A Comforting Presence (Steve/Tony) Part 4a
Title: A Comforting Presence
Fandom: Avengers (2012), Marvel movieverse
Pairing: Steve/Tony, gen
Summary: It starts with Clint, and then from there, every time an Avenger gets hurt (physically or otherwise), they seem to show up at Steve’s doorstep. Eventually he stops bothering to lock it (though Tony breaking in to his apartment every morning might also have something to do with that.) But there's more to it than that, especially when old enemies resurface. Or, a series of non-linear flashbacks and events, illustrating how Steve went from being very alone in the 21st century to having five (maybe even more) roommates (family) and why Tony decided to build the Avengers mansion.
Notes: POST-Avengers, there are MAJOR spoilers for the movie
Warnings: Angst, gradual romance, fluff, non-linear timeline
Also on AO3
Previous: Part 1 / Part 2a / Part 2b / Part 3a / Part 3b
A Comforting Presence
IV. Fury
Before:
“Hey, I’m talking to you, Fury, don’t you dare walk away!” He hears Tony shout from the other side of the wall. Steve shuffles awkwardly in one of the spinning chairs that surround the long and black table. He looks every few moments or so at the clock, the only ornament against bare metal walls. They whisper to him of the cold until he has to rub his hands together to generate any warmth.
It doesn’t work. His fingertips still feel as cool as ever, kissed by frost.
The doors slam open and Fury storms in, with Tony following angrily behind him. The billionaire freezes in mid-step when he sees Steve there. The smirk that Steve has learned to associate with him slips back in place, “Hey there Stars and Stripes, got a little detention with good old Nick here?”
Steve is saved from having to answer by Fury who tells Tony to ‘get the fuck out and wait outside the doors or he’ll send his ass back to Tibet’ or something to that effect. If anything, this seems to fuel Tony’s ire and smug mood but with another quick and unreadable glance at Steve, Tony shrugs and steps out.
Once the doors shut, Fury lets out a frustrated sigh and turns to him.
“What did you need to see me for, Rogers?” Fury asks.
He doesn’t waste any time, “I’d like to set up living arrangements outside of S.H.I.E.L.D., to begin living a civilian life on my own.”
If Fury is surprised or angry, he doesn’t show it. His face is impassive and those calculating eyes which challenge everyone are focused on Steve’s stiff frame. Steve doesn’t look away. He keeps still.
“I see,” Fury walks past the chairs lining the right side of the table, “and what brought this on, captain?”
Images of bright blue light shining from the test tubes of the serum and then the tesserect as Steve had reached for it, trying to stop the Red Skull from reaching it, flash in his mind. Then an old voice that has been haunting him and echoing in his dreams since he arrived in the future (and since the Chitauri) echoes after but he remains as impassive as possible.
“I’d like to figure out how this century works on my own terms, sir. And frankly, I dislike the idea of working with an organization that was, and may still be, planning on manufacturing weapons from the very power source that Schmidt tried to manipulate, no matter what greater good you claim it was for,” Steve tells him bluntly.
It isn’t his smartest move, mouthing off to his superior, someone with the power to make things very difficult for him but he’s never been good at keeping his mouth shut. He can almost see Bucky standing next to Fury, gesturing wildly and asking why Steve is doing this.
He thinks of Doctor Erskine’s words. You must promise me one thing... that you will stay who you are, not a perfect soldier... but a good man. At the time he had promised, had sworn never to change. But has he been a good man lately? Since he awoke in this nightmare, like Alice in her wonderland, he has forgotten that promise, holding on to the only familiar thing he knows how to be... a soldier. It’d taken Coulson’s death and Tony’s near-sacrifice (and nightmares, so many screaming nightmares) to remind him who he is.
He’s not going to let S.H.I.E.L.D. make him forget.
“You’re an honest man, captain,” Fury replies evenly.
“I try to be, sir,” he says politely. “The truth is something I value.”
Fury looks at him sharply, “Those weapons were our own defense against a possible alien attack. You saw how defenceless we were when the Chitauri invaded. Our only protectors were a group of super powered individuals who had never worked together before-it’s a miracle that we succeeded. We must always be prepared for war, Captain Rogers, or have you forgotten that in your time you voluntarily turned yourself into the world’s most valuable weapon?”
Steve stands up, but he can’t think of anything else to say to such cold tactical knowledge without sounding naive and idealistic (everything special about you came from a bottle, Rogers.) Weapons invite war, he wants to argue. And yet they are required to protect others, to prevent war. It is a great contradiction, and he knows from his recent readings (obsessive as he was after his awakening in the future’s New York) that it was only through both sides possessing the ultimate killing device that the Cold War never escalated, that true ‘peace’ (it’s not peace if you are ruled by fear) is possible.
“You made them in response to Thor,” Steve replies, “who is your ally. All of the Asgardians are your allies. They would help defend us form any alien attack and you have us, the Avengers, now. The truth is that you shouldn’t have experimented in a power source you couldn’t understand. It led them here.”
“And Doctor Erskine intervening with your body structure, with the serum, that doesn’t count as dabbling in the unknown? Wasn’t he assassinated right after his first successful human trial? Did he bring that on himself?”
“No, that wasn’t his fault!” Steve says in protest.
“He invited it, didn’t he?”
Fury’s neutral and analytical response makes Steve clench his fists in an effort not to show how emotional he has gotten at the mention of the late German Scientist. That man had given him a chance, had seen beyond his weak body and, sadly, been more of a father figure to him than anyone he had ever met.
“You didn’t know him. Doctor Erskine wanted to end the war, he understood peace, he wasn’t trying to make a weapon,” and yet, Steve realizes in the cold part of his mind, that was exactly what the Doctor wanted, a soldier (weapon) to win the war... and he had made one (him.)
The director shakes his head, “We could stand here and argue motives all you want to, Rogers, but you and I both know that it was for the greater good. Every decision made by S.H.I.E.L.D. is for the sake of homeland security, for the lives and safety of all the people living on this earth. You’re a strategist. You would have made the same decision given the circumstances.”
Steve wants to say no, he really does, but truly, he isn’t sure. Who is he to make decisions about other people’s lives when his heart is screaming for him to save them all? How is he to judge the best ways to defend a nation, a world of innocents without contradicting himself?
His gaze falters and Fury nods, “I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that it would be a high security risk if we let you live independently outside of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s jurisdictions. Your blood is valuable, Rogers, and if anyone were to get their hands on it, there is no telling what they could do. I’m sorry, but your living arrangements aren’t an option. Maybe an apartment, monitored by agents, but nothing more. Your safety is for the sake of the American people.”
This time, Steve does drop his gaze (he can’t be selfish, what was he thinking, but he doesn’t want to stay staring at the same grey metal for the rest of his-)
“Of course, sir,” he says stiffly, though on the inside he is shouting that this isn’t right while his vision of Captain America tells him to accept his orders for the sake of the people. He wants to close his eyes again. He doesn’t. “Thank you for your time.”
-
He leaves before Fury can dismiss him, rushing out as quickly as possible out of the room. His vision is blurred and he can’t stop the voices in his head, each of them rebelling against the other. He isn’t even sure who to listen to anymore as he pushes open the door. Tony jumps back (“Whoa, there, stars!”), obviously attempting to eavesdrop (though Steve isn’t sure if it was successful or not) and bewildered from whatever expression he managed to see on his face.
Tony’s jaw drops and then he is shouting at Fury (“Screw it, I’ll come back later, you asshole!”) and running down the hallway to catch up to him.
“Hey, there, stars and stripes, wait up!”
“Don’t call me that,” Steve says sharply, concentrating on the end of the hall.
As usual, Tony ignores the retort, stepping right beside him, “Hey, talk to me. What did Fury do? What did he say to you?”
He has half a mind to tell Tony, rather loudly, to leave him be. It’s his own problem to solve and his burden to bear, he doesn’t want to involve (bother) anyone else. But he does not want to snap at Tony again, not like how they argued in their first few meetings. There is also the way that Tony is staring at him, as if Steve is fragile and worth his time.
“I asked him if I could begin living independently,” Steve ends up saying as professionally as he can manage. “He refused.”
Part of him keeps expecting Tony to brush away his problems as trivial and insignificant but Tony surprises him (again and again and it’s wonderful) by looking extremely indignant on his behalf, hands thrown up wildly in disbelief.
“What? That is an atrocity! They should be lining the streets, begging to do you a favour! You’re a war hero, a national icon! You can’t say ‘no’ to Captain America! You have your rights, I know because I at least remember that part of the constitution or declaration or whatever, rights-”
Steve’s eyes widen, “Tony, it’s... fine, really. It was a stupid thing for me to ask, I mean, risking national security and...” my blood.
