Fanfic: It's a Beautiful Day, (MCU, PG)
Note: Set pre-Civil War, obviously.
“I need you on your best behavior, Rogers,” Tony said, tapping his fingers nervously on the steering wheel of his Audi R8, as they weaved their way through the mix of suburbs and light industrial buildings outside of Pittsburg. Unusually, for Tony, he was actually sticking to the speed limits and not revving his engine impatiently at the stoplights.
“On my best behavior, are you serious?” Steve asked.
“Yeah,” Tony replied. “Try not to be so smarmily superior, like you usually are. I want you to make a good impression.” Though it was hard to tell with Tony sometimes, Steve was pretty sure that statement, mocking as it was, was meant in deadly earnest.
“Wait, you are actually serious,” he said. “Who are we meeting, and why are they so important?”
“Like I said on the phone, a TV show host. Children’s programming. “
Steve cocked his head in confusion. “Tony, your usual reaction to children is to smile, and then wash your hands as quickly as possible if there’s any physical contact.”
“You’re hilarious, Rogers,” Tony said, though he didn’t argue the point. He spun the car into a parking lot in front of a small office complex, indistinguishable from any other save for the large satellite dish on the roof. Out front, a sign proclaimed it to be the home of WQED Pittsburg. “Besides, no actual children are involved with the show.”
Steve just shook his head, retrieving his duffle bag holding his uniform, and his shield, from the trunk of the Audi, then followed Tony into the lobby of the building.
A cheerful, middle-aged Negro (African-American, he corrected himself sharply) woman, who had apparently been waiting for them, rose up from a chair to greet Tony. “Mr. Stark, welcome back,” she said.
Tony smiled. It was what Steve thought of as his nice smile, the one that he reserved for the handful of people he actually respected. “Hi, Elissa,” he greeted. “Elissa, this is Steve Rogers, I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of him. Steve, this is Elissa Jackson, head of public relations for WQED.”
“How do you do, ma’am?” Steve said, setting down his duffle to shake her hand briefly.
“It’s an honor, Captain Rogers,” she replied, smiling back. Turning her attention back to Tony, Elissa said, “I’d like to thank you again for the funding the station this year, Tony.”
Tony shrugged, some of his usual I don’t care about your praise attitude coming back. “It wasn’t me, it was the Maria and Howard Stark Foundation. Supporting public television is part of its mandate.”
“Just the same, thank you.” Perhaps sensing Tony didn’t want to hear any more on the subject, she added, “If you’re ready, I’ll bring you both back to the studio.”
“Sure.” They followed her down a corridor, passing a couple of people who nodded at Tony, as if used to seeing him, and who looked at Steve with recognition, but were polite enough not to stop and beg for autographs. Steve made a note in his head to offer a Grip and Grin to all the staff later, after they finished with the studio visit.
They came to a studio door, the FILMING IN PROGRESS warning light off. Elissa opened it and ushered them in. Inside, Steve found himself looking a small studio space. Cameras pointed a set depicting a small suburban house, consisting of a front door leading into a living room, and a connecting kitchen. Curiously the living room had an oversized model railroad track running along one wall, leading into a tunnel that presumably went into the back of the pretend house. Interns were scurrying about while the cameramen readied their equipment, and a man off to one side ran through a brief arpeggio on an upright piano.
The studio door opened again, and an elderly, slightly stooped man in what Steve guessed was his mid to late eighties, judging from his white hair and deeply wrinkled face, entered. He was dressed in a sport coat, tie, and slacks, as if he was just coming from a business meeting. He gave everyone a friendly wave, his face breaking out into a broad grin as he spotted Tony and Steve.
“Tony!” he called out, approaching them both, his steps light despite his obvious age. “I’m so glad you could make it.”
“Good morning, sir,” Tony said, giving the elderly man his nice smile again, and shaking his hand. “You know I try to never miss an invite from you.”
Sir? Steve thought. He tried to think of the last person he’d ever heard Tony address as “sir” and came up blank.
“And this must be Captain Rogers,” the man said, shaking his hand in turn. “I remember watching you on the newsreels during the war.”
“Yep. Mr. Rogers, meet Steve Rogers. Steve, this the Reverend Fred Rogers, the host of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood,” Tony explained.
“Reverend,” Steve said, giving Rogers a respectful nod.
