Discount Word Emporium

Well, I guess I didn't finish this by the time Avengers came out, but at least I finished it before I went to see the movie myself. With nine hours to spare, even! ^^; I'm sure this gets completely jossed by the film, but whatever.

Steve Rogers meets Tony Stark. PG, 2,700 words.

He wasn't quite sure how it happened. One minute he was sitting with Fury, talking about equipment-- weaponry and armour they had, but they still needed good, fast transportation if they wanted to take the operation country-wide. Fury had put on a long-suffering, sour expression and said: "Hell. Guess we'd better go talk to Stark." And suddenly Steve was being shuttled from office to car to mansion.

Whenever he started to feel like he was getting the hang of twenty-first century living, something inevitably came along and landed him on his ear. Like the gleaming metal panel on the wall that greeted them in a posh accent and directed them downstairs. Steve was still staring at that long after Fury's forceful footsteps had started to fade down the steps, and he had to hurry to catch up.

At the bottom, a sleek glass door hissed open without a touch and admitted them to a large, well-used workshop. There was a man at one of the workbenches-- barefoot, tousled, in frayed denim and a faded sweatshirt. Unfamiliar, but with enough of a family resemblance that it was easy to place him as Howard's son. Stark was surrounded by his work-- literally surrounded, the lines of equations and sketches and notes hovering bright blue in the air around his body. Steve was held momentarily rapt by the dance of fingers as they wove the light and the white-blue shadows cast over cheekbones. It made him itch for a paper and pencil.

Fury drew breath to say something, but was cut off before he began. "Hang on," Stark said, not even glancing their way. "Five more minutes, just-- entertain yourselves. But don't touch anything. Jarvis, music up." The muted background noise grew until it filled the room. It wasn't the jumbled, pounding mess of sound that was, so he was told, the height of modern music. It wasn't what Steve was used to, either, but-- it wasn't bad.

Fury scowled, crossing his arms across his chest, but he kept his silence. Steve was tempted to say he looked-- not impressed, no, the day that Fury was impressed by anyone was the day Steve hung up his shield and handed Red Skull the keys to the White House. But surely anyone would be a little awestruck watching genius at work.

It probably helped that the majority of sketches flashing by seemed to concern a plane.

Given the opportunity to indulge his curiousity, Steve looked around the workshop. There was an entire line of cars to one side, unfamiliar in make or model but unmistakeably expensive, unmistakably fast. The kind of machine he and the boys had only dreamed about back in the day. Steve took a few steps towards the nearest one, admiring the sleek metal lines, wondering what it would be like to take one for a spin.

Then he happened to look past the cars and saw the metal suit hanging half-assembled from a chain. Gold and red, familiar and alien all at once. He stared, his eyes widening as he remembered.

He woke cold, so very cold, and it was so hard to breathe-- like the air had been knocked clear out of him, like his lungs were paralyzed. He tried and tried, but he couldn't seem to pull in more than a few useless gasps.

He was still able to recognize the feeling of being carried, though, the pressure of someone's arms around him. Not normally a sensation that would make him panic, but his last hazy memory was of fighting with Red Skull so instinct made him try to struggle free. He panicked a little more when he barely managed to twitch, let alone fight.

The pressure of arms around him momentarily increased. "Fuck me, you're awake?" The voice gave a tense bark of a laugh, oddly resonant. "They really don't make 'em like you anymore, do they."

Steve pried his eyes open but could only see blurs of colour: red and gold, grey and black. He opened his mouth a crack but couldn't make any sound come out.

"Just relax, okay? I'm going to get you somewhere nice and warm, they'll take good care of you, get you back on your feet again."

He had to blink over and over as his vision started to clear, because despite all common sense he could have sworn he was flying. That roaring sound, that was the air moving past him. The grey and black blurs were ice and dark water far below. But-- there was no plane. Just someone-- something, maybe: hard metal, red and gold. It looked superficially human, and felt burning hot where his bare hands were tucked up against it.

Steve flexed his fingers, just a little, and started shivering hard enough to set off sparks behind his eyelids. The metal man cursed low and fast, and tightened his grip as the sound of wind grew louder still. Steve returned to unconsciousness with that odd voice still muttering profanities in his ear.

Steve had woken in the custody of SHIELD some time later, with the patchy memories of his rescue coming back to him only slowly. His unknown rescuer, who had carried him from the wreck of Schmidt's plane to the military frigate waiting to collect them, was a barely-remembered impression more than an actual image.

Iron Man. Fury was very reluctant to talk about him, and Steve had never managed to ask anyone else. And now, unexpectedly, Iron Man was apparently right in front of him. Steve turned and looked at Stark with a new interest.

It was closer to fifteen minutes than five, but Fury hadn't yet reached the point of dangerously impatient when Stark gave what he was doing one last searching look and then sent it shooting over to a desktop console with a flick of his hand. "Jarvis," he called out, and the music lowered. Stark absently dusted off his hands as he turned to them, a habit that Steve associated with any number of men who worked with their hands, and it was oddly reassuring.

"So what's this about a plane?" Stark said as he walked towards them. "You know you can't afford me. Hi," he added to Steve, seamlessly, holding out a hand when he was close enough. "Tony Stark."

"I know," Steve answered, bemused. "Steve Rogers."

Tony's eyebrow quirked. "I know."

"Well, I didn't really get a chance to introduce myself last time," Steve ventured. He'd never been very good with the kind of slick patter that seemed to come to people like Stark as easily as breathing, but he was willing to try.

"Your vocal chords were probably still frozen," Tony said lightly. "Or something. Can they freeze? Beats me how those things work, actually, I just open my mouth and words come out."

"Entirely too often," Fury cut in sharply. "You got my message?"

