Title: Timelines
Author: Quietshade
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Eventual Steve/Tony, Tony/Pepper, past Steve/Peggy, Howard/Maria, Clint/Natasha, Thor/Jane.
Universe: Movieverse (Earth-199999)
Beta: Doomsymphony (Saixkosmos)
Warning: Slash, M/M, Strong Language, World War II topics.
Disclaimer: All Marvel characters and reference belong to them not to me.
Summary: Tony is a man of the future who can't manage to accept his past and Steve is a man of the past who have a hard time accepting his future because of this they understand each other and help one another come in terms with their times.
Timelines
Chapter seven
"I can't believe this is your brilliant plan to get the cube." He heard the blond say once more. Tony rolled his eyes at him, Steve had been complaining about it since the day before, no matter how many times he explained its importance to him.
"It will let us know how much information we are allowed to get from S.H.I.E.L.D." Steve frowned at him, not looking appealed by the idea.
"Come on Tony, talking to Fury directly about the matter, anyone could have thought of that and anyone would know it is a bad idea." The soldier crossed his arms in front of his chest, looking clearly disappointed about Tony's plan.
"They don't call me a genius for nothing. Thrust me in this matter Cap." The blond frowned at him, with a stare that probably meant that calling thrust on him wasn't fair.
He had told the soldier of his plan the day before and he had been displeased by it to say the least, he had been openly complaining about it at any chance he got ever since. The thing was that talking to fury wasn't the genius true idea, because he was sure that Fury wouldn't give him the information they needed.
Someone had taken many troubles to vanish all they could about Howard's death, about his years on S.H.I.E.L.D. and his research about the cube and that could only mean that whatever was there to discover was probably one of those things that Fury was ready to give his head for.
He had given a lot of thought on how he could get the information he needed from S.H.I.E.L.D. he had checked all the papers Pepper had given him to no avail, he had gone through many plans of how to get his hand on the cube or information but no plan has been better than that one.
His best choice at hand was to steal the information directly from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s archive, but the problem in that plan was Steve.
He had many reasons for not telling the blond captain the true nature of his plan, mainly one of them was the soldier's lousy poker face and solid values, and given that said blond was assigned to be his bodyguard meant that he couldn't get away from the man in order to infiltrate alone and that's how he ended elaborating a decoy plan to get the soldier to leave his side.
He was sending Steve to Fury alone with a fake report.
"You'll be okay Steve just stick to the plan, don't let him know how much we know already and test the waters, that's all." He patted the man's shoulder reassuringly and waited for him to get off the car.
The blond gave him one last look of disappointment before he opened the car's door and leaved to enter the building. He looked at the blond man's back as he walked inside of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarter, even from afar he could tell that the soldier was annoyed at the outcome and Tony did a small guilty trip for lying to him.
"Was it necessary to do this boss?" He looked at Happy and frowned.
"It was necessary." He answered after a brief pause. "I'm not proud of myself for lying to Captain America but sending Steve to talk to Fury serve for two purposes."
Happy arched and eyebrow and looked at him through the rear view mirror. "Two purposes sir?"
He nodded and looked at the entrance of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarter. "As a decoy for me infiltrate successfully and as a mean to get Fury to think we are desperate enough to go to him." He let a smile reach his lips. "I would have wanted to tell Steve the real plan but the guy's got the worst poker face ever and I fear he might have gone against it."
Happy grinned at him and nodded in agreement. "He does have a lousy poker face. Do you want to precede, boss?"
The engineer nodded and Happy drove out of the S.H.I.E.L.D.'s campus, while Tony undressed from his formal attire and dressed in a plain scuba like black suit. He grabbed a headset and some tools from a hidden compartment under his seat, and put the headset on one of his ears.
"JARVIS, are you ready?"
"I'm always ready for you, sir." He smiled at that, being as grateful as always for the A.I.'s existence.
"Good." He put on the hoodie of his suit and looked out, noticing that they were already in the pier. "Happy you can leave me here." The chauffer stopped the car engine and looked at him with a smile.
"I wish you luck boss." He grinned at Happy and grabbed the white mask that was resting on his side.
"Don't worry Happy, I'm not one to need luck." He put on the mask and exited the car.
As soon as He was out the car engine started again and Happy drove away. He gave the retiring car one last glance before starting to walk toward the water.
