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Chapter 4: School Daze
"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."
― Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night
By the time they got to the combined Lewis-McChord base near Seattle, Steve wanted nothing more than a hot shower and a decent bed. While he was still used to sleeping on the ground somehow, even years after he left World War II behind, he enjoyed the comforts of a soft mattress and fluffy pillows. It was the shower he was really gunning for, to be honest.
Getting into the base was surprisingly easy once they showed their enlistment forms. A guard showed them to four rooms at the end of a corridor and gave them directions to the mess hall with a promise to get them a meeting with the person in charge of the base. It was almost friendly.
The rooms themselves reminded Steve greatly of the helicarrier, but everything here was concrete rather than steel. Only the beds and desks were made of anything but, both of them shiny metal. Satisfied enough, he dropped his bag and headed for the bathroom that was miraculously attached to the room.
When he got out he smirked at his reflection. The blue had almost faded from his skin, leaving nearly everything looking slightly bruised but not like he got a vat of dye thrown on him. It had been a pain to get up here, hiding his face and arms whenever they had to enter a population center because they really didn't need the attention.
As it was, Clint and Natasha stuck out enough. Red hair and an archer were distinctive and their fight with the kaiju had aired worldwide. Luckily, Tony's suit folded down into a suitcase and Steve was able to put his backpack on over his shield. Hats and sunglasses and bags let them get here without more than passing notice.
Not five minutes after he was out of the shower, someone knocked on his door. When he opened it the guard was back and ogling his arms.
Steve cleared his throat, trying to be polite.
The guard snapped out of it, pink-cheeked. "Marshall Maddox will see you now," he said weakly.
The trip through the base was long. They passed through multiple halls and rooms and people on the way there, including a secretary who was actually competent. Like everyone else, she took one look at him and her face twisted in distasteful pity. It really did look like he had gotten his butt kicked to all hell.
When they got to the door labeled 'Marshall Ronald Maddox' the guard knocked and waited respectfully. A voice called for them to come in, and the guard opened the door. "Captain Rogers here to see you," he reported.
"Let him in," said a strangely average voice.
The guard left with a sympathetic smile at Steve, who entered. Respectfully he shut the door before turning around to face the Marshall. "You requested me, sir?" he asked.
In front of the desk sat the rest of the Avengers who were in this alternate universe. While they were in casual stances, he knew as much as anyone that they could spring into action within a few seconds. The moment they saw him however, their shoulders relaxed.
Behind the desk the Marshall, a heavyset man with his blonde hair cropped to the point of almost non-existence, raked blue eyes over him. "You're the one that survived the kaiju blue?" he asked, eyes going to a pile of papers that he shuffled.
"Yes, sir," Steve answered. He hadn't been invited to sit, so he continued to stand just a little less formally than parade rest.
"I waited to tell your friends until you all were here, so I'll not take up more of everybody's time than I have to. You're all welcome to use the Kwoon room, the cafeteria and the other training rooms. The laundry facilities are all open to you and you're welcome to go off-base as long as you return by ten at night and have your ID's," Marshall Maddox told them bluntly, going through an envelope, "We need to make them, so we're going to need pictures. Go out and tell Sam, and she'll get everything taken care of." His eyes turned to them again and he handed each of them a slip of paper.
When Steve read his through, he realized that it was an application for military ID. The section for rank was already filled out: jaeger academy candidate. "Yes, sir," he said, vaguely impressed at the efficiency of the military in this universe. In theirs it would have taken a month to get even to this stage.
It was a quick thing to get their pictures taken and paperwork filled out. The look on the secretary's face as she asked whether he had meant to put down 1918 in his birthdate made Tony and Clint snicker. When he assured her that he did mean it, she took the paperwork without comment. It was appreciated.
From the look on her face, the rest weren't that much better. It may have had something to do with the year being 2019 (and didn't that boggle the brain?) but according to the paperwork, Tony was forty nine and Clint was forty eight. Natasha was still a little unbelievable at thirtyfive, but not so much as to get stared at like the rest.
The days passed quickly after that. The training gym of the Seattle Shatterdome was fully equipped and often enough empty, or at least when Steve and Tony ended up there in the middle of the night when they couldn't sleep. Which was more often than not, honestly. The nightmares caught them both often.
Whenever he had a spare moment, Steve found himself thinking of their home universe. What was going on? Were Bruce and Thor handling things alright by themselves? The possibility that something had gone wrong weighed heavily on him.
