Tony and Steve are quick to agree that Tony's bright red, sleek sports car, though beautiful and fantastic is nowhere near acceptable for a road trip, where one of them is probably going to take naps.
As such, Tony is quick to get a battered, used bus and hangs up two fuzzy black and white dice in front of the rear view mirror, proudly citing it as giving the van a "real road trip type of feel".
Steve just laughs at him. "It's not about the fuzzy dice in the rear view mirror, Tony," he chides, but he does not argue. The dice are pretty cute, after all, and Steve has always liked that kind of thing.
The bus is large and metallic, when Steve bangs the side, it sort of keels to the side before righting itself.
"It feels as though it's a bit below your standards," Steve tells Tony, smiling a bit.
"It has personality," Tony insists, and Steve thinks he understands what kind of person Tony is in that little insistence, despite Tony's neat dress clothes and the shiny shoes on his feet.
"Okay, okay," Steve bumps his shoulder against Tony's, "Am I driving first or you?"
Tony blinks at Steve, looking a bit bewildered, "You want to drive?"
"Yes, of course," Steve fidgets awkwardly, "Is that not, uh, a polite thing to do?" Gosh, this would be really awkward if it turned out that driving a stranger's car was a taboo or something like that.
"No, I mean, it's not, it's just..." Tony raises an eyebrow, "I thought you couldn't drive?"
"Oh," Steve turns red, "That's true. I can't. I'm sorry, I just..." he sighs, "I want to help somehow. It feels wrong, making you do all the driving."
"It's okay," Tony laughs and pats him on the shoulder, "That's a very sweet thought, though. Thank you."
Steve smiles a bit, though he still feels awkward.
Tony yawns, an action that canvases his entire body, fingertips stretching up and head tipping back. When he resumes his normal straight backed position, there is a wide grin on his lips and a tilt to his head. "How old are you, Steve?" Tony runs his fingers along the outside of the bus. It's different from buses that college students ride, Steve reflects, a bit smoother in the front though retaining the rectangle shape. It's painted neat, nearly blinding white, and the interior is neat, basically empty save for the seats inside.
Steve hums when they climb into the bus. "Eighteen," it isn't a crime to admit this to Tony, not the way that it was when he tried to sign up for the army and was told you're too young (not the way it was when he lies about his age and tells them that he's nineteen, really, i just look young though he is fifteen at the time) or the way that it was when he tells it to SHIELD (a deafening silence, a soft hand telling him you're too young even though Steve has seen men ripped apart by bombs, limbs flying as he watches from another ditch and wonders if he's next).
It's not a crime to be eighteen.
(Only if you're Steve Rogers, Captain America, a hero from WWII.)
Tony nods, fingers pressing against his lips to bite back a yawn.
"Sixteen."
Even younger than Steve, then. It picks at his curiosity, and unable to help himself, he asks, "Why aren't you with an adult?"
Tony's jaw locks, and Steve backtracks.
"Not that I really have any right to talk. I mean," he laughs a bit, "I'm only eighteen."
Tony squints at him, "You don't know who I am, do you?" He laughs, and it sounds refreshed, like he's found something lovely that he wants to hold close to his chest.
"You're the man who's offering me a ride halfway across the country and the person who I just saved from a dangerous gang in a burger joint," Steve shrugs, a shoulder lifting to touch the bottom of his ears, "Do I need to know anything else?"
"Just that I'm sponsoring this trip," Tony grins, wild and sweet as a raspberry. "What about you, Steve? Anything that I should know about you?"
Steve shifts a bit, considering. Is there anything that Tony needs to know? Not particularly, he reflects. "Just that if you try to kill me, I can probably take you in close distance."
"Good to know," Tony bounces around the bus, examining the seats with unadulterated glee, "I'll be sure to kill you with a gun instead of an axe."
"I'd rather not get killed at all," Steve huffs, and, almost as though he has no way to hold it back, a laugh bubbles it's way from Tony's lips.
He tries to stifle it, clamping a hand over his mouth, but it sputters through like an oil leak in the fuel tank, and Tony bends over, his shoulders shaking and body moving, and eventually he gives him, collapsing into a seat and bursting into flow blown laughter. It's like a volcano erupting, an explosion of sound, and Steve is absolutely in love with it.
His laughter is infectious, it seems, because Steve is quick to join, collapsing and laughing and sides aching, and when they're both done, drained from it, wiping tears from their eyes and clutching their sides, Steve says, accusingly, "I have a cramp because of you."
"Sorry," Tony chokes out, though he doesn't sound very sorry.
They smile at each other, and Steve thinks that maybe this will work out quite nicely.
"What do you think of getting rugs?" Tony asks Steve over lunch. They've come to a pit stop at some restaurant by the side of the road, a nice place with bubble tea and noodles with all kinds of vegetables on it. Steve has never had anything quite like it, and it pleases him very much.
"Rugs?" Steve echoes, raising an eyebrow and smiling a bit. "Whatever for?"
