Just A Broken Lullaby 2/4
[Master Post]
[Part 1]
One of the few side effects of the serum that made him-quite literally-the man he is today, is that Steve doesn't need much sleep. In fact, even on days when he'd much rather lose himself in the pleasant oblivion of his dreams, he wakes up within about four hours, rested and brimming with more energy than he knows what to do with. He usually makes a point of getting up sometime around three in the morning and making his way to the gym on the third floor and doing his level best to beat the stuffing out of a punching bag. Tony was kind enough to design one that so far has withstood even the most strenuous attempts to destroy it on his part, which is saying something, even by Starktech standards.
He's in the middle of a fairly complex sequence of punches and kicks when a small voice pipes up and nearly makes him jump out of his skin. "What're you doing?"
He stops, rests his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. "Tony! What are you doing up?"
Tony's barefoot, clad in the same powder blue pajamas he was wearing when he went to bed, one leg of the pants rucked up over his knee, hair tousled, cheeks flushed from sleep. He scuffs one foot against the floor, hugging his arms to his chest, though even that isn't enough to mask the glow of the arc reactor, which flickers a little when he coughs.
"I couldn't sleep. Why do you hit the bag that hard?"
"I'm just working out. It keeps me fit, lets me burn off some energy. I run, too, when I can, but I try to do that when it's light out." He has no idea why he's explaining in so much detail when it's unlikely Tony is even interested in the answer, but the boy nods, as though what he's saying makes perfect sense. "Why couldn't you sleep? Did you have nightmares?"
"No." Tony shakes his head, but Steve isn't sure he's telling the truth. Before he can press the point, though, Tony pipes up again. "How come you're still alive? Daddy said your plane crashed and that he was looking for the wreckage. JARVIS said you were caught in the ice, but you should be dead."
Steve rocks back on his heels a little. "Uh. JARVIS said that?"
"Uh-huh. JARVIS is super smart. He says I'm going to build him when I'm grown up. Or that I built him when I was grown up. Him and Dummy and Butterfingers, and the armour and this," he rubs at the arc reactor with his fingers. "But he won't tell me about you, he just said I should come and ask you. Do you still have your shield? The one Daddy made?"
Steve pauses. "Well, yes. But I generally use the new one you made for me, out of Vibranium."
Tony glances down at the arc reactor in his chest, rubbing at it again with his fingers. It has to be strange, Steve thinks, to wake up one day and find that there's something entirely foreign inserted into your body. He knows a little bit about what that's like, waking up to everything being different.
"JARVIS said that the core of the reactor is made out of that too," Tony pokes at the arc reactor in a way that makes Steve very, very nervous. "Daddy invented the... he did the formula when I was a little kid, but he couldn't make it back then, and then I made it up again when I was grown up, and I made this because some bad men hurt me and I needed it to live."
"That's right."
"So if I take it out, what happens? Would I just die?" Tony asks, expression guileless, and Steve feels his heart lurch unpleasantly at the thought.
"Not right away, but... yes. After a few days." Although, for all Steve knows, the shrapnel in Tony's chest isn't there anymore, or maybe because he's so much smaller now, it's that much closer to his heart. "Don't fiddle with it, okay?"
"Okay. Can I see your shield?"
Steve's beginning to feel like he's getting whiplash from how fast Tony's mind flits from subject to subject. He wonders if this is how Tony is all the time, even as an adult, if he's just learned to keep most of his erratic thoughts to himself because no one would be able to keep up with him.
"Uh, sure. It's not here, though, I keep it in my room. You want to go now?"
"Yes, please."
Tony trots easily beside him as they go up to Steve's room. "How did you survive under the ice? Was it cold? Did you know what was happening?"
"The serum kept me alive, I think," he answers as truthfully as he can, a little uncomfortable in spite of himself. He's not accustomed to people asking him directly about his time 'away,' as he sometimes thinks of it. "And yeah, it was cold. I don't really remember most of it." He shivers a little, unable to shake the ever-present feeling of the cold trying to seep its way back into his veins.
Tony, it turns out, is entranced with the shield, even though he can't really lift it. He sits on the floor of Steve's room with it pulled halfway into his lap, and asks questions at a rate that leaves Steve reeling. He doesn't think he can even answer half of them, but luckily JARVIS intervenes to help him, and starts answering the more technical questions in a way that's understandable for a boy Tony's age, even if he is spectacularly gifted.
Tony's enthusiasm is so infectious that it actually takes Steve a few minutes to realise that the boy is shivering under the shield. When he looks more closely he can see that Tony's hands and feet are freezing cold, that his lips are starting to turn blue. He gets up from where he was kneeling on the floor and rummages through his cupboard for a blanket that will fit Tony, and much to his embarrassment the only one he can find is a thick polar fleece Captain America throw, complete with shield and winged helmet-a gag gift from Tony, when Steve first moved in. ("To get you through all those chilly nights, Capsicle.") All the others are far too big and heavy, though, so he swallows his pride and pulls it out.
"Next time you're feeling cold, you just tell me, okay?"
It seems as though this kid will never stop surprising Steve, because Tony's face lights up at the sight of the blanket. "Cool!"
"You like it?"
He gets an enthusiastic nod. "It's like the sheets I used to have on my bed. My old bed, not the one I have now."
Huh. That is... not what Steve was expecting to hear. "Would you like to keep it?"
"Can I?"
"Sure. As long as I can borrow it every now and then," Steve teases, but Tony nods earnestly, as though it's perfectly natural that Captain America would want to borrow a fleece blanket with his own image on it. He glances at the clock, realises it's almost seven in the morning. "So, you hungry? It's nearly breakfast time."