Rogers ducked his head in slight embarrassment. “Just ‘Fred’ is fine. I’m a seminary graduate, but I’ve never led a church,” he gestured to the small living room set, “though I suppose this is my ministry, in a way.” He smiled in evident pride.
“What do you teach on this show?” Steve asked, curious now.
“We have some arts and crafts, visits to places like factories to show how things are made, and I talk about issues that might interest children, like how to be an astronaut, or things that might scare them, like what happened in New York City, and in DC just a few months back,” Fred explained. “That’s actually why I asked Tony to bring you here today.”
“Oh, I understand,” Steve said. “Would you like me to suit up for this?”
“If it’s no trouble.”
“Not at all.” Elissa led him back to a small dressing room, and he switched into his new uniform, similar to his old WWII uniform in design, sporting the new Avengers logo on the shoulder. Steve thought it was a big improvement over his more recent dark Navy Blue one, or the spangly tights poor agent Coulson had designed for him.
When he came back into the studio, Tony was at the back of the set, jacket off and head stuck underneath the shelf with the train tracks, which appeared to be for a large red trolley that led into the house and out the back to a clever little puppet stage built to resemble a blue castle with a large tree beside it. “Guys,” he said irritably, “what did you do to the wiring here?”
“The wiring is okay, Mr. Stark,” one of the interns said. “We just had a short in the breaker. It’s reset now.”
“Everything is dusty,” Tony groused, pulling some canned air from a toolkit beside him. He blew the dust off, wiping all the visible wiring and connections clean with a non-static cloth. “Fred, are you sure you don’t want to replace all of this with something cooler? Give me a couple of hours and I can convert it to a sweet maglev line.”
“The Magic Trolley is fine the way it is, Tony,” Fred said patiently. “Now if you’re ready, we need to start filming.”
“Sure.” Tony stood up, slipping his suit jacket back on. Steve stood with him to one side as everyone took their places. The piano man started up with a gentle tune, and Fred opened the front door of the living room, stepping through crooning “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood,” while he took off his suit jacket and replaced it with a red cardigan, replacing his work shoes with a pair of rubber soled sneakers. He greeted his invisible audience of children, moving smoothly into the kitchen to demonstrate how to build a small bridge with glue and dried spaghetti, and then it was Steve and Tony’s turn to come to the front door and ring the bell to ushered in.
Guided by Fred, they explained in terms young children could understand about the Chitauri attack on New York, and the loss of the SHIELD helicarriers over the Potomac, emphasizing how the Avengers worked hard to protect people in the former case, and the work of the fire and rescue crews in both incidents. Steve gave a highly edited version of the events of the helicarrier shoot down, keeping the infiltration of HYDRA into SHIELD limited to a simple explanation that bad people had stolen the carriers to hurt people, which was true to a certain extent.
Then they were thanked and led out the front door again, and filming was paused for a moment to follow the Magic Trolley to the Land of Make Believe and Fred to prepare King Friday and Queen Sara’s puppets for the next part of the program.
“Nicely done, Rogers, as always,” Tony said sotto voce as the preparations continued.
“Thanks,” Steve said. “Now, do you think you could answer a question for me?”
Tony shrugged. “Sure.”
“Who are you, and what have you done with Tony Stark?” he demanded
Tony gave him a quiet glare. “Y’know, believe it or not, Rogers, I can go outside without picking my nose in public.”
“We have been here for over an hour,” Steve went on. “You’ve managed to go that entire time without making a pass at any of the interns. You’ve been polite to everyone here. You haven’t cracked one dirty joke, or even used mildly bad language. You managed to go through that entire discussion with Fred without once managing to slip in an innuendo. That isn’t like you.”
“Point,” Tony admitted. He cleared his throat uncomfortably and said, “Look, it’s Mr. Rogers, okay? You don’t act like that in front of Mr. Rogers. You’re supposed to act, well, more like you actually. He expects it, and everybody around him just tries to live up to that expectation.”
Steve raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “Since when have you cared about how you act in public? Why is this guy the one person you try act like a reasonable adult around?”
“Because,” Tony started to say, his hands beginning flap in agitation. He grabbed them to keep them still and took a deep breath. “Okay, you have to understand about Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. It’s been on since forever. It’s quiet, it’s slow, and if you’re older than age four, it’s kinda boring. That doesn’t matter. The point is that Fred doesn’t talk down to kids when he’s doing his show. He assumes they’re smart enough to follow along, and he assumes that their questions are worth answering, even about the scary stuff like 9/11 or the Chitauri invasion.”
