cackling!SLJ!Fury is the funniest mental image i'll have all week.

warnings: iron man movieverse (a little au-ish). shameless pre-slash (TonyxSteve). language: pg (primetime tv).

pairing: Tony/Steve pre-slash.

timeline: let's call it ~3 years after the first movie, with the Avengers firmly established, Tony and his entourage moved to Manhattan, etc. a week after Falling for the First Time (let's call it about a month before In Her Shoes).

disclaimer: all the characters belong to someone not me. no, really. if i owned Captain America, i would never leave the house...

notes: 1) again, in my mind Alicia Silverstone is Carol and James Spader is Hank. i have no idea who would play the twins. 2) Fury as the source of pop culture correction was something i just had to do. because it would annoy Tony and therefore lead to humor. this is also the reason i think Fury would make Tony play PR-boy on top of being the money for the Avengers. 3) as always, oblivious Steve is oblivious. he has no concept of other people not being morning people. he probably gets up at six every morning and takes a jog around the block or something...XD 4) p.s. like i said, Aaron Eckhart was the guy I originally pictured as Cap, but ChrisEvans!Cap slowly grew on me. keep reading and see if you can find the chapter where he took over as Cap in my brain...

It's Swell

Tony rubbed at his eyes and tried looking again.

Nope.

The headline still read, Gee, It's Swell.

He whimpered and put his head in his hands.

~Sir, if I may interrupt your current attempt at reality denial?~

"What is it, Jarvis?" Tony groaned.

~Colonel Fury has arrived, sir.~

"About damn time…"

The door whooshed open. "This better be good, Stark, I'm a busy man."

Tony held up one of the newspapers from the pile. "Mind telling me why you didn't let me brief Theodore Cleaver before you sicced the press on him?"

"Reintroducing himself to the public was Rogers' idea," scoffed the big black man, taking a seat and propping his shoes on Tony's desk. "By the way, Leave It to Beaver aired twelve years after Cap hit the ice. Henry Aldrich was the forties' awkward teen."

"Okay, great, nice. But you wanted me to handle the Avengers' public image, you told me to get the press and the politicians to take us seriously, and Pepper c—I can't do that when you let little Stevie Rogers toddle out in front of the cameras and say, 'Gee, it's swell.'"

"I think you'll find that's not actually what he said."

"No!" Tony laughed, a trifle hysterically, and dug through the papers to find one with the exact quote. He cleared his throat. "When asked his opinion on the twenty-first century, Mr. Rogers gave a boyish smile and blithely replied, 'Gee, I haven't seen much of it yet, but so far it's swell.'" Tony flung the paper into the air. "And that was Merriweather, the nicest one of the bloodsucking bastards! You let Christine goddamn Everhart into that room with him! I thought I was a PR nightmare…we're a laughingstock."

"Surely that's not an unfamiliar situation for you, Stark," Fury said snidely.

~Excuse me, sir.~

"Not now, Jarvis, I'm busy having a stroke," Tony snapped.

~Quite. However, I thought you should know that Captain Rogers is, in fact, about to knock on the door.~

"Great!" Tony fell into his chair and threw his arms up. "Let him in. Might as well."

Two knocks, polite but firm.

"Come on in, Steve," Tony called, setting his chair spinning with an idle kick of his foot.

"Hi there," Steve greeted as he came in the door and shut it behind him. "Thought I'd come see how you were—Miss Potts said you were looking panicked about the press conference, and Pete wouldn't stop laughing over the Times, which seemed to put her off a bit."

Still spinning, Tony sighed. "Got an idle question for ya, Stevo."

"Uh, is it okay if I sit down?"

Tony flapped a hand. "Oh, sure, sure, go ahead, have a seat. Out of curiosity, when was the last time you talked with the outside world? Was it before or after you punched Hitler's lights out?"

"I can't see what there is to be sore about, but it sounds like you're trying to be mean."

Tony laughed again, slowly spun to a halt half-facing his guests. Fury looked smug. Steve was leaning forward with a little frown of hurt feelings. "Seriously, Steve, aside from the Avengers, SHIELD, and the military, when was the last time you spoke to someone in America?"