~*~
Natasha's already in the kitchen when they get there. S.H.I.E.L.D. training guarantees that both she and Clint are usually awake first, apart from Steve. Clint generally goes for a run in the morning, but Natasha often prefers to do her running in the evening, in the grey of twilight just before dark. Tony is never up before noon except on the days when he forgets to go to bed, while Bruce and Thor tend to rise just a little later than the two agents, Bruce especially if he's been up late running tests in his lab.
Steve has come to appreciate the quiet mornings spent in Natasha's presence-neither of them has ever felt the need to speak, but they share a cup of coffee and the morning paper, and sometimes she makes eggs and sometimes he makes pancakes, and they just sit in the morning sun without so much as exchanging a word.
Natasha looks up from where she's pulling a carton of eggs from the fridge. "Good morning," she says. "Did you sleep well?"
"Not all that much," Steve answers, though he thinks the question was directed at Tony.
"Captain Rogers showed me his shield," Tony says, bouncing a little on his toes. He's still got the blanket wrapped around his shoulders a bit like a cape, and Natasha smiles at him. All of Natasha's smiles are beautiful, but Steve rarely gets to see this one, open and relaxed, and maybe just a little amused.
"I'll bet he did. I like your blanket, it looks like a cape like that. Are you a superhero?" she asks, and there isn't a trace of irony in her voice.
"I'm going to be one when I grow up, like Captain America."
"Captain America is pretty incredible," she agrees. Tony pulls away from Steve to go stand next to her by the stove, and, okay, no, Steve is definitely not jealous that Natasha appears to be Tony's new favourite person, because that would be ridiculous and immature. "How do you like your eggs, zajchik?"
"Scrambled, please." If Tony doesn't recognize the Russian word, he doesn't ask about its meaning. Steve, on the other hand, is burning with curiosity, but he's enjoying watching the two of them together too much to want to interrupt with questions.
"Aren't you polite." Natasha's lips twitch ever so slightly, and she arches an eyebrow at Steve, who smiles back sheepishly. "Scrambled it is."
Tony keeps up a steady stream of chatter in between mouthfuls of scrambled egg, and positively beams at Natasha when she makes him a bowl of hot chocolate bigger than his head and tops it with whipped cream. He has to pick up the bowl with both hands and blows carefully on the steaming liquid, turning his head aside to cough so as not to spill it over his hands.
"Any word from S.H.I.E.L.D. about what might have caused this?" Natasha hands Steve a cup of coffee once Tony is happily settled with the comics from the newspapers.
"Not yet. It hasn't even been twenty-four hours, though. For all we know, this will just wear off, anyway."
"Clint and Bruce spent all of yesterday at the invasion site collecting samples. If it's any sort of biological or chemical thing, they'll figure it out."
Steve chews on his lower lip speculatively, thinking back to Loki and the Enchantress, whom he's had the misfortune to encounter before. Once was more than enough, but he wouldn't put this past her. He looks over to see that Tony has finished reading the comics and is busily filling in the crossword puzzle with a pen he found God only knows where. Steve doesn't even bother checking the answers to see if he got them right.
"I expect we'll be hearing from Coulson before long, though. They'll probably want to run some more tests. And, speak of the devil…"
"I'll try not to take that personally," Phil Coulson raps perfunctorily on the doorframe before stepping into the kitchen. He's dressed in the same immaculate dark suit that he always seems to wear, tie perfectly straight.
Steve manages a rueful smile. "Sorry, figure of speech."
"I hope you don't truly think of me as the Devil," Coulson smiles blandly and pulls up a chair next to Natasha, who moves slightly to allow him room at the table. "I'll have to chalk it up to Stark's influence. Good morning, Tony," he says, turning to look at him. "Do you remember me?"
Tony looks up from his crossword and gives him a slightly confused look. "You were in the car yesterday?" he offers, and Coulson nods.
"That's right. I work with Captain Rogers. I was hoping you'd be willing to come back with me to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, where we were yesterday, so we can do some more tests. Would you be okay with that?"
Tony hesitates. "Will it hurt?"
"No. I promise, none of the tests will hurt. Well," Coulson stops. "Actually, I don't know about all the tests. But how about I promise that if one of the doctors thinks a test might hurt, we'll ask for your permission first?"
"That sounds fair. Are you going to make me big again?"
"That's the plan. In the meantime, though, we should get you some clothes that'll fit, and are a bit nicer than the ones you were wearing yesterday. What do you think?"
"Can Captain Rogers come?"
"Sure, if he wants to. Captain?"
"Of course I'll come. But only if you both start calling me Steve, okay?"
Coulson colours slightly, and Tony looks dubious. "Mommy says it's not polite to call grown-ups by their first names."
Right, of course. Not polite. "Okay, how about you call me Uncle Steve in the meantime? That's generally acceptable, as titles go, right?"
"I've always liked being an aunt," Natasha takes a sip of her coffee. "It means I get to spoil my nieces and nephews rotten without any consequences. I think that, once you have new clothes, you and I should test just how much sugar you can handle in a single sitting. What do you think Antoshka?"
Tony beams at her, and Steve's heart plummets into his stomach. If nothing else, this was all going to be a hell of an adventure.
~*~
The sound of shattering glass and a startled yell gets Steve's attention like nothing else these days. He takes the stairs two by two until he reaches the lab where Bruce has been working-on his own now ever since Tony's transformation-and breathes a sigh of relief when he catches sight of the scientist picking his way across the wreckage of what might once have been beakers but is now simply a sea of shattered glass. Bruce stops underneath an air vent, mouth pressed into a thin line of annoyance.
"Damn it, Barton!" he yells. "Don't encourage Tony to mess with my experiments! If you must engage in target practice, do it somewhere less volatile!"
Steve steps forward carefully, trying not to let worry creep into his tone. "Uh, Bruce?"
