Thank you so much to fnblrtrash, Pickles, Terri'smind, Garfunkyel, and Kae Richa. For reference I agree that Steve should have kissed Tony senseless. Too bad the plot forbids it for a long while.

Also, this is a birthday present to myself. Yep, it's my 24th birthday today! And I have a request for a present: reviews. I'm strangely fond of the end section and really want to know what you think about that especially, but comments (praise and constructive criticism alike) are wanted.

Disclaimer: I own nothing under copyright.


Chapter 6: Press, Release

"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."

J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Tony nearly busted a gut laughing when he read the press release SHIELD had given about Steve being out of the ice. The stilted commentary, blatant misdirection, and general stance of 'no comment' were comedy gold. "Getting his bearings in a top secret government facility, my ass," he snorted when he reached the end of the article.

The letter that Steve had written in, on SHIELD's request, was concise and to the point:

June 6, 2011

I'm not sure what I should say, so I suppose the truth will have to do. It was a shock to wake up and discover that it's 2011 and I'm still not entirely over it. Figuring out this strange new world and where I fit in it is a full time job.

Admittedly, I do miss my original time and the people in it, but the here and now isn't so bad. The food is definitely better (we used to boil everything) and the internet is extremely helpful, among other things. I'm discovering new things and making new friends. Learning about myself and the world around me.

Thank you all for the concern you've shown me and your kind thoughts. It's truly overwhelming to not be forgotten. I hope that your lives and days go well.

Regards,

Captain Steven Rogers

Captain America

There were so many failed drafts that Tony had teased him about thinking of the trees. With each one Steve got more frustrated until he disappeared from his desk sometime after lunch. Eventually he was found on the roof, furiously absorbing the fourth Harry Potter book.

That was six months ago. For today, all the serious work was done and they had agreed to just laze around and continue their 'Pop Culture Through the Ages' marathon. They damn well deserved it.

Fondly Tony watched the super soldier get breakfast ready, as always. The man was a surprisingly good cook for all that he was a single guy from the 40's. The ring on Steve's left hand flashed silvery and reminded him otherwise.

Now that he wasn't dying anymore (and Pepper had had words with him for not saying anything about it) he decided that it might not be a terrible time to ask. "What's with the ring, Cap?" Tony asked faux casually.

"Hm?" Steve looked up from where he checked the omelet religiously, not quite trusting the nonstick pan.

"I didn't know you were married," Tony rephrased. The idea sent a little pang through his chest that he ignored, as always. Not his, never will be.

When Steve glanced down at the band around his finger, his face said it all. The longing and wistful sadness were unbearable. "It was never official," he answered. The way he immediately went back to the omelet hid his face.

Usually Tony didn't know when to leave things alone. This time, he didn't want to. "Was she black?" he asked, once he remembered the racial segregation of the times.

"Not that I would have been against it, but no. Why do you ask?" Steve peeked over his shoulder, frowning in confusion. Somehow the man always managed to take Tony by surprise with how modern his ideals could be.

"Why didn't you make it official? Tie the knot?" Tony clarified. The twisting feeling in his intestines had lessened, knowing that Steve never actually got married, but still made him squirm. It was hard to put his feelings to the side in the face of this.

The omelet was done, so Steve plated it and brought the stack over to the table. His entire focus seemed to be on making sure that he didn't drop the food. Only the bittersweet smile that touched his lips said otherwise.

For the moment, Tony let it alone. This was personal. He didn't have any right to demand answers and in a way he didn't even want to know. After the first bite of omelet, he let out a groan and stuffed another into his mouth. "Good," he commented through his food.

"Mind repeating that when you've swallowed?" Steve requested/chided. He was the picture of calm as he cut up his egg with a fork, taking glances at the newspaper. An actual newspaper. Damn he was old fashioned.

Just to be an ass, Tony talked through his omelet again.

This time he was ignored in favor of an article about the Arab Spring.

Near the end of the meal, when Tony had given up on his question being answered, it was. The words were stilted and a deaf man would notice the pain in his voice, but Steve still spoke. "I never got the chance. Dead, before I could get up the guts to ask," he said.