"For the bus," Tony looks down, a little self consciously, as though he is still running it through his head whether or not saying that had been a good idea and had just blurted it out before thinking it through. "To, uh, make it homier or something."
"Oh, uh," Steve blinks, and smiles a bit at the mental image he gets. Something colorful and a bit messy, maybe older and, as Tony likes to say, 'well loved'. It'll make the bus look like the inside of a flea market, and for some reason, the thought endears him to the idea. "That sounds pretty nice, actually. But it's your vehicle, you know. You don't have to ask me."
"Well, sure, but," Tony plays with his noodles idly, the chopsticks in his hand twirling over his fingers and the joint of his thumb without spilling a drop. Steve watches with fascination, "You're also going to be on the bus for a while, yeah? It'd be pretty rude if I made the bus look ugly or something and you got irritated by it."
Steve blinks.
He smiles a bit.
"That's very thoughtful," he says.
Tony shrugs, "Not really," he answers, and they drop the topic. "So, why are you heading Orlando, anyway?"
Now it's Steve's turn to play with his food, rearranging them and watching steam fly up in curls and wisps. "Got a job," he says, frowning into his bowl. What can he say? I'm Captain America and I'm going to beat up a bunch of goons from a secret Nazi organization that I thought I'd taken down a long time ago?
"Ah," Tony smiles a bit, "What do you do?"
Steve shrugs, "I beat people up for a living."
Tony cracks up at that, and Steve doesn't have the heart to tell him that he's not joking. "If you didn't want to tell me, you didn't have to," Tony says, amused.
Steve smiles back wanly, "And where's the fun in that? Besides, for all you know, I could be telling the truth. Maybe I really am taking down a secret organization or something."
"Of course," Tony laughs, "And I'm an assassin sent to stop you."
"Are you?" Steve raises an eyebrow.
Tony rolls his eyes, "No. But I could be."
Steve shakes his head, amused, "You couldn't take me."
Tony pouts, "Maybe not with close combat, but I could poison your food or something."
Steve raises an eyebrow, "Have you?"
Tony wiggles his eyebrows, "You'll never know."
Steve shakes his head and takes another bite of his food, "I'll take my chances," he says.
Miraculously, the food is not poisoned.
Tony smiles at him.
They get their first hitch-hiker a few hours into their ride. Steve is telling Tony all sorts of stories about the war, excited and waving his hands around, and Tony laughs, it's nice that you listened to your grandpa so nicely that you know these stories by heart. Steve gives a nervous laugh and is quick to agree before moving on, Tony listening with unadulterated interest until Steve brings up a story with Howard and the Howling Commandos, being sure to change the pronoun when talking about himself, but Tony seems hesitant anyway as he listens.
Halfway through, Tony cuts in to ask, "Was your grandfather on the Howling Commandos?"
Steve's heart stops in his chest, pounding as he asks weakly, "How did you know?"
"My... my dad," Tony says quietly, "Howard Stark? He told me a story similar to this, where he was the civilian pilot."
"Oh, uh," Steve swallows, throat bobbing, "Yeah. Yeah. That's, uh, pretty cool that your dad knew him. It's like we're connected, before we've ever even known each other."
He catches Tony's frown in the rear view mirror, the way his lips tighten and his eyes darken even as Tony says with forced cheer, "Yeah. Pretty cool."
It falls flat, but Steve doesn't mention it.
Instead, he looks out the window, and smiles a bit, "Look, someone likes your driving?"
Tony laughs a bit, seeming relieved to have the change of subject, "What?" He asks, obviously bewildered by the sudden change of topic, "What makes you think that?"
"There's someone holding their thumb up, see?" Steve points, and then his mouth dries as the bus comes to a stop. "Oh. Wait. No. It's a hitchhiker."
"No kidding," Tony laughs as they pull to the side and he opens the doors.
A teenager in a grape purple tank and yoga pants with a galaxy pattern on them bounces into the bus, a quiver of arrows and a pastel purple backpack with a bulls-eye button pinned on the back.
"Yo," he waves a hand and bites back a yawn, "You're not going to, like, try and kill me or something, are you?"
"Depends," Tony cocks his head to the side and grins crookedly at the teenager, "You going to try and stab us with those arrows of yours?"
"I have more in my arsenal besides just my arrows," The teenager smiles at Tony, and Tony concedes with a dip of his head.
"Don't try to kill us or else I'll have to sic Steve on you," Tony jerks a thumb at Steve, "he can pack a mean punch. Otherwise, if you don't try to maim or otherwise injure us, we'll be chill."
"Awesomesauce," The hitchhiker sticks out his hand, "Call me Clint."
"Tony," Tony shakes Clint's hand.
"Steve," Steve calls from the back and waves a bit.
Clint waves at him, and Steve's eyes narrow when he shifts and Steve catches sight of the black and gold button on his backpack strap with the SHIELD symbol printed clearly on it.
"Nice to meetcha," Clint's grin doesn't drop, "So, what's Tony Stark doing with Captain America?"