Shattered Watch Chapter 2 of 12

[alexrogersstark]

 Title: The Mysterious Man with No Plan

Fandom(s): Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America

Characters: Tony Stark and Steve Rogers

Pairing(s): Tony Stark/Steve Rogers

Rating:  R

Summary: All Tony Stark wanted to do was enjoy his last year at M.I.T.  before his father dragged him back home to work for S.I. That was thrown  a little off kilter by a small, teenie, tiny bump in the road.  Steve Rogers, the Steve Rogers, as in Captain America - even if he  was pre-serum - somehow got himself time-whammied from the year 1942 to  2002, which was fun. It was great. All good. Except it honestly wasn’t  because Steve Rogers was a bit of a dick, and he really needed to get  back to 1942 because of space-time continuum reasons.  When Steve got thrown into the year 2002, Tony Stark was his only  hope in getting back home. Except, neither of them seemed to be able to  be around one another without constantly stomping on one another’s feet,  which shouldn’t have really been a problem, what with Steve having to  get back home, which happened to be sixty years in the past. Key word:  shouldn’t.  It got a little more problematic when he started to fall for the  genius and vice versa. Now he had to decide whether to go back home to  1942, or stay in the future and be with Tony Stark.

Genres: Comedy, Slash, Romance, Alternate Universe: Cannon Divergence, Smut, Hurt/Comfort.

Warnings:  None

Word count: 4900

Blue eyes opened softly to snowy light falling melodically around him, this off-balance color the only indication that morning had yet come today. Rolling over, he reached a hand outward, skating over soft, smooth satin that rolled beneath fingertips like waves kissing the shore. Around him, things were quiet; a calm sleeping in the cool air. Lethargically, he pulled a thick blanket farther around himself, allowing it to aid him in heating up a skeletal frame.

He felt himself drifting back to sleep, eyes closing to the dampened light when a banging erupted around him.

Flying up, he let the blanketed embrace shimmer off him and pool at his pelvis. Those same blue eyes darted about dizzyingly taking in both a familiar and unfamiliar sterile room.

No. No, it had to have been a dream.

The banging pounded through the room again, sending shock waves through his body, and his eyes snapped back to the door, the only thing standing between realities. This barren, empty room whose air was welcoming not moments ago became cold like ice, seeping sharply into his very bones.

So.

Steve really was in 2002.

_________________________

The lesser part of this tale is, well, it’s quite simple, actually. Once upon a time in the spring of 1942, a meager, blonde haired boy made his way to the infamous Stark convention - which may have also been yet another place the United States army was recruiting, but, really, what’s a coincidence?



This meager young man, who looked to be just over eighteen but was really twenty-seven, went by the name of Steven Grant Rogers. A Steven Grant Rogers who currently found himself in a dark, grimy alleyway, which currently seemed more opportunity than misfortune.

His fists twitched in anticipation.

A smell of garbage and sewage slithered over the ground and into the air, crawling into the murky, rotted corners of neglected building. It infested everything with its stench, claiming it. Few murky puddles traipsed here and there, left over from the rain the previous night, seeping infestation and encouraging rot. The only light visible lay up ahead where the alleyway’s maw opened like the beast it was, hurling its unwanted contents aside.

When first the silhouette cut through the light, a shot of adrenaline, misplaced excitement, struck through his veins. If someone were here to start something, he was ready. All they needed to do was begin the fight, and he would end it.

It was the raspy voice, the trickle of unfamiliarity, that had him pause.

Something wasn’t right.

In his pause, the shadow before him raised what looked to be a sleek, white gun. In place of the barrel, a bright, neon green light began to emit, and the man started to speak. “My dear Captain, without you, the Avengers are to be rendered useless. Good luck saving your precious Iron Man now. Hail HYDRA!”

He automatically threw out his arms to protect his head and chest. It was useless. He knew it was useless. He couldn’t help the gut reaction, though. The thought that it might help. Which it didn’t. Did he go over that already? Steve honestly didn’t know. He didn’t know because said light seemed to consume him. It enveloped him like a cocoon, tightening around him until it was tighter than his skin, squeezing him. It felt like his eyes were being pushed from his head. His eardrums oozed out like sand in an hourglass. His chest was constricting and something was definitely lodged in his throat. He couldn’t breathe. He could not breathe!

