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Steve doesn’t look up as Bucky goes through his usual Friday night routine. He doesn’t look up because he wouldn’t usually look up, and he is trying very hard to make it seem like this is any other Friday.
Sure, the sketch he’s doing of the Avengers, he’s been drawing Iron Man’s arm for about twenty minutes, but Bucky can’t see his sketchbook.
Bucky glances at him and Steve thinks the word ‘normal’ as loudly as he can. Everything is normal. There is nothing for Bucky to see.
“You’re up to something,” Bucky says. Steve looks up with feigned casualness. Bucky’s eyes narrow. “Steve.”
“Bucky.”
“If you get arrested again, I’m not coming to get you until tomorrow.”
“I’m not going to get arrested,” Steve says. Probably , he adds internally. The military base is abandoned , after all. Bucky stares at him long and hard, and Steve curses the years they’ve spent with each other which mean that Bucky can read him almost as well as his ma could.
But it’s been a long week and Bucky has a date, so Steve is counting on him being more concerned with not messing that up than what Steve’s up to.
Steve tries to look innocent and Bucky gives a huge sigh, raising his hand to point right at Steve’s face.
“Don’t. Get. Arrested,” Bucky commands. Punctuating each word with a jab of his finger. Steve makes the boy scout sign with his hand. Bucky shakes his head. He knows Steve was never a boy scout.
And Bucky might suspect, but he does leave, which is practically permission. Not that Steve needs permission. He’s an adult. He can make his own decisions. And his decision tonight, is that he’s going to look into those creepy emails.
It’s probably a warning sign that he has a ‘sneaking around’ outfit, but Steve chooses to see it as being well prepared.
Seven years ago, when got his friend Scott to help him set up two websites, Steve hadn’t been expecting either of them to take off. He had figured that the webcomic would maybe get a handful of views and a couple of comics. The blog had really been more for him. His friends were getting sick of listening to his commentary on social injustice and someone - Steve thinks it was Peggy - had suggested he take his opinions online.
He hadn’t expected either of them to take off. But now the webcomic provides more than half of his annual income and the blog…
It wasn’t meant to be a conspiracy blog. He titled it Punching Upwards, because that’s what he wanted it to do, and it had started out as him shouting into the void.
Then the void had called back. People with problems. People who had nowhere else to turn. People who had seen things they wanted to change.
He’s uncovered embezzlement, brought about a recall of tainted medicine, and helped people get justice - and compensation - for things that should have never happened to them.
He also, six years ago, posted a reasoned and completely comprehensive explanation of his theory that Iron Man - Avenger and superhero, is in fact Tony Stark. Somehow, that’s always the thing people remember. And now he’s a meme.
Being a meme has its ups and downs. On the one hand, he can reach more people. His followers had quadrupled. More people are reading the stuff he really cares about. More people are sharing the things he uncovers. More people are donating to the charities he supports.
On the other hand, more people are contacting him with crackpot theories about alien conspiracies.
Or sending him mysterious emails from non-existent addresses claiming that Hydra - the Nazi organisation - is back and they’re growing.
Steve checks the contents of his rucksack. Wirecutters, flashlight, pepper spray, inhaler, snacks, and the research on the few scraps of information he has: Camp Lehigh and Dr Arnim Zola. He’s got a camera on his phone, obviously, and his keys are in his pocket. Bucky didn’t take the rust bucket that they like to pretend is a car. He’s all set.
Following a lead. If I’m not back tomorrow, call the Avengers . He scrawls to Bucky and pins it to the fridge with a magnet. It’s their usual joke, but if something does go wrong - as unlikely as that is - at least Bucky will be looking for him.
The first email, he’d ignored. He’s got better at sifting through the more ridiculous things to find the coverups he can actually stop. Sometimes it’s a racist trying to convince him that [insert minority here] is destroying society. Sometimes it’s just a person who needs help of a more medical or psychiatric nature. Often it’s a kid who thinks it's funny to troll the ‘Iron Billionaire’ guy. But then there had been the second email. And the third. And the first phone call from an unknown number. And a second.
Steve still thinks it’s probably a joke, but that’s a lot of effort to go to for one joke. He’s had Scott try to trace the number, and there’s nothing. Same with the email address. Whoever this is, they’ve gone to a lot of effort, and if they’re serious, then Steve owes them the respect of taking them seriously.