It's been nearly three days since Tony's transformation, and while they're all still adjusting to life with a six-year-old in their midst, Tony himself seems to be taking it in stride. He's taken to Natasha like a fish to water, and tends to follow Steve around as much as possible, asking a million questions a minute, most of which Steve doesn't even know how to begin to answer. He seems to like Clint well enough, or at least enough to let Clint get them both into mischief, but he's uncharacteristically shy around Bruce, and so far he's hidden behind Steve's legs every time Thor has been close by. Privately Steve thinks it's because Thor has yet to figure out how to modulate his voice indoors, not that he'll ever say anything to Thor. He probably wouldn't get it, anyway.
Bruce heaves a long-suffering sigh and turns back to Steve, surveying the debris balefully. "Who let Barton give Tony access to firecrackers? No, really, who thought it would be a good idea? You know he and Barton rigged a high-tech slingshot, right? Do you know what happens when you combine minor explosives with slingshots, Steve?"
Steve looks down at the shattered glass scattered across the floor. "Um, this, I'm guessing?"
"Exactly."
"You okay?"
Bruce sighs again. "Yeah. The, uh, other guy isn't nearly as fussed about my experiments as I am. It's fine. It's like he expects Tony to screw with me every two minutes. I think he gets a kick out of it, actually," he adds with a slightly sheepish shrug.
"Uh huh," Steve says faintly, distracted by the distinct sound of childish giggling coming from somewhere above their heads. He goes to stand under the vent, feeling slightly foolish. "Tony! Could you come out of there now, please?"
A moment later a different ceiling panel swings open, and Clint lowers Tony carefully onto a counter before jumping down lightly beside him. "Oh, uh, hey Steve."
Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. "I suppose it would be entirely useless to tell you how dangerous that stunt you just pulled is?"
"Don't be a wet blanket, Cap," Clint winks at him. He's dressed in his usual S.H.I.E.L.D. get-up, and somehow managed to find a set of smaller clothes for Tony that almost matches his own. Steve doesn't even want to know where he got them. "Tony here's been working on his... I don't know if you can call it aim, since it mostly involves jury-rigged explosives. Tony's a real firecracker, aren't you, sport?"
Tony grins up at Clint, then immediately looks abashed when Steve lifts him bodily off the counter and gives him a disapproving stare.
"Tony, I'm very disappointed. You broke Bruce's equipment and ruined his experiment with your little trick. That was very reckless of you. You've caused a lot of damage, and you might have hurt someone."
Tony's eyes widen at that, and Steve struggles to keep his tone stern instead of immediately gathering him into a hug to reassure him.
"I think an apology is in order, don't you?
Tony turns a stricken look in Bruce's direction. "I didn't mean to! I'm sorry. I'm sorry, please don't be mad. Maybe I can fix it?"
Bruce shakes his head. "No, the compound I was working on spilled, and you broke a lot of the beakers I need, so I'll have to start over. I accept your apology, though."
"I'm really sorry. Daddy told me not to mess with the stuff in the lab and I forgot but I'm sorry, I promise, please don't be mad!"
"It's fine, don't worry about it," Bruce looks a little surprised at the sudden break in Tony's voice. When Steve looks down, he sees Tony's lip is trembling slightly, his eyes filling with tears. "Hey," Bruce drops to a crouch and puts both hands on Tony's shoulders. "It's fine. Nothing happened here that can't be fixed, okay buddy? You apologised, and I know you won't do it again, will you?" Tony shakes his head vigorously. "Good."
"No one's mad, Tony," Steve adds. "Except maybe at Clint, because he's meant to be looking out for you and not helping to break Bruce's stuff. Right, Clint?"
Clint has the decency to look a little ashamed, probably more because Tony's visibly upset than because he feels bad about messing with Bruce's stuff. Clint's a good guy underneath all the troublemaking, and definitely not the kind of man who'd take pleasure in making a kid cry. "Um. Sorry."
Tony sniffles and cuffs at his eyes with his sleeve. "You're not mad?" he asks Bruce.
"No, I'm not mad, promise. You'd know if I was, right? I get all big and green, you remember? And then I smash stuff. A lot more than what got smashed just now," Bruce winks, and that gets him a watery smile. "I just need you to promise not to do it again. Okay?"
"Okay. I'm really sorry."
Steve clears his throat. "All right, let's get out of Bruce's way. Clint will help him clean up, won't you, Clint?"
"Uh, yeah. Sure. No problem," Clint's gaze slides uneasily toward first the mess on the floor, then to Bruce, who's staring at him with his arms folded severely over his chest. "Piece of cake."
Steve ruffles Tony's hair. "You want to go see what Aunt Natasha is up to?"
Tony lets Steve take him by the hand and lead him away, still scrubbing at his eyes with his sleeve. Natasha is nowhere to be found, but Tony seems content to settle quietly in his room with a data tablet and Steve and JARVIS for company. Even at not quite seven, Tony seems to have the same intuitive grasp of design that's going to make his company several fortunes when he's older, and with JARVIS answering questions and occasionally guiding him, he's been making progress faster than Steve would have thought possible. Right now, though, it's obvious that his attention isn't at all on the tablet, so Steve lowers himself to sit cross-legged on the floor next to him.
"You want to tell me what's on your mind?" he says, looking over Tony's shoulder at the shapeless doodle on the tablet's drawing app. Tony just shrugs and keeps doodling. "You seemed pretty upset back there. I'd like to help, if I could."
Tony shrugs again. "Daddy doesn't like it when I mess up his stuff. I just... if he was here, he'd yell at me."
"Did Howard yell a lot?"
Tony shakes his head. "Almost never. I broke something once that he was working on for the Expo, and he got really mad and he didn't let me back in the lab ever."
Not for the first time, Steve wishes he could go back in time and shake Howard Stark until his teeth rattled in his head, friend or not. In fact, he wonders that Howard's other friends never bothered to perform this basic duty, of pointing out just what he was doing to his kid. He gets the feeling that, like Tony, maybe Howard didn't have as many friends as people thought he did. It's a sad thought.
