steadfast_tin_soldiers

Steve is a contrast to Tony's buzzing energy. It's not that he's tired or even melancholy, just pensive. It makes him quiet, although he still smiles and responds to Tony's conversation, and he's focused enough on the here and now to insist they both eat. He actually has a beer with his dinner, which isn't his usual fare, but he drinks it with all the slow savor of a guy who is capable of getting drunk off it. He was that guy, once.

He's thinking about Peggy at first, reflecting that she's still alive here. He doesn't want to see her. Bucky coming back from the dead is enough. Besides, the shock of seeing him was a concern the first time around. Seeing two living Steves one after another would be bad for her condition. Still, she's here, and he's got a little money, and it would be a matter of a few minutes to buy her some flowers and send them anonymously. Roses, he thinks. Red and white? Or maybe the full spectrum of colors they have available. Rainbow roses. He'll do it tomorrow.

After that, though, he finds his brain wandering through winding memories of the war. Nothing particularly tragic, but details he hasn't thought about in a while. Stories he could probably share with Tony, if he wanted to hear them.

He doesn't especially want to sleep, but he can tell with the mood Tony's in, if he says he's staying up, neither of them will rest tonight. Besides, if they both lie down, cuddling is a possibility, and one he very much welcomes. Briefly he wonders if Tony likes flowers, and finds himself smiling at the idea of getting him red and yellow roses to match the suit. It's that grin that Tony gets the sight of when he comes to the bed and strokes through his hair. There's a certain undeniable charm to Steve's smile when he's pondering gentle mischief.

"You're good at sweet-talk, Tony," he tells him, reaching up to run his fingers up and down his forearm. "You wanna hear a secret? That wasn't the first time I've been around wrist restraints and riding crops."

Sitting back on his heels, Tony drops his hands from Steve’s head and shoulders onto his thighs. “I don’t think you understand how weak my heart is,” he says, frowning slightly, the creases in his face deep. He won’t go into it, not because it’s gruesome or triggering to talk about the car battery or the way his heart used to literally stop whenever he removed the reactor for replacement. He doesn’t want to mention the fact that Steve had broken the frail, birdlike bones of his much abused rib cage when he brought that shield down over his suit, only one reactor between it and his heart. He barely has a scar on his chest, thanks to modern medical technology, but he hasn’t come away unscathed. Having a sexual relationship with Steve has staved off his previous reactions to flinch from his touch and he really doesn’t want to start that all up again. It’s better to keep things simple. “You can’t just completely marr the idea of have of you in such a constant basis anymore.”

It’s not a genuine complaint. He enjoys hearing about Steve’s exploits, really. It makes him more human, rather than this paragon of virginal virtue.

Not that Steve is a virgin now. Tony is pretty proud of that. It’s in his top five accomplishments, for sure.

“What sort of Army did you used to march in? The golden era was a lot kinkier than anyone ever told us.”

"You said you didn't want me to hold anything back anymore," he reminds him, and his gaze scans his expression intently, making sure he's not actually disturbed by the confession. Blue eyes soften a moment later, satisfied Tony's only firing back his usual banter. "Anyway, I figured if you're gonna get off on the idea of me in nothing but the boots, we might as well address it."

He sits up a little, for the sole purpose of being able to reach Tony's shoulders and hair, petting him idly in return. "People have always been people, y'know. In the Victorian era, guys used to pay for women to beat them with sticks and belts. Humans just don't seem to know what do with sexual impulses in general, as far as I can tell. They get wrapped up with violence so damn easy."

"Remember what I told you about the USO girls? It wasn't as much about pleasure as finding an outlet. I think Des Moines was the only time until now it was about feeling good. And with you has been...the first time it was about...any kind of emotion."

Which sounds fucking tragic now that it's out of his mouth and Steve wishes he hadn't said anything. He looks annoyed with himself. If he and Bucky had ever gotten past their various hangups and horrors, he's sure they could have had something beautiful. But they didn't get a chance, and Steve and Peggy didn't get a chance, and neither did Steve and Sharon, Steve and Sam...he's lost a lot of time. He's lost a lot.

He shakes his head, jaw clenching briefly. "The point is, between battles, a guy needs something to keep him from dwelling on what he's just seen and worrying about what he's going to see on the front lines next time he's out there. You can have someone tie you to a chair and smack you around for an hour or so without feeling like you're cheating on the gal you're maybe in love with."