“Okay,” Steve said, wondering where this was going.
Tony continued. “Now, when I was a kid I was a little screwed up, if you can believe that. Y’know, being genius child in a room full of mundanes, knowing more than my teachers most of the time, and on top of everything else I had a lot of daddy issues.”
“I gathered that,” Steve said evenly, remembering Tony’s occasional and very reluctant recollections of his father Howard.
“No matter how bad things got though, I could count on the fact that every weekday, if I turned on WNET Channel 13 at 4pm, for a half hour Mr. Rogers would tell me that everything was going to be okay, and he liked me just the way I was. When I was fourteen I appeared on his program for the first time, to demonstrate the microchip I’d bread boarded, and later to show off U and DUM-E. That first time, he let me take apart the Magic Trolley to see how worked. After the show, I sat in his office and babbled about how much fun I had and about the ideas in my head. I think he must understood maybe one word in three, but the point is he listened to me. Just because I was Tony Stark, not a genius kid, not Howard Stark’s son. He took me in just the way I was, no pre-judgements, no expectations.” Tony breathed in, finishing with, “I watched his show until I was fourteen, when Dad shoved me off to boarding school. After Mom and Dad died, I made sure this station would never be short of funding.”
There was silence for a moment, while Steve tried to think of something to say. Then Tony’s phone bleeped for attention, and he pulled it out, looking frustrated. “Yeah, JARVIS? Okay. Armor inbound? Thanks.”
“What’s up? “ Steve asked.
Tony grimaced. “Blonsky broke containment while they were transferring him to the Raft. Banner and Wilson are on a quinjet vectoring to us for a pickup in the front parking lot.”
“Right.” Steve nodded, while Tony turned towards Fred.
“Mr. Rogers? Got an alert. We have to get going,” Tony called out to him.
Fred nodded in understanding. “All right,” he said. “Be a helper, Tony.”
Tony sighed and turned away. “Trying the best I can…”
The End
Note: I’m aware Fred Rogers died in 2003. In the MCU, he can be alive if I want him to be. ;p
“I need you on your best behavior, Rogers,” Tony said, tapping his fingers nervously on the steering wheel of his Audi R8, as they weaved their way through the mix of suburbs and light industrial buildings outside of Pittsburg. Unusually, for Tony, he was actually sticking to the speed limits and not revving his engine impatiently at the stoplights.
“On my best behavior, are you serious?” Steve asked.
“Yeah,” Tony replied. “Try not to be so smarmily superior, like you usually are. I want you to make a good impression.” Though it was hard to tell with Tony sometimes, Steve was pretty sure that statement, mocking as it was, was meant in deadly earnest.
“Wait, you are actually serious,” he said. “Who are we meeting, and why are they so important?”
“Like I said on the phone, a TV show host. Children’s programming. “
Steve cocked his head in confusion. “Tony, your usual reaction to children is to smile, and then wash your hands as quickly as possible if there’s any physical contact.”
“You’re hilarious, Rogers,” Tony said, though he didn’t argue the point. He spun the car into a parking lot in front of a small office complex, indistinguishable from any other save for the large satellite dish on the roof. Out front, a sign proclaimed it to be the home of WQED Pittsburg. “Besides, no actual children are involved with the show.”
Steve just shook his head, retrieving his duffle bag holding his uniform, and his shield, from the trunk of the Audi, then followed Tony into the lobby of the building.
A cheerful, middle-aged Negro (African-American, he corrected himself sharply) woman, who had apparently been waiting for them, rose up from a chair to greet Tony. “Mr. Stark, welcome back,” she said.
Tony smiled. It was what Steve thought of as his nice smile, the one that he reserved for the handful of people he actually respected. “Hi, Elissa,” he greeted. “Elissa, this is Steve Rogers, I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of him. Steve, this is Elissa Jackson, head of public relations for WQED.”
“How do you do, ma’am?” Steve said, setting down his duffle to shake her hand briefly.
“It’s an honor, Captain Rogers,” she replied, smiling back. Turning her attention back to Tony, Elissa said, “I’d like to thank you again for the funding the station this year, Tony.”
