A bit of a filler actually. Still I hope you enjoy! Thanks to all my readers!
Disclaimer: I do not own The Avengers or Pacific Rim.
Steve moved into Tony's room because Stark clearly had more stuff than he did. Steve had one more duffle than he'd started out with.
Tony had cleared out the other bunk from whatever machinery that had lain there and had shuffled whatever he could to his side of the room to make room for Steve.
Steve dumped his duffels in his little closet and packed his shield in the space that was left.
Tony was conspicuously absent when Steve moved in but Steve didn't get the feeling that it had anything to do with him but more with Tony inability to be a warm fuzzy roommate. That he'd cleared out his stuff was enough to tell Steve that he was welcome. Steve also suspected that anything more would have been fake and therefore unwelcoming.
He spent the rest of the day without seeing Tony. The J-tech was hard at work in the J-science labs and Steve returned to LOCCENT and the students.
In LOCCENT no one said anything about his pairing up but when Steve went down to work with the students he got plenty of speculative glances even if no one came right out and said anything.
Steve went in for dinner and then frowned remembering what he'd seen in Tony's mind, built up a tray and then carried it up to the labs.
Tony was working on something so Steve left the tray with another tech who dropped in on the table next to Stark who didn't even look up, and went back to work.
It was strange this. It was strange not having a co-pilot who he was so very close too but he was very, very glad that it was so different from what he'd had with Bucky. It let him focus on the now and not get drowned in his grief.
Steve sat up breathing hard from a nightmare. The room door cracking open had him lifting the gun under his pillow and point in it at the intruder.
"I would say I'm innocent," said Stark, "but I'm usually not."
Steve blinked and put down the gun. "Sorry," he said.
Stark shrugged, took off his jacket and turned on lamp in the center of the room. "I'm going to do some work," he said.
"Go ahead," said Steve forcing back the protest that Stark had basically worked all day. "Stark wouldn't appreciate his concern. Far more likely he'd read it as Steve trying to tell him how to live his life and be coolly offended. He lay back down and after while managed to go to sleep with the sounds of soft hissing from whatever Stark was soldering.
Steve's eyes flew open when the lamp clicked off. He sat up scrubbed his face glad for the sound that had snapped him out of another nightmare. He breathed in deeply and said, "I'm heading out."
He got up, got out to the gym and began to work on the bag, punching as if he could punch out the out the sound d of gunfire from his mind, stop kaiju roars from reverberating, and Bucky's scream from echoing over and over again.
It was nearly three am in the morning when Steve found his way back to his bunk. He entered all set to drop on the bed when the smell of hot chocolate stopped him. There on the dresser was an innocent cup wafting delicious comfort towards him.
Steve blinked, looked at Stark who was actually asleep already and then smiled. It looked like Stark had seen the tray after all.
They were both up at five heading to the training mats before the students hit them. They took their time each to stretch and practice on their own and then finally they entered the ring.
Sparing was no less fun this time around or less challenging.
They knew each other better now and that made it harder but it also made it way more enjoyable. They weren't just trying to beat each other, they were trying to learn to work together, learning the way their bodies moved, bent and shifted. What were each other's tells, the parts of their technique they needed brushing up on.
Steve found a beautiful symmetry in the fact that mentally Tony was far faster, while physically Steve was.
Tony was plenty fast though, as he'd noted before, but even more, he acted like someone who knew how to work with augmented strength. There was carefulness and precision that was present when he struck his blows as if he had to tamp down on his strength the way Steve did.
Steve remembered that flash of something classified.
If being in a jaeger made you feel like you could take on a hurricane, that classified something felt like you could take a precision blade to every drop of rain and never miss, like you could fly between them and never be touched, like you could soar through a cyclone's gale and feel free. It was a far more addicting power than that which a jaeger gave because a jaeger made you feel like there were no limitations, like you never had. But in that classified piece of art, you were aware of all the limitations that you'd had and you reveled in the joy that you had broken every one of them.
It was sleek, deadly and clever and had his copilot written all the way down to its titanium bones and running through it's powered veins. It fit Tony though, because Stark was a man who knew how to handle power and handle it well. And that classified something, it was a power.
Tony almost whacked Steve on his eyebrow but before he could say something taunting, Steve whirled around and knocked him of his feet. Tony did something complicated with his legs that spun him away from Steve's staff and then he was rolling to his feet.
A few blows later then the two of them found themselves with staffs at their throat and wild grins on their faces. Blue and brown eyes locked and for a moment it didn't matter that there was no pons system tying them together, their minds were one.
After a moment, they stepped back and Tony said, "I would pay money to see you spar with Clint or Natasha."
Steve tilted his head, trying to shove down an irrational feeling of hurt that Tony would want him to attempt to pilot with anyone else.
"A pair of copilots," he said, in explanation and Steve's chest lightened. "They come from pretty shady backgrounds but they're excellent fighters and on assignment to Antarctica right now."
Steve shivered at the mention and nodded. "Maybe I'll get the chance if they're assigned back," he said.
Tony shrugged and hen said, "I'm gonna hit the shower, see you later old man."
"See you later," Steve called back, "2 o'clock." Tony waved a hand to show he'd heard. They had a jaeger training session at two. Steve was oddly looking forward to it.
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