Or the guy sharing the barracks with you that you're maybe also in love with.

"It wasn't overtly sexual. Mind you, Peggy would probably still have been pissed off if she'd ever found out."

On the really bad days, he liked that idea. She shot at him behind the shield once, after all. Reflecting on what she might do to him in a state of righteous indignation, if he let her, used to be one of his favorite fantasies to unwind to. In retrospect, he's a bit ashamed of that.

"You're right, though. We were always a lot kinkier than the history books give us credit for. I used to help the prostitutes down the hall carry their groceries in, when we lived in the tenements. Ma said be nice to everyone, because you don't know what their story is. They gave us Christmas cards every year."

Which is the opposite of kinky, actually, but all he means to say is that he didn't grow up in some kind of Leave-it-to-Beaver bubble of wholesomeness (that was the 50s, anyway, not the 30s, and an unrealistic picture even at that rate). People fought in his neighborhood. People fucked, and drank, swore and stole and did hard drugs. People have always been people.

Tony has a good imagination, good enough that he can’t help but think about nights Captain America let himself be tied up and smacked around as a form of stress relief. Tony could understand it. There were all sorts of stories about rich or powerful men seeking out domination and Tony, while it was never quite his thing, wasn’t going to judge. He had been kidnapped and held hostage a few too many times actually for that to be enjoyable. Not even with pink furry cuffs and a feather duster in place of the kinkier objects.

He enjoys having his hair stroked. He enjoys Steve’s arms and his warmth. Tony likes to be pampered. He liked it when people genuinely care about him. He’s had enough of the fake stuff to be able to tell the difference. While there might be a side of him that likes being bruised a bit and to have his hair pulled, he doesn’t think he’d enjoy much else.

But that said? “If you really want to be smacked around a little, I can oblige,” Tony teases, though there is a definitive edge of truth to it. “I should really work on my left hook. Still my weakness.”

He’s serious too. It would take a lot to get Steve’s attention and there’s something appealing to being able to just let loose when the day’s been bad and your liver hurts too much to drink much more.

Steve doesn't have an issue with being toppy in bed. He can be dominant, but his version thereof seems to involve judicious use of his overwhelming strength and stamina, and his natural inclination to be warm and affectionate and nurturing. Sparring is one thing, and it's not like he's never hit a friend, but he'd have trouble slapping or binding someone in a sexual context, even though he knows damn well what he likes on the receiving end. Tony need not worry about Steve asking to strap him to a chair.

He also doesn't need to fret about Steve stopping the gentle fondling he's giving him anytime soon. If anything, his touch gets softer as they talk; more tender, but less shy, moving down his chest and back up his shoulders. "It wouldn't be the same with you," he says.

"Because it wouldn't just be about having an outlet. It would be about us, and that'd make it way more intense." There's a thrill creeping down his spine, light and dark impulses stirring in his brain.

"I trust you," he says, and means it, and that's the light side. It means something to him that Tony's able to listen to the more checkered bits of his past without judgment. Barely even a tease, in fact. He can't help but think it might be good for them both, for Steve to put himself in Tony's hands, prove he's ready to give him everything.

The flip side is they're pushing past their recent history quickly. What is and isn't truly resolved between them is hard to say. And it would be so easy for Steve to just throw himself down and take whatever Tony wanted to dish out as a kind of punishment for letting things go so badly wrong...That wouldn't be fair. Tony has his faults, the occasional fit of temper is one of them, but deliberate physical and psychological cruelty is not.

He adds after a moment, "But then, I never had sex with them. God, Tony. I can't lie, the idea of you locking me down and wearing me out and then pounding me into the mattress is...appealing." His hips shift a little under the blankets, trying to tame the reaction his body is starting to have to this kind of talk.

"If you'd like it, too."

Though it’s not getting any less shocking to hear Steve talk like this, there is likely few men alive that wouldn’t like to have the upper hand on a creature created to be the paragon of humanity. It’s hard not to feel the need to gloat, but he refrains for the moment. Now isn’t the time. Not when this relationship is becoming the sole binding factor to keep them on their path. Playing God Is something Tony has always done, but it’s more satisfying and productive to have a partner to keep him in check while they go.