“Screw that! I’m not going to let our country’s, the world’s, greatest hero live in a box his whole life-and stop blushing, darling, you know it’s true-let me go call my people. Or Pepper. Definitely Pepper. She’ll eat Fury alive; even he can’t fight against every legal system in the entire freaking globe. Don’t you worry,” Tony claps his back, “I’ll take care of everything.”
“Tony, I can’t let you do this on my behalf-” He half-wonders when Iron Man’s opinion of him had become so high-
“Nonsense, I’ve got it handled, gorgeous. Already texted them,” Tony gestures to his little phone, which he has apparently typed into with one hand while they were talking, “JARVIS works quick-”
“But Tony-”
“Rogers?” The billionaire puts both hands on his shoulders and meets his gaze very seriously, “Let me do this. Consider it a... welcoming gift to the twenty first century or a favour if you would.”
“A favour?” Steve chokes, “But for what-?”
Tony only looks at him intensely with those big brown eyes that remind him of the first time he really looked at Tony Stark and saw him as he is.
“Trust me.”
There isn’t anything to say... because Steve already does.
-
Tony:
“-Sir, sir, please respond, STARK Towers has been destroyed, the status of Captain Rogers and Doctor Banner are unknown, civilian causalities unknown-”
He groans, arms aching like he’s lifted a hundred pounds of metal during one of his projects. The joints crack and creak while his head feels as if it’s been cracked open by an axe. The pain throbs back and forth but his thoughts are clearer. The haze of intoxication is but a faint curtain in the back of his mind. Calculations and theories are already sounding off in his head, begging to be fiddled with and studied.
Tony blinks, seeing the bright holographic numbers clustered on the screen in front of him. The metal armour is wrapped around him protectively as he is hovering in midair.
“JARVIS,” Tony can still taste the lingering alcohol on his tongue, the bar’s best vodka now soured with time. It makes him want to find a toilet to throw up in. “Why am I in the Iron man suit? And what the hell happened last night?”
His stomach lurches while there is an insistent and annoying buzz at the back of his mind saying that he has forgotten something extremely important. Tony pushes it away (it’s probably nothing) opting to handle this with as much humour as possible.
“Tell me that I didn’t strip naked for anyone again, please.”
“We are on autopilot, sir, and I believe that you did design the newest prototype of the suit to engage automatically whenever you are in immediate danger-”
“Danger…?” There’s another sharp jolt in his head. “Unless I was thrown out of another window again, I don’t-”
Tony stops, vision clearing as he takes in the destruction down below. The tower that he and Pepper built together (well, Pepper mostly) is now a heap of glass and steel, different pieces of jagged wood and furniture sit in odd angles. There are sparks as live electric cords are leaking freely on the ground. Smoke is rising from different point of the scene. It won’t be long before a majority of the block is on fire. All of it, all his work, gone (but his lab, thank god, and Dummy and Butterfingers are safe back in California-)
Whoever had screwed with his tower was going to get the ass kicking of the century.
“JARVIS, what happened?”
His AI’s tones are neutral despite the murder in his voice, “An attack, sir.”
“No shit. But who was it? How did they-?”
“I was hacked, sir, and blocked from the systems inside STARK towers between 250 and 400 hours. I have no data or records of what transpired in between that time, only that you were thrown out of the lobby before the tower collapsed and the suit assembled itself around you before you could be seriously injured.”
“Pepper-” Tony recalls her yelling at him in his drunken stupor, was she-
“Safe with Mr. Hogan taking charge of her care. She was heading home, driven by Mr. Hogun when the tower fell. She has been trying to reach the site but traffic has been jammed in the surrounding blocks and local enforcement is trying to contain the damage and make rescue efforts.”
“Let her know that I’m fine then,” Tony orders.
“Already done, sir.”
He lets himself relax then, Pepper is alive, Pepper is safe, but there’s something still nagging at him… Who knows how many people could be trapped under all that concrete and glass? It makes him feel as angry and disturbed as when he watched footage of the clean-up after Loki’s attack. Fury had ordered the other avengers to stay low but Tony remembers seeing newscasts where Steve was there, with a baseball cap hiding his face, helping to dig people out and Tony began to think that maybe the man was more sincere in his apology than he-
Wait.
“JARVIS, was there anyone else in the building besides STARK employees?” Tony demands urgently. “And yes, I know that you don’t have any data right now, just find out.”
There is a slight pause.
“Ms. Potts has reported leaving you in the care of Captain Rogers and Doctor Banner. She has inquired about their safety but there has been no report of their whereabouts yet.”
Tony feels a painful stab in his chest, worse than when he was dying of palladium poisoning.
“What? Wait… you mean-”
(…sitting against the sofa, feeling angry, angry, angry but mostly hurt. It hurts to look at them all and think that maybe they’ve never thought highly of him at all. He thought he could trust them, but they’re leaving or they don’t trust him, they have to hide things from him or Tony Stark will jeopardize the mission, ruin everything, because that’s what Tony Stark does. Everything he touches becomes so fucking messed up and he hates it. Hates that they can come up to him, pretending to care, so he lashes out, wanting to hurt them in return…)
“Stars and Bruce, they’re…”
It comes back to him in blurry images. The bar, yelling at Bruce and Pepper for no reason other than they are there, being dragged home by Pepper while Bruce has run off to god knows where, hating everyone (was he never good enough?), seeing the captain’s hurt face in his mind until the man steps in the lobby with Bruce and then-
Rogers yelling “Run!” A glimpse of a creature that should have been dead, being thrown out the door-
“…How long was I out, JARVIS?” He whispers.
The AI is oddly tentative. “Sir…”
“How long?!”
“…Over six hours, sir.”
Tony dives down. He can see the black vans parked around the wreckage below, the incoming helicarriers. They’re late, he thinks. They’re late as usual, late, late, late when stars and Bruce are… are…
He’s landed, stumbling against a few loose pieces of word, once part of an expensive table top. He’d liked that table, damn it…
And then he’s digging, the clean shine of his metal arm coverings becoming entrenched and scratched by sharp bits of metal and glass. But it doesn’t matter because-
“Stars! Stars! Bruce! Can you hear me?!” Tony keeps digging. More glass, more steel. Why is there so much of it, he doesn’t remember there being so much of it-
“Bruce! Rogers!”
But there’s nothing. He moves one slab of concrete and there is more splinters of desks, chairs, the liquor cabinet (he’s never wanted to smash it so bad.) He hurls a glass bottle of bourbon on the ground, letting it shatter, keeps searching. Bruce should be fine, he has to be fine. He’s the Hulk for fuck’s sake, you can’t kill him, Bruce even tried it himself and Stars, Stars is a super soldier, Captain America, surely he will heal and be up again. They’re probably digging themselves out right now-
“JAVIS,” Tony says, feeling like an idiot, such an idiot, why is he so slow to think today? He’ll never drink again, never, “JARVIS, do you detect their heat signatures? Where are they?”
“Negative, sir. They’ve either been crushed by the heavy weight of the building or buried too deeply down below us. It’s impossible for me to say without the proper equipment.”
“Then we keep digging, fine,” Tony snaps. He moves the clutter faster, shifting back bits and pieces of it.
“Sir-”
“Not now, JARVIS, unless it’s about Ste-Rogers or Bruce, then don’t say anything-” His head is still pounding while his vision seems to have inverted itself and his stupid arms can’t move faster, can’t be more efficient in removing the steel planks and scattered plywood. Cap or Hulk, they could move mountains if they wanted to, but even in this suit, Tony can’t even-
“Stark,” a hand grabs his shoulder and Tony nearly hits the intruder with a lit blaster. But the man is quick enough to move away, grappling Tony into a tight hold and forcing him to look up.
“Fury,” Tony spits out because he can’t compute anything else other than Cap and Bruce, still buried, have to get them out, all his fault-“What the hell are you doing, just standing there? Go find them! They’re still here, I know they are, come on...!”
But Fury is shaking his head, why is he shaking his head?
“You’re not well right now, Stark. We need to get you to the medical bay...”
“Fuck, no, I’m just hung-over; look, Stars and Bruce, they’re...”
The damned man is just staring at Tony sternly with a mixture of pity and something else. “I’m sorry, Stark, but we need have bigger problems right now...”
“No,” Tony slaps Fury’s hand away. He drops back to his knees and resumes clawing into the dump and bones of his tower, “there’s nothing more important than finding them, right now, nothing.”
It doesn’t matter what anyone says, Tony is going to find them. He has to.
And he promises, truly Lord, he promises that when he finds Stars and Bruce again, that he’ll do everything he can to keep this from happening ever again. He’ll follow Captain America’s orders. He’ll go against the law, against hell and heaven itself. He promises, on the very power source keeping him alive.
Just let him find them.
-
Now:
Steve tries to move his right side out of the rubble, but instead he ends up creating big ugly bruises from what little he manages to pull out. The blood pooling underneath him begins to deepen in colour and when Hulk growls at him, Steve stops.
