Finally, some Steve! No Tony yet (well at least not in physical presence) but don't worry, he'll show up soon!

Friday, September 2nd, 2011

Surprisingly enough, the first thing that Steve Rogers did when he got up in the morning nowadays was checking to see if he had gotten any text messages from Tony Stark. Tony had given him the cell phone (mostly due to the fact he was worried S.H.I.E.L.D. was monitoring their calls) and had gotten in the habit of texting him in the middle of the night for latterly no discernable reason. Very few of the text messages made any real sense, so Steve had to figure Tony had either gotten drunk and written them or had worked himself beyond exhaustion and written them. Lately, Steve would figure the latter given that Tony's been hard at work finishing the construction of Stark Tower.

Steve wouldn't admit it to Tony, but he kind of thought the tower was a bit over-the-top and gaudy. He knew that was sort of Tony's thing, but it still made him sad to see something that hadn't been apart of his New York Skyline. He felt the same about every other building that had been erected since he went into the ice. It helped to know that another building had been there before Tony had bought the property, had everything torn down, and built it all over again from the ground up, and that he apparently had work started on the property the same day that S.H.I.E.L.D. had fished him out of the ice, so really it wasn't like this was a change that happened overnight for him like everything else. Also, the fact that he had a crush on Tony also might have helped that.

Yes, Steve was finally willing to admit it. He had a crush on Tony Stark. It scared him a little, but not as much as it did before. Over the course of the past thirteen months, Steve had slowly come to accept that being LGBTQ wasn't as stigmatized in society as it had been back in the '40s. Hell, according to Tony it wasn't even as stigmatized as it was when he was growing up. Society had come along way in a very short amount of time. Well, there were still groups like the Westboro Baptist Church that took every chance they could to spread their hateful message, but they were slowly becoming the minority. Gay marriage had even been legalized in New York just a couple of months ago. He still wasn't quite ready to come out himself, but just knowing that things were getting better made him happy. Almost as happy as he felt around Tony.

It didn't matter what they were doing or where they were, Steve felt completely content and at ease when he was around Tony. In fact, it was the only time he ever felt anything resembling happy anymore. Yes, on the outside Tony could be rather arrogant and narcissistic, but once you get past that he was a very nice person. Steve liked asking Tony about his tech. He had a hard time keeping up with what Tony was saying once he got started on that subject but seeing how happy and in-the-zone Tony was always made Steve's heart quiver and caused a smile of his own to come to his face.

He hadn't told Tony about his crush yet. Even though he knew Tony was bisexual as well, but he didn't think he'd return his feelings. He did come close, though. The week before Tony stayed over at his new apartment in Brooklyn since he didn't feel entirely safe staying in his unfinished penthouse during Hurricane Irene (even though he had already completely sealed off the exterior windows which were built to hold up against sustained wind speeds of almost three-hundred miles per hour, as JARVIS had informed them from Tony's phone.) It went well. They had pizza and tried to watch some movie Steve couldn't remember the title or the plot of before the power went out. Tony offered to go outside in his suit to try and fix the powerlines (or, even better, hook Steve's building up with Arc Reactor technology so that way the power would never go out again), but Steve managed to talk him into going to bed early. That's when Steve almost crossed over the point of no return.

They were lying in bed, together, again. (It wasn't like it could be helped this time. Steve only had the one bed after all.) All they were really doing was talking… And kind of cuddling… Not that either of them brought attention to that fact or even admitted that's what happened, but still, it was rather nice. Probably a little too nice as Steve apparently let his mind get carried away. At one point, Tony shifted forward and it brought his face tantalizingly close to Steve's. Steve could have sworn that Tony was going to go in and try to kiss him, but at the last second, Tony pulled back, leaving Steve lying there red-faced and confused. Tony didn't say anything about it afterward or the next day, so Steve just had to assume he was just reading too much into things.

