Chapter Text
Stevie had nightmares later; lots of nightmares. But the first thing she remembered was thinking it was a dream, reliving a ball game she'd gone to with Bucky in a broadcast echo. She'd opened her eyes with the feeling that she wasn't where she was supposed to be. There was light everywhere.
She remembered being very cold.
Stevie couldn't shake the nightmares. The night after the Battle of New York, she had fallen into a deep, exhausted sleep in one of Antonia Stark's guest rooms. Stevie wasn't wholly sanguine about Tony's hospitality, but it was better than surrendering herself to SHIELD's. Stevie had a number of things to discuss with SHIELD, starting with the launching of atomic bombs at American cities.
When Stevie poked her head out of the guest room—suite, really—after her shower the next morning, she was surprised to find a foot locker covered in plaster dust. After a startled moment, she recognised it as the one SHIELD had issued her. It didn't have much besides workout clothes and reproduction skirts and blouses like the ones she'd woken up dressed in, but at least she had clean underwear. Stevie hadn't been looking forward to putting the grimy sweat- and blood-stained costume back on.
Stevie had been on the verge of upgrading her assessment of Tony's foresight and consideration of others until she met Virgil Potts. Potts was a dapper man with red-blond hair and an impeccably groomed goatee. Stevie thought the goatee was to make him look older. Potts wore suits of a different style but with the same hand-tailored look as Senator Brandt's or Howard Stark's, whereas Stevie had yet to see Howard's granddaughter in anything but a t-shirt and denim jeans. Or, to be fair, a fantastic flying machine. No one had really explained to Stevie what his job was: Potts' main function seemed to be making things work, from the (admittedly over-complicated) coffee machine to business deals.
Stark Tower hadn't suffered nearly as much damage as it could have. Most of it was still intact, although Tony had started knocking holes in a number of walls for no apparent reason. Stevie didn't really ask her why, because most of their conversations still ended in shouting matches; but when they came in off their long, draining shifts with the search and rescue crews, she helped Tony knock down walls and move girders and clear debris. It was something to do to purge the angry, heartsick feeling clogging her throat enough to get her head down.
When Stevie still couldn't sleep, she went to the gym. The tower had its own gym. Why not? Tony's computer, JARVIS, had directed her there the first time she woke up in a cold sweat and assured her that no, Tony wouldn't mind, she'd given Stevie almost unrestricted run of the tower. Nice of her to tell me.
The gym took up an entire floor when you included the pool. It was as sleek and futuristic-looking as the rest of the tower, nothing like the eerily empty and carefully worn gym in the SHIELD facility where she'd never seen anyone except Nicole Fury.
Stevie attacked the heavy bag with single-minded focus, trying to block out the lingering vividness of the nightmare that had woken her tonight. She was back in Brooklyn and there had been a car accelerating down the street, Peggy planted squarely in its path. Stevie ran towards her, but her feet wouldn't move. She tried to shout a warning, but Peggy didn't hear her. She didn't turn her head. There wasn't a flinch, not a flicker on her face; it was like watching it on a movie screen. Peggy's eyes narrowed, and Stevie felt the shot instead of hearing it. There was a smear of light and colour as two tons of metal screamed over a hundred twenty pounds of woman. Stevie jerked awake.
The problem with taking out her frustrations on the bag was that it went sailing across the room. Stevie felt even more awkward about destroying Tony's property than SHIELD's.
"Drat it."
"If I may, Captain Rogers, this physical exertion does not seem to be reducing your stress levels," JARVIS observed.
Stevie jumped. She was still not entirely used to JARVIS, but he was being awfully nice about her busting up the place. So much for trying to be careful. Stevie made a sound that had little in common with a laugh.
"You noticed."
"Would you like to talk?"
"I—"
"Doctor Banner is currently in the main kitchen."
"Didn't think he'd be up this late." Stevie was surprised.
"This early, I'm afraid. The time is five-oh-seven a.m."
Stevie stared intently at her hands while she unwrapped them. "And Miss Stark?"
"Mister Potts persuaded Ms Stark to retire approximately three hours ago. I would not expect her to emerge until late morning," JARVIS said in an exceptionally unreadable tone.
"Persuaded? No, wait, I don't think I want to know," Stevie decided, looking at the re-rolled wraps she was holding without really seeing them. S&R had told them last night that they'd passed the survival window for anyone still trapped, and Tony's fancy scanning devices could detect no more heat signatures under the rubble.
"Very good. Do you require anything else, Captain Rogers?"
Stevie shook her head. "No, thank you, JARVIS."