"JARVIS give me the Triskelion's blueprints and calculate the safest route to infiltrate underwater."
"In a moment sir." He sat on the border of the pier, letting his feet touch the surface of the water and he looked at his distorted reflection as he waited for the AI to finish calculating.
It wasn't long before the blueprints and a route with his current location appeared on the HUD of his mask.
"Activate oxygen." He said before submerging into the water.
He felt a rush of panic invaded him the moment the water started to fill his senses, for an instant he visualized the cave in Afghanistan and his kidnappers torturing him, he could even felt the dirty and icy water filling his lungs as he tried desperately to take a breath to ease the burn sensation that tore his chest and lungs.
He lost it with that, the memories invaded him and he blinked trying to shake off the torturous images to no avail, his breath and pulse peaking as he started to hyperventilate.
"Are you alright Sir? I observed a disturbance in your vital sings." The A.I.'s voice broke the illusion and his sense started to clear.
"Thanks, JARVIS." He said when he managed to get a hold of his breath.
"What for, sir?" He could almost hear the confusion in the A.I.'s artificial voice.
"For being here." He knew the A.I. was still confused but JARVIS had made some kind of rule about not questioning his master's illogical behavior a long time ago.
Now that he was calmer he took in his surrounding and started swimming toward his goal, ignoring all the way toward the Triskelion the fast beat of his hearth and the images that threated to surface from the back of his mind.
When he arrived at the destination point he found an underwater emergency access and he opened the gate to enter the small tunnel. He felt immensely relieved when he reached the surface of the water, his breath finally started returning to normal.
"Deactivate oxygen." There was a metal stair in front of him and he grabbed it and started climbing, when he reached the top he found a small rusted locked gate. He took a small device from his belt and stuck it to the control panel next the gate.
"JARVIS hack into the control room and give us free access." If his math was right, he had approximately fifteen minutes to infiltrate before they noticed the disturbance in the system. Without JARVIS help he might had worried but with the A.I. on his side it was more than enough time for him to disappear before they started searching.
The gate opened in front of him and he crawled into the duct, wondering why he seemed to always end up crawling in ducts these days.
"Give me the shortest route to the mainframe." The moment the image appeared in front of his eyes, he started moving through the ducts, turning were Jarvis signaled until he arrived into a small opening.
"Sir I advise you get off the duct and enter the room before the next agent pass by, which would be in the next thirty-five seconds." A counter appeared on his visor and he cursed under his breath, hurrying himself out of the duct and closing it as fast as he could manage.
"Which door JARVIS?" He said in panic looking around to all the doors in his sight.
"Third door to the right." He ran to the door and it opened just as he was getting there, as soon as he entered it the door closed and he breathed in relief.
"I'm not cut out for this spy infiltration shit, it feels too much like Batman and Robin for my liking…"He muttered as he tried to catch his breath.
"With all due respect, I feel compelled to say that you would make one of the worse Batman ever, sir." Tony couldn't help but smile at that, JARVIS was always there to make smart ass remarks when you less expected him to.
"Geez JARVIS, what a way to rub my ego." He looked around the room and couldn't make out much of it as it was completely dark.
"I think your ego is perfectly fine as it is now, sir." He smiled again at that.
"At least I can say I'm way more handsome than Bruce Wayne." He teased.
"And that's what I meant about your ego." He tried not to laugh and concentrated on the matter in hands.
He took a tentative step forward and the two lights two to each of his side lighted, he nodded to himself and started walking as his path continued lightening at the same time the lights behind turned off. For what he could take from his surrounding he was in some kind of giant corridor, which he hoped lead him to the SHIELD's mainframe.
After a minute or so of walking he arrived into a well lightened room and he whistled in awe at the giant tower like machine in the middle of the enormous room.
"Sweet, finally we get to the good part." He walked toward the machine and ran a hand through the smooth and cold surface, taking a few moments to marvel at the technological piece of art. "Locate the control panel, dear."
A red dot appeared on the map in the visor and he walked to his right to where the control panel was located, while he took another device from his utility belt. The control panel just like the rest of the machine was giant, full of colorful organized cables, switches and boards. The engineer grinned evilly and inserted the small card like device into one of the free slots.
"Time to seize control over S.H.I.E.L.D. JARVIS, run " his visor screen turned black and a series of codes and commands appeared as the A.I. seized control over the mainframe.
