Author: Black Dragon on the Rocks/animealam

Rating: T

Pairing: None so far, mentions of one sided Steve/Peggy

Summary: The Universe stared at the boy for what seemed an eternity to him, only to change into a decrepit, dirty alley, and that was the last thing Steve saw before loosing consciousness. The small frail boy banished in a flash of blue flames. Be warned VERY AU Young Time Travelling genius tech savvy Steve.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Avengers, I'm just borrowing them. I'm using a good number of the movie dialogs, even if I added bits and pieces so some of them. So if something looks familiar they are obviously not mine, and belong to their respective owners.

Warnings: NOT SLASH, AU, Completely totally AU, Time Travel, Younger Steve, Violence, Adoption, Smart Steve, Technopaths, Technopath Tony, Technopath Steve, Canon Character Deaths, Minor Character Deaths, OOC-ness, there are quite a lot of movie dialogs which I decided not to change but I did add my own twists and turns to make them a bit more interesting.

Characters: Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Natasha Romanoff, Clint Barton, Thor, Nick Fury, Phil Coulson, Maria Hill, Sarah Rogers, mentions of Bucky, mentions of Peggy Carter, mentions of Howard Stark, mentions of Colonel Phillips, mentions of the Howling Commandos, Jarvis, Pepper, Happy, Rhodey

Timeline: Pre Avengers, Captain America: The First Avenger, Avengers, Post Avengers

Author's Note: Well, another chapter is here. I will keep posting about once a week until I run out of writen chapters. Thanks to all of those who are reading, and are either following or favorited the story.

Total size without notes: 4,130

Keys:

"Speaking aloud."

'Thoughts'

'Name: /Mental interfacing between technopaths and/or tech\'


Make them pay

Nick saw the young Captain roll away from the bridge at a sedate pace, managing to avoid anyone in his path with surprising ease. Like he had been skateboarding for most of his younger years.

It was surprising how easily Rogers learned, be it something physical like the skateboarding or the Parkour, or technical things. On his way to the bridge, Nick had stopped to watch the feed from the meeting. He had seen in a monitor how at ease the young man had been handling the tablet.

But all that did not hide the fact the Cap was not well, and needed help to deal with what those motherfuckers did to him. Help which Rogers clearly was not going to ask for, or accept if SHIELD offered it. There was simply too much distrust, and he could not blame him for it.

At least Rogers had managed to pull himself together, after nearly loosing it a couple of times, but he was concerned. Had the Captain been one of his agents, Nick would have pulled him off the mission and sent him home. Rogers was compromised, and he worried his mental and emotional condition might affect the outcome of the mission.

Unfortunately he could not do that, the young man was needed, and he had already proven to be a valuable member of the team. Nick could only hope Rogers kept himself together long enough to find and secure the Cube. In the mean time, he would make good on his threats to Kraft. The scientist would rue the day he heard of the Super Soldier Serum.

He would make Kraft, Frampton, and Wilkins pay. He might actually grant Rogers the time he requested with those fuckers. Not alone though... Stark, in that flashy suit of his, might actually be useful for something else and keep the Cap from killing the bastards.

"Are we certain he's twenty-six Sir?" Maria could not help but ask feeling slightly amused for the first time since doctor Kraft's actions were revealed.

What Captain Rogers just did had been typical teenage rebellion, she knew because two of her teenage nephews acted just like that. Rogers knew it bothered Fury, who was the authority figure, and did it precisely for that reason.

Maria had also heard of his escapade in the New York's office, but frankly who hadn't? It had only been a few days since it happened, and it was already becoming a legend amongst the junior ranks, and even amonst a few of the older agents. No one had admitted to introducing the Captain to skateboarding, and after all the revelations about him earlier, she was beginning to suspect he found out on his own.

"Actually," Fury began thoughtfully, "there were several reports of people accusing Rogers of being a minor. They were mostly based on hearsay, as it seemed all the Howling Commandos called him kid when on leave. Even Colonel Phillips did, but the man was always quick to quiet them down.

