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: Another long chapter which I did not find a good place to break. Well this chapter is all Tony, Steve, Bruce interaction, I hope I did not make them too out of character.
Right now the chapter count is sixteen (with the last two needing some heavy revising), with fourteen being the end of the Avengers movie. The muses are still alive with this story, so while this is the least read fic of what I have posted under the Black Dragon on the Rocks alias, I'll keep on posting until either the muses dry or the fic is finished.
To those who are following, reading and commenting, thanks a lot. I'm glad you're liking this story as much as I do. Believe it or not, this is my favorite of the three I have posted under this name.
On to other things not related to Here, there, and back again.
I have four more fics of over 40,000 words, none finished, but they are still going. 1 is Stony slash (my fist ever slash fic) in the Iron Man 2 timeline, 1 is an Avengers/Harry Potter crossover with De-aged magical Steve (Post Avengers movie, pre Iron Man 3).
Another is Post Avengers De-Aged magical Steve but with no Harry Potter characters, only the references to the Harry Potter world; actually I don't know in which category this one should go if I post it.
The last is the weirdest of them all, I truly don't know what I was thinking when I started writing it, but it just kept going, and going and... Well you get the meaning I think. This is a Harry Potter (Master of Death) as Spider-Man but in the timeline of the Avengers movie, with a just woken up wizard Steve.
I'll post either the full first chapter, or excerpts from each during the weekend in either my tumblr account, or my website, the links you'll find in my profile. I'll probably end posting anything else I have over 20,000 words as well. There are at least four more. So please drop me a word to help me decide what to do with these fics.
Total size without notes: 6,130
Keys:
"Speaking aloud."
'Thoughts'
'Name: /Mental interfacing between technopaths and/or tech\'
Gems and Technopaths
After Banner almost touched the gem on the scepter, even if it would have been by accident, Steve decided he would show them the little one he had in his possession. He took out from his bag the small opaque tupperware container where he stored the gem he found.
The gem was much smaller than the one on the scepter, and Steve wanted to believe it was less powerful. Still, it had the necessary power to open a portal big enough to transport his scrawny twelve year old body back in time seventy-one years. The portal had been large and could have transported someone the size of either of the scientists through time, in fact, he suspected it could have taken all three of them.
Also, Steve was not sure, but it might have been his thoughts about Captain America which changed the gems destination from the deep space image he initially saw, to the dirty alley he ended at. He rather not test that theory, even if it did explain why he ended seventy plus years in the past.
"What's that, are you offering snacks?" Tony asked and he only got a glare in return.
Then Tony felt it, someone took control of the mics and cameras on the room. Then the person set the video on a timed loop, and the audio was some type of music. He stared at Rogers in disbelief.
The Capsicle was a fucking technopath; a shockingly powerful one at that, and to booth, he also seemed to know well what he was doing. He took control of those electronics with the surprising ease of someone who had done it before.
"What the hell Rogers? Who taught you to hijack security like that?" Tony gave himself away unable to contain his shock. Besides, technopaths could not truly hide from each other.
Steve was startled, and stared at the shorter man with a 'deer caught in the headlights' look. Not his best response, but he really had not felt anything to give away the fact Stark was also a technopath. Not that he had come in contact with one before.
He only knew about technopaths because of some obscure sites and forums where they were mentioned. Steve had never dared to locate another of his kind, much less try to establish a connection so they could mentally talk. But truth be told, Stark being a technopath was not unexpected, not with the way the man handled technology. He was simply too good.
"I'm self taught Stark," Steve responded slowly, with only a hint of hesitation, while sparing a look at the doctor. Banner was staring at them clueless, but curious. "I had a lot of practice since SHIELD left me in a bug infested apartment, with bug infested equipment, almost two weeks ago." Which was the truth. He never had any need to do something like that before. "They've been keeping track of me like I'm some kind of terrorist threat." He could not help sounding indignant and offended.
Steve concentrated harder, and he found Stark's subtle connection with practically everything electronic in the room, plus a few long distance ones. They were all running smoothly, and so seamlessly. It was practically like the man did not need to concentrate on what he was doing. He was impressed, as Steve had not detected anything before the man's unfiltered mouth gave him away.
