Avengers 1. Chapter 1

**Title****:** Timelines  
><strong>Author<strong>**:** Quietshade  
><strong>Rating<strong>**:** PG-13  
><strong>Pairings:<strong> Eventual Steve/Tony, Tony/Pepper, past Steve/Peggy, Howard/Maria, Clint/Natasha, Thor/Jane.  
><strong>Universe<strong>**: **Movieverse (Earth-199999)  
><strong>Beta<strong>**:** doomsymphony (Saixkosmos)  
><strong>Warning<strong>: Slash, M/M, Strong Language.  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 7,643  
><em><strong>Disclaimer:<strong>_ All Marvel characters and reference belong to them not to me.  
><strong>Summary<strong>: Tony is a man of the future who can't manage to accept his past and Steve is a man of the past who have a hard time accepting his future because of this they understand each other and help one another come in terms with their times.  
><strong>AN: **This takes place just before The Avengers meet for the first time, must be a few weeks after Steve woke up.

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><p><strong>Timelines<br>**_Chapter one_

Being sincere he hadn't thought he would survive, although that didn't mean he had not hoped for it. No, he had desperately held onto the idea that he would have been able to assist to his date. Sure he had asked for a miracle, for him to be able to joke about his near to death experience with the guys, but when he had asked for a miracle it had never crossed his mind that things would end up like this.

Seventy years, is what he had hoped to live if he survived the war, but instead he found himself almost seventy years in the future, _in a future_ where he had though he would have been long time married with some children and a bunch of grandchildren, if not already dead. But life has never been indulgent and had given him a new life without any of the person he knew or cared for. He seriously wanted to ask why they hadn't left him in the ice, would have been easier for him.

He hadn't asked about Peggy yet, he feared the answer. What if she had forgotten about him and married someone right after the war? Of course he didn't want to hear that she had been all alone waiting for him, but it pained him greatly to think that she might have moved on and forgot about him and god he knew he was being egoist but he couldn't help it.

What about Bucky, Have them found him and gave him a proper burial? He hoped they have, he at least deserved so much. And what about the guys, have they survived the war? There were so many questions he had and the information they passed to him answered too little of them.

Howard… he wanted to ask about him too, they had grown close to each other over the war, he was the third person he would miss the most. The man was rich, funny, a gentlemen and a genius, Steve was sure that if he wanted he would have keep himself far from the war as most rich men did, donating large, and needed, sum of money to keep the public happy while enjoying their luxurious live far from the danger. Howard had been different, he tried his best day by day to supply the soldier with the best of his technology, he was brave enough to put his life in the front to protect his country, and it hadn't been once or twice the times he drove them into the battle zone without hesitation. He was a man to admire and Steve admired him greatly.

He admitted that one of the things he had yearned for was a nice evening chatter with his three favorite persons. He could see Bucky bickering Howard about his techno babbles, he liked to believe they would have gotten along, while he and Peggy laughed at them. He wanted Just that, a keen evening in a small coffee with his important persons and that though alone hurt him more than anything, because now Bucky was death and he wouldn't know if he and Howard would have get along, because now Peggy and Howard surely have move on and would have other things to do, that if they were still alive, and mostly because now wasn't Steve's time and all he had hoped and longed for were things that belong to a time that had ran a long time ago.

He hit the punching bag with rage, sending it to flying across the room, sand spilled on its way.

"Trouble sleeping?" he looked over his shoulder to the new comer, Colonel Nick Fury, the man who had told him about his seventy years sleep.

"You are here with a mission, sir?" He asked halfhearted, they barely let information of the new world to him, selecting carefully what he was allowed to read, he didn't think they will let him out anytime soon.

"I am" He said, probably something that involved his knowledge about the WWII they have pestered him enough about that.

"Trying to get me back in the world?" He asked nonetheless, this time putting more hope in his question but still not looking up from his task.

"Trying to save it." Fury answered after a short pause, and he finally looked at the man, this time feeling truthfully curious about this mission.

A Team, the Colonel was assembling some kind of heroes' team, and apparently he wanted Steve to lead it, there was some kind of treat out there that the army couldn't win against and he needed this team to stop it.

"They aren't exactly what you would call the greatest of the teams, but all of them are excellent warriors, one of the most powerful persons out there." He listened quietly the Colonel as he ranted about the team, while they walked through the corridors of SHIELD's base, going to where he supposed was the meeting room where he would finally meet his new team. "All of them have real battle experience, but little of them have the war's experience you possess." He frowned a little, trying his best to go in par with the man's speech. It was a change to be needed not because of his abilities but because of his experience, which was a contrast to his previous position in where he was required for his abilities. He briefly wondered how strong the others were.

"May I inquire about the number of persons we are talking about, sir?" He hoped for it not to be a big team, he worked better with few people.

"There are six avengers including you." Suddenly the man came to a stop and spun around to face the blonde. "Look son, I know you are having a pretty harsh time adjusting to this time, and I will tell you this beforehand, your values and ideals are greatly different from the one those people hold and I'm sure that you will have a hard time dealing with some of them." He grimaced at that part as if he was remembering someone in particular, and Steve wondered if he should be worried. "But your goals are the same and even if you don't agree with them you'll have to get used to it, this isn't WWII anymore."

And without even waiting for his answer the Colonel resumed his peace as if he hadn't stopped in the first place. The Colonel was always like that, he was always in a rush, he was straight forward and always looked like he was about to kill someone. Apart from the Colonel the only other person he had spoken to was agent Coulson and whiles the man was nicer and calmer than the Colonel, he too seemed as if he was in a rush and that had Steve wondering if it was a standard for the people in this time to always be in a hurry.

After a short time of walking down the -too metal for his like- corridors they arrived at a door, Fury pushed some buttons on the panel to its side and the door opened, with a rapid slide motion that startled Steve every time it happened. He followed the Colonel inside, into the who looked like the control room of a ship, in Steve's opinion looked like it have been taken out of a science fiction movie, just like everything else in the place.

He looked around and saw at the far end of the room a tall blonde man, he stared at the man incredulously, when he became a super soldier everything had looked small, and when he first glanced at a mirror, he had stared at the image for a long while, not recognizing himself at first, he does remember himself thinking that he looked incredibly burly and big; but now looking at this man he knew that if he was to stand beside him he would probably look small. He wondered if they have found a way to improve the SSS and if this man was the result of it.

"Come here Cap" Fury called him while walking to the giant man, he followed him and the closer he came to said man the more imposing he looked. "I want you to meet Thor he will be part of The Avengers' team." The man turned around to look at him, and offered him his hand to shake.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, sir." He shook the other man's hand with shyness. "Steven Rogers… uh Captain America."

"The honor is mine Steven Rogers, I am Thor Odinson of Asgard." The gentle smile never left the other's face and Steve couldn't help thinking that such a smile contrasted with the man's rough physic.

"What are your abilities?" He blurted, his mouth betraying his best judgment, he looked from the man to the Colonel, hoping that he didn't looked as nervous as he felt.

"I am the God of Thunder." He said with a chuck and Steve looked at him perplexed, a god? He must be joking.

"Like he said he is The God of Thunder and as such he can shoot rays, control weather, flight, you know every god like thing you would attribute to the god of thunder." Said Fury as if was the most common thing in the world. Fury handed him a file with the man's info, he opened it, reading it with eagerness. He ignored the voice in the back of his head that was insisting that the future was beginning to look much stranger than he first though.

Suddenly the door opened and three more people entered the room. Two man of about the same height, the first a brunette who was wearing a brown leather jacket and had an annoyed frown, just by his pose he could tell the man had some battle experience and looked like he was prepared for anything you could throw him, not as imposing as the giant blond but still good.

The other was a raven haired man with a purple shirt that looked friendlier than the other guy; actually he didn't look like a warrior at all, not like the other two guys. He looked too shy and nervous, more like the man who you would expect to find behind an office's desk. He was tempted to ask for his power, he surely was not another god.

The last one was a redheaded woman, who in Steve opinion was wearing inappropriate clothes, as they were far too provoking, still she looked strangely professional, he cleared his throat looking away at anything but her and he could feel a blush already working its way to his cheeks.

"Good you are here, but we are clearly short on one people." Fury walked to the redheaded woman. "Where the hell is Tony?" as soon as he finished the question the woman took a futuristic looking device and pushed some button on it, he couldn't help thinking that the image of the provoking woman with a strange device looked just like something out of a movie, but then again what didn't look like that to him lately.

"Coulson is bringing him. They should be here in some minutes." The Colonel nodded at this and muttered something about some stupid rich genius going to be his death.

After ten minutes of quietly waiting the last member finally arrived, the first thing Steve noticed when the man entered the room was the fact that he looked familiar, but he couldn't quite grasp where he had seen him before. He was just as tall as the friendly looking guy in purple, about five inches shorter than Steve. He was wearing an expensive looking suit and a pair of equally expensive looking sunglasses, his hair was nicely combed back and he was sporting a dandy smile, in Steve opinion he looked like one of those rich business man that you usually came across on Manhattan's World Trade Center.

"Great we are now complete!" The Colonel said with an annoyed tone, and send the just arrived man a glare that promised a painful talk later.

"No welcome hugs for me?" The man said, and Fury hardened his glare to him.

"You shut up." Steve saw the man snort and walk toward the friendly man, Coulson following him shortly behind, they engaged in some kind of conversation, the familiar looking guy made some sings, which made the friendly guy look more nervous and uncomfortable.

"Now that we are all here lets go down to business." Fury said as he took sit in a near bench. "As you all know we are here because of the Avengers initiative. But what is the avenger initiative?" everyone turned his attention to the colonel, Steve stood right beside the giant blond and send a look to the familiar looking guy, he couldn't place him, but he was sure he had seen him somewhere.

"There was an idea, to bring together a group of remarkable people so when we needed them, they could fight the battle that we never could." He continued, with a serious look on his face. "For a while we were unable to gather these people and the project was falling behind, but then you guys appeared and you are of the finest fighters out there and we need you in the team to fight these battles." The man in the expensive suit was about to say something but another glare from Fury stop him from doing so.

Then Fury went on to explain the situation they were in, and why they needed so urgently the team now, and things like that, everyone was pretty much silent until the Colonel went on to announce the team's leader, who was none other than Steve himself, everyone seemed all right with the decision, everyone but the man in the expensive suit.

"Really Nick? I'll probably do a better job than a guy whose tactics are outdated by 70 years." He said with amusement, Fury shot him a nasty glare. He was obviously losing his patience.

"Look Stark, we already went through this, I'm not-" Suddenly Fury was cut by a really startled Captain America, who was now looking from the Colonel to the other man with wide eyes.

"Did you just say Stark, sir, as in Howard Stark?" Now everyone in the room was looking at him with a curious stare, but the confusion in both Fury and Stark was short lived as almost instantly the both of them went from looking confused to looking as if they just remembered something important.

"Well yes, Anthony Stark son of Howard Stark, but please call me Tony" Answered the man as he walked to Steve. "For a moment there I forgot you were father's friend, sorry about the comment back there, no hard feeling meant. You know I used to be a great fan of you as a kid, I mean, who wasn't a fan of yours as a child." He said as he took both of Steve's hands on his own, and shook them effusively. "Don't misunderstand me, is not that I believe that Captain America is not good enough for the job, is just that I think it is too soon for you." he released his hands and looked at Fury. "As for you, I think you should think thing thoughtfully before putting this…" He trailed off for a moment looking at everyone. "Team on the front lines." And with that he left the room, leaving an angry looking Colonel and a perplexed captain behind.

If he had though that the people in this time were strange before, he didn't know where to put Howard's son, he was indeed one of the most eccentric persons he had ever meet, and that considering that Howard himself had been quite an odd guy.

* * *

><p>As soon as he had recovered from the shock he went after Tony and he caught him just outside of the facilities, in front of a car, that even with his short knowledge about this time, he was sure was more expensive than anything he could ever dream to afford. Beside him was a beautiful looking woman, who was dressed a lot more descent than the redheaded woman from before.<p>

"Mr. Stark please wait!" The man looked at him over his shoulder with surprise. "God, you look a lot like him."

"Yeah I get that a lot." He said sounding a little annoyed, but turned around to look at Steve nonetheless. "What Can I do for you Cap?" The man gave him a polite smile, which Steve could tell that was obviously false.

"I… How's Howard doing, Mr. Stark?" He asked shyly, scratching the back of his neck, not sure how to speak to such an odd man.

"He died eighteen years ago." That hit Steve like a rock, and he swallowed hard. He felt a pain in his chest, as he once again was remembered of how much time have passed.

"I'm sorry to hear that son." His voice sounded strange to his ears, it was full of emotions that he didn't want to think about. "You have my condolences."

"No need for them. That was a long time ago." He dismissed Steve without much though, and Steve wondered if the persons took death as such a trivial event nowadays. "Now if you excuse me, I have to go."

"Howard was a good man." He said in a rush, feeling the need to keep the guy from leaving. "He was always so bright and dedicated to his work. He was indeed a remarkable man."

"Look cap I'll be sincere with you." Tony said suddenly sounding more annoyed than before. "I didn't spend much time with my dad and I remember him as a cold person who couldn't care less about his family, but lately there's been more and more people coming to me to tell me that he was either worse than I think he was or a much better person that I remember him being and as eager as you might be to talk about him now I'm not in the mood to discuss old war tales about a man who I clearly don't know. Now if you excuse me, I have to go." With that the man turned to leave asking the car's key to a man that looked like his chauffer.

"One last request, !" The man stopped mid task and looked at him with curiosity. "What's your mother's name?"

"Maria Carbonell Stark" He said with a frown but didn't ask or say anything else and finally entered the car alongside the woman and the other man.

Tony Stark was by far the oddest person he has met in this time, and Steve got the feeling that he would probably be the oddest person he will ever meet. He was not going to lie to himself, to that point he wasn't fond of him, and to say the true he couldn't even believe that he was Howard's son.

For now he was grateful that Peggy wasn't the man's mother, it had occurred to him that Peggy could have married Stark, after all they had been close, but when the idea occurred to him he had seriously panicked.

* * *

><p>Even if Fury had looked outraged by Tony's word, he took them in consideration and they went through some team training before going into real battle and he was handle many books about battle and war strategy by Coulson.<p>

He wasn't disappointed by Thor's power, he was every ounce of the god he proclaimed to be, and he proved to be a competent warrior, which have his good share of battle experience and strategy, actually if it wasn't for the man's impulsive nature Steve would gladly leave the leadership to him.

Clint on the other hand was a really good long range fighter and soldier, he had no problem taking Steve orders which was good, but it was obvious that the man hadn't been in a team before and therefore lacked on teamwork.

Natasha, she was a competent fighter too, good at hand to hand combat and her abilities in espionage were a great add, he hardly had any complain on her behalf.

But the ones that actually surprised him were the last two member of him team, of all the things he had expected Bruce to be, transforming into an enormous unstoppable green mass of rage was the least he expected him to be, sure the man was a love when he was just Bruce but he was having a hard time adjusting to the idea of The Hulk.

When he thought of Tony in the team, he had saw him as a support member doing pretty much what his father had done for them during the war, how wrong he had been, when they had step forward to the training room and saw Stark being surrounded in a suit of metal he had been utterly astonished. When he had seen the man in the battleground he had been more than astonished, it had been purely beautiful. Clearly he lacked in combat skill but his power output, speed and strategy more than made up for it. The problem with him was that he was a genius and unlike his father made no effort on being modest about it, self-centered -something which had put the team on danger many times- a civilian without much battle experience, and the one person that took it as his personal mission to ignore Steve's every command.

Although with all of this in hand, Steve had to admit that he was beginning to respect the man. Tony wasn't just the annoying genius billionaire playboy philanthropist he claim to be, no Tony was also a compromised man, who pushed himself to the limit of his capacities, a man who behind his selfish façade always put the others safety before his own and all these things as subtle as they were, Steve had seen them over and over again and for that Steve had to admit that in his own way Tony was a man to respect.

They argued many times, and just as Fury predicted, it had been quite an ordeal to make the team work. They weren't more than a bunch of super powered guys put together, but even with all the mishaps they had somehow made it work and in the end they were able to defeat Loki.

"Guys I must admit that you did a good work out there, not exactly how I expected it to be but good enough." Fury's voice cut his train of though and Steve looked around, for a moment he forgot he was supposed to be paying attention. "But one thing I'll say is that all of you are lacking on teamwork and that's why from now on we are going to be training together every Saturday."

"what?" Both Clint and Tony shouted at this, they looked at each other for a moment.

"I don't care if you two have a problem with it, it wasn't a question." Tony groaned and Clint sat down looking pissed but said nothing.

Fury continued his speech of things that needed to be done, and Steve stared at him not really paying much attention to what he was saying. He slowly blinked when he saw the image of an eye appear on the center on Fury's patch.

His eyes darted to the origin of the light, to find Stark silently playing with a pointer. Their eyes met and Tony made a motion that told him to stay shut and Steve bit his lips trying to hide his smile.

"God damn it Stark, stop that!" Fury said after a moment, cutting his previous speech. By that point almost everyone in the room was laughing and Steve himself was having a hard time trying not to laugh.

"Come on Fury, loosen up, I was having a little fun" the man glared at Tony, not finding the prank funny.

"Do you see me laughing, huh?" He said pointing to his face. "Because I'm not, you want to see me laughing? Let's go to the training ground and see who laughs in the end" The smirk on Fury's face said he was being totally serious on the offer and Steve though that a fight between Ironman and the colonel would be hilarious.

"I think I'll pass on that one, but thanks for the offer." The smirk on Tony's face countered the one on Fury's.

"Well then if you allow us to continue." Steve sighed, he wasn't in the mood for meeting today, he had wanted for days to go out and explore a little more about this new time.

"Actually Colonel, before you continue I have something to say." Fury raised an eyebrow at this, as did everyone else in the room.

"Go ahead Stark." All eyes were on Tony, it was strange for the man to speak on a meeting, or say anything apart from his jokes, protests and sarcasm.

"I've been thinking that it must be pretty boring for the members of the team who _doesn't_ have a home, to stay in this place every day." Tony was right, it was boring, monotonous but he had it worse on the war. "That's why I want to offer _those_ members a place in my mansion."

"Did I hear wrong or Anthony Stark is being nice?" Fury's face was one of pure surprise, but Tony did not seemed affected by this.

"Oh, you say it like it's a rare occurrence but I'm actually quite a good guy you know. Last year I…"

"I like to take up the offer." Steve said cutting Tony in mid of his sentence and the man looked at him with an expression the blond couldn't quite grasp.

"I too would like to accept thy kind proposal." Steve looked at Thor, who looked back at him with that gentle smile of him.

"You see, they are cool with it." Tony said addressing Fury. "What about you Banner, wanna join the fun?" Bruce shook his head in disagreement.

"I'm sorry Tony. I think it would be safer for everyone if I was to stay here." For a moment a strange emotion passed through Tony's eyes, but it was gone before Steve could identify it.

"Sure do as you like. So are you cool with that Nick?" Said man frowned but the frown disappeared into a smirk shortly after.

"As long as you guys check on time for every meeting and training, you could stay on a sewer for all I care." Stark smiled.

"Then it's settled, after the meeting, go pack your things and we'll leave for my humble abode." And with that the meeting resumed his previous path of Fury's long speech; leaving Steve to wonder how would be to live with Howard's eccentric son.

* * *

><p>"How does this fits on the word humble?" Was the first thing Steve could think about, when they arrived to the front of the manor. Tony just shrugged.<p>

"I like my house on Malibu better." He said while walking to the front door.

"This is nothing in the eyes of the great Asgardian palaces, but it is not bad either for a mortal's palace." Thor added then followed Stark.

He sometimes forgot that unlike him, who grew up on the great depression of the 30s, Stark and Thor were surrounded with luxuries since birth and -not just because of the time gap between them- most of the things that made Steve impressed barely obtained acknowledge from both men.

"JARVIS, would you open the door dear?" Tony said to thin air and Steve frowned at the man.

"_Welcome back sir._" Steve almost jumped when the voice spoke and he looked around searching for the source of it to find no one.

"JARVIS, where's Jarvis?" Asked Tony to the voice and he entered the house, Thor still following him, when Steve entered he looked around him expecting to find someone behind the open door, to find none.

"_He is in the kitchen sir._" They followed Tony to the kitchen, not with Steve falling behind from time to time to look at something that got his interest. But he stopped all for once in front of a little table that held many pictures. He took one of a young child of about four years.

"That was for my fourth birthday, mom liked to take pictures, so there are many pictures of us before I left for MIT." He put the picture back in a hurry as if it had burn him. He had picked it up without thinking that he might have been meddling with Tony's privacy.

"I-I...my apologies." He said in a hurry. But Tony dismissed him resuming his pace to the kitchen.

"Jarvis like to keep them around." When they arrived to the kitchen they were greeted by a mid-aged man, in a blue suit.

"Welcome back master Tony." He greeted them with a smile that left no place to argue his manners. "I see you brought company, do you need my services?"

"Yes please, Jarvis I want you to meet captain Steven Rogers." He said gesturing to Steve. "And Thor Odinson, they are fellow members of The Avengers and will be living here from now on."

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Edwin Jarvis, I run the house." He shook hand with both man and Steve smiled at him, trying with no success to hide his amusement. It was the first time he saw a butler, much more one that would serve him.

"I need you to prepare the master bedroom, the bedroom number three and also a meal would be really nice." The man nodded and headed for the stairs.

"Ms. Potts called this morning." Steve saw a strange smile appear on Tony's face when Jarvis said this, but as many of the strange emotions that crossed Tony's face it didn't last long.

"Come on guys let's show you around the house." He smiled to them with a smile that was different from the one Steve had just seen on him.

The mansion was much better than the SHIELD's headquarter. If he had though that it was amazing before, he was now truly astonished by its majesty. It was a three-story manor, with an architecture that reminded Steve of home, of his time, Tony had explained to him that it was probably because his father build the manor around 1932 and despise the many interventions it suffered it still preserved lot of its original structure.

Tony had shown them the basic areas of the house, including the gym and the combat simulation room, were he proclaimed they would train their teamwork. He had also given them the codes to open each door, in Steve times they used keys, now he has to learn codes for almost every room in the house.

He also introduced them to JARVIS his A.I. an acronym for something Steve didn't quite understand. Tony said it ran the house alongside with Jarvis, and Steve found it confusing to have to refer to two different Jarvis but said nothing in regards this. Everything was so far so good, until Tony proceeded to show them their room.

"This will be your room Cap." The room was quite big, so far the biggest room Steve had ever have.

"It's a big room, Mr. Stark" Tony chuckled and Steve saw Thor test the bed's resistance in the corner of his eye.

"It has to, it's the master bedroom." And that's when things started to get awkward.

"Wh-what?" he stuttered looking at Tony with wide eyes. "Shouldn't it be yours?"

"It was my parent's room before they died." He started not looking at Steve. "It felt strange for me to move to this room even after their death. Besides I don't spend that much time in this place and I think my father would have liked it better for it to be your room."

He doubted it, he saw Howard wanting Tony to inherit the room, but he knew better than to start another argument about Howard's wishes with Tony.

"When do I get to see my bedchambers?" Thor sounded excited and Steve was grateful to him for cutting the heavy silence that had suddenly invaded the room.

"Sure follow me." Then both of them left Steve alone in the big room.

He unpacked in a short time the few things he got. His military uniform, his Captain America's costume, two white t-shirts and pair of jean sat heavily on his closet, making it look bigger than when it had nothing inside. He would need new clothes eventually, but he wasn't still sure how he was supposed to get his money.

He went downstairs short after unpacking and found the others members of the house together in the kitchen. Thor and Tony were drinking beer and laughing about a joke one of them made, while Jarvis was cooking something that made Steve remember that he hadn't eaten in a long while.

"Smells delicious." He said taking a seat beside Thor. Jarvis smiled at him.

"I hope you say the same thing about it's taste." He was sure that it would taste just as good as it smelled. "Here." Jarvis gave him a spoon with some of the sauce he was preparing.

"_Tastes_ delicious." He hummed happily wanting for it to be ready soon.

"What, we don't get to taste it too?" Tony complained and Jarvis send him a disapproving stare.

"No as long as you two misbehave. You should take in some of Captain Rogers's manners." Steve felt that they had done something Jarvis disapproved before his arrival.

"I smell favoritism." The brunette said creasing his nose to make his point. "Didn't they teach you that you shouldn't have favorites between family members?"

"What my mother taught me was that I should never praise misbehaving children." Steve smiled, a warm feeling running through his chest. He hadn't been more than a few hours here and he was already feeling at home.

"I am terribly repentant for my earlier behavior, kind Jarvis." Thor said with an uneasy face. "I apologize if I offended thee in anyway."

"Apology accepted, here you can have a taste." He said giving Thor a spoon and the man smiled accepting the offered utensil.

"Oh, I get it you just like the new kids better than me." Tony's face at the moment resembled a pout, or the closest thing to a pout you could get from him. It never ceases to amaze Steve how childish Tony could be.

"_Sir, I suggest you try and offer an apology._" Came the voice of the A.I. and Tony frowned.

"I shalt never apologize to thee." He said in a pretty bad imitation of Shakespeare and Steve chuckled. "I have not done any harm."

"What did you do to Mr. Jarvis?" The blond whispered to Thor, without taking his eyes off Tony's tantrum.

"We complained about the food, I said it was not enough for us." Thor paused for a moment. "I still believe it is not enough to satiate our appetites."

He understood why Jarvis was mad, he probably though that Thor was making fun of him, after all he was used to feed normal people like Tony, but both Steve and Thor have an accelerate metabolism and they need much more calories than normal people.

"And what did Mr. Stark complained about?" Coming from Tony it was probably something absurd.

"I think it was about not having biscuits." He chuckled when he saw Tony trying to get himself a spoon of the sauce only to be hit on the hand by Jarvis's spoon. "Here, have one." Thor said giving him a beer.

"Oh don't waste it in me. I'm unable to get drunk." Tony's argument with Jarvis stopped abruptly and both blonds looked up at the sudden silence in the room.

"Seriously, you are_ unable_ to get drunk?" Steve nodded, trying not to laugh at Tony's face. "Should have seen it coming from America's favorite son, it goes perfectly with your innocent appearance."

"It is one of the _downside_ of the serum." Steve glared at him, he did not consider himself innocent at all. Someone who had brought death before should not be called innocent.

"Some would hardly call that a downside." Steve glare intensified, he did not know the many nights he had wanted to drank until he wasn't able to remember his grief, he didn't know the pain of having to deal with his nightmares without anything to soothe him, he did not know the many times Steve had to put up with almost unbearable pain because the painkillers did not work on him.

"Then it's obvious they hadn't walked in my shoes, Mr. Stark."

He hadn't meant for it to sound so harsh, but comments like that always got under his skin, he hated when people acted as if they knew him just because he was Captain America. He wasn't the man with the mask, he was the man under the mask and that man few people knew about.

But tony had been nothing but a good host that day and Steve paid him by snapping at him. He hesitated for a moment but finally looked up from his feet to Tony's face, expecting to find disapproval, but instead he found nothing, no anger, no remorse, no sadness, just a machine like hollow face. Suddenly he didn't feel hungry, all he wanted to do was to go upstairs to sleep and he did so.

* * *

><p>He woke up at a quarter to four in the morning, his stomach was growling and kicking, upset with him for not feeding it in more than eighteen hours. He walked downstairs as quietly as he could and arrived at the kitchen with hopes of finding something that didn't need to be cooked, but to his surprise he found a plate full of Jarvis's cooking resting peacefully on the counter. He took it with a smile and ate silently; even cold it tasted really good. Slowly he made his way to the gallery stopping in front of the table with the many pictures of the Stark family.<p>

Maria Stark was a beautiful dame, he expected no less from Howard, Tony surely had taken from both of his parents his good look, because while slightly shorter than his father he was arguably more handsome than Howard. One thing he noticed was the fact that Maria was much younger than her husband, probably more than ten years younger than him, something he had suspected considering Tony's age, Howard must have been in his early or mid-fifties when he had Tony.

"Can I help you Captain Rogers?" He jumped almost dropping his food, and turned around to come face to face with Jarvis.

"Good grief Mr. Jarvis, don't scare me that way." Steve clutched his chest, feeling his heart beat fast, if he had been his old self he would probably have had a heart attack.

"I apologize Captain Rogers." The man chuckled a little. "I notice that your food is cold, do you want me to heat it?"

"Oh no, it aces." The man smiled at him. "How did you know I was here?"

"My room is just in front of the kitchen." Steve had woken him up.

"Sorry for cutting your doss." He looked at the pictures again, staring for long at one of Howard and really young Tony.

"It's alright, I was worried because you didn't eat anything." He nodded absently, submerged in his thoughts.

"How were they before?" He asked without thinking, he had wanted to ask that for a long time, he wanted to know why Tony seemed to dislike his father so much.

"Mr. Howard and Master Tony?" Steve nodded and Jarvis took a step forward. "Mr. Howard was really busy on those days, you barely see him here at all and when he was on business trips he always took Mrs. Maria with him. Master Tony was always alone in the house, when he was on mid school he used to stay at a friend's house until late, but when he entered high school he didn't have many friends and he spent most of his time in the garage working on projects, that's how thing were until Master Tony left for MIT."

"Why does Mr. Stark dislike Howard so much?" He turned to look at Jarvis, who looked confused for a moment, probably because he had called Tony by his last name.

"That my dear Captain is something that you will have to ask to Master Tony himself." He hadn't expected any other answer from Jarvis, but he had wanted to ask anyway.

"Thanks Mr. Jarvis." He said offering his hand to the other man.

"You are welcome Captain Rogers." The man grasped his hand shaking it energetically.

"Please call me Steve." He said while shaking his head in disapproval.

"Only if you drop the Mr." He smiled at the other man, who in answer smiled back at him. "Nice to meet you Steve"

"Nice to meet you too, Jarvis." After that both men had left for their respective bedroom.

The next day, Steve had woken up to find Jarvis and himself alone in the house. He was informed that Tony was back to L.A. for some time and that Thor has been picked up that morning by Jane Foster and was to be expected back later that day or the next morning. Being alone with Jarvis wasn't bad but he started to understand how a child Tony must have felt being alone in such a big house all the time, he felt lonely and wanted his companions back, not to mention he still needed to patch thing up with Tony.

But even with all the mishaps and hardships, he was beginning to adjust to this time and was beginning to look forward to his new life instead of looking backward to what could have been.

* * *

><p>In Iron man 2 Tony said that his dad had been death for almost 20 years and in Iron man when they present the newspaper about Howard's death the newspaper is from December 1991, and the first magazine about Tony is from 2008, the avenger take place like almost a year after Iron man 1 so… I'll consider that this is taking place in 2009, which makes Howard's death 18 years ago and considering Tony was seventeen at the moment of Howard's death he should be 35 in the fic, simple math.<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

**Title:** Timelines  
><strong>Author:<strong> Quietshade  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG-13  
><strong>Pairings:<strong> Eventual Steve/Tony, Tony/Pepper, past Steve/Peggy, Howard/Maria, Clint/Natasha, Thor/Jane.  
><strong>Universe: <strong>Movieverse (Earth-199999)  
><strong>Beta:<strong> Doomsymphony (Saixkosmos)  
><strong>Warning<strong>: Slash, M/M, Strong Language.  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 6,310  
><em><strong>Disclaimer:<strong>_ All Marvel characters and reference belong to them not to me.  
><strong>Summary<strong>: Tony is a man of the future who can't manage to accept his past and Steve is a man of the past who have a hard time accepting his future because of this they understand each other and help one another come in terms with their times.

* * *

><p><strong>Timelines<br>**_Chapter two_

"Mr. Stark! Mr. Stark!" He looked over his shoulders, to find a familiar but not pleasant face and wondered if that blonde reporter took a like on following him.

"Oh hi, there…" He made as if he couldn't remember the name, in fact she had harassed him so many times that year that he was having problems forgetting her name.

"Christine." She said irritated. "Seriously Tony I know you are faking it."

"Yeah, to the point, what do you want?" She took out from her pulse a small recorder and sends him a cheeky smile, as if that could buy him.

"Just a few questions." And by that she meant all she could get from him until he got tired of her. "Rumors say that the Stark Mansion is being used as The Avengers H.Q. is this true?"

God it had only been two days since the guys moved to the mansion and the reporters were already all over it.

"Nonsense, my house is no one's H.Q." She smirked at him, as if telling him she knew he was lying and took out from her pulse some photos, by experience Tony knew that reporters plus photos was never good news.

"Then what can you say about these photos." She showed him a photo of what seemed to be Clint, Thor and Steve playing basketball on the mansion's yard.

He suppressed the urge to groan, he had not been away for more than two days and Barton had already paid then a visit, he just hoped that Natasha hadn't tagged along or else he would need to revise the whole house in search of spying devices, not to mention that he would need JARVIS to change all his security passwords.

"_Some_ of The Avengers members are using the mansion as a temporary rest place, which does not make it their H.Q." He deadpanned feeling more and more like leaving, but not doing so as it would look as if he was running away.

"Does that mean that Stark Enterprise will be funding The Avengers initiative?" he saw that coming, many people were already harassing him about his active participation in The Avengers initiative and many of them used that as an excuse to try to get the company out of his hands.

"No, Stark Enterprise has nothing to do with The Avengers and won't be funding them."

"You being part of it, is your definition of having nothing to do with it?" She said with a raised eyebrow.

"Correction, I'm not part of The Avengers initiative, Iron man is." And that wasn't a lie, Fury had made that clear to him.

"You are Iron man and to quote you said before that the suit and you are one and the same." She looked as she was proud of apparently having the upper hand on the discussion but she would have to do better than that if she wanted Tony to fall.

"I said so and I still believe so but you see, the commander of The Avengers initiative as many of you, seems to differ in that opinion and he stated clearly that the one they wanted business with was Iron man and not Tony Stark." He thanked Nick about that now, at least he got and excuse for the press. "As they don't want any business with me I don't see how Stark Enterprise funding The Avengers is even plausible, not that I have any plans of funding them if they asked, any other question?" She looked annoyed or disappointed but she nodded, crushing Tony's hopes of leaving.

"Yes, we all know the fact that your father and Captain America worked together in the war, how does this affects your relationship with Captain America?" Once again he suppressed the urge to groan, that was how you made Tony fall, using a topic he wasn't up to discuss. His dad and Steve in the same sentence was all he needed to remember their last argument, just his luck.

"That haven't had any special effect on our relationship, I mean we have talked about dad once or twice but that hadn't made him any more special than the others Avengers." That was one hell of a lie, half of the fights he had with Steve where about Howard, but he would be dammed if he let that slip to the press. "Now if you excuse me in running late for a meeting."

He did his best to leave in a rush without looking like he was running away from the woman, which he was, and he sighed in content when he entered the limo.

"Where to, boss?" Happy asked him looking at him from the rearview mirror.

"Back home." He took his cellphone out and quickly dialed Pepper's number, she picked it up after two rings, and he talked before she could even greet him. "I'm beginning to think that the blonde reporter from Vanity fairs is stalking me, seriously, if this keeps up I'm getting a restriction order." He heard Pepper laugh in the other end of the phone.

"_Was it that bad?_" No it wasn't the worse he has had that week but the she was freaking him out, after all this was the third time she interviewed him that week.

"It could have been worse." He said finally and he could almost see Pepper smiling at him.

"_When are you going back to New York_?" He groaned, why was everyone so determined on reminding him of Steve.

"If I'm allowed to, not anytime soon." Even without Pepper being there he could tell she was frowning.

"_Don't tell me you got in another argument with Captain America._" She knew him way too well.

"Is not that, I just want to spend more time here with you." He knew she would see right through his lie, but he didn't lose anything trying.

"_Tony don't lie to me, I thought that the whole idea of allowing them to move to the mansion was to try to get along with each other._" She sounded annoyed, right she didn't like it when he lied.

"I'm doing just fine with Thor." That came out weak, almost as a whisper, knowing what she meant but trying to avoid it.

"_Tony._" There was a warning tone in her voice.

"Is just that… you didn't see him Pepper, he got the same disapproving stare that my father used to give me, is like going back to the past, I'm ten again and my father is lecturing me about how disappointed he is." He knew he had crossed some kind of limit line with his last joke, Steve had been furious and he hadn't meant to get him upset.

He knew he must have apologized right away but the expression on Steve face send him back to his childhood and he did just as if it was another argument with Howard, he shut himself from anything that could harm him. He was trying really hard to get along with the man, but it was hard for him to, when said man was always bringing Howard into their conversations. God he could even feel the man comparing him with his dad every time he did something wrong.

"_Oh Tony, if it was going to be this hard for you, you shouldn't have offered your house._" He did regret offering the mansion now, but he was in a team with him, there was no way for him to avoid the man and now that they were living together the likely of them patching things up was higher.

"No I still think it was a good idea, just let me gather my front and I'll be back into the fight." He heard her talk to someone in the other end of the line.

"_Tony dear I need to leave you now, I have a meeting._" She sounded exasperated, which meant they were probably harassing her about a contract or something, he almost felt bad for leaving most of the company's responsibilities to her.