Tony shrugged, some of his usual I don’t care about your praise attitude coming back. “It wasn’t me, it was the Maria and Howard Stark Foundation. Supporting public television is part of its mandate.”
“Just the same, thank you.” Perhaps sensing Tony didn’t want to hear any more on the subject, she added, “If you’re ready, I’ll bring you both back to the studio.”
“Sure.” They followed her down a corridor, passing a couple of people who nodded at Tony, as if used to seeing him, and who looked at Steve with recognition, but were polite enough not to stop and beg for autographs. Steve made a note in his head to offer a Grip and Grin to all the staff later, after they finished with the studio visit.
They came to a studio door, the FILMING IN PROGRESS warning light off. Elissa opened it and ushered them in. Inside, Steve found himself looking a small studio space. Cameras pointed a set depicting a small suburban house, consisting of a front door leading into a living room, and a connecting kitchen. Curiously the living room had an oversized model railroad track running along one wall, leading into a tunnel that presumably went into the back of the pretend house. Interns were scurrying about while the cameramen readied their equipment, and a man off to one side ran through a brief arpeggio on an upright piano.
The studio door opened again, and an elderly, slightly stooped man in what Steve guessed was his mid to late eighties, judging from his white hair and deeply wrinkled face, entered. He was dressed in a sport coat, tie, and slacks, as if he was just coming from a business meeting. He gave everyone a friendly wave, his face breaking out into a broad grin as he spotted Tony and Steve.
“Tony!” he called out, approaching them both, his steps light despite his obvious age. “I’m so glad you could make it.”
“Good morning, sir,” Tony said, giving the elderly man his nice smile again, and shaking his hand. “You know I try to never miss an invite from you.”
Sir? Steve thought. He tried to think of the last person he’d ever heard Tony address as “sir” and came up blank.
“And this must be Captain Rogers,” the man said, shaking his hand in turn. “I remember watching you on the newsreels during the war.”
“Yep. Mr. Rogers, meet Steve Rogers. Steve, this the Reverend Fred Rogers, the host of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood,” Tony explained.
“Reverend,” Steve said, giving Rogers a respectful nod.
Rogers ducked his head in slight embarrassment. “Just ‘Fred’ is fine. I’m a seminary graduate, but I’ve never led a church,” he gestured to the small living room set, “though I suppose this is my ministry, in a way.” He smiled in evident pride.
“What do you teach on this show?” Steve asked, curious now.
“We have some arts and crafts, visits to places like factories to show how things are made, and I talk about issues that might interest children, like how to be an astronaut, or things that might scare them, like what happened in New York City, and in DC just a few months back,” Fred explained. “That’s actually why I asked Tony to bring you here today.”
“Oh, I understand,” Steve said. “Would you like me to suit up for this?”
“If it’s no trouble.”
“Not at all.” Elissa led him back to a small dressing room, and he switched into his new uniform, similar to his old WWII uniform in design, sporting the new Avengers logo on the shoulder. Steve thought it was a big improvement over his more recent dark Navy Blue one, or the spangly tights poor agent Coulson had designed for him.
When he came back into the studio, Tony was at the back of the set, jacket off and head stuck underneath the shelf with the train tracks, which appeared to be for a large red trolley that led into the house and out the back to a clever little puppet stage built to resemble a blue castle with a large tree beside it. “Guys,” he said irritably, “what did you do to the wiring here?”
“The wiring is okay, Mr. Stark,” one of the interns said. “We just had a short in the breaker. It’s reset now.”
“Everything is dusty,” Tony groused, pulling some canned air from a toolkit beside him. He blew the dust off, wiping all the visible wiring and connections clean with a non-static cloth. “Fred, are you sure you don’t want to replace all of this with something cooler? Give me a couple of hours and I can convert it to a sweet maglev line.”
“The Magic Trolley is fine the way it is, Tony,” Fred said patiently. “Now if you’re ready, we need to start filming.”
“Sure.” Tony stood up, slipping his suit jacket back on. Steve stood with him to one side as everyone took their places. The piano man started up with a gentle tune, and Fred opened the front door of the living room, stepping through crooning “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood,” while he took off his suit jacket and replaced it with a red cardigan, replacing his work shoes with a pair of rubber soled sneakers. He greeted his invisible audience of children, moving smoothly into the kitchen to demonstrate how to build a small bridge with glue and dried spaghetti, and then it was Steve and Tony’s turn to come to the front door and ring the bell to ushered in.
