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Chapter 5: Time is On My Side
"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."
― Anne Frank, Anne Frank's Tales from the Secret Annex
The rest of the day was for getting to know each other and the facility. So use it wisely, the drill sarge warned them, because they won't get another chance.
The moment they were dismissed most of the recruits jumped up and began talking. From the next bench over, a girl with a large scar dividing an eyebrow grinned at them. "You're the guys that had that match earlier, right?" she asked in a rolling Southern American accent of some sort.
"Yeah. I'm Steve Rogers and these are my friends Tony Stark, Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton," the big blonde replied with a sunny smile.
"Concepcion Damascus," the girl introduced as she came to stand in front of them with thumbs hooked into her pockets, "What was that about? I never heard of that happening before." She looked curious rather than condemning or in awe.
It was probably why Tony was so willing to answer her questions with a charming smile. "I had to prove that I can keep up, and what better way than to fight a young buck like this?" he asked hypothetically, with a wink up at the blonde beside him.
Steve's cheeks went pink, and only got darker when he heard Clint snicker behind him.
The day passed quickly. People came over to introduce themselves and (more often than not) flirt with Steve or Natasha, but were usually scared away by Clint or sweet-talked away by Tony. It was a well-established routine and almost a comfort. Everything was too new and different for them otherwise.
Lunch came and went, and the food wasn't all that bad. Better than everything at SHIELD.
Upon seeing the barracks, Tony shrugged. "Better than that stupid cave," he muttered as he claimed the bed above Steve's.
"I'll take it over Azzano any day," the blonde said with a smile, "Less crowded." He got strange looks for that, and Tony could see why. They probably hadn't seen the pictures of the rescued GI's crowding two or (in Steve's case) three to a bed.
All thirty seven of them left (three of their number had been sent home over blood test results) were crammed together in a space the size of the helicarrier conference room. Each had a locker for their things and a shelf above the head of their bunk, but that was all the storage available. There were ten bathrooms total.
Everyone started taping up pictures and otherwise personalizing the space they had claimed as theirs, chattering excitedly all the while. It made Tony feel bereft to realize that he didn't have anything. Though Steve setting his shield beside Tony's armor, which was in suitcase form, at the foot of their bunkbed made him smile.
"Is that really a shield?" asked a guy who could barely have been old enough to drink. He had paused in putting his things away to look and cock an eyebrow disparagingly.
It made Tony's teeth grind together. This was the near-indestructible shield of an American icon, both of which his dad had a hand in making, thanks for asking.
On the other hand, Steve was more accepting. He probably got shit like this all the time. "You'd be surprised how handy it is," he said conversationally, polishing the thing with his sleeve before he set it back down.
"Are you LARPers?" the girl beside them, Mai or Kai or something foreign, asked them both interestedly. Her eyes went from one member of their quartet to the others with shining dark eyes.
"Larper?" asked Steve, confused. He looked to Tony for a definition.
"Live-action roleplayer. They make a story and then act it out, usually fantasy genre. With wizards and shit," Clint provided, proving that he knew his geeky pursuits. Gold star on his forehead.
The girl's face fell slightly. "Oh, I guess not," she mumbled, clearly embarrassed as she went back to her unpacking.
The girl who was unpacking the bunk below her snickered.
Not for the first time, Tony wondered what he had been thinking with all this. They were all brats, military or not. "We and our friends had a D&D campaign going back home, but things got a little messy when we got shipped out here," he shared with a shark-like grin, "No live action though, somebody would get accidentally killed by the end of the night. I already have to replace my dining room once a month."
Even Nat smirked at that, clearly remembering the incident where Darcy finally got fed up and punched Steve for trolling her.
From the snarky grin on his face, the blonde was thinking the same thing. "We're mostly too busy for anything not work-related," he added, moving the conversation to somewhat safer waters.
Not much though; everyone seemed to want to ask questions. By the end of it Clint was back to being a carnie, Nat was a ballet dancer (where that came from, Tony wasn't sure), Steve was an army boy again, and he was a nutty inventor. Which was basically the truth. Except he wasn't nearly as bad as they claimed, he couldn't be.
The look that he got from Nat refuted his protests. It shut him up too, because no matter how well they knew each other she still scared the living shit out of him.