"Ok, we'll talk tonight… love you." The last part came out as a whisper, he hated it when he sounded like a love sick teenager, but that's how he felt with Pepper.

"_I love you too, take care and stop avoiding the man._" He laughed with bitterness at that last statement, right now he did not believe he could even look at the man to the face, he feared too much what he might find on his face, an expression he had been trying so hard to forget all this years.

He sighed, letting himself submerge on his thoughts, going to places he wanted to forget, but being too weak to stop them from drowning him. He knew that Steve and Fury were both right, there were many things about his dad that he did not know yet. He was more than the cold man he remembered him being, he saw the video, and he knew he had cared about Tony, but he didn't know to what extent, nor did he knew why the man had been so cold toward him.

Even so knowing all this, he couldn't bring himself to just accept the fact that his father had wanted the best for him, that he had done all he did because he wished for Tony's wellbeing, he couldn't just take that. All he could think about his father was the fact that he had broken Tony beyond repair, that every time he remembered his dad it was a memory so bitter that he felt the pain flood right through his skin, that almost every nightmare he had were about Howard being disappointed of him, telling him how messed up he was. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't bring himself to put those seventeen years of misery behind.

He covered his eyes with his arm, feeling the start of a headache.

"You ok boss?" he heard Happy ask him.

"I'll be fine." He sighed deeply. He really was in need of a good cup of coffee and a few of his favorite donuts. "Actually Happy, we ought to stop to buy some coffee and do-" He was cut in mid-sentence by a big explosion to his right. The shock sent him flying toward the window and he hit the glass, the impact blurring his vision for a moment and he felt blood running down his side.

"Not this again!" He groaned as he sat upright to look up at Happy, the man was unconscious but was breathing and save the blood on his forehead he seemed unharmed. Quickly he went down to look for his suitcase under Happy's seat but the moment he grabbed it a masked man opened the door to his right and, before he could do anything covered his mouth, he felt his consciousness slipping. Damn was the last thing he thought about before blanking out.

* * *

><p>He woke up to one hell of a headache, one of the worse he had in a long time, he felt nauseate and fought the urge to roll to his side and puke. He heard some distant voices in the back of his head but he didn't understand what they were saying, they were not talking in English his mind provided, and for a moment he panicked, feeling as if he was back in the cave with the battery being his life support.<p>

After a moment he calmed down, his memories clearing and his panic turned into worry as he tried to concentrate on the voices which sounded clearer now. They weren't talking in English but it was a language he knew, German.

"…ake up yet?" A rough voice asked.

"No sir, those mercenaries might have over done it." One of the men groaned.

"I'll cut their payment. He was supposed to be unharmed." He heard some cloth rustling. "Keep an eye on him and bring him the nursery if anything happens." He heard the footstep of the man and a door shut.

They wanted him alive and lucid at most, which was a good thing and something on his advantage. He moved his hands slowly and quietly, he was cuffed but they weren't harmed. Surely his enemies didn't learn one damn thing about him, they were dammed if they though some handcuff and a lonely guard could stop Tony Stark.

He rolled to his side, making some choking noises, as if he was going to puke. The guard was right beside him in a moment, holding him in place. The sudden movement made his head spin and hurt, and he didn't have to fake the whine that escaped his throat. He heard the guard rustle, looking for something and soon after that he heard the clinging of metal to metal. The guard opened the cuff on his feet and he took that as his cue. He opened his eyes looking at the guard for the first time, too young he thought, and grabbed his head slamming it hard against the bed's metal. The young man passed out with a face of utter surprise.

"Idiots." His voice was rusted and sloppy, which made him wonder how long he had been out. Slowly he stood and the room started spinning around him to the point he had to lean on the wall for support. He breathed deeply and the room stopped spinning, he knew there were chances of him having a concussion.

He looked around for the first time. It was a pretty small room, no windows, no ventilation ducts, no way out other than the door. He checked the guard and found some keys and a gun. Whoever kidnapped him this time wasn't really smart, leaving a novice with a gun within Tony's reach was never a good idea. He opened his handcuff and walked to the door, opening it partially he looked outside in search of guards. He spotted a guard patrolling the corridor, the man was giving his back to Tony and he longed for some chloroform at the moment.

He waited for the guard to turn around in a corner in order to slip his head outside, looking at both sides he confirmed that no guards were near, he then ran as fast and silently as he could to the opposite side of which the guard had gone. He stopped at the corner of the corridor to see if any other guard was there, when he saw none he ran down to the corridor, but stopped mid-way when he realized that running around the corridors wouldn't bring any good. He looked around and smiled when he spotted a ventilation duct.

He attached the gun to his belt, realizing for the first time that his formal suit was gone and had been replaced by some old clothes, he really was suffering from a concussion if he had missed that detail before. He opened the duct and stood on his toes in order to enter it. It was so narrow that he barely fit inside it and he was grateful for two things at that moment, of not being claustrophobic and -despise his earlier jealousy on that behalf- of not being as big as Steve. He made his way through the duct as fast as he could as he knew it was a matter of time for the guards to realize what had happened.

He wandered in the ducts for many minutes, coming across an opening from time to time, but they were either room like the one he had woken up in or more corridors. After an exhaustive search he came across a room with many computers and he grinned, finally finding what he was searching for. He pressed his ear to the opening and after hearing nothing apart from the slight buzzing of the computers he opened the duct and made his way down the room.

Wasting no time he went for the mainframe and violated the security of the system with ease, gaining access to it, in the screen appeared many codes and schemes. He frowned when he noticed how oddly familiar they were to him, but having no time to analyze them he settled for establishing a connection with one of the Starks satellites. He sent JARVIS an emergency call and a copy of whatever they were working on, he protected the connection the best he could, knowing that it would took them a while -hopefully time enough for the information to be sent safely- to break the safety.

He stood from the chair and walked toward the opening but as he was reaching for the duct the door slid open and two guards entered the room. "Found him!" one of them shouted in German.

"Crap!" he turned around, gun in hand and ready for anything.

"Seize him! Do not kill him!" in a few second he was surrounded by many guards and He dropped the gun having no use for it against so many guards. "Bastard American." A man, presumably the leader made his way to the front and Tony recognized his voice from before. He grabbed a hand full of Tony's hair and kicked him hard in the guts. He fell to his knee, clutching his stomach the pain making his vision blurs. "Dislocate his legs, made sure he can't move around, no American will make fun of us."

He closed his eyes and grunted, feeling his injured hearth beat faster in his ears, this was going to hurt. Some guards made their way to his side and it wasn't long before he heard an ear piercing shriek erupt from his mouth, hot tears strolled down his cheeks and he sobbed as everything begun to fade out.

* * *

><p>He blinked slowly, the pain numbing his sense and blurring his vision. Just like last time he heard some noises in the back of his mind, only that this time it wasn't some guards talking, it was the full noises of a battle going on outside. He blinked once, twice and the room became clear to him, same room as before. He tried to sit and hissed when a rush of pain ran through him, he looked down at his leg, both legs were dislocate but to his relief there seemed not to be any broken bone, whoever kidnaped him wanted him at his best.<p>

He let himself fall on the mattress, he was sure that the ones battling out there were the others Avengers but no matter how hard he wanted to stand and help in the fight, there was no way for him to do so in his current state, so he lay there waiting for them to find him. He was beginning to doss off when he heard the door open with a loud noise, he looked at it to find Natasha, gun in hand and leg in the air, and behind her a really worried Steve.

"Huh, took you long enough." His voice came out rasped almost like a whisper and damned that he sounded too broken for his like. Natasha was at his side in a moment.

"Are you all right Stark?" he raised his eyebrow, was that worry he heard in Natasha's voice?

"Yeah, the bastards dislocated my legs but at least they didn't break them…" he trailed off and looked at Steve, the man was looking at him with this hard gaze and he flinched a little under it. "Can you relocate them?" his gaze went back to Natasha, she nodded.

"Hold him still." She said to Steve and he complied. "This is going to hurt." He breathed deeply and screamed when another wave of pain ran through him, it was finished after a moment and he was left sweating and panting. "Grab him by the arm." He was lifted by his right arm and a hand was on his hip, his feet barely touching the floor. Had he been in better conditions he would have protested, but for now he was grateful to them for not carrying him bride style as he had already received enough harm to his pride.

He had been barely conscious of his surroundings. He knew that Steve had dragged him across the corridors, and that Natasha had defeated every guard that dared to challenge them. Still it wasn't until he heard Thor speaking to him that he focused on what was going on around him.

"Thou seem to be in a bad shape my friend." He smiled, but he was sure it came out as a grimace. He looked around for a bit, they were outside in some kind of desert and the Hellicarrier was in front of them.

"Have seen better days." He admitted and he looked at Clint who in return frowned at him.

"You can't walk?" He felt Steve adjust him, the man was unusually quiet.

"Dislocated my legs, I'll be fine." Clint nodded and they walked toward the Helicarrier, there he was greeted by Fury and some medics with a wheelchair.

"How come you are more troubles to me than benefits?" he chuckled drily.

"Being kidnaped can't be considered my fault." Steve dropped him in the wheelchair and he whined when the insistent pain coming from below his waist intensified. Steve looked down at him with worry but he shook his head assuring the man that he was fine.

"You know, I could tell you at least ten reason of why being kidnaped is your fault." That promised one hell of an argument later, but right now he was too tired to try to argue with an angry Colonel, instead he threw his head back, letting himself drown into oblivion.

* * *

><p>Next time he woke up, there was no numbing pain, nauseating feelings, explosions or stupid Germans guard, nothing but the low noises made by the hospital's machines. He looked at his side to find Pepper seated by his side, her head resting on the bed. He smiled and ran a hand through her hair and she stirred, looking up at him, her eyes instantly filling with tears.<p>

"Hey." She hit him halfheartedly and buried her face in his chest. He could felt her hot tears drenching the fabric of his shirt.

"You scared the life out of me, you idiot." She sobbed and he hugged her with one arm.

"I'm sorry, Pep." He lifted her chin and kissed her, sighing happily as he had missed her greatly. "Happy! How's Happy?" he asked, suddenly remembering that his chauffer had been in the explosion with him.

"He is ok, he wasn't harmed and they didn't kidnap him. He was really worried about you though." He nodded and kissed her again, going for a deeper kiss this time but suddenly the door opened.

"Oh." Said a really flushed Steve from the door, Tony raised an eyebrow in amusement. Who knew that Captain America could blush like that just from seeing a kiss? "I- I'll come back later." With that he left the room in a hurry, both Pepper and him burst out in laugh.

"God we probably scarred the man." Pepper didn't look as embarrassed as she sounded.

"Not our fault that the man is a fucking boy scout." Pepper hit him in the arm, without much force.

"Language Tony." He went down and gave her a quick peek. "Anyways I have to go back to LA this evening."

"So soon?" He whined, pulling her closer to him, she laughed at him.

"Yes, someone have to take care of your company." He nuzzled his cheek against her hair as she kissed him on the neck.

"It is technically your company and as the boss you can take a few days of vacation to take care of your injured boyfriend." She rolled her eyes at him.

"We both know that I would love to do that, but I have a meeting tomorrow morning with Mr. Fujikawa and we hadn't been in his good side since you broke up with his daughter." He frowned.

"She cheated on me with Ty!" It still hurt him to think about that, she had been the last serious relationship he had and look at how it ended. "What else could I do?" This time it was Pepper who nuzzled him in the neck, in an attempt to soothe his rage.

"I know Tony, I know." He sighed, letting his distress flow.

"Do I at least get a consolation prize?" He tried for his tone to be as seductive as he could, and he saw Pepper blush to his delight.

"Tony! Not while you are at the hospital!" He chuckled at her reaction.

"Oh come on, you just crushed many of my fantasies." He kissed her deeply and took a hold of her waist, doing his best to pull her up to the bed ignoring the faint twinge in his legs.

"Tony." She probably intended for it to be a threat but instead it came as a moan and he smirked knowing that he was winning the fight. Soon enough both of them were moaning shamelessly, hands roaming everywhere until the door opened for the second time and Tony groaned, he was going to kill Steve if it was him again.

"Sorry to interrupt you but I'm under orders to take Mr. Stark." He looked to the new comer to find Coulson smiling in amusement. Why was life so cruel to him?

"Of course." Pepper said with embarrassment, she looked at him as if telling him that it was his fault -it wasn't, it was Coulson's- but kissed him goodbye nonetheless.

* * *

><p>He realized that he wasn't truly in a hospital, it was actually the medical division of SHIELD. Coulson guided his wheelchair through the many corridors of the SHIELD H.Q. until they arrived at a door Tony had become used to. Coulson passed his ID through the identifier and the door to the meeting room opened, all the other Avengers already there. Coulson left him in the space between Bruce and Clint.<p>

Bruce smiled at him warmly, worry evident on his face, he forced himself to smile back but god they were over reacting, he have had it worse before, if this continued the way it was going he would have Steve pitying him next,

"Good to see you awake Stark." He looked at Fury not hiding his annoyance.

"Good to be awake, would be better if your agents waited for me to finish my business." He saw with much amusement Steve ears blush and Fury looked from Steve to him, with an eyebrow raised.

"Huh, something tells me I don't want to know." Clint said from his side.

"Down to work, we are here because of the event involving stark's kidnaping." Fury turned on the screen behind him, showing an image of some kind of warehouse in the desert. "The people involved in your kidnaping were a pro-Nazi group, that hadn't been active until recently and my people are investigating their motive and the reason as to why suddenly they seem to be more active." He changed the picture to one of death man that looked as if he had rabies. "Regrettably as the Nazi in the war they commit suicide and blow they facilities the moment they lose a fight, this time the explosion cost us two of our agents." He didn't remember any explosion, thus it must have happened after he passed out and by the look of pure grim the team had it was evident that more than one of them blamed themself for the death of those agents. "Stark do you have any idea of their reason for kidnaping you?"

"No I don't, but whoever ordered them wanted me at my best, as they were under orders of not harming me." He heard Steve snigger bitterly.

"You call that not being harmed?" He looked at the man, and on his face was that strange expression he carried before, one that Tony couldn't name but that seemed so unlike him.

"I had it worse in Afghanistan, at least they didn't threaten my life." He said tapping his arc reactor. Suddenly the codes and scheme he saw in the kidnapper's base came back to his mind and he knew why they seemed so familiar.

"Stark are you all right?" He focused his gaze on the room, eyes still wide with surprise, he didn't knew why he hadn't seen it before. Everyone was looking at him with a worried expression and Clint was holding him in place.

"I'm ok." he said dismissing Clint. "I need to go to my workshop." He said with excitement, moving to leave but collapsing back in place when his legs reminded him of the abuse they have been put through, he forgot his injures in his excitement.

"What the hell Stark?" Clint shouted at him and he felt two strong hands holds him in place and he looked up to come face to face with Steve.

"Don't." the man said in a tone that leaved no place for argument. Tony shook his head nevertheless.

"I'm fine, is just that I might have realized what they wanted from me." Now everyone was looking at him in surprise. "Before they dislocated my legs, I manage to escape to their control room, they were working on something that I didn't quite recognize, but the codes and scheme seemed oddly familiar, so I send a copy of it to JARVIS." He explained, and Fury face lighted like a Christmas tree, just from hearing that he manage to get a copy of something. "I just remembered why they were so familiar, they looked a lot like some notes I read on one of my dad's old notebooks. I think they might have been after my knowledge about the arc reactor."

Fury looked contemplative for a moment, as always he knew more than he let through, but Tony ignored that, it wasn't like he was honest to the man all the time. Fury looked at him with a face full of determination.

"This is the second time in two years that you been kidnaped. The fourth time in the same amount of time, that you been almost killed because of that thing in your chest and each time you are injured or kidnapped it becomes a problem I have to deal with." This was going on a way that Tony didn't like at all. "I don't care what you thing about bodyguards, I'm assigning you a babysitter, right now."

"What? No! Last time you assigned someone to me, he said he would taze me and watches Supernanny while I drooled into the carpet." Tony heard Clint snigger at his side and glared at him, it hadn't been funny at all… actually it had been quite intimidating because he knew Coulson had been dead serious.

"You are not walking out of this and I'm happy to hear that agent Coulson is taking his job seriously." There was this seriously annoying smirk on Fury's face, and Tony swore that the man must have been laughing in his behalf. "Though I'm sorry to inform you that Agent Coulson is too busy to be assigned as your babysitter, but don't worry I'll assign you one of our most competent agents." He grimaced, assigning an agent as his bodyguard was just a way for Fury to keep him at bay and for him to spy on his work, to make sure he knew what Tony was working on.

"Permission to talk, sir." He heard Steve said from behind him, his hands were still on Tony's shoulders, he noticed.

"Go ahead Rogers." Tony looked up at Steve, seeing the seriousness in his face he wondered what was going through his mind.

"Would it be all right for me to take on that position?" He was shocked to say the least Captain America wanted to be his bodyguard? The man never seize to amaze him and if he thought about the circumstance, it was a great idea, Steve didn't know a thing about technology which mean he couldn't report to Fury about his work.

"Yes, that's a great idea! I ratter had America's golden boy watching me than one of your crazy agents." He looked at Clint and then to Natasha. "No offense meant." He added quickly, knowing too well, what both of them could do to him in a bad mood.

"I see no reason as to why you couldn't be Stark's… Bodyguard." Tony got the feeling that Fury was going for babysitter but refrained from doing so, probably not wanting to offend Steve.

"Thanks, sir." Steve smiled politely, looking down to Tony for the first time, once again in his face that expression that seemed so unlike Captain America and that was beginning to look a lot like remorse. Tony blinked at him not sure of what he should be saying to the man, thanks for saving him from one of Fury's crazy agents? Sorry for offending him the last time they talked? He settled for saying nothing and looked away from the man.

"Well I see no need to prolong this meeting, you are all dismissed." He stood from his chair and sends a suspicious glare to Tony. "And Stark, I expect a report about your findings soon."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll have Cap brings you a report soon." He waved at him as Steve turned the chair around heading for the exit. Clint came to his side and grinned at him.

"Rogers I pity you, you are going to have a hard time babysitting Stark." Tony looked at him with a frown.

"You are just jealous because I choose Steve over you. Don't worry I have a heart big enough for two, you can always join us, if you get what I mean." He kept his tone innocent but the gaze he sent to Clint told otherwise and Clint blushed heavily.

"Oh, man that's gross!" He said covering his face and rushing out of the room. Tony looked up at Steve who was blushing as bad as Clint.

"I- it would be adequate if you restrain from making such comments." He stuttered a bit and his blush made him look impossible cute. Tony laughed hard finding it amusing.

"You are not fun!" He said halfheartedly, because just making the man blush was hilarious.

"I would like to join you my friends!" He turned to his right to see Thor walking to them.

"Good, welcome aboard." Steve made a choked noise, knowing that Thor hadn't get the sexual innuendo, but still blushing more if that was even possible. "What about you Banner wanna join the fun?" He said to Bruce at his left. "I can think of many nice things we could do as a quartet." Banner shock his head with horror painted all over his face.

"That's so wrong." It was barely above a whisper but hard enough for them to hear it. Steve looked like he wanted to run away from the place and Thor looked plainly confused. He laughed and couldn't help it, but dropped the subject, deciding he had laughed enough in expense of the younger blond, for the day that is. He was going to enjoy these days of Steve as his bodyguard.


	3. Chapter 3

**Title:** Timelines  
><strong>Author:<strong> Quietshade  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG-13  
><strong>Pairings:<strong> Eventual Steve/Tony, Tony/Pepper, past Steve/Peggy, Howard/Maria, Clint/Natasha, Thor/Jane.  
><strong>Universe: <strong>Movieverse (Earth-199999)  
><strong>Beta:<strong> Doomsymphony (Saixkosmos)  
><strong>Warning<strong>: Slash, M/M, Strong Language.  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 5,977  
><em><strong>Disclaimer:<strong>_ All Marvel characters and reference belong to them not to me.  
><strong>Summary<strong>: Tony is a man of the future who can't manage to accept his past and Steve is a man of the past who have a hard time accepting his future because of this they understand each other and help one another come in terms with their times.

* * *

><p><strong>Timelines<br>**_Chapter three_

He looked once more through his father's notes, looking for the piece of puzzle that he was missing. Last time someone had access to the Arc Reactor technology it ended with Ivan Vanko almost killing him and lot of other people. While those codes and schemes were indeed related to his Arc Reactor, the work behind it was different from his father's it was rawer the power was hardly controllable, it wasn't the fine work his father had done with the Arc Reactor, yet it was based on the same principles and there was so much he didn't understand about it yet.

Over a year and a half ago he had though he knew all there was to know about the Arc Reactor and then Fury came and told him that he was mistaken, that the thing in his chest was unfinished technology. Now he was sure that he knew nothing about the technology behind the piece of art that was keeping him alive.

Even after so much time of being dead, Howard was still ahead of him.

How the pro-Nazi managed to get a hold of that technology was beyond his comprehension, is not like he though that only the Starks could come with such an idea, it was that the work on the code and schemes was so poor and mediocre that he doubted the one working them had developed the principles behind it. He feared that maybe his father had been double dealing under the table, but that was almost impossible as the man had almost been a hero of war, then maybe it had been Obadiah and that was plausible fact. Still there was something that budged him about those schemes, they worked in a way similar to the Arc Reactor but they seemed to be based on something totally different.

"JARVIS find equivalent patterns between dad's notes and the pro-Nazi's work." He sighed heavily, looking through the notes again, stopping in a page with a draw of a hypercube, he stared at it for a while. His father was more of a physicist than he was because Tony was more inclined to building machines, but even then he knew that his father was not into the mysteries of the fourth dimension and that's what made the existence of the drawing significant.

"Seventeen matches found, Sir." He looked up at the screen, going through the matches, and to his surprise, he found in the screen the same hypercube he had been looking at a moment ago. The pro-Nazi had a drawing of it too and it was labeled Cosmic Cube.

"What the hell is a Cosmic Cube?" He hadn't heard about it before, or at least he think he hadn't but the name sounded surprisingly familiar. "JARVIS look that up."

"Nothing found, Sir." The A.I. said after a moment and Tony groaned, JARVIS had access for almost every know database in the world, whatever JARVIS couldn't find either meant it didn't exist or someone had made sure it remained a secret.

"You looked up in dad's notes?" He asked as he continued looking at the different matches on the screen.

"Excuse me sir but I think I know better than that." The A.I. actually managed to sound annoyed and Tony stopped his search for a moment, admiring the good job he had done with JARVIS.

"Right, you think we can hack into SHIELD's database?" If anyone had the information he needed it was Fury.

"I believe we can break the security, but it would be matter of time before Colonel Fury or Agent Romanoff appears to put a stop to it." Tony shuddered not liking that scenario at all. He still remembered the time when Natasha shot him with Lithium Dioxide, for a moment there he had though he was going to be kidnapped.

"Let's go against that plan for now." He was lost. All he knew about his father work came from a book on MIT, another person's mouth or from reading his research and notes, which had lots of babbling that he didn't understand and all that was hardly base enough for him to try to figure this out. The worst part is that apart from Fury he didn't know anyone else who could answer his question.

"This is going nowhere." He let his head fall on the desk, feeling frustrated. His father had written those notes in a time where no one had even dreamed about the technology Tony held and even so he wasn't able to reach him, he was still far behind him.

He heard the door to the lab slide open and he looked back with a bored gaze to find Steve walking up to him with a tray of food. He blinked slowly and smiled, the man was taking his job seriously, though to Fury's word he was acting more as a babysitter than as a bodyguard.

"Here, you wouldn't answer Jarvis's call." Steve put a sandwich and a cup of milk beside him and he looked at his tablet which marked three missing calls from the kitchen.

"Didn't want to be disturbed." Steve glared at him, he could tell the man was still mad at him about their last argument, but as much as Steve insisted that he should rest he was feeling just fine. "If you insist on bringing me food I'll really appreciate if we settle for coffee and doughnuts." He said poking at his sandwich and Steve glare on him intensified.

"I'm not feeding you with caffeine and sugar you are hyper enough as it is." He brought a chair to Tony's side and sat down taking his own sandwich in hands. "Anyways what's with the cop like diet?"

"Coffee is good for work and the doughnuts just taste good with it." He gave the man his unscientific explanation knowing that he wouldn't understand it otherwise. He took a bite from his sandwich and he had to admit it wasn't half bad. "Who made this?"

"I did… do you like it?" Tony nodded, taking another bite.

"This isn't half bad." Steve frowned at him and he wondered if he had said something wrong.

"Isn't half bad?" He asked confused, of course he had to moderate his expressions with Steve.

"That means it is alright." Steve nodded and went back to look at his food. "I've been tempted to ask…" he trailed off thinking of a way to ask it without offending the man. "What motivated you to… propose to be my bodyguard?" He saw the man tense up and focus himself on the sandwich in his hand, Tony felt sorry for the sandwich it probably wanted to wither under that glare.

"I-there… back at the war I had a team too, they were good and we won many battles." He knew by the tone in the man's voice that he was forcing himself to speak and even if the media though otherwise, cruel wasn't one thing Tony was.

"Hey, it's ok you don't have to force yourself to answer." He patted the man's shoulder and finished his sandwich.

"Its fine, I don't mind telling you." Tony looked at the man, he was being sincere, but Tony wondered if that was because he trusted Tony or because he was Howard's son, he suspected on the later. "On one of our last missions, we were supposed to capture Dr. Arnim Zola, Shmidt's right hand." He paused briefly, like he was collecting himself. "We succeed but it cost us one man, my best friend James Barnes. I was right there and I couldn't save him." He sighed with desperation. "As long as I'm the leader it is my responsibility to keep the members of my team safe, when Ms. Potts called and told us you were kidnapped it was like going through Bucky's death all over again."

"Come on Cap, I think we are all big enough to take care of ourselves, you don't have to push yourself in our behalf." He smiled awkwardly to him, looking back at the screen with the matches. "Besides you did save me, didn't you?" he wasn't good at comforting but he tried to sound reassuring.

"But you were hurt…" the man looked devastated, like he had failed his most important mission and Tony knew how he felt, he had felt the same way when he returned from Afghanistan, helpless and dirty.

They stayed silent after that, Tony kept looking through the codes, while Steve wandered around the workshop. He heard Steve snooping around his things and a few moments later he heard him gasp, Tony turned around to find Steve holding one of Howard's Captain America's comics.

"Oh, that belongs to dad." He saw the excitement in Steve face with amusement, must be fun to find and old comic of you. "If you want to, you can keep it."

"Thanks pal." He smiled warmly to Tony and Tony found himself smiling back. He sat in the chair next to Tony's and opened the comic, laughing from time to time. It was strangely comforting to be there with the man, listening to him laugh occasionally while Tony worked, he couldn't even believe that a few days ago he had been avoiding the man like the plague. "I'm cooler in the comics, I was not as grateful in real life."

"Really, I think you are just like the comics, down to the way you talk." Steve glared at him.

"I am not. My speech is not that bad." He laughed at Steve, the man was a step away from pouting but instead he went back to snoop around the workshop and after a moment he heard him gasp again, Tony swore that anything could surprise the man and looked over his shoulder to see Steve holding one of Howard's old films.

"You still use this?" There was excitement in his voice, the pure joy of finding something he knew and understood.

"No we don't, those are some old films of my dad." He was crestfallen Tony could tell. "I have a projector for that if you want to see it." He blurted without thinking, for a moment he wanted to slam his head in the table but refrained from doing so when the other man smiled at him.

"Yes, please." He stood slowly, his legs still hurting, Steve gave him the walker and Tony glared at the offending object but took it anyway and went to look for the projector the man following him short behind. They were back soon and Steve installed everything, under Tony's instruction and occasional swearing.

"Which one do you want to see?" Steve handed him one that was labeled -Tony- and Tony send him a suspicious look but complied anyways, he hadn't see it himself.

Steve helped him sit beside him on the floor and shortly after they were greeted by the face of his mother.

"Is it recording Howard?" She blinked at the camera, smiling warmly. Tony breath got caught in his throat it has been so long since he had heard that voice.

"I believe it is Maria." She focused the camera on Howard and he was smiling equally warmly at it, he saw Steve shift in the corner of his eye. She then focused the camera on a small boy that was doing some puzzles on the floor, black hair sticking on his face.

"Say hi to the camera Tony." The small boy looked up with big dark eyes and tilted his head to one side.

"Wha zat mamma?" He heard Steve snigger and resisted the urge to glare at him, he just couldn't take his gaze away from the projection. His small self, stood from his spot walking to the camera and holding the lenses with his chubby hands, looking at it as he was trying to figure out how it worked.

"He's taking after you Howard." His mother said, stroking his cheek kindly. A pair of arms surrounded his chubby form and Howard picked him up.

"Come on big boy you are going to break it." He sat with Tony in a couch and the boy pouted at him.

"Am not." Howard smiled at him and snuggled his stomach with his face making the boy go into a fits of giggles. When Howard stopped the boy's face was red and his hair was even more tangled than before. He kissed the boy in the forehead, looking at him with a gaze full of affection. Maria laughed in the background when the boy yawned.

"Here, let me carry him." The camera was passed to Howard, Maria took the boy in her arms and the child rested his head on her shoulder and took his thumb to his mouth, rubbing his eyes furiously. "Do you want mamma to sing to you?" The boy nodded with sleep and Maria started rocking him, singing to him a soft lullaby and before long the boy fell asleep on his mom's chest. "I love you dear." Maria planted a small kiss in the boy's hair and walked toward the camera. "I love you too darling." The camera focused on the floor for a moment as Maria and Howard seemingly kissed and then it was Howard smiling at the camera.

"Grow to be strong Tony." Then the image went blank and Tony bite his lips fighting back tears, he wouldn't cry in front of Steve but it was hard when there was a burning feeling consuming his chest. He had never seen such a warm expression on either of his parents and it burned him, to see the love he had been forcefully neglected being show so openly. What the hell happened to them? What did Tony do for them to stop treating him like that? He felt rage, jealously, sorrow and a desperate need to cry, but he showed none, he put on his blank face, the one he had so dutifully mastered over the years and said nothing, listening to the silence that reigned over the room for a long while, even if his head was everything but quiet at the moment.

He grabbed the film of Howard recording for the city of the future, at least that film would made the blond smile. "Let's watch this one." Steve grabbed his wrist before he could put the movie and he looked at him in confusion.

"You don't need to." He gave the man the best smile he could manage at the time. The man shared the death of his best friend with him, the least Tony could give him were a few minutes with his old friend.

"You see, my dad made a fool of himself in this one, you will like it." He tugged his wrist from the man's hold and changed the films. He stood from his spot on the floor, with lot of helps from Steve and the walker, sat on his chair to resume his work, or at least that seemed to be the case to the blond, in reality he was staring at the screen not giving much thought to the codes anymore.

After a while he heard Steve laugh at the part that Howard seemed unsure of himself and shift uncomfortably at the part that a young Tony appeared, after that the man was silent until the film ended.

"Hey Tony..." Tony looked at the man in surprise, that was the first time he called him by his name, but it seemed that Steve hadn't realized that yet, He was frowning and he seemed to be thinking really hard about something. "How did Howard die?"

"He and mom died in a car accident." Tony was taken aback when the man looked incredulously at him, like he didn't believed a word of what Tony had said.

"You are joking right?" The man was shaking his head in disbelieving.

"Why would I? Look I don't care if you think that's an ungrateful way for my father to die but that's how it happened." The man frowned at him and shook his head again.

"You aren't joking then, and that's not what I meant." He stood from his spot on the floor and walked to Tony. "There's no way for Howard to have died in a car crash, he is-was the best civil pilot I have ever met and probably one of the best pilots we got back there and he was by far the best driver we had." He shook his head more firmly this time. "If the Nazi didn't get him in one of the many drives he gave us to the battle field there's no way for him to have died in a simple car accident." Tony shuddered and looked away from the blond.

"He was growing old and they say he was a reckless driver." He tried not to give much though the man's word and hoped for him to drop the subject.

"Dum Dum Dungan and Jim were reckless drivers. Howard was a genius, daring yes, reckless no." Tony looked at Steve, the look on his face told him that the man wasn't going drop the subject.

"What's your point Cap?" Steve looked away from him, his gaze falling into the projector.

"There's something that bothers me about that last film." He looked at Tony again. "How old were you when Howard died?"

"It was after I graduated from MIT, so… I just turned Seventeen by then." The Frown in the man intensified.

"Was he sick? Was he dying?" Tony looked suspiciously at Steve, did he though that Howard had committed suicide?

"No the man was a bulk, didn't seem sick to me, he even used to play tennis often and his medic reports were clean." Steve looked confused now and looked like he was bashing himself about something.

"Did he gave you that film?" Tony shook his head, he was now downright curious about what the man was thinking.

"No, Fury did a year and a half ago." Steve looked at him with a mixture of surprise and confusion.

"The Colonel did?" He asked in disbelieve.

"Yeah apparently dad was one of the founders of S.H.I.E.L.D. Fury said he knew him well." That seemed to take Steve by surprise, but after a moment the confusion on Steve seemed to dissipate as if he had figured something out of that statement.

"Could you explain to me why Howard recorded some kind of hidden message for you many years before his death and left the film with someone you probably wouldn't have ever met was it not for the fact that you became Iron Man?" Tony looked at Steve perplexed, he hadn't thought about that before. Steve looked at the projector again, his gaze somehow distant. "The Howard I knew was clever he wouldn't do something just because, I believe that didn't change about him."

Tony believed so too, he didn't knew his father that much but he sure knew that he was calculating, he always though ahead of things and his every step was dictated by logic.

"Are you implying th-" Steve looked at him with a stare so intense that it cut tony mid-sentence.

"I'm saying that Howard wouldn't have died on a car crash, that he knew he was going to die before he made that film, that he must have been involved in something he didn't want you into but left a safeguard in case you did. I am saying that I think he was murdered." Tony saw that one coming but even so it hit him like a bat on his guts and he leaned his head on his hand for support.

"You are implying something big there Rogers." And indeed he was, all that meant that Fury must be conscious of that fact, that the authorities had reasons for hiding the truth about Howard's death, it meant so many things.

Then there was the film, it have gave him a clue to finding a new element for the Arc Reactor, and now that he thought about it, if he hadn't become Iron man he probably wouldn't have ever seen the film. Hell if he hadn't been dying from Palladium poisoning at that moment Fury probably would have kept the film for himself, which meant that whatever Howard was involved into was related to the Arc Reactor. He looked at Howard's drawing of the hypercube and the pro-Nazi version of it on the screen.

"It must have been the Arc Reactor." He told Steve after a moment, "Fury said that dad saw something big in it, beside there are so many secrets around dad's work on it, so many things I still don't get about it. The Nazi connection to this is only a proof that this goes deeper than I though." There was warm hand on Tony's shoulder and he looked at it without giving it too much thought.

"How's that coming?" Steve voice is not his usual one and Tony knew he should probably try to pick on that, but he is far to consumed in his thoughts to even care about it.

"Slow." He sighed in defeat and ran a hand through his hair. "I know too little about dad's work, about him in general and with Fury out of the game, even more now that you said those things, there's probably no one left for me to ask about this." The grip on his shoulder tightened.

"I'm sorry… I never quite understood his technobabble, Peggy would have known though." Tony looked at him with curiosity. That was the first time he heard that name and he was startled by the softness on Steve's voice.

"Who's Peggy?" The hand on his shoulder disappeared and Steve looked away from him, his expression soft and Tony could have sworn that his cheeks were flushed.

"Officer Peggy Carter of the Strategic Scientific Reserve, she was… a friend and was close to Howard during the war, she got a better hang of him than I did." There was something odd on Steve voice and expression but Tony dismissed it.

"JARVIS look her up." After a few seconds the screen was filled with images of a beautiful woman and Steve gasped beside him.

"Officer Margaret Carter also knows as Peggy Carter, was under General Phillips division during the war, was involved in The Project Rebirth and fought alongside Captain America during his last mission. When the war ended she retired of the militia and returned to England, little is known of her after that, her current status and whereabouts are unknown." He looked at Steve, the man got this strange look on his face. "I must add Sir, that Agent Sharon Carter of S.H.I.E.L.D. is a relative of her." This got both men by surprise and they looked at each other, no word was exchange but both know what the other was thinking.

"Thanks JARVIS, save and shut down." He reached for the walker and Steve helped him stood. Oh, how he wanted his legs to heal!

They took the elevator to the mansion, each one of them deep on their own train of though that Tony would have forgotten about the other man's presence was it not for the man's occasional glances, making sure that Tony was alright on his feet, he knew that if it was left to Steve judgment he would be carrying Tony everywhere, that or he would tie Tony to his bed. He groaned at himself, that last part sounded a lot like a sexual innuendo and truly the last thing he wanted at the moment was to have inadequate thoughts about Steve, said man looked at him with a worried gaze and he waved at him, feeling his cheeks flush lightly.

He smirked to himself, He needed to get laid and with Pepper on the other side of the country the probabilities of that happening soon were lean. The moment the door opened he walked as fast as he could out of the elevator -which wasn't that fast in his present condition- and made his way to the closet taking a jacket and his elbow crutch from it, he preferred the elbow crutch over the walker.