He needs a plan. That fact is in the back of his mind as he attempts to entertain and encourage Hulk to keep holding on. The Hulk has assured him several times that he is “not tired, very strong, will protect cap” after several subtle attempts to ask how the big guy was holding up. Steve makes a mental note to tell Bruce how intelligent his counterpart is. He thinks Bruce might even be proud.
But Steve keeps talking out loud regardless. It’s not the smartest of moves. The dust gets trapped in his throat and Steve has no idea how much air is in this void space. But talking keeps him awake and it keeps the Hulk’s attention focused on him rather than how frustrating it is to be trapped underneath all this rubble.
Steve tells Hulk stories about Bucky and his mother, the good memories. He begins to recite fairy tales, which the Hulk enjoys for a while, his favourite being the three little pigs. He even makes up a fairly ridiculous story about a little soldier stuck in a tower while a thief, that resembles Tony in personality, discovers him.
When Steve feels his throat going dry again, probably filling up with dust, he admits to his companion that he can’t think of what to talk about next.
“Friends,” the Hulk responds, his low voice causing slight tremors from the rubble. “Tell stories about friends.”
“Friends?” Steve tries not to cough. “Like Iron Man?”
“Yes, like shiny Iron.”
So Steve recites as many details as he can remember about the members of their team. His sporadic lunches with Tony (please be alright, please let him have been far away enough from the blast, please) before he moved into his apartment were random but Steve enjoyed eating different foods even if he didn’t have much appetite for them. He tried to eat normally just to keep Tony smiling. Tony would laugh at his awed face when he tried dumplings and at on different day, pad thai. He recalls how Tony would just drop by his room at S.H.I.E.L.D. and drag him by the arm to try butter chicken or Vietnamese noodle salad with no care in the world.
Then there’s Clint, who is slowly beginning to smile more freely, who hums along with the radio when the new mainstream music begins to play because he has a terrible voice. But he plays the cello part of a Brahms ensemble with the skill of a virtuoso, as if the strings are connected to his heart. Clint, Steve tells Hulk, plays soft jazz horribly but does so anyways because Steve likes to listen to it when he sketches. He hums a few bars for the Hulk but has to stop when the Hulk begins to bob his head up and down with the tune, sending more rubble on Steve’s face.
His coughing fit upsets the Hulk so Steve quickly tells him about Natasha, how she can kill someone with a spoon, knows all the different poisons and antidotes in the world (probably from growing her garden that has now migrated to Steve’s living room) and severely hates Regency novels. The most that he’s spent with Natasha is training sessions so far while conversation in between. “She beats me in sparring most of the time,” he says while he smacks his lips. “She could probably beat anyone, maybe even you,” he jokes as Hulk snorts at him.
“Hulk fight good. Beat everyone,” the green giant affirms.
“You definitely could,” Steve agrees, feeling more and more lightheaded. Is there enough air? Hulk seems to be fine. It might be the blood loss, he reflects. Even the serum can’t combat against pieces of buildings crushing half of your body. “You could probably beat Thor on one of his bad days too.”
Perhaps they could plead for Thor to come, but he doubts that the Norse God’s powers work in such a way, being an interdimensional alien and all. It’s strange-wondering about such things. It still feels like a dream, everything about this, and Steve wonders when he’ll wake up.
“Doctor story,” His companion huffs in the silence, his breath blowing bits of grit over Steve’s cheek.
He takes another heavy breath, “You mean of Doctor Banner?”
“Yes. Hulk want.”
Despite the situation, a choked laugh escapes Steve’s mouth though it is slightly strangled. “You two are really alike when it comes down to the basics,” he finds himself saying hoarsely. He can’t stop grinning, absurdly enough. It might be from the blood loss but he’s genuinely charmed by Hulk’s words. “He wanted to know about you too.”
Hulk grunts in reply. Steve can’t tell if that means that the Hulk is pleased or annoyed, but he hopes for the former.
“Don’t worry,” he reassures him (the world is in a daze), “I only said the good things.”
Steve doesn’t hear an answer from the green giant, because then, there is rumbling. The pieces of concrete and metal are shaking all around them. Some bars hit Steve on the chest. Hulk roars, his voice ringing in Steve’s ears as the giant pushes towards him, trying to shield him from being completely buried in rubble (ice, ice, it’s everywhere, even when he wakes) and then-
There are muffled sounds (voices, he thinks) yelling towards them. The Hulk is roaring as it feels that even the darkness trembles and there is a bright light.
This is when they are blown away by another huge blast.
-
Black. Grey. Dashes of white. Black again. He’s tumbling back and forth, stuck in an endless loop, one of the black and white movie reels that he recalls from the old theatre he and Bucky used to frequent. The Hulk is roaring.
“Cap!”
Steve barely has time to yell out, “Hulk, be careful!” when he feels his head hit something sharp. It makes a long line at the back of his skull, hopefully shallow and Steve can barely breathe.
He sees the gleam of the Hulk’s yellow eyes as the giant wraps himself around Steve in a ball as the rubble, the glass, the steel tosses upwards into different directions.
There is another blast, this one even louder than the last, and this time Steve can see that it is in the same bright blue that haunts the edges his nightmares.
-
“Cap, stay,” the Hulk’s order wakes him.
Steve hisses out, his limbs freed from the wreckage as he lies, arms spread out like a bird’s wings pinned against a platter. Everything stings as if serum in his blood is burning his limbs from the inside and when he tries to move his right arm and leg, they are screaming at him to be still.
“We found them sir, I repeat, we found them,” he hears someone yell.
Colour dots and blurs his vision when he opens his eyes. The bright sunlight stings them and he can’t avoid seeing the extent of damage done on his right side form his peripheral vision.
His arm and leg are mangled, skin peeled off at odd angles revealing varying shallow and deep patches of pooled wounds. It’s like staring into the messy plethora of a Van Gogh painting, the hurried and wild brushstrokes of scarring red, pink, purples, blacks and peach splashed against each other to make up the shape of a leg and arm.
They’re sitting on the edge of a great crater of rubble, likely where they had been positioned before the blast blew it away from them. Steve sees the piles of steel and concrete surrounded them like a mini mountain range of debris. He tries to spot Tony (please be alright, please, please) but sees nothing but sparking wires and leftover screens of broken technology.
“Stand down, I repeat stand down!” Voices are shouting.
The Hulk is roaring. His voice is a mallet against Steve’s eardrums. Steve tries to stand (or at least kneel) but clumsily falls back on his right side, against several sharp slabs of steel. Steve lets out a harsh breath, feeling the points dig against his back, pressing towards his spine. He’s grateful for the fresh air (“One, two, three, four, every breath you are living a little bit more,” his mother used to sing, trying to soothe his asthma attacks.)
“Sir, permission to fire at will? Sir? Sir!”
Hulk’s massive shadow hides Steve from sight. His companion is hovering in front of him, snarling at the numb sounds which Steve now realizes are rounds being fired off. The echoes of gunfire and blasts are an old lullaby and he feels then that they’re sitting in one of the black and white photos of a bombed town in the war, built of shattered steel and glass instead of toppled bricks and roof shingles. He can hear them clearly in his head-the aircraft whirling over head, the ominous whistling as a bomb hurtled down towards you, the blasts-
“Hulk smash!”
No. Steve looks up, sees the familiar black and white of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, dressed in their blue and black suits, pointing their weapons at the Hulk. This isn’t the war that he grew up with but it might as well be one.
“Stop! Hold your fire!” Steve yells, trying to hobble forward. He’s only successful in pushing his body forward just as the triggers are released.
Steve attempts to duck and roll over, to escape being battered with holes when the Hulk somersaults over to him, covering Steve’s form with his body. The Hulk grunts painfully as the gunfire hits him before letting another roar escape his jaws. He scoops Steve up in his arms and begins to run the other direction, towards the business firms that are still standing around the wreckage.
“Target is hostile and has the captain hostage,” Steve picks up from the shouts that are fading behind them. “We are going after them.”
His breath leaves him for one paralyzing second and Steve is tapping on the Hulk’s chest, trying to get his attention.
“Stop,” Steve coughs, “wait, buddy. They won’t hurt you if you show them that you’re helping me. Let me talk to them before they shoot us.”
But the Hulk shakes his head, growling, “No. Puny agents hurt friends. No S.H.I.E.L.D.”
Steve stops, forgetting what he meant to say. He feels heat well up in his throat and says as gently as possible, “I know, big buy, I know they haven’t been the most trustworthy lately”-his companion snorts at this-“but they’re not the enemy. They won’t hurt us; I know you’ll stop them if they try.”
The green giant grunts in response. “Hulk protect Cap,” he confirms, his steps coming to a pause. Reluctantly, Hulk lowers his arms so that Steve is level with the ground. The descent is dizzying and Steve wonders how much blood he’s lost so far, before he raises his left hand, waving over to the line of agents just over the hill of debris.