"Well, that's not going to happen this time, promise."
He chucks Tony lightly on the shoulder, hating the way the boy keeps hunching in on himself, like he expects a hand to come out of nowhere and hit him. As far as Steve knows, Tony was never struck as a child, but he doesn't appear to understand what physical affection is, either, and shies away from even the most casual attempts at it. Whatever else comes out of this whole mess, Steve is determined that that is one thing they are going to fix for him.
~*~
The biggest surprise in all of this comes from Phil Coulson. Steve finds him on all fours on the floor of Tony's room on the fourth morning since Tony's transformation, helping him to build what looks like an incredibly complicated railway set on top of a large piece of what looks like pressed wood, complete with tiny soldering equipment to make sure the trains will run without interruption. Steve doesn't ever remember seeing a toy like this, not even when he was out doing charity work at Christmas at the various toy outlets. This looks more like a collector's set than a children's toy.
"Uh, hi. What are you two up to?"
"Agent Phil is helping me build a railroad," Tony says, his tone suggesting that Steve must be blind not to figure out what's going on. "He's the conductor and I'm the engineer."
"Engineer, huh?"
"Uh-huh," Tony doesn't look up from where he's carefully connecting two tiny pieces of railway. "The engineer is the most important person on the railways, but the conductor's pretty important too, 'cause without him the trains won't run."
"They still won't run if Barton won't stop knocking over the trees and buildings with Nerf arrows," Coulson grumbles good-naturedly.
"It's bandits attacking the train lines," Tony explains with the air of patience usually reserved for adults talking to unruly children, then turns his head to cough into the crook of his elbow. For all that as an adult Tony makes a point of flouting some of the more ridiculous social conventions, it seems that Maria Stark did raise an exceptionally polite kid. "Some collateral damage is to be expected."
Steve smothers a laugh by pretending to cough himself, and Coulson meets his gaze and winks before going back to gluing the last of a tiny tree to a platform.
"That's what railway security is for. You might be the engineer now, but since you're also CEO you're going to want to hire some, make sure your passengers and cargo stay safe. I can recommend a few people for head of security, which will take some of the pressure off you for all the decision-making, in terms of hiring reliable employees."
"Yeah, okay. People need to be safe, right?"
"Right."
There's something a little terse about Coulson's tone, and when Steve looks more closely, he can see that his face is pinched and a little pale, lines of pain forming around his eyes and mouth. He's still not entirely recovered from getting stabbed by Loki, even though he's been cleared for light duties, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that crouching and crawling on the floor after an active six year old is probably harder on him than he'd like to admit. Steve moves over and holds out a hand.
"I'm guessing this isn't an entirely social visit, Agent Coulson?"
"Not entirely, and if I have to call you Steve, I'd appreciate it if you'd call me Phil," Coulson accepts his hand gratefully, wincing a little as he lets Steve pull him to his feet. Of a common accord, neither of them says a word more about it. "Okay, you keep working on that," he tells Tony. "I need to talk to Captain Rogers for a minute." He motions to Steve to join him in the doorway. Tony doesn't look up, engrossed in what he's doing, which gives Steve the opening he was looking for.
"Any word?" Steve asks quietly, and Coulson shakes his head.
"Afraid not. S.H.I.E.L.D. is bringing in Hank Pym and Reed Richards on this, to see if they can pinpoint what we've missed. They're flying in this morning, I just came to check on Tony before I go pick them up at the airport."
They can certainly do worse than two of the foremost scientific minds in the world to work on this, and it speaks volumes that Coulson is going in person to get them.
"You're better at this than I thought," Steve says instead of asking the ten thousand worried questions he has, none of which Coulson will be able to answer to his satisfaction anyway. It's not like the man can predict the future. "I wouldn't have pegged you as the type for toy railroads..." he stops when Coulson's expression turns a little sad, eyes trained on the small boy bent over his toys. "Sorry, I didn't mean to overstep."
"It's fine. My girls live with their mother in Portland. I get them for half of the regular holidays and one month in the summer, whenever the world isn't about to end." There's old pain in the man's voice, and Steve is sorry he ever brought it up.
"Portland? Isn't that where-"
"It's unrelated," Coulson says curtly, and Steve just nods and lets it go.
"I just meant that you're good with him. God knows Tony could use someone in his corner."
To his surprise, Coulson turns and looks up at him with a small smile. "Just because he doesn't know that people are in his corner, doesn't mean there's no one there."
Steve opens his mouth to answer-though he's not sure what he'd even say-but he's interrupted by the sound of Tony coughing while he carefully sets a locomotive down on the tracks and tests whether or not it'll run. He looks at Coulson, and sees his own worry reflected in the agent's expression.
"How long has that been going on?" Coulson asks.
"I don't know. I never noticed it being this bad before."
"He's been coughing on and off all morning. Little kids are always coming down with bugs, it's probably nothing." But Coulson's tone lacks conviction, and he's already making his way back over to Tony. "You feeling okay, kiddo?" he wraps a hand deftly around Tony's forehead, the gesture oddly paternal. It's more than a little weird, thinking of Coulson as anything other than a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, but Steve also knows it's ridiculous to assume that these people don't have lives outside of the agency.
Tony twists and squirms a little under the attention. "I'm okay."
"You're a little warm. Listen, I have to go pick up some people at the airport, but I want you to tell someone if you're not feeling well, okay? Can you do that for me?"
Tony shrugs, more uncomfortable than anything else under Coulson's sudden scrutiny. "Yeah, okay."
"Good job. Okay, I'll leave you to it, then. Hang in there." He brushes past Steve, pauses to speak quietly in his ear. "Keep an eye out, would you?"