It got a good laugh from most of the room, so Tony counted that as a win. They'd need to band together to survive this bullshit.
That was proven at four o'clock the next morning, when they were woken by an airhorn. "Up, up, everybody up!" shouted that douche Clarkson, who paced the room to make sure there were no stragglers.
It was an automatic reaction to dive as far from unknown voices as possible. Tony fell out of the narrow top bunk, holding his arc reactor protectively, and didn't realize he was even falling until Steve caught him.
"You okay?" the blonde asked, somehow too fucking awake for this goddamned hour.
"What the fucking fuck?" Tony groaned and shot the drill sergeant the middle finger. It was still pitch black, so the asshole probably didn't see it.
He didn't, considering that he didn't yell into Tony's face. Instead he shouted at them to get their asses dressed and to the Kwoon room right then. Also, it would be just as dark in the halls as in here and he wouldn't be babysitting them on the way. To prove it, he left when everybody was still getting their shit together.
"This is the sort of shit you put up with at boot camp, Spangles?" Tony groaned as he pulled on a pair of pants.
"Almost," Steve said dryly, before he raised his voice over the irritated mutterings, "If anyone has a flashlight, please turn it on."
The command in his voice assured that two of them turned on, one after a great deal of fumbling. The other was Clint's.
"Okay, good. We need to get there without getting separated. There's no telling what they're going to try to pull," Steve continued in his 'I'm Captain America, so do what I say,' voice. In the dim light, his eyes glinted pale blue.
The idiot across the room from them pulled on a shirt. "And how are we supposed to do any of this?" he questioned.
There was a moment when Steve thought about it, his eyes roving the room as he laced up his boots. "Everybody get dressed and form a line. Clint, you take the middle with your flashlight, you over there, what's your name?" he pointed at the geeky kid with the other one.
"Taffy," the kid replied calmly, fixing his glasses.
"Taffy, I'm going to borrow yours and take the rear. Tony," Steve turned to the inventor with a nod, "you take point." He finished with his outfit and crossed the room to speak with Taffy.
"Doesn't he need a flashlight?" asked Mai, entirely reasonably.
Rather than responding, Tony peeled off both his shirts. The blue glow of his arc reactor lit up the room better than the flashlights, revealing awed and horrified faces. "Call me a human nightlight," he replied dryly, "Plus I remember how to get there. Any more questions?"
When he looked around, he saw nothing. Not even the idiot across from them had anything to say, though he stared, transfixed, at the arc reactor.
After that, the assembly was done without question. Each following the person in front of them with the light, they ghosted through blackened corridors that made Tony's neck rise with the stillness and silence. Only the footsteps of the groupe reminded him that he wasn't in space again, he wasn't about to die.
As minutes passed and nothing happened, most of the group seemed to relax. Whispered conversations tried to start up but Clint, Nat or Steve shushed them. No, they needed to be able to hear anyone sneaking up on them.
By the time they got to the Kwoon room, the Avengers were suspicious. What kind of test was this if nothing happened in the meanwhile?
The lights were on and Tony blinked several times to allow his eyes to adjust when he opened the double doors. "That was anticlimactic," he commented as he opened the door further to allow everyone else through.
They all milled around in the room, now chattering quietly, until the instructor got there. He blinked in surprise at them before he raised an eyebrow. "You're fast. That's good," he told them in a disparaging tone, "You will need it to get through the training here. Now, I want you to line up from oldest," he pointed at the far left of the room, "to youngest." He pointed at the far right wall.
At least here the startling age differences were going to come in handy, Tony thought with a snicker as he took his place next to Steve at the far left. On his other side Clint stood, and beside him Nat. The rest had to actually communicate to figure it out.
"What's your birthdate?" asked the geeky kid, Taffy, of Nat.
"November 22, 1984," she answered dispassionately.
Taffy gave her a startled look and took his place a few people down.
It was a little over five minutes before the line was formed. The instructor went from the youngest (December 21, 2002) on. Some people had to switch spots and one unfortunate soul was dragged a few places to the right, but for the most part it went swimmingly.
Then the instructor got to Nat with an expectant expression. The woman next to her was April 15, 1992.
Again Nat stated her birthdate, and was passed with a conceding dip of the instructor's head.
"January 7, 1971," Clint rattled off.