Stevie wasn't sure she wanted to talk, but she didn't want to break anything else of Tony's either, not when she was being generous enough to share her home with total strangers. Or, nearly total strangers. She was Howard Stark's granddaughter, after all.
Stevie's feet led her to the kitchen; sure enough, there was Doctor Banner. He was head-down, rummaging through the lower cabinets and assembling an array of ingredients and cooking utensils.
There was no door, but Stevie knocked softly on the frame to announce her presence. It wasn't polite to sneak up on someone at this hour of the morning even if he never turned into the Hulk.
"Oh, hey," Banner said when he looked up and caught sight of her. He looked nearly as haggard as Stevie felt; but then, he'd spent the past several days providing emergency medical aid, while Stevie crawled through ruined buildings and Tony in the Iron Woman armour helped direct searches and stabilise debris. "Good morning."
"It is," Stevie agreed, coming closer and turning on the tap to fill up the kettle, "good that it's morning."
Banner hmmed, replacing one pan and selecting a larger one. "Breakfast?"
"Sure, thanks." Stevie set the kettle on the stove and turned on the burner. "Want a hand?"
"Just if you were going to brew some tea?"
"Sure." Stevie nodded and reached up to take a tin down, then teapot, cups, saucers, plates, and utensils, setting them on the the kitchen table. Then she leaned back against the counter and watched Banner slowly turn a pile of raw ingredients into something that smelled delicious.
"You're better at this than I ever was," she admitted, spooning tea into the strainer.
Banner smiled a soft, small smile. It reminded her of Bucky's during the war, a little. "I was a fugitive for almost seven years. I spent a lot of time in odd places. You learn to try new things, how to use whatever you have. Some of the best meals I've ever eaten we ate with our hands, sitting on bare dirt, you know?"
"I understand that's much more acceptable now." Stevie shook her head, turning off the burner before the water got too hot and pouring it into the teapot, over the leaves. "My mother would've rapped my knuckles with the ladle."
"I think Tony eats exclusively with her fingers," Banner agreed, and Stevie flashed him a smile, relieved that her foray into humour had been well-received.
"Seven years," Stevie mused. It had only been two weeks since the Battle of New York, and those two weeks had felt more vivid than the whole month before, cosseted by anxious SHIELD personnel. More vivid, but not necessarily more pleasant. "Does it ever just—blur together for you?"
"How do you mean?" Banner asked.
"War on American soil was always the nightmare. That something would get across." Stevie swallowed. "That was why I brought the, the plane down. For me, that was a month ago, you know? And now there's been fighting on the streets of Manhattan. It's hard to believe it was ever really over." Hard to believe it's over now.
"Is that why you're having trouble sleeping?"
"Maybe." Stevie didn't intend it as an evasion, although she still wasn't sure she wanted to talk about it. She wasn't sure what she wanted, but if she kept on like this, she was going to go nuts.
"Over, over is hard," Banner said. "I don't know that it will ever be over, for me. But then, I'm not fighting a war against anyone."
"Really?" Stevie had read the reports.
"Not anymore."
Stevie poured the tea before it had a chance to over-steep, placing one cup at Banner's elbow. He picked it up and took an experimental sip.
"You seem to know your way around a tea pot, at least," he complimented her.
Stevie shrugged. "We were mostly based in England. They all took tea very seriously, even when they couldn't get much of the real thing. In fact, I think it made them grouse about it more." She ran a finger around the rim of her cup, inhaled the mild, warm scent. "Peggy made sure I knew how do it properly."
That had been a good day. Stevie had provided the tea; Peggy had showed her what to do with it. It hurt to think of Peggy. All Stevie knew was that she'd died three years ago. Of all the people she'd been closest to, it seemed that only Dernier was still alive, and he was in France.
"Oh," Banner said, and then clamped his mouth shut. Then, in an almost apologetic tone, "There's someone I've kept waiting, too."
Stevie looked up at him sharply, but Banner's attention was once more focussed on the simmering pan in front of him. "What—"
It took her a moment to register the moisture at the corner of his eye. Stevie snapped her mouth shut and retreated. This kitchen was not as big as the penthouse one that gave onto the battle-scarred lounge, the floor-to-ceiling windows only on one side and the way the dozen or so appliances crowded together no doubt classifying it as a shabby back room by Tony Stark's standards, but it ought to have been big enough for the two of them. Stevie was starting to feel claustrophobic again, perpetually confused, hemmed in by the volume of things she didn't know anymore. She'd tried going outside on her own once, but the weight of strangeness had been almost as oppressive.
Banner poured more tea into the cup she was still holding. He was sitting down. Stevie blinked. Then she sat down too, feeling awkward and foolish on top of everything.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—was I wrong?"