Guided by Fred, they explained in terms young children could understand about the Chitauri attack on New York, and the loss of the SHIELD helicarriers over the Potomac, emphasizing how the Avengers worked hard to protect people in the former case, and the work of the fire and rescue crews in both incidents. Steve gave a highly edited version of the events of the helicarrier shoot down, keeping the infiltration of HYDRA into SHIELD limited to a simple explanation that bad people had stolen the carriers to hurt people, which was true to a certain extent.
Then they were thanked and led out the front door again, and filming was paused for a moment to follow the Magic Trolley to the Land of Make Believe and Fred to prepare King Friday and Queen Sara’s puppets for the next part of the program.
“Nicely done, Rogers, as always,” Tony said sotto voce as the preparations continued.
“Thanks,” Steve said. “Now, do you think you could answer a question for me?”
Tony shrugged. “Sure.”
“Who are you, and what have you done with Tony Stark?” he demanded
Tony gave him a quiet glare. “Y’know, believe it or not, Rogers, I can go outside without picking my nose in public.”
“We have been here for over an hour,” Steve went on. “You’ve managed to go that entire time without making a pass at any of the interns. You’ve been polite to everyone here. You haven’t cracked one dirty joke, or even used mildly bad language. You managed to go through that entire discussion with Fred without once managing to slip in an innuendo. That isn’t like you.”
“Point,” Tony admitted. He cleared his throat uncomfortably and said, “Look, it’s Mr. Rogers, okay? You don’t act like that in front of Mr. Rogers. You’re supposed to act, well, more like you actually. He expects it, and everybody around him just tries to live up to that expectation.”
Steve raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “Since when have you cared about how you act in public? Why is this guy the one person you try act like a reasonable adult around?”
“Because,” Tony started to say, his hands beginning flap in agitation. He grabbed them to keep them still and took a deep breath. “Okay, you have to understand about Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. It’s been on since forever. It’s quiet, it’s slow, and if you’re older than age four, it’s kinda boring. That doesn’t matter. The point is that Fred doesn’t talk down to kids when he’s doing his show. He assumes they’re smart enough to follow along, and he assumes that their questions are worth answering, even about the scary stuff like 9/11 or the Chitauri invasion.”
“Okay,” Steve said, wondering where this was going.
Tony continued. “Now, when I was a kid I was a little screwed up, if you can believe that. Y’know, being genius child in a room full of mundanes, knowing more than my teachers most of the time, and on top of everything else I had a lot of daddy issues.”
“I gathered that,” Steve said evenly, remembering Tony’s occasional and very reluctant recollections of his father Howard.
“No matter how bad things got though, I could count on the fact that every weekday, if I turned on WNET Channel 13 at 4pm, for a half hour Mr. Rogers would tell me that everything was going to be okay, and he liked me just the way I was. When I was fourteen I appeared on his program for the first time, to demonstrate the microchip I’d bread boarded, and later to show off U and DUM-E. That first time, he let me take apart the Magic Trolley to see how worked. After the show, I sat in his office and babbled about how much fun I had and about the ideas in my head. I think he must understood maybe one word in three, but the point is he listened to me. Just because I was Tony Stark, not a genius kid, not Howard Stark’s son. He took me in just the way I was, no pre-judgements, no expectations.” Tony breathed in, finishing with, “I watched his show until I was fourteen, when Dad shoved me off to boarding school. After Mom and Dad died, I made sure this station would never be short of funding.”
There was silence for a moment, while Steve tried to think of something to say. Then Tony’s phone bleeped for attention, and he pulled it out, looking frustrated. “Yeah, JARVIS? Okay. Armor inbound? Thanks.”
“What’s up? “ Steve asked.
Tony grimaced. “Blonsky broke containment while they were transferring him to the Raft. Banner and Wilson are on a quinjet vectoring to us for a pickup in the front parking lot.”
“Right.” Steve nodded, while Tony turned towards Fred.
“Mr. Rogers? Got an alert. We have to get going,” Tony called out to him.
Fred nodded in understanding. “All right,” he said. “Be a helper, Tony.”
Tony sighed and turned away. “Trying the best I can…”
The End
Note: I’m aware Fred Rogers died in 2003. In the MCU, he can be alive if I want him to be. ;p