"This is something SHIELD knows nothing about," Steve began changing the subject. It was not the right time to discuss technopaths ,"and I rather keep it that way," he said looking pointedly at each scientist in the eyes.
Steve opened the lid of the tupperware to show them the small gem inside. It was in the size and shape of half a golf ball. As soon as the lid was off, it began glowing brighter. Perhaps it was due to being in close proximity to the one on the staff. It was clear to them all the smaller gem's exhibited plasma like behavior.
"Is that..." Banner trailed off as he peered at the glowing blue gem, "a piece of the Tesseract?" He almost touched it. Rogers pulled the container closer to him protectively, and put the lid back on.
"No touching doctor Banner. While it won't disintegrate you like the Tesseract did the Red Skull, it is quite capable of opening a portal large enough to transport all three of us."
"Where did you get it? How do you know it won't disintegrate anyone, or about it opening portals? And why of all things use a tupperware to transport it?" Tony shot the rapid fire questions, unable to keep his eyes off the small gem once Rogers opened the container again.
Steve chose not to answer most of the questions. He was not ready to disclose his time travelling. "I found it in an abandoned warehouse near the docks." He could admit as much. "As to the tupperware, I didn't have access to a properly insulated container, but plastic is chemically inert, and does have insulating qualities.
"In fact, the HYDRA weapons power source containers were made of hard plastic. At least all the ones I got my hands on did. Besides, no one checked it when they went through my things thinking it had snacks."
"That was actually good thinking," Bruce said once again surprised at what the younger man knew. "But what about the gamma radiation these gems emit? Plastic is not dense enough to block it."
"I know, but from the readings I got when I was working with the HYDRA weapons power sources, the level of radiation they emitted was non harmful," Steve informed them. "It might be worth it to check this one, I'm sure the spectrometer you have is much more advanced than what we had back then."
"You did not answer my question Captain, is it..."
"It's not a piece of the Tesseract doctor Banner," he told them, "and to be truthful I only have a theory about what it is, based on my previous work with Cube powered weaponry."
"Then shoot Capsicle," he got a glare from the younger... Or perhaps older, man. "What do you think it is?" Tony asked taking a seat on the nearest chair.
"As you know, HYDRA weapons were powered by the Tesseract, but not directly," he began. "Arnim Zola found a way to extract some of the Cube's energy and contain it in plastic as plasma.
"It was this plasma which Zola used to power just about everything he could think of. Those weapons actually needed only a very tiny amount of the plasma to be powered, and they still managed to be the most lethal things I've ever encountered.
"I haven't seen anything so far that matches what one of those weapons could do." His eyes took a far away look for a moment, and the two scientists looked at each other knowing he was remembering the war. "I saw large men vaporized upon contact with the rays the smaller weapons shot.
"The tanks... those were the major leagues." He took a deep breath, those were not good memories. "This gem has the form and size of the storage chamber used for the tanks. It not only powered the weapons, but the whole tank as well. I think this managed to survive somehow, and over time the plasma solidified in the container."
"This little thing powered a whole HYDRA tank?" Tony asked shocked peering closer at the half golf ball of lethal blue crystal.
Tony had heard about the HYDRA tanks of course. The tanks had been mentioned during those reunions his father had with the Howling Commandos and aunt Peggy. They were all very glad HYDRA had not had the chance to make too many of them. If he remembered well, Rogers and the 107th stole a couple when he rescued them from the HYDRA base.
Banner had sat as well as he explained, and Steve got the nearest chair closer to the work table, but still on the other side from the scientists, and sat as well. He was keeping his distance from the men, but trying not to be obvious about it. The doctor pulled the scanner closer, and took some readings on the gem. Then compared them with those of the staff and the reports from the Tesseract.
"I can confirm this one is not as powerful as the one on the staff, or the Cube itself. The gamma readings are actually much dimmer, and yet you say you've seen this one open a man sized portal?" Was Rogers the one who touched it? "Have you compared the star constellations for both portals? Where there the same?"
"Actually... I haven't compared them. I do have a photographic memory so I'm pretty sure I have detailed memory images of both, and no Stark," he said when the man opened his mouth, "I already had it before the serum.