Once the storm passed, Tony left, and Steve hadn't seen him since. He's texted him a few times, but for the most part, he's been trying to stay out of Tony's way. They had to halt construction on Stark Tower for a few days due to the Hurricane, so they were now a little bit behind schedule. He thought it best to just keep his distance for a few days so that way Tony could focus on what he needed to get done and he could maybe get his mind straightened out.

The latter obviously didn't happen, but Steve honestly didn't expect it to. He's spent the past year trying to straighten out his mind and had little to show of it. It didn't help that a certain international spy agency was doing little if anything to help him. They just left him to his own devices from day one. If he hadn't met Tony immediately after he woke up, he'd probably have never even left the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility they were keeping him at. The only person from S.H.I.E.L.D. who honestly seemed like they were at least putting in the honest effort to be nice was surprisingly Natasha, the agent who had been sent to collect him after Tony kept him out a little too long on their totally-not-a-date. After that incident she took him out to dinner a couple of times and breakfast once (because apparently, the accommodations on the average S.H.I.E.L.D. Quinjet didn't include in-flight meals on overnight flights.) and honestly, he didn't feel like S.H.I.E.L.D. asked her to do that.

The biggest issue that Steve had with S.H.I.E.L.D., though, was that for the longest time they were "closely" monitoring him and would only let him leave the facility when accompanied by an agent. (They probably enforced that rule for fear that he would get "kidnapped" by Tony again.) The stated reason why they did this was that they were afraid of it getting out to the public that Captain America had miraculously brought back from the dead. Once it did, Steve wouldn't have very much privacy, or at least that's what they kept stressing to him. Steve had a very good feeling that it was more because S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't want attention being put on them or have too many questions asked about how this had transpired.

Eventually, though, they relented and a few months ago they finally came out with a press release stating that Steve Rogers was alive and well, having spent sixty-five years frozen in the Arctic Circle. You know what happened after that? Absolutely nothing. Well, Steve did have to answer a few questions for a few reporters initially, but after that, the public didn't seem to have much interest. Probably because most of the public was too young to have even lived through the Second World War. They hadn't heard of Captain America outside of their history books and their Grandpa's (full of bull) war stories. The way S.H.I.E.L.D. had made it sound, he would get mobbed just as bad as Tony does whenever he even so much as thinks about entering a public space, but no. That's not what happened. Steve could go out in public and not get accosted by anyone. Yeah, S.H.I.E.L.D. was clearly only interested in keeping everyone's eyes away from them. Well, they probably should have thought about that before they thawed him out of the ice.

So, even though he'd been out of the ice for a little over a year now, Tony was really the only person he had made any sort of connection with. He was the only person Steve ever talked to on a regular basis. After all, everyone he knew was dead except for Peggy, who was in a hospice in London and he didn't really have much incentive to go outside and meet people, so the only person he had to talk to was Tony. Not that he minded – he did have a crush on the guy after all – but he couldn't help but feel… isolated. It was a cold and somewhat bitter feeling. He didn't like it, and the only thing he currently had to soothe that was the occasional text from Tony. Luckily, he wasn't disappointed as he pressed the center button on his phone and saw that he had a new text message from Tony. Unsurprisingly it was timestamped for one in the morning, but it had proper spelling and grammar, so at least that let Steve know he hadn't been drunk.

(1:33a) Tony Stark:

Are you free tonight?

It was only four words, but it made Steve's heart leap with a bit of nervous excitement. Despite that, he still for some reason felt the need to respond with…

(7:33a) Me:

Is this a trick question?

He instantly smashed his head against the phone after pushing the send button and scrambled to add a secondary text to his reply.

(7:34a) Me:

Yes, I'm free.

He waited a minute or two to see if Tony would reply. He was doubtful he would and rightfully so as Tony had been texting him at one AM. He was probably either fast asleep or still so absorbed in whatever project that he was working on that he hadn't been to sleep yet. Steve hoped it was the former.

So, after a few minutes of waiting, Steve got up and started to get ready for his day. A little spark of happiness flickered in his heart as he headed towards the bathroom. At least he had something to look forward to today.

