I was actually expecting so have several sections to this chapter, but then this ended up being over two thousand words, so only one long scene here today!
So, what happened?
- Everyone's living in Malibu together
- Tony and Loki find Captain America
- Steve wakes up in the 21st century, he comes downstairs to find a) a room full of people (some of which are blue) b) that most of his friends are dead. Fun times! :|
- Tony decides to befriend Steve to spite Howard
- On the way to visit Peggy, Steve learns something about Howard that he refuses to believe.
- Steve and Tony argue about what kind of man Howard Stark was. They have very different opinions as to what he was capable of.
- (Also, stuff about Loki and Laufey, Hydra, the ER bridge, and Sleipnir starting school)
Thank you all for being super amazing!
22/08/19
Chapter Eleven - Forgiveness
Sleipnir blinked, consciousness slowly returning to him. He had had a weird dream. Something about a penguin and an arc reactor. Weird. Still, it hadn't been a bad dream, and he couldn't remember much of it, which was always nice. He pushed himself up onto his elbows and looked around, the sky was still dark, but the dinosaur night-light produced faint and comforting golden shapes on the walls.
"Jarvis," he whispered. "What time is it?"
Jarvis helpfully displayed the time '04:07' on the ceiling.
Cool, it was time to get up. Because Sleipnir generally fell asleep at the same time as his siblings, about eight o'clock at night, he usually woke up between four and five and spent the next couple of hours doing whatever he wanted.
"Thanks J," he said, slipping out of bed and grabbing his dressing gown.
He crept out of the room and out into the corridor. Now, the question was, what did he want to do this morning? He could go swimming in the pool again, that was always fun, he enjoyed splashing about and learning how to swim was definitely improving his motor control as a boy (figuring out how all his muscles were meant to work having spent most of his life as a horse was no easy feat), and he was in no danger, Jarvis was always watching him in case of the unlikely event he got into trouble in the pool. But he had done that yesterday, and he wanted to create some dank memes to impress his friends with, probably ones centering on cats or Iron Man as they were always the funniest. He also had some biology homework to do, he remembered, sighing. He wanted to learn about weird sea fish, not the carbon cycle.
Yeah, the biology homework needed to be his priority. The poster he had to produce needed to be handwritten and accompanied by drawings which were guaranteed to take forever, especially if he wanted his writing to be remotely legible and spelled correctly, and his drawings to kind of look like a cow or a tree or whatever else was meant to be part of the cycle. Jarvis would probably be able to explain the cycle to him in a way that was interesting.
He shuffled into the playroom to collect some felt tips and an A3 sheet of paper before making his way towards the main room, thinking he could curl up on the sofa with a tray on his lap and do the homework there.
He took two steps towards the sofa.
Something moved.
He yelped and jumped backwards, his pens scattering over the floor.
"Hey, hey, kid, it's fine, it's just me!" a voice reassured.
"Steve?" Sleipnir breathed out shakily, his heart hammering in his chest.
"Yeah."
"What the fuck, man," Sleipnir hissed. "What the hell are you doing sitting around here in the dark? Jarvis, lights."
"Sleipnir, language!" Steve said reproachfully, and Sleipnir wrinkled his nose. Steve was right there, the words that he'd been doing his best to pick up at school to make himself fit in better weren't really appropriate for other places, especially as if he got used to saying them he could say something like that in front of the triplets.
"Sorry," Sleipnir said, and meant it, even though Steve had no right to go scaring him like that. Jarvis had gradually turned the lights up and he could Steve properly now. He looked awful, like he hadn't slept at all, his hair was messed up and his eyes were slightly bloodshot. He had a full sports bag next to him, out of which several paintbrushes were protruding. "But what are you doing down here? What's wrong?"
"I, uh, think I need to leave."
"What? But why? We don't want you to go!"
Steve sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Tony and I had an argument, and I don't really think I'm welcome here anymore."
"Oh," Sleipnir said before sitting down cautiously next to Steve. "But Tony really likes you, he said so."
"That's the thing, I don't really think he does." Steve grimaced and Sleipnir found himself getting even more confused.
"But you've been making that flying car together, and he's been teaching you all about the internet and good music."