"There is a birth certificate re-issued in 1941, stating Rogers was born in 1918. But there was a fire which destroyed most of Brooklyn's birth records at the end of 1940; and back then they had to request people to present their documents so they could remake the books," he paused to let his agents assimilate the information.

Nick knew his people well enough to be certain they would reach the same conclusion he did. "I find it suspicious Rogers got a copy of his birth certificate just a few months after the fire, as it was not long after his mother died," he told them.

"You think he took advantage of the loss of records to falsify his birth certificate Sir? Why would he do that?" Maria asked rather shocked, and she could see Coulson was curious as well.

"Rogers might have done it to avoid going to an orphanage and to find work to support himself Hill. I'm told they had already some laws against child labor by the 1940s. Sixteen was the minimum age for a worker, and only for part time jobs. Rogers' mother had died a few months earlier, and as far as anyone knew, he had no other relatives."

"So he's eighteen, or perhaps even seventeen?" Maria asked. With the exception of Romanoff, SHIELD did not recruit anyone under twenty-one. She noticed Widow was paying close attention to their discussion, and suprisingly so was Thor.

"I have a feeling Captain Rogers is probably younger than that, maybe sixteen. It would explain some things, although he has proven to be a surprisingly capable, and responsible leader, as well as a superb strategist."

It also made what Kraft did to him even more of an abomination. Because if Rogers was that young he would still be considered a child, at least legally, and probably emotionally as well.

"That would mean he's still underage despite being ninety-something chronologically. If he's that young it might cause problems should it become public knowledge," she pointed out, "and he might need a guardian."

"We'll cross that bridge, if it comes, later Hill. Although I doubt he would ever admit his real age to us if that was the case. Not even under torture, and specially not after what Kraft did to him.

"Coulson," he said turning to his one good eye knowing the agent was dying to get his hands on those who hurt his childhood hero. He would have no mercy on them. "I want that motherfucker detained now. Top security and isolated. The same for Wilkins, Frampton, Lozano, Johnson, and any other asshole working under Kraft."

"Yes Sir." Phil knew Kraft was on board the helicarrier, as were all of the four senior agents mentioned, and a few of Kraft's staff. The rest were back at the New York offices. He was going to make them suffer for hurting Captain America.

"I also want Kraft's labs and offices secured, the ones in New York City, and those here. Have everyone with access to those places, even the cleaning crews detained for questioning. Have his house secured as well, I know he's not married, and has no partner, so there should not be anyone in that place.

"No one goes in or out, no one takes, or touches anything. You may use force Coulson, actually," he said his face hardening, "use it even if they don' resist, just leave them alive and able to respond questions. Romanoff," Nick turned to face her.

"Yes Sir?" She was standing already anticipating what Fury wanted.

Natasha had to accept she was more affected by what they discovered than she wanted to admit. Rogers was a strong, capable man from what she had read on his file, and what she had seen. He was also a bit naive and innocent, not the suave man she was expecting judging him by his looks.

If Rogers was indeed a teenager, and most likely an inexperienced one, it would explain that endearing and shy blush when he caught her checking him out. A confident soldier and leader outside, but a shy and insecure boy inside. It was a very odd combination.

On top, they had found out Rogers was a genius as well, and had been before the Super Soldier Serum. Then Natasha had to admire the fact he had been able to keep on functioning after being raped, because that was what Kraft's people, and perhaps the man himself, did to him.

The Captain was clearly a much better actor than they thought, and she suspected he was much better at denial as well. Because from what she had been able to observe from his reactions, the young man had clearly been trying to shove the experience to the back of his mind. Rogers was very affected by it, and probably only managed to avoid a panic attack out of sheer stubborness.

The fact he might actually be a child hit a bit close to home, to her time at the Red Room. It was there were she had seen strong, powerful, and capable young men loose all self-esteem, as well as their self-worth, then kill themselves after being treated like cattle studs. Most of those young men had not been willing participants in the program to breed better Black Widows.