Stevie exhaled deeply. "No."
Banner looked across at her, squinting thoughtfully. "You get a sense for it, when you see it enough. It's not illegal anymore, you know, even in the military."
Feeling shaken at how easily this man she barely even knew had seen through her, Stevie picked up her fork mechanically and tucked in. Banner, after a moment's pause, followed suit.
Stevie didn't really give the food the attention it deserved. It was nothing she'd had before, savoury and redolent with unfamiliar seasoning. The word waiting bounced around in her head, ricocheting off all the other mental shrapnel in there.
By the time they finished, Banner was groaning, and no wonder. He had doubled his recipe when she walked in, and between the two of them, they had accounted for all of it. Stevie was surprised to note that with her insomniac, post-exertion, super-soldier appetite she hadn't scarfed the lion's share. Banner was such a little guy. Most of the time.
"Still catching up," he volunteered, confirming Stevie's suspicions. The tea came out almost dark when he poured the last of it into his cup. "This is the most the Other Guy's been around for awhile."
Stevie sat back, digesting. "Lucky. I eat like this all the time."
"That must have been difficult during rationing."
That managed to drag a genuine smile out of her. "My stomach growling actually blew our cover on a recon mission once. Guys still won't let me live it...down..." Stevie trailed off.
Banner glanced around. "I'm surprised our hostess hasn't made an appearance. Wherever two are gathered, after all."
Stevie bit her lip. "JARVIS told me she sacked out around two."
"Oh, so that's what Potts wanted the sedative for," Banner said, looking enlightened.
Stevie was shocked. "He wouldn't actually—you have sedatives?"
"Well, I have the lab. I already had what I needed to whip up a mild sedative."
Evidently Stevie's confusion showed on her face, because Banner explained.
"Tony's offered me space here in the tower and a contract with Stark Industries. Which she's promised me means she'll keep everyone off my back."
Banner's smile was a little wistful, and Stevie heard the we'll see hanging in the air. He was taking a risk, but Stevie thought about whomever it was who was maybe waiting for him even after so long and thought she understood. Sometimes, you had to take the chance.
"So. What're these renovations supposed to be?" Stevie asked Tony the next time she saw her, which wasn't until that evening.
Stevie stepped around the Loki-sized holes in the lounge's floor, making her way over to where Tony was holding a half-eaten slice of cold pizza in one hand and manipulating a holographic blueprint of the tower with the other. She was bopping along a little to the throbbing cloud of noise that emanated from her speakers. Stevie was surprised the remaining glass didn't shatter.
"What was that, Capsicle?"
Stevie raised her voice. "Bruce told me you gave him an apartment."
"Bruce, is it?" Tony's dark, wicked eyes flicked over at her. "It's a whole floor, actually, but it isn't ready yet. I was actually going to ask you if there was anything you wanted on yours."
Tony spun a section of the projection off and flipped it over so Stevie could see. Stevie peered at it. It was a floor plan.
"You assume I'm going to stay."
Tony blinked up at her like she'd just suggested they power the building using a gerbil in a wheel. "What, you going back to SHIELD's fond embrace? I can give you southern or western exposure for the studio."
Stevie crossed her arms. "I have some money. Sixty-seven years of interest. Will you please turn that down?"
The noise stopped.
"Did I tell you to do that?" Tony asked what in any other structure would have been empty air. JARVIS said nothing. Tony sighed. "Traitor. You're what? Going to find an apartment on craigslist and split the rent with some starving grad student while having improbable sitcom adventures and concealing your secret identity?"
Stevie peered more closely at the insubstantial image floating in the air in front of her. "Is that the bedroom?"
"Hm? Yeah, why? Not big enough for you?"
Stevie just shook her head. "It's—fine."
"You're allowed to wear jeans, you know."
Stevie looked at Tony's jeans. They were faded and thin, so tight you could see her thigh muscles moving through them even without the gaping holes, and they sat at least four inches too low around her waist. They were also a lot more shaped than Stevie was used to, obviously designed with a woman in mind.
"People pay a lot of money for jeans this beat-up looking," Tony protested her disbelieving stare. "Granted, I usually come by the stains honestly. Besides, these are my tearing-down-the-house jeans. Most of my pants? Much more intact than this."
"Aren't those a little...tight?"
"Only where it counts." Tony winked lasciviously.
Stevie switched her skirt a little self-consciously. "If we're tearing down walls again, I'll go change into some sweats."
Tony batted the floor plan out from between them. "Tell you what, why don't we shelve the demolition and go find you some jeans that do justice to that ass of yours?"