"Always."
[Part 3]
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[Part 1]
One of the few side effects of the serum that made him-quite literally-the man he is today, is that Steve doesn't need much sleep. In fact, even on days when he'd much rather lose himself in the pleasant oblivion of his dreams, he wakes up within about four hours, rested and brimming with more energy than he knows what to do with. He usually makes a point of getting up sometime around three in the morning and making his way to the gym on the third floor and doing his level best to beat the stuffing out of a punching bag. Tony was kind enough to design one that so far has withstood even the most strenuous attempts to destroy it on his part, which is saying something, even by Starktech standards.
He's in the middle of a fairly complex sequence of punches and kicks when a small voice pipes up and nearly makes him jump out of his skin. "What're you doing?"
He stops, rests his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. "Tony! What are you doing up?"
Tony's barefoot, clad in the same powder blue pajamas he was wearing when he went to bed, one leg of the pants rucked up over his knee, hair tousled, cheeks flushed from sleep. He scuffs one foot against the floor, hugging his arms to his chest, though even that isn't enough to mask the glow of the arc reactor, which flickers a little when he coughs.
"I couldn't sleep. Why do you hit the bag that hard?"
"I'm just working out. It keeps me fit, lets me burn off some energy. I run, too, when I can, but I try to do that when it's light out." He has no idea why he's explaining in so much detail when it's unlikely Tony is even interested in the answer, but the boy nods, as though what he's saying makes perfect sense. "Why couldn't you sleep? Did you have nightmares?"
"No." Tony shakes his head, but Steve isn't sure he's telling the truth. Before he can press the point, though, Tony pipes up again. "How come you're still alive? Daddy said your plane crashed and that he was looking for the wreckage. JARVIS said you were caught in the ice, but you should be dead."
Steve rocks back on his heels a little. "Uh. JARVIS said that?"
"Uh-huh. JARVIS is super smart. He says I'm going to build him when I'm grown up. Or that I built him when I was grown up. Him and Dummy and Butterfingers, and the armour and this," he rubs at the arc reactor with his fingers. "But he won't tell me about you, he just said I should come and ask you. Do you still have your shield? The one Daddy made?"
Steve pauses. "Well, yes. But I generally use the new one you made for me, out of Vibranium."
Tony glances down at the arc reactor in his chest, rubbing at it again with his fingers. It has to be strange, Steve thinks, to wake up one day and find that there's something entirely foreign inserted into your body. He knows a little bit about what that's like, waking up to everything being different.
"JARVIS said that the core of the reactor is made out of that too," Tony pokes at the arc reactor in a way that makes Steve very, very nervous. "Daddy invented the... he did the formula when I was a little kid, but he couldn't make it back then, and then I made it up again when I was grown up, and I made this because some bad men hurt me and I needed it to live."
"That's right."
"So if I take it out, what happens? Would I just die?" Tony asks, expression guileless, and Steve feels his heart lurch unpleasantly at the thought.
"Not right away, but... yes. After a few days." Although, for all Steve knows, the shrapnel in Tony's chest isn't there anymore, or maybe because he's so much smaller now, it's that much closer to his heart. "Don't fiddle with it, okay?"
"Okay. Can I see your shield?"
Steve's beginning to feel like he's getting whiplash from how fast Tony's mind flits from subject to subject. He wonders if this is how Tony is all the time, even as an adult, if he's just learned to keep most of his erratic thoughts to himself because no one would be able to keep up with him.
"Uh, sure. It's not here, though, I keep it in my room. You want to go now?"
"Yes, please."
Tony trots easily beside him as they go up to Steve's room. "How did you survive under the ice? Was it cold? Did you know what was happening?"
"The serum kept me alive, I think," he answers as truthfully as he can, a little uncomfortable in spite of himself. He's not accustomed to people asking him directly about his time 'away,' as he sometimes thinks of it. "And yeah, it was cold. I don't really remember most of it." He shivers a little, unable to shake the ever-present feeling of the cold trying to seep its way back into his veins.
Tony, it turns out, is entranced with the shield, even though he can't really lift it. He sits on the floor of Steve's room with it pulled halfway into his lap, and asks questions at a rate that leaves Steve reeling. He doesn't think he can even answer half of them, but luckily JARVIS intervenes to help him, and starts answering the more technical questions in a way that's understandable for a boy Tony's age, even if he is spectacularly gifted.
Tony's enthusiasm is so infectious that it actually takes Steve a few minutes to realise that the boy is shivering under the shield. When he looks more closely he can see that Tony's hands and feet are freezing cold, that his lips are starting to turn blue. He gets up from where he was kneeling on the floor and rummages through his cupboard for a blanket that will fit Tony, and much to his embarrassment the only one he can find is a thick polar fleece Captain America throw, complete with shield and winged helmet-a gag gift from Tony, when Steve first moved in. ("To get you through all those chilly nights, Capsicle.") All the others are far too big and heavy, though, so he swallows his pride and pulls it out.
"Next time you're feeling cold, you just tell me, okay?"
It seems as though this kid will never stop surprising Steve, because Tony's face lights up at the sight of the blanket. "Cool!"
"You like it?"
He gets an enthusiastic nod. "It's like the sheets I used to have on my bed. My old bed, not the one I have now."
Huh. That is... not what Steve was expecting to hear. "Would you like to keep it?"
"Can I?"
"Sure. As long as I can borrow it every now and then," Steve teases, but Tony nods earnestly, as though it's perfectly natural that Captain America would want to borrow a fleece blanket with his own image on it. He glances at the clock, realises it's almost seven in the morning. "So, you hungry? It's nearly breakfast time."