"Hmm..." he hummed thoughtfully. "Let me try something," he said pulling Thelma out of the back pack, and making sure she was clean of any spyware.
SHIELD had accessed her to deliver the information Packets after all. Thelma had told him as soon as the information was transferred, and informed him there had not been anything which compromised her security in those files. Still, it never hurt to double check.
"You're going to transfer the memory images to it." Tony realized what Rogers planned. He mentally poked the tablet, and nodded. It was clean of SHIELD spyware, had good processing power, and high definition graphics. It should be able to render good quality mental images. "And you named it Thelma? Why the hell did you name her that?"
"She sounds like a Thelma to me," Steve said with a shrug, "besides, are you really any better at naming your tech?" He retorted. He knew JARVIS stood for Just A Very Intelligent System.
"Of course..." Tony began but trailed off, "not," he admitted. Rhodey, Pepper, Happy, hell even JARVIS had forbidden him to even think about it. "I'm not allowed to name anything anymore. Not after naming my bots DUM-E, U, and Butterfingers."
"And you're questioning MY choice in names?" Steve raised an eyebrow.
Bruce was really confused. They were talking about tech like they were pets. He wanted to ask about it, but there were more important things to deal with. So he asked instead. "You can transfer a memory to a tablet?"
He had never heard of a person interfacing with a computer, or gadgets, in such a way. Although it did shed a little light on to what Tony meant by Rogers hijacking the security, and both of them could do it.
"What are you? Mutants?" Bruce could not help asking.
"No, but I did check just to be sure. I don't have the gene, none of us do," Tony responded as Rogers was clearly concentrating on the tablet. Not that he thought the man from the past would know what Bruce was talking about. "Besides, as far as I know the X gene manifests in puberty. I've been able to interface with anything running on electricity since I can remember. It's better if they have chips though, those actually respond."
"The others do too, but not in words," Steve said absently as he finished transferring the clearest memory images he had of the portals. "You just have to pay attention to the 'feelings' you get. Mostly they let you know if something's not working right, and what they need to work properly, or even better."
"And you would know how those old relics communicate, specially since the integrated circuits came about a few years after you became a Capsicle." The younger man glared at him, and Tony shrugged. He could not help it, the nickname sounded funny to him, and it fit.
"Doctor Banner, have a look." Steve passed the tablet to the physicist. To Stark he said, "you can access the images directly. Thelma unfortunately does not have the computing power to run an extensive comparison program, and I rather not access any of SHIELD's mainframes for the extra power."
"You've been accessing their mainframes?" Tony asked a bit surprised. "A turtle processes faster than they do. I have a supercomputer powered AI which runs my computer factories, I call it the H.O.M.E.R cluster.
"With 600 teraflops it should be able to compare the images without slowing the processes it's already running. Mind if I forward them?" Normally he would not have shown anyone the courtesy, but Rogers kept impressing him. The images were astounding, crisper than anything from the Hobble, or the deep space radio telescopes.
"600 teraflops?" Steve whistled. "That's some serious processing power." He could not help but be impressed. That amount of computer power was something he had only dreamed about as a poor boy from Brooklyn. "Go ahead, I don't think I can get my hands on something with more processing power than this anytime soon." He signalled the Thelma. Even upgraded, Wyatt could not compare.
"The images look to be from the same cluster of space to the naked eye, Captain. The quality is astounding," Bruce could not help but be amazed. "What's the time frame between them?"
"One is from the day I crashed, the other..." he trailed off and fidgeted. "Er... there's a few years difference." It was all he was willing to admit. Of course he really should have known better. Those men before him were not known for being stupid and slow to process things.
"You touched the gem didn't you?" Bruce asked rather gently seeing the younger man's discomfort. "You opened a portal."
"I..." Steve started, but then closed his mouth with a snap and shook his head.
"Where did it take you Rogers?" Tony was not willing to let this pass as he did when he asked about where the Capsicle got the gem. "You've obviously been through the portal, that is why you were concerned about either of us coming in contact with the larger gem."
"It's not important Stark," he said firmly, "what is, is the fact it can produce a man sized portal."