This time the instructor paused. "Is that the truth?" he asked.
"Yes, sir," Clint said with a smirk.
There was no further comment, the instructor letting him be despite a dubious look.
"May 29, 1970," Tony said without being prompted.
Again, there was nothing said. It was actually kind of insulting when he remembered that it was 2019 and according to the records he was forty nine years old. Was he really looking it? As the instructor passed on to Steve, he hoped he wasn't going more grey. Or gods forbid, getting wrinkles.
Already, the instructor didn't believe what he was seeing. "And you?" he asked, obviously expecting another 1970 baby or a mistake. Probably a mistake.
"July 4, 1918," Steve told him with a hint of a smile on the corner of his lips.
Murmuring broke out around the room as the instructor broke out a tablet. "Name, son?" he asked with an unimpressed look at Steve. He expected a lie to be found out.
"Steven Grant Rogers," the blonde answered without missing a beat.
Tony grinned with satisfaction. Having people try to guess Steve's age was one of his favorite party games, and he didn't even have to initiate it this time.
It was obvious when the record was pulled up. The instructor looked from the record up to Steve and then back again before he blacked out the screen. "Okay," he muttered to himself, "Okay…" He obviously didn't believe it, but was forced to go along with it.
When Tony looked over, Steve's amused expression was wiped from his face.
"We have you everywhere from sixteen to… a hundred and one," the instructor said, discomfort flickering across his face, "and unable to form a damn line without having to be corrected." He gave them a disapproving look that didn't quite eclipse Steve's.
When they were told to line up again, this time by birthday from January first to December thirty first, Tony sighed and slouched to near the middle.
The day only went south from there. From being shown the fifty two positions of jaeger bushido to Nat getting pissed and putting the instructor in a headlock with her thighs, it was a mixture of boredom and reprimand that never seemed to stop. Only lunch made a difference, and they (especially Steve) were too busy scarfing down their food to relax.
Nine at night came and most of the recruits dragged themselves back to the dorm. With various noises of relief and discomfort they flopped onto their beds, or someone else's if they didn't feel like climbing a ladder. Only the Avengers weren't worn out.
No, Nat and Clint were dissecting the movements shown and listing them into different styles of martial arts while Steve drew and Tony fiddled with a piece of scrap metal he had pilfered from Portland.
"How are you not falling over?" demanded the asshole, whose name turned out to be Bryan.
Nat's response was a shrug. "We train harder than that every day." She was testing out the movements shown, finding ways to smoothly tie them together into something that could kick ass.
The look she got was not encouraging. "What do you do to deserve that kind of punishment?" Taffy asked from where he laid bonelessly on his bedspread.
"Job necessity," Clint cited, "To be a circus acrobat, you need to extremely flexible and able to get the hell out of the way of a scared elephant. Control over every part of your body is part of that. It's how I got to swallowing swords and breathing fire on top of the rest of it."
Interestedly, Tony watched the man take one of Nat's taser rods and (once it was firmly off) stick it straight down his throat. He knew that Clint was usually the one to carry any messages needed, and had seen his system, which was disgusting. It involved lowering a dead drop spike down his throat and tying it around a back tooth, then pulling it back up again when needed. This was the logical and admittedly awesome conclusion to that.
Meanwhile, the rest of the room was questioning Steve about how he looked so damn good for his age. It was a shame they couldn't tell anyone about the serum. The answers given would be unsatisfactory.
"Are you really over a hundred?" Mai asked from a bed across the room. She was one of those that had flopped over, uncaring that she hung off the sides of the bunk.
Pausing in his drawing to give her a smile, Steve nodded. "A hundred and one, this July," he said.
Tony snickered at the concept that Captain America was born on Independence Day. If he hadn't seen the records for himself, he would have believed it was a PR stunt.
"Then how are you…?" Mai continued, waving a hand lazily at him.
And didn't Tony know what she meant. He looked up from his project to give Steve a lascivious grin and rake his eyes down that ridiculously perfect form. "Top secret, he's under contract with the US military," the inventor said smoothly, "but however it happened, god bless America."
On the bed beside them, Clint barked out a laugh.
Steve's shyly appreciative look made Tony wish there weren't so many people around. Then he might be able to get up the guts to actually say what was on his mind.
God bless America for allowing you to be here with me.