"As soon as this crisis is over, you'll be in charge of questioning the motherfuckers. You have free reign, use any methods you see fit to get them talking. Show no mercy, but leave them alive... Castration IS acceptable," he said in a tone which implied it was NOT a suggestion. "I am seriously considering allowing Rogers and Stark an hour with each." Maria raised her eyebrows surprised at his words but she refrained from saying anything. "Coulson, you may assist her."


Rolling down the passageways

Steve rolled his way down the walkways avoiding the agents walking by him skillfully. Most physical activities came surprisingly easy to him due to the Super Soldier Serum. His body did not need much work to obtain muscle memory, and he already had excellent balance despite the width of his shoulders.

He had managed to push aside the memory of Kraft with difficulty. But his reaction to Fury's proximity, and simple non threatening touch disturbed him more than he cared to admit to himself. Steve had been terrified by it, and had a really hard time not going into a panic attack before those people. Not that it did much good.

They all knew, even without it being mentioned. They knew what Kraft did to him, and he felt so ashamed. Steve had been weak, he had not fought them off... But he had tried, he had tried so hard to free himself from their clutches, yet his own body betrayed him by not responding. He truly hated that paralizing pen.

Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about them knowing what happened, and so he did his best to push that to the back of his mind as well. At the moment there were more important things at stake, like Earth's freedom if Loki managed to transport his army to Earth.

Afterward he would do his best to keep off the radar and find a place where he could allow himself to break. It would not be at home, because, frankly, he did not think he could tell his mother what happened in that cell like room.

Fury promised justice, but Steve did not believe he would get it. He did not feel he could trust SHIELD with it. Steve was working himself up again, and he really could not afford to lose it just yet, so he did his best to distract himself, and started thinking what to do once he reached the lab.

Steve had brought the blue gem on board with him, and was still not sure whether to tell the two scientists about it or not. There would be questions he was not prepared to answer as he did not trust either of them; and he was already rattled by the conversation on the bridge, so he knew he was not going to be able to convincingly lie his way out of those questions.

He worried having the gem on board the ship might interfere with the correct readings to find the Cube. Steve had consulted with the mainframe about its scientific equipment inventory, and there was a spectrometer on board, specifically, it was located in doctor Banner's lab.

Steve was still undecided about what to do when he reached the lab, precupied as he was with the gem, he almost used a mental command to open the door. Steve caught himself on time, there were cameras on both the corridor and the inside of the lab.

He was certain SHIELD would be intrigued as to why the door opened without him using the panel, and he was not sure they would go with the excuse of defective equipment, or something similar.

Steve was sure someone would get curious as to why that happened just as he was about to enter, and he really did not want to risk Fury changing his mind about keeping their scientists off him, and he might if he found out what he could do.

He rolled past the door due to his momentum, and then was stopped by one of the junior agents with a message from the Director. Which was to remind him no skateboarding was allowed on the helicarrier, and to get his ass to the lab ASAP.


The lab

Bruce was going through Selvig's readings reports with a fine toothed comb, after he had informed Stark about what he had missed. The billionaire had not been happy to learn the information doctor Selvig provided on the Cube might not be accurate, or was incomplete. Bruce did not blame him, he had not been happy about it either.

They were now completely dependent on what Captain Rogers remembered from his work on the Tesseract powered HYDRA weapons, which might actually be more than they thought. While for them it had been over sixty-years since WWII, for the younger man it had been days.

Bruce knew from his research on the Super Soldier Serum, the Captain had been known for having an excellent memory, practically photographic. Back then he thought it might have been a side effect of the serum. What information he had on the serum suggested it might be.

After discovering the young man was a genius before Project Rebirth, Bruce was more inclined to think the exceptional memory was something the Captain already had, which the Super Soldier Serum had improved..

He looked up from his work, and saw Stark working on some equipment he brought, based on the Stark Industries logo on it. Then out of the corner of his eye Bruce saw something, or rather someone, large, blue, and blond zoom past the lab's window.

It went faster than walking, and smoother than running. He had to do a double take, and turned to look at Stark. Who had a rather dumbfounded expression, which Bruce supposed was mirrored on his own face.