The light drove into him manically, pecking at his skin, pulling at his taste buds, scraping the inside of his nose, digging farther and farther into his ears. It swallowed all of his senses like a bird of prey, and if he could feel his heart, he was sure it would be furiously beating against his ribcage in a painful, splintering punch. But he could feel nothing, taste nothing, smell nothing, hear nothing. All there was was light. Light painfully bright.

Was this what it was like to be dead?

Was he dead?!

As soon as the thought struck like a lightning bolt through his mind, a suctioning feeling began. Like a vacuum, the everything and nothing around him slammed back into him; an implosion of painful humanity into his mind.

Cool air licked at his skin like minute whips as air rushed around him. Opening his eyes, he was greeted with a night sky obscured by treetops, and it took him a second to realize he was falling. Back meeting ground, the breath he’d just got back escaped every tissue within his body. Eventually, with a desperate gasp, he got it back. Not a very large or kind gasp, but one that would last him enough to move onto a second one.

Wheezing, he crawled up onto all fours, watching as the ground swirled and spun around his hands, playing a nauseating game of tag with his focus. Doing his best to push himself up, Steve started to stumble forward, trying to find purchase with anything anywhere.

“Shoot. Shoot, shoot, shoot,” he muttered, trying to calm his asthma into something far more manageable.

“Hello?” a voice reached to him in the dark. His insides warred with one another. This wasn’t the same voice introduced to him just a few minutes ago, but there was no guarantee that the person calling out to him was friend or foe.

Desperate times called for desperate measures.

“Hello? I-uh-I don’t quite know where I am… or how I got here.”

The voice in question snorted, and Steve felt a bolt of anger slice through him. “Did you get yourself lost in the forest? How? You’re, like, two feet away from the edge. Just follow my voice,” they mocked, and Steve had to take in a breath - or part of one - to push the annoyance aside as he did what they instructed. Pushing branches and shrubbery aside, he fumbled, bumbled, and stumbled until the forest threw him out before sewing itself back together behind him. “How drunk are you?”

Steve’s head shot up, and he clambered to his feet, brushing the dirt off of him. “I’m not drunk,” he snapped, and he finally got a good look at the person before him. They were, well, they were small. Smaller than him. Dulled, brown eyes stared into his own, and soft, rounded features were being kissed in all the right places by the soft moonlight. Currently, they were tilting their head at him, brows raised, rosy, round lips smashed into a flat line.

Of course, the man - possibly boy - opened his mouth, and it was like frigid water being dumped on him. Whoever this kid was, he was sarcastic and course and brash and insensitive and downright rude. Oh, and he may have also just said it was the year 2002.

Which leads us to the major part of this little - big? Depends on how who’s looking at it  - tale. Apparently, according to the tipsy boy in front of him, who was definitely not of age to drink if Steve went by maturity level, which he did. Apparently, he had hopped all the way to the year 2002.

Which was impossible. Right? Absolutely impossible.

“No,” Steve insisted, glaring down at the boy who was doing the same right back. If looks could kill. “No, my name is Steve Rogers, and a few minutes ago, I was in 1942.” The kid continued to glare at him, features stiffening even further, if that was possible, at the sound of his name. He scoffed, looking over his shoulder and folding his arms. Steve wanted to shake him. He just wanted to wrangle the truth from the kid who was doing a great impression of a snide, stuck-up diva. Because something was going on, and he didn’t appreciate this air of dismissal. Not time travel. No, definitely not that, but Steve wasn’t dumb. Something was going on. “I’m not crazy!” Steve ground out. “I’m not. You,” he leaned forward accusingly, fists resting on his hips, getting into the boy’s face with a harsh glare of his own, “you’re trying to mess with me, and it’s not funny.” The more furious he got, the thicker his Brooklyn accent became apparent.

“What?!” the boy glowered. “Why would I even waste my time messing with you, some Captain America wannabe? But, sorry, you don’t really make the cut,” he sneered, using his fingers to cut a square into the air.