~*~
Natasha's already in the kitchen when they get there. S.H.I.E.L.D. training guarantees that both she and Clint are usually awake first, apart from Steve. Clint generally goes for a run in the morning, but Natasha often prefers to do her running in the evening, in the grey of twilight just before dark. Tony is never up before noon except on the days when he forgets to go to bed, while Bruce and Thor tend to rise just a little later than the two agents, Bruce especially if he's been up late running tests in his lab.
Steve has come to appreciate the quiet mornings spent in Natasha's presence-neither of them has ever felt the need to speak, but they share a cup of coffee and the morning paper, and sometimes she makes eggs and sometimes he makes pancakes, and they just sit in the morning sun without so much as exchanging a word.
Natasha looks up from where she's pulling a carton of eggs from the fridge. "Good morning," she says. "Did you sleep well?"
"Not all that much," Steve answers, though he thinks the question was directed at Tony.
"Captain Rogers showed me his shield," Tony says, bouncing a little on his toes. He's still got the blanket wrapped around his shoulders a bit like a cape, and Natasha smiles at him. All of Natasha's smiles are beautiful, but Steve rarely gets to see this one, open and relaxed, and maybe just a little amused.
"I'll bet he did. I like your blanket, it looks like a cape like that. Are you a superhero?" she asks, and there isn't a trace of irony in her voice.
"I'm going to be one when I grow up, like Captain America."
"Captain America is pretty incredible," she agrees. Tony pulls away from Steve to go stand next to her by the stove, and, okay, no, Steve is definitely not jealous that Natasha appears to be Tony's new favourite person, because that would be ridiculous and immature. "How do you like your eggs, zajchik?"
"Scrambled, please." If Tony doesn't recognize the Russian word, he doesn't ask about its meaning. Steve, on the other hand, is burning with curiosity, but he's enjoying watching the two of them together too much to want to interrupt with questions.
"Aren't you polite." Natasha's lips twitch ever so slightly, and she arches an eyebrow at Steve, who smiles back sheepishly. "Scrambled it is."
Tony keeps up a steady stream of chatter in between mouthfuls of scrambled egg, and positively beams at Natasha when she makes him a bowl of hot chocolate bigger than his head and tops it with whipped cream. He has to pick up the bowl with both hands and blows carefully on the steaming liquid, turning his head aside to cough so as not to spill it over his hands.
"Any word from S.H.I.E.L.D. about what might have caused this?" Natasha hands Steve a cup of coffee once Tony is happily settled with the comics from the newspapers.
"Not yet. It hasn't even been twenty-four hours, though. For all we know, this will just wear off, anyway."
"Clint and Bruce spent all of yesterday at the invasion site collecting samples. If it's any sort of biological or chemical thing, they'll figure it out."
Steve chews on his lower lip speculatively, thinking back to Loki and the Enchantress, whom he's had the misfortune to encounter before. Once was more than enough, but he wouldn't put this past her. He looks over to see that Tony has finished reading the comics and is busily filling in the crossword puzzle with a pen he found God only knows where. Steve doesn't even bother checking the answers to see if he got them right.
"I expect we'll be hearing from Coulson before long, though. They'll probably want to run some more tests. And, speak of the devil…"
"I'll try not to take that personally," Phil Coulson raps perfunctorily on the doorframe before stepping into the kitchen. He's dressed in the same immaculate dark suit that he always seems to wear, tie perfectly straight.
Steve manages a rueful smile. "Sorry, figure of speech."
"I hope you don't truly think of me as the Devil," Coulson smiles blandly and pulls up a chair next to Natasha, who moves slightly to allow him room at the table. "I'll have to chalk it up to Stark's influence. Good morning, Tony," he says, turning to look at him. "Do you remember me?"
Tony looks up from his crossword and gives him a slightly confused look. "You were in the car yesterday?" he offers, and Coulson nods.
"That's right. I work with Captain Rogers. I was hoping you'd be willing to come back with me to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, where we were yesterday, so we can do some more tests. Would you be okay with that?"
Tony hesitates. "Will it hurt?"
"No. I promise, none of the tests will hurt. Well," Coulson stops. "Actually, I don't know about all the tests. But how about I promise that if one of the doctors thinks a test might hurt, we'll ask for your permission first?"
"That sounds fair. Are you going to make me big again?"
"That's the plan. In the meantime, though, we should get you some clothes that'll fit, and are a bit nicer than the ones you were wearing yesterday. What do you think?"
"Can Captain Rogers come?"
"Sure, if he wants to. Captain?"
"Of course I'll come. But only if you both start calling me Steve, okay?"
Coulson colours slightly, and Tony looks dubious. "Mommy says it's not polite to call grown-ups by their first names."
Right, of course. Not polite. "Okay, how about you call me Uncle Steve in the meantime? That's generally acceptable, as titles go, right?"
"I've always liked being an aunt," Natasha takes a sip of her coffee. "It means I get to spoil my nieces and nephews rotten without any consequences. I think that, once you have new clothes, you and I should test just how much sugar you can handle in a single sitting. What do you think Antoshka?"
Tony beams at her, and Steve's heart plummets into his stomach. If nothing else, this was all going to be a hell of an adventure.
~*~
The sound of shattering glass and a startled yell gets Steve's attention like nothing else these days. He takes the stairs two by two until he reaches the lab where Bruce has been working-on his own now ever since Tony's transformation-and breathes a sigh of relief when he catches sight of the scientist picking his way across the wreckage of what might once have been beakers but is now simply a sea of shattered glass. Bruce stops underneath an air vent, mouth pressed into a thin line of annoyance.
"Damn it, Barton!" he yells. "Don't encourage Tony to mess with my experiments! If you must engage in target practice, do it somewhere less volatile!"
Steve steps forward carefully, trying not to let worry creep into his tone. "Uh, Bruce?"