Sort of. His lover has no idea what he’s truly capable of. Tony isn’t too proud of that, actually. He wanted Steve’s approval more than most everything else but saving the universe sort of trumps that.

“Hmmm,” Tony breaths, feeling comfortably weightless in the blond’s arms, “We’ll go full on Christian Gray when this fighting is done and we can take a little vacation.” He doesn’t know if Steve gets the reference or not, but it isn’t important. “It’ll give me some time to do some research in the meantime.”

Tony wasn’t beyond a little spice in the bedroom, though he’s really very vanilla when it comes to his own preferences. Blow jobs and some sort of penetrative sex are his preferred Modus Operandi, but let it not be said that he can’t master anything he sets his mind to.

Even the lovely, falsely innocent Captain America.

“I could ask the entire world if anyone thought you were kinky and every single man and woman would deny it to their dying breath,” he laughs. “If you ever wanted to know what to get s guy that has everything? Something like this is pretty good. It feels like Christmas cards from prostitutes in here.”

Though it’s not getting any less shocking to hear Steve talk like this, there is likely few men alive that wouldn’t like to have the upper hand on a creature created to be the paragon of humanity. It’s hard not to feel the need to gloat, but he refrains for the moment. Now isn’t the time. Not when this relationship is becoming the sole binding factor to keep them on their path. Playing God Is something Tony has always done, but it’s more satisfying and productive to have a partner to keep him in check while they go.

Sort of. His lover has no idea what he’s truly capable of. Tony isn’t too proud of that, actually. He wanted Steve’s approval more than most everything else but saving the universe sort of trumps that.

“Hmmm,” Tony breaths, feeling comfortably weightless in the blond’s arms, “We’ll go full on Christian Gray when this fighting is done and we can take a little vacation.” He doesn’t know if Steve gets the reference or not, but it isn’t important. “It’ll give me some time to do some research in the meantime.”

Tony wasn’t beyond a little spice in the bedroom, though he’s really very vanilla when it comes to his own preferences. Blow jobs and some sort of penetrative sex are his preferred Modus Operandi, but let it not be said that he can’t master anything he sets his mind to.

Even the lovely, falsely innocent Captain America.

“I could ask the entire world if anyone thought you were kinky and every single man and woman would deny it to their dying breath,” he laughs. “If you ever wanted to know what to get s guy that has everything? Something like this is pretty good. It feels like Christmas cards from prostitutes in here.”

Steve is weirdly detached from the idea of himself as the pinnacle of human performance, even more so now than during the war. As much as he considers the serum and its effects a serious responsibility, he's pretty wrapped up in the idea that there's too much variation in humanity to select a few traits and pump them up and call that perfect. That's what Schmidt wanted, he supposes. Maybe that's what Erskine wanted at first, but Steve still clings to the idea that the serum magnifies whatever is in the person that takes it. Good becomes great. But he has to maintain the good, because it's a long way to fall, if he falls, and there's a red skull grinning at the bottom of the slope, mocking.

And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Just a kid from Brooklyn.

He's heard plenty about how beautiful and perfect he is, and the less said there, the better as far as he's concerned. Except from Tony, perhaps, if he's going to flirt.

He does not, in fact, get the reference, and the quizzical rise and fall of his eyebrows says so, but like Tony he concludes it isn't important. He gets the context. "The idea of you researching kink for me is weirdly touching," he says. "Engineering sex toys in your workshop in the wee hours of the morning..."

His eyes are sparkling. For an awkward confession, this is turning out all right. "Nothing with its own AI, okay? I don't want a sci-fi threesome. You're plenty to handle all on your own."

He tugs him into a kiss, then uses that as a starting point to nuzzle across his cheekbone and around to the side of his throat. "That can be the title of your memoir," he says. "'Christmas Cards from Prostitutes: My Life with Deaf Artist Drag-Queen Captain America.' By Tony Stark."

“I hope they make it into a musical,” Tony breathes, not entirely yielding to Steve as much as opening up to him. It’s a new relationship, he knows that, and sex is important to New romantic relationships. Tony isn’t opposed to it, though there are other things to focus on right now. He can’t believe he’s even thinking that, as his fingers lightly press to Steve’s shoulder. It’s the universal ‘woah boy’ gesture used by people everywhere. After they save the world, Tony can and will give Steve everything he can before Steve becomes invariably disenchanted or annoyed with him. Tony’s passions don’t waiver but his distractions, often seen as a charming part of his genius, eventually become insurmountable.