"Like hell it isn't! I can't solve the equation if I don't have all the variables! This little thing can clearly give us more clues as to what the fucking Cube is capable of. You're the only other being who appears to have actually travelled via that thing and can tell us more about it. Because Loki is sure not going to share!"
"Drop it! I've already given you more information about the Cube than you were likely to ever have," he snapped at the billionaire. "You don't need to know anything else Stark." Steve had stood and began a nervous pacing.
"What are you hiding Rogers? Should I tell Fury? I'm sure he'll set Romanoff on your case, and seeing as her partner is in Loki's hands, I can bet she won't go easy on you, super soldier or not."
"Don't you dare Stark! Don't you DARE tell anyone from SHIELD!" Steve tried to snarl.
Steve wanted to sound menacing, unfortunately, it seemed he sounded more terrified than anything, which he was, and about to have a panic attack... Again. God! What was wrong with him? Why couldn't he keep himself together anymore?
But those were rhetorical questions, Steve did know why he was just so tired, and more affected than he wanted to admit even to himself. He did not want Fury to change his mind about that mad scientist and his cronies. He was aware they were on the ship, and as of yet had not been detained.
If someone from SHIELD found out he was a time traveller the Director would probably deliver him to Kraft himself. He could not go through that again, he couldn't; and they had only taken samples from him. They had yet to get to the testing phase. Steve could not help it, he began hyperventilating and put some distance between them.
"Fuck!" Tony exclaimed. He really had not meant for the Capsicle to have a full blown panic attack. "Calm down Rogers, come on, take deep breaths. I was just bluffing! I'm not going to tell SHIELD I swear!"
"Don't tell SHIELD, please," he gasped. "I can't take that again, I can't."
At that moment the subroutine he had mapping the cloaked servers died a swift but extremely violent death. Fear at being used as a breeding stud distracted him too much. Steve was not able to guide the subroutine through the next set of firewalls, and it was detected. Then it was eliminated along with the main program.
In its dying throes, the subroutine sent a huge file dump of all its findings directly onto Steve's unprepared mind. Along with it, there was an electronic screech loud enough Stark heard it. Steve cried out in agonizing pain, and fell to his knees clutching his head and cursing up a storm. He needed to get rid of it, or he was going to pass out, and who knew what damage it could do to his mind.
"Rogers what the hell was that?" Tony's mind was reeling. He had never heard a program do anything like it. "Rogers?"
"Oh God, Oh God," was coming out of Steve's mouth like a mantra. "Need to get it out! Oh God! It's too much, I need to purge it!"
The younger man's last words finally clued him as to what part of the problem was. Tony connected first with JARVIS, and told him he was sending him an information dump. It was probably corrupted and should be kept isolated. JARVIS should avoid examining it until Tony had more information as to what it was, and where it was from.
JARVIS enquired if six terabytes of space would be enough, and after taking a closer look into Rogers' mind, Tony agreed it was sufficient. JARVIS informed him he would be using external hard drives to avoid contamination by the corrupt files. Satisfied with that protection Tony pulled the information from Rogers' mind, and sent it to JARVIS allowing the Captain to regain control over his own thought processes.
"Thanks," Steve said once he had performed the equivalent of a mental purge.
Purging did not work on any real memories, pity that. There were more than a few things he rather not remember. Unfortunately memories were organic and not easily tampered with. But anything digital was treated by his mind much like a computer would treat data.
He really had no explanation as to why that was, or if it was a common thing for technopaths, not that he cared at the moment. Steve was just grateful things worked that way, or he would have probably had brain damage of some type.
"You can thank me by telling me what the hell was that?" Tony waved it off giving the Capsicle a hand to stand.
The younger man was pale, and visibly shaken. Rogers had accepted his assistance, but he moved out of reach as soon as he was able to stand on his feet, even if a bit unsteadily. One more sign to add to his list of tell tale signs of rape. Tony had other questions, a lot of them, but those could wait until the main one was answered.
Steve walked back to his chair feeling like the ninety-something year old he was supposed to be, and still keeping his distance from the other two men. He had released Stark's hand as soon as he was standing.
He ached all over, and not just his head. Steve rubbed his face, and passed a hand through his hair. His hands were visibly shaking, and he took a few deep breaths to try to steady himself before he began explaining.