“Stand down!” Steve shouts hoarsely, because frankly, he doesn’t know any codes to identify himself with, let alone to signal a situation where the Hulk is not intent on destroying the street. The Hulk’s arms cushion him when his head falls back. “We are not hostile. We’re perfectly alright, just stand down!”
Hopefully, if these agents are smart and observant, they will see that the Hulk is guarding him, not about to tear his limbs apart, and lower their weapons. He can feel the Hulk trembling with suppressed aggression behind him, fighting back the instincts that tell him to defend himself from his opponents.
“Don’t shoot!” He shouts again.
The line of agents stop when they see that Steve is unharmed, lying at the Hulk’s feet. They lower their weapons and Steve slumps back in relief, coldness washing over him.
“Cap?” He hears the worried voices, the Hulk’s booming tones and the echoes of men in the distance. He wants to reassure them that he’s fine. They should tend to the wounded, rescue others who have been trapped from the blast, (“Find Tony,” he is mumbling instead, as arms carry him upwards) figure out what how that Chitauri had survived... where the second blast came from... calm down Hulk before he went on another rampage...
“Cap! No touch Cap!”
“...Captain Rogers! Call Director Fury, get him over here. The Hulk is out of control now. The Captain is down...”
“...calm the fuck down, I’m here and I brought Stark, just hand the captain over to us...”
Everything is fine, he thinks of yellow paint and a promise to a giant. Then he blacks out.
-
Steve wakes and he sees IVs stuck into his wrists, little plastic tubes lynching on to his blood. Immediately he recoils, want to tear them out. The beeps from the heart monitor on his left being to hasten, drawing his attention to the stale whiteness of the room (empty and gone, gone, gone) all around.
The heart monitor begins to sound off with overlapping beeps. He needs to get out of here. He has no idea where he is or where Tony and Bruce are and how long has he been asleep-?
“Just one week, cap,” He hears someone say by the wall lined with medicinal drawers and charts of the different organ systems. It’s eerie to see those images on the wall, like staring into the scene of a modernized Frankenstein novel.
Steve nearly falls off the bed when he leans forward, attempting to discern who is standing there. Slowly his vision adjusts and his muscles relax ever so slightly when he makes out the familiar face.
“Director Fury...”
“You’ve been asleep for seven days, Rogers,” Fury reiterates again, this time, turning so that his uncovered eye can be seen.
It takes but another two beats of the heart monitor for Steve to grasp what has been said. Thank god, he thinks. Only one week, just one week and it’s more than he could ever ask for. He’s still here, he’s still here... (A part of him whispers desperately... I’m still... here... and it makes his heart ache.)
But then he remembers the explosion.
He sits upright, doesn’t wince at the pains in his joints. He hasn’t felt so lightheaded since one of his fainting spells as a child. “What happened?” He demands, “How are Hulk and Tony?” The last he recalls, the giant was on the verge of destroying anyone who came near him and Tony... Tony...
“Contained within this facility, Captain Rogers, and physically intact,” Fury replies neutrally.
Steve is able to breathe clearer with this information, like he has a place to stand again when his mind had floated off away from him. It’s a relief, being able to think again. He slips back into the mentality of the soldier once more.
“And what were the civilian causalities like?”
Fury’s brow tightens and his lips form a firm line. “There were over six dozen civilian causalities when Stark Tower collapsed-all of them Stark employees, drivers or pedestrians on the street. Several hundred were injured. We’re lucky that Stark doesn’t hire many to live in his gaudy residence and that the tower was bombed at the foundations rather than an angle. It collapsed downwards instead of taking the buildings around the block down with it. Hell, we’re fortunate enough that few people work around there at three in the morning. Now, soldier, what the hell happened to you?”
He is still. Steve feels his heart clench and a dizzying feeling come over hi. Over seventy-two deaths in an alien attack... it’s unimaginable. More numbers, just numbers and yet... He keeps the statistic close to heart (The war, over sixty million worldwide, Loki’s invasion, over five hundred dead before they could reach them and the bombing, over seventy-two) and replies, “I was buried under the wreckage, sir. There was a bomb. I think we both know who sent it.”
“That’s not what I was asking about, soldier,” Fury raises his voice and from him, it is worse than Colonel Phillips’ yelling. “What were you doing at Stark Tower so early in the morning and with Doctor Banner no less?”
Steve stiffens and frowns at him, “I don’t see what this has to do with the attack, sir.”
Fury glares at him, “Do you have any idea what the extent of your injuries was? All of that blood of yours was leaking out onto the ground. We weren’t sure if you had enough of it to heal yourself. Thank the Lord that you did, or I’d have to find myself another super soldier with another formula and he might not turn out as you did. You put yourself in danger, captain, after I warned you about the attacks on our labs-”
“Then you should have informed me that they were alien attacks, or more importantly, that they’re Chitauri, the aliens that should have been dead,” Steve replies and it takes all his effort to remain composed, neutral, “maybe I would have taken your word more seriously then.”
The director steps forward, “It was classified.”
“Not with live at stake, it’s not!” Steve has to stop himself from very well snapping. “You knew that the Chitauri might be after me. Heck, you even warned me, but did you warn Tony, any of the other Avengers?”
“They were targeting S.H.I.E.L.D. assets, not Stark-”
“They want revenge, Fury, and Tony is in the spotlight all the time, it makes him a walking target for anyone with a grudge against the team. Why didn’t you say anything? We could have protected ourselves better with that information! For that matter, we might have cooperated with you!”
There is silence as Steve breathes out in harsh intervals, as if the dust has returned to his throat. It hasn’t fully healed yet. Fury only stares.
“...How are the Chitauri still alive?” Steve asks quietly. “You told us that they were all dead and yet, one walked into Tony’s lobby and tried to blow up the entire block. There must be more, otherwise you wouldn’t be so worried about my... safety. What aren’t you telling us?”
Fury gives him that stare again, assessing, analyzing but Steve can’t read his expression at all. There are so many secrets and Steve just wants Fury to tell them everything-about Coulson, the Chitauri, his motives-because he doesn’t want to believe that the world has become so corrupt, so secretive. Because if it is then... (no, don’t think.)
He almost doesn’t hear what the director says next.
“Just how close have you gotten to the rest of your team, Captain?”
Steve feels his mouth dry. “No closer than before, sir. I don’t see how this is relevant to our discussion.”
“It has everything to do with this, Captain. After all, haven’t you been living with Agent Romanoff and Barton, even when they’ve abandoned SHIELD?”
This time, he does visibly freeze. Steve glowers at him, “You promised, you signed a legal form from Tony, not to pry into my life anymore-”
“We had people tracking Barton, he led us to you. We didn’t interfere after that-couldn’t, without overstepping legal boundaries. Now answer the question. How close have you become with your team, captain?”
He frowns, “I don’t understand...”
“Let me rephrase,” Fury takes the seat by his bed and says, “What are you willing to do to protect him?”
Steve feels a numbing cold enter into his veins, his chest.
Fury waits.
“...I...” Steve pauses and swallows slowly. “They’re all I have.”
-
For a while, Fury says nothing and when the weight of the truth settles on them both, he says, “Very well, Captain Rogers... I’ll tell you about the Chitauri but first... you have a visitor.”
Steve blinks at the distraction, “Visitor...?”
Brief irritation passes across Fury’s face. “Yes. He wouldn’t relent until I let him see you. Reminded me of our deal.”
“Deal?” He echoes, but his question is ignored. Fury has already stood up and is walking out of the room. The grey and dreary looking doors swing wildly as another man rushes through, only stopping when he is at Steve’s bedside, staring straight at his face.
Steve gapes wildly as he takes in the details of the man’s face, his novel beard, and the wrinkles around his brown eyes just as his visitor grabs him by the shoulders, inspecting him from head to toe. Steve can’t help but do the same, searching for any injuries he can see.
There’s nothing and Steve smiles with relief. “Tony,” he says.
The billionaire manages a worn sigh in return as he sags back against the plastic chair. “Stars.”
They don’t say anything else.
-
The minute hand has passed by the twelve on the clock countless times by the time Tony breaks his gaze and pulls something out from his coat. He puts it gently on the bed and then twists his fingers around, waiting.
Steve looks at the slightly wrinkled sketchbook, the same quality paper and company as the last that Tony had given him. It’s brand new, the pages fresh and clean. Steve’s fingers itch for a pencil just as Tony hands him a tin of the best artist’s pencils.
“...Thought you’d be bored,” Tony says, scratching at his ear and suddenly quite engrossed at staring at the plastic bag of nutrients flowing into Steve’s veins. “Wouldn’t want you to go stir-crazy and start drawing all over the walls. Not that you’d do that, here, in a hospital. But, well, I know how boring they are and you like drawing, right, so-”
“Thank you. It’s... thank you.”
“Really?” Tony blinks, looking back down at his lap and then back at Steve again.