Even though he’s forced Steve to love him, to be in love with him, he knows it can’t be forever. Fatalistic as that may be, it was one of Tony’s less endearing but persuasive characteristics. Thanks dad.

“We should go over it again.” Tony, usually so impulsive, doesn’t want to take the chance on the timeline. He doesn’t like to restart levels from the save point. There might not even be a save point, because he has no way of testing their time machine without actually using it. They need to make this shot count because it could well be their only shot. “Before I really do stay up until dawn designing sex toys.”

At this point, there’s a day and a half until Loki arrives. Tomorrow will have to count.

Sex is important to new relationships, and useful as a way to reduce stress and soothe tattered nerves. Steve is basically never going to turn down the opportunity, and may end up seeking it out more aggressively than Tony has bargained for, but he does respond to the press to his shoulder, making a muffled little 'mmph' of acknowledgement against his neck. He settles back again, then, caresses going back to something lazier and more platonic, and as long as he can be touched and be close, he's not going to complain about being put off.

Besides, it's unusual for Tony to be the more businesslike of the two of them, and that reminds Steve how much is at stake here. His expression sobers visibly, but there's a warmth that lingers in his eyes, and he seeks out Tony's hand with his, twining their fingers together loosely. "Sure thing," he says.

"Loki's going to touch down just before nine in the evening. We have to be there to follow Barton and Selvig, and there's no way to prevent the first couple casualties or the facility self-destructing...honestly, I'm not sure we should even try. I think we need to stay focused on tailing Loki." And if that conclusion sounds unlike Steve, that's because it is. He's thinking that there's a better-than-zero chance some of those first casualties were loyal to HYDRA and would have to be faced down later if they live, in any case.

"Once they establish their base, Selvig will be left to work on the Tesseract, and Loki and Barton will head for Stuttgart after iridium to stabilize the portal. The question is do we want to face off with Barton right after he gets to the iridium, or wait until he's back in the states? He'd be alone in Germany right after our younger versions grab Loki, which would make it easier to get to him, but then we would have to make sure the iridium gets to Selvig."

“it’s an easy plant,” Tony says, oddly comfortable with this unconventional pillow talk. He’s always liked discussing shop, and while that usually was more boring with Pepper and her contracts and her quotas, this made sense to him. This is exciting. Tony’s got a head full of calculations and Steve can be and has been the blackboard to write them down on. He loves that.

“Statistically, we want Barton on our side earlier rather than later,” he says. “It will help us the most to get another person on the look out for the stones. I can handle the iridium.” Tony’s head turns away from Steve, though his eyes stay trained on the blond’s profile. “You and I are both susceptible to the scepter like this. It’s going to make tailing Loki hard. We should probably just be waiting in Germany.”

It actually means more death, but they can’t just save everyone. Fixing the past requires some casualties be allowed to happen as is.

“If we just act like mindless drones, no one will know the difference. Especially if we take out Barton quickly. He was giving the directions after Loki was captured, right?” Tony hadn’t been paying too much attention. He’d been trying to save the world.

Does it count as preventable death, Steve wonders, if they're talking about casualties they were never in place to be involved with before? Time travel opens up entirely new ethical issues. Loss of life can't be the sole determining factor; if it were, they'd be better off trying to evacuate low lying areas of the Phillippines in preparation for upcoming typhoons.

Steve doesn't like making this call. He's sure his younger self would be horrified by it, and rightly so, but it is to some degree the province of a soldier and commander to be able to run a triage operation. If a man is too badly wounded to be saved, you move on to one that can be salvaged. He meant what he said to himself before. Academically he's always known and understood this principle, he's just damn lucky he never had to put it in practice until now.

"I think you and I were always susceptible to the scepter," he says dryly. "Maybe more so than some others. Yeah, you're right, let's wait in Stuttgart. Safest option."

"Yes, Barton was Loki's commander for a short while there. Unwillingly." And they can't afford to underestimate him. Steve rubs his jaw pensively. "I think we need to grab him right after he gets out with the iridium. He'd said in the debriefing he didn't linger, since Loki had given him orders to let him be captured. Clint is bound to have a solid exit strategy. I think we better meet him right at the warehouse. Any chance you can get a floor plan of the place and a map of the surrounding area? We can't interfere with Barton's infiltrating the place, but we want to be close enough that we can spot the right moment to move in."