Camp Lehigh is a fair way to drive, but he should be able to make it there and back in a night. If the car doesn’t fall apart halfway. It’s shaking and rattling as he presses down the accelerator, held together by duct tape and will power at this point.
Steve’s first instinct had been to call the Avengers. Secret Nazis really seemed more their thing. But it turned out that their system of filtering out the cranks was a whole lot more effective than his. His call to the Avengers’ tip line had got him the verbal equivalent of a pat on the head, and an assurance that his information would be passed on to the Avengers as soon as possible.
That was yesterday. So tonight Steve’s taking things into his own hands. He’s fully expecting to walk around a dusty, broken down old military base for the night. The biggest risk will probably be tetanus. Luckily his vaccines are up to date.
*
With that peculiar clarity that only experience can give, Steve is really starting to think that was a mistake.
He should have let Bucky actually know. At least then there would be someone looking for him. As it is, he’s not even sure if Bucky’s going to be home tonight. He’ll probably be gone until morning at least. Which means that if he bothers to look at the fridge, rather than just going straight into his hangover ritual of sleeping for eight hours and ordering the greasiest takeout he can find, it’s going to be hours before anyone even realises Steve’s gone.
But Steve hadn’t thought he would find anything.
All his research showed that Camp Lehigh was shut down years ago and Dr Arnim Zola was associated with Hydra, but had died of cancer in the eighties after decades working for the US government. It had seemed like just another routine load of nonsense.
But routine nonsense didn’t lead to him being escorted by two huge guys with large, strange guns into what seemed to be an abandoned building. He’s got a black eye and a split lip, and a sinking feeling that he’s not going to get away with a slap on the wrist.
Yeah, Steve is starting to think his mystery tip-off was on to something. It’s just a pity Steve might be dead before he gets a chance to tell anyone about it. He’d managed to hit Record on his phone before they grabbed him and took his stuff, but that only helps if he gets out of here. Preferably in one piece. His two new friends don’t seem like that is their preferred option.
The guards are glaring at him with expressions that are practically begging Steve to try and escape, just so they can beat him up some more. But Steve had given up being intimidated by people bigger than him when he was 5 years old, so he just scowls right back at them.
He’s tried the ‘I’m lost’ routine. That hadn’t got him anywhere. He’s told them that people are waiting for him. They seem undeterred. In fact, all that talking had earned him was a punch to the face.
Neither of the men is wearing any sort of insignia on their uniforms. If this is a black site, some CIA hideout where they torture prisoners, or worse, then he’s pretty sure he’s screwed.
Perhaps they’ll just make him disappear.
Or try, at least. That’s not going to be easy, though. He’s got contingencies set up. He’s got plans. He just never thought he’d need them.
The two men push him towards what seems to be a plain expanse of wall and Steve wonders if they’re going to stand him up against it and shoot him. It seems like an odd decision, though. If they wanted him dead, it would have been easier to spin if they’d just shot him on sight. No one would bat an eyelid at someone being shot for breaking into a secure military facility. Few people, anyway. Bringing him inside just to execute him would be… strange.
Just as he’s trying to work out what’s going on, one of the guards reaches out to press his hand against the wall and the wall… opens.
Steve tries not to look too shocked by the secret door. He’s angry, not impressed. But it is like something out of a spy novel.
Yeah, he might be in over his head, just a little bit.
Beyond the wall is what looks like an elevator. And on the far wall is a symbol he only recognises from his research. A skull with tentacles, inside a circle.
Hydra.
That’s definitely not a good sign. But holy shit . This is big. This is earth-shatteringly big. He has stumbled into something huge.
The guards shove him inside and follow, jabbing a finger at a button before the elevator comes to life. It moves too smoothly and looks too modern to have been an original feature of the facility. It’s clear this place has been functioning for a while. Long enough to update the facilities and brand them.
Hydra is back.
His mind is still reeling at the implications. If the caller had been telling the truth the whole time. If Hydra is back - and it seems like it is - this is bigger than anything he’s ever looked into before. He’s helped people, sure. But he’s never - this is huge. He’s going to need-
The elevator stops and the doors slide open, revealing a room full of computers. Steve looks around at them. They look older than he is. He’s never seen anything like it outside of a historical drama. Dozens of old CRT monitors, all facing inwards, as though meant to be seen by one person. His friend Scott, who helps him with the website and with his less… legal research, has a set up with three screens, but this is way beyond that.
But it’s so old . How long have these people been here?
Steve looks up at the two guys next to him, who seem to be waiting for something.