"Jarvis let you in, didn't he?" Tony moved back over to his workbench and tapped a few keys. "I've got a few ideas, depending on whether you want me to start from scratch or retrofit an existing model. You realize that either way I'm going to need a bigger workshop."

"So buy one," Fury says flatly.

"Funny man." He turned to Steve, both brows up now. "Isn't he funny?"

Steve found himself grinning helplessly back.

Tony waved them to a seat, and they sat and talked details for a while-- or rather, Tony and Fury talked details, while Steve mostly just listened and tried not to show how lost he was. It was easier than he would have thought, mostly because Tony kept glancing over and giving these little explanations and comments, summarizing what could be summarized in quick sentences. It kept Steve interested, anyway, even though a lot of the discussion went over his head.

It was hard to pinpoint when the asides came to dominate the conversation, but eventually Fury gave a resigned growl and stood up, walking away without another word. Steve stared after him as he vanished up the stairs, then gave himself a little shake and braced to stand. "I should probably--"

"No, no, sit down. Trust me, this is not the first time that man has walked out on a conversation with me. He's just waiting upstairs, raiding my fridge or something. Using my incredibly superior phone system to terrorize all of his subordinates at once."

It was easy to laugh, like Tony obviously wanted him to; it was easy to settle back in the chair and let the conversation continue. Eventually they shifted to the workstation, while Tony talked Steve through a few sketches and blatantly showed off. From there it was only a short step to the cars.

They had the hood up on one model that Steve could almost recognize-- a classic, Tony said, which made Steve shake his head-- and Tony had leaned over to point at something tucked away in the mess of machinery. As he straightened, the sleeve of his faded sweatshirt snagged and tore with a dull sound. Tony muttered a curse, tugged at the offending garment, but only managed to tear it further before the sleeve came free. He sighed heavily, looking at the gaping, grease-edged hole, then shrugged and started to pull the sweater off. "Good thing I didn't like this one much anyway," he said as he tossed it aside.

Steve blinked. Beneath the sweatshirt Tony was wearing an equally worn, equally faded tee-shirt with a hole cut in the chest, through which something metal glowed gently blue-white. It was so unexpected that Steve just kept looking until Tony shifted under his gaze, something tense and wary in the set of his shoulders.

"Sorry," Steve said automatically, shaking it off. "I don't mean to stare."

Tony gave him a sharp, indecipherable look, then another shrug as he waved it off. "It's not something you see every day; I'd probably be a little disappointed if you didn't stare. I don't normally show it off, for just that reason, but hey, if I can't trust Captain America to not take pictures and run to the tabloids, then what, I ask, is wrong with this world. Actually," he added after a moment, wearing a crooked, bemused grin, "it's kind of weird talking to someone who doesn't know the whole story. Most of the people I deal with these days seem to know more about it than I do. And part of it, at least, was kind of all over the news."

"Well," Steve said mildly, "I was out of town for a while."

Tony barked a laugh. "That you were."

Steve fully expected the subject to be dropped, at that, but instead Tony propped one hip on the car and launched into what must have been a much-abridged version of his story. The way he told it, it was right out of the comics Steve had once loved-- war, capture, imprisonment, escape, all culminating in Tony Stark getting an extremely powerful battery embedded in his chest. But Steve could tell there was a lot being left out; he'd heard that flat tone of voice from some of the boys in his unit, and he knew better than to press it for details.

When Tony ran out of words and turned abruptly back to the car, Steve found himself filling the silence by bringing up the war, describing in general terms what he'd done to become who he was. It wasn't any concept of fair trade that prompted the story, just-- the vague urge to talk. SHIELD had set him up with some kind of therapist, at first, of course, and he'd given an official statement. But he hadn't really just talked to anyone since his revival, and Tony was attentive, sympathetic without being pitying, clever enough to understand the things that went unsaid. That sort of combination had been rare even when Steve wasn't seventy years out of his time.

Talking about Erskine and the procedure led to mention of Tony's father, which led to Tony himself swiftly changing the subject. They touched briefly on Tony's Iron Man suits, which led to the first and only mention of Obadiah Stane-- whom Steve was pretty sure he should be glad was dead; there was a hint of bewildered betrayal behind Tony's nonchalance when he said that name, which Steve found he really didn't like.

"I have to admit," Tony said at one point, "I had a poster of you on my wall when I was a kid. Dad gave it to me. You know, I don't think I ever really believed him when he said that he knew you." At some point Tony had acquired a highball full of something dark gold, which he sipped at between sentences. "Nothing about that man should surprise me anymore."

Tony drained the glass and moved automatically to refill it from a bottle on the counter. He paused with one hand on the bottle, though, and gave it a considering look before moving instead to the fridge to fish out a can of soda. He tossed Steve a faintly sheepish look as he popped it open. "Pepper would be lecturing me about manners right now. You want something? Scotch, bourbon-- maybe you're a vodka man?"

"One of those would be all right," Steve said, nodding to the can in Tony's hands.

Tony snorted. "Should've guessed." He fished a second can out of the fridge, tossed it easily at Steve and sat down again.

"It's not that I don't enjoy a good scotch," Tony went on with an aggressive sort of honesty. "But I've been trying to cut back a little since I accidentally blew up part of my house. Of course, I was kind of dying at the time, so drinking seemed the only logical thing to do. Still. Repairs have been an incredible pain in my ass."

"You--" Steve blinked, momentarily at a loss for words. "What?"

Tony waved one hand in a grandly dismissive gesture. "It's a long story. You know, another one."

Steve hesitated for only a second before sending a pointed look towards the stairs, where Fury had yet to reappear. "It doesn't seem like I'm going anywhere."

That earned him a vaguely startled look and then a small but genuine smile. "No, I suppose not."