“I. AM. NOT. LYING!” Steve yelled, stepping closer, making the kid take his own stumbling step back. The pinched, antagonizing look on his face never changed, though. “I,” Steve pointed to himself, “am not lying. You are.” His finger poked the kid in the chest. He had to be lying, Steve thought wildly. He had to be. There was no other explanation.

Adrenaline throbbed through his body, pulsing with the ever quickening beat of his heart. He felt dizzy, like he was looking at the boy in front of him through a small tube. It felt like something strong and thick was wrapping itself around his neck and his chest, breaking his ribcage into painful shards that poked at every breath he tried to take.

“Don’t touch me,” the kid said in a low, dangerous voice, smacking Steve’s hand away in a stinging embrace.

“Don’t lie to me,” Steve ordered in a deafening wheeze.

“I’m not LYING!” the boy screeched, throwing his hands in the air and walking away before turning around to march right back to him. “And why don’t you take a breath like a normal human? Huh? Like, an actual breath, because it’d be very inconvenient for me to witness death while at such a young age.”

“Because that’s how asthma works,” Steve pinched out, shooting the kid one last narrow eyed glare before sinking to the ground in a crouch. Placing his head between his knees and reaching his hands to rest on the back of his head, Steve tried to breath. He could hear the blood roaring in his ears. It was almost deafening. “It’s 1942,” Steve muttered. “I’m from 1942.”

There was a pause, or maybe he really had gone deaf, but after a minute, he heard the kid say, “I’m not buying it. Y’know, maybe it would’ve worked better if you weren’t pretending to be the great and mighty Captain America,” he leered the name. “Although, my dad tells me he would have a stick up his ass like you do, so, there is that.”

“Fight me, kid,” Steve gasped.

“Woah-ho. Bit of a tall order, there, Cappy. You do realize you’re keeled over and unable to breathe, right? Like, I’m not the best fighter, but even I could take you like this.”

Steve tried to straighten up, breaths coming just a little easier. “I was told I never knew when to give up.”

The boy blinked at him before folding his arms, turning his head up and away, and pursing his lips. After a moment, his shoulders tensed, and his eyes glanced to Steve before sliding away just as quickly. “J, time travel is impossible; he’s more likely some crazed lunatic,” he muttered to himself. Another pause, and Steve clenched his jaw, waiting, wondering what the kid would do. “How do we prove it, then?” After a moment, he began digging into his pocket, and Steve blinked, a trickle of suspicious worry shooting through him. Before he could react, the boy raised up a rectangular contraption and shot a bright light from it. For a moment, Steve felt regret and fear tingle through him as he waited for this light to overtake him just as the last one had done. It didn’t, and he blinked his eyes open to see the kid poking at it with his thumbs. “Compare this photo to any others you can find. I want you to run a full photographic and facial analysis, and I want it to be legit. That means you may have to hack into some… not really welcoming servers and extract the evidence. There have to be pictures of him pre-serum somewhere, so check anything you think may hold the information. Just cover your tracks, and don’t get caught.”

“What did you just do to me?!” Steve bit out.

“Oh, calm down,” the boy rolled his eyes and waved at him, turning his back towards Steve as he continued to poke at the device.

“Are-are you some sort of spy?! A-a Nazi?! WHAT DID YOU JUST DO TO ME?!?!”

The kid turned swiftly around, stomping over to Steve and getting on his tip-toes to get into his face. “Will you shut the hell up? You’re attracting a lot of unwanted attention right now. And if your whole Time Traveler’s Wife story just happens to be true, that is the last fucking thing you want. Now if you could stop being a real dick for, like, one second - which I know, I know, is a lot to ask of you - I can make sure you’re not lying to me or some insane person, and we can figure the rest out from there.”

“I’m not crazy!” Steve cried but did lower his voice as he glanced around. Which was a bad idea, the glancing around because, oh boy, did that make his denial a lot more difficult to accept.

The kid snorted, “Says you. And crazy people always think they’re not…” he whistled, twirling his finger at his temple all while staring intently down at that object in his hand.

“What is that?” Steve asked softly, hoarsely.

The kid’s eyes looked up at him beneath thick lashes, head still craned towards the object. “Uh, a phone?”