"I hacked into SHIELD last night since they did not see fit to provide me with all the necessary information," he told them
"You hacked into their mainframe, with that?" Tony signalled the tablet and raised an eyebrow. He was surprised.
"Not initially," Steve admitted. "Wyatt is a regular laptop, new but not state of the art. I suppose they did not expect me to get the hang of using tech any time soon. I've upgraded Wyatt as much as possible, but he's still not as powerful as Thelma.
"I actually had to work with both last night to have enough power, and time to do as much research as possible. At least agent Coulson said I could keep her after we find the Cube."
Tony stared impressed, Rogers must have had to do most of the work mentally. "Before I met you, I wouldn't have pegged Captain America as one to go for the back door." The blond just shrugged. "Not that I can say anything, as JARVIS my AI is practically downloading the contents of SHIELD's encrypted databases as we speak."
If someone asked him if he believed Captain America capable of going behind someone's back last night after he read SHIELD's dossier on him, Tony would have said hell no. But would wonders never cease? The Capsicle was not one to follow blindly, and not above spying (and doing something 'slightly' illegal, well very illegal, but who cared?) to get the information he needed.
"We had not met yet, so Fury can't pin that one on me. I was not the one to corrupt Captain America," he crowed.
"Ha, very funny Stark, ha," Steve glared half heartedly feeling more like himself.
"You were saying Captain?" Bruce asked pinning a warning look on Stark, there was a slightly green tinge to his eyes and skin. He too had questions, and they were not going to be answered if the man did not keep quiet.
"Call me Steve," he told both of them. "As I said I accessed their mainframe with a query for information about the Tesseract."
Tony stared. "Oh you can be devious Cap, who would have thought? You already read Selvig's notes, so those complaints on the bridge were just for show."
"I would call it misdirection Stark," he said sounding dignified. "Besides, I needed a way to get them to give me the information to justify how I knew about it. They believe me somewhat technology illiterate, but because I can communicate with it, that has actually been the easiest thing of being in the future. They don't need to know that though."
"No they don't," both scientists agreed.
"So you hacked into SHIELD's mainframe..." Bruce prompted.
"Yeah, and since I was already there I had a subroutine start mapping and indexing the servers, and flag any interesting files. The subroutine led me to a cloaked cluster of servers running parallel to the mainframe.
"I don't think many are aware they're there. The security for those servers is... extreme, almost... sentient. I noticed the coding is different to the one running on the mainframe as well. Most comments to the code are in German, which I find odd for an American organization.
"I've been in contact with the subroutine on and off all day. I stopped it when I left for Stuttgard, and deployed it again when we returned. I've been assisting it with evading the security, but I got distracted and it caught us. The security subroutine retaliated in a rather painful way. I didn't know they could do that."
"That's strange, I've hacked into SHIELD rather often. Hell, I do it every other week just on principle, and I've never come across anything like you describe," Tony mused, but he did contact J and let him know about the cloaked servers so he could look for them. He also warned him about the extreme security.
"It seems SHIELD is hiding more things from us than I originally thought, not that it is unexpected. This makes me wonder, why did Fury call Banner and me in? Why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us? As I said, I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables." He took out a bag of blueberries from his pocket and began munching on them.
"Fury is hiding something." Of that Steve had no doubt.
"He's a spy Cap, so of course he is." Tony agreed. "Fury is 'the' spy. His secrets have secrets. It's bugging you too, isn't it Banner?"
"Ah..." he rather not get more involved than he already was. That always led to trouble. "I just want to finish my work and..."
"Let's be honest doctor," Steve requested. "Neither Stark, nor I trust SHIELD, and I suspect you don't either." He needed to be certain they were all on the same page. He had already revealed more than he originally wanted.
"I don't," he agreed, "and call me Bruce," he offered. "A warm light for all mankind. Loki's jab at Fury about the Cube."
"I think we all heard it," It was bugging him too.
"I think that was meant for you," Bruce said to Stark. The man offered him blueberries, and he took a few. Having the Other Guy gave him an accelerated metabolism and he was getting a bit hungry. "Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news."