"Let me." He heard Steve say from behind him, pointing to the jacket and Tony passed it to him reluctantly. He would have rejected the offer was it not for the fact that putting his jacket on while standing, in his current condition, was an odyssey that ended with his legs sore and hurting. Steve hand was on his waist in a moment, he helped Tony dress and put his elbow crutches with ease, he then took his own jacket and a pair of hats from the closet, putting one of them on Tony's head.

"I don't like hats." He deadpanned but Steve just shuddered, not caring for the fact that Tony sounded annoyed.

"It's cold outside." As if that was enough reason to take advantage of Tony's condition, his hands were occupied with the elbow crutches and thus he couldn't take the damn hat off.

"Are you going somewhere?" Both men looked at Jarvis, any further discussion about the hat dying on that moment.

"Yes, we'll be back later." Steve answered, finishing the last button of his jacket and looked at Tony's open jacket. Tony frowned at him, he wasn't going to zip up his jacket, and Steve seemed to take the message this time looking away from him to Jarvis. "Please save us some dinner."

Jarvis nodded and smiled at them. He then walked to Tony and adjusted the cap on his head. If he hadn't been the one being annoyed he would have laughed, just like Steve was doing. "I hate you both."

"Have a Safe trip." Jarvis patted his shoulder and disappeared into the halls of the house.

"Let's go." Steve moved to the door and Tony followed him.

* * *

><p>He cleared his throat and the woman behind the counter finally looked up from her magazine. She looked at him up and down thoughtfully and smiled at him.<p>

"What can I help you with?" He felt his ears blush under her gaze, she remembered him of the girl that had kissed him before, when Peggy had arrived looking pissed. "Are you here to talk to the Commander?"

"No, we would like to talk to Agent Carter." She raised an eyebrow at him and picked the phone.

"Agent Carter, please report at the reception." She closed the phone and smiled cheekily at him. "Would that be all?"

He nodded and looked over his shoulders to were Tony was sitting. The man had taken the hat off with all intention of leaving it on the car, but he had grabbed it knowing the man's plans. Said man was now glaring at said hat, like he wanted it to vanish it under his gaze. Steve smiled at this and walked toward him.

"It won't melt under you glare no matter how much you try it." The man glared at him, looking really annoyed and snatched the bag in Steve's hand. Tony had insisted on stopping at Dunkin' Donuts and nothing Steve had said had convinced the man otherwise.

The look on Tony passed from annoyed to content in a blink. He opened the bag taking a doughnut from it and biting it, he hummed in happiness closing his eyes and throwing his head back, when the man licked the sugar of his lips Steve looked away, feeling the moment far too intimate for him to be looking. It wasn't long before Carter appeared, he knew it was her because she looked a lot like Peggy, although she was a little taller than her. She looked at the secretary who in turn pointed at them.

"You were looking for me?" Steve nodded, she didn't have Peggy's English accent but he couldn't take the gaze apart from her, the resemblance was striking.

"Yes, I'm St-" He was cut mid-sentence by her.

"I know who you are." She looked over his shoulders at Tony, who was still eating without minding them. "Both of you. What do you want?" he gulped she was just as intimidating as Peggy.

"I-we know you are a relative of Officer Peggy Carter, we wanted to ask you a few questions." She didn't look surprised at all, but looked over her shoulder to the hall.

"Let's go somewhere else." He nodded and looked at Tony who was happily drinking his coffee, he hesitated for a moment, wondering if it was all right to leave the man alone.

"I'll be back soon." He said to Tony, who nodded in return taking another doughnut from his bag. He didn't want to move Tony around, the only reason he had took him with him was because Thor wasn't at home and he wasn't going to leave the man alone with Jarvis in the mansion, that was practically calling for him to be kidnapped again, but now they were at S.H.I.E.L.D.'s H.Q. he doubted that anyone would try to kidnap him there, or at least he hoped so.

* * *

><p>"I knew you were going to come to me sooner or later." She said resting on a tree. They had made their way out of the building and into the front yard. Steve adjusted the cap on his head as the cold wind of the late autumn blew over them. "She used to tell me stories about you all the time, of the brave soldier, of the American symbol and mostly of the kind man who had been too weak to save his country before." His breath got caught in his throat, she hadn't forgotten about him. He looked down to the soil with a sad smile, his heart felt heavy.<p>

"How was her life?" He ignored how weak his voice sounded and concentrated on invisible spot on the grass.

"She missed you." He closed his eyes, resisting the urge to cry, he hadn't meant to hurt her. "Here." Steve looked at her as she took a small book from her bag and handed it to him. "It's her journal."

"I-I can't take It." he said with widened eyes, she frowned.

"Just take it for god's sake." her tone left no room for arguments and Steve took the offered journal, opening it and going through some of it pages, and finally stopping at one that had a photo of him before the SSS. He ran a finger through the battered surface of the photo suddenly feeling nostalgic.

"Thanks." She nodded at him and took a breath preparing himself for his next question. "How did she die?" She frowned at him with confusion.

"She's not dead." He was taken aback by that and took a step back feeling a rush of emotions drench him.

"She isn't?" She shook her head, if Steve hadn't cried before he was doing it now, he could feel the hot tears rolling his cheeks. "Are you serious?"

"She's living at Larkmoore clinic in North Carolina." She was living at a clinic? Steve heart raced at the idea of losing her after he had just found her.

"Is she sick?" Sharon looked troubled at the question.

"Not exactly, she is senile, suffering from Alzheimer." She looked away from Steve, pain crossing her eyes for a moment. "Last time I visited she didn't recognize me." Just the idea of it made Steve heart ache, he didn't know if he could take it, the oblivion on Peggy's face, but even knowing that, he couldn't let the opportunity slip.

"Can I see her?" Sharon smiled at him and nodded, taking a small notebook and a pen from her pouch. She wrote something on it and ripped the paper, handing it to him. He looked down at it, it was an address. "Aren't you coming?" She shook her head.

"She's not that fond of me these days." She walked towards Steve and put a hand on his shoulder. "I send her my regards though." She walked pass him, heading for the building and he followed her.

When they returned Tony had already finished eating and was playing with his cellphone, looking as bored as he could. He looked up at then with a frown, Sharon nodded at him when she passed by him and Tony followed her with his gaze.

"She is cute." He said when she was too far to hear them and Steve glared at him, disapproving of Tony's comment, knowing too well that he had a dame already. "Don't know how Fury convinces the hot ladies to work for him."

"Come on we are leaving." He said as he walked towards Tony, he passed an arm around the man's torso and helped him to stand. He didn't take his arm away until he was sure the man wouldn't fall back into the chair. He then took the cap that was lying lazily on one of the chairs and put it firmly on the man's head, receiving a glare that looked too much like a pout from Tony.

"Are we going back to the mansion?" He shook his head and Tony tilted his head to one side slightly, looking confused and Steve fought back a smile, he looked a lot like the younger version of him that they saw in the film, much less innocent of course.

"We are going to pay Peggy a visit."


	4. Chapter 4

**Title:** Timelines  
><strong>Author:<strong> Quietshade  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG-13  
><strong>Pairings:<strong> Eventual Steve/Tony, Tony/Pepper, past Steve/Peggy, Howard/Maria, Clint/Natasha, Thor/Jane.  
><strong>Universe: <strong>Movieverse (Earth-199999)  
><strong>Beta:<strong> Doomsymphony (Saixkosmos)  
><strong>Warning<strong>: Slash, M/M, Strong Language, mention of suicide attemp, alcohol mention, abortion mention, World War II topics.**  
><strong>_**Disclaimer:**_ All Marvel characters and reference belong to them not to me.  
><strong>Summary<strong>: Tony is a man of the future who can't manage to accept his past and Steve is a man of the past who have a hard time accepting his future because of this they understand each other and help one another come in terms with their times.

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><p><strong>Timelines<br>**_Chapter four_

Tony hadn't been too pleased when he heard that they were going to North Carolina, Steve had seen it on his face, but the man didn't complain and Steve was grateful to him for that. They stopped at the mansion to pick some more clothes for the trip, and unsurprisingly, the short trip to the mansion turned into a three hours stop when Jarvis had insisted on feeding them before leaving.

He was a little worried about Tony, he hadn't rested at all since they arrived from the meeting, going directly to his workshop despise Steve's insistence on the fact that he needed to rest and then going back to S.H.I..'s H.Q. He had seen him wince a few times since they arrived from talking with Sharon and the man was looking more tired as the hours passed. Steve wished for Thor to be home because then he would be able to leave Tony at the mansion, he even considered asking Clint to look after Tony while he was gone but he suspected that Tony would prefer to go with him instead of having Clint take care of him.

He dismissed his train of thought as he opened the door to the car to allow Tony to enter first, then he followed the man inside and humored himself when Tony let go of his elbow crutches in order to take his hat off. Steve didn't understood the man's resolve on hating the cap, it looked good on him and it was obvious that he needed it, given how red his cheeks had turned as soon as they were out of the mansion.

"Take this." Steve got a blanket from his bag and handed it to Tony, who looked at him with a frown.

"I'm not cold." Steve rolled his eyes at the man, Tony was impossible, he was sure that if he were to touch the man's cheek they would be ice cold.

"Sure, you aren't." There was sarcasm in his voice and he ignore Tony's glare, putting the blanket around the man's shoulders. Despise his earlier protest the blanket was well received by Tony, who after a while got himself a pillow, and was beginning to fall asleep, looking sleepier as the seconds passed by, until he was completely asleep. Steve smiled at this and looked out to the city letting his self be distracted by the passing lights of the skyscraper.

The city was so different from the one he remembered, so bright and lively even at nights. No matter what time it was, the city was always full of people rushing from one place to another, back at his time there was always time to stop and take a breath, time to let time slip, but here it was as if every second counted and the feeling of not having enough time sometimes suffocated him.

Not only the city had changed, the people were different too. They walked differently, they talked in strange manners, they treated each other with indifference, they spend more time inside with their gadgets than outside enjoying the day, and even what they ate had changed. All of it made Steve feels out of place, no matter where he was or with whom he was.

While Steve was a piece of the past put in the present, Tony was the vivid example of the modern man and that made them rub on each other, many times on the wrong way, but that same thing draw Steve to Tony, he was so different from what Steve was used to that he couldn't help but want to be there watching the man's every step, like one of those books that you couldn't stop reading until the end. His eyes darted to Tony, just in time to see a pained expression cross his face.

He cursed under his breath, he knew the man had been in pain and he really wished that Tony wasn't so good at hiding things. Gently he grabbed the man's legs bringing them to rest on his thigh and Tony shifted on his sleep readjusting his position so that he was facing Steve, his legs straight, he sighed in content after doing so and a smile tugged at the corner of Steve lips. He looked down to the man's legs and grabbed the hems of his pant bringing them up, one at a time, to reveal his swollen and red knees.

"You are such a twit." He was mad at Tony for not saying anything, he must have been in lot of pain the whole day and yet he followed Steve around, but more than anything he was mad at himself for not noticing. He had been so engrossed on finding Peggy that he hadn't thought about Tony's health, he should have waited for Thor to return and leave Tony to rest.

He sighed, there was no use bashing his self about it now, and leaned to grab Tony's bag, looking for the pain medicine that Jarvis had packed, after a few moments of search he came across a medium sized metal tube and frowned at it, it did seem like medicine but he wasn't sure if it was the right one.

"Hey Happy is this Tony's pain medicine?" The man gave him a quick glance through the rearview mirror and nodded.

"That's the one." He thanked Happy and opened the tube, taking some gel in his hand he ran it across one of Tony's knees massaging it slowly. Tony winced and his eyes fluttered open, looking panicked, if Steve hadn't been mad with him at the moment he would have felt sorry for him.

"Go back to sleep." It came out as an order, the tone a little bit too harsh for Steve's like, even so Tony didn't budge an inch, and Steve could feel his gaze burning on him.

"Wha cha doing Steve?" Tony asked after a moment, his voice was clouded with sleep and he was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Steve resisted the urge to look closely at him to check if the man looked as tired as he sounded.

"Isn't it obvious?" Tony shifted a little but kept his legs on Steve's thigh.

"They're ok, don't hurt much." Steve frowned at the man's blunt lie and made a little more pressure than necessary on Tony's knee, making him wince with pain. He looked at him with a small frown, noticing that he did look tired, and Tony looked away. "Ok that might be a lie, but I'm fine, if you leave them alone you barely feel anything." Steve glared at Tony, last time he said he was fine he had to drag the half unconscious man out of the kidnappers base, he could still see the state in which they had found him every time he closed his eyes.

"Go back to sleep Stark." Some kind of strong emotion passed through Tony's eyes when he said that, but just as all the emotion Tony displayed it only lasted a second and Steve resisted the urge to groan at that.

He couldn't get why the man was so determined on hiding what he felt, that frustrated him to no end, it was as if Tony thought that he wasn't allowed to feel. It happened when they were watching the film about his young self. At the end of the film Tony had looked plainly miserable for a moment and then he had been blank as if nothing had happened, that hit Steve so bad that he had wanted to cry on Tony's place.

"I'll do that." Tony said after a moment and disappeared even more under the blanket, to the point only half of his face was visible and It wasn't long before the man was back to sleep. Steve stopped massaging Tony's knee in order to leave the man on his much needed rest and soon enough he was falling sleep too.

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><p>He barely registered the fact that he was on a moving vehicle, his mind concentrated on the fact that there was someone to his side, speaking in German a little too loud. He didn't think about whom it might be or how he had ended up there. He was instantly awake holding whoever was to his side by the neck and it was after he blinked the sleep of his eyes that he noticed that the one who he was strangling was no other than Tony stark. He released the man with a jolt, horror crawling through him as he saw Tony go into a fit of cough as he reached down to pick his phone from the floor.<p>

"_Ich bin hier_." Tony's voice was hoarse and he was rubbing his neck, a bruise already forming there. "_Es tut mir leid, ja, Ich ruf dich später an_." Tony ended the call and looked at him with widened eyes and Steve looked away fixing his gaze on his hands, he could have killed Tony.

"I apologize." He knew that apologizing would not erase what he had done, but he couldn't think of anything else to say to the man at the moment. He hadn't intended to hurt him but he had forgotten for a moment where he was, that this wasn't the battlefield and that the war had ended a long time ago.

"Is ok, I'll make a note for myself, no more German around you." Tony tried to make it sound as a joke, but it only made Steve feel guiltier.

"I am truly sorry." It came out more weak than he had intended, just the fact that he could have killed his comrade made his knees shake.

"It's ok." Tony smiled at him, but the red bruise on his neck told Steve that things were not right even if the other man smiled it off.

They felt silent after that, Steve couldn't bring himself to look at Tony and said man went back to talking on his phone, this time in French though. Steve grabbed his bag looking for Peggy's journal, he hadn't had the time to look at it before and the journal would provide a distraction. He turned on the light above him and opened the journal, the first entry dated from many months after his disappearance.

"_December, 10, 1945._

_It has been almost four month since the war ended. The troops are still retiring and things are upside down everywhere. The many crimes of the war are coming out to light and the anti-Nazi sentiment is letting itself be felt. I for my part decided to retire of the militia as I fear another war might come. The world is silently being divided in two, and two great powers are to conflict with each other soon or later for that I fear a war far more lethal than this will come to existence._

_This Time though there will be no hero for us. _

_It has been almost eight month since he died and we are yet to find his body. I have lost all hopes of finding him, even if I would like to think otherwise, we must carry on with our lives as that's what he would have wanted. _

_Stark spend most of his days in the open sea nowadays, even when General Phillips dropped the search he contracted his own float to search for the body. I have been trying to convince him of resigning but since they dropped the bombs on Japan Howard has been hard to talk to, drinking a little too much and drowning himself in unhealthy working patterns, for that I truly fear for him. _

_I hope for things to get better in the coming month, these are hard times but we should honor the ones that couldn't make it out alive of the war and remain strong for the sake of the future generations. No matter how hard it's to look past the tragedies, or how much we miss the ones that had left us we must keep on walking."_

Steve closed the diary, staring at its cover for a while. He knew he had been doing the right thing when he so stubbornly tried to sing himself into the militia, he had wanted to help his country and stop those who threated the peace, but now reading Peggy's journal he had to face another reality of the war, how bad it breaks the persons involved in it.

The last paragraph was as if Peggy was trying really hard to reassure herself that thing were worth it, that it would be fine one day and as hard as it was for him to adjust to this time and read about what have happened, he just could phantom what everyone had passed through all those year and taking Sharon's words Peggy hadn't really get over it, over _him._

Another thing that bothered him was Howard, within the information S.H.I.E.L.D. have provided him during his stay at the H.Q. there had been some things about the Manhattan project and Howard's involvement in it. At first he hadn't been able to believe that Howard had participated in such a thing, but now he knew that he had and that it took a toll on him. Knowing the man he probably had worked on it believing that it was the right thing to do but at the end what awaited him was nothing more than the bitter remorse of having helped create a weapon for mass murder. Those things made him wonder how much the war has scarred this future. He glanced to his side at Tony who was still talking on the phone.

Had he been affected by the war too? Was the Howard he knew and seemingly hated the result of those events? He wondered if he would have turned out to be like Howard if he hadn't been frozen, a man who had seen far too much and enjoy far too little… War changed them and Steve knew that war have changed him too. Just like them he had been scarred, the marks on Tony's neck and his many sleepless nights enough prove of it and Steve, who was just a part of that war in this blemished future time, feared that he too would one day become one of the many people who couldn't look back without feeling remorse and disgust of themselves.

"You ok Cap?" Tony was looking at him with a frown, looking uncertain but not quite worried. Steve realized that he probably looked strange to the man, staring at the journal's cover, gaze lost somewhere else.

"I'm all right." He ran a hand through the journal's cover, promising that he would read it through fully another time. Peggy's thoughts and the reality of the war were written on it, it was the only way for him to truly know what had happened to the people he had cared about after he disappeared and it was his best chance of understanding how this new world worked.

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><p>They made a two hour stop on a restaurant, letting Happy sleep while they ate. It was a small 24 hours dinner, Steve ordered a light plate as it wasn't even past four in the morning and Steve didn't like the idea of eating something heavy at those hours. Tony on the other hand, ordered a cheeseburger and a big cup of coffee, Steve had tried to convince the man of dropping the coffee as he still needed some sleep but unsurprisingly he had rejected Steve every attempt and drank his coffee happily. When they left the dinner they picked something for Happy, the rest of the trip was silent and eventless a few hours later they arrived at North Carolina and it wasn't long before they were in front of the clinic.<p>

Steve looked ahead to the clinic which was home to Peggy, a mixture of excitement and nervousness invaded him. Would she recognize him? Would she be happy to see him? There were so many things he wanted to ask her but the solemnly thought of knowing she might not recognize him was almost unbearable enough to made him want to go back, but coward was one thing he had never been and he inhaled deeply conjuring his courage as he made his way to the other side of the car to open the door for Tony. Tony came out, surprisingly with his hat on, that almost made Steve smile but the barely visible bruise under the man's coat refrained him from doing so. He averted his gaze from Tony's neck and hurried to the clinic entrance, only stopping to wait for Tony went he was already in front of the door.

"So, this is it?" he heard Tony said and he was almost cut mid-way by a sneeze, Steve looked at him with a frown, noticing that Tony's nose was red and his face was a little flushed.

"You all right?" Tony nodded suppressing another sneeze. He didn't believe the man but didn't press the subject. He pushed the ring button and a voice answered from behind the door. After a few moments a gentle blonde woman opened the door.

"Can I help you?" she smiled at them and Steve returned the smile out of politeness.

"Yes, we are here to see Ms. Carter." Realization dawned on the woman's face and Steve realized that Sharon must have called to inform them of the visit.

"Oh, yes, yes come in please." She stepped aside in order to let them pass, Steve looked at the staircase in front on him and then at Tony, he stepped aside and Tony got the message, walking ahead of Steve to allowing the blond to help him climb the stairs. Tony's hips were hot even above his cloth and when Steve released them he stared at his hand feeling the warm sip through them. "I didn't expect you to arrive so soon."

"We drove through the night." The woman nodded and started walking through the clinic, Steve followed her, Tony a few steps behind him.

"She was very lucid yesterday but today she seems not to be doing that well." Steve looked around to some patients, all of them were old people and most of them looked normal, but one in particular caught his attention, it was and old man around his mid-seventies, he was putting a tantrum and one of the ladies was trying without success to calm him. "That's Mr. Robinson, he has the Parkinson disease, don't mind him." The blonde woman said when she noticed Steve staring.

He saw the woman resume her pace but he didn't follow her immediately, his gaze remained fixed on the old man, a new set of feeling awakening inside him. He swallowed dry, a lump in his throat, he could almost see Peggy instead of the old man and he wasn't sure of being able to sustain that sigh, the idea alone was almost enough to destroy his resolve. Suddenly there was shy hand on his shoulder, the touch so light that it tingled, and he looked over his shoulder to see Tony leaning heavily on one elbow crutch, the other leaning lazily against his hip. Steve could tell just from looking at the man that the position wasn't confortable at all, even so the worried expression on Tony's face, as lightly as it was, was heartwarming and it was probably the first and only true expression that Tony had ever gave him. He resisted the sudden urge to touch the man and instead smiled at him, finally moving to follow the lady.

They stopped in front of a door and the lady knocked twice before opening, she stepped inside and Steve followed suit. His breath got caught on his throat the moment he took a look of what was inside, there was an old dame sitting on a small bed, she was looking outside through the window and despise the white hair and wrinkles she still looked so much like the Peggy he remembered and Steve felt his knees grow weak.

"Ms. Carter you got visitors." The moment Peggy looked at them Steve heart stopped, those eyes he had dreamed of them every day since he woke up, they were just as he remembered: fierce, indomitable, but there were also many other things in those eyes that he didn't remember.

"Peggy." The woman looked at him, there was no change in her eyes, any sudden recognition or surprise, she just looked at him with a blank gaze.

"Do I know you dear?" Steve closed his eyes, feeling tears starting to fill them, he breathed finding anything else too painful to do at the moment, he could even feel his hands shaking. "Is he a friend of yours Cindy?"

"No Ms. Carter, they are here to see you." The nurse pated Steve shoulder lightly. "I'll leave you two with her, call me if anything happens." She whispered and made her way to the door, passing by Tony who hadn't entered the room just yet. Tony stepped inside and closed the door behind him, still he didn't came any closer.

"I'm Steve… Steven Rogers… Ms. Carter" Peggy frowned as if she was trying to remember but didn't showed any apprehension apart from that.

"That name sounds surprisingly familiar." In his life there had been few times in which he had desperately wanted to run away, these was one of those few moments. Peggy was there just in front of him but still she was so far away from him and he didn't know what to do to make it better.

He heard Tony move closer to him and there was a hand on his shoulder again, he knew the moment must be awkward for him but he was grateful to the man, it was oddly calming to know that even if he was there in a place where he knew no one and everyone he knew had died, or forgotten about him in Peggy's case, there was still someone he could somehow lean into.

A gasp filled the room and Steve looked up from the floor to Peggy, she was looking at them with wide eyes and there was something new in her eyes, some kind of light as if a cloud had been lifted from her.

"Howard… Steve?" She looked from Tony to him in confusion and Steve got the idea of what was happening. "How?" Her voice was full of disbelief.

"I'm not Howard ma'am." There was a hint of annoyance on Tony's voice but that alone made Peggy came out of some sort of spell.

"Anthony." She said in realization and she looked at Steve with a frown and confusion. "How?" she repeated and Steve moved forward to her in excitement, somehow Tony's resemblance to Howard have saved him.

"That's a long story Peggy, S.H.I.E.L.D and Fury they-" There was rage in her eyes the moment he mentioned Fury and she looked at Tony with a gaze full of hatred.

"You cloned him didn't you?" She grabbed something from her nightstand and to both men surprise threw it at Tony which in his current state couldn't do anything to dodge it. Steve had enough time to push Tony or to throw himself between the object and Tony, but the raw surprise of Peggy's rage had stopped him from doing so and the object hit Tony right across the forehead, sending him falling to the floor.

"Shit! What the hell is wrong with you?" He heard Tony says as he clutched his forehead in pain. He rushed to Tony's side taking the man's hands away from his forehead, there was blood not a lot but enough to make Steve worry. Behind them Peggy was still shouting, tears flowing from her eyes, she looked heartbroken as if something she couldn't live with had just happened and truly Steve didn't know what was happening and why Peggy was so mad.

"Calm down Peggy!" He shouted and she stopped shouting looking at him in surprise, he walked to the door and opened it calling for help, he then helped Tony to his feet.

"I didn't clone the fucking man! What do you think I am some crazy geneticist?" Tony looked outraged, Steve still didn't know what they were talking about but the topic seemed to be serious enough to have them both upset. "They found him in the ice, the serum stopped his cells from being destroyed and instead put him into suspended animation for almost seventy years." The nurse entered the room and looked at them, she was shocked when she noticed the blood in Tony's forehead.

"Could you take care of him?" She nodded and took Tony away, who was still frowning in annoyance and muttering something under his breath. Peggy on the other hand was looking at him with disbelieve.

"Is it really you Steve?" he nodded, she looked calmer now but he had to admit that he was still shaken by what just happened.

"I'm sorry. I never arrived at our date." He offered, hoping that it would help reassure her that it was indeed him. There were more tears running down her cheeks and she covered her mouth sobbing deeply. He sat beside her timidly and passed an arm around her shoulders bringing her head to rest on his chest.

"You were gone. You died and we never found you." She sobbed, sounding incredibly broken, he hated the fact that he had caused her pain.

"I'm sorry." He breathed, he sounded broken too and he buried his face on her hair. "I didn't mean to." They stayed like that for a long while, just hearing each other's breath, letting the pain and the many emotions that both have repressed wash pass them.

"How did you find me?" she asked after a while, her voice more firm and a lot less broken.

"Tony helped me. He found out about Sharon and brought me here." She stiffened a little when he mentioned Sharon and nodded slightly when he finished.

"I must apologize to him and thanks him for this." She smiled at him, he was glad that he had found her but it was hard for him to accept that their time had passed, life was really unjust when he had finally found the one person for him it has took that away from him and ultimately shoved it on his face. She was there, she loved him and he loved her but their time had passed long ago, even if he hadn't been there. "You know, it seems that he turned out to be better than I expected."

"Who? Tony?" He frowned at her when she nodded. "You expected him to turn out badly?"

"He is a complicate case, we knew that he would have it hard, but they were sure that he would overcome things and become a good man… I was never that sure about it, though I'm glad they were right." His frown deepened who were they and why did they and Peggy thing that Tony could have been a bad person? "I know what you are thinking, Steve. You still wear your emotions on your sleeve, you hadn't changed one bit."

"Well for me it had been just a few months since the last time we spoke." She nodded and hugged him, resting her forehead on his chest. He moved her closer to him, feeling her sorrow. she was probably remembering the last time they talked.

"I'm talking about Maria and Howard. You know, Anthony's not your everyday kid and I'm not talking just about him being a genius and millionaire, I'm talking about his conception and his upbringing." He let go of her, putting both hands on her shoulder, she was looking away as if she didn't want some kind of secret to be slip by them. "I suppose I should update you to all that happened to both me and Howard after all this time."

"I would appreciate that." She took a deep breath, somehow he had the feeling that he wouldn't like most of what was about to come.

"How much do you know about what happened after you die- disappeared?" He silently thanked her for choosing not to finish the word died, that still made him felt uneasy.

"Few things in comparison to everything that happened, I know how the Nazi fell and how the war ended. I know that you left the militia and that Howard was involved in the Manhattan project. I know about the cold war and few others things but that is all I know." She nodded and looked outside, her gaze lost in past memories.

"After the war we tried for a long time to find you, I lost hopes and accepted that you were gone after a few months. Howard on the other hand had it worse than me, he was practically forced to work on that project and when they dropped the bomb, when he saw the devastation it caused, he had felt so ashamed of himself that he almost drowned himself in alcohol at the time, he devoted himself to find you after that, I don't know if as some kind of retribution to what he had done or just because that would make him feel better." He felt uneasy about the idea of Howard bashing himself over something he didn't quite have control over.

"He didn't have to." He said with sorrow and Peggy smiled sadly at him.

"I know and I tried many times to stop him but he wouldn't stop, and as much as I wanted to help him we needed to move forward eventually thus I returned to England a few years later, I lost communication with Howard at that time and it was in 1950 that he appeared in front of my house looking for me." She paused and frowned. "He was different by then more mature and sober, yet he was still the same Howard I remembered, he talked to me for a long time about his news projects, he was researching about some artifact the Nazi used, he told me some stuff about the U.S government too, things I shouldn't have heard at the time, he told me of the NSC-68."

"Did he continue to work for the government even after the Manhattan project?" Steve didn't know if would have been able to continue working for them, he even has his doubts now, yet he hoped that they had changed after all this years.

She stood walking to her drawer, looking for something in one of its drawers "He did but he didn't thrust the government or its decisions after that, yet he felt that he was needed there in order to stop them from repeating something like the Manhattan project, he knew that if he gave them weapons they would not always use them for good deeds, that's why he wanted to create an organization that could counter act this, of course with the cold war going on the government wasn't going to allow him just to stop his military contracts and create an organization that could turn on them at any time."

She walked to Steve with her arm full of notes, books and albums. She sat beside him again opening one of the albums, the first photo was one of Peggy and Howard smiling in to the camera they were working on some kind of plane scheme that looked a lot like the S.H.I.E.L.D. Hellicarrier.

"He came up with the idea of creating inside the government an agency he could thrust and work for, he wanted me in it and asked me to move to America with my whole family, saying he already had everything covered, a life secured for us and I agreed to it because it was Howard who was asking me."

"I assume this agency he wanted to create was S.H.I.E.L.D." It wasn't a question, it was more a realization.

"S.H.I.E.L.D you said, it was Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division in my days. Is it that what they call themselves these days?" He nodded and she shook her head in disapproval.

"Yes we founded S.H.I.. on 1953 thanks to Howard's influence, it was founded as an agency dedicated to protect the nation and the earth from threats like Hydra, which was perfect for Howard who was appointed as director, it allowed him to work on advanced technological weapon without having to hand them to the militia, it was indeed a brilliant idea. After that things were pretty much us working for the government doing damage control and Howard working himself to exhaustion." She turned the page and there was a photo of Howard looking at a cube Steve recognized, it was the cube that had ended Schmidt's life.

"I have seen that cube before, Schmidt had it and when he touched it, it disintegrated him." She looked at him surprised, horror filling her face for a moment, he too though it was scaring to think that Howard had been close to such a dangerous object.

"We never knew it was so dangerous… well I didn't, I don't know if Howard realized it at some point, he had a habit of hiding things." Steve knew a lot about that, as he was having a hard time with Tony because of that same fact.

"Something his son had apparently inherited." He said sounding annoyed and she smiled at him.

"They are hard to deal with, the Stark I mean." He nodded while looking at the photo as he ran a finger across Howard's figure. "He was really engrossed with that cube, it wasn't once or twice the times that I had to pull him out of his workshop in order for him to sleep, although despite his self-devotion his work was advancing at a slow pace. He once told me that he was lacking on physic base, that while he knew a lot about it he was just an engineer and that's when Anton Vanko came to play." That name sounded awfully familiar, he remembered reading it on Tony's file. "He was a soviet physicist who escaped the USSR on 1963 and was interested in energy development, he helped Howard develop the physic base for a new way of energy based on the artifact the Nazi used, but Howard had him deported on 1967 when he saw the man's true intention, although thanks to him Howard was able to pass the wall that had him trapped and continued to develop his idea."

"So this Anton Vanko was a bad guy?"

"More or less, he was ambitious and wanted Howard technology to get rich. Actually it was on that same year that we met Tony's mother, it was a great coincidence I must say. The government had wanted Howard to develop a new weapon for them to use on the Vietnam's war, they wanted him to create something similar to what the Nazi used on the war, Howard refused telling them that they didn't have the technology needed for that and of course that hadn't made the government happy and in the end Howard had to develop some other weapons with the help of a team assembled by the government, Maria Collins Carbonell was part of it."

She turned some pages stopping at one with a photo of Maria, Howard and Peggy. "She was brilliant, not like Howard of course, but she was really charismatic and she captivated Howard's heart really fast"

"She was a beautiful dame." Peggy nagged him at the ribs, smiling lightly.

"Of course she was, you wouldn't expect anything less from Howard." She turned the page to a photo of Howard blushing with Maria smiling at him. "To my surprise he was really bad when it came to a lady he really liked, actually he didn't do any move on her. When I confronted him about it he told me that he didn't have time for a family, luckily Maria was as much in love with him as he was in love with her and she persuaded him to dates."

"I didn't see that coming, I mean Howard was always so good with the dames, to think his wife was the one to woo him is actually hilarious." He chuckled slightly, he couldn't stop thinking of a Howard who wouldn't know what to say to a lady.

"It was hilarious indeed, he acted like a teenager around her but somehow he managed, yet in 1968 Howard became really depressed after he got news of the My lai massacre, he told me that he felt disgusted for having helped develop weapons that were used for such ends." It seems life hadn't treat Howard gratefully after all and Steve wondered if things would have been like that if he had been there to help the man.

"It took Maria and me a lot of work to pull him out of that depression and finally in 1969, despise Howard's protests and the fact that Maria was twenty years younger than Howard, they got married. A year after that Nick Fury entered our division and became Howard's right hand." She turned the page to a photo of a Young Fury, which still had his two eyes, and Howard. The look on Peggy's face told him that she wasn't fond of Fury, and thinking back she went into her fit of rage after hearing his name.

"One thing that Howard made clear to us was the fact that he didn't want children and despite the fact that Maria obviously wanted one she agreed to that, many things happened after that. Everything was going great, I had never seen Howard being as happy as he was then and yet I don't know why or how he fell in the worse depression he ever had on 1973. One day he visited me with all his researches about the Nazi artifact and gave them to me asking me to protect them with my life and then he left without saying anything else. That night Maria called me in a hysteric state to tell me that Howard was about to commit suicide." Steve felt his heart race at that, he knew he hadn't committed it as Tony hadn't even been born at the time but it almost freeze him to know that Howard had thought of something like that.

"He didn't of course, but it was after Maria and I convinced him of stopping, still it pains me to remember how close to doing it he had been. I left after I knew he would be fine and I'm not sure if I want to know what happened after that, but two months later Howard paid me a visit, being at the verge of having a nervous breakdown when he told me that Maria was pregnant." She smiled bitterly.

"He was lost Steve, didn't know what to do, he confessed to me that he even though of abortion but had rejected the idea almost immediately, even he had been alarmed by that thought." Steve frowned at this, Howard must have been desperate in order to think something like that and Steve was glad that he hadn't made such a stupid move. "He knew that a child being raised by them wouldn't end up well because of their life style, so he thought of giving the child in adoption but Maria was so happy about it that Howard wasn't even able to propose her the idea and in the end he accepted it out of love for her."

"Tony had it hard even before being born, didn't he?" Peggy sighed, nodding slightly, for all he had heard about the other man's childhood he was yet to hear the first good thing about it, he wouldn't even believe he had good moments was it not for the film about his young self.

"He did and it broke me to see such an amazing person struggling with things no one his age should have to." She turned the page to a photo of a pregnant Maria. "Don't misunderstand me, the moment Howard saw the child he fell in love with him, he probably was even before that. He really loved Anthony, he loved him so much that it ended up hurting both of them."

"You know it's really hard for me to pin the Howard I knew and the Howard Tony seemingly hate. I saw a film with them and a young Tony and they looked happy but everyone says Howard was cold to him and I know Tony isn't faking his disgust for the man, so I'm not sure of what to think about all that."

"He wasn't always cold to Anthony It was after the baby's second birthday that it all begun, Howard feared something, he tried to get Maria to divorce him and take the child with her to her mother's family, of course she refused and stayed at Howard's side, but he started neglecting the child fearing that if he got involved with him the child would suffer. Years later he put Nick in charge of the government's agency and once again devoted himself to work. He secluded himself from others, I only saw him at work and the only one he kept close was Maria and finally on December 1991 Howard and Maria died, they say it was a car accident, that he had been drinking and crashed, but I know better than that. Howard never drank if he was with Maria, and Maria wouldn't let him drive if he was drunk. He was being chased, he knew it, Nick knew it and did nothing, they let him be killed and covered it as an accident, because they feared the public opinion. I left the division that year because I couldn't bear to be at such a place and to my demise Sharon my dear nephew entered it even when I told her not to." And that was the reason she was mad at Sharon, Steve reasoned.

"So you also think that he was killed." She looked at him with mild surprise and nodded.

"You thought about that too?" It made more sense now that he heard what had happened but there were still missing pieces of the puzzle.

"I told that to Tony yesterday when we saw some films of Howard, he seemed strange to me, and when Tony told me how he died I realized that there was something else going on there." She rested her head on her shoulder and sighed.

"There was something bad going around Howard, something he and Maria wouldn't share with me. I know Nick knows what really happened, why Howard had turned away from everyone, who killed Howard and why they killed him but he is keeping it for himself for some reason." She sounded tired, reminding Steve of the many years that had passed. "I tried for a long time to uncover the truth, yet whatever happened is something S.H.I. E.L. D. is deeply involved into and no matter what I did they always were one step ahead." She sounded defeated and Steve knew at the moment that if he wanted to work for Fury he needed to know what had happened to Howard.