“That’s a telephone,” Steve repeated slowly, head truly beginning to pound.

“Yup,” the boy said, ending the word with a loud pop. “I’m waiting for J.A.R.V.I.S. to confirm your-well… your whatever it is.”

“Who’s J.A.R.V.I.S. and how- I,” he closed his mouth with an audible pop as his thoughts came out in a jumble, one stuttering over the other, and he opened it again before closing it once more, then repeated the movement several time until continuing, “look, I just need to get home, alright? Just point me to- in...in the right direction. To Brooklyn. I live in Brooklyn.”

Just as he finished, the object pinged, and the boy raised his brows, looking between Steve and his phone. “Well I’ll be damned,” he choked out. “Captain America,” he lowered his voice, talking under his breath so that Steve could just barely make him out. “That was, like, my favorite superhero ever, but you should never meet your heroes, Tony, because, honestly, he’s a bit of a dick.”

“What are you even talking about?!” and the angry sentence came out far more like a plea than anything else. The kid’s eyes softened just a tad as they met Steve’s own, something akin to pity shining in there that made Steve unbearably angry. He didn’t need pity. He just needed to get home. “I’m not crazy!” he hissed.

“Never said you were,” the boy shrugged, softened look gone. “But, uhh, I don’t think you going home,” he coughed, looking at his shoes. “I don’t think that’s gonna work out so well.”

“Yeah, and why not?”

“For starters,” he frowned, giving Steve a pointed look. “You’re kinda in 2002, which I feel like we’ve gone over before, but you don’t seem to quite be getting it.”

“That’s because time travel… time travel is impossible,” Steve countered.

“And yet here you are,” the kid sneered. Stepping to the side, he pointed toward the street. “Look! Do those look like 1940’s cars? Like a normal 1940’s street?” Steve’s eyes snapped in the direction Tony was pointing, heart racing. There had to be something, anything, that explained why everything here seemed to be off kilter. Normal, but not quite. Something that was not time travel. “And what about that, oh Captain my Captain?” the boy pointed towards something to his left that seemed to be the source of the music playing. The strange, pumping music. “And how ‘bout that?” he finished, tossing Steve the device he’d help up to his face just a few minutes ago.

He caught it in unbalanced hands, staring down at it. It was nothing special. Just a piece of plastic. Just a mere piece of plastic.

The boy walked forward, pressing a button to light up what looked to be a miniaturized screen that switched its image when the kid pressed his thumb to a circle at the bottom that had a slight blue glow to it. “And keep in mind, this is a prototype, so the phone is actually far more advanced than anyone else’s, but you get the drift. Toto, I’ve a feeling you’re not in Kansas anymore.”

“I’m not from Kansas,” Steve replied meekly, still staring down at the device in his hands, feeling nausea and fear and dizziness crash over him like a wave all at once. He was going to be sick.

Silently, he watched at the kid pulled the phone away from his palms. His empty hands were shiny from sweat and shaking uncontrollably.

“This is impossible,” he muttered, finally looking up to meet the boy’s eyes, which were watching him in a narrowed manner, mouth pulled taut. “This is impossible.”

“I’ll get you home,” the kid blurted. “I mean, you’re kind of in luck because I’m a genius. Like, the evolutionary mind of my time, so I’ll get you home. If someone got you here, then obviously I can get you back because, honestly, other people are just idiots. This should- it should actually be easy if you think about it like that. Which I am. And trust me, neither of us want you to be here,” he told Steve, and then adding as an afterthought, “For the, uh, the space-time continuum. So, yeah. Yeah! I’ll get you home.” He sighed, looking over his shoulders to the glowing street that seemed like a beckoning land from a fairy tale. “Build a time machine. That should… it’ll be fun. One last… one last hurrah,” he said, sounding wistful. Steve coughed, trying to suck in a breath, mind swirling with thoughts and emotions. He barely heard the kid’s ramblings, but he hadn’t seemed to notice. Or care, for that matter, because he just kept. On. Talking. “We should go. I’ll get you an inhaler from a drug store on the way back because you are dangerously close to turning blue. Oh my God! First, you were red ‘cause you were angry, then white ‘cause of shock, and now you’re blue because you can’t breathe. That’s, that’s kinda hilarious if you understood the joke there, which you didn’t, and you won’t, for the sake of space and time and continuum. Anyway, let’s save your life by leaving and getting an inhaler. My evenings officially ruined anyway. Thanks, by the way, for that. Somehow, you made beer taste bad; I mean, I will never look at it the same again. I spilled it. All over me. It’s gross… I’m sticky-”