While they got curious looks, most of the Shatterdome staff were content to ignore them as more wannabes. The blue on his face and arms were explained as a bad accident at a dye factory during the last kaiju attack. The cafeteria staff seemed to realize that something was up, from how much of their food stock went missing after the four of them came in, but no one ever said anything to them.
Then the last day of August hit, and the four were bundled into a helicopter. It was more like the SHIELD missions that Steve had run since he ended up in this alternate universe. The big things that changed were that he wore combats and the back of his hand almost constantly brushed Tony's.
That in itself was confusing, he thought with occasional glances at the man beside him. There had always been a sort of sexual tension between them, which he had always ignored because it was terrifying. He'd thought that the Serum, and the the ice, had cured him of this disease.
When he had learned in his research that homosexuality was no longer wrong, that it was not longer considered a flaw… Everything changed. His eyes were wide open as he realized that maybe he could have what he wanted for once instead of watching from afar.
The courage that it took to put such thoughts into action was too much for him. Being brave for the sake of others was easy. Never in his life had he backed down from something that could help people who weren't him. When it was only for himself, he almost constantly chickened out.
Like right now, he was taking longing glances at the object of his affection rather than outright saying what he meant to. Or just showing him. Neither was good right now, because they were with four other people not including Natasha and Clint. But soon, or several days previous, or any time since Tony had flown that nuke through a portal to an alien world.
The ride was over too fast, or maybe Steve was just wrapped up in his thoughts too long. The recruits were herded off the helicopter and onto a snowy landing pad surrounded by concrete buildings. They were nondescript government things except for what looked like a giant hangar with extra-tall doors. Perhaps that was the jaeger bay.
They were directed in a set of doors, to the warmth of what looked like a cafeteria. Right now, it looked more like an interview room. At every table was an officer with paperwork in front of them, deadly serious as they examined the recruits. Most of them were busy, allowing those that came in from Seattle to prepare.
"Ready, Cap?" Tony muttered, examining their surroundings. He was unimpressed, from the snort that he gave to the plain concrete surrounding them.
Steve gave him a tight smile in response. In comparison to the five times he tried enlisting back in the 40's, this was nothing.
"You're gonna get tossed out on your face, Shellhead," Clint teased from Tony's other side. He and Natasha were standing close together, almost touching but not quite.
Natasha examined the room much like Tony, but she showed no signs of what she thought. It was one of those things that Steve had gotten used to. If there was anything important, she would tell them.
"Say that in a mirror, Hawkass," Tony returned casually.
That was when several tables emptied, half the candidates being directed through one door and the others through a second. It was obvious that half of them were rejects. But which half?
As a group, the Avengers were selected and shown to four different tables. The one Steve got was occupied by an Inuit woman who glanced impassively at him. "Take a seat. Papers, please?" she requested politely.
The packet was handed over. Steve sat down at the chair indicated and waited patiently, watching the face of the woman as she read over his information. Just waiting for her to ask the inevitable questions.
"You may want to correct this," she told him, pointing at his birthdate.
With a tense smile, he shook his head. "That's correct," he said, pulling out the ID he had been provided. It showed his full name, birthdate and description with picture, proving that yes it was him.
The woman tilted her head as she took it, compared the information and picture to what she saw. "Just to see what'll happen, I'd probably let you through," she mused, handing back the ID, "Now, I need to know who recommended you?" She picked up a pen, poised herself to take notes.
"Marshall Stacker Pentecost," Steve answered.
The interview was remarkably quick for being so in-depth. It was a little tricky to be honest without sounding crazy, but the interviewer said nothing to think of what she thought. Instead she put down the answers he gave, including why he wanted to come to the jaeger academy and what position he was looking to earn. When he said that he honestly didn't know what he wanted out of this, she gave him a penetrating look. "You'd better learn soon," she said to him as she wrote it down, "The full course is a year. Not much time."
Steve didn't tell her that he was grateful for it. That would have sounded bad and he didn't know whether he would still go to prison if he was a wash-out. Again, he didn't want to have to escape. It went against what he stood for, or maybe it didn't, depending on why it was happening. He wasn't entirely sure right now.
A blue stamp was put on his paperwork- ACCEPTED. A slip was filled out and given to him, name, birthdate and student number, and he was directed through the door on the right side of the hall.