"I promise that we will find what really happened to Howard." He hugged her with tenderness, reassuring her that things wouldn't stay like that and she hugged him back in a manner that told him that she appreciated the gesture. She then proceed to show him some more pictures and tell him the story behind them, it was after a long while that they heard a knock in the door followed by a sneeze. "You can come in Tony." The man opened the door and peeked inside. He got a plaster on his forehead and looked more calmed than before.

"You sure that I won't be assaulted by a really mean old lady?" Steve frowned at him and shock his head, on the other hand Peggy laughed.

"I apologize for my earlier behavior Anthony." He looked at her in doubt but entered the room nonetheless, sitting on a chair in the corner.

"So you are good with me? You know you had a mean swing there, should have seen it coming from an ex English officer, though I would prefer if you didn't use me as a practice target." Peggy chuckled at him and smiled.

"I see that you inherited Maria's rambling." Tony frowned, he looked close to pouting and Steve smiled all the tension he felt before was gone.

"I don't ramble, I formulate things but I do not ramble." Once again she chuckled at Tony and stood from her spot walking to him.

"Of course you don't dear." She handed him the notes and books she took from her drawers. "Steve explained to me what is going around. These are notes Howard gave to me before you were born and asked me to protect them with my life. " Tony looked at them with a curious gaze and Steve knew that the man was probably itching to open them. "I don't understand even half of what is written there but if you have any question about Howard and his work you are always welcome to ask me."

"I… Thanks ma'am, this mean a lot to me." He smiled honestly to her, his face showing how much he appreciated the act. They were both surprised when Peggy hugged Tony and kissed him on the top of his head.

"You are a precious person to us, always remember that." Tony looked up at her, surprise painted all across his face, he then looked away something like sorrow crossing his face. Steve understood Tony a little better now and knew that the man wasn't used to things as simple as small caring gesture. It made Steve ache, to know the fact that something had made Howard break his son to the point he wasn't used to people being gentle with him.

"You are all strange people and here I'm called the odd one." He frowned and sneezed twice, Steve was convinced that the man had caught a cold but he had the feeling that he would have a hard time convincing Tony of accepting that.

"Here." Peggy passed him a handkerchief and he took it as he muttered a thanks. She then walked back to Steve and sat beside him, resting her head against his chest once again. "Sit here Anthony." She patted the other side of the bed and Tony looked unsure for a moment before doing so.

She showed then more photos and told them many stories and that's how they spent the following hours until the lady, Cindy, came to tell them that visiting hour had ended.

"I'll come back to visit you as often as I'm allowed." He said taking Peggy's hand on his own and she smiled.

"I'll be waiting for you, I… I won't run away from myself anymore, I promise and I'll be waiting, so don't you dare leave me waiting Steve." He nodded, knowing that it was still hard for her to accept that he was here alive. She turned to Tony who was leaning against the door frame. "I expect you to visit too Anthony."

"Oh I don't know, I'm a busy man you know but I might just do space in my busy agenda for a lovely lady like you." Tony gave her one of his lady's man smiles and Peggy laughed.

"You inherited Howards charm too! You must be a ladies' killer." Steve patted her on the shoulder and moved to leave.

"Actually he has a dame already." He said without much though and Tony smirked, trying to hide a small blush that covered his cheeks which was barely noticeable because the man's face was already flushed from sneezing.

"Really? You must bring her too sometime." Tony nodded, muttering something that Steve didn't understand and exited the room walking to leave the clinic.

"I'll be seeing you soon Peggy." He said and smiled at her, she nodded and he followed Tony, leaving behind the woman he had been so madly in love with and many others things he couldn't place at the moment. All he knew was that he had lost and gained many things from that visit.

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><p>I apologize for the delay but finals got the best of me, but finally I have vacations and will concentrate on finishing this fic before they run out.<p>

This chapter was tricky and really hard to write to much history stuff and moral stuff but I think all that was important to understand the characters a little better, yet this chapter doesn't even encompass the deep of the situation and I still feel it's lacking on how all those years marked Peggy and Howard, and how all that stuff affected the present, hopefully that would be covered on the followings chapters.


	5. Chapter 5

**Title:** Timelines  
><strong>Author:<strong> Quietshade  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG-13  
><strong>Pairings:<strong> Eventual Steve/Tony, Tony/Pepper, past Steve/Peggy, Howard/Maria, Clint/Natasha, Thor/Jane.  
><strong>Universe: <strong>Movieverse (Earth-199999)  
><strong>Beta:<strong> Doomsymphony (Saixkosmos)  
><strong>Warning<strong>: Slash, M/M, Strong Language, World War II topics.**  
><strong>_**Disclaimer:**_ All Marvel characters and reference belong to them not to me.  
><strong>Summary<strong>: Tony is a man of the future who can't manage to accept his past and Steve is a man of the past who have a hard time accepting his future because of this they understand each other and help one another come in terms with their times.

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><p><strong>Timelines<br>**_Chapter five_

As soon as they arrived home Tony had gone down to his workshop, not even bothering to greet Jarvis. Steve tried once more to get the engineer to rest, even more now that the man's sneezes had turned into full fits of cough, but despise his many tries Tony had dismissed him and buried himself in the notes that Peggy gave him. He understood his's eagerness, he really did, but as interesting as Howard's work might be it was no excuse for Tony to neglect his needs and Steve knew that the engineer was pushing himself too far again.

That's how he came to find himself walking to Tony's workshop, once more with his hand full of food. He wouldn't leave the man alone until he had agreed to rest this time. He has had enough of Tony's negligence, he hadn't rested one bit since being kidnapped and even if the injuries on his legs weren't serious with the time he was giving them to heal it would take weeks for him to fully heal.

Carefully he opened the door to the workshop, imputing the codes with one hand and holding the tray on the other and smiled when he saw Tony resting his head on the desk, he couldn't believe that he was stubborn enough to fall asleep on the desk.

"Tony, are you awake?" He received no answer and he walked to the man, dropping the tray beside him. "Tony wake up." He shook the man gently and received a grunt and a cough this time. Tony was warm, really warm and he was sweating a lot. Steve first reaction to this was to put a hand on Tony's forehead taking his temperature and it didn't come as a surprise to him when he realized that the engineer had a high fever. "Really, you can be such a fool sometimes."

He considered his options for a moment, leaving Tony there was out of question and he didn't know if waking him was a good idea at all, because knowing the man, he would probably try to go back to work instead of resting and Steve wasn´t going to risk that. So he leaned and picked him bride style, as that was the most comfortable way for both of them at the moment.

"Please don't wake up now." He whispered, really wishing for it, as he moved to the door being extra careful to not wake up the man on his arms. Thankfully he made it upstairs without much inconvenient and as soon as he passed through the kitchen Jarvis ran to him.

"Oh no!" He said when he saw them. "He made for a horrible patient." Jarvis touched Tony's forehead, pretty much in the same manner Steve had before and grimaced a moment after. "Let's put him on his bed."

Steve nodded and followed Jarvis to Tony's room, it was the first time he entered the room and as expected the room didn't resemble Tony at all, it actually looked uninhabited and with the time the man spent on it you could say that was the case.

He laid Tony on the mattress with gentleness, still being careful of not waking him. He looked at him thoughtfully, Tony was having hard time just breathing and was coughing constantly, gently he brushed aside a few strand of hair from his damp forehead. He looked at Jarvis with worry, he had spent most of his life being sick and he knew how to treat someone with a cold but he wasn´t sure if his methods were still in use.

"We have to get his fever down." He told Jarvis as he looked back to the engineer, his gaze falling on the spot of light in the middle of his chest.

"Indeed we have. Wait here, I'll bring some medicines and water." Jarvis said before exiting the room. Steve looked around, searching for a chair and found one at the far end of the room, quietly he moved it to the bed's side and sat there looking at Tony's labored breath.

It wasn't long before Jarvis reappeared with some pills and a glass of water. He passed a hand through Tony's back and sat him lightly, making him drink the pills, Tony coughed a bit and Jarvis patted his back gently. Steve couldn't help but think that Jarvis looked really paternal at the moment and he wondered how many times he had done that same thing for Tony over the many years of his service to the Stark family.

"Let's go, there is not much we can do apart from this." Jarvis said as he put an ice pack on Tony's forehead. Steve stood and looked at him for a moment, the man didn´t look better at all, he then walked to the door and Jarvis followed behind, as Jarvis closed the door he sent Tony one last unsecure glance.

"Are you sure it's wise to leave him alone?" He was truly concerned, he didn't want Tony to wake up needing something, to find himself alone.

"He isn't alone Steve, JARVIS is checking on him and will tell us if anything happens." Jarvis smiled at him and patted his shoulder, and he blushed lightly with embarrassment, of course Jarvis wouldn´t leave Tony alone.

"Yeah, sorry I forgot about you buddy." He had a tendency for forgetting the A.I.'s existence and he felt ashamed for that, JARVIS had been a lot of help to them in the past week, it was unjust for him to be forgotten so easily.

"Don't worry Captain Rogers, I understand the fact that you aren't used to technology just yet." He smiled, Jarvis had all the manners that Tony lacked, and Steve sometimes though that Tony had made him like that on purpose.

"Thanks, you are really kind JARVIS." He smiled, not sure as if the A.I. could see him but the smile was meant for it.

"You're welcome Captain Rogers." Jarvis, the buckler, smiled at him and nodded as if he approved Steve's manners.

"I'm tempted to ask you Steve, if you would mind helping me in the kitchen?" Steve stared at Jarvis with surprise, up to that point the man had been really delicate with whom was allowed inside the kitchen, going as far as to ban Thor and Tony from doing anything apart from opening the fridge and the pantry.

"I would be honored to do so." Jarvis smiled at him and Steve knew that he had somehow become close to the man. "But I must warn you, I'm not much of a cook."

"Do not worry gentleman, I'm sure there is no worse helper than Master Tony." Jarvis turned around heading for the kitchen and Steve followed him, smiling at the comment. "Please remind me to tell you some of his misadventures in the kitchen. I am quite positive that you will have a good time hearing those." He was already looking forward to hearing it.

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><p>They had almost finished dinner when someone entered the house, someone really noisy to be precise, and Steve didn't have to look to know that Thor had arrived. What he wasn´t expecting was the fact that Bruce and Clint appeared right behind Thor. Clint used to visit them pretty often but this was probably the first time Bruce came to the mansion, but even that wasn't what got Steve surprised, it was the sole fact that both Bruce and Clint were carrying luggage, and judging by Clint's smirk he could tell what the man was about to say.<p>

"We are moving in." Clint looked proud of his word; Bruce on the other hand looked really uncomfortable with that fact.

"I though Tony had made it clear that he didn't want you moving in." He didn't have anything against Clint moving in, in reality he would had been glad if the whole team lived together but that was his opinion and it was _Tony's_ mansion they were staying at, and no matter how annoying the man could be at times, taking advantage of his generosity was something Steve wasn´t going to do.

"Come on this place have enough room for all of us and money is not an issue for the man, he is just being a spoiled brat." He glared lightly at Clint not approving of his language but said nothing about it. He knew it was a lost case to try to teach him and Tony manners.

"But you do have your own apartment don't you?" Clint sighed heavily at that and Steve got the feeling that he wouldn't like the man's answer.

"Not in New York, I was staying at the H.Q. meanwhile. I did plan to get an apartment here, but you see the Colonel kind of banned us from the dormitories." Steve frowned at Clint, somehow he didn't want to know what they had done for Fury to ban them.

"Steven you shalt talk to Anthony, I am partially at fault for their exile." Thor was practically pleading him and truthfully who could say no to a deity, his sorrowful face was enough to destroy any argument Steve could come up with, in fact he thought that having Thor do that face to Tony was a much better plan than having him talk to the man.

"I'll see what I can do for you." The three of them smiled at him, Bruce obviously more relaxed and that gave Steve the feeling that whatever they had done to Fury involved The Hulk.

"By the way where's the team's philanthropist?" Clint asked looking around for Tony. "Is he down in his hole?"

"Actually no, he is not. He is sick and sleeping and I must warn you that any disturbance coming from one of you will be severely punished." This time it was Jarvis who answered, pointing with his wooden spoon at Clint and staring at him with a face that meant he was being death serious.

"Ok, ok I got it, no bothering the sleeping beauty." Bruce sniggered lightly at the comment and Steve once again felt out of place not knowing what he meant by that, at least he wasn't the only one as Thor got the same confused face he had. "Anyways I thought that Stupid geniuses couldn't get sick."

"They do and they made for the worse patients." Jarvis frowned as he mixed some ingredients for the salad. "And I will hardly call Mater Tony stupid at all. Regardless of what others think, he truly knows what he is doing." There was a hint of reprisal on the man´s tone, it was so lightly that if it had been spoken by any other it would have gone unnoticed but coming from Jarvis it made a great difference from his usual neutral and calm tone.

They felt silent after that, Jarvis word hung heavy on the air and no one dared to break the silence for a while. Clint and Tony had a like for insulting each other, something that Steve really disapproved of even if he had once or twice made such comments at Tony before, but it seemed that Clint's small joke had somehow offended Jarvis. Steve knew that Tony was like a son to Jarvis and knowing the many hardships of Tony's childhood he understood the older man's need to protect and defend him, and that got him wondering how many times Jarvis had needed to protect Tony before.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you." In the few months he had known Clint he had heard him apologize very few times and he could tell that apologizing wasn´t one of the man's favorites past times, so the awkwardness in his apology was really to be expected. "Anyways, why don't you show us our new rooms Captain?" Clint smiled trying to lift the mood in the room and Steve smiled back appreciating the gesture.

"Sure, just give me a second." He walked to the sink and washed his hands then he looked over his shoulders to Jarvis and the man nodded at him.

"Give them the rooms four and six." It surprised Steve how perceptive the butler could be, most of the time Steve didn't have to ask for the man to know what he wanted. He really wanted to know if that was an innate ability of him or if he had developed it after many years of serving Howard and Tony, as both men were really unexpressive when it came to their needs and wants. "And don't worry about helping me, I can finish this alone."

"Thanks Jarvis." The man nodded at him as he walked to the other guys. He patted Bruce's back reassuringly when he walked pass him, after all he knew that the brunette wasn't comfortable with the idea of moving to the mansion. As soon as he passed by him, Clint walked to his side looking at him with a devilish smile before asking.

"By the way Cap, since when do you cook?"

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><p>He closed the door in front of him being as quietly as he could, after showing Bruce and Clint their room they had ended in Thor's room as the Norse god proclaimed that he had the perfect thing for team bonding, unsurprisingly said thing was a barrel of some kind of Asgardian alcohol. Bruce had apologized himself and disappeared right before the godly blond could offer him a jar, Steve hadn't been so quick and Thor had enthusiastically thrust a jar in his hand, trying to put on prove if Steve really couldn't get drunk and while the jar hadn't made him drunk, he could tell that he wasn't sober either.<p>

He took advantage of an argument between a really drunk Clint and a mildly drunk Thor to leave the room, before the blond god decided to give him anymore jars, he didn't believe that it would take many more jars before he was completely drunk and as much as he missed the feeling, with two of them drunk and Tony sick, he couldn't risk having Natasha and Bruce alone in case of an emergency, so he walked out of Thor room in direction to his own bedroom.

He had all intention of going to his room, he really did, but as he passed in front of Tony's room he couldn't stop himself from peeping inside. The room was dark save the gentle light coming from Tony's chest, and he entered the room not giving it much though, he just followed the light until he was at Tony's side. The man's breath was much calmer, he looked more in peace and truly asleep, not like before that he had looked as if he was in some kind of nightmare, the sweating was gone too and Steve touched his neck, confirming that the fever had gone down. Without thinking he found himself removing the icepack from Tony's forehead, some locks of hair got plastered on his wet forehead and Steve brushed them aside, his hand lingering on his friend's cold forehead. The touch was intoxicating, a mixture of the cold emanating from Tony's forehead and the warm coursing through Steve's hand.

He wasn't sure of what motivated him, maybe he was more drunk than he first thought or maybe it was how inebriating that simple touch had been, but as soon as he removed his fingers from Tony's forehead, before he could even realize what he was doing, his lips had descendent on the cold forehead and if he had thought that the touch from before was exotic and intoxicating, his lips on Tony's forehead felt like fire to his soul.

He pulled away reluctantly, not really wanting to think of the implication of his action or his motive to doing so, all he cared for was the fact that he was too tired and probably not very sober to be thinking about anything apart from the sweetness on his lips. He sighed deeply, deciding that he should be going to bed before he could do anything stranger than that. He placed the icepack back on Tony's forehead and stared at the engineer for a few more moments before leaving, his bed had never been more comfortable and warm to him.

* * *

><p>After many thoughts on the subject he had decided that he was having a streak of bad luck and that he must have pissed some kind of deity, who he was inclined to believe was Loki, in order to have such a horrible week.<p>

He had been forced to leave his home in order to avoid another argument with a certain blond, He had been harassed by a blonde reporter all week, He had been kidnapped by some crazy pro-Nazi group, he have had his legs dislocated, He had been interrupted twice in his sweet time with Pepper, He had been assigned a bodyguard/babysitter, he had been forced to use a stupid hat a whole day, He had been assaulted by an old lady and finally he had caught a stupid cold. There was so much he could label as coincidence and with the luck he had that week he was seriously considering going to some kind of sacred river or spring to purify himself, that or ask Thor advice on how to take away the curse or whatever thing Loki put on him.

Over the past three days and four nights he had been lying on his bed doing nothing apart from sleeping and glare at the ceiling. He had tried to go down to his workshop on the first day, only to have Steve drag him back to his bed and Jarvis locked him on his room with his override code and thus he was left with few things to do in order to entertain himself.

They hadn't even let him use his tablet and instead Steve brought him a book every day, and whiles he had already read all the books Steve brought him he was tempted to reread them just to not waste the man's effort, because he admitted that it was a kind gesture from Steve's part, even more knowing that the last book he probably read was from 1942 at best and that he was missing many years of good literature because really Tony would have been pleased if the blond had given him something from Isaac Asimov.

Slowly he Sat on the bed, his body was aching and reminding him how much he hated being sick, but he was indeed feeling better than before. He threw his legs to the side of the bed, his feet barely touching the floor, yet he felt a shiver crawl his leg as his feet reached the cold surface. Steve had took his walker after the first day and he didn't know how good his legs were, even so he placed his feet more firmly on the floor and slowly moved forward, tentatively standing from the bed, to his joy only discomfort awaited him, the pain from before gone.

He smiled broadly and took a step forward, his knees ached at that but it was bearable enough he probably wouldn't need the walker or the elbows crutches anymore, to tell the truth he even felt like walking.

"Jarvis please unlock the door." His voice sounded nasal and rasped, making it hard for him to sound menacing, ironic or remotely similar to what he usually sounded.

"Sorry sir, I was instructed by Mr. Jarvis to not let you came out of the room." Of course he already knew that but something like that wasn't going to stop him this time.

"Of course he did, but I'm feeling better now and having me locked here isn't healthy at all, so please dear don't make me use those codes on you and open the door." With how weird his voice sounded that statement didn't came out quite as he wanted it to sound.

There was a long pause and for a moment Tony though that JARVIS had decided to notify Steve or the other Jarvis of his attempt of escape, but to his delight the door in front of him opened after a moment.

He walked outside to the corridor and looked at both sides, half expecting Steve to materialize out of nowhere, but the hall was as empty as it could be, no sign of the blond or even the old butler. He made his way to the stairway, slowly because his knee were still weak and he was having a hard time readjusting to walking without support, there was a loud noise coming from downstairs and he could heard at least three people talking, apparently Barton was visiting.

He made his way downstairs, the way down being a little bit more troublesome than he expected, he walked past the kitchen and it surprised him that Jarvis wasn't there, but he was glad of it because that meant he could probably made it to the workshop without having someone to carry him back to his room. He peeked inside the living room from where the noises were coming from, being careful as to not reveal his position, and there standing in the living room were Thor, Clint and Steve.

He frowned at that, he wasn't fond of having S.H.I.E.L.D's agents running free around his house but he knew that the two blonds got bored easily but Tony didn't had the free time nor did he had the interest to keep them happy all the time and that's why he was fine with Clint visits, as long as Natasha didn't tag along.

He turned around as quietly as he could, making his way to the elevator, as soon as he was inside he collapsed on the nearest wall and went into a coughing fit, sighing heavily when it subsided. He hated being sick and as much as he needed to rest he had never learned how. When he was kid whenever he was sick or not it have been the same, he had to study and be the best, he had to look fine and be the proud heir apparent of the Starks, there had been no time for being normal and sleep through the sickness, and trying to do so now just feel out of place.

There was a low ring and the door slid open to his side, he made his way out of the elevator and cleaned the security to his workshop, smiling when he noticed that everything was where he had left it. He let himself fall on his work chair and reached for the notebook he had been reading before being interrupted.

When he entered MIT he had tried to find as much information about his father's researches as he could and to his dismay he hadn't find much of it, a few things about the Manhattan project but nothing deep, and despite his earlier interest and his childhood worship on his father, as the times passed he grew to despite the man more and more, and by the time Tony had graduated from MIT, he could no longer look at him without feeling a vile taste on his mouth.

He lost all respect he once felt for Howard, not just as a human being and as a father but also as a scientific and as an engineer, and that's why Tony had embarked Stark industries into a new path that surpassed Howard's whiles being different, and that's how he ended reconstructing an empire while knowing too little about the man that preceded him.

Even so now reading Howard's notes he couldn't help but be engulfed by them, every detail about the Manhattan project, every equation, every mistake and success, theories that never saw the light, some absurd, others interesting enough for him to request JARVIS to run a simulation of them, and slowly he started to submerge himself on a world of pure numbers, equations and complex algorithms, his brain shutting away anything unrelated to such world, until all he could hear was the voice on his head that unraveled and fed the theories, and all he could see were the numbers float and arrange themselves on the far wall.

That was the reason why he didn't heard Steve enter the workshop, he was too lost on his self, being surrounded by thoughts and numbers to notice the man until a hand had touched his shoulder and a voice broke the spell of numbers. He blinked as the numbers started to fall and disappear and he focused his self on what the blond soldier was saying.

"…tion on the team, I'm sure Natasha will be glad and surely would appreciate it more than you do!" He blinked at Steve, not being able to comprehend what the man was telling him from just that piece of sentences.

"What?" The blond growled and pitched the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

"You are impossible Tony, come let's get you back to bed." Steve grabbed his arm and tugged, trying to make him stand from the chair but Tony resisted, earning a frown of disapproval from Steve.

"I'm fine. Really I'm feeling much better now." The soldier looked at him in doubt, putting the back of his hand on Tony's forehead, Tony leaned a little into the touch, somehow the other man was always warm, warmer than anyone he knew and it felt good against his skin.

"At least the fever is gone." Steve eyes traveled down looking at the engineer's legs before going back up. "What about your legs?"

"Been thinking about singing in a triathlon." Steve smirked at that and reached for a chair, the same one he used a few days before, sitting beside Tony, clearly the blond was back on mother hem's mode. "You are still reading Howard's notes?" Tony nodded and smiled.

"They are fairly interesting." He reached the notebook from before, drawing Steve's attention to it. "This one have all details about the atomic bomb's development. Of course I already know how it works and the Arc Reactor is far more complex than it but seeing the entire process of development, the failed attempts and theories that gave birth to it, is more exciting than I imagined." He smiled with nostalgia remembering the first time Howard taught him physic. "It kind of feels like when dad used to teach me about Newton's and Einstein's physic, as if I'm seeing everything for the first time."

Steve was looking at him with a blank look, whatever he was thinking Tony couldn't tell and he looked away, somehow his gaze reminded him of Howard's and he felt as if the soldier could see right through his soul.

"What about the Nazi and Howard's death have you find anything about that?" Tony shook his head with a frown.

"Not like I've been given the chance to." Steve nodded, not taking the bait, either by blissful ignorance or by dreadful knowledge.

They fell in silence after that and Tony moved to the next notebook, one that was written after the war, the first pages were of diary entries that detailed some government projects and Tony passed through them not paying much attention to it until he came across a draw of a cube, it was a simple draw in black with plain shadow but it was detailed enough for him to tell that the cube was translucent and it emanated a soft light.

"Have you ever seen this?" He showed the draw to Steve, who looked unsure for a moment and then nodded.

"Shmidt had it on our last fight, he used it as some kind of power supplier for the ship, I hit it with my shield and it started shinning then Shmidt touched it and… I'm not sure what happened but it looked like the space above our heads and it disintegrated him." Tony was frowning and was running a hand through his goatee, looking between perplexed and disturbed. "Also Peggy told me that Howard found it whiles searching for me."

"He did? When did she tell you that?" He couldn't hide his surprise, the more he heard about the cube the more he believed that this cube was more important than they realized.

"She told me many things while you were gone, mostly about your father." Steve pointed at the notebooks. "She said those notebooks hold Howard's research about that cube, apparently he was obsessed with it."

Tony looked at the notebook on his hand and turned the page of the draw, looking briefly at the next page it was about the cube, and the one that followed and the one after that too. He returned to the page of the drawing starting to read what was written there and one phrase caught his attention.

"The Nazi used to call it The Tesseract." Even if he had said it out loud it wasn't meant for the blond soldier, Tony was once again beginning to lose himself in a world Steve couldn't follow him into. "Like the fourth dimensional equivalent of the cube."

"Does it mean something?" Tony shrugged, continuing to read the notes.

"It may, but I can't be sure at the moment." Steve didn't say anything else and instead dedicated himself to observe the engineer in silence.

They stayed like that for a long time, Tony reading Howard's notes lost somewhere far too complex for the Soldier, while Steve watched him read and sometimes mutter to himself. Somewhere along the third and fourth notebook Steve fell asleep but it wasn't until Tony finished the fifth that he noticed.

The blond had turned the chair around and his arm where resting on the chair's back, the man's eyes were covered by his bangs, making him look somber and yet he looked calm and inviting. Tony brushed the hair out of his face with a low chuckled, finding it too amusing. three years ago if anyone told him that he would find himself with the original Captain America as his personal bodyguard and sleeping in his workshop, he would have never believe it, yet it was amazing how much life could change in such a short time.

He returned his gaze to the notebooks feeling a rush of exasperation invade him. He was still missing a piece of the puzzle, he had read the notes with care, taking his time to analyze each equation, algorithm, expression and he was yet to understand anything. He sighed looking up to the ceiling, going through Howard's notes in his mind.

The Nazi had called it The Tesseract and used it as a way to power their weapons. Howard had dubbed it the cosmic cube, had been obsessed with it and somehow it was related to the Arc Reactor. Steve said that after being hit with his shield it had reacted, they saw the space and when The red skull touched it, it disintegrated him like a cloud of light. The notes had showed him complex theories and yet he felt as if he was seeing something old and familiar for the first time. He didn't see how all that could connect to make a logical statement.

He started rocking his chair on the back legs, balancing it with a foot on the desk as the other one hanged on the air, his free leg crossed over the other one and gaze never leaving the ceiling. He let the number wash him, the workshop was gone and instead a cascade of numbers and variables surrounded him, arranging themselves to create mathematical expressions that no one but Tony could see. Slowly his eyes slipped closed and the whitish background the ceiling provided was replaced by black as the number continued to roam free even as his consciousness slipped from him.

The numbers began to blur and the math began to mess, he felt himself begin to fade into unconsciousness as the background cleared until everything was blank and he could no longer hear the voice on the back of his head, then he felt like falling. His eyes opened in a jolt and he saw the ceiling moving in front of him as he fell and he realized that he had rocked himself too strong. He tried desperately to get a hold of something, but his hand grasped thin air and he saw the world move around him, waiting for the impact with resignation.

_Gravity's always making fun of us._

Then it clicked like an epiphany and his eyes widened not from the impact but from realization. The sound made by the chair as it hit the floor startled Steve and he was up in a moment, looking dazzled and not quite awake. He looked down to Tony and frowned in confusion.

"What are you doing down there?" He extended his hand out to Tony and the engineer accepted it, letting the soldier help him up.

"I have it Steve! I found the lost piece." He smiled with eagerness, reaching for his chair as soon as he was up, he sat on it and started to input commands on the holographic keyboard.

"Wait, you found the missing piece?" Tony nodded eagerly as he continued to mess with the keyboard.

"I did. All along I had the feeling that everything seemed familiar as if I had seen all of this before and yet it was also new to me, which is a strange feeling. Then when I was falling I realized why when I thought about gravity, all those theorems, equations, names, damn it! How did I let it slip?" With all the clues that Howard had left on the notes, with everything Steve had said to him, he should have realized it a long time ago.

"Wait, wait, wait, go slower, you know because you are making so much sense right now." He looked perplexed at Steve, who despite his word looked more amused than annoyed.

"You used sarcasms…" Tony said as he let the numbers slip for a moment. "Oh god I'm rubbing on you, don't let Fury know I corrupted America's golden boy." Steve grinned at him and sat beside him once gain.

"Don't promise I won't. What were you saying about gravity?" The numbers were back.

"Ah gravity right. All the things I knew about the cube didn't make sense when put together as if the last piece of the puzzle was missing and gravity gave me the answer." Tony stood from the chair and supported his weight on the table looking intensely at the notebooks. "JARVIS please make a digital backup of the notebooks."

"Starting right away, sir." Came the voice of the A.I.

A blue light started scanning the notebooks as the engineer turned around and walked pass the blond soldier, said man followed Tony as he walked to a box that had his last name printed on it and Tony suppressed a fit of cough that threatened of attacking him. he knew that if he started coughing now the blond would drag him to his bed before he could even complain.

"I don't know if I can make it simple enough for you to understand, because I'm talking about hard physic here and that's probably why it took me so long to realize, anyways how much do you know about multidimensional universes and string theory?" Tony said while opening the box in search of something, but after a few seconds of silence he looked over his shoulder to look at the blond, who was staring at him with a blank face.

"Is that a trick question?" Tony sighed and resumed his search, wishing that it was Bruce who he was explaining it to.

"Of course you know nothing, you were in your capcicle state by the time String Theory came to existence." He could feel Steve glare on the back of his head and he smirked, he liked pushing Steve's buttons because the soldier always gave him amusing expressions. "Ah ha, here you are." He held a just found notebook above his head and tossed it with the others over the table. "Scan that one too, dear."

"Could you just tell me what you discovered?" Tony turned around to face the soldier and chuckled when he saw the frown the man was giving him, it was a mix of a pout and a glare.

"I'll correct you, the word is rediscovered." He wasn't happy admitting that but Howard had been once again a step ahead of him. "I rediscovered what this so called cosmic cube is."

"And?" He walked closer to Steve, going over ways to explain it to him without confusing him.

"It's an error or just what the Nazi called it, a tesseract and before you ask a tesseract is the four-dimensional analog of the cube. The tesseract is to the cube as the cube is to the square." He pressed a finger on thin air, a blue point of light appeared and he dragged his finger to draw a line.

"This line is an one dimensional object because it only exist on one plane be it X,Y,Z,W or whatever letter you want." He then dragged the line with two fingers to create and square. "Now this square is a two-dimensional object because it exist in two planes X and Y, X and Z, whatever." He then touched the square and dragged it to create the draw of a cube.

"It works the same way for the cube, which is a three-dimensional object." Finally he dragged the cube and created a tesseract. "Now this is a tesseract, a four-dimensional object."

"All right I got that, but I still don't get why it is so important." Tony sighed with exasperation, it was as clear as water now.

"We live in a three-dimensional universe Steve and yet somehow this four-dimensional object, that we call Cosmic Cube is here, we see it like a cube but it's not, it has a four dimension that we are unable to perceive because our universe doesn't have it and so it rips apart the boundaries of it." he turned around and extended his hand, the holographic keyboard appeared and then many holographic screen.

"The Nazi were able to use it like a battery because of the immense quantity of energy it releases as it rips apart reality and what you and the red skull saw was probably it overloading, it accumulated to much energy and then released it at once, messing the reality around it, which would explain why you saw the cosmos." It all sounded so simple now that he couldn't believe he was having such a hard time figuring it out. Yet there was something that was bothering him and if his math was right they were probably in lots of troubles.

"In short this Comic Cube, Tesseract or whatever is a powerful generator which can become really dangerous if overused?" He didn't even look up from the screen and shook his head, typing some more commands.

"Not really, if you would call it anything it would be the key to understanding our universe and the most important discovery in physic since Quantum Mechanics, I can't believe dad didn't publish this." He inputted some more command before pressing enter and then crossed his arms over his chest as if waiting for something. "Still I fear I might have overlooked something."

"And that is?" Suddenly the holographic screens in front of Tony exploded in a cloud of light, which dispersed all over the workshop and arranged as small particles of light that simulated stars. Where the screens used to be just in front of the engineer was some sort of light tube. "Oh wow, is just like when I fought Shmidt."

Tony didn't answer, a frown full of concern adorned his face and he was pressing his lips tight enough for them to look like a thin line, it was obvious that something was bothering him.

"I have bad news." His gaze was fixed on the wormhole simulation in front of him. "Shmidt might not be dead."

"What? How can he not be dead?" The blond soldier was at his side in a moment, frowning at Tony with a look that promised troubles if he didn't start explaining soon.

"Is complicated but like I said before what you saw was the cube messing up the reality, when Shmidt touched it, it might have acted as some kind of wormhole. We had a similar case with Loki, he was sucked by a black hole and assumed dead but he survived, yet he is an immortal god and I'm not sure how it would work for a human." The blond soldier looked devastated by that, his face contorted in shock. "What I mean is for all I know Shmidt could materialize here out of nowhere and at any moment, although the chances of that happening are almost null."

"Can't you tell if he is dead or not?" Tony shook his head and sighed.

"There are too many variables for me to make an algorithm of it, maybe if I had the cube, after all I'm just theorizing here." He turned to look at the wormhole again, he wouldn't be sure of anything he said until he was able to test it and for that he needed the cube.

"All you need is the cube?" He looked at Steve with curiosity. Was he keeping more secrets?

"Probably, but I can't be sure until I test it." Steve nodded and looked away.

"I think I know where the cube is." That send Tony over the edge and he grabbed the soldier's arm before he could think about it, his eagerness and surprise too big to hide.

"Really? Why didn't you say that before? Where is it?" Steve looked at him with a mixture of sympathy and worry, he didn't need to hear what the blond said in order to now the place, his look had given all away.

"S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarter." Tony grimaced, knowing that having Fury hand it to him was probably harder than looking for it all over the world and he sighed with indignation.

"Well I suppose Fury will get his report after all." He released Steve and moved for the door but a hand grasped his arm before he could go much farer. He turned lightly and looked at the blond, who had the same look he had all those time he had dragged Tony back to his bed. "Ah you gotta be kidding me! What part of materializing out of nowhere didn't you get?"

"If that happens I'll just have to defeat him again." Tony opened his mouth to protest but Steve didn't let him speak. "Tony we need you healthy again, the team needs Iron Man and I need _you _healthy for this, even more if Shmidt reappears and all this physic things are involved."

Tony gaze fell on the floor, he had never been good at resting but he knew that he wasn't going to get away with it, not with Steve hovering him. He could take this chance to read more thoughtfully the notes and probably find something about Howard's connection to the Pro-Nazi, after all Steve was right he couldn't keep Iron man away for much longer.

"Alright let's try it your way." Steve smiled openly at him, seemingly pleased by his decision, he walked toward Tony and put both hand on his shoulders pushing him gently toward the exit.

"Let's get you to bed." Tony couldn't help but smile at the soft tone on the soldier's voice and at the moment he was alright with it being Steve the one he had to explain everything to.

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><p><strong>AN:<strong>

Happy new year guys! I hope this new year brings everyone happiness. I start the year with a new chapter let's hope that it is a good omen.


	6. Chapter 6

**Title:** Timelines  
><strong>Author:<strong> Quietshade  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG-13  
><strong>Pairings:<strong> Eventual Steve/Tony, Tony/Pepper, past Steve/Peggy, Howard/Maria, Clint/Natasha, Thor/Jane.  
><strong>Universe: <strong>Movieverse (Earth-199999)  
><strong>Beta:<strong> Doomsymphony (Saixkosmos)  
><strong>Warning<strong>: Slash, M/M, Strong Language, World War II topics.**  
><strong>_**Disclaimer:**_ All Marvel characters and reference belong to them not to me.  
><strong>Summary<strong>: Tony is a man of the future who can't manage to accept his past and Steve is a man of the past who have a hard time accepting his future because of this they understand each other and help one another come in terms with their times.

**AN:** I'm actually ashamed of it taking me so long to finish this, but what can I say, things happen. Well this chapter is painfully long to the point I called it the endless chapter, but I hope you guys enjoy it anyway, and not to ruin it but I left a little surprise at the end. ;D again enjoy it.

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><p><strong>Timelines<br>**_Chapter six_

"Morning sir. Today at eight am the weather is fifty degrees, clear sky, North winds at six Mph and a humidity of 48 percent." He groaned and rolled to his side as JARVIS let the daylight enter the room. He grabbed his pillow and buried his head beneath it. "Also sir, you have an incoming call from misses Potts."