"The Stark Tower?" He was not sure why it would interest Loki, but then when he left it was yet to be finished, and he had not paid much attention to it. "That big, ugly..." Stark glared at him, "building in New York."
"It's powered by an arc reactor, a self-sustaining energy source," Bruce went on explaining. "That building will run itself for, what, a year?" Steve looked suitably impressed.
"It's only the prototype," Tony told them rather proudly. The arc reactor was going to save Stark Industries a shitload of money, which in turn would make the Board of Directors happy. Hopefully it would keep them off his back for a long, long while.
"I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now. That's what he's getting at." He offered a blueberry to the kid, because that was something he discovered while helping Rogers. He was, way, WAY younger than he admitted, even if he looked older. But that conversation could wait.
"So, why didn't SHIELD bring him in on the Tesseract project?" Bruce asked.
This was something that had him questioning SHIELD since Bruce received the Package. They had tried to sell him the idea they were interested in unlimited clean energy, which was very hard to believe. They were a spying agency after all.
"What are they doing in the energy business in the first place?" Bruce added, voicing his doubts since it truly did not sound logical at all.
"I asked myself the same thing when Fury told me about the Tesseract," Steve commented. "They are an intelligence and threat response agency, there's no reason for them to be involved with energy."
"So you both noticed it too. I should probably look into that once my decryption program finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files." Tony mused.
"You've been running that in the background?" Steve asked Stark rather awed.
Now that he knew about it, Steve had been 'feeling' the other man work the systems in the background. It was awe inspiring, but there was nothing to indicate he was actually decrypting files. From experience Steve knew those took a lot more concentration and mental processing power.
"No, JARVIS, my AI, has been running it since I hit the bridge. This frees my mind to focus on other things. In a few hours I'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide.
"I also warned J about the cloaked servers, and about the tight security. He'll access them now that he knows they are there. Blueberry?" He offered again, and this time the kid did take a few. Then rubbed his temple after he ate them. "Headache?"
"More like a migraine, and I haven't had one of those since I took the serum," he grimaced.
"Hmm... Pain meds don't work on you, do they?" Bruce asked. Proof the Super Soldier Serum did have its downsides.
Steve sighed. "Most of what we had didn't, morphine did work though, but I needed very large doses. I'm not sure if any of the new ones would work, and I rather not give them the chance to experiment on me." He tried to suppress a shudder but failed. The other two men in the room noticed, but thankfully they did not comment.
"Take a nap," he suggested. "It might help."
"Thanks for the suggestion Bruce, but I don't think I can sleep while on this flying bucket. Kraft and his aides are on board, and while Fury promised he would have them arrested, I can't be sure it's already done.
"If I lower my guard I might end on an operating table with no anesthetics, or locked in a room without food and water until I collapse just to see how long I can go without them."
Tony frowned. "You're exaggerating, right kid?" Somehow he felt like Steve was not, and he did not like it at all.
Steve shook his head. "No, Kraft demanded Fury handed me to them the day I regained consciousness. He actually delivered a testing programme for approval, and believe me those two are the mildest ones.
"Fury refused, but Kraft did what he wanted anyway. They only got samples..." and it took all he had to push the memories away, but rolling his chair to put a bit more distance from them was rather telling. As was hugging himself, although he had tried to make it look like he was crossing his arms.
Bruce gasped, understanding just what kind of samples those people took, and he could see the younger man had not been dealing with it at all. Probably pushed it to the back of his mind. But Hill unwittingly reminded him of what had been done to him, then being confined in the same ship, albeit a very large one, as those people was probably making things worse.
"They can't do that Steve. No one can take samples from you without your consent. Doing it by force is a crime, several actually." Bruce explained to the younger man.
His eyes were tinged slightly green. The Other Guy was not at all happy. He wanted to smash those who dared hurt and scare the little Captain. The last puzzled Bruce no end, Steve was anything BUT little.
"I don't think they care. Kraft doesn't consider me a human being anyway." Steve looked rather lost and hurt at that moment. "He actually referred to me as an 'It'. Besides, he already took some of them, and I was in no condition to stop him." He did not like what Kraft planned with some of his samples, not at all. Hopefully they had not used them yet.