“You know I can,” he grinned, though it would be FRIDAY doing the heavy lifting from the database they’d brought through from the future. Though Tony might be able to appreciate the difficulty level these decisions might be for Steve, and as far as he’d come with trying to see more than just himself, he wasn’t thinking of the way the blond might feel at the end of this. It was not something either took lightly, the deaths of others, but Tony might be able to compartmentalize it more. Likely because he had so many under his belt, more likely because he lived his own guilt, under the surface.

“Few hours of sleep and then we’ll pick up the suits and go.” It wasn’t like they could just borrow Stark’s jet and Tony didn’t ride commerical. There were just some things he had to put his foot down about.

Tony turned to that his front was against Steve’s side and nudged him over. He knew the blond was a cuddler, even if he himself was not, though luckily holding Steve wasn’t a bad way to spend the moments between wake and sleep.

Getting to Germany was fine. Waiting for Loki to arrive there as well happened to be a little nerve wracking, especially since neither man knew if it would go according to plan. And, technically, it didn’t. Stark and Rogers would go completely off script the moment they took to the air in the quinjet. And how could they not?

“See and good doubles lately?” Tony asked, half ignoring a smirking Loki held captive in the hold as he regarded Steve Rogers, living legend, future romantic interest.

Steve does not actually sleep overnight. He lies still, feeling the closeness and warmth of the body beside his, and finds some peace in just that, even if his brain insists on quietly going over potential scenarios and pitfalls they might encounter in the next couple days. He can't anticipate everything. Even he and Tony, between the two of them, can't anticipate everything. They'll have to improvise at some point, and possibly have to pray.

Of all the things they might have anticipated, though, the ones they should have considered first and foremost are the fact that their younger selves are both loose cannons.

Rogers-the-younger has been told in no uncertain terms that he is not to discuss his mission with Tony. He doesn't consider himself under orders, per se, but knowing what's at stake here, he feels an obligation to follow the plan laid out by his older self and the older Tony inasmuch as he can. Of course, they didn't bother to warn him that they were going to visit the younger Tony, too (because at the time they didn't know), so he's caught off guard when he speaks to him on the plane.

His eyebrows go up, and he glances at Loki briefly before turning a skeptical little frown on Stark. "What, like a tennis match? I only follow baseball."

Oh, they're going to need to talk this over, for sure. But maybe not in front of the others. Especially Loki.

Clever. Tony is immediately amused, which is a far different take than he’d had the first time around. This guy is unintentionally charming and his whit is perfect and precise. Tony’s always enjoyed a good match, more tennis jokes there, but Steve is on another level. No wonder they’re together later in life. Tony can already feel the attraction to go with the appeal and he has no hang ups on being with other men. He’d gone through a whole stint in his early thirties solely sleeping with men.

Steve doesn’t get a side eye, he gets a smile. “Baseball is a sport that doesn’t get you anywhere. You just run in a circle. Not to yuck your yum,” he adds, a sweet demure to the insult he has a feeling Steve won’t take personally anyway, even if Tony meant for it to be. He feels no open hostility towards the taller man, nothing that he felt in the first few minutes of meeting the other one.

He can’t help but look him over too, something Loki doesn’t miss at all.

“But you’re the spitting image of this guy that I had pizza with two nights ago. Remind me to take to this place I know in Brooklyn when we have some—“

He’s interrupted by a crack of thunder and turns to ask Loki if he’s afraid of it. What happens next takes them all by surprise, though meeting the God of Thunder does very little to stop Tony’s brain from working overtime on Steve Rogers. They have a conversation to finish, hopefully over pizza, because Tony has a whole lot of news to tell him.

Loki is fascinated. You would think these two alpha males would be posturing and growling, but instead they're sniffing one another, tails cautiously wagging. Between the two, they embody some of the more irritating aspects of his beloved older brother: the blond and muscular do-gooder, the charming and absurdly popular princeling. He'd like to see them at one another's throats, ideally, but if they continue to click like this, another distraction may be in order.

This could be fun yet. He'll be sifting the overheard conversation for nuance for the next several minutes, searching for bits and pieces he can use.