“Yes. It’s perfect.”
Part 4 continued
Fandom: Avengers (2012), Marvel movieverse
Pairing: Steve/Tony, gen
Summary: It starts with Clint, and then from there, every time an Avenger gets hurt (physically or otherwise), they seem to show up at Steve’s doorstep. Eventually he stops bothering to lock it (though Tony breaking in to his apartment every morning might also have something to do with that.) But there's more to it than that, especially when old enemies resurface. Or, a series of non-linear flashbacks and events, illustrating how Steve went from being very alone in the 21st century to having five (maybe even more) roommates (family) and why Tony decided to build the Avengers mansion.
Notes: POST-Avengers, there are MAJOR spoilers for the movie
Warnings: Angst, gradual romance, fluff, non-linear timeline
Also on AO3
Previous: Part 1 / Part 2a / Part 2b / Part 3a / Part 3b
A Comforting Presence
IV. Fury
Before:
“Hey, I’m talking to you, Fury, don’t you dare walk away!” He hears Tony shout from the other side of the wall. Steve shuffles awkwardly in one of the spinning chairs that surround the long and black table. He looks every few moments or so at the clock, the only ornament against bare metal walls. They whisper to him of the cold until he has to rub his hands together to generate any warmth.
It doesn’t work. His fingertips still feel as cool as ever, kissed by frost.
The doors slam open and Fury storms in, with Tony following angrily behind him. The billionaire freezes in mid-step when he sees Steve there. The smirk that Steve has learned to associate with him slips back in place, “Hey there Stars and Stripes, got a little detention with good old Nick here?”
Steve is saved from having to answer by Fury who tells Tony to ‘get the fuck out and wait outside the doors or he’ll send his ass back to Tibet’ or something to that effect. If anything, this seems to fuel Tony’s ire and smug mood but with another quick and unreadable glance at Steve, Tony shrugs and steps out.
Once the doors shut, Fury lets out a frustrated sigh and turns to him.
“What did you need to see me for, Rogers?” Fury asks.
He doesn’t waste any time, “I’d like to set up living arrangements outside of S.H.I.E.L.D., to begin living a civilian life on my own.”
If Fury is surprised or angry, he doesn’t show it. His face is impassive and those calculating eyes which challenge everyone are focused on Steve’s stiff frame. Steve doesn’t look away. He keeps still.
“I see,” Fury walks past the chairs lining the right side of the table, “and what brought this on, captain?”
Images of bright blue light shining from the test tubes of the serum and then the tesserect as Steve had reached for it, trying to stop the Red Skull from reaching it, flash in his mind. Then an old voice that has been haunting him and echoing in his dreams since he arrived in the future (and since the Chitauri) echoes after but he remains as impassive as possible.
“I’d like to figure out how this century works on my own terms, sir. And frankly, I dislike the idea of working with an organization that was, and may still be, planning on manufacturing weapons from the very power source that Schmidt tried to manipulate, no matter what greater good you claim it was for,” Steve tells him bluntly.
It isn’t his smartest move, mouthing off to his superior, someone with the power to make things very difficult for him but he’s never been good at keeping his mouth shut. He can almost see Bucky standing next to Fury, gesturing wildly and asking why Steve is doing this.
He thinks of Doctor Erskine’s words. You must promise me one thing... that you will stay who you are, not a perfect soldier... but a good man. At the time he had promised, had sworn never to change. But has he been a good man lately? Since he awoke in this nightmare, like Alice in her wonderland, he has forgotten that promise, holding on to the only familiar thing he knows how to be... a soldier. It’d taken Coulson’s death and Tony’s near-sacrifice (and nightmares, so many screaming nightmares) to remind him who he is.
He’s not going to let S.H.I.E.L.D. make him forget.
“You’re an honest man, captain,” Fury replies evenly.
“I try to be, sir,” he says politely. “The truth is something I value.”
Fury looks at him sharply, “Those weapons were our own defense against a possible alien attack. You saw how defenceless we were when the Chitauri invaded. Our only protectors were a group of super powered individuals who had never worked together before-it’s a miracle that we succeeded. We must always be prepared for war, Captain Rogers, or have you forgotten that in your time you voluntarily turned yourself into the world’s most valuable weapon?”
Steve stands up, but he can’t think of anything else to say to such cold tactical knowledge without sounding naive and idealistic (everything special about you came from a bottle, Rogers.) Weapons invite war, he wants to argue. And yet they are required to protect others, to prevent war. It is a great contradiction, and he knows from his recent readings (obsessive as he was after his awakening in the future’s New York) that it was only through both sides possessing the ultimate killing device that the Cold War never escalated, that true ‘peace’ (it’s not peace if you are ruled by fear) is possible.
“You made them in response to Thor,” Steve replies, “who is your ally. All of the Asgardians are your allies. They would help defend us form any alien attack and you have us, the Avengers, now. The truth is that you shouldn’t have experimented in a power source you couldn’t understand. It led them here.”
“And Doctor Erskine intervening with your body structure, with the serum, that doesn’t count as dabbling in the unknown? Wasn’t he assassinated right after his first successful human trial? Did he bring that on himself?”
“No, that wasn’t his fault!” Steve says in protest.
“He invited it, didn’t he?”
Fury’s neutral and analytical response makes Steve clench his fists in an effort not to show how emotional he has gotten at the mention of the late German Scientist. That man had given him a chance, had seen beyond his weak body and, sadly, been more of a father figure to him than anyone he had ever met.
“You didn’t know him. Doctor Erskine wanted to end the war, he understood peace, he wasn’t trying to make a weapon,” and yet, Steve realizes in the cold part of his mind, that was exactly what the Doctor wanted, a soldier (weapon) to win the war... and he had made one (him.)
The director shakes his head, “We could stand here and argue motives all you want to, Rogers, but you and I both know that it was for the greater good. Every decision made by S.H.I.E.L.D. is for the sake of homeland security, for the lives and safety of all the people living on this earth. You’re a strategist. You would have made the same decision given the circumstances.”
Steve wants to say no, he really does, but truly, he isn’t sure. Who is he to make decisions about other people’s lives when his heart is screaming for him to save them all? How is he to judge the best ways to defend a nation, a world of innocents without contradicting himself?
His gaze falters and Fury nods, “I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that it would be a high security risk if we let you live independently outside of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s jurisdictions. Your blood is valuable, Rogers, and if anyone were to get their hands on it, there is no telling what they could do. I’m sorry, but your living arrangements aren’t an option. Maybe an apartment, monitored by agents, but nothing more. Your safety is for the sake of the American people.”
This time, Steve does drop his gaze (he can’t be selfish, what was he thinking, but he doesn’t want to stay staring at the same grey metal for the rest of his-)
“Of course, sir,” he says stiffly, though on the inside he is shouting that this isn’t right while his vision of Captain America tells him to accept his orders for the sake of the people. He wants to close his eyes again. He doesn’t. “Thank you for your time.”
-
He leaves before Fury can dismiss him, rushing out as quickly as possible out of the room. His vision is blurred and he can’t stop the voices in his head, each of them rebelling against the other. He isn’t even sure who to listen to anymore as he pushes open the door. Tony jumps back (“Whoa, there, stars!”), obviously attempting to eavesdrop (though Steve isn’t sure if it was successful or not) and bewildered from whatever expression he managed to see on his face.
Tony’s jaw drops and then he is shouting at Fury (“Screw it, I’ll come back later, you asshole!”) and running down the hallway to catch up to him.
“Hey, there, stars and stripes, wait up!”
“Don’t call me that,” Steve says sharply, concentrating on the end of the hall.
As usual, Tony ignores the retort, stepping right beside him, “Hey, talk to me. What did Fury do? What did he say to you?”
He has half a mind to tell Tony, rather loudly, to leave him be. It’s his own problem to solve and his burden to bear, he doesn’t want to involve (bother) anyone else. But he does not want to snap at Tony again, not like how they argued in their first few meetings. There is also the way that Tony is staring at him, as if Steve is fragile and worth his time.
“I asked him if I could begin living independently,” Steve ends up saying as professionally as he can manage. “He refused.”
Part of him keeps expecting Tony to brush away his problems as trivial and insignificant but Tony surprises him (again and again and it’s wonderful) by looking extremely indignant on his behalf, hands thrown up wildly in disbelief.
“What? That is an atrocity! They should be lining the streets, begging to do you a favour! You’re a war hero, a national icon! You can’t say ‘no’ to Captain America! You have your rights, I know because I at least remember that part of the constitution or declaration or whatever, rights-”
Steve’s eyes widen, “Tony, it’s... fine, really. It was a stupid thing for me to ask, I mean, risking national security and...” my blood.
“Screw that! I’m not going to let our country’s, the world’s, greatest hero live in a box his whole life-and stop blushing, darling, you know it’s true-let me go call my people. Or Pepper. Definitely Pepper. She’ll eat Fury alive; even he can’t fight against every legal system in the entire freaking globe. Don’t you worry,” Tony claps his back, “I’ll take care of everything.”