It's been nearly three days since Tony's transformation, and while they're all still adjusting to life with a six-year-old in their midst, Tony himself seems to be taking it in stride. He's taken to Natasha like a fish to water, and tends to follow Steve around as much as possible, asking a million questions a minute, most of which Steve doesn't even know how to begin to answer. He seems to like Clint well enough, or at least enough to let Clint get them both into mischief, but he's uncharacteristically shy around Bruce, and so far he's hidden behind Steve's legs every time Thor has been close by. Privately Steve thinks it's because Thor has yet to figure out how to modulate his voice indoors, not that he'll ever say anything to Thor. He probably wouldn't get it, anyway.
Bruce heaves a long-suffering sigh and turns back to Steve, surveying the debris balefully. "Who let Barton give Tony access to firecrackers? No, really, who thought it would be a good idea? You know he and Barton rigged a high-tech slingshot, right? Do you know what happens when you combine minor explosives with slingshots, Steve?"
Steve looks down at the shattered glass scattered across the floor. "Um, this, I'm guessing?"
"Exactly."
"You okay?"
Bruce sighs again. "Yeah. The, uh, other guy isn't nearly as fussed about my experiments as I am. It's fine. It's like he expects Tony to screw with me every two minutes. I think he gets a kick out of it, actually," he adds with a slightly sheepish shrug.
"Uh huh," Steve says faintly, distracted by the distinct sound of childish giggling coming from somewhere above their heads. He goes to stand under the vent, feeling slightly foolish. "Tony! Could you come out of there now, please?"
A moment later a different ceiling panel swings open, and Clint lowers Tony carefully onto a counter before jumping down lightly beside him. "Oh, uh, hey Steve."
Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. "I suppose it would be entirely useless to tell you how dangerous that stunt you just pulled is?"
"Don't be a wet blanket, Cap," Clint winks at him. He's dressed in his usual S.H.I.E.L.D. get-up, and somehow managed to find a set of smaller clothes for Tony that almost matches his own. Steve doesn't even want to know where he got them. "Tony here's been working on his... I don't know if you can call it aim, since it mostly involves jury-rigged explosives. Tony's a real firecracker, aren't you, sport?"
Tony grins up at Clint, then immediately looks abashed when Steve lifts him bodily off the counter and gives him a disapproving stare.
"Tony, I'm very disappointed. You broke Bruce's equipment and ruined his experiment with your little trick. That was very reckless of you. You've caused a lot of damage, and you might have hurt someone."
Tony's eyes widen at that, and Steve struggles to keep his tone stern instead of immediately gathering him into a hug to reassure him.
"I think an apology is in order, don't you?
Tony turns a stricken look in Bruce's direction. "I didn't mean to! I'm sorry. I'm sorry, please don't be mad. Maybe I can fix it?"
Bruce shakes his head. "No, the compound I was working on spilled, and you broke a lot of the beakers I need, so I'll have to start over. I accept your apology, though."
"I'm really sorry. Daddy told me not to mess with the stuff in the lab and I forgot but I'm sorry, I promise, please don't be mad!"
"It's fine, don't worry about it," Bruce looks a little surprised at the sudden break in Tony's voice. When Steve looks down, he sees Tony's lip is trembling slightly, his eyes filling with tears. "Hey," Bruce drops to a crouch and puts both hands on Tony's shoulders. "It's fine. Nothing happened here that can't be fixed, okay buddy? You apologised, and I know you won't do it again, will you?" Tony shakes his head vigorously. "Good."
"No one's mad, Tony," Steve adds. "Except maybe at Clint, because he's meant to be looking out for you and not helping to break Bruce's stuff. Right, Clint?"
Clint has the decency to look a little ashamed, probably more because Tony's visibly upset than because he feels bad about messing with Bruce's stuff. Clint's a good guy underneath all the troublemaking, and definitely not the kind of man who'd take pleasure in making a kid cry. "Um. Sorry."
Tony sniffles and cuffs at his eyes with his sleeve. "You're not mad?" he asks Bruce.
"No, I'm not mad, promise. You'd know if I was, right? I get all big and green, you remember? And then I smash stuff. A lot more than what got smashed just now," Bruce winks, and that gets him a watery smile. "I just need you to promise not to do it again. Okay?"
"Okay. I'm really sorry."
Steve clears his throat. "All right, let's get out of Bruce's way. Clint will help him clean up, won't you, Clint?"
"Uh, yeah. Sure. No problem," Clint's gaze slides uneasily toward first the mess on the floor, then to Bruce, who's staring at him with his arms folded severely over his chest. "Piece of cake."
Steve ruffles Tony's hair. "You want to go see what Aunt Natasha is up to?"
Tony lets Steve take him by the hand and lead him away, still scrubbing at his eyes with his sleeve. Natasha is nowhere to be found, but Tony seems content to settle quietly in his room with a data tablet and Steve and JARVIS for company. Even at not quite seven, Tony seems to have the same intuitive grasp of design that's going to make his company several fortunes when he's older, and with JARVIS answering questions and occasionally guiding him, he's been making progress faster than Steve would have thought possible. Right now, though, it's obvious that his attention isn't at all on the tablet, so Steve lowers himself to sit cross-legged on the floor next to him.
"You want to tell me what's on your mind?" he says, looking over Tony's shoulder at the shapeless doodle on the tablet's drawing app. Tony just shrugs and keeps doodling. "You seemed pretty upset back there. I'd like to help, if I could."
Tony shrugs again. "Daddy doesn't like it when I mess up his stuff. I just... if he was here, he'd yell at me."
"Did Howard yell a lot?"
Tony shakes his head. "Almost never. I broke something once that he was working on for the Expo, and he got really mad and he didn't let me back in the lab ever."
Not for the first time, Steve wishes he could go back in time and shake Howard Stark until his teeth rattled in his head, friend or not. In fact, he wonders that Howard's other friends never bothered to perform this basic duty, of pointing out just what he was doing to his kid. He gets the feeling that, like Tony, maybe Howard didn't have as many friends as people thought he did. It's a sad thought.