"Infiltration complete, you now have full control over the S.H.I.E.L.D.'s mainframe, sir." To tell the truth Tony felt accomplished at that moment, he could cross out hacking S.H.I.E.L.D. from his to do before dying list.
"Give me the search results for Cosmic Cube, Tesseract and Howard Stark." He waited as the JARVIS downloaded the files from the system and he wasn't disappointed when the results appeared on his visor, showing him more information than what he thought he would find.
He knew he was running out of time but he felt the need to at least check out a bit of the reports before leaving and he had never been one to let his desires slip.
"Project the information." As soon as he said that a holographic projection of his visor's screen appeared in front of him. He touched the hologram and started going through the information.
Many of the things he read weren't new to him but as he read on his face turned impassive and a vile sentiment grew in him, until he was grimacing in disgust.
"JARVIS search for Loki Laufeyson." The result instantly refreshed and showed him what he asked, he passed a hand through his face in exasperation as he read the report. "Search for Anthony Stark." He clenched his hand to his side with anger at what he read. "Search for HYDRA." The information shifted in front of his eyes and when he pinpointed what he had been looking for he felt rage start to build in him. "Fuck, Fuck, Fuck! What the hell are you playing at Nick?"
He hurled his fist toward the control panel in a fit of anger, he had just read a small fragment of the report but it was enough for him to know that things went deeper than he had first thought.
"Pardon me Sir. I suggest you leave the room as soon as possible, there are three agents coming this way." The AI's voice cut his thoughts and he cursed at the news.
"Save the search result and reboot the system, leave no trace as planned." With that he took away the card like device and ran toward the dark corridor. "Deactivate speaker."
He walked slowly and pressed himself against the wall, and waited for the agents to pass by him. Thankfully the immense size of the corridor and its bad illumination helped conceal his presence. He walked away carefully, asking Jarvis to turn off the lights as he made his way through the corridor.
"Jarvis give me the safest route out and a map with the location and movement of the agents." Unfortunately there was agent just in front of the nearest duct, which meant that he would probably need to make his way through the corridors before he could find a safe duct.
He breathed in, trying to relax himself. The minutes he had spared reading the files had cost him too much, it wouldn't be long before they noticed the disturbance in the security system and then every agent would be looking for the responsible.
He tried really hard not to think of the possibility of being discovered, he couldn't allow himself to get to that point.
He took one last breath before he commanded JARVIS to open the door. He instantly sprinted to his right making his way through the corridor as fast and smooth as he could. He followed JARVIS instruction, following the small map on his visor step by step and keeping an extra eye on the agents' movement.
He almost thought that he would make it out without incidents until two agents turned around suddenly breaking the settled pattern and he stopped mid track in panic.
There were only three ways to go, to where the two agents were coming from, back from where he came and towards a corridor were one agent was walking. Either options were horribly bad, if he was to return he would surely came across some other agents and it would had cost him many precious minutes, his best options were either confronting the two agents or the lone agent.
He closed his eyes, taking a few second to run the equations and variables in his head, when he opened his eyes he didn't hesitate to run forward directly to where the lone agent was walking. He approached the corridor and leaned against the wall, slowly he stole a look at the corridor where the agent was walking and gasped in shock when he saw that said agent was none other than Natasha.
Of all the people he could encounter, Natasha was probably his worst case scenario. He had never been able to win a hand to hand encounter with her out of his suit and he had never been good at reading her which meant that a battle between them would end up badly, but above all that what he feared the most was that Natasha knew him well enough to instantly know that it was him under the mask.
He checked the other two agents and found that they were coming his way and he cursed under his breath. One of the reasons why he liked to work with robots was that there was no human factor there, he had always hated working with human factors because they made the equations too imprecise and arbitrary.
"Don't move." He heard Natasha whisper suddenly at the same time a gun barrel pressed at the side of his head.
He swallowed, recognizing one of those moments were he had to make a decision that would greatly change the course of his life in a matter of seconds. If he fought back there were high chances of him losing or being killed by Natasha, but if he surrendered his journey for the truth would have been in vain.
It was needless to say that at that moment when he loathed Natasha's seemingly sixth sense and her ability to silently sneak on anyone the most.
One breath and he made one decision. He knew Natasha had been injured on her left side on the last mission she participated, if he was fast enough he could strike her with enough strength to ensure his escape, without having his head blown away by her gun.