Meanwhile, Steve's opinion on Tony Stark is still forming, but 'big mouth, flash bastard, pretty smile' is a better start than 'I could have finished that fight just fine on my own, you patronizing jackass'. He's not aware how much more intel he has than Stark, not aware that Stark might not even know there's an older him running around, but he knows he's going to have to be careful what he says to him.

At the same time, the affection between their older versions was...compelling to watch. If Steve's honest with himself, on a purely physical level, sure, he'd tap that. But intimacy is more of a draw than pleasure. Trust is more of a draw. He's going to need time to decide if he's got that in him, but...

God, does he need someone he can trust. Badly.

"Sports in general don't get you anywhere," he says. "I think they just exist so people can look heroic without killing anyone."

Yeah, he thinks of baseball as a gentler substitute for war. In that sense, it's dumb, but maybe necessary to curb humanity's more violent impulses. But pizza is a better topic and gets his attention at once, because he remembers the last few seconds of chatter between the older Stark and his older self. Is that Tony's subtle way of telling him something? Because it's not actually that subtle.

God only knows what he would have said had the thunder not interrupted.

As it is, the fight with Thor is a frightening cut above any hand-to-hand combat Steve has participated in as of yet. The blow to his shield feels like it ought to have shattered every bone in his body, serum or not, if the disc wasn't made of Vibranium. And Tony just flew right out to face this lunacy alone?

He's quiet on the jet but when they land on the helicarrier, he grabs Stark's elbow as they disembark, the strength of his tug swiveling his body toward him for long enough for Steve to lean in and murmur, "You're reckless. I need you not to get yourself killed. You're supposed to be around for at least another decade."

Tony’s eyes drift from Steve’s face towards the hand on his arm where it lingers until Steve’s head drifts down towards him. He’s not at all stunned by it, but his usual attempt to keep anyone or anything from touching him hasn’t quite kicked in just yet. He’s both startled and intrigued. Steve’s voice is deeper than his own, despite their age difference, and he’s wearing an aftershave that smells a little like something his mom’s dad used to apply liberally to his cheeks, but it works for him. Tony’s eyes return to the curve of that jaw, softer from this angle. “If I’m still supposed to be around in ten years, that gives me a decade long get out of jail free card,” he chirps, not pulling his elbow from Steve’s grip, even if it’s a little too tight for comfort. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to deny you the privilege of knowing me,” he grins, and only then heads towards the hellicarier. He has some things to do, like finish developing a program to plug into the mainframe to figure out what the hell is going on…and maybe to help him decrypt a few files JARVIS pulled up that obviously have something a shadow stamp to them.

Is it HYDRA? He’s not sure. He’s not sure he wants to be sure either. He does, however, know that there’s supposed to be someone interesting meeting him here. Maybe not his future partner in crime, but Bruce Banner is a little more interesting than his dad’s gift to humanity. For the moment. At least until they can get some pizza.

“See you around, Capsicle,” he calls to Steve anyway, pretty sure the blond is watching him go.

Steve remains a little bit nettled, but he lets Tony get away without protest, snorting quietly at the nickname. Yeah, he can see where there's a natural personality conflict here, but abrasive does not necessarily equal bad friend or bad person. He wants to know more. He needs to know more. In the meantime, though, there are other concerns, and as soon as the debriefing is over, as soon as he's watched Director Fury's little chat with Loki over the monitors, he begins moving around to get a clear idea of the layout of the helicarrier.

The SHIELD agents are almost universally deferential to him. It's a little strange. They won't just tell him anything he asks. Some things are classified. But general information about the vehicle is easy to collect, and it isn't long before he has a schematic in his head. He has time until the invasion, and his task is to get Loki off the flight, with the scepter, without casualties. Selecting a clear path (or two, or three) he might escape by is simple groundwork. Making them appealing to a fleeing demigod (there is only one God, but evidently the universe is crawling with the little-g type after all) is a taller order. You can't just lay out breadcrumbs.

The simplest thing, he supposes, is for him to lead or chase Loki off the helicarrier himself. Which means he'll have to throw a fight, something he's never done in his life. It's distasteful.

In the process of exploring, he makes his way down to one of the multiple cargo bays in the place. The keypad to open the doors might as well be in Greek, but the doors themselves are comparatively weak metal, and shoving the edge of his shield in the gap isn't hard. A little pushing and prying and they pop open, which is good to know for future reference, and once inside the room he can see...crates. Some kind of body armor. Weapons. Lots of them.