"There's nothing wrong with my clothes."
Tony grimaced. "I can't—I don't even know where to start. It is a crime—your ass is a national—"
Stevie just looked at her.
"—You know what, never mind. Go put on your frumpy sweatpants; Bruce's floor still needs a bedroom. Fun as it is to just roll out of bed and get right to business, chemicals smell, and sometimes things explode, and at the end of the day it's overall nicer to have your bed someplace where it won't end up a charred mess," Tony babbled on.
Stevie considered rising to the bait, but she realised it was because being in this room was getting to her, too. The damage—floor, windows, furniture, the balcony outside—was nowhere near irreparable. But even if the room itself had remained untouched, it would still hold the echo of all the pain, hatred, and violence that had found its focus here. No wonder Tony tried to fill the space up with noise. Stevie wondered at her decision to work up here today and not in her lab—Tony often disappeared down there, the underlying pulse of her music audible from above and below at odd hours—and if it was because of damage, why hadn't she asked Stevie to help clear it?
"What's this?" she asked instead.
"Uh." Tony's eyes widened in panic, and Stevie could practically see the gears whirring behind them. "A hologram?" She said it like she thought Stevie was slow.
Stevie reached out to pass a wondering finger through the word Avengers that had caught her eye on the side of the miniature tower. She jumped back when it blew up twice as big at her touch. Tony chuckled.
"Planning on kidnapping the rest of the team, too?"
"You're free to leave whenever you like. But you—I mean, you literally have a target painted on your chest. And we've already demonstrated that wherever I am is not the safest place to be." A gesture indicating the destruction all around them. "I figured it might be safer for us and the rest of humanity if we were all together. Someplace not under SHIELD's thumb.
"You realise the centre of the impenetrable vibranium shield is where I'm best covered, right?" Stevie joshed her, but with no real heat behind it. "That's really generous of you, Miss Stark."
"Oh, no, please, Cap, call me Tony. You're giving me boarding school flashbacks." Tony looked so genuinely horrified Stevie had to smile.
"Tony. Okay. I think it's a great idea. Besides not having to track everybody down whenever something goes wrong, living together gives us an opportunity to learn how to work together as a team when the world's not in imminent danger." And right now Stevie didn't trust SHIELD any further than she could throw the Triskelion. "I think you'll agree we still have some weak spots in that area."
They made good progress on Bruce's floor over the next few days, although Stevie wondered if renovating the tower was keeping Tony from important work at her company. When she spoke, her tone was clipped and flat, and Stevie thought she recognised this mood from Howard—Howard Senior, that was, Tony's grandfather. She found that Tony snapped less when she was quiet, which did sometimes lead to more arguments; but mostly Stevie was good with following Tony's directions while they worked. Construction wasn't something Stevie had known anything about before, either, although she suspected there would have been fewer wires. Nothing for her ghosts to grasp here.
Tony, apparently unable to help herself, explained whatever they were doing in detail. Her philosophy seemed to be that if you didn't understand why you were doing something, you wouldn't do it properly. It was a sentiment Stevie approved wholeheartedly, even though it wasn't always practical, and the way her tone slipped into edged condescension grated.
Stevie's growing suspicions that Tony was neglecting business were confirmed when Mr Potts came to visit them one morning. Stevie had been surprised to learn, when she'd finally asked Bruce, that Potts was CEO of Stark Industries, having previously served as Tony's personal assistant for the best part of a decade.
Because Stevie's senses were enhanced, her first sign that someone was coming was the sound of footsteps. Tony didn't look up until her—noise, Stevie still refused to call it music—cut out, indignation written so clearly on her face it was hard not to laugh.
"I need you to sign these," Potts said, holding out a sheaf of papers he had out and ready, for all the world as though he were standing in a boardroom and not a Gents' public restroom halfway through the transition to master bath.
Stevie stood back, working her jaw to make her ears pop in the abrupt silence, and watched in fascination.
"Kind of got my hands full right now, Pep." Tony flourished her broom handle.
"Tony Stark, doing women's work? If I only had a camera."
Tony heaved a dramatic sigh. "You know, I thought making you CEO meant that I wouldn't have to sign things anymore."
"I thought it meant you were dying of an undisclosed heavy metal poisoning and were for once doing the responsible thing and preparing for the transition of power," Potts replied in a tone of voice that was almost pleasant.
Wait, what?
"Now that is hitting below the belt. That was a year ago; when are you going to forgive me for that? I let you keep the company."
"One, do you want me to move on to everything else that's happened in the last year? Two, our art collection has still not recovered; and three, this is all beside the point."