Tony resolved to not ask about her again. It was the least he could do. Especially since Steve never asked about Howard after the first time.

That didn't mean he wouldn't snoop on his own.

When Tony got into the lab later that night, unable to sleep, he blamed Steve. Ever since they fell asleep together after his disastrous not-last birthday, he hadn't been able to sleep on his own. He craved the feeling of a cold, hard body wrapped around his constantly overheating one, a large hand securely over his arc reactor. Even the smell of blood that never seemed to go away- which was still a little creepy- was comforting in its familiarity now. The Capsicle had ruined him.

It gave him the idea to look through Steve's file again, instead of doing any heavy duty inventing or suit maintenance. Maybe he could find out who the lady was. Slipping the address of the cemetery into a sketchbook or something would probably be a little creepy, but the guy needed to make his peace. The one thing Steve hadn't seemed to get over was her.

A careful scrutinization of every picture and document Tony had access to revealed no mystery woman, or even non-mystery woman. There were Aunt Peggy and Mom, but those were the only women besides his own mother that he was associated with in any way, shape, or form. It was a dead end.

There was a man who kept getting caught on the edge of shots, though. He was in several pictures of Steve, just the back of a head or a silhouette, but there was something strangely familiar about the man. Video only complicated it; at the beginning he might be caught in the corner of the frame, but he slid away so smoothly that his presence was barely noticed.

What really cinched Tony's interest about this man was that half the videos and photos he was seen in, he shouldn't have been. Those were pictures and films of the Howling Commandos. Everyone knew that there were six of them, plus Captain America making seven. So what was an eighth man doing there?

"JARVIS, search for records of a seventh Howling Commando," Tony ordered, puzzling over the clearest image of the man he could find. It was still grainy and indistinct, shot from too far away to be of any help with a facial recognition search. The man's face was half hidden by one Bucky Barnes anyways, arms thrown around each other's shoulders as they laughed. It was labeled as being taken in Northern Belgium in October, 1944.

"There is nothing from any credible source," JARVIS answered after just a few seconds.

"What about the not so credible sources?" Tony prompted. When the results came back, he sighed and got himself a cup of coffee. This would be a fun night.

The screen showed eight pages of conspiracy theory websites.


The next morning, Steve walked into the lab to retrieve Tony for breakfast as usual. It was a well established routine and one of the few things about mornings that Tony actually looked forward to.

Instead of Tony snoozing somewhere in the lab, or in a pantsless frenzy of invention, he was sitting in an armchair laughing so hard he was crying. "Oh my… this is beautiful! Oh god, come and see this, Spangles!" he hooted. The hand he waved shook with his mirth.

The difference visibly startled Steve. He was hesitant, skimming a hand over the workstation like he wanted to grab it and stop himself from moving forward but couldn't help it. "What is it?" he asked, eyeing the screen warily.

"Listen to this!" Tony said gleefully, "In conclusion, I believe that the mysterious seventh Howling Commando is Tony Stark, having time traveled to the past and died there before he could prevent Bucky Barnes from being turned into the Winter Soldier. Isn't that some shit?" He could barely keep his voice from warbling at the mere idea. Him, a Howling Commando? Even as he scrolled back to the top to look at the pictures again, he snorted disdainfully and danced in his seat at once.

The laugh Steve gave sounded forced. "Yeah, that's… pretty unbelievable," he agreed.

"I know, right? I mean, if anyone could invent time travel it would be me, but me, a Howling Commando? Please." Tony snorted. That was about as likely as Bucky Barnes being alive and part of HYDRA.

"You don't give yourself enough credit. I think you could do it," Steve answered. His face was white as paper, but there was a valiant attempt at a smile.

The unwarranted praise was flattering. "Aw, shucks, Cap. You're making me blush," Tony joked, praying his tan covered up the very real heat flooding up his neck to his cheeks.

"Have you been reading these… things, all night?" Steve asked with concern. He was reading over Tony's shoulder now, frowning at the contents of the webpage.

"Well, yeah," Tony replied. When Cap got to the end of the view, he scrolled down a little more.

Two of the pictures were side by side, one a blurry closeup of a picture the man hadn't been able to escape and another of Tony. They were in almost the exact same position, leering playfully up at someone to their right, hands shoved in pockets. Admittedly they really did look alike. If it weren't impossible, Tony would wonder.