"Connect her and for god's sake obscures the windows." He mumbled from under the pillow, bringing it closer to his head in a vain attempt to keep the light from reaching his eyes.

He didn't move at all until he heard someone chuckled and he peeked from under the pillow to find Pepper's face on the holographic screen in the middle of the now not so bright room.

"Morning sleepy head." He threw the pillow to his side and sat slowly, yawning all the way up. He rested his head on the headboard and looked up to Pepper's image.

"Morning Pep." His voice was muffled with sleep and he covered his mouth with his hand as another yawn escaped him. Pepper smiled at him, her smile somehow sad.

"Jarvis told me you were feeling better. Did you stay awake until late again?" There was a hint of accusation mixed with bare worry in her tone.

"Not really, Steve dragged me to bed." She nodded at that, some relief evident in her face.

"Thanks god for the man. How are you feeling? You look tired" He did felt tired, which probably meant that the flu wasn't completely out of his system yet. Even so Pepper didn't need to know that.

"Just a little bit sleepy, but hey I can run again." Pepper's smile widened.

"That's great Tony. I was beginning to think that you would make me go there in order to have you rest." He smiled sheepishly acknowledging the true in her word.

"Well, don't worry. Jarvis and Steve are quite good at that." He paused for a moment remembering why he had wanted to talk to Pepper in the first place. "Hey Pepper, I need to ask you a favor."

"I'm not sticking my hand on your chest ever again." She deadpanned with frown and a smile that said she trusted he wouldn't ask her to repeat the action. It almost made Tony smile.

"Yeah you put that clear last time, this is a different task." She nodded lightly and Tony saw her bit at her lower lip for a second, she tried to hide it but there was a hint of fear in her. "I need you to search and send me every bit of information we have about my dad on Stark industries, every bill, meeting schedule, reports, anything related to him."

She looked unsure for a moment. She was clearly expecting something else when he had asked her for a favor.

"Ok, I can do that. Are you searching for anything specific?" He thought about it for a moment.

Projects and reports would be extremely helpful but he doubted that Howard had left anything valuable on SI. What he was looking for was something that most people would pass as insignificant, a clue to something bigger.

"No, just give me everything you find." She nodded again with a small frown

"Why the sudden interest on your dad? Is something happening?" Concern was written all over her face and Tony looked away, partially because he couldn't stand her anxious gaze and partially because he wouldn't be able to lie if he looked at her in the eyes.

"Everything is alright, I'm just checking to do some clearance." She bit her lips again and by the look she gave him, he could tell she wasn't buying it.

"What aren't you telling me Tony?" There was some kind of bitter resignation in her voice that made Tony want to grimace.

"Nothing, everything is going smooth here. What about you? How is the company doing?" He tried his best change the subject but Pepper's face remained impassive.

She sighed in clear defeat. "I'm fine. The company is doing great, Mr. Fujikawa signed the contract and the stocks are at their highest point since the close up of the weapon manufacture." she gave him a smile that didn't reach her eyes.

"It's about time they started trusting you. After all you are a better CEO than me." The only reason why he had been a good CEO was because Pepper had been his assistant.

"I agree. You were a horrible CEO." Finally there was amusement in her tone and her eyes.

"In my defense, I do hate boring stuff and the company somehow managed to stand." She shook her head slightly in disbelieve, but there was a shy smile on her lips, a true smile.

"I still wonder how it survived."

"That's probably because I'm awesome." He joked, but they both knew that it was because of her, Rhodey and Stane, even if he had a hard time admitting the last one. "Anyways shouldn't you be visiting your not really sick boyfriend soon?"

"Should I?" She asked in a playful tone and raised an eyebrow at his question.

"Well I think he would appreciate it." He answered in an equal playful tone and she bit her lips trying really hard to hide a smile.

"I might do space on my schedule for next week if he promise to behave." He looked up with a small frown and rubbed his goatee looking as if he was thinking really hard about it.

"I think he would try to behave." Pepper finally allowed a smile slip.

"Fair enough." She looked down at her watch and frowned slightly. "I'm almost running late for a meeting."

"Is ok, we can talk later." She nodded at him and gave him one of those hearts melting smile that she reserved for him.

"I'm glad you worked things out with Captain America, take care and try not to give the man much trouble." With that the hologram faded to nothing and Tony looked up to the ceiling, deciding whether he should go back to sleep or go down to the workshop.

There were many things in his mind and his little time out of function had made a lot of work to pile on his desk, and yet he couldn't think of working at the moment, there was something in particular that was nagging him.

Steve had said that Peggy told him some things about his dad. He was downright curious about what the old lady had told him and he was aware that she could have given him a crucial piece to the puzzle they had in hand but without the right information it would pass as unimportant to the soldier.

Maybe he should look for the man and see if she had given him any useful information.

He stood from the bed, deciding to look for the soldier. He grabbed some sweatpants and a white T-shirt from his dresser and made his way downstairs to the kitchen.

He heard some voices coming from the kitchen as he neared it. He knew that Jarvis, Thor and Steve were morning persons and he had expected to find some commotion on the kitchen but the strange thing was that while one of the voices clearly belonged to Thor, the other one didn't belong to Steve or Jarvis.

He wasn't surprised at all to find Clint sitting on the breakfast bar, nonetheless he was quite surprised to find Bruce sitting next to him, moreover when he realized that both men were in undergarments and happily eating some pancakes that Jarvis diligently cooked for them.

Thor who was beside Barton noticed the engineer and smiled charmingly at him, with one of the gentle smiles that seemed misplaced with his rough physic.

"Anthony, my friend is good to see thou awake." The blond god walked to him and patted Tony's back with enough strength to make him take a step forward and lose the breath for a moment. He would need to talk to Thor about his strength and personal space.

"Uh, yeah is good to be healthy again." He looked up at Thor for a split second and then his gaze fell back onto the two men sitting on the breakfast bar.

"Hey, the sleeping beauty is back from dreamland." Clint teased and Bruce looked up at him without much interest.

Tony continued staring at them, his mind still going over the fact that Barton and Banner were having breakfast in his kitchen, whiles in underwear.

It was indeed too early for him to be up without coffee.

"Good morning Master Tony, I'm glad to see you're feeling better." The English man passed the engineer a big cup of freshly brew coffee and he smiled at the old butler. He would argue with anyone that says the man was not a telepath and he had to admit that he loved Jarvis's seemingly ability to read minds.

He breathed in the scent of the black beverage and smiled fondly before taking a big gulp of the drink, it was perfect and it reminded him how much he had missed Jarvis's coffee before.

"God, you look as if you were making out with that mug." Tony glared at the archer as he sat on one of the empty stools.

"Let me get this clear." He took another gulp of his coffee and sighed in content before he looked at Clint again. "Why are you two having breakfast in my house while in underwear? And if the answer is in anyway related to sex I don't want to hear it." Clint looked disgusted whiles Bruce looked plainly embarrassed as he slipped his face on his hand and mumbled something that Tony couldn't quite understand.

"Man can you stop making sex innuendos before you scar one of us for life?" Clint thrust his finger on the engineer chest, trying to look menacing but Tony just arched an eyebrow, still waiting for his answer. "Hey wait… you really don't know what we are doing here?"

"I did ask, didn't I?" To Tony's surprise Both Clint and Bruce tensed at that, and suddenly there was a strong hand on his shoulder. He looked up to meet Thor's anxious gaze.

"Are thou trying to say that they did not announce that they were to be staying at your mortal palace?" Tony frowned and shook his head. He didn't remember anyone saying anything about Clint or Bruce.

"Well, yeah we are moving in, you see Fury kind of kicked us out." He looked at Clint, who had his arm crossed looking a little bit uncomfortable.

"You pissed off Fury enough for him to kick you out. That's a record even for me." The three of them looked haunted for a moment and Tony swore to get the story from one of them later.

Suddenly he realized something horrible. He knew better than believing that Fury, as pissed as he could be would leave those two alone on their own, which meant that Natasha or Coulson wouldn't be far behind. "Please tell me you are the only ones moving in."

"As far as I know, yes we are." Clint was giving him a curious look that probably meant he believed that Tony was going crazy.

"You sure there's no agent Romanoff or agent Coulson hiding in my closet with a Taser?" Not that he believed that Natasha needed a Taser to immobilize him.

Clint smile teasingly at him and shook his head. "So you are okay with us moving in?"

Tony looked at them with a little frown and his lips pressed together in a thin line. "It's not as if I'll kick you out when you are in need of a place." He turned his gaze away from them and looked at Jarvis instead. "Be sure to give them the house's rule."

"I already did, sir." He cracked a smile at that, Jarvis was always so thoughtful.

"Great, thanks Jarvis. By any chance do you know where Steve is?" Jarvis stopped washing the dishes to look at Tony.

"I believe he left the house about an hour ago, sir." The old butler answered as he glanced at Bruce.

"He said he had some errands to run and would return later today." Bruce added as he poked his pancakes with his fork, not looking hungry at all.

Well he would have to deal with Steve later.

He felt a strong and heavy arm settle around his shoulders as he was pulled toward Thor's chest. He was certainly going to have a talk with Thor about his strength and personal space.

"Now my friends everything is at its rightful place, we should indulge and enjoy our time with each other." Thor sounded ablaze, reaching for Clint with his free arm and the archer tried to dodge him but the deity was faster than him.

Tony patted his arm lightly but strong enough to get his attention. "Maybe another time buddy, I have some things to do." He removed Thor's arm from his shoulders and patted it in comfort when he saw the disappointment in his eyes.

It was always hard to decline to the blond god's offers, as he always had this look that made Tony want to give in.

"It is a shame that thou cannot join us my friend." The blond smiled at him and moved to grab Bruce, who tried to shy away from him with no success. "We will enjoy in thy instead."

"Actually, can I have a word with you Bruce?" Bruce looked relieved as he disentangled himself from the god's awkward hug and Clint sent them a pleading look which both effectively ignored.

"Of course, how can I be of service?" The engineer took a hold of his arm and dragged him out of the others' hearing range, behind them Thor talked enthusiastically about all the events he had planned for the day.

"Let's go down to my workshop, there's something I want to show you." He pointed to the elevator and Bruce looked unsure for a moment.

"Can I go change first?" Tony smiled and nodded lightly, looking at the man's boxer and t-shirt, which hung a little bit loose on him, making Tony wonder if he was feeding himself well.

"Of course, take your time." He turned around to leave, walking toward the elevator. "I'll be waiting for you there."

"Hey Tony, what is this about?" Tony looked at him over his shoulder and grinned widely. Bruce was looking at him deeply as if he was searching for something on the engineer's gaze.

"Multi-dimensions and wormholes." Tony's grin widened as a spark of interest crossed Bruce's eyes.

* * *

><p>When he leaved the mansion earlier that day, he had gone running in order to dissipate his mind and spend some time alone, after all there was so much going on those days. He was still thinking about everything Tony had said the night before, mainly about the probability of Schmidt still being alive. He hadn't known how to take it at first but after thinking deeply about it he started to question his sacrifice.<p>

Had it been worth it to follow Schmidt into that plane? It helped win the war and that probably made it be worth it.

Still he couldn't help but think: what if he had let Schmidt scape and then capture him somewhere else? Maybe then he would have remained in his time and everything would be much easier. The more he thought about those things the more frustrated he grew about it.

In the end what was supposed to be a relaxing run around central park, turned into a frustrating way to spend time thinking about discouraging thoughts, which led him to a probably worse idea. Somewhere along his thinking he grew nostalgic and it occurred to him that paying a visit to his old neighborhood would cheer him.

It didn't, in reality it made him feel worse.

The buildings were almost the same but the feeling wasn't, everything felt wrong. How the people were dressed, the modern cars coursing the streets, the flashy sings outside the business and shops, the kids that were walking around with complex gadgets in hands instead of running around playing on the streets. All it did was make him realize even more that this wasn't his time, that he was misplaced.

Nonetheless he walked around the neighborhood out of curiosity and found a shop or two that hadn't changed much after all the time. He had wandered inside, in hopes of finding someone or something familiar but instead found a bunch of new faces running the place and an interior that had changed too much over the years. Yet there was this one shop where he found someone who was not familiar, but was in a way related to him.

It was an old bakery that he remembered visiting often in his childhood. The owners had been a kind elderly couple which he remembered used to give Bucky and him bread, a kind gesture in a time of need. Gesture that he grew to appreciate more as the time passed.

He knew he wouldn't find the elderly couple when he entered but he hoped to find at least something vaguely familiar in there. He was surprised when he was greeted by a wall full of old picture of his time. It turned out that the bakery was now in charge of one of the couple's grandsons and he liked to keep the past of the neighborhood alive.

Steve stood in front of the wall looking at the photos for a while, taking his time to look at each one carefully. They were mostly about big events that had happened on the neighborhood and he remembered the day were most of them were taken.

His eyes watered when they landed in a particular photo, one of children playing baseball on the newly inaugurated baseball field. There in all his glory was standing a really young Bucky, who was holding the bat grinning in confidence, behind the fence he could make the faces of his then alive mother and himself, cheering eagerly at Bucky.

He was absolutely tempted to ask the owner if he could keep it and after an hour of talking to the man, hearing about the many things that happened to the neighborhood after he was gone, he summoned the courage to ask for it. He told him that his grandfather was in the photo, and the owner, who apparently inherited his grandparents' kindness, had given him the original photo and kept a copy.

When he returned to the mansion he was somewhat happier than before, still feeling nostalgic but the bitterness of remembering his time had disappeared leaving instead a longing. He had the sudden urge to see Peggy, to show her the photo. After all she would surely like to see his mother and the young version of Bucky and himself. After sometime of looking at it, he leaved the photo in his room and went in search of his teammates.

There was no one in the kitchen, the living room, or the yard and he went downstairs to Tony's workshop, knowing that the engineer was most likely to be there. To his surprise not only was he there, Bruce was accompanying him too.

"Hey guys, where is everyone?" Tony's head turned around so fast that he feared for his neck to break. He pointed his middle finger to Steve, frowning in annoyance.

"_You_ didn't tell me that they were moving in!" _Oh. _He hadn't forgotten on purpose, is just that he hadn't find the right time to tell him, after all, the man had been sick for the past days.

"I had meant to tell you, I just didn't find the right time." Tony didn't look any happier with that statement and he crossed his arm over his chest, looking like he was sulking.

Bruce on the other hand was quietly looking at them, a week ago he would had say that the short man was looking bored but now, after living a few days with him, he could recognize the amusement in his eyes.

"Jarvis is out shopping. Thor and Clint are in the training room." Bruce answered him and Steve nodded, trying to get a look of whatever they were working on.

"What's that?" He asked as he pointed to the tablet pc sitting on the table in front of Tony, said tablet was projecting some kind of graphic.

"This is a graphic of the fluctuation of energy released by a Vibranium atom when accelerated." Tony said proudly and Bruce looked at the genius then at Steve.

"We have been working on some of Tony's theories. He showed me a handful of interesting theories about multiple universes and now we are trying to figure out the physic behind the Arc Reactor." Bruce's tone was neutral but there was excitement evident on the back of his eyes. He was probably as excited as Tony looked.

"Vibranium, as in my shield?" Tony nodded as he tapped the tablet and moments later an image of an atom appeared.

"Last year I succeeded on synthetizing Vibranium to use on the Arc Reactor. I hadn't had the time to further analyze it but Vibranium is proving to be quite an interesting element." Tony looked delighted as if talking about physic and mechanic was the most fascinating thing in the world and it occurred to Steve that in Tony's case it wasn't far from the true.

"Vibranium absorbs energy and stores it in the bonds between the molecules, which we believe is because of a special property of the vibranium atom, also it is able to release the energy it stores." Bruce continued and then looked at Tony who picked it up from where Bruce had left it and the two of them started some kind of scientific conversation between them.

If Steve hadn't been so confused and partially annoyed about it, he would find how easily they fit with each other amusing, endearing even if he pushed it further.

He cleared his throat trying to get the attention of both geniuses but they ignored him. "Hey, guys." Once again he was ignored and he pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance, this happened to him far too often with Tony. "Guys!"

"What?" Both said at the same time. Tony looked annoyed and Bruce looked plainly curious, Steve sighed and looked down at his watch, it was long past four.

"Did you two eat lunch?" The poker face he received as an answer from both men was expected. "Let's grab something to eat."

The two geniuses looked reluctant for a moment, looking at each other and then at the table in front of them. Steve narrowed his eyes at them and that that seemed to do the trick.

Bruce was the first to stood and he passed by Steve, not looking as excited as before. Tony on the other hand was putting away everything they had been working on. Steve watched Bruce back retreat upstairs and waited patiently for Tony to finish cleaning.

"You told Bruce about the cube? He said something about multiple universes." Steve tried to keep his voice as far from accusation as he could, he was just curious, he wasn't trying to question Tony's judgment.

Tony stopped and shook his head. "I just showed him the theory and equations. I kept the details for myself. It was really easy to work the math with him."

"Figure, you two seems to fit well together." Tony chuckled lowly and continued cleaning,

"The Hulk seems to like Clint better." Steve had noticed that too, Hulk often paired with Clint and Natasha. "On another matter I have a few questions to ask you."

"What is it?" He moved closer to the engineer, trying to get a look at his face and Tony turned to meet him. At least from the look on his face he knew it wasn't anything serious.

"I just want to know what Peggy told you about dad." Tony looked a little anxious, his eyes roaming over Steve's face in search of something, disapproval probably.

"Of course, but I'll tell you later, we better don't keep Bruce waiting." He put his hand on Tony's shoulder and squeezed lightly. The engineer nodded and walked past him, Steve following suit.

When they got to the kitchen Bruce had the fridge door open and his head was partially inside it, Steve smiled at that and so did Tony. Bruce immediately looked up when he realized they were there and Steve noticed that he was frowning lightly.

"We have a problem, now I know why Jarvis went shopping..." Steve ran a hand through his hair and sighed.

"There's no food." Steve finished as he walked to the fridge in order take a peek of the inside from above Bruce's shoulders, it was almost empty.

"Not a problem! We'll just order pizza." Tony said as he got his phone from his pants pocket and Steve suddenly had an idea.

"Tony, wait!" Said man looked up from his phone at the same time he stopped tapping it. "Why don't we go out and get it, it will be a good exercise for your legs."

Tony smiled and nodded, putting his phone back on his pocket. "Sounds like a plan to me." They both looked at Bruce, who shook his head in answer.

"I think I'll pass, I'll wait for you two here." Steve wanted to sigh in frustration. Bruce had a thing about going out as little as possible, like he feared he would hurt someone if he did so.

"Alright, do as you like" Tony said and then he turned around walking toward the stairs. "I'll go change." He said and the soldier noticed that Tony was barefooted and wearing clothes too thin to go out.

Tony came back minutes later, wearing a jacket and some jeans. Steve walked toward the closet, taking his jacket, a scarf and two hats from it. He then walked toward the engineer and put the scarf around his neck and was about to put the hat on his head but he ducked the hat as if it was on fire.

"Ah, ah, ah, I'm not wearing that again." Tony put his hands between the hat and himself. Steve pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. Obviously the engineer didn't care if he was to catch another cold. Steve noticed Bruce smiling in amusement at them in the corner of his eye.

"Come on Tony, you will catch another cold!" He tried again to put the hat on his teammate's head but he ducked and ran to the front door, ignoring Steve's desperate call.

"You two are something else." He looked at Bruce who wasn't even trying to hide his amusement and was smiling broadly. "I didn't think you would fall into being his bodyguard so easily."

Steve shrugged and threw the hat back into the closet. "Someone has to take care of him, it seems he is unable to do so himself." He turned to leave and stopped to look at Bruce over his shoulder. "What do you want on your pizza?"

"Anything will do." He nodded and followed Tony outside.

* * *

><p>Just like Steve predicted they hadn't been a minute outside when Tony's face turned red from the cold. He was tempted to run back and grab the hat, but it would probably only made them argue in the cold for a while.<p>

"Let's go through the park, I know a nice place on the other side." Tony said as he tugged at the captain's jacket.

"Alright." He followed his teammate as he walked into the park.

For a while they remained silent as Tony tapped his phone and Steve looked around, but eventually Steve grew bored and then he remembered what Tony told him earlier.

"What did you want to know about my conversation with Peggy?" Tony looked up from his cellphone to Steve with a curious gaze.

"Everything related to my father." The blond haired avenger stopped walking and the engineer imitated him.

"She told me a lot of things about Howard." It still felt weird for him to think of Howard as Tony's father. "How will that help you?"

Tony looked aside, focusing on two children playing on the distance. "I don't know. I'm searching for a clue, something small that he might have left behind."

He started walking again and Tony followed. "Well, it seems Howard wasn't proud of his participation on the Manhattan project."

"He wasn't?" Tony asked clearly surprised, his brows furrowed in disbelieve.

"You thought he was?" Tony looked down at the question, some kind of sorrow evident in his eyes. Steve wondered if Tony was lowering his defenses around him or if he was getting better at reading him.

"Is just that Ob-" He shook his head and Steve let his eyes roam the engineer's face, trying to decipher what he had been about to say. "They always make it sound like something he should be proud of. I just thought he must have been in fact proud of it. Is not like he ever talked to me about work or how he felt about it."

"From what Peggy told me he wasn't fond of doing weapons that could turn on him at any moment." The raven haired avenger grimaced. "He created S.H.I.E.L.D. in order to have a better hold of how his weapons were used."

"He always liked to have control of things." Steve took a good look at his teammate, his semblance had a heavy air of despair.

The way in which Tony was speaking wasn't as if he was talking about Howard but rather as if he was talking about himself. "She said something about Vanko."

The engineer shook his head again. "Skip that, I know enough of him already."

"She talked about your mother too." This seemed to take the genius's interest. "She said Maria was a scientific and they met on a government project."

Once again his companion's eyes widened in surprise. "She was a scientific?" The blond captain stopped walking to look closely at Tony. Just how little did the man know about his parents?

"That's what Peggy said." The shorter man looked away with a frown.

"I didn't know, she never said." At that point Steve was wondering what they had told him.

"Howard was reluctant to marry her, something about not having time for a family." Tony snorted at that, they both knew that Howard had been right about it.

"Did she tell you anything about his work?" Steve looked up recalling everything Peggy had told him.

"I already told you all she said about his work." He didn't feel like it was worth telling Tony about his father's attempt of suicide and the circumstance of his conception. "She does believe that Howard's death is not how they tell it and that Fury knows the true."

The engineer sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Why is it always Fury?" Steve chuckled at that and patted the other man's shoulder in comfort.

"By the way, do you have a plan for us to get a hold of the cube?" Tony smirked widely at that.

"I might have a plan." Steve let a smile slip. Of course, the shorter man must have spent all night formulating plans.

"Care to share?"

The genius engineer scratched his goatee and then shook his head. "Not yet."

"Then when?" he was definitely not pouting at his friend's antics.

Tony's smirk turned into a silly smile. "Later." He tugged again at Steve jacket. "C'mon, let's keep moving before Bruce Hulk out from hunger."

"Alright." And there wasn't any disappointment in his voice.

They started moving again and Steve kept his eyes on the engineer as he went back to tapping his phone. His cheeks and nose were flushed from the cold, and his hair was being messed by the cold autumn's wind, he looked… Steve stopped his train of thoughts and his cheek started burning because of a different reason to the engineer's one.

What was wrong with him those days? It was his Teammate in front of him, Howard's _son, _someone who could be in theory _his_ son.

Tony seemed to feel his commotion and picked up that exactly moment to look at him. He looked aside as his cheeks burned brighter, not before picking the confusion on the engineer's eyes.

The moment he looked aside his eyes felt onto two figures at the distance and his heart started to beat faster at the same time his eyes widened in some kind of panic and horror. sitting on the far grass to their side were two boys whom he had been too busy staring at Tony to notice before.

They were holding hands and leaning into each other rather intimately. One of them was blushing with shy a smile as the other whispered something into his ear, close enough for his lips to brush against the other's ear.

"You alright cap?" He felt a rush of panic crawl him and he tried to block Tony's gaze from the display.

"Y-yeah, I'm fine." Tony frowned not really believing him and before the blond could react he grabbed Steve by the arms and took a look at his side.

"Oh, god." Tony's eyes widened comically and Steve felt his panic reach new dimensions. "Please tell me they gave you the gay talk in S.H.I.E.L.D."

Steve blinked confused. "The gay talk?" The engineer groaned in distress.

"I swear Fury is letting me have all the dirty work. World domination is not an excuse to forget telling you _that._" Steve was still looking confused at the man, he sounded more distressed about Fury not telling him something than at the clearly illegal display the two boys were putting. "Look Steve, you already know that the world has changed a _lot _since your time."

Tony looked again at the boys and Steve followed his gaze. The boys were looking at them with an inquiring gaze, suddenly the engineer's hand let go of his arms and he took a hasty step away from the blond. Steve swore that Tony's cheek flushed more under the two boys' gazes.

"Let's move before they sue us for harassment or something." He tugged the cuff of his jacket's sleeve and walked away in a hurry. Steve let Tony drag him away but he looked back again at the boys, who were now openly giggling at them.

"What was that about? And what is the gay talk?" Tony's blush had reached his neck and he seemed clearly fraught. If anything that made Steve feels more uneasy, after all it wasn't often that Tony loses his composure.

"Like I said, many things have changed in these past sixty-four years." The shorter man let go of his sleeve and slowed his pace. He didn't look at Steve as he talked, always giving him his back. "What happened in the World War II changed the people one way or another, Steve. They started caring more about their world, and of the many things that changed, homosexual rights were one of them." Tony was clearly distraught, even if his voice betrayed nothing Steve could tell by the tension on his shoulders. "Homosexuality is now to some extend socially accepted and is legal in many countries."

Steve stopped walking once again and licked his lips tentatively before speaking. "You are saying that being a queer is alright now?" he said very slowly, as if he was letting his tongue taste the question.

Tony finally turned around to face him, his expression said nothing but the tension in his posture was still there.

"I'm saying that you won't be prosecuted because of your sexual orientation on some countries. There are still lots of people who won't accept it as socially correct and will discriminate you for it, although there are countries working on anti-discrimination laws for that too." Instinctively the blond soldier looked back towards the boys, even though from that distance he couldn't even make out their silhouettes.

"From what I saw, I'll take it is legal here." Tony nodded slightly, as if he was afraid of admitting it.

"Nationwide since 2003 and same sex marriage is legal in four states now, although I don't think it will be long before it is legal in New York too." Steve's gaze snapped back at Tony in surprise.

"Same sex marriage?" He asked surprised and the engineer flinched so lightly that Steve thought he had imagined it.

"Yeah like Pepper and Natasha getting married." Tony flashed a confident grin which Steve knew was bravado. "Or Clint and Bruce." He snorted and then grimaced. "Or Coulson and Clint… god let's stop before my mind provides something I'll regret." _Like you and me?_ Steve wanted to ask but before he got the chance Tony grunted as if he was in pain. "Too late and I'm sharing because I won't be the only one scarred here. Like Coulson and Fury."

This time it was the blond who grimaced. It wasn't as if he had anything against those two coming together but there was something disturbing about that.

The soldier sighed and then smiled shyly at his teammate. "I know what same sex marriage means, Tony. Is just that, wow, things have indeed changed these years." He looked back to where the boys had been. "I'm glad that some things changed for the best."

There was a moment of silence and Steve turned to look at the self-proclaimed philanthropist and found him staring with slightly widened eyes and two arched eyebrows. The tension that had showed in his stance moments before was all gone.

Steve's cheeks burned lightly under the engineer's intense gaze. "W-what?"

"You had me panicking there. I thought you were about to have a homophobic attack." Tony's voice was full of disbelieve and Steve frowned at his accusation.

"You thought I would support people who discriminated others just because of their sexual preferences?" There was a hint of anger in his voice and Tony flinched more visible this time.

"It was a valid fear, not many people from your time are chilly with those things. You are just an odd exception."

Hadn't he always been one? There was a bitter sense in that question, but he dismissed it and started walking again. He didn't want to find veracity in Tony's threat of Bruce Hulking out from hunger.

He gave it much thought before saying the next thing "I used to have a homosexual friend." He hoped his voice didn't sound as shaking as he felt at the moment. "Arnie, he used to play with Bucky and me all the time when we were kids. We were pretty close and by the time we hit puberty we knew there was something different about him." He paused to look briefly at Tony. Said man was looking attentively at him, waiting patiently for him to continue. "They used to tease him about it and I didn't get why at first, but Bucky did and he tried to protect him from the bullies." He paused again this time to take a breath in order stop his voice from shaking. "They found him with another boy one day and he was taken away… that was the last time we heard of Arnie."

There was a pregnant pause before Tony talked. "I'm sorry." Steve got the feeling that neither of them knew if he was apologizing for thinking Steve was homophobic, for what happened to Arnie or both, but Steve was grateful anyways.

He felt relieved to know that things like that wouldn't happen in his country anymore.

They were finally nearing the pizzeria but there was something that was frustrating Steve and he knew he wouldn't relax until he got it out. "What is your opinion about homosexuality?" He asked after a moment of silent walking and tried not to sound too hopeful.

The engineer shrugged. "I couldn't care less about what people do with their personal life." That wasn't the answer the blond was hoping for but he didn't push the matter.

They bought enough Pizza to feed an army, knowing that by then Clint and Thor would have finished training. A Hulk, a demigod and a super soldier were enough reason for Tony to spend on pizza more money than Steve had ever seen being used in food before in his life.

* * *

><p>"We're back!" Tony shouted as he kicked the door shut with one foot.<p>

Clint's head instantly appeared from the kitchen and he smiled cheerfully when he noticed all the pizza's boxes they were carrying.

"I could kiss you guys!" He said as he grabbed half the boxes that Tony was carrying and ran back into the kitchen.

Tony chuckled and followed Clint, the blond super soldier following not far behind him. When they entered the kitchen the archer was already swallowing a mouthful of pizza and Bruce was looking at him with amusement. Tony instantly noticed two unexpected presences in the room, sitting beside Thor. Darcy Lewis and Jane Foster.

"What took you so long?" Bruce asked as he took a slice from pizza, from the already half eaten pizza's box.

Tony glanced momentarily at Steve. The blond had already dropped the boxes on the counter and was taking off his jacket, not looking fazed by the question. "Long line and many pizzas."

Bruce gave him a strange look and Tony got the feeling that he wasn't buying the answer. He wasn't about to tell them that he had just given the gay talk to America's golden boy and that said man was surprisingly fine with it. No he had had enough odd conversations for a day.

He looked at Clint who had to be on his sixth slice already, maybe they had been wrong all along and Clint's superpower was to swallow food like a Hulk.

"Don't eat them all Clint." The archer looked at him a said something with his mouth full of food. Tony shook his head and walked toward Thor and his companions. "Hey girls, long time no see."

Jane and Darcy looked at him and smiled. Darcy was instantly up from her sit and rounding him.

"I can't believe you haven't invited us here before. This place is huge, man you could probably held an army here." Tony smiled at the girl enthusiasm and patted her shoulder affectively.

"You are always welcome here darling." She smiled merrily at him and leaned a little closer into his space.

"Am I welcome to your workshop? Because I'm dying to see the armor closely." He arched his eyebrows at her suggestive tone, he was sure that she was a little too young for him. Not like he would take her offer when he was doing so fine with Pepper.

"Maybe later." He tried his best casual tone, not wanting for any misunderstanding to arise. Darcy pouted at him and went back to her seat with a little hump.

He smiled at Darcy's actions and looked at Thor. "So how was training, buddy?"

"The archer is a formidable adversary." Tony nodded, of course he was. Clint was one of Fury's best agents. "I would be honored to fight thee."

"I'll have JARVIS schedule a training session for us." Thor grinned at that and patted Tony's back eagerly. "Anyways, would you mind if I take your girl for some minutes?"

Jane looked at him suspiciously at the same time Thor shook his head and smiled broadly. "Not at all my friend."

Jane stood from her sit and walked toward him, the suspicious never leaving her gaze. He walked behind the counter, on the far end of the kitchen and she followed.

"What do you want Stark?" He got two soda cans from the fridge and handed her one.

"You were there when Thor landed in earth for the first time, weren't you?" She nodded at him and he continued. "And you registered the event and its energy trace?" She nodded again. "Would you lend me the data?"

She arched an eyebrow at his question. "S.H.I.E.L.D. took everything away." He felt like screaming at the moment. Everything he tried in order to solve the riddle somehow ended in S.H.I.E.L.D. and it was upsetting because he was pretty sure that getting the information from them would be a pain in the ass.

"Come on, you were researching vortex and wormholes for years, you must have a backup, some notes, whatever will work for me." The suspicious look was back on her face, she sipped from her soda before speaking.

"We both know that you aren't interested in astrophysics, so tell me Stark, what do you want with my researches?" He looked around, Clint, Darcy and Thor seemed to be in some kind of eating contest, while Bruce and Steve looked at them disapprovingly.

He leaned closer to Jane. "I have something in my hands, some kind of riddle which I can't solve with my knowledge alone. I believe your researches would help me understand it better."

There was a teasing smile in her lips and pure curiosity in her eyes. "A riddle Tony Stark can't solve. Now I'm interested."

Tony shook his head, almost feeling bad about it. "Sorry, can't share it."

She frowned at him. "What kind of deal is that? You get information while I'm left empty handed." So now they were negotiating, Tony could play that game, he could play it really well.

"If what you want is a fair deal I know a few things that might raise your interest." He said with one of his best business charming smiles.

She was back to looking interested. "And what might that be?"

"I offer to upgrade, customize and even provide all the equipment you need. Just so you know I'm not talking about the Stark Industry's stuff, I'm offering to do all that myself." She smiled delightedly, obviously interested in what he offered.

"Make it that and funds for my researches and you can have everything I know as well as me as a consultant for anything you need." She extended her hand to him and he took it with a grin.

"You got yourself a deal lady." Tony felt accomplished. Jane was an excellent astrophysicist and particle physicist, he was sure that she would help him greatly with the riddle that was the cosmic cube.

The engineer leaned against the counter and then looked at the others avengers. They were still having the eating contest but now Steve was walking toward him with two plates of pizza.

When the blond reached them he handed one plate to Jane and one to Tony. "I feared they wouldn't leave anything for you." He explained and the genius smiled gratefully at him. He was always such a gentleman.

Tony had just taken a bite from his pizza when a loud crash startled them. There was a loud groan which sounded a lot like Bruce hulking out and then something humid hit the side of his face, hard.

The three of them looked stunned at the slice of pizza that had just dropped from the billionaire's face and then looked at their side just in time to see the Hulk grabbing a handful of pizza and throwing it at Clint.

"Food Fight!" Darcy yelled and then hell broke loose.

He felt a strong hand shove him to the ground and in a moment, Steve, Jane, and he were hiding behind the counter.

"Steve, stop them." He hadn't wanted it to sound so much like a whine, but given that he had just been hit with the food he had bought by one of his teammates, he was allowed to whine at his team leader.

Steve sighed as he got a handkerchief from his pocket. "It is your house, you stop them." He grabbed the clean side of the engineer's face with his free hand and tried to clean the mess on the other side of the man's face with the handkerchief.

"You are their team leader! Is your team, stop them." He was frowning now and he was trying to get free from the blond man's grip, but he was holding him steady.

"It is your house and they're your teammates." The man was impossible, there was no way that the Hulk would listen to him, but he didn't believe there was anyone capable of not listening to Captain America.

"Ok let me stop you both before you continue with the why the other is more suitable to stop them argument. Just throw a coin or something it will be faster." Tony blinked at Jane, she got this wide smile of I know something that you don't and Tony was sure that he didn't like it.

Even so he decided to ignore Jane this time. "Steve." He whined and the blond smiled at him.

"Tony." The soldier voice was playful. He was most likely enjoying everything.

"I'm sorry to break it on you but I think they stopped alone." Now they both looked at Jane, realizing that the room was silent.

"They stopped or the Hulk killed them all." Both Steve and Jane glared at him and he shrugged. "I'm just saying."

"Thor wouldn't lose to the hulk" Tony jeered at Jane.

"You say that because he is your boyfriend." Her glare on him intensified and the engineer chuckled. "So who is going to check what happened?"

"Oh no, I'm not going through a "You go. No you go argument" with you two. I'm checking." Jane stood before either of them could argue about it. "Oh." She said as soon as she was up.

Both men glanced at each other in agreement before following Jane. When they stood, everyone was pretty much alive and well, but they were frozen looking at the kitchen entrance where a really upset Jarvis stood.

"Jarvis!" Tony ran to the man gleefully, it was amazing how he had stopped even the Hulk with just a glance.

"Every one of you is going to clean this mess before I decide to take actions in regards of the matter, and when I say everyone, I mean _everyone_." Jarvis voice was calmed, so calmed that it sent a chill through the engineer and probably all the other room's attendants.

"What? But they were the ones who wouldn't stop and they hit _me_ with a pizza!" He emphasized his point by signaling his stained shirt but the older man shook his head and walked away. "Just great."

He felt as if he was eight again and had just been grounded for blowing the stove.