And then there’s a noise. A strange almost hiss almost click that takes him back to when he was a kid and the TV used to come on. Steve turns to look and one of the screens has lit up. The graphics are terrible, scratchy and pixellated, but it’s clear what he’s seeing. A face. A face he’d seen in one of those Hydra files.
Dr Arnim Zola.
“Mr Rogers,” the face says. The voice is digital, almost static, but with a recognisable accent. Steve blinks and stares.
“Dr Zola,” he says, looking around again. “Is this… a recording?”
“No, Mr Rogers. I am Dr Arnim Zola.”
Steve tries to wrap his mind around that. Some sort of facial tracking technology, perhaps? Like a Zoom filter?
“Dr Arnim Zola is dead,” Steve says. Three more screens flicker to life, each with the same image of Zola’s face, moving in time with each other. It’s like the creepiest hall of mirrors he’s ever been in, except it’s not his face looking back.
“Death is only an end for those who lack vision,” Zola’s voice says. It seems to be coming from everywhere. There must be speakers built into the walls. “Those of us who have the intelligence to see past it can conquer death as we conquer everything else. When my mortal body started to fail me, I looked to the future. I uploaded my consciousness into a more resilient form. I am no longer bound by flesh.”
“Instead you’re stuck in there,” Steve says. If this is Zola, then what he’s talking about is straight out of science fiction. But… he’s seen impossible things before. There’s an actual Norse god who lives in New York. If it isn’t Zola, then… well, they’re definitely not the good guy.
Living in a machine doesn’t sound like much of a life to Steve. He wonders how scared you have to be of dying to lock yourself into a computer.
“Your mind is struggling to comprehend the situation,” Zola says, sounding pleased with himself.
“I mean,” Steve pauses, looking around at the ancient technology and the crackly image of Zola’s smug face. “I live in New York. Last week there were radio-controlled flower monsters trying to eat me. After that, a man in a computer just seems… sort of ordinary. You’re not even HD.”
There is a hiss of static.
“You disappoint me, Mr Rogers,” Dr Zola says. He actually sounds disappointed, like he has some semblance of human feelings still - or at least the ability to mimic them. Steve thinks Zola must be mad. If he wasn’t before he made the transfer, he must be now. It doesn’t seem like a situation anyone would be able to cope with.
“I’d apologise,” Steve says. “But my ma always told me that an insincere apology was worse than saying nothing at all. And I feel like disappointing you is probably something to be proud of.”
“You have been a thorn in our side for many years, Steve Rogers,” Zola says. On the screens around the centre - where Zola’s face still hangs, disembodied and pixellated - images flash of people Steve recognises, headlines he knows. They are cases he had investigated, crimes he had uncovered, CEOs he had brought down, people he had saved. There are articles from his blog as well. The contaminated drug he had stopped. The embezzlement he had uncovered. Steve stares. Zola is implying that all of those were connected? That someone organised them. That Hydra organised them. All the people that were hurt, all the people who were robbed - of money, of life, of loved ones - that was Hydra.
If that’s true… Steve feels sick to his stomach. It could be lies, but something tells him it’s not. Something about this whole thing rings true. His hands ball into fists.
He punches the screen before he realises what he’s doing. Pain explodes in his hand - glass shatters and connections spark.
Zola’s face switches to another screen. The guards don’t even flinch. Steve feels like he’s a kid again, shouting down bullies in back alleys. They had just laughed at him. He feels that impotence all over again. The anger bubbling inside him with nowhere to go. He can’t do anything.
There has to be something. There is always a way. If he’s the only person in the world who knows about this, he has to find the way.
“How is it that you, someone so insignificant, have managed to derail so many of my plans?” Zola asks. Steve straightens. He knows a bully when he hears one. “I had wondered if you were a mind to match my own, but I have looked into your life-” images appear of Steve, as a baby, as a toddler, at school, graduating. With his ma, at his ma’s grave. With Bucky. At his first convention, signing posters. On his twitch live stream. “You show no great mental strengths. No genius. No true vision. You are unimportant. How could someone like you challenge the might of Hydra?”
“No one’s unimportant,” Steve says, his voice tight, his anger controlled. He’s not a kid anymore. He can channel it. He can make it count. “Maybe that’s your problem: you overlook the little guy.”