Steve sat at a table at a café in Midtown. It was just down the street from where Stark Tower was being built. He still hadn't heard back from Tony, he was just trying to kill some time. It turned out, that wasn't the best idea in the world. The whole way there he just felt nothing but depressed. Part of it being how much everything had changed, the other part is how lonely he felt. He kept checking his phone to see if Tony had texted him back. No such luck. So, Steve tried busying himself with something that he loved (or at least used to.) Given that he had a great view of the tower from where he was sitting he started to sketch it on the back of the paper placemat the café had provided him. It didn't distract him as much as he'd like, but it was something.

He was having a hard time focusing and getting in the artistic mindset, but once he did, Steve found it easy to lose himself in what he was doing. He was so absorbed that he didn't even notice the waitress coming up to his table.

"Waiting on the big guy?" Steve looked up and gave her a quizzical look.

"Ma'am?"

"Iron Man," she quickly clarified with a smile. "A lot of people eat here just to see him fly by." She gestured over to Stark Tower and Steve quickly glanced around. He did indeed spot quite a few people looking in the tower's general direction intently, almost as if they were afraid if they blinked, they might miss something. It did warm Steve's heart a bit, but at the same time, it couldn't do much to help how down he was feeling.

"Right." Steve took out his wallet an threw a few bills on the table. "Maybe another time."

"The table's yours as long as you like," the waitress said. "Nobody's waiting on it." At this point, Steve decided to take a glance at her nametag. Beth. She seemed nice enough. Steve noted that and put in a few more dollars for a tip. "Plus, we've got free wireless." She added as she started to walk away. Steve's brow furrowed with confusion.

"Radio?" The woman turned back for a second, looking a little confused herself, but continued to smile at him until her attention was taken away by another table. Steve sighed. Despite Bucky and Peggy's insistence to the contrary, he could tell when someone was flirting with him. He got a few lessons in that with how many women threw themselves at him when he was on tour with the USO. That didn't mean he knew how to respond to it (if the whole Private Lorraine incident is any proof), but he could at least tell when it happened, and Beth had been flirting with him. She had already walked away, so there wasn't much that could be said. All it pretty much did was make him feel five different types of awkward. It only got worse when the elderly man at the table next to him turned around to offer his two cents.

"Ask for her number, you moron." Steve didn't know how to respond to that, but luckily an answer came to him in the form of the chiming of his cell phone. He quickly opened the device to his inbox to see that he had a new text from Tony.

(11:32a) Tony Stark:

Awesome! Pepper, Conroy, and I are putting the finishing touches on the tower! You should come by around 8-8:30.

"No thanks," Steve said to the old man without really paying attention to anything other than the text on his screen. "I think I've already got someone." As he got up, Steve could have sworn he heard a scoff of "kids these days," but ignored it. He started to walk away from the café while typing a text to Tony at the same time.

(11:33a) Me:

Okay. See you then.

Before he could slide the device back into his jacket pocket, his phone chimed with another incoming text from Tony. This one was just a simple ":D." Steve had no idea what it stood for and just assumed that Tony had somehow made a mistake while texting. He slid the phone back into his pocket and began wandering around New York, trying to find something he could do until eight o'clock rolled around.

Steve found himself at a gym somewhere between Midtown and Brooklyn. Whenever he got too overwhelmed with memories of his life before being trapped in the ice or his seemingly complete inability to integrate into modern life, he found himself wanting to punch something. Luckily, there was an open, yet completely empty gym that he found on his way back to his apartment. With nothing else to do and a lot of pent-up feelings of anxiety and anger he wanted to get rid of, Steve went in and paid the required amount to spend a couple of hours slamming his fists into a series of several punching bags. (All of which Steve had to pay to replace.) That's what he had been doing when Nick Fury found him.

He had just TKO'ed another punching bag and was in the process of hanging up another one when Fury made his presence known.

"Trouble sleeping?" Steve found that question odd given that it was almost three in the afternoon but nonetheless tossed back a witty retort.

"I slept for seventy years, sir," he said as he started striking the new punching bag. "I think I've had my fill."

