snowdarkred

Title: The History and Future
Author:

snowdarkred
Word Count: ~1.1K
Pairings: Steve/Tony pre-slashy
Rating/Warnings: G, none, except for possibly horrible present tense
Author's Note: A bizarre derivative of the first Iron Man movie with some added Avengers – it's like adding sugar to tea! Or peanut butter to chocolate! It's just too tempting!

Summary: Steve and Tony are getting to know one another after Steve moves into Tony's Malibu mansion. There are (minor) explosions.

The History and Future

Steve doesn't think that he will ever understand this strange new era. He'd only been conscious for a month, but he's already set to throw up his hands and demand that they ship him off to some undisclosed location where he'll never have to be shocked by a string bikini or teeny-tiny cellphone again. This modern time is just too...whimsical for his sensibilities, and Steve just can't get over the fact that he's now considered old fashioned.

In his time, he was often thought to be painfully progressive. Here, his moral code is a quaint relic, reduced to nothing more than a few lines on something called the History Channel.

(That's another strange thing – events that he lived through, events that he was there for, things that happened just a few weeks ago.... All of it is considered near ancient history. Soldiers who were his age when the war was on, now reduced to shriveled shells of there former selves, all while Steve remains the same age. The disconnect was – startling, to say the least.)

It's too much. He can't sleep on too-soft sheets, in a room that's too smooth, in a house that talks, for America's sake. He drags himself into an upright position, contemplating his options. It's just him and the mysterious Tony Stark here, tucked away in Stark's ridiculous seaside mansion. Maybe Steve will go down to the beach and look at the waves under the moon...only, it's a new moon tonight and Steve's not sure he'd be able to to get back in after he leaves. He could always ask the house, but talking to Jarvis makes the hair on the back of his neck raise, because it's just so...wrong.

So that scratches that out.

He could turn on the television – Ms. Potts had shown him how, last time she was here, when he'd tentatively asked; he didn't dare ask Stark, due to his desire to avoid an hour long lecture on the mechanics of it – but that inspires the same reaction that Jarvis does. This new America seems to have almost nothing in common with the one he knows – knew.

He could draw, but—

A muted bang ripples through the mansion, originating down in the workshop that Stark won't let him near. Steve pauses for a split second, wavering, before his concern for his fellow man wins over Stark's assertion that his lab was off limits to anyone not on his pay roll. (Steve had wondered if being a member the Avengers counted as being employed by Stark, since Stark Industries funded almost half of the Avengers budget, but he had restrained himself. Barely.) Another bang rattles the glass, and Steve throws aside restraint and pounds down the stairs two at a time. The door at the bottom is, surprisingly, open, and Steve wonders if it's supposed to do that in emergencies, or if Stark left it open on purpose.

The shaking stops just as suddenly as it started, and Steve is left standing in the doorway, peering at the wreckage. There are tools and papers scatter across the floor, mixed in with shards of twisted metal and singed wires. Stark stands in the middle of it, sweat streaked and grinning. The glow from his gauntlets illuminates a small patch of floor around him. He doesn't seem at all concerned with the chaos that makes up his workshop.

“What are you doing?” Steve asks.

Stark looks up from examining something in front of him, blinking across the distance in surprise. “Oh, hey Cap. I didn't wake you, did I?” He didn't sound like he would care if he had. “Come look at this and tell me what you think.”

Steve steps into the workshop and makes his way through the rubble, avoiding doing more damage as best he could. When he gets to Stark's side, he follows the billionaire's gaze and—

His shield. Stark has his shield.

“Is that—” he starts to ask, but he's cut off by Stark's shaking head.

“No, it's just a replica. I've been trying to recreate the alloy that they used for the original, but without any of the old notes, I can't even begin to guess how they did it. This will have to do until we finish hunting for yours.”

“Stark, this is.... You're making this for me?”

“Well, you can't have Captain America with his shield, can you?” Stark smirks, but it looks wrong somehow, like he's mocking himself for some reason that Steve can't even begin to understand. “It won't be as good as the original, but it should hold up to everything short of an atomic bomb.” He frowns at the metal disk. “I think. I'm still running tests.”

“Is that what you were doing?” Steve asks, tearing his eyes away from his shield and looking at the wreckage around them.

“Yep,” Stark says absently. He's not looking at Steve, instead focusing on the gauntlets covering his hands. He holds one closer to his face, and the glow sends shadows chasing crazily across his cheekbones. “I want to see how well it held up against my repulser blasts.”

“And you're doing this in the basement of your home because...?” It looks like Stark had demolished most of what was in here.

“I was planning on upgrading everything anyway,” Stark shrugs carelessly. “I might as well do the demo work myself.”

“Stark—”

“Please, call me Tony. 'Stark' makes me want to see if my father is looming behind me.”

“Um,” Steve says. “Thank you. For this.”

“Don't mention it,” Star—Tony smiles. It's the first real expression Steve's seen on him, and it makes something in him spark at the thought. This is Tony Stark, exhausted, sweaty, and victorious, happily working on his latest project. It's miles away from the cold, distant man who had publicly welcomed him to the team on national television and offered him a place to stay. All without any hint of real warmth in his voice or his expression.

“So, um,” Steve searches for something to say. “Uh, how did you do it?”

Tony's eyes light up, and he launches into a highly technical explanation that Steve has no hope of following. Steve finds an overturned stool that isn't broken and rights it, taking a seat and watching Tony pace back and forth, his hands weaving through the air. He feels a smile of his own tug at his lips.

He has no idea what Tony is saying, but he's fine with that.

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Ah well. I tried, right?