When he looked to his left, the bottom dropped out of his stomach. The light of the monitor only emphasized the the blue of Steve's eyes; they were damp and he was blinking rapidly. He didn't even notice Tony staring at him, just devoured the images on the screen.

"Uh, Cap? You okay over there?" Tony was tempted to wave a hand in front of the other man's face.

That broke Steve out of his staring contest with the computer. "Yeah, yeah, I just…" he trailed off, a smile slowly rising on his face. "I didn't think there were any pictures of him beyond his autopsy. It's good to see his face again." He looked from the screen to Tony and back again, teeth shiny as he grinned.

Somehow Tony hadn't expected that. "Oh. I thought somebody doctored them up," he said, going back to the photos with a more serious eye. There had been plenty of chance for someone to alter the face of the unknown man, especially since Jim Morita wasn't in most of the shots. They were about the same height and had dark hair. Someone could very well have played a prank that got out of control.

Except that according to Cap, the mystery Commando actually existed. This was a real doozy of a day already.

"What was his name?" Tony asked, leaning back to better contemplate. And bump his shoulder into a muscular arm.

"Tony," Steve said.

"Yes?" It was an automatic response.

It got Steve to laugh, at least. "That was his name," he corrected fondly, "He was Tony Starosta. One of my best friends." Once again he practically ate up the picture, before shaking his head and straightening up.

"That's kinda funny. Starosta was my mom's maiden name. She was Polish, came to America as a kid," Tony said, puzzling at the strangeness. It only made the pictures weirder, because he and this man did look startlingly alike, but his uncle had died during the Depression. Maybe they were distant cousins.

"Anyway, there's an Agent Coulson up top, he wants to speak to us," Steve put in helpfully. Or not.

Not for the first time, Tony groaned at the mention of Coulson. Whenever Agent got involved, shit was about to hit the fan. Or already had. It was a tossup which one this meeting would be about.

Steve looked sympathetic. "Better get this done and over with, right?" he suggested.

"If you say so." Tony sighed. He heaved himself off the armchair and let out a gasp as his back cracked after hours of being hunched over in the same position. Maybe he should have taken a break between websites…

The meeting wasn't quite so bad. If nothing else, the other two men were very funny when they were uncomfortable.

"The Avengers Initiative was put on ice," Agent told them, before he realized what he said. "Oh, sorry, Captain Rogers." It was almost cute how contrite he was.

"The Avengers Initiative?" Steve asked, adding awkwardly afterward, "Which I know nothing about." It was a bold faced lie. He and Tony had gone through their personnel files together.

Agent let it go. Probably because he was still star-struck at being in the same room with Captain America. Instead of commenting on how, no, Steve shouldn't know anything because he wasn't given a copy of those top-secret documents, he turned to Tony. "The files on it must be returned to SHIELD or destroyed."

With a flippant wave of his hand, Tony retrieved the folders from where he and Steve had read them on the sofa. It was no hardship to let go of them; copies were in JARVIS's servers anyways. "Anything else?" he asked, faux cheerful. Now that he was jerked away from the glow of the computer, he was beginning to realize just how tired he was.

"I think that's it. Have a good day Captain Rogers, Mr Stark," Agent told them before he showed himself the door. If nothing else he was a master of knowing when he wasn't wanted, and reacting accordingly.

Now that he was no longer required to be anything but a tired human being, Tony slouched over to the sofa. It was made for naps like the one he intended to take.

Instead he was turned by a gentle hand on his shoulder toward the stairs. "Sleep," Steve told him in that delicious tone of command.

"Only if you sleep with me," Tony flirted with a wink.

Steve went red as the Iron Man armor. "That's flattering, Tony, but-" He stumbled adorably over his words in an effort to not be a dick about his rejection.

"It's fine Spangles, I was just messing with you," Tony told him, grinning. He patted the brawny chest fondly and moved to head up to what was his room again.