"Was that who I think it was?" Bruce asked a trace of disbelief in his voice.

"If you mean did Rogers just roll past the lab on a skateboard? Yes, I believe you are correct," Tony could not help the slightly awed tone of his voice.

Skateboarding. On. Fury's. Prized. Ship? That was precious, and took a lot of guts. Tony knew it would annoy the heck out of the one eyed spy; and being able to annoy Fury was one of the pleasures of life. It was simply too much fun. Man, Rogers was earning brownie points like there was no tomorrow.

"Good to know I was not hallucinating," he went back to his reports. "The Captain is nothing like what I expected him to be from the dossier we were given," he commented rather bemused.

"I have to agree with you on that. I'm starting to believe we got the sanitized media approved reports and evaluations on Captain America, and by that I mean everyone not his contemporary. That includes all present SHIELD.

"Because there certainly was no information on Rogers being able to science, and having more than two functioning brain cells to rub together. Which he actually does seem to have, and the spies were just as surprised as we were."

"Hmm... Yes they were at that, specially when he admitted to have been the one doing all the work on the HYDRA weapons, and he happens to be self taught to booth.

"It was unexpected, but it might be quite helpful. He's probably the only one alive who has actually seen how the HYDRA weapons used the Cube to work," Bruce paused then could not resist asking. "What do you think he was doing on a skateboard of all things?"

"If I'm reading the situation right, he's actually fucking up with SHIELD's minds in general, and probably Fury's in particular," Tony responded thoughtfully. "I would certainly not have expected Captain America to have even heard of skateboards, much less to know how to ride them.

"But anyway, Rogers is clearly pissed off at SHIELD, whether it is because of what those guys did to him, or something else, we can only guess. But I don't blame him, because let me tell you, that paralizing pen is no fun.

"It's... pure mental torture to be so vulnerable and unable to protect yourself." He shuddered remembering what it was to be unable to keep Obadiah from removing the arc reactor. It was not just the betrayal from someone he had loved almost like a father, but the fact the man was using his creations against him.

"You've been subjected to it's effects?" Bruce asked curious. He had not missed the shudder from the other man.

"Yeah, it was... not good," Tony admitted but said nothing else about it.

After his experience in Afghanistan, Tony had come to regret designing most of the weapons Stark Industries had sold to the military through the years. But there was nothing he regretted more than creating THAT particular device... And the Jericho missile. Tony had to be grateful someone had drawn the line, and refused to approve the paralizing pen.

"I also think Rogers has resorted to just being annoying, because he's afraid doing anything else might lead Fury to deliver him to that mad scientist.

"But whatever it was they did to him, and I have my suspicions," he looked at his fellow scientist and by the grim expression on the other man's face, Tony could see Banner shared his suspicions as well, "had to have been bad enough to make a soldier like him nearly have a panic attack."

Tony typed a few commands on the screens while mentally issuing others. He could have done everything mentally, but only a scant number of people knew what he was able to do, and he was not willing to enlighten SHIELD about his abilities. There were cameras in the lab after all.

He was what was known in their very small circle as a technopath, and their small community preferred to keep their abilities to themselves. Who knew what governments would do to them if they discovered their ability to mentally interface with practically all tech?

To protect themselves technopaths policed their own people, there were probably less than two thousand of them (of all ages) world wide. So far they had been able to take care of their very few bad apples, so their secret was safe. Amongst them Tony was one of the most powerful, and he was capable of a world wide access range, modesty aside. Which of course he did not have any.

"I can see He was not very happy with SHIELD from what he said on the bridge," Bruce commented. He had noticed, but then everyone did. The Captain had been too affected to be subtle. "Neither was he pleased to learn none of his work was actually recognized. I would have liked to have those notes, he seems to be the only one who actually has any idea as to what the Cube is capable of doing."

"You and me both. I thought when I read his dossier Rogers was here willingly, I don't think it's the case anymore. I'm starting to believe most of us," and Tony made a movement with his hand indicating his fellow scientist and outside in the lab in the general direction where Rogers disappeared, "are not SHIELD fans."