"Well, that's not going to happen this time, promise."
He chucks Tony lightly on the shoulder, hating the way the boy keeps hunching in on himself, like he expects a hand to come out of nowhere and hit him. As far as Steve knows, Tony was never struck as a child, but he doesn't appear to understand what physical affection is, either, and shies away from even the most casual attempts at it. Whatever else comes out of this whole mess, Steve is determined that that is one thing they are going to fix for him.
~*~
The biggest surprise in all of this comes from Phil Coulson. Steve finds him on all fours on the floor of Tony's room on the fourth morning since Tony's transformation, helping him to build what looks like an incredibly complicated railway set on top of a large piece of what looks like pressed wood, complete with tiny soldering equipment to make sure the trains will run without interruption. Steve doesn't ever remember seeing a toy like this, not even when he was out doing charity work at Christmas at the various toy outlets. This looks more like a collector's set than a children's toy.
"Uh, hi. What are you two up to?"
"Agent Phil is helping me build a railroad," Tony says, his tone suggesting that Steve must be blind not to figure out what's going on. "He's the conductor and I'm the engineer."
"Engineer, huh?"
"Uh-huh," Tony doesn't look up from where he's carefully connecting two tiny pieces of railway. "The engineer is the most important person on the railways, but the conductor's pretty important too, 'cause without him the trains won't run."
"They still won't run if Barton won't stop knocking over the trees and buildings with Nerf arrows," Coulson grumbles good-naturedly.
"It's bandits attacking the train lines," Tony explains with the air of patience usually reserved for adults talking to unruly children, then turns his head to cough into the crook of his elbow. For all that as an adult Tony makes a point of flouting some of the more ridiculous social conventions, it seems that Maria Stark did raise an exceptionally polite kid. "Some collateral damage is to be expected."
Steve smothers a laugh by pretending to cough himself, and Coulson meets his gaze and winks before going back to gluing the last of a tiny tree to a platform.
"That's what railway security is for. You might be the engineer now, but since you're also CEO you're going to want to hire some, make sure your passengers and cargo stay safe. I can recommend a few people for head of security, which will take some of the pressure off you for all the decision-making, in terms of hiring reliable employees."
"Yeah, okay. People need to be safe, right?"
"Right."
There's something a little terse about Coulson's tone, and when Steve looks more closely, he can see that his face is pinched and a little pale, lines of pain forming around his eyes and mouth. He's still not entirely recovered from getting stabbed by Loki, even though he's been cleared for light duties, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that crouching and crawling on the floor after an active six year old is probably harder on him than he'd like to admit. Steve moves over and holds out a hand.
"I'm guessing this isn't an entirely social visit, Agent Coulson?"
"Not entirely, and if I have to call you Steve, I'd appreciate it if you'd call me Phil," Coulson accepts his hand gratefully, wincing a little as he lets Steve pull him to his feet. Of a common accord, neither of them says a word more about it. "Okay, you keep working on that," he tells Tony. "I need to talk to Captain Rogers for a minute." He motions to Steve to join him in the doorway. Tony doesn't look up, engrossed in what he's doing, which gives Steve the opening he was looking for.
"Any word?" Steve asks quietly, and Coulson shakes his head.
"Afraid not. S.H.I.E.L.D. is bringing in Hank Pym and Reed Richards on this, to see if they can pinpoint what we've missed. They're flying in this morning, I just came to check on Tony before I go pick them up at the airport."
They can certainly do worse than two of the foremost scientific minds in the world to work on this, and it speaks volumes that Coulson is going in person to get them.
"You're better at this than I thought," Steve says instead of asking the ten thousand worried questions he has, none of which Coulson will be able to answer to his satisfaction anyway. It's not like the man can predict the future. "I wouldn't have pegged you as the type for toy railroads..." he stops when Coulson's expression turns a little sad, eyes trained on the small boy bent over his toys. "Sorry, I didn't mean to overstep."
"It's fine. My girls live with their mother in Portland. I get them for half of the regular holidays and one month in the summer, whenever the world isn't about to end." There's old pain in the man's voice, and Steve is sorry he ever brought it up.
"Portland? Isn't that where-"
"It's unrelated," Coulson says curtly, and Steve just nods and lets it go.
"I just meant that you're good with him. God knows Tony could use someone in his corner."
To his surprise, Coulson turns and looks up at him with a small smile. "Just because he doesn't know that people are in his corner, doesn't mean there's no one there."
Steve opens his mouth to answer-though he's not sure what he'd even say-but he's interrupted by the sound of Tony coughing while he carefully sets a locomotive down on the tracks and tests whether or not it'll run. He looks at Coulson, and sees his own worry reflected in the agent's expression.
"How long has that been going on?" Coulson asks.
"I don't know. I never noticed it being this bad before."
"He's been coughing on and off all morning. Little kids are always coming down with bugs, it's probably nothing." But Coulson's tone lacks conviction, and he's already making his way back over to Tony. "You feeling okay, kiddo?" he wraps a hand deftly around Tony's forehead, the gesture oddly paternal. It's more than a little weird, thinking of Coulson as anything other than a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, but Steve also knows it's ridiculous to assume that these people don't have lives outside of the agency.
Tony twists and squirms a little under the attention. "I'm okay."
"You're a little warm. Listen, I have to go pick up some people at the airport, but I want you to tell someone if you're not feeling well, okay? Can you do that for me?"
Tony shrugs, more uncomfortable than anything else under Coulson's sudden scrutiny. "Yeah, okay."
"Good job. Okay, I'll leave you to it, then. Hang in there." He brushes past Steve, pauses to speak quietly in his ear. "Keep an eye out, would you?"
"Always."
[Part 3]
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