"What? You still got you eye on that, uh, that Enzo Cucchi? We can do that."
Pepper seemed to weaken slightly but held firm. "That's beside the point. Have you made any progress on the new jet engine design we contracted on? Or the clean water oil-scrubber?"
"We've moved on from clean energy to clean water? Kidding, kidding!" Tony exclaimed, shrinking back from Potts' scowl without looking at all cowed. "Jesus, when did they amend the qualifications for CEO to include the removal of your sense of humour? No wonder I never liked the job. Hey, there's an idea. If I make Stevie CEO, will you think I'm funny again? The board will like her, she's very serious and like thirty years more conservative than they are."
Potts pinched the bridge of his nose. "I never thought you were funny, Tony."
"Nonsense, that's what you love about me, my sense of humour. And my incredibly sexy genius-inventor brain. You may say you're in it for the suits and the art collection, but we both know the truth."
"Tony, please just sign the papers. And get your genius-inventor brain working on our contracts—"
"Sexy genius-inventor brain," Tony corrected.
Stevie was stunned. She had thought, after two weeks and a battle and saving the world, she was starting to know Tony Stark. But Potts walked into the room, and Tony lit up. Her whole posture shifted, becoming looser, livelier, more natural as she flirted, the curves she usually ignored made somehow suddenly captivating. Stevie had seen the spark of humour in her eyes, but Tony's banter had always been just slightly sharp, and this warmth in her voice, this was new.
"—think of it as something to do when you need an excuse to be down in your lab at three a.m., instead of sleeping like a rational human being."
Potts' expression was more than a little acerbic, but despite this Stevie got the feeling that he was flirting back. Possibly it had something to do with the way he was watching Tony's hand on the broom handle.
Tony caught that, too, because her grin became a shade more wicked, sultry and low and covered with plaster dust. Stevie realised she was staring.
Howard had never been like this.
"You haven't been returning my calls. You are not 'on sabbatical', Tony; you were out with the search and rescue crews all last week. Fury isn't buying it either."
"Fury can suck my left one."
"There's a mental image I could do without," Potts said, both his eyebrows up.
Stevie choked because, yeah, and drew Potts' attention for the first time. She felt abruptly like the intruder in this scene.
"Captain. I didn't see you there." Potts' expressive eyebrows dropped and knit together, as though trying to figure out how that had happened.
Stevie had no problem on that score. Potts had obviously developed a method for dealing with Tony, and it seemed to involve a very intense filtration process. Being overlooked was actually sort of refreshing: a six-foot tall woman drew a lot of eyes even when she wasn't carrying around a brightly coloured shield.
"It's good to see you again, Mister Potts."
Stevie walked up and shook hands, because that was the polite thing to do. Potts had a nice smile: friendly, crooked, a little apologetic. Stevie had to check herself, because that was either a mood swing fast enough to give her whiplash, or Potts' performance ten seconds ago had been just that. Well, if he'd stuck with Tony for ten years, he likely wasn't a simple person.
"I see she's got you drafted again already."
Stevie was honestly just glad for something to do, to drive unwanted thoughts out of her head. Stevie could actually run around the city all day; had done it once and come back late at night, sweat-soaked and exhausted, and run into Tony brewing coffee in the kitchen. Tony had frozen holding a huge mug to her lips with both hands, doing a fair impression of what Stevie imagined a deer in the headlights would look like.
After a long pause, during which Stevie was pretty certain neither of their brains functioned properly, she'd inhaled a gulp and said, "Oh, did you go somewhere?"
Stevie had just blinked at her, mind still lagging behind. Tony had drained maybe a third of the mug, refilled it, and then disappeared back into her lab. Stevie had spent the ten minutes it took for her to strip, shower, and fall asleep half-expecting Tony to blow up the tower in what was evidently a caffeine-induced breakdown.
Stevie had done it that once, but she'd kept seeing clean-up crews and construction, which was no better and left her with a twisted feeling in her gut that made her turn up the closest side street and keep running. Maybe she should have gone back out helping, even if she was really doing as much good helping Tony by that point.
Hadn't quite been ready, in any case, Stevie acknowledged the hot, twisting shame in her stomach. There had been a reason she hadn't resisted SHIELD keeping her closed up in the basement for the month before Loki. Nothing had looked quite like it ought to, like seeing things reflected in a funhouse mirror; and the debris crowded back off the streets fit far too aptly with what Stevie couldn't help thinking of as the destruction of the city she'd known, the threat that had taken her into the ice. She hated feeling like a useless coward; and it wasn't much, but she could at least help Tony put her own small corner of the island in order.
"I don't mind, and I'm learning a lot." Stevie offered Potts a reassuring smile.