“It does not matter,” Zola says. “You are a gnat. Your bites are nothing more than an irritation. Your luck has run out. I lured you here tonight in order to discover if there was something interesting about you. But you are nothing.” The mechanical voice sounds disappointed again. “You will not cause Hydra any further problems. Our aims will continue and we will bring forth our new world... but you have no place in it.”
There is a strange sound, just at the edge of Steve’s hearing, and the images on the screen freeze for a second, like a video tape on pause, and the noise grows louder. It’s not from inside the room, Steve realises. He had thought it was Zola’s computers overheating, but that’s not it. It’s mechanical, a whine almost, or the roar of a plane’s engine, but not quite. It sounds like something coming towards them at high speed. The guards look around, eyes wide. Which means they have no idea what’s going on. That’s either a good sign, or a very bad one. Either way, Steve doesn’t want to be standing in the middle of it.
He takes advantage of the guards’ distraction to dive for cover under the nearest bench, beneath the flickering images of his own and Peggy’s faces. He wraps his arms over his head and curls into a ball. He doesn’t know if it will do any good, but it’s better than doing nothing.
The crash as whatever it is hits the ceiling is almighty, ringing in his ears. The whole room shakes with it, and Steve curls up as tight as he can, waiting for the impact.
The ceiling crumbles down, crashing in chunks and lumps of rubble, but the desk, built to hold a dozen or more heavy computers, holds steady. The whining noise grows louder and then there is a bright blue light as one of the Hydra guards fires his weapon, followed by an almost familiar sound as white light flashes back.
Steve knows that sound. You can’t live in New York and not know that sound, usually swooping overhead, often battling monsters down the street as you decide to stay in the coffee shop a little longer than you had originally planned.
That sound means help.
As the rubble settles, Steve sticks his head out cautiously, and through the clouds of dust that start to tickle and choke at his throat.
The red and gold suit hangs in midair, hands and feet glowing as it hovers.
That sound means Iron Man.
Steve’s never seen the suit this close before, well, not for more than a few seconds at a time. He’s drawn it, though. Doodles at the side of his notebook, the occasional bigger sketch. The lines of it are fascinating. The way it moves is… Steve’s attention is dragged away from Iron Man by new noises: voices shouting, the stomp of running boots. It’s muffled, but definitely there. More guards are on their way.
Another flash of blue pulses from the gun of one of the Hydra guards. Steve can’t see the other one. Iron Man swings out of the way of it easily and Steve follows the energy blast with his eyes to a crackling crater in the wall. He makes a note to avoid getting shot.
“Oh wow,” the mechanical voice of Iron Man says. “I was not expecting that. For a walking history lesson, your tech is actually kind of impressive. Though… mine’s still bigger than yours.” Iron Man raises a hand and a flash of white appears, spearing through the air to throw the guard backwards. Steve looks around for the other one, the one he needs, bringing his t-shirt up over his nose in an attempt to keep the dust out, but wheezing anyway.
The other guy is half under rubble. He must have been knocked down and pinned as Iron Man came through the ceiling. Steve scrabbles over to him, his breath quick and short, but there are more important things to worry about than breathing right now. His phone. He needs his phone. He needs that recording.
“Hey, Steve Rogers,” Iron Man says. In any other circumstances, Steve would be tripping over himself because Iron Man knows his name. But not right now. Steve ignores him, struggling around the rubble to push his hand into the man’s pockets. “Are you looting the body? I mean, I get it. If there were any jars around here I’d smash them to see if there was gold as well, but traditionally body looting is frowned upon on our side of the law.
“My… My…” Steve tries to get his breathing under control, but the dust and the movement and the whole thing is just tangling around his airway and he can’t… “pho… phone,” he manages to get out.
“Oh shit.” Iron Man says, landing on the floor. They can still hear the thud of footsteps and the shout of voices, but Steve needs his phone. And he needs to breathe. “You’re asthmatic. Where’s your inhaler?” How does Iron Man know he’s asthmatic? Steve wonders with the little bit of his brain that is just sort of… detached from the situation. His hands still scrabble at the guard’s uniform.
“Pho- pHone,” Steve repeats. His inhaler can wait.
“What?”
Steve pulls some more energy from his body and forces his hand into the pocket he’d seen the man slip his phone into earlier, right after Steve had hit record. His fingers close around hard glass and he pulls it out, hoping desperately that-
It’s not broken. Steve could cry. If he had the breath.
A heavy metal hand rests on his shoulder.
“Okay. I need you to concentrate on breathing right now, Steve. Can you do that for me?”