“Will you just… shut up?!” Steve growled. All he wanted to do was focus on his breathing. No, he needed to focus on his breathing. Just his breathing and nothing else. Not all… all of whatever this was, and definitely not the brat babbling to him right now. Just try to get a breath in for ten seconds and listen to the wheeze as you force it passed your closing throat. Yeah, no, nothing to worry about here, folks. He could picture it now: “Here Lies Steve G. Rogers who did not, in fact, die fighting for our country in the war, but on account of an asthma attack caused by an annoying, little boy.”

The boy spoke again, but he did seem a little more subdued as he fought to be heard over the roaring in Steve’s ears. “I… c’mon. Let’s go, Steve-o. I know staying here is probably what sounds like the best option, what, with your dying lungs and all that, but I can help with that if you just come with me, okay? I’ll buy you an inhaler, we can go back to my dorm where you can sleep and take a shower because you smell like garbage and sewer. Where even were you before you showed up? Did they not have soap and showers in the ’40s? Never mind. Anyway, we should go. Get you an inhaler. But remember, I saved your life. Twice after I get you home, so you owe me. Big time.”

He watched as the kid walked slowly over to him and felt rather than saw his arm get tugged not so gently. Steve wanted to snap and roar and yank his arm away from this boy whom he trusted as far as he could throw right now. And by the fact that he could barely walk, that wasn’t far at all. But yelling, fighting, pulling himself away from this kid did not fall under the category of: Stare at the Ground and Try to Breathe, so he allowed himself to be pulled forth into what may very well be enemy territory.

He had heard something about German scientists making advanced weapons with nuclear technology. Never having been anywhere but New York his whole life, how could he say the Axis powers weren’t advanced in other technologies giving their country a… futuristic look?

It was… it was possible. More possible than time travel, at least. Right? Just simple teleportation.

Steve groaned. He sounded crazy even to himself.

It wasn’t until the rushing of cool air greeted his face with light kisses that he realized the boy had led him into a store. Everything between now and the park was a drowning blur of messy lights everywhere around him that whispered to him like sirens to just look up. Take a peak. See what this world really has to offer. He hadn’t, but the temptation was there, niggling at the back of his mind.

The store in question was almost normal. Almost. If he ignored the door that opened all on its own just as they approached it, he could just fool himself into thinking such. It was like walking into an alternate reality. Everything was similar. Similar, but still off. It added to his hesitancy. He could feel his palms become sticky and sweaty again as he clenched and unclenched them over and over.

Numbly, he followed the boy down the mazes of isles and up to a counter. Steve eyed the cash register as it blinked words and numbers at him, and a square box with buttons did the same. The kid pulled out a thin, plastic rectangle, and began tapping it against the counter as they waited for someone to come to them.

“I’m gonna sit,” Steve said in a strained voice, already walking over to the seats lining the wall and collapsing into them. Closing his eyes, he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs and pinching the bridge of his nose until he felt pain bloom between his eyes.

The kid followed soon enough, sitting down next to him and holding something red out in his hand. Steve looked at it, and it looked similar to the inhalers he’d seen through store windows and posters, but, like everything else, was off.

“I had exercise-induced asthma as a kid. Grew out of it, though. Or maybe I just stopped exercising,” the kid told Steve in a soft voice. He was looking at the older man with soft eyes. “Anyway, you put your mouth in this side,” he began, tapping what looked like the bottom of an “L.” “Then you press this cylinder down and breathe in as deep as you can and hold your breath for as long as you can, about thirty seconds, then breathe out. You’ll do that one more time, and then you should be all better!”

Steve eyed it suspiciously, but the kid just continued to hold it out in a steady hand. He looked up to meet autumnal eyes, and the kid just raised his brow at him, waiting, possibly even challenging Steve to take it and use it.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, Steve thought.