He turned around and glared at Clint, Darcy and Thor. The three of them were having a fit of laugh, not really troubled by Jarvis imposition.

"Ye mortals have the oddest rituals." Thor grinned as he took a slice of pizza from his hair.

"That's so far the first food fight I ever have with pizza." Darcy was bouncing, sounding really eager about the circumstance. "When are we doing this again?"

"Never." Jane and Tony yelled at the same time. Steve meanwhile was taking the Hulk away from the kitchen.

"Hey, not fair Steve, Jarvis said everyone!" The blond soldier looked back at Tony and smiled lightly.

"He won't help while Hulked, I'll be back with Bruce later." With that they left the kitchen and the engineer was left sulking.

Something wet hit the back of his head and the billionaire cursed. He was going to kill everyone if it was another pizza slice. He turned around to find Barton grinning cockily, holding a wet sponge. Tony looked down to the projectile and found that it wasn't a pizza slice but a sponge similar to the one the archer was holding.

"The best part of all this is the one where we see the genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist cleaning." Tony narrowed his eyes at him.

"Shame on you Barton."

No one was surprised when Tony dropped half a cube of soapy water on Clint later.

* * *

><p>He was startled by a light noise coming from the door. He blinked a few times trying to get the sleep out of his eyes as he looked toward the door. A sole figure stood there, illuminated only by the blurred glow emanating from his chest and the dimmed light coming from the windows.<p>

The dark haired man was wearing a dark flannel and a pair of sweatpants which he usually wore on his workshop. Also there was a mischievous smile on his lips, one that spoke of many secrets.

"Something wrong Tony?" He asked with a sleep muffled voice. The addressed man brought a finger to his lips, signaling for the man to stay quiet as his smiled widened, becoming somewhat naughtier.

Steve watched silently as his teammate crawled onto the bed, blue eyes met bright brown ones in the dark and he felt enchanted by then, by their brightness and their mystery. He felt his heart skip a beat as the shorter man's body pressed against him and a shiver crawl him.

He breathed in slowly trying to appease his racing heart as the dark haired man leaned closer into his space, close enough for him to feel the faint and hot breath of his friend on his cheek.

"Tony what are you doing?" His voice was deep with arouse and shaky with feelings. The older yet younger man smiled at him, with one of those shy and sad smiles that made him feel ticklish all over his body.

Tony leaned closer and nipped his lower lip, with a gentleness and shyness not proper him. Steve gasped in surprise at the same time his friend's tongue licked his lower lip. He whimpered much to his embarrassment and leaned down to claim the engineer's lips.

Tony tasted just as he thought he would, he tasted of a mix of something expensive, metal, coffee and sweet. It drove Steve insane reminding him of the time when he had kissed the tanned man's forehead, but a hundred times more intense.

He moaned as the devilish tongue of his friend slipped into his mouth and caressed his own. It started a battle for dominance that slowly took away what was left of the blond man's coherence and soon all he could think about was how good the other's mouth felt.

He broke the fierce kiss in favor of caressing the shorter man's neck, biting and sucking every inch of skin there. He smiled proudly when he elicited a desperate moan from the iron avenger. He felt heat crawl his skin fast, and build up below his belly in a frantic way.

He bucked his hips against the dark haired man's thigh, making him shudder in delight. They started a desperate and erratic rhythm as the moans and gasps filled the silence. He grabbed both side of the engineer's face and brought his face forward to start another frantic kiss.

He was already feeling too close to the edge.

"Tony…" He moaned on the other man's mouth and his hand slipped through the engineer's boxers, cupping his ass and bringing it forward in a desperate attempt to increase the friction. He broke the kiss and burrowed his face in the crock of his companion's neck, breathing deeply the man's scent, letting it intoxicated him.

He needed more friction. He needed to touch more skin.

He let go of the engineer's ass and grasped his hips firmly, with all intention of turning the man around, but as soon as he made the motion he felt like falling and then something hard hit his back with enough force to kick the air of his lungs.

He blinked confused and rubbed his eyes, taking in his surroundings. He was lying in the floor just beside his bed, and that didn't make any sense because he was sure that he had been in the middle of the bed.

Slowly he looked up to his bed and found it messed but empty.

_A dream._

He let his head fall on the floor and rested his arm on his eyes, fighting the urge to laugh or cry. To add to his dismay he was still painfully hard under his boxer.

"Damn it." He yelled, his voice broken from sleep and piled emotions.

It wasn't as if he hadn't known that he was attracted to men. No he had been aware of it since he had surprised himself wanting to kiss Bucky at twelve, but then it had been totally improper. Not only because it could send him to Jail just like Arni, but because Bucky was his friend, his brother and whenever he thought of Bucky outside of that boundary it made him felt ashamed, as if he had just took advantage of their relationship.

This time it wasn't any more proper than before. Tony was his teammate, the man he was to protect, Howard's son and Ms. Potts Boyfriend. Whether he was allowed to like a man or not now, did not change the fact that it was dreadfully wrong to like Tony.

He muffled a soft and frustrated cry that managed to escape his throat.

It was so unfair, all he had wanted was to serve his country, all he needed was a chance to protect what he believed was right. He was to return victorious from the war and marry the girl that loved him. He had never meant to end in a time were nothing belonged to him, a time in which he wasn't familiar with anything or anyone. Instead he was there longing for a man he should have never met in the first place.

He hiccupped as his eyes begin to fill with warm tears and he bit his lips to mute his cry.

He couldn't see Bucky again, he couldn't have Peggy anymore and he was sinfully yearning for the son of the man who had spent many years and funds searching for his body.

Why did he always reach for things that weren't meant for him? Why did he always end up with weights heavier than what he could carry?

"Damn it!" He yelled more loudly this time, letting his anger fill the empty and cold room.

He was screwed and there was no way for him to run.


	7. Chapter 7

**Title:** Timelines  
><strong>Author:<strong> Quietshade  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG-13  
><strong>Pairings:<strong> Eventual Steve/Tony, Tony/Pepper, past Steve/Peggy, Howard/Maria, Clint/Natasha, Thor/Jane.  
><strong>Universe: <strong>Movieverse (Earth-199999)  
><strong>Beta:<strong> Doomsymphony (Saixkosmos)  
><strong>Warning<strong>: Slash, M/M, Strong Language, World War II topics.**  
><strong>_**Disclaimer:**_ All Marvel characters and reference belong to them not to me.  
><strong>Summary<strong>: Tony is a man of the future who can't manage to accept his past and Steve is a man of the past who have a hard time accepting his future because of this they understand each other and help one another come in terms with their times.

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><p><strong>Timelines<br>**_Chapter seven_

"I can't believe this is your brilliant plan to get the cube." He heard the blond say once more. Tony rolled his eyes at him, Steve had been complaining about it since the day before, no matter how many times he explained its importance to him.

"It will let us know how much information we are allowed to get from S.H.I.E.L.D." Steve frowned at him, not looking appealed by the idea.

"Come on Tony, talking to Fury directly about the matter, anyone could have thought of that and anyone would know it is a bad idea." The soldier crossed his arms in front of his chest, looking clearly disappointed about Tony's plan.

"They don't call me a genius for nothing. Thrust me in this matter Cap." The blond frowned at him, with a stare that probably meant that calling thrust on him wasn't fair.

He had told the soldier of his plan the day before and he had been displeased by it to say the least, he had been openly complaining about it at any chance he got ever since. The thing was that talking to fury wasn't the genius true idea, because he was sure that Fury wouldn't give him the information they needed.

Someone had taken many troubles to vanish all they could about Howard's death, about his years on S.H.I.E.L.D. and his research about the cube and that could only mean that whatever was there to discover was probably one of those things that Fury was ready to give his head for.

He had given a lot of thought on how he could get the information he needed from S.H.I.E.L.D. he had checked all the papers Pepper had given him to no avail, he had gone through many plans of how to get his hand on the cube or information but no plan has been better than that one.

His best choice at hand was to steal the information directly from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s archive, but the problem in that plan was Steve.

He had many reasons for not telling the blond captain the true nature of his plan, mainly one of them was the soldier's lousy poker face and solid values, and given that said blond was assigned to be his bodyguard meant that he couldn't get away from the man in order to infiltrate alone and that's how he ended elaborating a decoy plan to get the soldier to leave his side.

He was sending Steve to Fury alone with a fake report.

"You'll be okay Steve just stick to the plan, don't let him know how much we know already and test the waters, that's all." He patted the man's shoulder reassuringly and waited for him to get off the car.

The blond gave him one last look of disappointment before he opened the car's door and leaved to enter the building. He looked at the blond man's back as he walked inside of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarter, even from afar he could tell that the soldier was annoyed at the outcome and Tony did a small guilty trip for lying to him.

"Was it necessary to do this boss?" He looked at Happy and frowned.

"It was necessary." He answered after a brief pause. "I'm not proud of myself for lying to Captain America but sending Steve to talk to Fury serve for two purposes."

Happy arched and eyebrow and looked at him through the rear view mirror. "Two purposes sir?"

He nodded and looked at the entrance of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarter. "As a decoy for me infiltrate successfully and as a mean to get Fury to think we are desperate enough to go to him." He let a smile reach his lips. "I would have wanted to tell Steve the real plan but the guy's got the worst poker face ever and I fear he might have gone against it."

Happy grinned at him and nodded in agreement. "He does have a lousy poker face. Do you want to precede, boss?"

The engineer nodded and Happy drove out of the S.H.I.E.L.D.'s campus, while Tony undressed from his formal attire and dressed in a plain scuba like black suit. He grabbed a headset and some tools from a hidden compartment under his seat, and put the headset on one of his ears.

"JARVIS, are you ready?"

"I'm always ready for you, sir." He smiled at that, being as grateful as always for the A.I.'s existence.

"Good." He put on the hoodie of his suit and looked out, noticing that they were already in the pier. "Happy you can leave me here." The chauffer stopped the car engine and looked at him with a smile.

"I wish you luck boss." He grinned at Happy and grabbed the white mask that was resting on his side.

"Don't worry Happy, I'm not one to need luck." He put on the mask and exited the car.

As soon as He was out the car engine started again and Happy drove away. He gave the retiring car one last glance before starting to walk toward the water.

"JARVIS give me the Triskelion's blueprints and calculate the safest route to infiltrate underwater."

"In a moment sir." He sat on the border of the pier, letting his feet touch the surface of the water and he looked at his distorted reflection as he waited for the AI to finish calculating.

It wasn't long before the blueprints and a route with his current location appeared on the HUD of his mask.

"Activate oxygen." He said before submerging into the water.

He felt a rush of panic invaded him the moment the water started to fill his senses, for an instant he visualized the cave in Afghanistan and his kidnappers torturing him, he could even felt the dirty and icy water filling his lungs as he tried desperately to take a breath to ease the burn sensation that tore his chest and lungs.

He lost it with that, the memories invaded him and he blinked trying to shake off the torturous images to no avail, his breath and pulse peaking as he started to hyperventilate.

"Are you alright Sir? I observed a disturbance in your vital sings." The A.I.'s voice broke the illusion and his sense started to clear.

"Thanks, JARVIS." He said when he managed to get a hold of his breath.

"What for, sir?" He could almost hear the confusion in the A.I.'s artificial voice.

"For being here." He knew the A.I. was still confused but JARVIS had made some kind of rule about not questioning his master's illogical behavior a long time ago.

Now that he was calmer he took in his surrounding and started swimming toward his goal, ignoring all the way toward the Triskelion the fast beat of his hearth and the images that threated to surface from the back of his mind.

When he arrived at the destination point he found an underwater emergency access and he opened the gate to enter the small tunnel. He felt immensely relieved when he reached the surface of the water, his breath finally started returning to normal.

"Deactivate oxygen." There was a metal stair in front of him and he grabbed it and started climbing, when he reached the top he found a small rusted locked gate. He took a small device from his belt and stuck it to the control panel next the gate.

"JARVIS hack into the control room and give us free access." If his math was right, he had approximately fifteen minutes to infiltrate before they noticed the disturbance in the system. Without JARVIS help he might had worried but with the A.I. on his side it was more than enough time for him to disappear before they started searching.

The gate opened in front of him and he crawled into the duct, wondering why he seemed to always end up crawling in ducts these days.

"Give me the shortest route to the mainframe." The moment the image appeared in front of his eyes, he started moving through the ducts, turning were Jarvis signaled until he arrived into a small opening.

"Sir I advise you get off the duct and enter the room before the next agent pass by, which would be in the next thirty-five seconds." A counter appeared on his visor and he cursed under his breath, hurrying himself out of the duct and closing it as fast as he could manage.

"Which door JARVIS?" He said in panic looking around to all the doors in his sight.

"Third door to the right." He ran to the door and it opened just as he was getting there, as soon as he entered it the door closed and he breathed in relief.

"I'm not cut out for this spy infiltration shit, it feels too much like Batman and Robin for my liking…"He muttered as he tried to catch his breath.

"With all due respect, I feel compelled to say that you would make one of the worse Batman ever, sir." Tony couldn't help but smile at that, JARVIS was always there to make smart ass remarks when you less expected him to.

"Geez JARVIS, what a way to rub my ego." He looked around the room and couldn't make out much of it as it was completely dark.

"I think your ego is perfectly fine as it is now, sir." He smiled again at that.

"At least I can say I'm way more handsome than Bruce Wayne." He teased.

"And that's what I meant about your ego." He tried not to laugh and concentrated on the matter in hands.

He took a tentative step forward and the two lights two to each of his side lighted, he nodded to himself and started walking as his path continued lightening at the same time the lights behind turned off. For what he could take from his surrounding he was in some kind of giant corridor, which he hoped lead him to the SHIELD's mainframe.

After a minute or so of walking he arrived into a well lightened room and he whistled in awe at the giant tower like machine in the middle of the enormous room.

"Sweet, finally we get to the good part." He walked toward the machine and ran a hand through the smooth and cold surface, taking a few moments to marvel at the technological piece of art. "Locate the control panel, dear."

A red dot appeared on the map in the visor and he walked to his right to where the control panel was located, while he took another device from his utility belt. The control panel just like the rest of the machine was giant, full of colorful organized cables, switches and boards. The engineer grinned evilly and inserted the small card like device into one of the free slots.

"Time to seize control over S.H.I.E.L.D. JARVIS, run " his visor screen turned black and a series of codes and commands appeared as the A.I. seized control over the mainframe.

"Infiltration complete, you now have full control over the S.H.I.E.L.D.'s mainframe, sir." To tell the truth Tony felt accomplished at that moment, he could cross out hacking S.H.I.E.L.D. from his to do before dying list.

"Give me the search results for Cosmic Cube, Tesseract and Howard Stark." He waited as the JARVIS downloaded the files from the system and he wasn't disappointed when the results appeared on his visor, showing him more information than what he thought he would find.

He knew he was running out of time but he felt the need to at least check out a bit of the reports before leaving and he had never been one to let his desires slip.

"Project the information." As soon as he said that a holographic projection of his visor's screen appeared in front of him. He touched the hologram and started going through the information.

Many of the things he read weren't new to him but as he read on his face turned impassive and a vile sentiment grew in him, until he was grimacing in disgust.

"JARVIS search for Loki Laufeyson." The result instantly refreshed and showed him what he asked, he passed a hand through his face in exasperation as he read the report. "Search for Anthony Stark." He clenched his hand to his side with anger at what he read. "Search for HYDRA." The information shifted in front of his eyes and when he pinpointed what he had been looking for he felt rage start to build in him. "Fuck, Fuck, Fuck! What the hell are you playing at Nick?"

He hurled his fist toward the control panel in a fit of anger, he had just read a small fragment of the report but it was enough for him to know that things went deeper than he had first thought.

"Pardon me Sir. I suggest you leave the room as soon as possible, there are three agents coming this way." The AI's voice cut his thoughts and he cursed at the news.

"Save the search result and reboot the system, leave no trace as planned." With that he took away the card like device and ran toward the dark corridor. "Deactivate speaker."

He walked slowly and pressed himself against the wall, and waited for the agents to pass by him. Thankfully the immense size of the corridor and its bad illumination helped conceal his presence. He walked away carefully, asking Jarvis to turn off the lights as he made his way through the corridor.

"Jarvis give me the safest route out and a map with the location and movement of the agents." Unfortunately there was agent just in front of the nearest duct, which meant that he would probably need to make his way through the corridors before he could find a safe duct.

He breathed in, trying to relax himself. The minutes he had spared reading the files had cost him too much, it wouldn't be long before they noticed the disturbance in the security system and then every agent would be looking for the responsible.

He tried really hard not to think of the possibility of being discovered, he couldn't allow himself to get to that point.

He took one last breath before he commanded JARVIS to open the door. He instantly sprinted to his right making his way through the corridor as fast and smooth as he could. He followed JARVIS instruction, following the small map on his visor step by step and keeping an extra eye on the agents' movement.

He almost thought that he would make it out without incidents until two agents turned around suddenly breaking the settled pattern and he stopped mid track in panic.

There were only three ways to go, to where the two agents were coming from, back from where he came and towards a corridor were one agent was walking. Either options were horribly bad, if he was to return he would surely came across some other agents and it would had cost him many precious minutes, his best options were either confronting the two agents or the lone agent.

He closed his eyes, taking a few second to run the equations and variables in his head, when he opened his eyes he didn't hesitate to run forward directly to where the lone agent was walking. He approached the corridor and leaned against the wall, slowly he stole a look at the corridor where the agent was walking and gasped in shock when he saw that said agent was none other than Natasha.

Of all the people he could encounter, Natasha was probably his worst case scenario. He had never been able to win a hand to hand encounter with her out of his suit and he had never been good at reading her which meant that a battle between them would end up badly, but above all that what he feared the most was that Natasha knew him well enough to instantly know that it was him under the mask.

He checked the other two agents and found that they were coming his way and he cursed under his breath. One of the reasons why he liked to work with robots was that there was no human factor there, he had always hated working with human factors because they made the equations too imprecise and arbitrary.

"Don't move." He heard Natasha whisper suddenly at the same time a gun barrel pressed at the side of his head.

He swallowed, recognizing one of those moments were he had to make a decision that would greatly change the course of his life in a matter of seconds. If he fought back there were high chances of him losing or being killed by Natasha, but if he surrendered his journey for the truth would have been in vain.

It was needless to say that at that moment when he loathed Natasha's seemingly sixth sense and her ability to silently sneak on anyone the most.

One breath and he made one decision. He knew Natasha had been injured on her left side on the last mission she participated, if he was fast enough he could strike her with enough strength to ensure his escape, without having his head blown away by her gun.

In a second he turned around, putting on practice the many months he had spent training himself, and hit Natasha on the left side of her chest, making her groan in pain and drop the gun. He leaned down to pick the gun but before he could grab it Natasha kicked it with her foot and then kicked him in the chin with enough force to make him step back. The pain coming from his chin numbed him for a second, giving Natasha enough time to throw a kick to his face, which connected to his left cheekbone and sent him flying to the floor.

He huffed as his chest hit the floor, making him lose his breath for a moment. Natasha took advantage of it to make her way toward the gun, but Tony moved past the pain and grabbed her ankle hurriedly.

"I'm Sorry Natasha." He whispered as he sends an electrical shock through his glove to her. The red headed woman trembled as the electricity coursed her body and finally fell down onto the floor. "Damn, I hate this."

Even if the battle with Natasha only lasted a few seconds, she had managed to leave him aching in many places, he was sure that there was already a bruise forming on his chin and cheekbone, and he could taste metal in his mouth coming from where he had bitten his lips when she hit him.

He checked the mini map on his visor and just as he thought he would need to run as fast as he could if he didn't wanted to be discovered by the two agents coming his way.

"I'm really sorry Tasha." He said, even if his speaker was still off and ran away from there. "JARVIS please locate the fastest way out of here." The mini map shifted and the red line changed, leading to a new location.

"At this point your best option is to use one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s escape capsules, sir." He nodded and hurried his way to his goal, gratefully JARVIS had arranged him a route without agents to interfere but as he was nearing his goal an alert call sounded.

"Attention to all agents, there's a type 2B intruder in the facility. I repeat: Attention to all agents, there's a type 2B intruder in the facility." As if hadn't been nervous enough already without all of S.H.I.E.L.D. being informed of his existence, he accelerated his peace until his lungs burned and all he could hear were his heart's wild beats.

For the first time since being part of SHIELD he regretted not reading the security measures, as he wasn't sure what a type 2B intruder stood for. He just hoped that it didn't involve killing him and that he didn't have to encounter another agent in order to find out. He was too tired to survive a fight against Coulson or Steve, not like he thought he would survive a fight against Steve out of his suit in any kind circumstance.

To his relief he arrived to the emergency escape room without seeing another agent. Immediately he made his way to the control panel in order to have one of the escape capsules working, as he took one of the devices from his belt. He then opened the case of the control panel and stuck the device directly onto its board.

"JARVIS give me access to one of the capsules and set its destination point to long Island, notify Happy of my position and create a decoy location after erasing the real one." A rain of numbers and commands appeared on his visor as JARVIS computed his order and at the same time a "progress completed" appeared on the screen one of the capsules exits lightened.

He yanked the device from the board and closed the panel's case, immediately making his way toward the operating capsule. He finally allowed himself take a relieved breath when the capsule launched and he was on his way to long island. He let his head fall onto the capsule hard surface and closed his eyes with tiredness.

He definitely wasn't cut out for those kinds of jobs; he really needed to find himself a Robin for when stealing information was needed.

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><p>His day had started bad enough with Tony informing him that he would need to talk to Fury alone because of a last minute meeting. To start he didn't even like the idea of addressing Fury directly on the matter, and being sent alone to him had just made him more annoyed about everything. To top all that he had been just starting his meeting with Fury when an alert had come announcing an intruder and he had to spent the next three hours searching for said intruder. After three hours of fruitless searching, everyone assumed that the intruder had escaped and the scout team of S.H.I.E.L.D. had taken the leads to find clues of the intruder's objective.<p>

When he had finally been dispatched he had made his way to the infirmary to pay Natasha a visit, to his relief she hadn't taken much damage and was left with only sore ribs. They talked a bit about the intruder and then Steve had left her alone to rest. All he wished was to be home after a long day and that thought made him smile when he realized that he had finally got accustomed to call the mansion his home.

As soon as he got home he threw his coat on the closet and started undoing his tie, ready to retire to his room for the rest of the evening, but then it occurred to him that maybe Tony was back from his meeting.

"Hey JARVIS is Tony home?" He looked up as he addressed the A.I. lately having grown into the habit of doing so.

"Master Tony returned not long ago and is down in the workshop." He smiled and changed his path from his room to Tony's workshop.

"Thanks, JARVIS." When he arrived there he smiled at the sight of Tony leaning into his chair and looking up to his giant screen. "You won't believe what happened." He started and the engineer hummed signaling that he was listening. "Someone broke into the Triskelion, it was a full uproar, whoever it was even managed to knock out Natasha and they don't even know what the intruder wanted." He said as he approached the genius.

"It seems like your afternoon was fun." There was a funny tone on the raven haired man's voice but Steve ignored it.

"As fun as a visit to the doctor. What about you? How was the…" He stopped mid-sentence when he reached the engineer's side and noticed the state in which he was. "What the hell happened to you?"

He took both sides of his friend's face on his hands in panic, carefully looking at the red bruise on his left cheekbone, the equally red bruise in his chin and the teeth like marks on his lower lip. He resisted the urge to run his thumb on the man's lips to try to clean the dried blood on them.

"Language Cap, and here I thought you couldn't swear." Tony teased and then his eyes moved slowly toward the screen as if he wanted Steve to follow him and the blond soldier did so.

In the screen was S.H.I.E.L.D.'s logo followed by what seemed to be a full report on the Tesseract. It all clicked into place at that moment.

"You are the intruder." Tony gave him a sly grin at the same time he nodded. "Are you crazy? Natasha could have killed you! You could be in Jail!" He shook Tony a little bit, but regretted doing so when the engineer hissed in pain. He looked down to the man's chest and noticed the ice pack on his right side.

"And that's why I didn't tell you." It was barely above a whisper, Steve being able to hear it thanks to his enhanced hearing. There was a hint of annoyance on the genius's voice and the blond passed his hand through his hair in exasperation.

What would have he done if anything had happened to the genius? He would have failed in so many ways that he wasn't sure if he could take it. He was Tony's bodyguard, meaning that Tony was his responsibility, moreover he was his friend, his teammate, Tony was so many things to Steve that he didn't even wanted to think of the possibility of losing him. He should have known better than believing the genius would think of such a lousy plan, he should have known that he would try something reckless.

In a way he had already failed, even if the engineer was alright.

"Never _ever_ do that again. We could have figure out something together." Tony opened his mouth ready to protest but the blond hushed him. "We are in this together for god's sake Tony. Don't go putting yourself in unnecessary risk. Next time let me help you, alright?"

"You think it was an unnecessary risk?" His friend asked a little bit too harsh. "I did the math Steve. This wasn't just some plan that occurred to me out of boredom, I considered the variables and went for the best option!"

He was taken aback by the genius sudden burst, Tony was usually more composed and tended to reply with sarcastic remarks and evasive comments, it was unusual for him to snap.

"Look I didn't mean that you didn't think it thoughtfully. Is just that as much as you like to think otherwise, you aren't omnipotent, you are human Tony and we humans make mistakes." Maybe it had been the wrong thing to say because the moment he said it the genius looked away with a hurt look.

"Contrary to popular beliefs I'm pretty aware of the fact that I'm not perfect." There was a mysterious look on Tony's face which Steve had slowly grown to associate to Tony thinking of his past, specifically thinking about Howard.

He sighed in defeat, because the conversation wasn't going where he wanted it to and he was pretty sure that he wouldn't be able to reproach the genius while he looked like a kicked puppy. He was having enough troubles dealing with putting his feeling aside just to yell at him.

"I-I just worry about you." He said fighting a blush, because he felt as if he was letting out to much. "Don't leave me in the dark when I can help keep you safe. That's all I ask for."

Some kind of resigned look passed through the dark haired man's face as he nodded absently, retuning his gaze to the massive screen.

"I hate to break it on you, but your afternoon is about to turn even more frustrating." The tone the engineer was using said clearly that he had moved on the subject. Steve grimaced lightly because he sounded too jaded and locked for his like.

"What news do you have for me?" Tony tapped his holographic keyboard and the Tesseract's report vanished and the screen filled with what Steve assumed was Loki's S.H.I.E.L.D.'s profile.

"Fury has been playing us." He looked at Tony as if asking him if he was being serious.

"Why would you think that?" Tony scowled apparently being angered by whatever Fury had been pulling.

"Remember the Loki plot that got us together?" Steve nodded. "Fury was holding on us, Loki stole the Tesseract from S.H.I.E.L.D. it was one of the reasons why they were so desperate to capture him."

"You got to be kidding?" Tony's snort was enough answer. "Why would Fury hide that?"

"Someone told me to never thrust the government." Steve opened his mouth ready to defend his government but then it occurred to him that he didn't know his country anymore, so he swallowed instead and awaited for Tony to continue. "Truth to be told, I would have done the same thing. The Tesseract was the weapon, or not weapon, that almost gave the Nazi the victory. Letting on that a crazy Norse God has its power with him would have only made everyone more hysterical."

"I get that, but why not tell us? We were the ones sent to capture him after all." Tony narrowed his eyes and rubbed his chin only to hiss in pain, apparently forgetting about his injury.

"I think he had his reason for that. But this isn't the only thing the government had been hiding from us. It isn't even the worse thing they had hidden." In the screen Loki's profile changed to HYDRA's. "If you thought that after the war HYDRA dissolved, then you are dead wrong."

He looked startled at Tony, first he had said that Shmidt was alive and now he said that HYDRA was still working. "I defeated Shmidt, we won the war, there's no way HYDRA is still running."

"Not like before, but a group faithful to the Red Skull continued working. They divided in many branches, one which helped the Soviet Union during the Cold War, one which was led by someone called Baron Zemo. This group in particular attempted many attacks on S.H.I.E.L.D. to try to free one of their kind."

"Arnim Zola." He said in a low and dangerous tone.

Tony smirked. "Bingo and it seems they managed to free him at some point."

He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, as much as he hated the guy for Bucky's death, but an old man wasn't an enemy he would worry about. "I don't think a depowered HYDRA is something we should worry about."

"And I thought you would say that, but the thing is that HYDRA isn't as weak as you think." Tony frowned lightly before continuing. "I'm not proud to admit that S.H.I.E.L.D. has done a pretty good job hiding it from the world."

The engineer typed something into his holographic keyboard. He looked hesitant, typing slowly as if to give his self time. HYDRA's profile changed to Howard's.

"People often forget about the past, but I read somewhere that those who forget about it are bound to commit the same mistakes. The thing is that history is not always told as it occurred, probably because some pieces got lost along the way or because of a particular interest and Steve here we are retelling a story that was long forgotten and terminated, and I have to warn you that digging up history often leaves us with truths that we do not desire for. "

Something about his friend's tone told Steve that he was about to be told something important and he remained silent looking at the other man as if not to miss anything he says, be it verbally or not.

The genius took a deep breath and his gaze sobered. "HYDRA is still running, they got Zola out of prison and I my guess is that he continued developing his ideas about the Tesseract but without the cube the guy was not a physicist nor an engineer, didn't get far and that's when they realized they needed someone else to develop the principles and that someone happened to be Howard Stark. Yet somehow along the way instead of getting the guy's knowledge they ended up killing him and they were left empty handed. Then to their delight the prodigal son appeared but too soon they realized that he didn't know a thing about the Tesseract nor his father's works, and they left him be until said son developed an incredible advanced suit powered by something that resembled the Tesseract a little too much and that's when they knew they found the guy."

Steve blinked at him processing all he had said. He was partially amused at how Tony had managed to make it sound as if he was just retelling something from a book when he was in fact talking about his life and his father's.

The engineer took his silence as confusion and continued talking. "What I mean is that HYDRA killed my father and that those who kidnapped me a week or so ago were in fact HYDRA and not some random pro-Nazi group, and I'm saying that Fury knows all this."

"I'm not even sure how to take that." He said finally. "Some months ago I was chasing Shmidt, a few weeks ago I thought HYDRA was no more and now you are telling me that all I fought for back in the days was in vain."

The raven haired man seemed alarmed at his last statement. "I'm not saying your work as Captain America was in vain, you made a symbol of the name and a prove of your work is that HYDRA is not even the shadow of what it used to be."

He tried to smile at the man's cheering but his smile cracked mid-way and turned into a grimace. "I lost Bucky to them and now I know I lost Howard to them too." The -_could have lost you also-_ didn't manage to get out. "Ho-how did they even manage to get Howard? He was supposed to be one of the most powerful men in the country."

"I'm not so sure. The report doesn't say much about him; it seems he erased it before dying." He opened his mouth and closed it in a sigh of hesitation. "But not even him would have been safe from a traitor."

Somewhere along their conversation, Steve had ended up sitting on the floor next to the engineer's chair. He looked up his friend with and inquiring look. "What traitor?"

"Obadiah Stane, dad's right hand…" Realization dawned onto Steve as he remembered the name from Tony's file. Obadiah Stane the man who had sold Tony to the rebels.

"The Iron Monger." Tony twitched at the name. "You think he sold Howard to HYDRA?"

"Most likely. You said so yourself, dad was one of the most powerful men of the time, I'm sure that HYDRA couldn't have got him on their own." It did made sense, the man had sold his protégé and surrogate son to the rebels in order to take the company from his hand.

It was almost instinctive to think he orchestrated Howard's death.

"What do we do now? Is not as if the mystery is solved, if anything I just have more questions now." Tony sighed and stood from his chair, pushing it aside and walking toward Steve's back to slide down and sat back to back with him.

He tried not to think too much about the weight of Tony's head resting on his back or how warm his back felt against his own.

"I'm not sure Cap. All I know is that we can't thrust S.H.I.E.L.D. that dad has more mysteries around him than what I thought possible, that we can't get our hands on the cube unless we find Loki and that HYDRA is out there waiting for me to get careless." Tony leaned a little bit more onto his back and Steve responded by leaning his head back to rest on the top of Tony's.

They stayed like that for a little while and the blond soldier closed his eyes as he enjoyed the feel of the engineer pressed against his back, it was a guilty pleasure, but a pleasure nonetheless and he had no reason to reject what his friend offered him.

"Oh I got it." The engineer said suddenly and Steve opened his eyes and leaned to his side to get a look of the tanned man, careful as to not break contact with him.

"What did you get?" Tony looked up at him and Steve had to refrain himself leaning down into the shorter man. He was too close and he was intoxicating Steve to the point of madness.

"If we can't get the mystery solved by asking S.H.I.E.L.D. we'll just have ask HYDRA." Steve frowned at that and looked more seriously at Tony.

"And how are we supposed to do that?" He knew he would regret asking that later.

"They are looking for me, right?" He nodded and Tony smiled confidently. "Therefore we should let them get me so I can get the information."

That definitely broke the pleasantness out of the ambience.

"No." He tried to keep his voice as calmed as he could as he ignored how his former anger was threatening to surface. "I'm not letting you take any more risks."

"I'm not taking any risks here. I'm talking about a setting, we can have you and Rhodey cover my back and follow them into their hideout, I get the information and you get me back home safely. You see, everyone is happy." Tony sounded annoyed as if the frown in his face wasn't enough to convey Steve his feelings.

"No, Tony." He said more firmly, because he didn't like to consider the idea of putting Tony in such blatant danger.

"God damn it, I'm a superhero just like you! I might not be much out of the suit but that doesn't mean I'm useless, Steve." He jumped at the engineer's sudden outburst and he finally leaned away from him to have a better look of the man. "If you hadn't noticed we live of risk, you can't just imprison me in the mansion because you believe the world outside is too dangerous for me. I'm not some fucking princess in distress."

"I…" he didn't even know how to answer. Tony was obviously holding his anger to the point his eyes were glazy and his jaw was clenched. When it was put like that it did sound as if he was threating Tony like a dame in danger. "I didn't mean to offend you." He answered sincerely and Tony sighed at it.

"I know you didn't, you are just being your usual careful self, but really cut it out Steve. You were the one who asked to work together, I'm giving you a plan we can work on, at least think about it before rejecting it." He nodded slightly and leaned against the leg of Tony's table.

"How do you propose we get their attention?" He asked and that seemed to relax the engineer a little bit.

"If they want my knowledge about the Arc Reactor then I suggest an Expo. Something big where I get to demonstrate its power, they see it, they like it, they kidnap me, you and Rhodey follow then and we get the information out of whoever is in charge." It sounded simple but Steve wasn't convinced.

"And how are you sure they won't kill you?"

"I survived three months in a cave on Afghanistan, I'm pretty sure I can survive a few hours with HYDRA." Steve didn't like the comparison, but the engineer had a point, he couldn't keep threating him as if he was going to break at any moment.

"Alright, just promise me something?" The shorter mas tilted his head slightly to his side and waited for him to continue. "Don't do anything reckless before Rhodey and I get to you."

Tony smiled at him and extended his hand. "You have a deal." Steve sighed and shook the tanned man's hand even if he had the feeling that he wouldn't keep his word.


	8. Chapter 8

**Title:** Timelines  
><strong>Author:<strong> Quietshade  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG-13  
><strong>Pairings:<strong> Eventual Steve/Tony, Tony/Pepper, past Steve/Peggy, Howard/Maria, Clint/Natasha, Thor/Jane.  
><strong>Universe: <strong>Movieverse (Earth-199999)  
><strong>Warning<strong>: Slash, M/M, Strong Language, World War II topics.**  
><strong>_**Disclaimer:**_ All Marvel characters and reference belong to them not to me.  
><strong>Summary<strong>: Tony is a man of the future who can't manage to accept his past and Steve is a man of the past who have a hard time accepting his future because of this they understand each other and help one another come in terms with their times.

**AN:** I finished this chapter ages ago but I didn't want to publish it before it was check by the Beta. Sadly due to some mishaps, I hadn't been able to put the story up to date with the beta and I decided to publish it now because of public pressure. ¬¬ So this chapter will go unbetaed for now. Also Thanks to everyone who reviewed and supported the story. you're great guys.

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><p><strong>Timelines<br>**_Chapter eight_

He had meet Lt. Colonel James Rhodes once before, it was a few weeks after they stopped Loki. The man had come to N.Y. to pay Tony a visit and stayed at the city for a few days. It was on the second day that Steve met him when Stark brought him to S.H.I.E.L.D. to meet his new team.

Just as it was to expect the Lt. Colonel behaved like a soldier of his rank, too polite, too concise. Steve couldn't help but find this disappointing. Ever since waking up everyone had been far too polite to him, even those who out ranked him. They all behaved as if he was a legend that they ought to admire and respect no matter what outrageous thing he might say. Sometimes this frustrated him to the point he wanted to hit something until he couldn't think of anything at all. He would never have thought that he would find himself missing the rude manners of his fellow soldiers.

Something that did struck Steve as remarkable was Rhodes's ability to keep up with Tony. He was one of the few persons Steve knew that could stand Stark for more than ten minutes. They bickered like an old married couple but the affection underneath the harsh words was present. Also he was one of the few persons Tony listened to, at least to some extent.