"Then you should be out," Fury remarked as he stepped closer. "Celebrating, seeing the world." Steve resisted the urge to scoff at that, instead choosing to step away and unwrap the athletic tape from around his hands.

"When I went under," he said as he walked. "The world was at war. I wake up, they say we won. They didn't say what we lost." Steve kept his gaze on his hands. Otherwise, he would have shot Fury a nasty glare. In that second, he was grateful Tony was kind enough to lay the truth on him right away. Otherwise, S.H.I.E.L.D. probably would have sheltered him from that, too.

"We've made some mistakes along the way." Mistakes were an understatement on both potential fronts as to what Fury was talking about, but Steve managed to keep that thought to himself. "Some, very recently." That caught Steve's attention and he glanced up for a second from unwrapping his other hand to see that Fury had a file in his hand.

"Are you here with a mission, sir?" A pointless question, but one Fury answered nonetheless.

"I am," he said.

"Trying to get me back in the world?" That would be rich.

"Trying to save it." Fury opened the file and handed it over to Steve. Once he got a look at what was inside the file, Steve paused for a second in shock before taking the file in both hands. On the top-right corner of the page was a photograph of the object that started it all; the reason Steve ended up on that plane and why he was forced to crash it into the ocean; the Tesseract. Steve hoped it had been lost forever and gone for good once it melted through the floor of the plane after killing the Red Skull, but it turned out he was not that fortunate. The image was in color and timestamped for May of the previous year. S.H.I.E.L.D. had the Tesseract and hadn't immediately destroyed it. Steve didn't like where this was going.

"Hydra's secret weapon," he said out of sheer surprise.

"Howard Stark fished that out of the ocean when he was looking for you," Fury said. That didn't surprise Steve. Of course, he would save the dangerous Nazi weapon. He probably wanted to know how in the hell they made those guns and was probably trying to figure out a way to reverse-engineer it. Steve wished for a second that Howard was still alive just, so he could smack him on the back of the head for doing something so dangerous and stupid. The most he could hope for though was that Peggy had already done it for him at some point in the past.

Steve listened intently as Fury explained that Howard had thought that the Tesseract was the key to unlimited sustainable energy and that S.H.I.E.L.D. was attempting to continue his research when they hit a small snag. Well, not as small as they would like. Steve was able to conclude before Fury finished explaining.

"Who took it from you?"

"He's called Loki," Fury said. "He's not from around here. There's a lot we'll have to bring you up to speed on if you're in. The world has gotten even stranger than you already know."

"At this point, I doubt anything would surprise me." Steve stood up and started to collect his things.

"Ten bucks says your wrong." Steve said nothing as he walked across the room and picked up one of the punching bags, intending to take it with him back to his apartment. If he couldn't get any peace here, he might as well go back home. "There's a debriefing packet waiting for you back at your apartment. Is there anything you can tell us about the Tesseract that we ought to know now?"

"You should have left it in the ocean."

When Steve got back to his apartment, he set the punching bag down on the living room floor and caught sight of the packet sitting on his dining table. He'd question how in they got in, but he knew that'd be pointless. Instead, he sat down in the seat in front of the packet and began to stare at it. He already knew what he was going to do; what he had to do. After all, as Fury said, the world needed to be saved, he just wished saving it didn't come at the expense of his "date" (as he desperately wished it was) and Tony's feelings. Slowly, he pulled out his phone and hit all the buttons required to compose a new text message.

(3:04p) Me:

Something's come up. Sorry, but I can't make it.

Thanks to Sweet_As_Suga for leaving kudos and FriedChickenNisha for leaving a comment on AO3! It really means a lot!

Ehehe... I should say now that I'm worried that some of Steve's story arc in this is going back on some of what I did in MHATRAR but I'm not quite sure... What do you think? Tell me in a comment or review! Also, follow and favorite as well! :)

Remember kids, Tony definitely wasn't lying and just wanted to cuddle with Steve during a thunderstorm. Nope, that is not what happened! ;)

Originally posted on FFN on 12/22/18