The knowledge that for two weeks it was their room was expertly ignored. Ever since the ceiling got repaired and Steve repatriated to his own room, he had been ignoring the emptiness in his bed. Every time he settled into that too-big bed in that too-empty room he reached behind him, feeling for where Steve got to ("Get over here, dammit,") only to realize that he was alone. It invariably sent his heart to a region around his pelvis.

Tony was sure that the super soldier hadn't minded. The man was vocal about what was acceptable (Tony sleeping in a bed) and what wasn't (Tony sleeping in the lab) and he hadn't said anything about them sharing a bed while the house was being reconstructed. Truth be told, they woke up cuddling more often than not. Neither of them had flipped, no matter that every single time it happened Tony was sure the arc reactor would fail. No, they got up and said good morning and went about their days like they hadn't just woken up with Steve clutching the smaller man like he would disappear and Tony holding a huge icy hand to his arc reactor.

A few times Tony had realized that there was morning wood pressed against the cleft between his butt and thighs and if he squirmed just so… But he had always controlled himself. No matter how he fantasized about it, he wanted everything kosher and without regrets. Which led to-

"Well, unless you're up for that. Then you're perfectly welcome to sleep with me- and not get any sleep in the process," Tony invited, smirking. He stretched lazily, like a cat, and felt baby blues burning into him for all of half a second. It was a little disappointing.

"I'm not the person for that, Tony," Steve answered tightly. Huh. Must not be into guys.

"Shame. Well, night, then," Tony replied, waving a hand over his shoulder. He made sure to huff out a little laugh before he got up the stairs. People worried if he wasn't being his usual debonaire asshole self, including those who really knew him. He didn't want Steve worried, not about him.

A sigh echoed the whole way up from the living room. "JARVIS, can you turn on the next movie from the list Pepper and Tony made?" Steve requested. Did he still look at the ceiling when talking to the AI?

"Of course, Captain Rogers," JARVIS answered serenely. Then the theme to The Exorcist came on and Tony was tempted to cackle. Thankfully he managed to stifle it until he got into his (soundproofed) bedroom.

Steve wouldn't know what hit him.

(If that night Tony rolled over to make room for a shivering super soldier to climb into bed with him, neither of them mentioned it. If he made a mental note to put many more horror movies on the list, he never mentioned that either.)


The days passed and Christmas eventually came. Tony incinerated the piece of crap phone SHIELD had gotten for Cap all those months ago and proudly replaced it with a Starkphone. Plus free lessons on how to use it, of course.

When Steve unveiled his gift, Tony immediately felt like a schmuck. Yes, this was a handmade gift from him to his admitted crush. Yes, he put all the thought in the world into it, taking out the stuff nobody ever used anyways and building it as tough as he could to withstand a life of monsters and mayhem.

It felt like nothing compared to what he found upon opening what he already knew was a canvas, about three feet wide and two feet tall. At first he thought it would be interesting, maybe something Steve had found when exploring the local flea markets. Then he turned it around, looked at the painting itself, and his breath caught in his throat. Forget interesting, it was stunning.

For someone who had been there for the event, the painting was immediately recognizable. It was of Tony surrounded by the neutrons and electrons of Starkinium, when they were still searching for the cure to his palladium poisoning. Most of the lab was thrown into shadow, simply outlines and the occasional few details lit up by the model thrown around the room. The little orbs actually appeared to glow and it took Tony a minute to realize that it was just paint, no lighting or anything else attached. In the middle of it all a dark haired man stood and he recognized himself in the messy hair, the wide shoulders and the slight blue glow radiating out from his torso. Best of all, the corner was signed, 'Merry Christmas, Tony. -Steve Rogers.'

"You actually painted this?" Tony couldn't help asking, gesturing to the work.

Steve, who had been shuffling nervously, stopped and smiled. "I hope you don't mind," he replied.

"No, no, not at all, I love pictures of me," Tony rambled, "But this, this is…" He trailed off, taking in all the little details he missed the first time. Was that Dummy in the corner? It was.

"I called it 'A Man In His Element'. It seemed appropriate," Steve told him, coming a little closer. He was only a couple of feet away now, beaming proudly.

All Tony could think was that he was one of the luckiest people on earth. It did give him an idea, however. "You know that I do a yearly charity auction, sometimes more than once if something spectacularly shitty happens?" he asked, the corners of his lips twitching as the gears in his head turned.