They reminded him a lot of Bucky and himself. That was probably why even if he told himself that he was being stupid; he couldn't help the rush of jealously that invaded him the moment they opened the door to Tony's Malibu house and the engineer rushed to his friend for an affective awkward hug. What he couldn't tell for sure was if the feeling came from seeing something that he had lost and would never have back. Or if it came from the fear that like he had liked Bucky, Tony might be carrying a secret torch for Rhodes too. It probably didn't help that they both were named James.

"Jim." The engineer said as he tightened his bone crushing hug when the soldier tried to push him away. "I missed you buddy."

The Lt. Colonel sighed and patted the dark haired man's head. "There, I missed you too. Now get off me so I can greet the Captain."

Tony looked back at him with his eyes. As if he was secretly accusing Steve of stealing his best friend's attention from him. The blond soldier swallowed trying to keep how awkward he was feeling from showing on his face.

James saluted him as soon as Tony got off him and Steve answered with a salute of his own. "It is a pleasure to see you again Captain Rogers."

"The pleasure is mine Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes." The darker man smiled and waved a hand at him.

"Drop the honorary. I grew up reading your comics. You don't know the honor it is to be able to meet Captain America." Being treated as a national icon was one of the things that he was yet to adjust to. Back in his days he had been more of a popular stunt than a national hero. He supposed it all started after he was frozen. Thanks to his last battle and sacrifice.

Still he wasn't feeling any more special than what he felt while he still was scrawny and sickly Rogers.

"I-" He stopped midsentence not knowing how to answer to the soldier's flattery. To his relief he didn't need to continue when the engineer decided to butt in.

"Come on you can befriend each other later." He walked around Rhodes and pushed him towards the stairs. "Now you need to show me the suit. I hope your good for nothing mechanics hadn't been messing too much with it. Last time I upgraded it I had a hard time undoing their work."

Rhodes looked back at him with an apologetic look but he didn't do anything to stop the shorter man from pushing him. Steve smiled lightly and followed them downstairs into a workshop that was a lot like the one back at the mansion.

The War Machine armor was already there waiting patiently for its master and creator.

The blond soldier walked toward it to inspect it closely. He learned the story behind the armor when he read Tony's file. It was unquestionably the same design behind the Iron Man armor, but at the same time it looked so different from the powerful and elegant suit Tony used. The name suited it as it resembled more a weapon than its red and gold counterpart.

"You like it?" He looked to his side to find James looking proudly at the armor.

"It is…" He frowned and struggled to find a fitting word. "Bulky."

"It is powerful." Rhodes countered not looking pleased by the Captain choose of word.

"Larger doesn't always mean stronger." A chuckle exploded from behind them and they both turned around to look at Tony.

"A point for the captain. I have to give you more credit. I underestimated your sense of taste, you know with the wings and all that." He tried not to be offended by Tony's comment, knowing that the engineer was trying to annoy him.

"They are a metaphor. They represent liberty." Tony gave him a mocking smile as an answer.

"I thought as much, but that doesn't make them any less silly."

"Hey, hey big boy, play nice will ya?" Rhodey scolded and Tony shrugged nonchalantly.

"What I mean is that Steve is right. Putting more weapons on the armor won't make it stronger. You have to take into account a bunch of other features, but sadly you guys seem to think along the line of the more the merrier." Rhodes frowned at that and Steve tried hard to hide his smile because he knew Tony was right.

"Oh come on, you know my armor could beat yours anytime." Tony grinned and sniffed the air.

"Do I smell a challenge? Are you sure it's wise to bet on that? Even knowing that I created them?" This time it was the lieutenant colonel who shrugged.

"Of course I'm sure. As if you could beat me with those horrible fighting skills of yours. You should try doing something about them." At that point Steve wasn't even trying to hide his smile.

"What? There's nothing wrong with my fighting skills." Rhodey snorted, clearly not agreeing with the engineer. "I'm a capable fighter. Tell him Steve."

The blond blinked slowly at his teammate. He wasn't sure if Tony was serious about the matter. "Actually I've been considering asking you to train your hand to hand skills. You seem to be lacking on close combat." Tony gave him a blank look and Rhodes laughed hard.

"Oh, I get it." The engineer narrowed his eyes and looked from Steve to Rhodey. "That's not fair. Soldiers teaming up to beat the engineer is not fair at all." Rhodey chuckled and patted Tony's shoulder lightly.

"Now you're just coming up with conspiracies." Tony smiled up at him and the look the Lieutenant Colonel gave him in return made Steve's chest hurt.

The earnest look in the older soldier's eyes was one Steve was really familiar with. He had seen it countless of times on Bucky's owns eyes. It was a look that was meant only for the one person you could thrust your soul to.

For a moment time stopped for him and a cold tremor ran his body. Thanks to the serum, he could remember every single moment in which he had seen that look on Bucky's eye. Those joyfully bitter moments that would never come back. Moments of a time that was no longer his and of people he would never see again.

He felt his hands tremble on his side and he closed them tightly, trying to push aside the unwelcomed memories.

Something on his face must have given him away, because the next thing he felt was the light touch of Tony's hand on his shoulder. He met the engineer's gaze and was surprised by the softness in his eyes. There was some kind of thoughtful loneliness in them that remind him so much of the engineer. Even so it was the wearied sad smile that the shorter man gave him which made his hands twitch with the urge to touch him.

"Why don't you two go out and see the city? It'll take me some hours to upgrade the armor." Tony's tone was hesitant and low as if he feared that Steve would break if he was to speak any louder.

James cleared his throat and the blond looked at him. He had a strange look on his face, something between recognition and worry which Steve failed to place. "I would be glad to show the Captain around but first…" He directed his look from Steve to Tony. "I want to know why you called me."

Tony grimaced slightly, obviously not wanting to have that conversation yet.

The dark haired engineer sighed heavily not even bothering to hide his discontent. "Sit down. This is going to be long." The darker soldier put a face that leaved no doubt that he was already having a bad feeling about the conversation. "Do you remember that I was kidnapped… five, six…"

Tony looked at Steve and after a few second the soldier understood what Tony meant. "Twelve days ago." He answered while shaking his head in disbelieve at his teammate's memory.

"Yeah, twelve days ago."

"As if I could forget it, you on the other hand, completely forgot to inform your best friend that you were kidnapped. I had to learn it from Pepper **seven** days ago." The engineer chuckled sheepishly.

"Well I was kind of busy, dealing with the aftermath." That didn't take the impassive face from Rhodes and Tony sighed in defeat. "To the point. It seems that this kidnapping wasn't done for the ransom or to get the Iron man suit. In fact it seems this time it has more to do about the government and my dad."

That seemed to get the darker soldier's attention. His face turned from slightly annoyed to plainly curious. "So tell me. What do the government and your dad have to do with your kidnapping?"

Tony sighed again and started explaining their short but eventful journey to the truth. He went from everything that happened from the moment he was kidnapped to the moment they formulated the plan to get information from HYDRA.

"Ok, let's see if I get this right." Rhodes started after a moment of silence. "You believe that you were kidnapped by HYDRA, the same Nazi organization that almost seized the world on WWII. Organization which is supposedly not only still running but is the responsible for your father's death, a man who happened to be one of the most important and secured men of his time. You also believe that they kidnapped you because they want your knowledge of a cube which your father found and researched for over forty years. Cube which is now in possession of an crazy Nordic god and of which you didn't know of its existence until twelve days ago but still believe has the power to change the world. Overall, the government know of all this and is for some reason trying to hide the truth."

It might have been the tone in which he said it or how he said it but hearing it coming from the other soldier's mouth made it sound unreal, silly even.

"You got that right." Tony answered, seemingly unfazed by his friend's sardonic tone.

"You are insane." answered the older soldier with the most stunned tone he could muster.

"Look Rhodey I know this is bizarre. We are missing a lot of details here and we are for most part just guessing but I can swear you that we aren't joking. Something happened and whether you help us or not we are going to find the truth."

The darker soldier looked at his childhood friend for a while. His eyes roamed over his friend's face as if searching for any reason to doubt him. "You are being serious." he said at least, rubbing the bridge of his nose in frustration. "How come every time you are kidnapped you get in some serious shit?" Tony shrugged apologetically.

"We should go over the plan." Steve intervened after a long while of just watching them interact.

"I'll hardly call that a plan. It is more a -let Stark get kidnapped and let's see what we get of it- thing." Tony grunted at that and Steve couldn't help but silently agreed with the fellow soldier. "Did you really agree to it?"

The blond sighed not looking very pleased. "I tried to talk him out of it but he can be quite obstinate."

Rhodes nodded in agreement. "I know how he can get."

"Stop talking about him as if he wasn't here." Tony said his tone torn between playful and annoyed. Rhodey looked at him pointedly, eyes narrowed slightly.

"Do you truly believe this is a good plan Tony?" The engineer looked aside, eyes wandering on the War Machine armor. "You have no information of the enemy and you are willing to walk right into their trap. If your theories are right, you are the most important piece of this game and you know better than handing the king to the enemy."

"You are not going to win me over with Chess metaphors. Sometimes you have to expose the king in order to beat the enemy." He answered calmly with a monotonic voice.

"That assuming that you know the enemies movements and pieces, neither of which you know. _This_ is plainly suicide."

Tony sighed looking slightly annoyed. "I now the risks Rhodey, you don't have to do the math for me. _This_ is the best we have."

The older soldier closed his eyes for a moment, either trying to relax or thinking. "If you want this to work we'll have to come up with a better strategy. How many men do we count with?"

"Just, the three of us." Rhodes frowned at the Captain's answer.

"And JARVIS the A.I. and Happy." Tony added but his companions didn't spare him a glance.

"What about the others Avengers?" Steve was expecting that question soon or later.

"Natasha and Clint are part of S.H.I.E.L.D, organization which we are trying to avoid. We could ask Bruce but The Hulk isn't exactly good for when you are trying to go unnoticed and we are trying not to involve Thor or any of Asgard in this."

"This is worse than suicide. Is there any advantage on our side at all?"

"If we work this right we will have the surprise factor." Steve answered sullenly.

"And there's the fact that they want me alive." Neither soldiers acknowledged Tony's statement.

"That's not quite enough." Rhodes said to the Captain's answer.

"By experience I know it can make the difference. That's how we beat HYDRA last time."

"Of course, just ignore the genius." Steve saw Tony poking the War machine armor from the corner of his eyes. He was pretty sure the shorter man was close to pouting.

"That it worked once doesn't mean it will work again. This is not the same HYDRA as before. We will need a card under our sleeves."Rhodey looked at Tony with a small frown. "I wish the suits were compact enough to wear them under the clothes."

"It's funny that you mention it. I might have been working on a way to absorb the metal into the bones." Both soldiers now looked surprised at that.

"How is that coming?" Rhodey asked at the same time Steve asked "Is that even possible?"

The genius returned to poking the armor and muttered something along the line of "_Problems with the software._" and "_Now you hear the genius_."

The Lt. Colonel shook his head. "Do we even know where we will be operating?"

"Not yet, I'm going over those details with Pepper tonight."

"Does Pepper know she is helping get you kidnapped?" Tony's lack of answer was all his friend needed. "She will kill us, you know."

"Hardly." Tony walked over his working table and picked up his goggles. "Look, I'll check the armor now. You two go have fun. We can go over the details tomorrow."

Rhodey nodded reluctantly, knowing better than trying to convince him otherwise. "Try not to blow yourself." Steve frowned at that and was about to ask if that had happened before but the darker soldier grabbed his arm and started dragging him out of the workshop before he could speak. "Come on Captain. Let's leave doctor Frankenbot with his creations." From behind them the engineer echoed an evil laugh as an answer to his friend's mocking.

Steve looked back with an impassive face. How smart was to leave him alone? What if he was kidnapped when they were gone?

"Don't worry, he'll be alright. JARVIS is keeping an eye on him. Beside he has the suit and an emergency button if anything happens." Steve frowned and Rhodey chuckled. How did he know what he was thinking? "You wear your emotions on your sleeve Captain and I'm used to dealing with -Stark level- poker faces."

"Oh." He looked back for the last time. He felt more reassured knowing that they wouldn't be leaving Tony defenseless. "Where are we going?"

The darker man smiled at him. "I know a nice Jazz club nearby. I'm sure you will like it."

"A Jazz club?" He let a smile slip, remembering one time when he had gone with Bucky on a double date to a Jazz club. "I thought people didn't hear Jazz anymore."

Rhodey grimaced. "I bet that's what Tony said. Don't let Tony give you music advices. You won't enjoy them." Rhodey turned around walking for the closet. "Come on. We can talk about music on the way."

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><p>The Jazz club had been a great option. Steve loved it the moment they got there. It wasn't exactly like the Jazz Clubs he had gone to before. But it still got the same rich relaxing aura that made him want to never leave and the familiar tune of music that made him recall some precious moments of his life. To make it better, it was filled with an exquisite collection of art which the soldier promised to observe later. Beside the futuristic add on wasn't unwelcomed.<p>

He was delighted when not so long after they arrived, a song he was familiar with started. He hummed on time with the music and found his head following the rhythm. James noticed it and smiled at him.

"Nice to see you are enjoy it."

"It makes me feel at home." He admitted, because in a sense he felt as if he was back at the past and yet still on the future, like a place out of time. It was a place proper of him, of a man as misplaced as him.

"I'm glad to hear that. I thought you would like the place." Rhodes smiled at him and he returned the gesture with a smile of his own.

The darker soldier ordered a drink, one of those with strange names of which Steve had never heard of and was sure that cost more than any alcohol he had ever have before. His companion asked him if he wanted a drink of his own and Steve politely declined. He instead asked for a bottle of water.

For a long while no more words were exchanged, instead they let the music fills the space. However there were many questions roaming in the captain's mind. There were so many things he wanted to ask the soldier and he recognized an opportunity when it knocked his door.

"You have known Tony for a while, don't you?" The addressed man looked at him and nodded with a sober face.

"My father was Howard Stark's private pilot. I've been seeing Tony since he was teething."

Steve hesitated before asking his next question. "How was he when he was a child?"

James smiled became somewhat bitter and nostalgic after Steve's question. "In front or behind of the cameras?" Before Steve could answer the man waved a hand at him. "As strange as it sound, I'm not used to being asked about Tony's childhood."

The physically older soldier looked away into the distance, eyes narrowing as if trying to recall a distant memory.

"Not many people ask about his childhood. Not because they are not interested but because they believe they know all about it. After all he grew up under the camera, for him there had never been such a thing as private life." The soldier stopped and drank the liquid from his glass in a long and single gulp. "I heard you used to be Howard Stark's friend?"

Steve nodded silently, for some reason not finding in him the courage to interrupt his companion's speech.

"I understand that you were friends and I'm going to make this clear. Not even in the battlefield fighting against men that were ready to take my life or in the cells being tortured have I ever feel hatred as strong as the one I feel for Howard Stark." Suddenly the room didn't felt as warm and welcome as before. "Don't get me wrong. I respect him for every accomplishment and good he ever brought to this country, but he was a horrible person." He stopped to ask the waitress for another glass and as soon as it was in front of him he swallowed it. Although this time he did it slower than before.

A silence fell over them for a while. To Steve it felt as the silence before a storm and the look on Rhodes face, one on deeply thought and unease, told him that he probably wasn't far from the truth.

"I remember one winter when I was around eight and Tony around five. It was one of the coldest winter I have ever seen and the coldest I had lived at the time. I don't remember why my father took me to the Stark manor that day, but I remember the bored expression on Tony's face as he looked outside at the falling snow. They wouldn't let him out he told me." James cracked a smiled at that moment. "Tony has always been one for adventures regardless of consequence and he somehow convinced me to escape and go out to play with him. I must say that Howard wasn't happy when he found us all wet and shivering. I didn't see Tony for a week after that and when I saw him again it was for the Christmas party that Howard Stark held for his staff and their family. I don't remember much about that night, but I'm sure I won't ever forget Tony's pale yet flushed face as he tried to talk to me past his coughing. Or the moment he blanked out and fell face first over the floor because of a high fever. Or the moment Howard Stark appeared in front of us and yanked his son upright with one of the coldest eyes I have ever seen. Tony had been sick since the day we go out and all Howard told him was –_Stop embarrassing me_ –. I think that was the day I started hating that man."

Steve winced at the image, not really being able to place the man his companion was describing with the man he used to know, or even the man Peggy had told him about. It was as if the Howard Stark, Rhodes was speaking of was a totally different person from the one he had so far heard about.

"Howard wasn't a bad person. I might not have been around to see how he turned out but the Howard I was friend with was a good man. He might have been eccentric but he was always trying to do the right thing." The smile James gave him was probably too pitiful and sad to be called a smile.

"People change Captain." Steve looked at the bottle of water in front of him feeling sick.

They let the silence reign once more. Steve kept his gaze down, watching as the colorful lights reflected on the surface of his water and thinking about all the time he had spent with his old rich genius friend. He couldn't find a way to explain to himself how someone he had admired so much could turn into such a cold and heartless person.

"Back in the war I saw how far humans could go in the name of petty things like religion, politics, and race. People change I know, but I don't believe that people can hide their nature and I have seen the eyes of many awful men. Believe me when I say that Howard Stark was a man to respect and admire." because deep in his dreams when they weren't plagued by death and cold, he could still see the eyes of his friends and the softness around the harshness they have acquired during the war. "His eyes were those of a good man."

"I wish I could believe you Captain." Steve knew he was being sincere because of the honesty on his face and Steve for a moment seriously hoped that he was right.

Rhodes looked ready to drop the conversation and was about to be drown by the music. But there was still one more question he needed to ask before the conversation ended.

"Has he changed?" James looked at him confused. "Tony, has he changed too?"

Finally the soldier smiled openly again. "He still is, for the most part, the child that was too stupid to be a genius and couldn't take no for an answer. But time takes a toll on us all Captain and Tony hasn't been the exception to that rule." His smile began to twist until it turned into a frown. "If anything has changed… is how often he lies."

That was something Steve had not been expecting. He was pretty sure that his companion meant more than the obvious with that last sentences, but he was most likely lacking the context to make something out of it. He stared at Rhodes searching for an answer on his face to find none. After a moment in which the darker man didn't continue, Steve assumed he wasn't going to spill anything else.

"Thanks, for answering." he said earnestly.

"Let's get one more thing clear Rogers." He was a little bit startled when his companion addressed him, because it was the first time he hadn't used the rank tittle. "The only reason I'm telling you this is because I believe that consciously or not Tony considers you worthy enough of his trust. God knows he needs more people to take care of him. Nevertheless I will hunt you down to hell if he ever gets hurt because of you."

"Don't worry. I don't plan on hurting him." he answered hurriedly, startled by the accusation.

The other soldier clasped a hand on his shoulder. "You better keep that word."

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><p>He knew he should have been working on the War Machine armor like he said he was going to. He should had call Pepper and go over the expo details too. There were so many things he should had done instead of lying on the workshop's floor looking at the uninteresting ceiling, but he had too much in mind to work.<p>

Despite his confidence over his plan, he was having a bad feeling about the situation. He felt as if he was missing a piece. Something so obvious that it made him want to scream. He grunted in annoyance and rubbed his forehead tiredly. If there was something he wasn't seeing in the picture, the plan could go horribly wrong and he couldn't allow himself to send Rhodey and Steve to a suicide mission.

He heard the door to the workshop open and he let his head fall to his side, so he could look at the intruder. He saw Rhodey making his way toward him, with a pace of a mildly drunk man. He smiled when his childhood friend sat beside him on the floor.

"You look like you had fun." The soldier shook his head clumsily and lay down next to Tony.

"I thought you were going to work on the armor." His speech was a little bit slurred, confirming the engineer's suspect.

"Had something else on mind." He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on the problem in hand. "Where's Steve?"

"Up in his room Sleeping." He nodded and then remembered that Rhodey wasn't looking at him either.

"Alright." He heard Rhodey moving for a moment.

"What's up between you and Rogers?" His eyes snapped open and a cold tremor ran his body. For a few seconds he couldn't move as panic started to build in his guts.

"What's up with Steve and me?" He said as casually as he could, hoping that playing the dumb would get him out.

"Are you really going to play that game with me Tony?" He looked at his side slowly, meeting the soldier's gaze. He had moved to lie on his side and was looking at Tony with a sobriety he hadn't show some moments before. "Have you forgotten I was the one to endure your whining over Tiberius Stone and Sunset Bain?"

Tony grimaced. His panic was starting to grow out of control, to the point he was sure of being at the verge of a panic attack. "It wasn't like that with Ty."

"That's what you say, but I'm pretty sure I saw him with his tongue deep down your throat once." Rhodey expression changed to one of disgust and the engineer felt his blood freezing. "He also had his hand somewhere I don't want to think about."

He swallowed hard and he looked down at anything but his childhood friend. He had never told Rhodey that he liked men and he had been sure he had made a good job hiding it from the soldier. He slightly remembered some embarrassing moments on his life in which he had been mocked because of his sexuality and he remembered Ty threatening of telling Rhodey of his humiliating secret more than once.

"I'm sorry." He answered almost ashamed.

"Oh no, don't you dare do this on me." Rough fingers grabbed his face a little too strong and he was forced to look directly at his friend's eyes. "I don't fucking care if you like men. If I had cared we wouldn't still be friends. Do you get that?" He nodded slowly, some of the panic leaving him. "Now, what's up between you and Rogers?"

He tried to look away but Rhodey hand held him firmly. "Is just a crush…" he whispered quickly, word stuttering as if he had been the drunken one. "Leave me alone Rhodes."

He tried to force himself free but that only made the soldier tightened his grip. He was really drunk because he was grabbing Tony hard enough to hurt and Rhodey had always been cautious about using his strength to force people. "Is this a childhood hero worship thing?"

"Yes." he said too quickly and Rhodey frowned not believing him. "No… " He admitted and then gulped trying to ease the knot in his throat. "It is not Captain America, it is Steve Rogers." He closed his eyes feeling purely embarrassed for the first time in a long while. The soldier finally let go of his face.

"What will you do about it?" He opened his eyes to see Rhodey worried gaze instead of the disappointed one he had expected to find.

"There's nothing to do about it. As much as I like pretending I can't exactly erase emotions." his voice sounded more broken and anxious that he wanted to admit. He looked away trying to escape his friend's piercing gaze.

"What about Pepper?"

"What about Pepper? You know I love her." he answered distressed.

"So you're choosing her?" there was a hint of doubt in the soldier voice and Tony looked at him perplexed.

"Choose? There's nothing to choose Rhodey. Pepper and I are dating, and Steve is hopelessly in love with a woman who is 70 years older than him. Tell me Jim, what's there to choose?"

To the engineer's surprise his friend's answer was a fit of laugh. The soldier was laughing so hard that he was clutching his stomach and his eyes were watering. All he could think about was that his friend had lost it for good.

"What's so funny?" he asked annoyed.

"You of course." The soldier answered when he managed to stop laughing. "God I can't believe you. And here they say I'm the oblivious one." He frowned at his friend's comment but before he could ask, the Lt. Colonel was clumsily standing from the floor. "Just promise me you won't do anything stupid or rush on things." More than a request it was a command, and to make his point the soldier walked toward the exit without waiting for an answer. "By the way, I never liked Stone. He was an asshole." After that he leaved without another word.

Tony sighed at the Lieutenant Coronel's antics. He knew better than trying to make sense of his friend's drunken rambling. He stood from the floor and walked toward the armor, wanting badly to take his head off that last conversation.

* * *

><p>Instead of the big expo he had planned, they ended doing a small conference, because Steve insisted on involving as less civilians as possible. Organizing everything had been fairly easy and Pepper didn't suspect a thing. She had immediately agreed to the conference, saying it was a great idea to introduce clean sustainable energy to the world.<p>

That's how he found himself standing in front of fifty-five persons. Most of them were world leading scientists, some of them were engineers and a few other were reporters. The plan didn't change much from Tony's original idea but they took some extra precautions. Many of the members of Stark Industries security team were spread along the conference room, some of them dressed as civilians to dissimulate, in case things got out of hand.

Rhodey and Steve were already suited up waiting for the signal on a building nearby. He on the other hand was there standing in front of all those people, bored to dead and wishing to be kidnapped. He tried to hide his displease as he explained a chart about the energy output and useful life of the Arc Reactor.

When the conference ended without incidents, the engineer didn't know if to be relieved or disappointed. He sighed and waited for the room to be slightly unoccupied to make his way to the exit. On his way out many people congratulated him and tried to talk him into contracts, but he dismissed them as soon as he could. until a smooth looking blond caught his gaze.

The man was a few inches taller than him, around 5'10" tall. He got a charming smile and piercing cold blue eyes. He was build up, not like Steve or Thor but enough for him to know that the man engaged in exercise regularly. There was something unusual on the man, apart from the fact that he wasn't American, most likely from north or central Europe.

Tony shrugged off his uneasiness when the man started walking toward him, with a smile that only seemed to get wider.

"It is a pleasure to finally meet you Mr. Stark." The blond said with a heavy German accent. The blond extended his hand to him and Tony eyed him for a moment before accepting the hand. "Helmut Schneider, a great admirer of both your work as a hero and as an engineer."

Tony stood there staring at the man's strikingly blue eyes. They weren't as amazing as Steve's, but there was something appealing, with a hint of smut and dark on them. He cleared his throat, feeling slightly embarrassed for staring at the guy so openly. "Thanks, I'm always glad to be of service."

The man smile brightened a little more. "I must congratulate you for your demonstration today. It was quite fascinating, a few years ago no one believed that effective sustainable energy could be so near."

"A few years ago not even I believed it." Nor did he believe the fact that he would become a super hero someday. Or that he would meet a god or a man who had been frozen for 70 years, but life had shown him better.

"That is what makes it so fascinating. Not to mention the mind behind it." Tony smiled lightly at the compliment. "I myself am part of the energy industry. Not anything as fancy as your work, mind me."

He didn't know why the way the man kept complimenting him suddenly made him feel self-conscious and small. He blamed it on the cold piercing eyes, he somehow felt as if he was being judge by someone whom could see right through him and his lies. He felt as if the man was mocking him, telling him that he knew Tony's true worth.

"You give me too much credit." He said slowly, not knowing why he was being so honest. "I wasn't the only one who made this possible. My father worked on it years before I was born."

"Oh, but not even him managed to accomplish what you did. Your intellect surpasses him, or so they say." The man's smile turned somehow warmer and sweet. "Give yourself a little more credit."

For some reason he started to sweat and his heart speed up. He felt overwhelmed by the man, he felt petite. Only two people had ever managed to make him feel so small and helpless, his father and Ty. While the German resembled the later slightly, there was no reason for him to feel threatened. Not when it have been so long since he had felt like that.

"I might have something that will interest you." The blond said suddenly and he handed Tony a folder he hadn't noticed before. "I did say I was involved in the energy industry."

Tony nodded slowly and took the folder from the blond man's hands. He tried not to think too much about the fact that that in another occasion he would have commented about his dislike to being handed things.

It cost him more than it should have to take his gaze away from the German. He studied the folder's content slowly. For a moment he managed to block everything around him and the overwhelming feelings he had some moments before left him. When he finished he closed the folder and handed it back to the foreigner.

The moment he looked back at the man, the suffocating feeling he was dealing with some moments before came back with much more intensity. He gulped trying to ease the ticklish sensation on his skin. "It's not exactly my area of expertise, nuclear energy that's it. But you are right when you say it interest me, particularly the part that talks about gamma radiation."

The man looked pleased at Tony's answer. "I'm glad that it's of your like. Perhaps…" He looked around before leaning close to Tony. Close enough for him to be able to smell the faint essence of the man's odd smelling cologne. The nauseatingly sweet smell only helped making him feel worse. "We should continue this conversation somewhere else on another time. Perhaps somewhere more private." The last sentence was a whisper only meant for Tony's ears and it sent a cold shiver through his body that made his knees goes weak. The man grabbed his slightly shaking hand at the same time he took a pen from his shirt's pocket. He wrote his phone number on the engineer's hand with a precise and clear letter, before he finally stepped away. "Feel free to contact me at any time. I assure you that I'll have things far more interesting than this next time." The blond made a small reverence. "Have a nice day Mr. Stark."

Tony watched stunned the man's back as he retreated from the room. He stood there for a moment, wondering what the hell had happened and letting the overwhelming feelings wash away.

Somehow he knew that he would be seeing the guy again.

When he left the building and finally reunited with Steve and Rhodey again, the later was looking annoyed, but the engineer could see the relief in his body. His friend had never been reserved about his opinion and he immediately started complaining about the waste of time, telling Tony that he should try to spend more time sleeping and less time formulating conspiracies. He shrugged off Rhodey's comment and tried to keep his mind away from the strange German from before.

Steve in contraposition to Rhodey, was being far too quiet. He seemed lost in thoughts looking at the distance, with a small frown.

"You ok, Captain?" He asked interrupting Rhodey endless speech. The question seemed to get the attention of both soldiers. Rhodey finally stopped talking and looked at Steve with a frown of his own, while Steve looked at him surprised as if he had just noticed Tony's presence.

"Yes, just thinking." He smiled at Tony shyly, apparently trying to reassure him. "Come on, let's go home."

The blond Captain put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him slightly toward where Happy was waiting. He looked at the hand on his shoulder briefly. He could almost feel Rhodey gaze on him, the conversation from some nights before came rushing to him and he tried hard to not blush on the spot. He really didn't need to give Rhodey any more things to talk about.

* * *

><p>Once again he found himself lying sprawled on his back on the floor of the workshop, trying really hard to solve the new puzzle he had in hands. He had miscalculated something. He had underestimated HYDRA just like Rhodey had told him and he had allowed himself to fall into a mental game, in which the number on his hand and the appearance of the blond German played a vital role.<p>

He looked to his side to the hand with the number written on it and frowned at it. He had too many options in hands, too many possible routes and nothing to be sure of.

First of all there was the possibility that he had been wrong all along just like Rhodey said. Perhaps there was no HYDRA, no conspiracy and he had just made one of the biggest miscalculations of his life. This he considered highly unlikely.

Then there was the probability that HYDRA had seen right through his plan and decided to take another route. That's how he came to face his current predicament: The German guy from the conference.

That single person was the key to decipher HYDRA's plan. The man could be just like he had said, no more than an admirer who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Still the particularities of the guy and the way he had made the engineer felt told him otherwise. He could also be a blatant attempt from HYDRA to mislead him into concentrating on something unimportant while they executed their major plan, or well the German blond could be the major plan itself.

The thing is that if the man was part of HYDRA plan, they knew that Tony was searching for them and they had shamelessly thrown the bait, which he could either take or let pass. The problem is that he didn't know what they expected him to do and he couldn't corroborate that the man was working for HYDRA. All he knew was that he still needed the information.

He sighed in exasperation and rubbed his forehead feeling the start of a massive headache. Even having Jarvis hadn't helped much, the man was clean and everything was in order.

He heard the door opening and he looked to his side to find Rhodey standing by the door. When the soldier smiled at him he felt an odd sense of Déjà vu, and he pushed it to the back of his mind, not wanting to think about that at the moment.

"I'm going back to D.C." He nodded softly in acknowledgement, concentrating on a spot in the ceiling instead of on his friend.

"Have a safe trip." He saw the soldier shifting uncomfortably apparently not liking the answer.

"Are you going to continue with the HYDRA conspiracy?" He nodded again and Rhodey frowned in displease. "Don't cause Captain Rogers too much trouble."

"I don't promise. He is an easy target for pranks." That got a smile from Rhodey.

"Just so you know. You have some good eighteen hours down here." He nodded lazily, not really caring about the statement. Rhodey sighed knowing he was a lost cause. "If I were you I would go upstairs before your team leader decides to manhandle you into eating and sleeping." Tony smiled at that knowing Steve was perfectly capable of that. "Actually the only thing keeping him from doing it now is your girlfriend."

He looked up at that last sentence. He finally paid attention to Rhodey, who was smirking openly.

"Is Pepper here?" The soldier nodded, seemingly amused.

"For a while now. She has been keeping the Captain busy and has been complaining about your lack of manners for leaving your guest bored and unattended." He frowned because Steve wasn't exactly a guest and he was always invited to come down to the workshop.

Tony would have enjoyed the company, a lot.

Nevertheless he stood quickly from the floor and walked toward the door happily, wanting no more than to enjoy his girlfriend company for the night. He walked past Rhodey feeling his mood improving. Relaxing for a while might be just what he needed.

"Hey, Tony." He looked back at his friend who was looking more serious than before. "Be careful, ok?"

He smiled at Rhodey, feeling guiltily happy because of his friend's worry. He probably believed Tony even now but was too stubborn to admit it.

"Don't worry I'll be fine."

* * *

><p>All he could think about at that moment was that Ms. Potts was an extremely cheerful person. He hadn't had the pleasure of talking to her before. Usually one of them was running either to the next appointment or to save the world, but now that he could finally speak to her, he realized that she was one of the most cheerful persons he had ever met.<p>

He blinked at her, slightly confused by her fast speech. She was joyfully explaining something about a movie, or so Steve thought, because he had lost track of the conversation a long time ago. She didn't seem to mind his lack of participation and instead kept choosing topics which she thought might interest him. He was partially grateful for that because he wasn't used to talking to the ladies just yet, even less the women of this time. Hearing her ramble was way better than an awkward silence after he had said something silly.

"Pepper!" They both looked to their side to see Tony and Rhodes emerging from the workshop.

Tony looked like a mess, he was sweating, hair sticking everywhere and his clothes were crumpled and dirty, even so he didn't seem to mind it. He walked toward Pepper and gave her a brief kiss on the lips. Steve looked aside, blushing lightly at the open display of affection and trying to ignore the painful tug his heart made at the display.

"You are a terrible host." she said frowning at him and hitting him lightly on the shoulder. "Also you smell."

Tony chuckled and looked at him. "If you were bored you could have come down to the workshop."

He was about to comment that he didn't want to interrupt but Ms. Potts spoke before he could.

"So he could be ignored by you while you played with your toys?" She glared lightly at him and pushed him away from her. "Go bath, we are watching Titanic with Steve." Tony grimaced seemingly disgusted by the idea.

"Well I'll be leaving then, have fun with the movie." They all looked at the Lt. Coronel, who until to that point had been deliberately ignored.

The older soldier was grinning openly, looking quite amused, which was something the blond had grown familiar with. For some reason, since their conversation at the Jazz club, the other soldier had been giving him a strange look and Steve got the feeling that he knew something that he wasn't letting on. Whatever it was seemed to amuse him greatly.

He watched the Lt. Colonel wave at then and walks toward the exit, without even looking back.

"Traitor!" Tony shouted at him before he leaved the house, somehow Steve just knew that the soldier had grinned even more at that. When finally the Lt. Colonel leaved, Tony turned to Pepper with a small frown. "We aren't watching any chick films in this house."

Pepper smiled at him with a gentle face and pushed him again. "Go wash Tony." As gentle as her voice was, there was something in her tone that leaved no place to argument. Tony grunted but otherwise didn't resist to her petition.

* * *

><p>Watching the movie with Pepper and Tony had been awkward. They cuddled together, laughed and kissed, both of them barely paying attention to the movie. Steve spent most of the time blushing, with his gaze fixed on the screen, trying really hard to ignore the couple to his side. Somewhere along the movie Tony had sprawled on the sofa and his feet ended up in Steve thighs. At first he tensed not knowing what to do about it, but after a while he relaxed and settled his hands on them, noticing that neither Pepper nor Tony seemed to mind. He enjoyed the rest of the movie feeling Tony's warmth under his hands.<p>

He liked the movie quite a lot. He didn't understand why Tony complained so much about it and he felt a little embarrassed when his friend teased him after he cried. Ms. Potts was a lot gentler and reassured him that even Tony had cried the first time he saw it, fact the engineer denied fervently.

After the movie he thought of going to his room, wanting to leave the pairing on their own. He didn't need to intrude more than necessary in his teammate's life, nor did he have the courage to face more of their flirting. Instead he ended in the gym too awake to sleep, not that he thought he could sleep even if he was tired and even if he could he was too afraid of sleeping lately.

Under his nonchalant charade he was feeling quite restless. Things were finally catching up on him. He was a soldier. As long as he had a purpose he could postpone thinking about certain things. The days after he woke up had probably been the worse in his life. He had too much time to think, too much time to grief. His call to duty had been more welcomed than he had let on. It had given him an excuse to keep his mind away from the past.

He prepared the punching bag and put on his gloves ready to discharge some of his frustration.

After Bucky died, he would sometimes dream of that day. He would see Bucky falling again and again. Sometimes it was him falling in Bucky's place, those had been worse because he could feel the fear of falling. He could feel Bucky's despair as he tried to grab Steve's hand. He would wake up shaking and sweating, wishing that it really had been him on Bucky's place.

He launched a punch that marked the beginning of many to follow, each punch unleashed a bit of the many emotions he was feeling.

After he woke up on the future the nightmares plagued his dreams. Nightmares of those he cared about dying in his arms. Nightmares in which he saw the world dying in front of his faces as he did nothing to save it. Nightmares of Bucky dying, nightmares of the ice, nightmares of Peggy disappointed eyes, nightmares and nightmares one after another, one louder than the other.