In a second he turned around, putting on practice the many months he had spent training himself, and hit Natasha on the left side of her chest, making her groan in pain and drop the gun. He leaned down to pick the gun but before he could grab it Natasha kicked it with her foot and then kicked him in the chin with enough force to make him step back. The pain coming from his chin numbed him for a second, giving Natasha enough time to throw a kick to his face, which connected to his left cheekbone and sent him flying to the floor.
He huffed as his chest hit the floor, making him lose his breath for a moment. Natasha took advantage of it to make her way toward the gun, but Tony moved past the pain and grabbed her ankle hurriedly.
"I'm Sorry Natasha." He whispered as he sends an electrical shock through his glove to her. The red headed woman trembled as the electricity coursed her body and finally fell down onto the floor. "Damn, I hate this."
Even if the battle with Natasha only lasted a few seconds, she had managed to leave him aching in many places, he was sure that there was already a bruise forming on his chin and cheekbone, and he could taste metal in his mouth coming from where he had bitten his lips when she hit him.
He checked the mini map on his visor and just as he thought he would need to run as fast as he could if he didn't wanted to be discovered by the two agents coming his way.
"I'm really sorry Tasha." He said, even if his speaker was still off and ran away from there. "JARVIS please locate the fastest way out of here." The mini map shifted and the red line changed, leading to a new location.
"At this point your best option is to use one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s escape capsules, sir." He nodded and hurried his way to his goal, gratefully JARVIS had arranged him a route without agents to interfere but as he was nearing his goal an alert call sounded.
"Attention to all agents, there's a type 2B intruder in the facility. I repeat: Attention to all agents, there's a type 2B intruder in the facility." As if hadn't been nervous enough already without all of S.H.I.E.L.D. being informed of his existence, he accelerated his peace until his lungs burned and all he could hear were his heart's wild beats.
For the first time since being part of SHIELD he regretted not reading the security measures, as he wasn't sure what a type 2B intruder stood for. He just hoped that it didn't involve killing him and that he didn't have to encounter another agent in order to find out. He was too tired to survive a fight against Coulson or Steve, not like he thought he would survive a fight against Steve out of his suit in any kind circumstance.
To his relief he arrived to the emergency escape room without seeing another agent. Immediately he made his way to the control panel in order to have one of the escape capsules working, as he took one of the devices from his belt. He then opened the case of the control panel and stuck the device directly onto its board.
"JARVIS give me access to one of the capsules and set its destination point to long Island, notify Happy of my position and create a decoy location after erasing the real one." A rain of numbers and commands appeared on his visor as JARVIS computed his order and at the same time a "progress completed" appeared on the screen one of the capsules exits lightened.
He yanked the device from the board and closed the panel's case, immediately making his way toward the operating capsule. He finally allowed himself take a relieved breath when the capsule launched and he was on his way to long island. He let his head fall onto the capsule hard surface and closed his eyes with tiredness.
He definitely wasn't cut out for those kinds of jobs; he really needed to find himself a Robin for when stealing information was needed.
His day had started bad enough with Tony informing him that he would need to talk to Fury alone because of a last minute meeting. To start he didn't even like the idea of addressing Fury directly on the matter, and being sent alone to him had just made him more annoyed about everything. To top all that he had been just starting his meeting with Fury when an alert had come announcing an intruder and he had to spent the next three hours searching for said intruder. After three hours of fruitless searching, everyone assumed that the intruder had escaped and the scout team of S.H.I.E.L.D. had taken the leads to find clues of the intruder's objective.
When he had finally been dispatched he had made his way to the infirmary to pay Natasha a visit, to his relief she hadn't taken much damage and was left with only sore ribs. They talked a bit about the intruder and then Steve had left her alone to rest. All he wished was to be home after a long day and that thought made him smile when he realized that he had finally got accustomed to call the mansion his home.
As soon as he got home he threw his coat on the closet and started undoing his tie, ready to retire to his room for the rest of the evening, but then it occurred to him that maybe Tony was back from his meeting.
"Hey JARVIS is Tony home?" He looked up as he addressed the A.I. lately having grown into the habit of doing so.
"Master Tony returned not long ago and is down in the workshop." He smiled and changed his path from his room to Tony's workshop.