Jesus Christ. He opens one of the boxes, then another, and his heart freezes in his chest, because the designs he's looking at are not that far off from what Zola made, to make use of the energy from the Cube. He can even see what must be some kind of power cell in some of them, quiescent and uncharged for the moment, but even at that rate tinted a familiar chilly blue.

He wants to slam the lids of the crates down hard enough to shatter them, hard enough to break holes in the hull of the airship. He takes several deep, calming breaths, heart thawing and then beginning to hammer violently against his ribs. When he turns and heads back up the hall, he's seeing a red mist around the corners of his eyes. Funny, he thought 'seeing red' was just a turn of phrase.

Never in his life has he felt so utterly betrayed and alone. His older self did say he had more to tell him, but destroying the cube came first. He's starting to get an idea why. The idea of a half-dozen stones of power struck him as plausible before, if strangely childish, but the reality of humans constructing weaponry using energies beyond their comprehension is all too familiar. History repeating.

And there's only one person in the whole goddamn place he can maybe-safely discuss it with. Someone he's not supposed to be blabbing to, but--fuck it. He needs Tony Stark.

Tony is having his fun, bugging where he can, poking around the places he can’t skip JARVIS into one of the interestingly decentralized systems, and generally being a nuisance. It’s empowering, and though he’s almost always this smug in general, today just feels special. He can’t get away with blending in and being ignored the way that Steve can. Everyone is interested in him strutting around, except, perhaps, for Bruce Banner. The guy is on board, he knows it, and he really wants to go and talk to him before everyone else figures out that the guy that destroyed Harlem all on his own is hanging out in a floating metal balloon.

Plus, he also wants to confirm some of what the Steve from the future said. He’s not going to take the guy at his word when so much is on the lone and they have some Norse god standing menacingly in the middle of Banner’s home away from home.

He doesn’t expect to just bump into Steve rounding the corner, but there he is, looking like he’s about to stamp his foot and charge. Tony is immediately on the defensive, not sure if he can outrun a charging super soldier and get his armor. He’s thinking not.

At least he’ll die looking at something beautiful? It’s not really a lot of comfort, and his eyes narrow slightly, pupils dilating.

“Whatever someone said about me is probably true but I can explain.”

Is it lucky they've run into one another so easily, or a disaster? Time will tell. In any case, Steve's pace slows slightly when he sees Tony, his eyes flick over his face, and his mouth opens and closes again. The red haze fades a little, but only a little. This Steve Rogers is younger than the one Tony has met. He's got less of a hand on his emotional volume controls. He's angry, rather than sad; confident, rather than guilt-ridden. He's still the same guy, for all that, but the older Steve would not sweep forward the way this one does, and more or less manhandle Tony into the nearest room with strength that seems like more than enough to embed him in the wall.

The room they end up in is, amusingly enough, a restroom. Unisex, ADA-compliant, very tidy, but probably not to Tony's liking nonetheless. "We need to talk," Steve tells him in a low, urgent voice. "I need to know what they told you."

Okay, he probably needs to offer a carrot as well as a stick. After half a second's thought, he adds, "I've just been in the cargo hold. There's weaponry down there that's obviously designed to make use of the Tesseract."

Though Tony is not as bad as he used to be with sudden touching, he likes to do it in his own terms. This is time number two that Steve has just broken into his personal space and steered him around. The first time had been brief, but this time, Tony can just about keep up as he’s more or less dragged into the bathroom. At least Steve doesn’t just press him against the wall, but his mind has already gone to that conclusion and he’s cringed at the mere thought until his brain shuts off long enough for blood to flow in the opposite direction.

He’d thought about maybe getting Steve out of his system, because just knowing a potential future version of themselves, while not guaranteeing a relationship repeat, has put the idea into Tony’s head. A quicky is a good idea... but oh no, not here!

“Wait, wait, there are better places to do this,” Tony frets, incorrectly reading Rogers’ intent, until the conversation catches up with the blood flow issue. “Hang on— They? They who? Did you meet another me? Damn it, I was played. Why? Oh, stupid question,” Tony fills in for himself, frowning up at Steve and telling Lil Stark to stop getting his hopes up. “What did they tell you and I’ll fill in the blanks?”