Steve wants to growl that he knows how to deal with this. He’s been asthmatic his whole life. This isn't even a proper attack, won't be if he gets his inhaler. But he needs the air for breathing more than for shouting at superheroes.
“So this guy had your phone, did he have your inhaler as well?” Iron Man asks. There’s a strange waver to his voice and Steve realises that Iron Man isn’t being patronising - not intentionally at least. He’s worried. About Steve. Because Steve isn’t breathing properly. Yeah, that makes sense. He points to where he can see the strap of his bag sticking out from the rubble covering the guy.
There is a whir of machinery as Iron Man crouches down and picks up the huge rock of rubble from the man’s stomach and tosses it aside as though it weighs nothing. Steve tries to nod, but he’s not sure he manages very well. He adjusts himself into a sitting position and concentrates as best he can on slowing his breathing. He’s done this before. He’s not going to survive Hydra and then let an asthma attack fuck him over. He’s fine. He just needs to breathe in…. And out… and in…
Iron Man makes a sound of triumph and holds out Steve’s inhaler, which Steve grabs and pulls towards his mouth.
As it floods into him, the door opens and another five guards spill into the room.
Iron Man is on his feet in an instant, and his repulsors fire. Steve feels his chest and throat start to relax, although his heart is still beating like crazy. But he can feel the air in his lungs again, not quite full, but better than before.
Iron Man is between him and the door, a shield of red and gold. There is a flash of blue and Steve hears Iron Man grunt with effort.
He needs to find them a way out of here. He has his phone. He can breathe again. They just need a way out. He looks around frantically. Half the screens are gone, but one is still flickering, the image of Zola’s face on it shouting wordlessly. The speakers must have been broken.
There’s something on the wall. A metal panel with what looks like a button and a keyhole. He cranes his neck to see what’s written underneath it.
Emergency lockdown.
He’s got no chance against the Hydra guys with their glowing blue guns, but if he can cut them off from the rest, then there’s a chance that Iron Man can get them out of here. He’s got to take it. But he needs a key.
“I know you guys have a whole motto about ‘cut off one head’ and all that,” Iron Man is saying, “but seriously, do you just clone yourselves? Where are you all coming from ?”
Steve crawls over to the guard’s body and starts to rifle through it, concentrating on keeping his breathing as even as possible. He needs to relax, forget the guys with vaporising guns shooting at him. Forget the Nazi conspiracy he’s just found. Forget that Iron Man is standing less than a metre away. Just breathe - and find the key.
He finds another phone - the guard’s, he assumes, and pockets it, the more evidence he has the better - a pack of gum, a switchblade, a set of keys, and then, around the guy’s neck, one other key.
It’s a good few metres to the panel on the wall, and his breathing is still uneven, his legs shaky. The dust in the air is settling, but it’s not helping matters. And then there’s the small issue of the men with guns shooting at them.
Steve pulls himself to his feet, still in the shadow of Iron Man’s imposing form, and takes a couple of deep, careful breaths. He can make this. He has to make it. He can hear the strain in Iron Man’s voice. He won’t be able to take the onslaught for much longer, and those Hydra guns are doing more damage than Steve had thought possible. If Steve can just cut them off, then he and Iron Man will have time to get out of here.
He moves.
Every step feels like it takes forever. Steve can’t run fast enough. His body is failing him again. His legs won’t listen as he urges them faster, and the gap between him and the wall seems insurmountable.
“Steve!” he hears Iron Man shout. “What are you-?”
A blue flash misses him. Steve can feel a strange crackle of air behind him as he skids over the floor and smashes, wheezing again, into the wall. He fumbles the key towards the lost and it takes him two attempts to slide it home, every second he’s expecting to feel one of those blue blasts hit him. He’s braced for the pain of it, but all he hears instead is the drone of repulsors blasting.
He turns the key until it clicks, then slams his hand into the button.
The lights turn red. An alarm blares.
Metallic thuds resound through the chamber and he turns to see a heavy metal blast door slam down, leaving them with three Hydra gunmen in the room, the rest locked out.
“Right,” Iron Man says, sounding surprised, and maybe a little impressed. “Okay, sure. That was helpful.” He blasts two of the remaining gunmen, but before he can move to the third there’s another blast of blue light that hits him right in the face.
Steve stumbles back towards him.