“Tony, I can’t let you do this on my behalf-” He half-wonders when Iron Man’s opinion of him had become so high-
“Nonsense, I’ve got it handled, gorgeous. Already texted them,” Tony gestures to his little phone, which he has apparently typed into with one hand while they were talking, “JARVIS works quick-”
“But Tony-”
“Rogers?” The billionaire puts both hands on his shoulders and meets his gaze very seriously, “Let me do this. Consider it a... welcoming gift to the twenty first century or a favour if you would.”
“A favour?” Steve chokes, “But for what-?”
Tony only looks at him intensely with those big brown eyes that remind him of the first time he really looked at Tony Stark and saw him as he is.
“Trust me.”
There isn’t anything to say... because Steve already does.
-
Tony:
“-Sir, sir, please respond, STARK Towers has been destroyed, the status of Captain Rogers and Doctor Banner are unknown, civilian causalities unknown-”
He groans, arms aching like he’s lifted a hundred pounds of metal during one of his projects. The joints crack and creak while his head feels as if it’s been cracked open by an axe. The pain throbs back and forth but his thoughts are clearer. The haze of intoxication is but a faint curtain in the back of his mind. Calculations and theories are already sounding off in his head, begging to be fiddled with and studied.
Tony blinks, seeing the bright holographic numbers clustered on the screen in front of him. The metal armour is wrapped around him protectively as he is hovering in midair.
“JARVIS,” Tony can still taste the lingering alcohol on his tongue, the bar’s best vodka now soured with time. It makes him want to find a toilet to throw up in. “Why am I in the Iron man suit? And what the hell happened last night?”
His stomach lurches while there is an insistent and annoying buzz at the back of his mind saying that he has forgotten something extremely important. Tony pushes it away (it’s probably nothing) opting to handle this with as much humour as possible.
“Tell me that I didn’t strip naked for anyone again, please.”
“We are on autopilot, sir, and I believe that you did design the newest prototype of the suit to engage automatically whenever you are in immediate danger-”
“Danger…?” There’s another sharp jolt in his head. “Unless I was thrown out of another window again, I don’t-”
Tony stops, vision clearing as he takes in the destruction down below. The tower that he and Pepper built together (well, Pepper mostly) is now a heap of glass and steel, different pieces of jagged wood and furniture sit in odd angles. There are sparks as live electric cords are leaking freely on the ground. Smoke is rising from different point of the scene. It won’t be long before a majority of the block is on fire. All of it, all his work, gone (but his lab, thank god, and Dummy and Butterfingers are safe back in California-)
Whoever had screwed with his tower was going to get the ass kicking of the century.
“JARVIS, what happened?”
His AI’s tones are neutral despite the murder in his voice, “An attack, sir.”
“No shit. But who was it? How did they-?”
“I was hacked, sir, and blocked from the systems inside STARK towers between 250 and 400 hours. I have no data or records of what transpired in between that time, only that you were thrown out of the lobby before the tower collapsed and the suit assembled itself around you before you could be seriously injured.”
“Pepper-” Tony recalls her yelling at him in his drunken stupor, was she-
“Safe with Mr. Hogan taking charge of her care. She was heading home, driven by Mr. Hogun when the tower fell. She has been trying to reach the site but traffic has been jammed in the surrounding blocks and local enforcement is trying to contain the damage and make rescue efforts.”
“Let her know that I’m fine then,” Tony orders.
“Already done, sir.”
He lets himself relax then, Pepper is alive, Pepper is safe, but there’s something still nagging at him… Who knows how many people could be trapped under all that concrete and glass? It makes him feel as angry and disturbed as when he watched footage of the clean-up after Loki’s attack. Fury had ordered the other avengers to stay low but Tony remembers seeing newscasts where Steve was there, with a baseball cap hiding his face, helping to dig people out and Tony began to think that maybe the man was more sincere in his apology than he-
Wait.
“JARVIS, was there anyone else in the building besides STARK employees?” Tony demands urgently. “And yes, I know that you don’t have any data right now, just find out.”
There is a slight pause.
“Ms. Potts has reported leaving you in the care of Captain Rogers and Doctor Banner. She has inquired about their safety but there has been no report of their whereabouts yet.”
Tony feels a painful stab in his chest, worse than when he was dying of palladium poisoning.
“What? Wait… you mean-”
(…sitting against the sofa, feeling angry, angry, angry but mostly hurt. It hurts to look at them all and think that maybe they’ve never thought highly of him at all. He thought he could trust them, but they’re leaving or they don’t trust him, they have to hide things from him or Tony Stark will jeopardize the mission, ruin everything, because that’s what Tony Stark does. Everything he touches becomes so fucking messed up and he hates it. Hates that they can come up to him, pretending to care, so he lashes out, wanting to hurt them in return…)
“Stars and Bruce, they’re…”
It comes back to him in blurry images. The bar, yelling at Bruce and Pepper for no reason other than they are there, being dragged home by Pepper while Bruce has run off to god knows where, hating everyone (was he never good enough?), seeing the captain’s hurt face in his mind until the man steps in the lobby with Bruce and then-
Rogers yelling “Run!” A glimpse of a creature that should have been dead, being thrown out the door-
“…How long was I out, JARVIS?” He whispers.
The AI is oddly tentative. “Sir…”
“How long?!”
“…Over six hours, sir.”
Tony dives down. He can see the black vans parked around the wreckage below, the incoming helicarriers. They’re late, he thinks. They’re late as usual, late, late, late when stars and Bruce are… are…
He’s landed, stumbling against a few loose pieces of word, once part of an expensive table top. He’d liked that table, damn it…
And then he’s digging, the clean shine of his metal arm coverings becoming entrenched and scratched by sharp bits of metal and glass. But it doesn’t matter because-
“Stars! Stars! Bruce! Can you hear me?!” Tony keeps digging. More glass, more steel. Why is there so much of it, he doesn’t remember there being so much of it-
“Bruce! Rogers!”
But there’s nothing. He moves one slab of concrete and there is more splinters of desks, chairs, the liquor cabinet (he’s never wanted to smash it so bad.) He hurls a glass bottle of bourbon on the ground, letting it shatter, keeps searching. Bruce should be fine, he has to be fine. He’s the Hulk for fuck’s sake, you can’t kill him, Bruce even tried it himself and Stars, Stars is a super soldier, Captain America, surely he will heal and be up again. They’re probably digging themselves out right now-
“JAVIS,” Tony says, feeling like an idiot, such an idiot, why is he so slow to think today? He’ll never drink again, never, “JARVIS, do you detect their heat signatures? Where are they?”
“Negative, sir. They’ve either been crushed by the heavy weight of the building or buried too deeply down below us. It’s impossible for me to say without the proper equipment.”
“Then we keep digging, fine,” Tony snaps. He moves the clutter faster, shifting back bits and pieces of it.
“Sir-”
“Not now, JARVIS, unless it’s about Ste-Rogers or Bruce, then don’t say anything-” His head is still pounding while his vision seems to have inverted itself and his stupid arms can’t move faster, can’t be more efficient in removing the steel planks and scattered plywood. Cap or Hulk, they could move mountains if they wanted to, but even in this suit, Tony can’t even-
“Stark,” a hand grabs his shoulder and Tony nearly hits the intruder with a lit blaster. But the man is quick enough to move away, grappling Tony into a tight hold and forcing him to look up.
“Fury,” Tony spits out because he can’t compute anything else other than Cap and Bruce, still buried, have to get them out, all his fault-“What the hell are you doing, just standing there? Go find them! They’re still here, I know they are, come on...!”
But Fury is shaking his head, why is he shaking his head?
“You’re not well right now, Stark. We need to get you to the medical bay...”
“Fuck, no, I’m just hung-over; look, Stars and Bruce, they’re...”
The damned man is just staring at Tony sternly with a mixture of pity and something else. “I’m sorry, Stark, but we need have bigger problems right now...”
“No,” Tony slaps Fury’s hand away. He drops back to his knees and resumes clawing into the dump and bones of his tower, “there’s nothing more important than finding them, right now, nothing.”
It doesn’t matter what anyone says, Tony is going to find them. He has to.
And he promises, truly Lord, he promises that when he finds Stars and Bruce again, that he’ll do everything he can to keep this from happening ever again. He’ll follow Captain America’s orders. He’ll go against the law, against hell and heaven itself. He promises, on the very power source keeping him alive.
Just let him find them.
-
Now:
Steve tries to move his right side out of the rubble, but instead he ends up creating big ugly bruises from what little he manages to pull out. The blood pooling underneath him begins to deepen in colour and when Hulk growls at him, Steve stops.
