was actually a dream I had and it was an interesting concept to see a conversation play out between two people who have no idea the person on the other side is a different gender than what they see.