Before he could get up, the interviewer gave him what looked like a rare smile. "Good luck to you, Captain Rogers," she told him sincerely.
"Thank you, ma'am," he said with a tight smile of her own. Seeing Natasha lope gracefully through the door to the right, it became more genuine. At least one person he knew had made the cut.
The next room was plain, with no furnishings of any kind. Some of the dozen recruits sat on the floor while others milled around or paced nervously. Natasha leaned on a wall, watching everything around her. The smile she gave Steve when he came in was small but real. "Good to see you, Cap," she said in a low voice when he approached.
"You too. Think Clint and Tony will make it?" he asked, similarly leaning on the wall, arms crossed over his chest.
"Clint, definitely. Tony, I'm not so sure about," Natasha said, the skin between her eyebrows briefly creasing before it smoothed out.
It took a few seconds to understand why. Then it struck Steve, and he grimaced. The arc reactor. Of course, it would be the very thing keeping Tony alive that may separate them in this alien place.
"He's too stubborn to let them do that," Steve said with a faint chuckle. The man had come back from the dead after that portal. If he could do that, he could do this.
The snort that Natasha gave him echoed agreement.
Their faith was rewarded when Clint walked in. He spied them immediately and waded through the room, grinning. "I can't believe they tried getting rid of me because I'm too old," he complained good-naturedly, "Didn't they try that on you?" He peered at Steve pointedly, speculatively, at this.
Steve shook his head, smiling again. "No, she thought it was an error then passed me just to see what would happen," he shared. The punch he got on the shoulder was taken with ease.
"What about Tony?" Natasha asked quietly.
The jovial mood dropped. "He's having some trouble," Clint said, lips twisted, "I didn't hear anything but they looked pretty intense over there."
They all looked to the door when it opened opened again, but it was a young man with a long ponytail.
"What do you think it'll be like?" Steve asked, in order to distract himself from what could be happening to Tony right then. The group being separated was unacceptable, especially not over something like this.
"I heard it's tough, Navy SEAL style tough," Clint shared, seeming amused by it.
Together, the assassins chuckled. Compared to their usual regimen, that was easy. Being superheroes they had to be the toughest in the world, and that meant better than any government could throw at them.
On the other hand, Steve couldn't discount it. "This place is in trouble. Their armies have probably only gotten tougher since…" he trailed off. They knew what he was going to say.
"If they can keep up with us, I'll salute them," Clint said, smirking. He obviously doubted it.
Several more minutes passed and recruits entered the room before finally, the door slammed open and Tony sauntered in. The look on his face as he walked over to his teammates was a devil-may-care smirk. In his eyes, very real relief shone.
"Welcome to the fold," Natasha said mildly, turning her eyes quickly to the door again.
Tony wasn't the last person in; one of the big brass had come in after him and surveyed them with a distant sort of expectation. "Congratulations recruits, you are now in Jaeger Academy," he told them with no small amount of sarcasm, "It's time for your physical exams."
There was a sort of disgruntled resignation as the recruits lined up and followed him through another door. Not for the first time, Steve thought that maybe they should have stayed home. The back of his hand brushed Tony's. It was a small comfort.
All he could do was hope that they wouldn't be separated too quickly.
The moment Tony was told to take off his shirt, he knew he was going to have to fight for this. More than he already had. Gritting his teeth, he pulled off his two shirts and allowed the glow of his arc reactor to shine in the curtained off alcove.
The moment the blue light shone, the doctor spun on his heel. Obviously he hadn't expected anything like what he saw, because his mouth gaped open slightly. "What's that?" he asked, voice coming out squeaky.
"Arc reactor. It doesn't interfere as long as it stays in my chest," Tony told him bluntly. It really didn't. Nothing damaged it from the outside, even less happened to make it malfunction, and if anything it helped him in his quest to be a superhero, so what did it matter?
Of course the doctor didn't see it that way. "What does it do?" he asked cautiously. The way he stayed on the other side of the enclosure said more than his words ever could. It scared him, like everyone else who saw it embedded in his chest.
The smile Tony gave him was bitter. "It keeps shrapnel from entering my heart and killing me," he said, unimpressed.
The doctor quickly referred him out for an x-ray in the actual medical bay. It wasn't unexpected, but was irritating.
When the results came out, he only gave the doctors his best shit-eating grin. Of all the people in the world, Tony knew just how far into his body the arc reactor went. It almost entirely filled up his chest cavity, pressed into his lungs and was inches from touching his spine. He felt it every second of the day, shocking his heart just to keep it beating and keep the shrapnel from pushing into it. After something like this, any kind of torture was a joke.