He needs a plan. That fact is in the back of his mind as he attempts to entertain and encourage Hulk to keep holding on. The Hulk has assured him several times that he is “not tired, very strong, will protect cap” after several subtle attempts to ask how the big guy was holding up. Steve makes a mental note to tell Bruce how intelligent his counterpart is. He thinks Bruce might even be proud.
But Steve keeps talking out loud regardless. It’s not the smartest of moves. The dust gets trapped in his throat and Steve has no idea how much air is in this void space. But talking keeps him awake and it keeps the Hulk’s attention focused on him rather than how frustrating it is to be trapped underneath all this rubble.
Steve tells Hulk stories about Bucky and his mother, the good memories. He begins to recite fairy tales, which the Hulk enjoys for a while, his favourite being the three little pigs. He even makes up a fairly ridiculous story about a little soldier stuck in a tower while a thief, that resembles Tony in personality, discovers him.
When Steve feels his throat going dry again, probably filling up with dust, he admits to his companion that he can’t think of what to talk about next.
“Friends,” the Hulk responds, his low voice causing slight tremors from the rubble. “Tell stories about friends.”
“Friends?” Steve tries not to cough. “Like Iron Man?”
“Yes, like shiny Iron.”
So Steve recites as many details as he can remember about the members of their team. His sporadic lunches with Tony (please be alright, please let him have been far away enough from the blast, please) before he moved into his apartment were random but Steve enjoyed eating different foods even if he didn’t have much appetite for them. He tried to eat normally just to keep Tony smiling. Tony would laugh at his awed face when he tried dumplings and at on different day, pad thai. He recalls how Tony would just drop by his room at S.H.I.E.L.D. and drag him by the arm to try butter chicken or Vietnamese noodle salad with no care in the world.
Then there’s Clint, who is slowly beginning to smile more freely, who hums along with the radio when the new mainstream music begins to play because he has a terrible voice. But he plays the cello part of a Brahms ensemble with the skill of a virtuoso, as if the strings are connected to his heart. Clint, Steve tells Hulk, plays soft jazz horribly but does so anyways because Steve likes to listen to it when he sketches. He hums a few bars for the Hulk but has to stop when the Hulk begins to bob his head up and down with the tune, sending more rubble on Steve’s face.
His coughing fit upsets the Hulk so Steve quickly tells him about Natasha, how she can kill someone with a spoon, knows all the different poisons and antidotes in the world (probably from growing her garden that has now migrated to Steve’s living room) and severely hates Regency novels. The most that he’s spent with Natasha is training sessions so far while conversation in between. “She beats me in sparring most of the time,” he says while he smacks his lips. “She could probably beat anyone, maybe even you,” he jokes as Hulk snorts at him.
“Hulk fight good. Beat everyone,” the green giant affirms.
“You definitely could,” Steve agrees, feeling more and more lightheaded. Is there enough air? Hulk seems to be fine. It might be the blood loss, he reflects. Even the serum can’t combat against pieces of buildings crushing half of your body. “You could probably beat Thor on one of his bad days too.”
Perhaps they could plead for Thor to come, but he doubts that the Norse God’s powers work in such a way, being an interdimensional alien and all. It’s strange-wondering about such things. It still feels like a dream, everything about this, and Steve wonders when he’ll wake up.
“Doctor story,” His companion huffs in the silence, his breath blowing bits of grit over Steve’s cheek.
He takes another heavy breath, “You mean of Doctor Banner?”
“Yes. Hulk want.”
Despite the situation, a choked laugh escapes Steve’s mouth though it is slightly strangled. “You two are really alike when it comes down to the basics,” he finds himself saying hoarsely. He can’t stop grinning, absurdly enough. It might be from the blood loss but he’s genuinely charmed by Hulk’s words. “He wanted to know about you too.”
Hulk grunts in reply. Steve can’t tell if that means that the Hulk is pleased or annoyed, but he hopes for the former.
“Don’t worry,” he reassures him (the world is in a daze), “I only said the good things.”
Steve doesn’t hear an answer from the green giant, because then, there is rumbling. The pieces of concrete and metal are shaking all around them. Some bars hit Steve on the chest. Hulk roars, his voice ringing in Steve’s ears as the giant pushes towards him, trying to shield him from being completely buried in rubble (ice, ice, it’s everywhere, even when he wakes) and then-
There are muffled sounds (voices, he thinks) yelling towards them. The Hulk is roaring as it feels that even the darkness trembles and there is a bright light.
This is when they are blown away by another huge blast.
-
Black. Grey. Dashes of white. Black again. He’s tumbling back and forth, stuck in an endless loop, one of the black and white movie reels that he recalls from the old theatre he and Bucky used to frequent. The Hulk is roaring.
“Cap!”
Steve barely has time to yell out, “Hulk, be careful!” when he feels his head hit something sharp. It makes a long line at the back of his skull, hopefully shallow and Steve can barely breathe.
He sees the gleam of the Hulk’s yellow eyes as the giant wraps himself around Steve in a ball as the rubble, the glass, the steel tosses upwards into different directions.
There is another blast, this one even louder than the last, and this time Steve can see that it is in the same bright blue that haunts the edges his nightmares.
-
“Cap, stay,” the Hulk’s order wakes him.
Steve hisses out, his limbs freed from the wreckage as he lies, arms spread out like a bird’s wings pinned against a platter. Everything stings as if serum in his blood is burning his limbs from the inside and when he tries to move his right arm and leg, they are screaming at him to be still.
“We found them sir, I repeat, we found them,” he hears someone yell.
Colour dots and blurs his vision when he opens his eyes. The bright sunlight stings them and he can’t avoid seeing the extent of damage done on his right side form his peripheral vision.
His arm and leg are mangled, skin peeled off at odd angles revealing varying shallow and deep patches of pooled wounds. It’s like staring into the messy plethora of a Van Gogh painting, the hurried and wild brushstrokes of scarring red, pink, purples, blacks and peach splashed against each other to make up the shape of a leg and arm.
They’re sitting on the edge of a great crater of rubble, likely where they had been positioned before the blast blew it away from them. Steve sees the piles of steel and concrete surrounded them like a mini mountain range of debris. He tries to spot Tony (please be alright, please, please) but sees nothing but sparking wires and leftover screens of broken technology.
“Stand down, I repeat stand down!” Voices are shouting.
The Hulk is roaring. His voice is a mallet against Steve’s eardrums. Steve tries to stand (or at least kneel) but clumsily falls back on his right side, against several sharp slabs of steel. Steve lets out a harsh breath, feeling the points dig against his back, pressing towards his spine. He’s grateful for the fresh air (“One, two, three, four, every breath you are living a little bit more,” his mother used to sing, trying to soothe his asthma attacks.)
“Sir, permission to fire at will? Sir? Sir!”
Hulk’s massive shadow hides Steve from sight. His companion is hovering in front of him, snarling at the numb sounds which Steve now realizes are rounds being fired off. The echoes of gunfire and blasts are an old lullaby and he feels then that they’re sitting in one of the black and white photos of a bombed town in the war, built of shattered steel and glass instead of toppled bricks and roof shingles. He can hear them clearly in his head-the aircraft whirling over head, the ominous whistling as a bomb hurtled down towards you, the blasts-
“Hulk smash!”
No. Steve looks up, sees the familiar black and white of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, dressed in their blue and black suits, pointing their weapons at the Hulk. This isn’t the war that he grew up with but it might as well be one.
“Stop! Hold your fire!” Steve yells, trying to hobble forward. He’s only successful in pushing his body forward just as the triggers are released.
Steve attempts to duck and roll over, to escape being battered with holes when the Hulk somersaults over to him, covering Steve’s form with his body. The Hulk grunts painfully as the gunfire hits him before letting another roar escape his jaws. He scoops Steve up in his arms and begins to run the other direction, towards the business firms that are still standing around the wreckage.
“Target is hostile and has the captain hostage,” Steve picks up from the shouts that are fading behind them. “We are going after them.”
His breath leaves him for one paralyzing second and Steve is tapping on the Hulk’s chest, trying to get his attention.
“Stop,” Steve coughs, “wait, buddy. They won’t hurt you if you show them that you’re helping me. Let me talk to them before they shoot us.”
But the Hulk shakes his head, growling, “No. Puny agents hurt friends. No S.H.I.E.L.D.”
Steve stops, forgetting what he meant to say. He feels heat well up in his throat and says as gently as possible, “I know, big buy, I know they haven’t been the most trustworthy lately”-his companion snorts at this-“but they’re not the enemy. They won’t hurt us; I know you’ll stop them if they try.”
The green giant grunts in response. “Hulk protect Cap,” he confirms, his steps coming to a pause. Reluctantly, Hulk lowers his arms so that Steve is level with the ground. The descent is dizzying and Steve wonders how much blood he’s lost so far, before he raises his left hand, waving over to the line of agents just over the hill of debris.