Steve laughed softly. "I don't think you and Tony's definition of 'good music' will ever be mine."
"Hey, we're trying to stop you from being an old man here!"
"Sleipnir, look," Steve said, serious again. "Tony told me that he only rescued me from the ice to one up his old man. He didn't care about me at all."
"I don't think that's true at all!" Sleipnir protested. "Maybe he did find you to stick it to Howard but he really does care about you!"
Steve shook his head sadly and stared at the ceiling. "Well, maybe he did, but I really messed things up last night. He told me some stuff about Howard and I… I just didn't want to believe it… I reacted really badly. I said some things I shouldn't have. It's stupid, I just, I wanted the Howard I knew to have stayed that way, generous, utterly insane, but not in a bad way. I guess, the war, life, something, just really messed him up."
"Why can't you just say sorry?" Sleipnir frowned, clearly Steve was totally over-reacting to this, but that was okay, because Sleipnir got anxious and blew things out of proportion all the time, so who was he to judge? "I argue with people sometimes, especially the triplets, but then we apologise and things are weird for a bit but everything is okay again. And Tony's not scary, he's not like Odin, he will accept your apology."
"Maybe."
"Definitely!"
"But what if he doesn't want to listen to me?" Steve asked.
Sleipnir frowned. "Then you give him a card and say how sorry you are inside, that's what Hel did when she lost control of her magic and set fire to some of my stuff last month."
"You're not gonna let this go, are you?" Steve questioned, a half smile on his face.
"No," said Sleipnir. "I like hanging out with you, I think you're really cool, and you help me with my drawing. You can't leave just because of one silly argument."
"Fine," Steve said, and dragged himself up off the sofa. He found Sleipnir's felt tips and handed them to him, before easily picking up one of the side tables and placing it in front of the sofa so they had a flat surface to work at. "What are you working on?" he asked once he'd sat back down on the sofa beside Sleipnir.
"The carbon cycle," Sleipnir said, his nose wrinkling.
"Huh, I've never heard of that," Steve said. "What is it?"
"You've never heard of it!"
"The schools back in my day weren't as good as the one you go to."
"Oh. Well, carbon is this element thing and the carbon cycle is like what happens to it when trees are burnt or a cow dies and stuff. I don't really get it though so Jarvis is going to have to teach both of us about it, I guess."
"I guess he is," Steve agreed.
-Q-
Two hours later found Sleipnir with a completed carbon cycle poster and a much better understanding of how it worked. Despite saying that he would only give Sleipnir advice or show him how to draw things on a separate sheet of paper, Steve had sometimes given in to Sleipnir's begging and the poster did contain some very nice trees and a fancy sports car.
Steve had finished his card and was now starting to get breakfast for everyone.
"Mr Rogers," Jarvis said suddenly, making Sleipnir, who had been putting his rolled up poster in his bag, jump. "It is now six-thirty and Sir is due to wake up."
Steve rubbed the bridge of his nose and grimaced.
"Hey Sleipnir…"
"Yes?"
"Do you think you'd be able to give the card to Tony, I'm not sure how he'd react to seeing me, especially so early in the morning, and I don't want to have another argument with him if I can help it."
Sleipnir rolled his eyes. "Fine," he said, picking it up from off the table. "But I think you're a scaredy-cat."
"Seconded," Jarvis said.
"Gee, thanks."
Sleipnir laughed and made his way up to his dads' bedroom and knocked on the door.
"Come in," his dad's muffled voice said a few seconds later.
"Morning Dad, morning Iron Dad," Sleipnir greeted, resisting the urge to giggle at how sleepy the two of them looked, gazing at him with bleary eyes under a heap of blankets.
"Iron Dad?" Loki questioned, yawning.
"Oh, yeah," Tony replied, looking awkward. "Last night the kids decided that I should…"
Loki turned towards him and cupped his cheek. "You want to be their dad too?" he asked.
"Well, um, I know I'm not super good parent material, but if you're okay with it…"
"Of course I'm okay with it, I'm more than okay with it, I'm so glad! I didn't want to bring it up in case I scared you off, but…"
And with that Sleipnir's parents were kissing.
"Hey, ugh, knock it off, it's gross!" he complained. "I did not come in here for this, I came to give Tony a card!"