“Now that was rude,” Iron Man says, although his voice doesn’t sound right anymore. It sounds less machine and more man. He raises his hand and the blast of white light hits the final gunman in the chest, sending him flying back into the wall, where his head hits metal and he slides down to the ground. Iron man turns around and-
“I knew it!” Steve tries to shout, but it comes out more as a gasp, pointing at the half-uncovered face of Tony Stark.
“Maybe we can talk about that after we escape from the secret Hydra base,” Tony Stark suggests. “Do you need your inhaler again? You’re not looking too good.”
“No, it’s doing its job,” Steve says. It is, he can feel it. If he’d had a chance to just sit and breathe, he’d probably be okay by now.
“Alright,” Iron Man - who absolutely is Tony Stark, meme be damned - says and steps forwards. “How are you with heights?”
Steve blinks, then looks up at the jagged hole in the ceiling. A grin spreads across his face.
“I love them,” he says. It takes a lot of effort to keep his breathing relaxed.
“Flying won’t… you’ll be able to breathe?” Stark asks.
“I think staying here would be worse for my health,” Steve points out, and Stark chuckles.
“You’re probably right about that,” he agrees, then he steps forwards and Steve puts all his attention into his breathing, because if he starts thinking about how Iron Man is right there and also Tony Stark, then he’s going to do something really stupid - like forget how to breathe.
“Stand on my feet. You’re going to need to hold on tight,” Stark tells him. His voice sounds rough and so close it sends a shiver down Steve’s spine.
Steve steps forwards.
The armour is hard and unyielding as Stark wraps an arm around his back to pin them together, and it’s so much bigger than Steve. It’s not as uncomfortable as he had thought, though. He’s always admired the armour from a distance - a miracle of technology and form, far more beautiful than the giant tower Stark had built in the middle of New York, but he appreciates the smooth lines of it more now that he’s surrounded by them. There are no sharp edges digging in.
“Are you okay to fly?” he asks, finally taking in the damage the suit has sustained. Stark gives him a wicked grin.
“I’m always okay to fly,” he says.
Then they are moving. The force as they accelerate upwards, through the hole Iron Man had blasted in the ceiling, makes Steve wrap his arms around the chest of the armour convulsively.
Then, as quickly as it started, they’re twisting and almost floating. He can feel gravity pulling him down, but it doesn’t seem to have any power over them and Steve opens his eyes to look around.
The night is almost over. He can see the first signs of sunrise on the horizon and the last of the stars shining softly in the lingering dark of the night. The world is spread out below them and the wind is in his face.
It’s beautiful. If he had the breath he would let out a whoop of exhilaration, but all he can really do is beam in amazement at Stark, who smiles back, clearly amused by Steve’s reaction.
They can’t talk to each other up here. Stark’s faceplate is gone and the wind snatches away any words Steve tries to say before they can be heard. But flying like this, without a plan between him and the world…
He wants to do this again and again.
But it has to end and Steve feels a rush of disappointment as Stark sets them down in what looks like - a medical centre. There are already EMTs waiting for him and Steve barely has time to say thank you before he’s being swept away into the most high-tech medical centre he’s ever been in. And he’s seen more than his fair share of hospitals.
There are a lot of breathing tests and three different people listen to his lungs and tut at him about exerting himself. Steve has no idea what he’s even allowed to say to them, and he’s seeing monsters around every corner.
Bucky texts and Steve amuses himself by responding with increasingly dumb fictional accounts of what has happened to him. He’s sure as hell not saying anything over the phone. Not today. He can still remember all the faces of everyone he knows showing up on those screens.
Finally, the nurse tells him he can go, but he’s to monitor his breathing carefully and keep track of his inhaler use for the next week. There’s a leaflet about lung health and an instruction to see his family doctor for a follow-up in another three days. Steve makes all the usual noises of agreement and shuffles out into what is now bright sunlight.
He’s dog-tired. He’s been up all night. But when he sees Tony Stark leaning against the side of a limousine, thumbs tapping at his phone screen, he suddenly feels completely awake.
Stark looks up and seems happy to see him.
“Hi,” Steve says.
“Hi,” Stark replies, slipping his phone into a pocket and stepping towards him.
“Oh,” Steve says. “I have something-” He reaches into his pocket to grab the guard’s phone and holds it out. “I got this off the guard. I don’t know if it’ll do any good, but I guess it’ll mean more to you than to me.”
Stark takes it, looking a mix of surprised and impressed, his eyebrows rising just a little.
“Of course you took the guard’s phone,” Stark says.