Tony winced at the same moment Potts said, "Oh my god, Tony, what have you been teaching her?"
"Oh, we've just been pounding away up here." Tony recovered fast, hooding her eyes suggestively, and it might have just been the generous ladling of innuendo, but her voice had an edge in it again. "We haven't done much on the way of nailing and screwing yet, but we're getting there."
"Please, just sign the papers, Tony." Potts grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her bodily to face a sawhorse that was mostly doing duty as a table, set the papers down, produced a pen, and stole Tony's broom.
"I apologise for Tony." Potts said it like it was something he had to say a lot.
Stevie had gotten over being shocked about hearing that sort of thing coming out of Tony's mouth about ten minutes after meeting her. "I spent a year on a commando team with six guys. Believe me, I've heard it all before."
"Don't say that; she'll take it as a challenge," Potts confided, well within Tony's earshot but with what appeared to be genuine concern.
"I am signing papers!" Tony stated very loudly.
"You should take your responsibilities more seriously," Stevie told Tony when they were alone again, frowning. "Did you even read those before you signed them?" Although it had been enough of an effort to get her to sign them at all, which didn't seem right either. Potts hadn't even acted surprised.
"Pepper gave them to me, it's fine," Tony said, not in the least concerned.
Stevie crossed her arms. "It's your company; I don't think it's out of line to expect you to shoulder some of the responsibility."
"Thanks for the heads-up, Capsicle. I wouldn't have realised, what with my name splashed across all the buildings and everything."
Tony picked up a sledgehammer and stalked over to one of the bathroom's three remaining walls. It was almost hard to believe she was the same person who'd been flirting with Potts five minutes ago. She was so much more like Howard now, and Stevie wondered what it said that Howard's granddaughter was most like him when she was angry. Stevie had assumed it was just a general resemblance until it had dissipated in a breath; Howard had had a temper, sure, frustration capable of driving away everyone except the machines he was working on, that were usually causing the problem in the first place. Now Stevie wondered if she'd only ever seen Tony mad.
"You don't have to get so hostile. I just meant that what you do affects a lot of other people."
Tony, the hammer raised, stopped in mid-swing. "I'm getting hostile? Are we in the same conversation here?" She hefted the hammer again.
"Why are you knocking that down?" Stevie asked.
"What?" Tony snapped.
"It's just a bathroom; how large does it really need to be?"
"Maybe I'm installing a Jacuzzi for the Hulk. JARVIS, music."
Stevie was somewhat ashamed of herself; but whatever Italian pump manufacturers had to do with it, knocking down walls was even more therapeutic than demolishing punching bags. The music just made her angrier; the only thing in Stevie's experience that was louder and more chaotic was a battlefield. Tony couldn't enjoy feeling like this, could she?
Natasha showed up the next day with a message from Director Fury. Stevie was with Tony in her lab, which she'd finally been allowed to see. It was the same mix of familiar and different she'd found in Tony, and New York as a whole. A tense energy, dark hair, lively dark eyes, olive skin; but Tony's shape featured the addition of definite curves, and not all of them were physical. Stevie still hadn't seen her in anything but a t-shirt and jeans, both tighter than was maybe decent; like her grandfather's fine suits, they were almost always smudged with grease and spark-scarred. The brown eyes were larger, more graceful, with longer lashes. Stevie found herself itching to draw them, or capture the quick, expansive gestures Tony made in the air. In contrast to her seemingly perpetual state of casual dishabille, her hair was almost always braided tight to her skull, sometimes overrun by flyaways, but otherwise strictly bound up and out of the way. The look she got was the same, though, staring past her surroundings to some vision no one else could see.
There had almost always been other people in Howard's labs. Bruce was here now, and Stevie, not that Stevie was really contributing to science at the moment. Otherwise there were only JARVIS and three honest-to-goodness robots that Tony scolded like pets or errant children. A lot of the tools and almost all of the projects were completely unrecognisable, but the clutter itself had stayed constant through the generations.
"Excuse me, madam. Agent Romanova is here. She says she is delivering a message from Director Fury."
Tony sighed, over-dramatically in Stevie's opinion, watching Natasha on the security feed. Stevie had blinked once when they'd been introduced at the juxtaposition of Natasha's Asian features with her darkly red hair and Russian name and history, but Russia was a big country.
Natasha was dressed in clothes a lot like Tony's, only cleaner, and staring at the main doors like she expected them to just fall in. If Tony didn't get a move on, Stevie thought it was quite possible they would.
Tony made a face. "All right JARVIS, let her in. We've had enough structural damage this month. Take her up to, eh, the lounge on ninety-two. We'll meet her there."