"Thanks, JARVIS." When he arrived there he smiled at the sight of Tony leaning into his chair and looking up to his giant screen. "You won't believe what happened." He started and the engineer hummed signaling that he was listening. "Someone broke into the Triskelion, it was a full uproar, whoever it was even managed to knock out Natasha and they don't even know what the intruder wanted." He said as he approached the genius.
"It seems like your afternoon was fun." There was a funny tone on the raven haired man's voice but Steve ignored it.
"As fun as a visit to the doctor. What about you? How was the…" He stopped mid-sentence when he reached the engineer's side and noticed the state in which he was. "What the hell happened to you?"
He took both sides of his friend's face on his hands in panic, carefully looking at the red bruise on his left cheekbone, the equally red bruise in his chin and the teeth like marks on his lower lip. He resisted the urge to run his thumb on the man's lips to try to clean the dried blood on them.
"Language Cap, and here I thought you couldn't swear." Tony teased and then his eyes moved slowly toward the screen as if he wanted Steve to follow him and the blond soldier did so.
In the screen was S.H.I.E.L.D.'s logo followed by what seemed to be a full report on the Tesseract. It all clicked into place at that moment.
"You are the intruder." Tony gave him a sly grin at the same time he nodded. "Are you crazy? Natasha could have killed you! You could be in Jail!" He shook Tony a little bit, but regretted doing so when the engineer hissed in pain. He looked down to the man's chest and noticed the ice pack on his right side.
"And that's why I didn't tell you." It was barely above a whisper, Steve being able to hear it thanks to his enhanced hearing. There was a hint of annoyance on the genius's voice and the blond passed his hand through his hair in exasperation.
What would have he done if anything had happened to the genius? He would have failed in so many ways that he wasn't sure if he could take it. He was Tony's bodyguard, meaning that Tony was his responsibility, moreover he was his friend, his teammate, Tony was so many things to Steve that he didn't even wanted to think of the possibility of losing him. He should have known better than believing the genius would think of such a lousy plan, he should have known that he would try something reckless.
In a way he had already failed, even if the engineer was alright.
"Never ever do that again. We could have figure out something together." Tony opened his mouth ready to protest but the blond hushed him. "We are in this together for god's sake Tony. Don't go putting yourself in unnecessary risk. Next time let me help you, alright?"
"You think it was an unnecessary risk?" His friend asked a little bit too harsh. "I did the math Steve. This wasn't just some plan that occurred to me out of boredom, I considered the variables and went for the best option!"
He was taken aback by the genius sudden burst, Tony was usually more composed and tended to reply with sarcastic remarks and evasive comments, it was unusual for him to snap.
"Look I didn't mean that you didn't think it thoughtfully. Is just that as much as you like to think otherwise, you aren't omnipotent, you are human Tony and we humans make mistakes." Maybe it had been the wrong thing to say because the moment he said it the genius looked away with a hurt look.
"Contrary to popular beliefs I'm pretty aware of the fact that I'm not perfect." There was a mysterious look on Tony's face which Steve had slowly grown to associate to Tony thinking of his past, specifically thinking about Howard.
He sighed in defeat, because the conversation wasn't going where he wanted it to and he was pretty sure that he wouldn't be able to reproach the genius while he looked like a kicked puppy. He was having enough troubles dealing with putting his feeling aside just to yell at him.
"I-I just worry about you." He said fighting a blush, because he felt as if he was letting out to much. "Don't leave me in the dark when I can help keep you safe. That's all I ask for."
Some kind of resigned look passed through the dark haired man's face as he nodded absently, retuning his gaze to the massive screen.
"I hate to break it on you, but your afternoon is about to turn even more frustrating." The tone the engineer was using said clearly that he had moved on the subject. Steve grimaced lightly because he sounded too jaded and locked for his like.
"What news do you have for me?" Tony tapped his holographic keyboard and the Tesseract's report vanished and the screen filled with what Steve assumed was Loki's S.H.I.E.L.D.'s profile.
"Fury has been playing us." He looked at Tony as if asking him if he was being serious.
"Why would you think that?" Tony scowled apparently being angered by whatever Fury had been pulling.
"Remember the Loki plot that got us together?" Steve nodded. "Fury was holding on us, Loki stole the Tesseract from S.H.I.E.L.D. it was one of the reasons why they were so desperate to capture him."