“Stand down!” Steve shouts hoarsely, because frankly, he doesn’t know any codes to identify himself with, let alone to signal a situation where the Hulk is not intent on destroying the street. The Hulk’s arms cushion him when his head falls back. “We are not hostile. We’re perfectly alright, just stand down!”
Hopefully, if these agents are smart and observant, they will see that the Hulk is guarding him, not about to tear his limbs apart, and lower their weapons. He can feel the Hulk trembling with suppressed aggression behind him, fighting back the instincts that tell him to defend himself from his opponents.
“Don’t shoot!” He shouts again.
The line of agents stop when they see that Steve is unharmed, lying at the Hulk’s feet. They lower their weapons and Steve slumps back in relief, coldness washing over him.
“Cap?” He hears the worried voices, the Hulk’s booming tones and the echoes of men in the distance. He wants to reassure them that he’s fine. They should tend to the wounded, rescue others who have been trapped from the blast, (“Find Tony,” he is mumbling instead, as arms carry him upwards) figure out what how that Chitauri had survived... where the second blast came from... calm down Hulk before he went on another rampage...
“Cap! No touch Cap!”
“...Captain Rogers! Call Director Fury, get him over here. The Hulk is out of control now. The Captain is down...”
“...calm the fuck down, I’m here and I brought Stark, just hand the captain over to us...”
Everything is fine, he thinks of yellow paint and a promise to a giant. Then he blacks out.
-
Steve wakes and he sees IVs stuck into his wrists, little plastic tubes lynching on to his blood. Immediately he recoils, want to tear them out. The beeps from the heart monitor on his left being to hasten, drawing his attention to the stale whiteness of the room (empty and gone, gone, gone) all around.
The heart monitor begins to sound off with overlapping beeps. He needs to get out of here. He has no idea where he is or where Tony and Bruce are and how long has he been asleep-?
“Just one week, cap,” He hears someone say by the wall lined with medicinal drawers and charts of the different organ systems. It’s eerie to see those images on the wall, like staring into the scene of a modernized Frankenstein novel.
Steve nearly falls off the bed when he leans forward, attempting to discern who is standing there. Slowly his vision adjusts and his muscles relax ever so slightly when he makes out the familiar face.
“Director Fury...”
“You’ve been asleep for seven days, Rogers,” Fury reiterates again, this time, turning so that his uncovered eye can be seen.
It takes but another two beats of the heart monitor for Steve to grasp what has been said. Thank god, he thinks. Only one week, just one week and it’s more than he could ever ask for. He’s still here, he’s still here... (A part of him whispers desperately... I’m still... here... and it makes his heart ache.)
But then he remembers the explosion.
He sits upright, doesn’t wince at the pains in his joints. He hasn’t felt so lightheaded since one of his fainting spells as a child. “What happened?” He demands, “How are Hulk and Tony?” The last he recalls, the giant was on the verge of destroying anyone who came near him and Tony... Tony...
“Contained within this facility, Captain Rogers, and physically intact,” Fury replies neutrally.
Steve is able to breathe clearer with this information, like he has a place to stand again when his mind had floated off away from him. It’s a relief, being able to think again. He slips back into the mentality of the soldier once more.
“And what were the civilian causalities like?”
Fury’s brow tightens and his lips form a firm line. “There were over six dozen civilian causalities when Stark Tower collapsed-all of them Stark employees, drivers or pedestrians on the street. Several hundred were injured. We’re lucky that Stark doesn’t hire many to live in his gaudy residence and that the tower was bombed at the foundations rather than an angle. It collapsed downwards instead of taking the buildings around the block down with it. Hell, we’re fortunate enough that few people work around there at three in the morning. Now, soldier, what the hell happened to you?”
He is still. Steve feels his heart clench and a dizzying feeling come over hi. Over seventy-two deaths in an alien attack... it’s unimaginable. More numbers, just numbers and yet... He keeps the statistic close to heart (The war, over sixty million worldwide, Loki’s invasion, over five hundred dead before they could reach them and the bombing, over seventy-two) and replies, “I was buried under the wreckage, sir. There was a bomb. I think we both know who sent it.”
“That’s not what I was asking about, soldier,” Fury raises his voice and from him, it is worse than Colonel Phillips’ yelling. “What were you doing at Stark Tower so early in the morning and with Doctor Banner no less?”
Steve stiffens and frowns at him, “I don’t see what this has to do with the attack, sir.”
Fury glares at him, “Do you have any idea what the extent of your injuries was? All of that blood of yours was leaking out onto the ground. We weren’t sure if you had enough of it to heal yourself. Thank the Lord that you did, or I’d have to find myself another super soldier with another formula and he might not turn out as you did. You put yourself in danger, captain, after I warned you about the attacks on our labs-”
“Then you should have informed me that they were alien attacks, or more importantly, that they’re Chitauri, the aliens that should have been dead,” Steve replies and it takes all his effort to remain composed, neutral, “maybe I would have taken your word more seriously then.”
The director steps forward, “It was classified.”
“Not with live at stake, it’s not!” Steve has to stop himself from very well snapping. “You knew that the Chitauri might be after me. Heck, you even warned me, but did you warn Tony, any of the other Avengers?”
“They were targeting S.H.I.E.L.D. assets, not Stark-”
“They want revenge, Fury, and Tony is in the spotlight all the time, it makes him a walking target for anyone with a grudge against the team. Why didn’t you say anything? We could have protected ourselves better with that information! For that matter, we might have cooperated with you!”
There is silence as Steve breathes out in harsh intervals, as if the dust has returned to his throat. It hasn’t fully healed yet. Fury only stares.
“...How are the Chitauri still alive?” Steve asks quietly. “You told us that they were all dead and yet, one walked into Tony’s lobby and tried to blow up the entire block. There must be more, otherwise you wouldn’t be so worried about my... safety. What aren’t you telling us?”
Fury gives him that stare again, assessing, analyzing but Steve can’t read his expression at all. There are so many secrets and Steve just wants Fury to tell them everything-about Coulson, the Chitauri, his motives-because he doesn’t want to believe that the world has become so corrupt, so secretive. Because if it is then... (no, don’t think.)
He almost doesn’t hear what the director says next.
“Just how close have you gotten to the rest of your team, Captain?”
Steve feels his mouth dry. “No closer than before, sir. I don’t see how this is relevant to our discussion.”
“It has everything to do with this, Captain. After all, haven’t you been living with Agent Romanoff and Barton, even when they’ve abandoned SHIELD?”
This time, he does visibly freeze. Steve glowers at him, “You promised, you signed a legal form from Tony, not to pry into my life anymore-”
“We had people tracking Barton, he led us to you. We didn’t interfere after that-couldn’t, without overstepping legal boundaries. Now answer the question. How close have you become with your team, captain?”
He frowns, “I don’t understand...”
“Let me rephrase,” Fury takes the seat by his bed and says, “What are you willing to do to protect him?”
Steve feels a numbing cold enter into his veins, his chest.
Fury waits.
“...I...” Steve pauses and swallows slowly. “They’re all I have.”
-
For a while, Fury says nothing and when the weight of the truth settles on them both, he says, “Very well, Captain Rogers... I’ll tell you about the Chitauri but first... you have a visitor.”
Steve blinks at the distraction, “Visitor...?”
Brief irritation passes across Fury’s face. “Yes. He wouldn’t relent until I let him see you. Reminded me of our deal.”
“Deal?” He echoes, but his question is ignored. Fury has already stood up and is walking out of the room. The grey and dreary looking doors swing wildly as another man rushes through, only stopping when he is at Steve’s bedside, staring straight at his face.
Steve gapes wildly as he takes in the details of the man’s face, his novel beard, and the wrinkles around his brown eyes just as his visitor grabs him by the shoulders, inspecting him from head to toe. Steve can’t help but do the same, searching for any injuries he can see.
There’s nothing and Steve smiles with relief. “Tony,” he says.
The billionaire manages a worn sigh in return as he sags back against the plastic chair. “Stars.”
They don’t say anything else.
-
The minute hand has passed by the twelve on the clock countless times by the time Tony breaks his gaze and pulls something out from his coat. He puts it gently on the bed and then twists his fingers around, waiting.
Steve looks at the slightly wrinkled sketchbook, the same quality paper and company as the last that Tony had given him. It’s brand new, the pages fresh and clean. Steve’s fingers itch for a pencil just as Tony hands him a tin of the best artist’s pencils.
“...Thought you’d be bored,” Tony says, scratching at his ear and suddenly quite engrossed at staring at the plastic bag of nutrients flowing into Steve’s veins. “Wouldn’t want you to go stir-crazy and start drawing all over the walls. Not that you’d do that, here, in a hospital. But, well, I know how boring they are and you like drawing, right, so-”
“Thank you. It’s... thank you.”
“Really?” Tony blinks, looking back down at his lap and then back at Steve again.
“Yes. It’s perfect.”
Part 4 continued