"We?" Bruce surfaced to ask. Bruce had started coming out to help them clear and renovate since breakfast the other day, at least during the more reasonable hours, but it was obvious that he was more interested in communing with the state-of-the-art, legally-obtained equipment. Stevie was pretty sure it was only her presence and Tony's that kept him from sleeping down here. And there was her thinking Tony had been joking.
"You just want us to protect you from Natasha," Stevie said.
"She has a history of jabbing things into my neck." Tony pouted.
"Think of it as an opportunity to sell her on Avengers Tower," Stevie suggested, sliding to her feet anyway and twitching her skirt into order. She'd never admit it to Tony, but boy did she miss pants.
Despite Tony's hustling her along at a brisk pace, Natasha was already waiting for them when they reached the floor where they had all been living this week. Tony pasted a bright, false smile on her face.
"To what do I owe this pleasure? Other than Nicole Fury, I mean."
Natasha did not change expressions, which was normal. Stevie wondered how you learned that; her own poker face was still terrible in most situations.
"I have a message for Captain Rogers. Obviously, people noticed Captain America, or a woman dressed like Captain America, fighting the incursion and later working with the S&R teams. The media has been pressing the government for answers."
"And the government passed it along to Fury, eh?" Tony did not sound surprised. "You're a bit of a controversy, Cap. I mean, an icon, monument at Arlington icon and all that," Stevie tried not to think about the monument at Arlington, although at least it was in the shape of her shield and not a statue of her, not that she had illusions that that choice had been out of consideration to her own preferences, "but there have always been rumours about your not being of the, you know, masculine persuasion, and the government's official stance for seventy years has been to clam the fuck up about it."
Stevie thought past the heat mounting to her cheeks. "Uh, yeah. I mean, we tried not to flaunt it, but the rest of the Howlers knew, and anyone with half a brain at SSR HQ in London could've figured it out."
Natasha gave her a crisp little nod. "Speculation is reaching critical mass. We need to go public. SHIELD has set up an interview for you with the New York Times; they've been persuaded to share with some other outlets so you won't be overwhelmed. An actual grimace here. "The media is a lot more aggressive than you'll be used to."
As far as Stevie was concerned, they had been plenty aggressive before. But she'd noticed that people nowadays tended to idealise the past.
"I suppose Fury's providing her with notecards," Tony said.
Natasha ignored her. "Agent Hill will be sending an e-mail to your SHIELD account with the relevant details."
Tony frowned. "So why are you here?"
That earned her a moment of Natasha's unimpressed regard. "Captain Rogers hasn't logged into her SHIELD e-mail since coming here."
"I, uh, don't have a computer," Stevie admitted, feeling guilty for getting Tony into trouble.
Slowly, Tony turned to look at her, an incredulous expression on her face. "Capcubes. Do you have any idea how many computers there are in every room in this building?"
"No?"
"Of course not." Tony sighed. "We'll work on that."
"The interview is the day after tomorrow." Natasha turned back to Stevie, dropping Tony from her attention with an almost audible clunk.
Tony rebounded instantly, snapping her fingers. "Aha! See, now you have to let me take you shopping. You cannot give interviews in those clothes."
"One interview. And why can't I just wear my uniform?" Not the costume, and Stevie was glad no one was had brought that up yet. She was still on the books as a captain in the army, though apparently they'd only just now corrected the name from Steven Rogers to Stephanie. Stevie had been disappointed to learn that the dress uniforms still included those ridiculous pencil skirts, though.
"Natasha. Back me up here."
"If you're worried about money, it's on SHIELD."
Stevie flushed. The anticipation of colossal embarrassment probably had a lot more to do with her reluctance than she'd like to admit. Missed my window; I could have done this on my own earlier.
"Tell Fury she can stick her wallet up her ass; this one's on me." Tony's smile was outright predatory. "It'll be a privilege."
Even Natasha looked amused. Stevie crossed her arms.
"Fine. But only if Bruce comes with us."
"Got a thing for the good doctor, do you? Okay, Natasha, you dig up Barton and it'll be like one big Addams Family outing."
Stevie returned Tony's knowing look coolly. There was silence from Natasha. Tony's eyes fixed on her with frightening intensity.
"What is it?"
"You're up to something," Natasha said.
Tony grinned, the lines of her face shifting from beautiful to breath-taking. It was a transformation Stevie had seen only once or twice over the past weeks, and it was still catching her flat-footed. "Just a little home improvement. JARVIS?"
A large glass panel flipped down out of the ceiling in the middle of the room and lit up with an image of Avengers Tower. Stevie blinked in surprise, although Natasha confined her reaction to a slightly raised eyebrow.