"Like the one in July?" Steve asked. He grimaced at the memory.

Tony similarly flinched. Some woman harassed Steve all night, right until the billionaire decided it pissed him off and pretended he'd had too much to drink so they could go home. The party had been over for him within the first fifteen minutes anyways. "Usually there's less sexual harassment," he said.

It made Steve's lips go thin. "But it's still present," he pointed out.

"I try to prevent that sort of thing, but I do sometimes have to throw some pigs out," Tony acknowledged, "Anyway, I was thinking that if you want, and only if you want, you could paint something for the next charity run?" Another look at the new painting only solidified the notion. While he liked being the only one in this century to have a custom painting by Captain Steve Rogers, there was so much good that could come out of this.

The look on Steve's face was one of a man who had expected literally anything else. "Are you serious?" he asked.

Smirking, Tony raised an eyebrow. "Not up to it, Gramps?" he teased.

Steve rolled his eyes. "Of course I'm up for it, I'm just… I didn't expect you to like it this much," he said, that smile growing all over again. This time it was bigger, lighting up his whole face and making him almost fucking glow.

"Uh, yeah, it's great," Tony said awkwardly. He scrambled to his feet and went for one of the walls where he was pretty sure a similarly sized painting had hung before. Luckily he found a nail still there and was able to hang the thing, grinning at the back of his own head as he did.

Have Pepper try and tell him that he had no taste in art, now.

"So, what do you say to a painting for next year's charity function? A hundred percent of proceeds go to the year's charity, you get recognition as something other than Captain America, and I get bragging rights because I've got the first one?" Tony asked, spinning around to survey the other man.

From how he chewed on his lower lip, Steve had a concern or question. "Can it be veterans? The cause, I mean?" he requested.

From what Tony remembered, it had been a couple of years since veteran's associations and support groups were the beneficiaries. "I think I can arrange that," he answered.

He was rewarded by another of those sunny smiles. "Thanks, Tony," Steve said, almost shyly.

The only response to that was a nod. Before things could get awkward, Tony announced, "How about we get to the ham and potatoes part of this whole evening?" He wandered in the direction of the kitchen, sniffing appreciatively.

"It's not ready yet!" Steve called from where he had already sat on the couch.

"It's ham! It's ready whenever I feel like it!" Where his face couldn't be seen, Tony grinned. He knew that it wasn't fully heated; the timer on the microwave was still going. It was just too much fun to drive Steve crazy.


As he walked into a veteran's hospital, Steve felt like the odd man out. The looks he got when he asked about the World War II groups was at first confused and then understanding, one even asking if he was doing a school project. Awkwardly he had said no and scurried away.

Now that he was here, it was even more foreign. Everyone else here was… like him but older. The same styles and similar phrases, familiar memories and foreign faces. It was like looking into another universe.

Then they all gathered into a circle and each of them told where they were when they heard about Pearl Harbor. Most were at work or on the way to. Some were just getting up for the morning. Each of them told about the shock, the horror, the pain, that they felt when they heard.

It was Steve's turn, and the group was surprisingly understanding considering that they thought he was in college. "My name's Steve Rogers," he began, starting with the easy parts, "I'm from Brooklyn, New York." He had to swallow before finishing, "I served with the SSR from June, '43 until I went MIA in May, '45. Captain America, Howling Commandos." It felt like a weight had been lifted off his chest now that he could say it.

Across from him, a tall thin old man whacked a shorter one on the shin with his cane. "I told you it was him," he said in a Brighton Beach accent. And oh, did that bring back memories…

Instead of responding and interrupting the proceedings, Steve simply smiled and went on. "When I first heard about Pearl Harbor it was a few days later. I was sick at the time, and Bucky didn't tell me until after I was done hallucinating. I was, of course, horrified. Angry. And guilty, because I couldn't help thinking, finally we can do something about this war," he said, before gesturing for the man beside him to speak.

"I'm Staff Sergeant Samuel Colt and I was stationed at Pearl Harbor at the time…" the man began.