"How are you even alive?" the x-ray tech asked, not even bothering to sugar-coat it.
"I think the real question is if it would prevent me from acquiring any position in the PPDC," Tony corrected, lounging on the table they had set him up on, "I have a few references saying that it wouldn't."
No one looked convinced. One actually coughed into a handkerchief pointedly.
"I can prove it." Tony knew that would fascinate them enough to give him a chance. When he was proven right, he smirked and put his shirts back on.
In order to let him put his money where his mouth is, the doctors led him to a training room. In it, Pentecost waited with a raised eyebrow from the other side of a matted floor. On the mats Steve waited in his combat pants and a white undershirt, confused until he saw Tony beat his own chest in signal.
Tony smirked at Captain America as he took off his shoes and stepped onto the mats. "Looks like trial by combat?" he teased the blonde.
"Looks like it," Steve agreed with a reluctant smile. He got into a fighting position, slightly crouched down with fists up.
"This is not a sparring match, there will be no winner. It is a test of whether you can keep up with your condition, Stark," Pentecost told them calmly.
"Yes sir," Tony replied, half-sarcastically. He got into position, almost matching Steve but not quite.
With a nod, Steve's eyes began analyzing his opponent. "Understood," he said, the perfect soldier.
"You may begin at your discretion," Pentecost said. It was the gong ringing out the fight.
As fast as Tony could see, Steve was moving. A fist was in his face with just enough time to dodge to the side. A kick soon followed and was similarly dodged. There was no way that Tony was going to try blocking it, that would break his fucking arms.
It was several minutes of ducking and dodging before either of them scored a hit. Luckily it was Tony, giving Steve a knee to the stomach. Unluckily that got him thrown across the mat. This had gone on long enough, they seemed to decide at the same time. A crowd was gathering, watching them with murmurs of confusion and awe.
Tony could see why they thought that. He watched the security tapes whenever he sparred with his teammates and even he was always taken aback. Usually he was criticizing his performance, planning on how he could improve, but whenever he fought Steve, he stopped and watched. To use a cliche, it was poetry in motion. The way they moved was more like a dance than a fight.
Even now it felt like that. Tony could see the movements that the blonde made before he made them, almost like he was going to do it himself. Each movement spoke eloquently.
It finally ended when he whispered in Steve's ear, "Get me in the chest." They had been locked together, Tony having caught an arm in order to elbow the other in the ribs, while his leg was in position to keep Tony in place.
"You sure?" Steve asked under his breath. He allowed himself to be tossed away by that arm and caught himself in a roll.
All it took was a nod. Tony suddenly had a super-soldier in his face and made a big show of blocking and hitting back and defending against the attacks. A strike to the middle of his chest he didn't interrupt. All he did was use the force to pull Steve with him, making the super-soldier face-plant on the mat between his legs.
Neither of them got up. It wasn't that they couldn't get up, they made it obvious from how they helped each other up with big grins. The faces around them were impressed. It was actually a surprise when there was a round of applause, even including Nat and Clint.
"Satisfied?" Tony asked Pentecost with a raised eyebrow. If not, he was going to flip.
Luckily, Pentecost nodded. "Fit for service," he ordered with a commanding look to the watching doctors.
They didn't argue. Instead he was taken back to the medical enclosure he was first in and did the usual tests. Everything was pronounced perfect aside of where the arc reactor pressed into his heart and lungs. But that was a minor thing according to them, since he had lived with it this long and this hard.
Finally, it was over and he was allowed to leave. From the looks of things he was the last, since the critique laced congratulatory speech began the moment the doors closed behind him. A few more had been culled, he noticed. Now there were probably forty people sitting at the benches, including the other Avengers on the right edge of the room.
Tony slid in on the edge of their bench, bumping hips with Steve in the process. The small smile he got before the man went back to paying attention made Tony's heart beat a little faster. It was pointedly ignored.
Of course, half his attention went to the intro that was being given. Breakfast at 5:00, training from 5:30 until lunch at 12:30 then again from 1:00 to 8:00 in the evening when they would get dinner. Bed at 9:00 and lights out at 10:00. It was exactly like MIT but more martial, with less girls.
Not that the girls were a big reason why he was here, Tony thought with another sneaked look at the American icon beside him.