“And-” Steve grins, pulling out his own phone and opening up the app to play his recorded file. The guard’s voice comes out, clear as a bell.
“You recorded the whole thing,” Stark says, shaking his head.
“Of course,” Steve says, trying to hide his glee at the impressed look on Stark’s face. “I needed evidence of what was going on.”
“Of course you did,” Stark says, shaking his head.
There’s one question that’s been niggling at the back of Steve’s brain this whole time.
“How did you know where I was?” Steve asks. It doesn’t make any sense.
A smirk slowly curves Stark’s lips.
“Oh, I’ve been keeping tabs on you, Steve Rogers,” he says, his tone teasing. “It’s not every day someone works out my secret identity.”
“I knew I was right!” Steve exclaims. “No one listened to me, but I knew it made sense. It was the only thing that did.” Then his brain works out what Stark was really saying. “You were stalking me?”
Stark winces.
“I kept tabs on you, and when you got those messages and then you were heading out to the middle of nowhere, then suddenly you just… disappeared.”
“You were tracking my phone?” Steve asks.
“Just in case,” Stark tells him.
“You know that’s a violation of-”
“I was right,” Stark points out.
“That’s not the point.”
“If I hadn’t been tracking you, then you would have-”
“Thank you,” Steve says, cutting Stark off. “But you can’t just invade people’s privacy like that.”
“I can make it up to you,” Stark offers.
“You can’t just pay me off,” Steve tells him, feeling his hackles rise. He’s been impressed over the past few years by Stark’s dedication to making the world a better place, at actually putting his money where his mouth is, but if he’s suggesting that Steve will just forget about-
“With breakfast,” Stark says, cutting Steve’s train of thought off abruptly.
“Breakfast?” Steve repeats, the word suddenly an impossible mystery.
“Let me take you out for breakfast…” Stark says. He’s smirking still, but there’s something in his voice that sounds almost uncertain, as though Tony Stark - Iron Man - is nervous. The possibility of that makes Steve’s tumble into incomprehension. “ After you get looked over by a doctor, because who knows what was in that dust you were breathing in. But after we get you checked out. Breakfast.”
“You want to take me out for breakfast?” Steve asks. It still doesn’t make sense in his head. He’s a barely-known conspiracy blogger who lives in an apartment the size of a postage stamp. There’s no way that Tony Stark, billionaire superhero, wants to take him out for breakfast.
“I like your blog,” Stark says. He shifts a little uncomfortably, which looks very strange in what must be a very expensive three-piece suit. “You seem like-” He pushes a hand through his hair. “I just thought maybe we could… get to know each other. Properly. But if you don’t want to, then I’ll just make sure you get checked out and drop you back home. And I’ll stop monitoring you - although you clearly need monitoring, walking into supervillain bases on your own with no back-up.”
“I had it covered,” Steve protests, his mind still trying to take in the rest. He doesn’t know what to say. He almost says no.
He opens his mouth to say a firm, but polite ‘thank you, but no thank you’. But what comes out is “Breakfast sounds good.”
He’s seen Tony Stark smile a thousand times, on magazine covers, on TV, in public appearances. But he’s never seen him smile quite as genuinely as he does right then.
“Great!” Stark says. “Breakfast. It’s a date. What are you thinking?”
Steve considers this for a second, looking Tony up and down in the sharp lines of his suit, his brain committing it to memory for sketch practise. He, on the other hand, looks like a building just fell on him. His stealth outfit - black jeans and a black hoodie, isn’t exactly high fashion at the best of times, but now it’s a mess. Not to mention that he must be sporting some pretty impressive black eyes. But Tony doesn’t seem bothered, just waiting patiently for his answer.
“Waffles,” Steve says.
“All the waffles you can eat. I can get you waffles. They do the best waffles in Bruges. Have you ever been to Bruges?”
“New York’s fine.”
“Right,” Tony agrees. “We’ll go to Bruges next time.”
Steve looks at Tony out of the corner of his eye, and thinks about how utterly bizarre this entire night has been, then he shrugs and texts Bucky that he’ll be a little later than he’d said.
“Sure. Next time Bruges,” he agrees. His phone beeps, and he knows it’s Bucky asking him if he’s been arrested again. Steve ignores it and smiles at Tony Stark - who absolutely is Iron Man.
Tony beams, brighter than the sun that’s reflecting off the car behind him, and opens the door to the limo for Steve to climb in.