Reaching for the object, Steve stared forward blankly as he did what he’d been instructed to do. This could very well kill him. It could be filled with poison. But what choice did he have? Whoever that man was who sent him here, whoever this boy was, and whether they were in league with one another or not, Steve was stuck. Wherever this was, he was stuck.

He felt empty. It was a weird feeling; one he’d never really experienced before because there was always a way out. There was always another option. A way to win. It didn’t feel like there was much of a way to win this one. Whatever this one was. He supposed taking this inhaler was taking a chance on a way out, but he was also aware that it was taking a chance on finding no way out.

His head and vision swam, and he felt a tired ache settle in his bones. Then his vision began to clear as he breathed out, but the exhaustion remained. Taking another hit of the medicine, he held his breath again, but nothing happened. Nothing except the feeling of his throat opening. Muscles easing back into rest.

“So,” he breathed out, feeling like a smoker exhaling their hit of a cigarette. “2002…” Steve continued to stare ahead, rubbing his hand roughly over his flattened mouth.

“Yup,” the boy agreed, staring forward as well.

It should be good. Great, even, him being able to breathe. For the first time in his life, Steve felt like he could actually take a full, decent breath without the worry of falling folly to another attack. It should be good.

He felt the ache settle deeper into his bones.

“C’mon,” the kid told him, pushing himself from the seat. “Let’s go shower and get some rest.”

They continued to walk. Steve wasn’t sure where he was being led at this point, but he obediently staggered behind. He was tired. He clutched the inhaler tightly in his hand like his life depended on it.

The kid led him through a large, grassy courtyard with the greenest grass Steve had ever seen. They walked into one of the many grey buildings that surrounded them, and then through what seemed like endless hallways and up in futuristic elevators. They didn’t speak much more, and the boy gave him a towel and some supplies for the shower, which they took their time for. The hot water and steam and sweet smells were nice, even if they couldn’t quite sooth his nerves.

It was back in a dorm with empty walls and barren space that the boy finally spoke: “You need a bed.” Steve looked over to see the boy staring at him studiously, head tilted to the side in an overly endearing manner causing a slight blush to taint his cheeks; a heat that Steve didn’t want to begin to analyze caressed his skin. The kid snapped his fingers, making Steve jump and look away, shaking himself violently. “I know a guy,” the boy said, walking to the door, his pajama bottoms brushing passed his feet.  “He’s, uh, a friend. Of mine. Anyway, he told me he’d be out all night, probably wouldn’t even be back tomorrow, so I’m sure he won’t mind if we go in there and borrow his mattress. Tomorrow we’ll get you your own, or whatever, but, for now, you can use his.”

“And this won’t be a problem?” Steve questioned, following the kid out into the hallway. “For your friend?”

He stopped, turning to Steve with a wicked smile then shrugged before moving forward again. All Steve could do was follow, not sure what the truth behind that smile was but sure it meant nothing good. He watched with rapt attention as the boy stopped in front of a door, knelt down, and poked two slim pieces of metal into the lock. It shouldn’t have impressed him when the door clicked and swung open.

The kid entered the room while Steve stayed outside, folding his arms around himself, letting his head fall forward. His head snapped back up when the boy poked his head out and gave him a look. “Well?” he asked. “You gonna help me or not?”

“Why does it feel like you’re up to something?” Steve asked monotonously, looking through the kid more than at him.

The kid blinked, face going slack, eyes going wide. Again, he tilted his head. “What do you mean? I just want you to have a mattress to sleep on.” Steve didn’t move, just blinking back at the boy. “C’mon,” he said. “Let’s just… you’re tired; I’m tired. Help me out so we can get this over with and go to bed. In the morning, we’ll figure everything out.”

Steve nodded, moving to grab the end of the mattress poking out from the doorway. Right. Morning. Maybe this was all some sort of crazy dream, and he’d wake up, and it would all be okay.

___________________________________

Notes:

Thank you all once again for reading! Have a lovely Christmas, happy holidays, and a happy New Year! Here's the link to Chapter Three:

https://alexrogersstark.livejournal.com/580.html