"How long is it since you had a full night's sleep kid?" Tony asked. Steve, he was no longer the Capsicle after what he found in his mind, said his apartment was bugged, and they were keeping him under surveillance, much like they did terrorists. There was a good chance he had not had much.
"Too long," he finally admitted. "Not since weeks before the crash... before Bucky died" and his voice broke a little. He hadn't been able to truly grieve for his brother in all but blood, and it still hurt so very much to even think about him, much less speak about him. "I don't need much sleep due to the serum anyway," Steve said with a shrug.
Tony looked the kid in the eyes, and connected to his mind so he could feel he meant what he said. "You are safe with us Steve. Neither Bruce, nor I, will let those people get to you. We might have a fight on our hands later, when we find the Tesseract, and you need to be in good condition. You need to rest.
"There are enough work tables we're not using here, if you can fit yourself under one for some privacy, you may be able to catch some Zs. We'll keep watch for you," Tony offered, and Bruce nodded his agreement.
Tony mentally asked JARVIS to give priority to what that wanna-be scientist did to Rogers. He truly did not like the kid's reactions to the mention of that man. The fact Rogers was still a kid, only made his blood boil even more.
The Cap had been calm and collected until Hill mentioned that supposed debriefing. She made him remember what he had clearly been blocking, and from there Steve began crumbling. The kid needed to regroup, or he was going to get himself, and others, killed if there was a fight.
"Yeah, that sounds good. I think I can do that," he agreed slightly nervous, although he had felt the older technopath's sincerity. It had eased him a little, because he finally had someone to watch his back.
"Just wait a second, I'll be back in a moment." With that Tony went out of the lab leaving two puzzled men. When he returned nearly ten minutes later he was carrying a couple of pillows and blankets, plus a sleeping bag. "Here, this should help you be more comfortable."
"Thank you," Steve said taking the items Stark brought. It was a nice gesture, and he was rather moved by his consideration.
"Do we want to know where you got them?" Bruce asked slightly amused. Tony was not as self centred as he made people think.
"Probably not," he shrugged, "but according to the logs they have not been used."
"I probably won't sleep more than twenty minutes, but that should be enough to keep me going. Thanks, Tony?" The last was a question since the man had not offered his first name.
"Yeah Tony is alright. Now go on, get some Zs." Tony made shooing motions towards the tables at the back of the room. "We'll try not to make too much noise," he said with a nod. "I'll take control of the surveillance equipment while you nap kid."
"You might want to keep using my Annoy SHIELD playlist," he suggested before picking up his bag and choosing a place where he could sleep. "I'm sure it's driving them up the walls."
Normally Steve could go about a week without sleep during combat situations, but the migraine was more than he could deal with at the moment. Specially when he had had so little restful shut eye since before they took him out of the ice, and he was feeling too out of sorts. He needed to rest before he broke.
After checking the work tables in the room, Steve chose the one furthest from the two scientists so they could keep with their work. It was actually more like a desk, which gave him more privacy. It also kept him mostly out of sight from everyone entering the lab, as well as the scientists.
Steve crouched before it and placed the sleeping bag folded in two, as the desk was not long enough to fit his tall frame. He set one of the pillows on one side, then crawled under the desk, and settled as best as he could covering himself with the blankets all the way to his ears. The other pillow he chose to hug, as it was a bit comforting and something he used to do before enlisting.
He managed to curl himself into a surprisingly small ball under the covers despite his very large frame. It was a trick Steve learned since he sometimes had to hide his whole body behind his shield during gun fights for protection. The serum made his body quite flexible.
Steve was out like a light as soon as he was somewhat comfortable. Life as a soldier had taught him to sleep whenever and wherever possible, and sleeping under a desk on the floor was not amongst the most uncomfortable places he had napped at.
Unfortunately despite this ability, his rest was usually interrupted by nightmares, which were actually more memories of what he had been through than anything. This time Steve was out for longer than expected, proof of just how tired he really was.
The quiet murmurs coming from all the tech in the room, and the two scientists, as well as the knowledge that someone had his back, allowed him to relax for the first time in two weeks. He felt safe, and that was not something he had felt since before the gem took him back in time.