The circle completed itself and every veteran there spoke. There were a few women who were in the WAC and WAVES, a couple of men who could barely speak anymore. There was an announcement that a man who had been coming to the meetings since they started was consigned to a nursing home.

It felt good to be around people who remembered the war and shared the scars that it left. Then he remembered that for the almost seventy years he'd been in the ice they'd suffered the nightmares, the panic, the automatic reactions that at one time saved their lives. At the same time, Steve couldn't help feeling sick with longing.

That should have been Bucky and Tony and him. They should be in one of those circles in New York, Tony making it up because he hadn't arrived in the past until several months later, and Bucky and Steve solemn. Leaning on their canes or sitting in wheelchairs, all three old and still together. The thought that even if they had all lived through it, they may have still been taken from him too soon, was forcefully banished.

Only when a hand patted his shoulder did he realize that everyone else was already up and mingling outside the circle. Steve's head jerked up to look at who was touching him and saw a face that hadn't been before him since November, 1943. The boy from Brighton Beach was much older, his hair white and fluffy like candyfloss rather than thick and dark, but the hazel eyes that sparkled at him from behind thick horn rimmed glasses were the same. It was a welcome familiarity.

"I realized that I never thanked you for saving us that day at Azzano," the old man said, "Lance Corporal Barry Pajari, at your service." He gave a smile that showed three missing teeth but all the joy in the world.

Steve shook his head as he got to his feet. "No need, sir," he said awkwardly. How does one tell a man that his freedom being restored was an accident on an unauthorized, selfish, suicide mission?

From the look Corporal Pajari had, he knew it. "And I never got to say how sorry I was after your friends died," he added.

The use of the plural was not missed. "You remember him? You remember Tony?" Steve asked hopefully.

Corporal Pajari snorted. "How could I not remember him?" he asked with a loud laugh, "The way he scared off that assassin, twice…! I always wondered who exactly he was." His voice was fond as he remembered what were probably some of the hardest days and nights of his life.

A younger, but still elderly, woman joined them. She sighed at Corporal Pajari and pointed out, "I see Daniel over there." She gestured to a spot by the doors where a small group of men were gathered.

Immediately Corporal Pajari brightened up. "You don't say…" he mumbled, and began shuffling away.

"Sorry about him. He's beginning to get dementia, see?" the woman said with a sad smile at the Corporal, "Talking about people who weren't there, things that never happened…" She peered up at Steve with incredibly lucid brown eyes. "Thank you, though. Without you, I never would have met him. And we never would have married or any of it," she added with a widening of her pink painted mouth.

Steve didn't have the heart to tell her about the lipstick on her teeth. "No need for thanks," he told her as well, "Just doing what I thought was right." Not that it was, necessarily, but he didn't regret a moment of it.

Understanding, Mrs Pajari moved on with a nod and a pat to his arm.

When Steve began mingling, a pattern quickly became apparent. The only ones to remember Tony or the Winter Soldier were those with memory problems. The rest thought those two men, and the events associated with them, were all part of their fading mental state.

Not that he spent the entire meeting thinking of that. There were other memories, of course. Lines broken and factories raided, POWs freed or made with each mission. The terrible camp food that seemed common to every theater of the war was complained about with a laugh now that they could.

When Tony appeared near the end, he was greeted with enthusiasm by Corporal Pajari and a Sergeant Donovan. "Whoa whoa whoa, what's going on here?" he asked, smiling, even as he looked at Steve for help.

"I heard you was dead! Glad to see you ain't, sir," Sergeant Donovan answered with a gummy grin from his wheelchair.

Alarm fizzled through Steve. Lesson number one that he had gotten from every book on time travel he had access to: the time traveler can't know too much. "Settle down guys, it's just Tony Stark," he told the vets who remembered right, wading through the crowd to his man. When he passed Corporal Pajari, he winked at the man.

The nod he got back was with an expression of awe. With only a phrase and a wink, the man knew more than Tony did. If it weren't so sad, it would be funny.

"Thanks for the welcome guys, but we, uh, gotta go. Calisthenics, you know," Tony half joked.

Rolling his eyes, Steve followed. A last look over his shoulder and a wave cemented his decision to come back again. He needed to face his past sometime and this might be a good place to do it.

For now, it was time to keep going.