He really hopes Steve doesn’t know about the boot fetish.

Steve is utterly focused on duty right now, and it's probably fortunate for Tony that he is. Not that he's entirely above a quickie in the bathroom--or backstage at a USO show--but it's not on his radar right now, and he misses the implication when Tony stammers out that there are better places for this. Later on, if they survive this, he may remember this moment with his usual eidetic clarity, guess at what was going on in the other man's head, and blush for days.

Right now, he's just let some vital intel slip and he's cursing himself. But there's no covering it up. "You oughtta ask yourself why an older you wouldn't trust you," he sighs, tension easing a little. His hands are still on Tony's shoulders, but he manages to slowly get himself to let go, hoping he hasn't left bruises.

"He told me you'd do something stupid to try and save us, if you have all the info. I'm not convinced he was wrong, there. But what neither of them told me is why SHIELD would be using the Cube as an energy source to power their weaponry."

He folds his arms across his chest, eyeing Tony uncertainly. "What I know is that the Tesseract and the scepter both need to be destroyed, but not until the time is right. According to them. And I don't like it, but their argument made sense."

“You didn’t trust me,” Tony says, not quite snapping, but he can’t do more than duck away from Steve once he’s let go and he hovers near the sink, a scant three feet away from the other man. Talking this close, without the ability to stroll around and move his arms, alarms him, fundamentally. He can’t and won’t say that out loud, however. “You came to my house and said you were alone and that I couldn’t trust SHIELD because a lot of them are actually HYDRA.”

Judging by the look on Steve’s face, that’s new information. It makes Tony relax, almost.

“They gave us different information,” he concludes, “pieces of a puzzle. I guess they didn’t expect us to talk to each other.” That means that they had spoken to each other in the pasts of the other two. They’re working on a new timeline, not a looped paradox like Tony had initially assumed. Steve’s not here because it had happened before. He’s here because something really bad is going to happen to them all and this is the best point of convergence.

That thought is sobering.

“They didn’t trust you about HYDRA. And they didn’t trust me about destroying Loki’s scepter and the Tesseract. Something smells bad and it’s not the bathroom.”

"They tracked me down at church," he says dryly, recalls in retrospect that the older Tony wasn't entirely on board with showing himself to Steve either, and wonders what that means.

Bucky used to say you can't trust a man that won't look you in the eye.

The look on his face wavers from bitter rage to complete devastation at the mention of HYDRA. It rings true, based on what he's just seen. Too true. And it means he failed, laid everything on the line and lost it all...for what? He takes a couple steps away from Tony and leans against the wall, chest rising and falling rapidly. Feels like an asthma attack. He knows it's not. Can't be; he's trapped in a body that doesn't have asthma.

He holds up a hand in the hopes of forestalling Tony's commentary for a moment, then runs his fingers through his hair, closing his eyes, taking a couple breaths, and allowing the memory of ice to flee his veins. It's a long moment, but when he speaks again, his voice is even.

"What they told me, is that the Cube and the Sceptre are two of a set of six objects with immense power. Sometime in the future, someone named Thanos--someone not human, I gather--collects all six and destroys half the life in the universe. Which sounds insane, compared to what's staring us in the face, but..."

But. "What would a guy like Loki be doing here if not chasing power like that?"

It’s unnerving to watch Steve have a momentary panic attack. Tony knows all about them. Sometimes he still gets them when he’s trapped in the dark or if he gets too hot while he’s working. Afghanistan had not been filled with torture, but if his periodic dreams that he’s still attached to a car battery is any indication, it did more than find the heroic streak inside of him. Tony’s always been a philanthropist, that much is true, but there’s a difference between throwing money around and physically standing up to injustice.

He doesn’t say a word to Steve until the blond can talk again himself, his face set and eyes filled with a fire all their own.

“I’m used to people not telling me the whole truth. And I’m used to finding out what that truth is anyway,” he says, not quite trying to be kind to Steve, but certainly with an air of comfort to his voice that he doesn’t always have. “The guy that can answer our questions is just downstairs, taunting everyone with that weird Grinchy grin of his. I think it’s time we pay him a visit.”

And he would really like to get out of this bathroom.

If Loki won’t give up the goods, Tony has already started the process on gathering information about the goings on with SHIELD. He’s pretty sure he can have JARVIS compile the information they need.

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