The big blond shifted a little. "Well, I guess it would've been around nineteen forty-four sometime. Obviously, language is going to change with the times, whole new words have to be made up for new technology, after all…"

"Nineteen forty-four," Tony mused. "Oh, god. Forty-four to present, full-speed, half-cocked, and minus one translator. Nick, you did that intentionally, didn't you? What were you hoping to accomplish? Or was it just to get back at me for those quotes about you in Time Magazine?"

"I don't understand—I thought it went well," Steve said.

Tony picked up the remaining newspapers from his desk and spun his chair again, idly flinging page after page of newsprint over his shoulders. "Oh, sure it did. If you like press conferences that turn into media circuses. I can see it now…'Avengers looking to disapprovingly shake fingers at a bad guy near you.' Yes, that should strike fear into the hearts of villains everywhere."

"There's no call for that sort of mockery, and I'll have you know I don't shake fingers at villains—I give 'em a good sock in the eye."

"That's great, junior, but do me a favor and stay away from the press until somebody's caught up your vocabulary to at least the eighties."

"Nobody's explained to me yet why this is all a bad thing."

Tony heard Fury snort and shot him a venomous glare. Then he picked up a fallen front page and held it up. "Because of this."

Avengers Already Anachronistic, was the headline (unfortunately clever and gallingly catchy, Tony had to admit, but that was J. Jonah Jameson for you).

Undaunted, Steve met Tony's gaze. "Is this the part where I admit I don't know what 'anachronistic' means?"

Tony snapped. He crumpled the damn paper to into a tiny ball and flung it at Steve (who caught it without looking) before covering his face with his hands again.

"You're overreacting," Steve said with infuriating calm. "Those reporters seemed pretty happy, all in all—I think this'll turn out hunky-dory."

"You did not just say that…" groaned Tony. "You could've at least said 'peachy-keen.'"

"Peachy-keen came out of the fifties," Fury gleefully informed him. "And 'anachronistic' means old-fashioned, out-dated, obsolete."

Steve made a sound of affront. "Well, that's not fair. Old-fashioned doesn't equate to bad, and certainly not to obsolete, I mean…" He trailed off, sounding petulant. "You fellas wouldn't've asked me to go back to superheroing if I was obsolete."

Tony heaved a sigh. "No. No, you're not obsolete. And god knows we needed somebody who makes America look wholesome again. Promise me you'll talk to people besides Natasha and Hank. Talk to Pete and Mary-Jane. Talk to Carol. Talk to Pepper, for god's sake. And tell them to let you know when you say something dorky and forties."

There was a pause. "What about you?"

Frowning, Tony slid his hands down his face enough to look at Steve. "What about me?"

Steve shrugged. "You're good with words, aren't you, Tony? Can't I just talk more with you?"

"No," Tony said firmly.

"Why not?" Steve asked with a hint of a pout.

Fury was leering like Ebenezer Scrooge watching poor people freeze in an alley. "Oh, do tell, Stark. Why can't he just talk more with you?"

Tony glared at the director of SHIELD. "Because, as I mentioned, he's supposed to be wholesome. The Avengers need a family-friendly face, and I'm not family-friendly. We're fundamentally incompatible on the family-friendly front."

"Why?" Steve pressed.

If Fury leered any harder, he was sure to burst into evil cackles.

Schadenfreude could be a real bitch, sometimes.

As patiently as possible, Tony leaned forward and folded his hands on his desk. "Well, because you're G-rated, and I'm PG-13 at the very least for mature language, consumption of alcohol, and sexual content."

"The MPAA didn't impose ratings until the sixties," Fury put in helpfully.

"Oh, for god's sake…" Tony growled, and dropped his forehead to the surface of his desk. "And that's the other reason, Steve—I don't have the right vocabulary to talk to you for more than about five minutes a day."

"Okay, five minutes a day it is, then," Steve said. "Over breakfast, maybe? Is seven thirty good for you?"

Fury did not quite cackle. He was a few decibels shy of cackling.

"Too late?" Steve asked obliviously. "Well, early to bed and early to rise, as they say…how's seven?"

Tony hit his head against his desk a few times.

"Right, seven it is!"

.End.