Tony rocked back on her heels, hands shoved impressively in her back pockets, considering the fit. "Well?"
Natasha eyed her smug, eager expression. "We're a little old for slumber parties, don't you think?"
Tony pouted for about half a second, then recovered. "Tomorrow? Chauffeured shopping at the city's finest surviving locales?"
"We'll meet you there." And apparently that was all they got by way of farewell, because Natasha was already back at the elevator.
"You don't even know where we're going!" Tony called after her.
Natasha didn't look back. Stevie sighed. Tony growled something that sounded like that's why I don't want another PA.
Back in the lab, Tony handed Stevie a smaller version of the glass pane that had folded out from the ceiling and showed her how to check her e-mail. Tony's absent you have a cell phone, right? turned into an embarrassing production during which Tony sucked Stevie's still-revolutionary-enough-to-her-thanks hand-held phone dry and dumped her virtual address book into something no less complicated but at least not quite as sharp and breakable-looking as the computer. Bruce watched not really covertly over his own array of holograms—maybe computers floating in the air were just normal now? Stevie could get used to that, she thought—not even pretending to work.
Once Tony's technical jargon melodrama petered out into absorption with some other project, Stevie settled down with the tablet (apparently) and started reading through her mail. Evidently, alien invasions meant lots of memos.
Stevie probably would have been more put out with Tony (and Bruce, who hadn't said anything either) for not mentioning all the debriefings Director Fury had scheduled if she hadn't read the newest messages first, the ones expressing via Assistant Director Martin Hill Director Fury's sincere disappointment that precisely none of the Avengers had appeared as requested. Again.
Well, Stevie hadn't been too thrilled with Nicole Fury and SHIELD after the invasion and the rest, but she had a feeling that just ignoring her away had some major flaws as a long-term strategy. Stevie considered her options as she read through the other notes. By the time she was done, there was a new message at the top of the queue.
Stevie looked up, noticing that Tony's perpetual restless motion had stilled itself. Tony's face was about two inches away; Stevie jumped half out of her skin.
"Jesus Christ, Tony!"
"Sorry," Tony apologised insincerely. "Next time I'll just hack your account."
Stevie closed her eyes and tried to remember how to breathe.
"SHIELD's going to send a car around for me at ten o'clock the day after tomorrow," she said at last.
"Does SHIELD really want a reporter on one of their super-secret bases?"
"I'm sure SHIELD is more than capable of handling one reporter, Tony."
"Tell you what, I am more than capable of handling one reporter. We'll do the interview here, where I can keep an eye on things, and Fury won't have to have Barton lurking in the rafters with a tranq gun."
"Do I get a say in any of this?" Stevie wondered aloud.
"No," Tony replied glibly, and went back to work.
Stevie didn't sleep well again that night. Maybe it was just restless energy accruing: she hadn't spent ten hours in the gym or knocked down any more walls today. She woke up with the the bone-jarring impact of Schmidt's fist on her first shield echoing through her bones.
It was stupid. Schmidt had been dead for decades, had been dead before Stevie took the plane down. He couldn't hurt anyone anymore. Stevie splashed cold water on her face and looked herself in the eye, repeating it to herself.
Stevie glanced at the bed: big, soft, inviting, and the idea of sinking back into it was so completely unappealing she had to look away. No, sleep wasn't an option again tonight.
Instead, Stevie took the stairs down a few floors and padded out onto the deck, avoiding again the holes the Hulk had made with Loki in the floor. It hadn't been cold inside, but the close summer air was like a balm.
Night was even brighter in 2012 Manhattan than in 1942 Brooklyn, an almost starless mix of purple and umber. Stevie had fought for her life on nights so crystal clear that it had seemed like she could reach out and touch the stars, not to mention the time Johann Schmidt had been incinerated by what might well have been the sun's own fire under an actually alien sky.
"So much for romance," she muttered to herself, shuddering.
With a sudden pang that was almost physical, Stevie wished she had something to draw with. She'd never been able to sleep when Peggy left her after making love. Guiltily, she wondered what had happened to that sketchpad. If the wrong people had found it in her quarters in London, it could have gotten Peggy into a whole lot of trouble.
Tonight, Stevie's fingers itched, even though she couldn't be sure that anything she started wouldn't turn to bad dreams. It wasn't any better having them stuck inside her head.
The debris had all been cleared off, although repairs to this level were apparently taking a back seat to new renovations on Tony Stark's haphazard to-do list. Stevie walked over to the edge and sat down, feet dangling, and watched the sleepless city.