Tony finished with some of the code then started working on gaining access to more processing power. SHIELD's mainframe was too slow for his liking. At that pace they would be on the flying bucket for months. So he planned on utilizing the H.O.M.E.R cluster for any heavy duty processing they required.

He already had JARVIS working on decripting SHIELD's files, but he knew the AI could take a bit of his processing power off the drecryption to look for any information on what that Doctor Kraft did to Rogers.

He was curious as to what would make a man who had had a bullet extracted without anesthetics more than once, nearly panic at the mention of the Doctor. Rogers' body language had pointed to something Tony did not want to consider.

Tony thought there was no reason to actually do 'that' to the soldier. Then his thought processes halted, as he realized there actually was one. If they could not get super soldiers by either getting the Super Soldier Serum's formula, or by cloning, then they would resort to artificial insemination or even IVF. How dare they?

"Hmm," Bruce hummed in agreement and went back to scanning the scepter. He had been... 'Invited' meaning he was not given much choice. It had really not ocurred to him the others were issued 'invitations' in a similar manner. "The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports on the Tesseract, so this at least was reported truthfully. But it's going to take weeks to process."

"If we bypass their mainframe and direct route to the H.O.M.E.R cluster we can clock this at around 600 teraflops," he told the scientist.

Tony was actually finishing doing it as he spoke, and was glad Banner brought his mind back to the task at hand. Thinking about what could have possibly been done to Rogers brought memories of Afghanistan. Beatings and waterboarding were not the only things they had tried to get him to make them their missile.

He had managed to deal with most of it, at least the sexual part because it had unfortunately not been the first time it happened to him, but the road had not been an easy one. Tony had, unfortunately, been kidnapped more than once in his life. There had been some kidnappers who would not cross certain lines, but unfortunately for him, there were a few others who did. Thankfully those had been a minority.

The necessary screen touching and typing to fool SHIELD done, Tony went into full mental commands. Keeping connections with all the tech in the room to monitor it, as well as the few main consoles on the bridge. All this behind Fury's back. Anything happen anywhere in the helicarrier, and he would know. Then he went towards the area Banner was working.

"Heh, all I packed was a toothbrush," Bruce said self-deprecatingly.

"You know, you should come by Stark tower sometime. Top ten floors, all R&D. You'd love it, it's candy land." He picked a screwdriver to fiddle with.

"Thanks, but the last time I was in New York, I kind of broke Harlem." He definitely was not proud of that, and had been doing his best to avoid a repeat.

"Well, I promise a stress-free environment. No tension, no surprises," he said as he walked behind Banner and could not resist poking him hard on the side with the screwdriver.

"Ow!" Bruce jumped and complained, annoyed but not angry.

"Hey!" Steve exclaimed as he entered the room, and saw Stark poking Banner with a screwdriver.

"Nothing?" Tony asked. He was actually proving a point that Banner had more control over the Hulk than he let on.

"Are you nuts?" Steve could not help sounding disapproving, although they might misconstrue the real reason for it.

"Jury's out," was Tony's answer; and here he thought Rogers did not have a stick up his ass. It seemed he was mistaken. "You really have a lid on it," he said turning to Banner, "haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz, bongo drums, huge bag of weed?"

"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve demanded, although he could see the humor, specially since he had actually thought about Banner resorting to the later to keep calm when he read about the Hulk.

"Funny things are," Tony responded stiffly.

"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny; and I don't mean you doctor Banner." The last was said to reassure the doctor, he really agreed with Stark on the fact the man seemed to have things under control.

"It's all right, I wouldn't have come aboard if I could not handle pointy things," Bruce reassured the younger man.

"Then what do you mean Capsicle, if not the Hulk?" Tony demanded. He saw nothing which could endanger the whole ship.

"The jewel on the staff, what else Stark? As I said on the bridge, I do have some experience with Tesseract powered things," he pointed out. "I can tell you touching the jewel, even by accident, is not a good idea."