"A card?" Tony said, evidently very confused but thankfully no longer kissing Loki.
"Yeah, it's from Steve, he hasn't slept, he feels really, really bad and he made you a card to say sorry."
"Ugh," Tony said, flopping down onto the pillows. "I am not in the mood for anything that that-"
"Tony," Loki warned.
"If you think your son doesn't know swear words you are delusional," Tony rolled his eyes. Sleipnir pointedly ignored Loki's gaze. "But fine. I'll read it, let's see what spangles has to say. But the moment he starts defending Howard again, I'm done."
Sleipnir passed the card over to Tony.
Tony glanced at the front of the card, on it Steve had drawn a picture of all of them together: Steve, Tony, Loki, Thor, Jane, Erik, Bruce, Jormungandr, Fenrir, Hel and Sleipnir. He had left off Hela, Darcy and Frigga, and all of Sleipnir's family from Jotunheim, but Sleipnir supposed that was acceptable, after all, Steve had only met them once, and that had been when he had just been defrosted. Tony then opened it to the inside and started to read, Sleipnir knew what Steve had said, he had been there when it was written after all.
Dear Tony,
I'm sorry for what I said last night. I've had some time to think, and for what it's worth, I do believe you. I was so scared of losing the good memories of a man long dead and gone that I forgot what I had right in front of me. I reacted badly, but I hope you can forgive me, I'd rather be a part of this family than stay Howard's 'greatest creation' forever.
Sincerely,
Steve
"Huh," Tony said, staring at the card, clearly reading and rereading the message. He flipped the card over and looked at the picture that Steve had drawn with the expensive coloured fine-liners that Sleipnir, Tony and Jane had picked out a few weeks ago after a trawl through the internet. "He means this."
"I think he does," Loki replied.
"I know he does," Sleipnir added.
"Well," Tony said, still looking completely thrown. "I suppose I could forgive him. I just. Wasn't expecting this from him."
"Steve may be a bit of an idiot sometimes," Loki said. "But he's not who Howard said he was."
"I guess not." He hauled himself out of bed and Sleipnir couldn't help but laugh because Tony was wearing Iron Man pyjamas! "Come on then, I've got Steve to talk to, coffee to drink, and triplets to help get ready for school."
Sleipnir followed his dad and Tony downstairs apprehensively; he really hoped his Iron Dad and Steve would actually be able to make up, it would be awful if they couldn't, and he couldn't stand the thought of them having an argument around him.
Steve stood up from the table and stared fixedly at Tony when they entered. Sleipnir wrapped his arms around Loki, who hugged him tightly back.
"Nice drawing, thanks," Tony said, walking over. "And, I forgive you, by the way, but I don't want you spouting any more bullshit about how my father was a nice person."
"I am never doing that again," Steve assured him.
"Good. Well. I guess I should apologise too, I made out that I only found you to stick it to my dad. That wasn't true. Well… it basically was, but I did think of you as my friend once we'd gotten to know each other, and I'm glad I defrosted you, you're not too bad, Rogers."
"You're not too bad yourself," Steve smiled. "Do you think we could start again, put all of this behind us?"
"Yeah, I think we could," Tony said, holding his hand out.
Steve shook it. "To letting go of the past," he said.
"To letting go of the past," Tony agreed. "Now, I smell coffee."
"Oh yeah," Steve said, "I made you some, I asked Jarvis how you liked it best."
"Well now you're just sucking up Steve." Tony rolled his eyes. "Keep going like this and I'll think you're too clingy and I'll have to revoke out friendship."
"Oh yeah?"
"Oh yeah."
As he watched Tony and Steve bantering across the kitchen, Sleipnir breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. It seemed that things were alright again.
I hope you all enjoyed that! Please let me know your thoughts because I'm actually pretty anxious about this chapter.
Next up (aka, what I was also expecting to write in this chapter):
Drama at Sleipnir's school
Loki teaches Sleipnir how to teleport and they discuss how to solve the problem of Tony's mortality.
When is hydra finally gonna come out the shadows and screw everything up you all ask. In two chapter's time. I was not expecting it to take this long, but other plot points kept demanding to be written, and who was I to refuse?
Until next time!