"You got to be kidding?" Tony's snort was enough answer. "Why would Fury hide that?"
"Someone told me to never thrust the government." Steve opened his mouth ready to defend his government but then it occurred to him that he didn't know his country anymore, so he swallowed instead and awaited for Tony to continue. "Truth to be told, I would have done the same thing. The Tesseract was the weapon, or not weapon, that almost gave the Nazi the victory. Letting on that a crazy Norse God has its power with him would have only made everyone more hysterical."
"I get that, but why not tell us? We were the ones sent to capture him after all." Tony narrowed his eyes and rubbed his chin only to hiss in pain, apparently forgetting about his injury.
"I think he had his reason for that. But this isn't the only thing the government had been hiding from us. It isn't even the worse thing they had hidden." In the screen Loki's profile changed to HYDRA's. "If you thought that after the war HYDRA dissolved, then you are dead wrong."
He looked startled at Tony, first he had said that Shmidt was alive and now he said that HYDRA was still working. "I defeated Shmidt, we won the war, there's no way HYDRA is still running."
"Not like before, but a group faithful to the Red Skull continued working. They divided in many branches, one which helped the Soviet Union during the Cold War, one which was led by someone called Baron Zemo. This group in particular attempted many attacks on S.H.I.E.L.D. to try to free one of their kind."
"Arnim Zola." He said in a low and dangerous tone.
Tony smirked. "Bingo and it seems they managed to free him at some point."
He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, as much as he hated the guy for Bucky's death, but an old man wasn't an enemy he would worry about. "I don't think a depowered HYDRA is something we should worry about."
"And I thought you would say that, but the thing is that HYDRA isn't as weak as you think." Tony frowned lightly before continuing. "I'm not proud to admit that S.H.I.E.L.D. has done a pretty good job hiding it from the world."
The engineer typed something into his holographic keyboard. He looked hesitant, typing slowly as if to give his self time. HYDRA's profile changed to Howard's.
"People often forget about the past, but I read somewhere that those who forget about it are bound to commit the same mistakes. The thing is that history is not always told as it occurred, probably because some pieces got lost along the way or because of a particular interest and Steve here we are retelling a story that was long forgotten and terminated, and I have to warn you that digging up history often leaves us with truths that we do not desire for. "
Something about his friend's tone told Steve that he was about to be told something important and he remained silent looking at the other man as if not to miss anything he says, be it verbally or not.
The genius took a deep breath and his gaze sobered. "HYDRA is still running, they got Zola out of prison and I my guess is that he continued developing his ideas about the Tesseract but without the cube the guy was not a physicist nor an engineer, didn't get far and that's when they realized they needed someone else to develop the principles and that someone happened to be Howard Stark. Yet somehow along the way instead of getting the guy's knowledge they ended up killing him and they were left empty handed. Then to their delight the prodigal son appeared but too soon they realized that he didn't know a thing about the Tesseract nor his father's works, and they left him be until said son developed an incredible advanced suit powered by something that resembled the Tesseract a little too much and that's when they knew they found the guy."
Steve blinked at him processing all he had said. He was partially amused at how Tony had managed to make it sound as if he was just retelling something from a book when he was in fact talking about his life and his father's.
The engineer took his silence as confusion and continued talking. "What I mean is that HYDRA killed my father and that those who kidnapped me a week or so ago were in fact HYDRA and not some random pro-Nazi group, and I'm saying that Fury knows all this."
"I'm not even sure how to take that." He said finally. "Some months ago I was chasing Shmidt, a few weeks ago I thought HYDRA was no more and now you are telling me that all I fought for back in the days was in vain."
The raven haired man seemed alarmed at his last statement. "I'm not saying your work as Captain America was in vain, you made a symbol of the name and a prove of your work is that HYDRA is not even the shadow of what it used to be."
He tried to smile at the man's cheering but his smile cracked mid-way and turned into a grimace. "I lost Bucky to them and now I know I lost Howard to them too." The -could have lost you also- didn't manage to get out. "Ho-how did they even manage to get Howard? He was supposed to be one of the most powerful men in the country."
"I'm not so sure. The report doesn't say much about him; it seems he erased it before dying." He opened his mouth and closed it in a sigh of hesitation. "But not even him would have been safe from a traitor."
Somewhere along their conversation, Steve had ended up sitting on the floor next to the engineer's chair. He looked up his friend with and inquiring look. "What traitor?"
"Obadiah Stane, dad's right hand…" Realization dawned onto Steve as he remembered the name from Tony's file. Obadiah Stane the man who had sold Tony to the rebels.
"The Iron Monger." Tony twitched at the name. "You think he sold Howard to HYDRA?"
"Most likely. You said so yourself, dad was one of the most powerful men of the time, I'm sure that HYDRA couldn't have got him on their own." It did made sense, the man had sold his protégé and surrogate son to the rebels in order to take the company from his hand.
It was almost instinctive to think he orchestrated Howard's death.
"What do we do now? Is not as if the mystery is solved, if anything I just have more questions now." Tony sighed and stood from his chair, pushing it aside and walking toward Steve's back to slide down and sat back to back with him.
He tried not to think too much about the weight of Tony's head resting on his back or how warm his back felt against his own.
"I'm not sure Cap. All I know is that we can't thrust S.H.I.E.L.D. that dad has more mysteries around him than what I thought possible, that we can't get our hands on the cube unless we find Loki and that HYDRA is out there waiting for me to get careless." Tony leaned a little bit more onto his back and Steve responded by leaning his head back to rest on the top of Tony's.
They stayed like that for a little while and the blond soldier closed his eyes as he enjoyed the feel of the engineer pressed against his back, it was a guilty pleasure, but a pleasure nonetheless and he had no reason to reject what his friend offered him.
"Oh I got it." The engineer said suddenly and Steve opened his eyes and leaned to his side to get a look of the tanned man, careful as to not break contact with him.
"What did you get?" Tony looked up at him and Steve had to refrain himself leaning down into the shorter man. He was too close and he was intoxicating Steve to the point of madness.
"If we can't get the mystery solved by asking S.H.I.E.L.D. we'll just have ask HYDRA." Steve frowned at that and looked more seriously at Tony.
"And how are we supposed to do that?" He knew he would regret asking that later.
"They are looking for me, right?" He nodded and Tony smiled confidently. "Therefore we should let them get me so I can get the information."
That definitely broke the pleasantness out of the ambience.
"No." He tried to keep his voice as calmed as he could as he ignored how his former anger was threatening to surface. "I'm not letting you take any more risks."
"I'm not taking any risks here. I'm talking about a setting, we can have you and Rhodey cover my back and follow them into their hideout, I get the information and you get me back home safely. You see, everyone is happy." Tony sounded annoyed as if the frown in his face wasn't enough to convey Steve his feelings.
"No, Tony." He said more firmly, because he didn't like to consider the idea of putting Tony in such blatant danger.
"God damn it, I'm a superhero just like you! I might not be much out of the suit but that doesn't mean I'm useless, Steve." He jumped at the engineer's sudden outburst and he finally leaned away from him to have a better look of the man. "If you hadn't noticed we live of risk, you can't just imprison me in the mansion because you believe the world outside is too dangerous for me. I'm not some fucking princess in distress."
"I…" he didn't even know how to answer. Tony was obviously holding his anger to the point his eyes were glazy and his jaw was clenched. When it was put like that it did sound as if he was threating Tony like a dame in danger. "I didn't mean to offend you." He answered sincerely and Tony sighed at it.
"I know you didn't, you are just being your usual careful self, but really cut it out Steve. You were the one who asked to work together, I'm giving you a plan we can work on, at least think about it before rejecting it." He nodded slightly and leaned against the leg of Tony's table.
"How do you propose we get their attention?" He asked and that seemed to relax the engineer a little bit.
"If they want my knowledge about the Arc Reactor then I suggest an Expo. Something big where I get to demonstrate its power, they see it, they like it, they kidnap me, you and Rhodey follow then and we get the information out of whoever is in charge." It sounded simple but Steve wasn't convinced.
"And how are you sure they won't kill you?"
"I survived three months in a cave on Afghanistan, I'm pretty sure I can survive a few hours with HYDRA." Steve didn't like the comparison, but the engineer had a point, he couldn't keep threating him as if he was going to break at any moment.
"Alright, just promise me something?" The shorter mas tilted his head slightly to his side and waited for him to continue. "Don't do anything reckless before Rhodey and I get to you."
Tony smiled at him and extended his hand. "You have a deal." Steve sighed and shook the tanned man's hand even if he had the feeling that he wouldn't keep his word.