His rhythm grew more frantic after each hit, each blow taking his mind a little more away from his distress, until all in his mind was his target.

Now he was as scared of his dreams as he was of his nightmares, because he would dream of things he couldn't have. He would see the Hollowing commandos singing and drinking after a successful mission. He would see Howard talking excitedly about the new upgrade he had done to his bike. He would dream of kissing Peggy in ways he couldn't talk of. He would dream of Bucky mocking him and laughing, but the worse where not the dreams of his past. The worst were the ones where he would watch a stubborn black haired engineer smiling at him in a manner that made his chest ache with longing. Those would always make it harder for him to face the next day, because it was the one thing that belonged to this time.

He wanted the silence, he wanted dreamless nights, he wanted the longing to stop, the fear to cease, the pain to go away.

He charged his punch ready to give the final blow but then he stopped midway. He looked at his clenched fist for a moment. Slowly he unclenched it and rested his palm on the punching bag, letting his forehead hits its surface.

He was astonished by how much he desired silence and how much it scared him of having it. He knew that those loud dreams were the nearest thing to happiness he would ever have.

* * *

><p>"Are you sure you don't want me to come with you?" Tony stopped fixing his tie for a moment in order to look at him.<p>

"Yes, I'm sure." Steve nodded not too happy and looked back at his newspaper. "Come on. Don't put that face, is just a business meeting, you would get bored anyway."

He was about to protest about it but when he looked up at the engineer's smile he dropped it knowing he had lost the argument. It had been two weeks since Tony started meeting that client and every time he would insist on Steve staying behind. It made the soldier wonder why, but when he asked he had just received a shrug as an answer.

It frustrated him, but there wasn't much he could do about it.

He closed the newspaper and stood from the sofa, dropping the paper on the coffee table. "I'm going out for a walk." The engineer nodded at him, back to fixing his tie.

"Hey, Steve." He had been about to exit the house when his teammate called him. For a moment he thought that maybe the engineer had changed his mind and decided that he could accompany him, but when he turned around to be tossed his cellphone, he had to do a great effort to stop the disappointment from showing on his face.

"Thanks." He gave Tony a curt nod before leaving the house.

He wandered around the city for a while, admiring the view of the coast and thinking about the difference between Malibu and New York. He got lost a few times and ended up eating in a small Italian restaurant, which he found by mistake. He stopped many times to look at the art displayed on many corners of the city. He was amazed by some of them and managed to establish a conversation with some of the artists. It was fun and it served to distract him, even if at the end he was a little homesick and wanted to go back to New York.

By the time he returned to the house the sky was slightly dark and he was carrying a bag full of groceries. He knew that despite Tony's genius, he couldn't cook at all and Ms. Potts, while apparently more gifted in the culinary art than her boyfriend, wasn't exactly fond of it. That often led them to buying food and after a week of that situation Steve decided that enough was enough. He was tired of the fancy food and he was longing for one of his mother's recipe.

He opened the door with a slightly smile, imagining Tony's face when he saw him cooking. He was sure he would be teased for it but he couldn't bring himself to care.

"I'm back." he closed the door with his foot and made his way to the living room. There he found a really distressed Pepper sitting on the sofa with bloodshot red eyes and Happy apparently trying to calm her. "What's wrong?"

They both looked up at him surprised and Pepper was instantly up. "Thanks god you are here."

He was startled when Pepper hugged him and burrowed her face in his chest. "What's wrong?" He repeated, this time addressing Happy.

"The boss is missing." The chauffer answered with a somber face.

That wasn't how he expected the night to go.


	9. Chapter 9

**Title:** Timelines  
><strong>Author:<strong> Quietshade  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG-13  
><strong>Pairings:<strong> Eventual Steve/Tony, Tony/Pepper, past Steve/Peggy, Howard/Maria, Clint/Natasha, Thor/Jane.  
><strong>Universe: <strong>Movieverse (Earth-199999)  
><strong>Warning<strong>: Slash, M/M, Strong Language, World War II topics.**  
><strong>_**Disclaimer:**_ All Marvel characters and reference belong to them not to me.  
><strong>Summary<strong>: Tony is a man of the future who can't manage to accept his past and Steve is a man of the past who have a hard time accepting his future because of this they understand each other and help one another come in terms with their times.

**AN:** Huh, I'm sorry, really. I would like updating more often but college don't leave me with much free time these days. So... I'm officially looking for a Beta reader. If any of you guys is interested, I'll be more than glad to have your help.

Also Someone asked me in a guest review to publish this in AO3 or Tumblr. The fic has been on Tumblr since day one, you can find it here. Now about AO3, I've been planning to upload it there but only after I get a Beta.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed and follow the story. Gracias también a aquellos que dejaron comentarios en español.

* * *

><p><strong>Timelines<br>**_Chapter nine_

When the darkness started to subside it was replaced by a dense sense of confusion and disorientation. For a moment he could feel nothing, all his senses were too numb to work and his mind too tired to be awake. From amidst the fog that clouded his thoughts he tried in vain to recall his last memories, but his mind was too gone and his body a dead weight.

Slowly he waited for his senses to come alive. He waited until he felt the humid and cold floor touching the palm of his hand, and an equally cold surface pressing on his back. There were buzzing voices all around him, it made him want to grab his head and tear his ears. After a while a strong chemical scent invaded his nostrils and he choked on nothing as the fogginess started to leave him.

He blinked and saw nothing but a big blur of everything. His unfocused gaze landed on an immense human shaped shadow and he stared at it as the shadow turned into an android abomination with a screen on its center.

"Da fuck are ya?" he said with clumsiness, his gaze fixed on the smiling face of the old man in the screen. His tongue felt heavy inside his mouth and he frowned at the human shaped thing, both in annoyance and confusion. He looked around and found himself in a room a lot like the one he had been the last time he was captured.

"Nice to see you awake, Mr. Stark." the thing said in heavy accented English. He frowned even more deeply, wondering if the thing was supposed to be a mocking German version of JARVIS. "And I fear that what you should be asking is not what I am but who I am."

He stared dazzlingly at the old man's face in the screen. He got the feeling that he had seen it before, but he couldn't recall where. Just when he was about to ask, a tall figure approached the android's side getting his attention.

"You." He said with venom, finally remembering how he had ended in that situation. The tall blond man to the android's side looked down at him and creased his nose, as if the sight of the engineer caused him disgust. Tony could see it in his eyes now, the loath and anger that consumed the man's soul.

* * *

><p><strong>15 hours ago<strong>

He closed the car's door with small smile, he then neared his face toward the passenger's window and Happy lowered the glass for him. "Pick me up in an hour. Go buy yourself lunch or something." Happy nodded and answered with a curt "As you say boss." before leaving. When he entered the coffee shop he looked around, his gaze searching for the tall German blond that had become familiar to him. He spotted him sitting on a table to the far right of the shop.

The blond had a book on one hand and a coffee cup in the other, just like every time they met there. He was wearing a blue shirt with a tie and black dress pants. He looked amiss in the small coffee shop; his clothes contrasted with the others people casual wear. Tony was no better himself. He was wearing a white shirt with a black tie and some dark blue pants.

He sighed tiredly and walked toward his evening companion. He wasn't fond of spending time with the blond, despite the fact that he was somewhat polite and smart. Tony just couldn't shake off the feeling that there was something fake about the man. He had rather spend the evening with another blond, one friendlier and equally respectful.

When he approached the man's table, the blond looked up at him and smiled politely. "Good evening, Mr. Stark." he said with a slightly mocking tone that made Tony want to cringe. He nodded courtly and took the sit in front of the blond. "It is good to see that you arrived on time today." The corner of the man's mouth turned up slightly making his smile look less respectful.

He refrained from frowning at the man's flippant tone and instead gave him a carefree smile. "I like to see the people's face when I arrive on time. It's priceless."

"Always the funny man. Aren't you?" The blond said with a chuckle. "Anyway, I got the report I promised you." He reached for a bag on the floor to his left side and handed a folder to Tony. The engineer grabbed it and looked at its contents. Inside the folder were many papers detailing the effect that gamma radiation had on different subjects.

"How did you get this?" The man smiled at Tony's surprised tone.

"The subjects were exposed to gamma radiation when a major experiment on cold fusion went awry. I just happen to be friend with the scientific in charge of the experiment."

The engineer narrowed his eyes at the blond German. "I can't imagine a cold fusion experiment that would produce this amount of gamma radiation."

"I said the same thing, but they denied me any information regarding the experiment." the man answered with confidence, seemingly expecting the statement.

Tony looked back at the papers and started going through all the subjects. All of them had died, just like Bruce should have when he was exposed. When he reached the last paper he was surprised to find that the last subject hadn't died because of the radiation.

"What about this guy, did they research why he didn't die?"

"It is on the next page." Tony turned the page but to his dismay that was the end of it. He threw the folder across the table for the blond to see. The taller man frowned at it.

"I'm sure there was a page about it. I must have left it at home." Tony sighed with disappointment. He had the feeling that the blonde had left it on purpose, perhaps to make them meet again. "Why don't you order something to drink, so we can go over some business?" Before Tony could reply he made a sing for the waitress to come.

It had been two weeks since he met the blond and this was the sixth time they talked. Ever since their second meeting the blond had insisted on having stark Industries fund one of his projects, something about alternative energy for the vehicle industry. Up to that point Tony was still confused about the man intentions. He acted just like any other business men Tony worked with, but Tony couldn't shake the feeling that everything the man told him was a big lie.

"I'm not thirsty." Tony replied with a little hint of annoyance, never liking the way the blond liked to control him.

"Come on. It is on me, let me invite you." He was about to decline when the man continued. "I insist."

"Fine." The man didn't seem like he was going to give up and the sooner he finished that, the better for him.

He ordered a cold cappuccino and heard the blond go on about the project. It proposed energy based on hydrogen and the design looked better than some of the projects Tony had seen from the hands of Stark Industries Development Department. "I think it has potential but the problem with this one is that the cost to produce it might be higher than the benefit. We should redesign the hydrogen pump. I think this design might not be able to exploit the hydrogen's energy at it maximum. If you want I can take this home and run a simulation of it to see how it works."

"Why don't we pay the company's lab a visit? I'm sure we have a working prototype of the pump. We can even go to my house on the way and pick up the missing page." Helmut offered with a friendly smile.

Tony hesitated, being attracted by the proposal, but knowing better than to fall into the man's trap. "I'll pass. I have many things to do today." He grabbed the folders of the experiment and the project, ready to stand and leave. Before he could stand the man was right beside him and the sickening sweet scent from a few weeks ago was back in full force.

"I insist." Said the blond with a tone darker than any other he had used before. Tony looked up at him and from his seat the man looked like a giant, incredibly broad and imposing. His eyes were a shade darker than the engineer remembered them being. It made him felt insignificant and he swallowed trying to summon a protest, but all his effort died in his throat and what was supposed to be a complaint came out as a pathetic grunt.

"Can I help you with anything?" They both looked at the brunette waitress that appeared out of nowhere. Tony looked at her with what he thought would be nervous eyes, hoping that she might realize that there was something wrong with him.

"No, that will be all." The phrase on itself was nothing special, but the open polite smile that accompanied it was enough to make the waitress flinch. It was a dark smile that showed too much pleasure to be good. Like the smile of a hunter that was about to get its prey. The blond German offered the waitress some money which she took with open uncertainty. "Keep the change."

The slender brunette woman nodded and retreated with a timid pace. Tony looked at her back as she walked away, feeling as if he had just lost a big chance. Suddenly there was a strong hand on his left shoulder and his gaze returned to his companion. "Should we leave?" He offered his hand to Tony and he took it with a shaking wet hand, his eyes unable to leave the piercing cold blue ones of the blond.

His companion pulled him up and threw an arm around his shoulders, making the scent become stronger and the engineer mind started to cloud. Every second that passed made it harder for him to fight the unwelcome sensation of not being able to control his actions. He allowed himself to be dragged out of the coffee shop onto the enigmatic blond man's car and after that all he could recall was a blur that ended in darkness.

* * *

><p><strong>present time<strong>

"Oh, you need to be formally introduced to Helmut." interjected the old man's voice with obvious joy. "Mr. stark, this is Helmut Zemo, son of Heinrich Zemo and current leader of HYDRA." The human shaped thing stared at him expectantly, as if he was waiting for Tony's reaction.

Baron Zemo he thought mocking himself. He had never considered the fact that the son would take the mantle for the name. He always thought of Baron Zemo as an old man that for all he knew could be in a tomb many feet under the earth.

"What did you do to me?" He asked the blond man, remembering the odd sensation and the inability to reject the villain's command. The face on the screen smiled, obviously pleased about the question.

"That would be my work." The android stepped forward and grabbed something from his utility belt. He then showed to the engineer a small tube full of a blue liquid. Tony stared at it nonchalantly not getting what it was supposed to be. "This is a creation of my own, a potent pheromone that makes the receptor docile to the will of the transmitter. It has proven to be quiet useful and effective."

Tony closed his eyes in consideration, looking back that explained a lot of things. "And who exactly are you?" He looked at the android and then at the blond who was frowning at them, looking a little bit exasperated.

"I am an old acquaintance of your dad and that blond Captain of yours. The name is Armin Zola." He couldn't even hide his shock upon hearing the android like thing's name. Zola was the Red Skull's right hand, he had been on his forties by the time they captured him. How that android be him? "Ah, I see your surprise. This is another creation of mine. You see I have never been fond of death, and in this form I can elude it for as long as I want. Clever don't you think?" He couldn't say what he felt more, disgust or amusement.

"Cut it out Zola. We don't have time for you blabbering, nor do I have the patient for it." Zemo stepped forward and glared at Zola with annoyance.

"My bad. Well Mr. Stark I believe you know most of our plans, so let's make things short."

Tony smirked lightly in a mocking way. "You don't believe that I'll just go and do what you order, do you? That didn't work right for the last two guys. By the way you did a sloppy work capturing me last time."

"That's wasn't our work." Zemo interjected with chilly calmness.

"You see Mr. Stark when you have and organization as big as ours it is hard to keep everyone from doing as they please. Some men are so eager for a piece of glory that they would end up doing petty things." Tony didn't need Zola to tell him that, he knew firsthand how hard it was to keep your employees from being stupid. His thought ended in Stane briefly, and he tried to dismiss the filth taste that usually accompanied his thoughts of the man. "We could use the pheromones on you again and save us some work, but as you see it clouds most of the cognitive functions."

The blond villain extended an arm in front of Zola, stopping him from continuing his blabbering. "That's why we have an offer for you. You give us the design for a feasible unlimited energy source and we will give you all of our researches about gamma radiation and the gene that allowed that monstrous friend of yours to live. " Tony narrowed his eyes at the blond villain's word. If he hadn't sold himself when the price had been his life, he wouldn't do it for a little piece of information, as tempting as it could be.

"Well I have an answer for you. Go fuck yourselves." Zemo's face turned red out of rage and he gave Tony a glare that could put any enemy into fear.

"This is a waste of my time. I'll leave him in your hands Zola." With that the man turned around and stormed out of the room. The android looked at the retreating man with an unreadable expression.

"He is so much like his father, such an impatient man." He then looked at Tony with a little smirk. "I bet they say that to you too. That you are a lot like your father." Tony glared at him ready to answer with a mocking remark. "But I bet that what they don't tell is that you are just like your mother too."

That did take him by surprise. He was right; no one had ever said he looked like Maria at all. They always wanted him to be like Howard, never like his mother. When the initial shock wore off he narrowed his eyes more, looking suspiciously at the old man. "Oh, there it is. That expression is just like Mrs. Stark. So fierce and determined, just like before her death."

"What did you just say?" The man smirk widened and Tony knew he was falling into his game. He was reacting just like the man wanted.

"Didn't I tell you? I watched your parents die. Sad thing it was, Howard shouldn't have crashed his car. To think he would prefer to end both his life and his wife's before working for us." The man's tone was flippant and full of arrogance. "Your mother was quite the woman though, didn't beg him to stop. She bore the pain while she died with the same fierce look. Even when the iron pierced her lugs she kept looking at us with that defiant glare, as if telling us that we wouldn't have it our way."

Tony closed his eyes tightly, trying hard to get the image of his mother's bloody face from his mind. His jaw shook with rage he tried to block the old man's words. He repeated in his thoughts that it was all a game to break him that he shouldn't listen to it. But all that kept coming to him were memories of his mother, moments that were more valuable to him than all the money he owned, but that at the time caused him more pain than joy.

"But in the end they didn't win either, did they?" He smirked at Tony, and he knew that they had him on their hands. They knew how to break him, in a way that few people could.

"Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you." He chanted through gritted teeth, feeling powerless against the man's ill words.

Zola gave him a sad smile, as if he really felt pity for the engineer and that made him feel even more disgusted of the villain. "I hope you don't do the same with that red headed girl of yours. It is always a shame for the ladies to die." That was the last thing the old man said before leaving the room, closing the door after him and leaving Tony alone in the dark to deal with his demons.

* * *

><p>He could feel the dampness in his shirt, from where Pepper had burrowed her face. He looked down at her, not sure of what he was supposed to do. If he was bad speaking to women he was even worse trying to comfort them.<p>

"How did it happen?" he asked, trying to keep the fear out of his voice, if not for his sake then for Pepper's. Happy eyes looked to the side briefly, his face a mix of sorrow and shame.

"I left him at the coffee shop this evening, and he told me to pick him up in an hour. When I went back to get the boss he was nowhere to be found. I asked the waitresses and one told me that he left with a blond man in a car. Then I called him but he wouldn't pick his phone, I-I didn't know what to do. I tried searching around for the car the waitress described and I asked some people but I found nothing." the despair in the broad man's voice was evident; it looked like it pained him to even talk of the matter.

Steve inhaled deeply, trying to suppress his growing rage, as he remembered how much Tony had insisted on leaving him behind every time he went to meet that client. He had failed to protect the stubborn engineer once again. The worse of it was that he had the feeling that Tony knew all along that things would end up that way.

"Damn him and his inability to keep promises." he whispered with suppressed anger. He had promised Steve that he wouldn't act alone. He was to tell Steve all of his plans, to find a solution together, but once again the engineer had done as he pleased.

"What promise?" a low but steady voice asked and he looked down startled at Pepper, knowing that he had just slipped. When he failed to answer immediately the woman's gaze turned harder. "Steve, what promise?" she asked stronger this time.

He sighed defeated and pushed her aside lightly. He moved to the couch and let himself fall into it, suddenly feeling too tired to be standing up. "We had been chasing down the responsible for Tony's last kidnap for the past few weeks. I told him not to act alone, to be careful, but damn him. I think he walked right into them." He let his head fall into his hand, not even bothering to look at the CEO's reaction.

When he felt the couch shift under someone's weight he looked to his side, to find Pepper looking even more defeated than before. "Tell me what you two have been up to these past few weeks." despite her defeated look, her voice was firm and imposing. Not for the first time on that week Steve understood what Tony saw in Pepper Potts.

The blond soldier explained to his companions, his and Tony's journey to uncover the true about Howard's death. More or less in the same manner the engineer had told Rhodey a few days before. Pepper's expression remained blank for as long as the blond spoke, on the other hand Happy's face showed openly his reaction to every bit of the story.

"I can't believe you two." Pepper said after a moment of silence, her voice low like a whisper. "You should have told me before."

"We didn't want to worry you." Steve answered with guilt, knowing that it wasn't the entire true.

"Because this is any better!" She raised her voice more out of frustration than out of anger.

He knew he owned her an apology, but it wasn't for the reasons she wanted it for. He regretted not being able to protect Tony. Not telling her about their plan wasn't something he would have changed. "I didn't want it to end up this way." He said instead and that seemed undo her.

"I know." She whispered with a defeated look.

Happy stepped forward and placed a hand on Pepper's shoulder reassuringly. The man looked just as guilt stricken as Steve felt. There was no arguing that the chauffer was feeling somewhat responsible for his boss' kidnap. "Shouldn't we alert the police?"

Steve shook his head at Happy's suggestion. "If HYDRA has Tony, sending the police out for them won't work." He ran a hand through his hair, remembering Erskine's death. "They used to have people in the government. Why wouldn't they have some in the police?"

"What about the other Avengers?" He wasn't thrilled by Happy's idea, more so when he thought about all the things Fury had been hiding. Nonetheless rescuing Tony was his priority.

"Maybe we could talk to Bruce."

"Tony always has a tracker on him." Pepper said suddenly, cutting through the men's conversation.

Steve looked at her with mild surprise, feeling relieved of finally hearing some good news. "Can you check his position?"

"JARVIS, would you?"

"Of course miss Potts."

A holographic earth globe appeared in front of them, out of thin air. The holographic globe had a series of small red dots distributed through the country, with no apparent pattern. Steve stood from the couch and neared the hologram, while still feeling surprised by the future's technology. Studying the globe closer he could see many dots in New York, which were labeled MKI, MKII and so on. There was also a single dot that was moving at high speed through the country, labeled War Machine. He looked at Los Angeles, where four dots were together in one place, those were labeled Pepper, Happy, Cap and MK VII.

"When did he?" He glared at the dot labeled Cap, trying to remember a time in which Tony could have slipped a tracker on him.

"I have one on my watch." Happy said showing him his wrist. He looked at Pepper who showed him a ring on her left middle finger. He was almost sure that his trackers was on his suit, Tony probably had slipped it there on one of his upgrades.

He looked back at the map and spotted the dot labeled Tony. "Do you know where this is?"

Happy nodded and moved to Steve's side. "That's not far from the coffee shop. Can you show us the map, JARVIS?" The globe changed into a map of the city. Steve looked at it closely, taking in every detail, before stepping back.

"I'll go check it."

"I'll go with you." Happy said hurriedly.

"No, you will stay here and try to contact Lieutenant colonel Rhodes." he said using his best Captain America's voice.

"You can't go alone. It could be dangerous."

"That's exactly why I'll go alone." He wasn't about to let the man get hurt because he felt he needed to atone for letting Tony be kidnapped.

"Bu-"

"Happy." Pepper grabbed the man's arm and looked at him with pleading eyes. "He is right. It's best if he goes alone." The chauffer lowered his gaze and nodded lightly, still Steve could see his clenched fists trembling. The blond could sympathize with the man. He knew the sort of things feeling useless did to a person.

"Don't worry, I promise I won't rest until we have Tony back."

He patted the other man's shoulder before heading upstairs to change into his Captain America suit. He put on a long light coat to disguise the suit and a hat to match. Malibu wasn't as cold as would have wanted, but the heat of the coat wasn't unbearable. He grabbed his shield and put it inside an art portfolio. Hopefully he looked like an eccentric artist, and not like the mafia guy he thought he looked like. When he went back downstairs, Pepper was waiting for him at the door looking more composed than before.

"Here." She handed him a small earphone like device. "JARVIS and I will assist you with this. JARVIS can give you pretty much any info you ask him."

"Thanks, it will be of a lot of help." She nodded and chewed at her lower lip, before giving him a brief hug.

"Be careful. I'll have Rhodey be here as soon as he can." He nodded and walked past her towards the door. Outside Happy was waiting for him with a grim face, beside a red car.

Steve smiled apologetically. "I think I'll walk. Goes better with the cover." He motioned to his outfit.

"Oh, right." Happy managed to look bluer after that, making the blond feel slightly guilty about rejecting the chauffer's offers.

The captain exited the Stark domain and headed for the city. He was trying to go over a variant of plans for many scenarios. In the best case, he would be able to rescue Tony without confrontations. In the worst case… he didn't really want to think about it. There was no time for him to dwell into his feelings or anything non tactical. He needed to be focus, he needed to be clear.

After a while the green pasture that accompanied him since heading out of the mansion, changed into a complex urban fabric. The pale light of the moon that had reflected on the surface of the endless water was replaced by the colorful lights of the city. He walked along the shadows, not wanting to be seen and few spared him a glance. It wasn't long before he arrived at his destination: a lone dark alley.

"Is this the right place JARVIS?" He said to the communicator.

"Affirmative, Captain."

Steve frowned at the ally and took some steps forward. He was somewhat expecting some HYDRA agents to drop out of nowhere and seize him. When nothing happened he looked around the alley, and inspected the walls of the building to its side.

"JARVIS, can you show me the exact position of Tony's tracker?" A holographic map came out of the device on the blond man's ear. A blue dot showed the captain's position and a red dot marked Tony's. According to the map the tracker was a few feet away from the blond, somewhere near the right wall. He walked to where the tracker was and kneeled in front of it, picking up the small button of Tony's shirt.

He stared at it for a while. He had been expecting to find something more significant, but he wasn't in any position to complain. "They can't be that far away."

He looked more carefully at the alley, trying to see anything he could have missed before. To his side he noticed an almost nonexistent trail, most likely leaved by the tires of a car. He looked closely at the trail and the story behind the button unfolded itself in front of him.

The car must have arrived at that alley, Tony and the mysterious client dismounted. Tony perhaps resisted his oppressor and the button was ripped in the encounter. Maybe Tony had dropped it there knowing that Steve would go looking for him. Either way the button was the proof that Tony had been taken unwillingly. They would not risk going through the street, not when Tony could escape or alert someone. That leaved one way for them to go.

He looked up to the end of the alley, where a maze of passages started. "They can't be that far away." he repeated with more determination.

He walked through the labyrinth of alleys, searching for the right place. After walking them twice, he was yet to find any trace of Tony. By the third time he walked them he was growing restless.

"Captain, after analyzing the structure of the adjacent buildings, I discovered that one of them has many underground levels and a hidden access from a nearby alley." Just to make his point, a holographic model of the surrounding appeared, highlighting the building JARVIS was talking about.

"How can I enter this building?"

"An EMP bomb would prove useful here, but given the circumstance I suggest waiting." Steve mouthed the word EMP trying to remember it, to ask Tony later.

"Waiting is it."

He walked to where JARVIS had marked the hidden entrance to the building and looked for somewhere to hide. If there was anyone there, someone ought to enter or exit the building at some moment. Steve was willing to wait as much as he needed to. Roughly half an hour passed before he heard a mechanic sound coming from below the roof he was hiding in. He looked down over the edge of the roof, to see three figures coming out from the building. Steve didn't think it twice before taking his shield out of the portfolio and jumping off the roof. He slid through the wall, somewhat slowing his fall and ultimately landing on one of the three figures.

First thing he noticed was their outfit. They were dressed in a strange green full body suit, with yellow stripes. If that was HYDRA's new uniform, it was a total downgrade from the last one and it certainly made him grimace. The second thing he became aware of was that apart from the three guys he had seen outside, there were at least a dozen more of them inside of what seemed to be a storage room. There went his cover_._

In a blink, the silence of the night was killed by the beat of the shooting guns. Steve hit the two agents that were standing to his sides and then dashed to the inside of the building, hiding behind his shield all the time. He didn't have time for plans. He didn't have time to think it over. There were too many of them and he needed to survive. He let the years of training and combat to take over, starting a dance he knew by soul.

Hit them first. Dodge what you can. Block what you can't dodge. Counter what you can't block. Don't lose the upper hand. Take down as many as you are able to. Don't let them surprise you and win as fast as you can. The problem with those guys was that for every one he took down, two appeared to take its position. He was sure that if things keep up that way he was going to lose.

"Stop!" one word and the night became silent again. Steve looked at the speaker as the crowd opened the path for the man. "Well, well. Look who we have here, the infamous Captain America."

The man with the German accent was wearing purple from head to toe. His head was adorned by a golden crown, and his eyes had a hint of cold cruelty in them. He assumed that the man thought himself a noble, his outfit resembled as much. To Steve he looked like the shadow of a tyrant.

"You seem to know me, but who are you?"

"The man who will become your worst nightmare." That was all the warning Steve had before the man launched himself to attack. He blocked with his shield a rain of blows from the nameless man's sword and then used his body to push the man away. The villain took two steps backward and Steve tried to sweep his feet, but the man jumped away. Another blow came to his shield, this time more powerful and focused. He tried to hit the man with the shield, but it was futile. They were on equal footing. It was a matter of who made the first mistake, but even then Steve was losing in numbers.

He almost missed the imperceptible misstep in his enemy's dance. A small opening that gave him opportunity for big actions. He wasted no time taking the chance and charged at the man, taking him down. The nameless man hit the floor with a painful expression that was visible even with the mask. The blond raised his shield ready to knock his enemy and finish the fight, but the second he raised his arm he felt something hit the back of his neck.

The electric current that ran through his body made his vision blur, and his knees tremble. He barely heard his shield hitting the floor at the same time his knees hit it. He tried to focus past the pain and looked at the purple man already standing from the floor. He tried in vain to reach for his shield, before his eyes meet the outraged ones of his enemy. "Verdammt, american."

His body was still too shock to feel the blow when it hit him, but he saw the world spinning when his head hit the ground. There was a moment of silence before realizing that he had failed his mission. He closed his eyes trying to keep any weakness from showing in his face. He prayed that Rodhey wouldn't make the same mistakes he did.

He woke up to a stabbing pain in his left arm. He opened his eyes alarmed and tried to move away, only to realize he was trapped in a metallic bed secured by leashes. He looked up at his surrounding and his gaze felt on a robot that was giving him its back. The robot was fumbling with something on the table to its front, unaware that the blond was awake.

"What is that?" He whispered, words coming out sluggish in his hazy state of mind. Apparently he spoke loud enough to catch the thing's attention, as the robot turned around to look at him.

"Can't you Americans start a conversation without asking what am I?" He stared at the thing, in a completely state of shock. In the center of the robot's body was the face of one of the men he loathed the most.

"Zola?" The abomination gave him a wicked smile, and Steve felt a wave of rage and disgust consumes him.

"Right. A prize for the captain." His smile widened as he showed Steve a small blood vial. "By the way, thanks for your cooperation." He felt his cheeks burn in rage as he realized what Zola was holding. He couldn't allow them to put their hands on Erskine's formula, not when the man had given away everything to protect it from those people. He tried to break free and gave his restrain a good shake. The leashes didn't budge but the momentary fear in Zola's face was almost enough to make Steve grin. "God, you are like a furious caged animal." He walked toward the room's exit and stopped before the door. "Keep him out until I come back."

He never stopped looking at Zola's back as the android abomination retreated from the room. He didn't even flinch when an agent injected the sedative. He was too occupied planning a way out to even notice when he passed out.

* * *

><p>"…aptain. Captain. Steve."<p>

Something hit his left cheek and he grunted at the sting of it. He moved his head slowly from side to side, either trying to wake up or to stay away from his attacker. Someone sighed in relief and a hand touched his abused cheek, as if trying to soothe its pain. When he finally opened his eyes, he was greeted by an unexpected sign.

Natasha's face showed nothing more than relieve, but there was a slight curve in the corner of her eyes that struck Steve as contentment. Although it wasn't Natasha's emotions that made the odd scenario, it was Natasha's presence itself. Somehow she was there saving him from HYDRA when she was supposed to be all the way to the other side of the country.

"How did you?"

She shook her head slightly while she said "No time". She unfastened the leashes that trapped him, and he stumbled forward, barely being able to keep upright. "Can you fight?"

"Yes." He just needed enough time for the sedatives to leave his system.

"Good." She unclasped his shield from her back and handed it to him. He ran a hand through its surface and looked at her with gratitude. "Follow me."

"Wait! Where's Tony?"

"Clint and Thor are getting him." He nodded slightly and followed her outside the room. Outside was a battle field full of screams of pain and exaltation, where dozens of SHIELD agents and HYDRA agents fought for their causes. Steve looked away from it. He remembered to well a similar situation, and it brought the bitter knowledge that nothing has changed, even after all this years and the death of so many people.

"We need to find Zola. He took my blood sample." Natasha stopped briefly to look at him with a frown.

"Do you have any idea where he might be?"

"Knowing him, he's probably getting as far as he can from here." The corner of Natasha's lips twitched in displeasure.

"There's a control room near here. We might be able to check his position from there." She turned around and Steve followed her through the many corridors, taking out any HYDRA agent that dared cross their path. He ignored the small voice in the back of his mind that yelled that the setup was too much like Tony's last kidnap. He just hoped that this time Tony was unharmed.

When they arrived at the small control room, Natasha wasted no time before she started hacking the mainframe. A few minutes later they had Zola's position. The old man hadn't managed to get out of the building in time. He was running to what seemed to be a secret underground exit on the right wing of the building.

They shared a brief look before Natasha opened her comm.'s channel. "Commander Fury." The assassin said through her communicator. "Arnim Zola is on the right block of the building's bottom level. He is presumably carrying a vial with the captain's blood." There was a brief silence before Natasha spoke again. "Roger that. Widow out." She took her fingers away from the communicator and turned to Steve. "Fury will take care of Zola. Let's see if Clint found our genius."

They made their way back to the main room, all the way there Steve was feeling excited. Fury wouldn't let Zola get away with his blood and Tony was most likely fine with Clint and Thor. Even if he had failed his mission, everything was coming out well. The both of them searched around for Clint, checking every room they came across and asking every agent they encountered, but they found no sign of any of the other avengers. As the minutes passed Steve grew more anxious, letting his imagination grow wild, his mind going over countless of scenario were his friends might had been injured. He shook his head and reminded himself that no one in HYDRA could beat Thor.

An acute shriek caught their attention in the midst of their search. Steve was running toward the sound before he could even register the thought, and he didn't need to look back to know that Natasha was right behind him. They followed the sound until they arrived at the same room in which Steve had first encountered the agents. In the middle of the room was the nameless villain with his sword in the air ready to kill. Later he would feel guilty because of the immense relieve he felt, when he realized that instead of one of the avengers the one kneeling in the ground was Agent Maria Hills.

"You should have stayed out of this, foolish Americans." He barely made in on time to deflect the blow that was meant to cut the woman's head. The all purple man looked at him and laughed mockingly. "We meet again _Captain_." The villain stripped the word of all of its honor and managed to makes it sound like a curse, of which Steve should be ashamed.

He looked from behind his shield at the unreadable face of the masked man. "You won't get away this time." He said before he swung his shield at the man to restart the battle that had been stopped before, although this time the situation was in his favor. Just like the last battle each of them was close behind the other, never getting too much advantage in the battle. Steve knew Natasha wouldn't intervene unless strictly necessary and Hills would be safe with her. Thus he let himself enjoy the excitement of fighting someone who was in par with him, feeling every muscle of his body rejoice at the opportunity of testing the full of their ability. Each blow reminding him what his body was meant to be used for, each blow bringing him nearer to a state of mind in which he could finally forget where he was and were he wanted to be.

"Zemo!" The outraged yell cut through their battle and they turned startled to the source of the shout, to find Tony facing them. He was wearing the same clothes in which Steve had seen him last, and his right arm was extended toward them with his repulsor gauntlet ready to fire. Steve had just enough time to get away from the masked villain before the repulsor beam hit him right across the chest. "Payback Motherfucker!"

The blond captain stared for a short moment at his adversary, as he lay down on the floor unconsciously clutching his burned chest in pain. When he looked at Tony, his relieve was cut short as he realized how furious he was just by the wildness in his eyes. He had never seen the engineer so mad before.

"Tony…" He walked toward the engineer but when Tony looked at him his gaze was chilly, full of rage and many other emotions. He took a step back when the engineer walked forward.

"You… I told you to leave them out of this!" Tony yelled. "You didn't need to involve SHIELD!"

"What…?" the captain replied dumbfounded. "You think I… I didn't tell anyone! I don't know how they got here." Tony looked like someone had just drop a bucket of cold water on him. His mouth was slightly open and his eyes got wider as the seconds passed. Slowly he turned his head, looking past him right at Natasha.

"You… all this time you knew it." He said in low and dangerous tone. Steve looked at the red headed assassin just in time to see the small micro expression that betrayed her almost perfect façade. "How could you?"

"Leave Romanoff out of this, she was following my orders." They all turned to Fury who was coming up from some stairs, with two agents behind him restraining Zola. It was then that Steve realized that the ruckus before had attracted some attention. Thor and Clint were walking toward them, coming from the same direction the engineer came from. Bruce had return to normal and was standing at entrance of the room, looking at them curiously as he grabbed his stretched pants to stop them from falling.

"How long?" Tony demanded continuing the conversation that only Natasha and Fury understood.

"Always." Fury replied, with a small smile that seemed to drive Tony over the edge.

Without further notice Tony took five long strides toward the head of SHIELD and grabbed him by the collar. His gauntlet glowing as he aimed it to the man's face. "I swear to you that I'm going over every good reason I have to keep you alive."

"Tony put him down!" Steve yelled alarmed at the same time Barton shouted "Stark let him go." Tony looked at them with a small frown and then he threw Fury to the floor.

"Tell them. Tell them how you used them all. Tell them how you used me to get to HYDRA. How you used Thor to get to his brother."

"What?" Steve said as he looked at Fury unmoved face and then at the other avengers. Thor was frowning at the accusation and Bruce looked surprised, but Clint was looking to his side with clear remorse and Natasha -while not as obvious- was definitely feeling guilty about something.

A vile laugh echoed through the room and their gaze fell on Zola. "You were never as good as Stark, Fury. You never quite got his way of knitting lies." Something about that sentences made Steve's stomach stir.

Tony looked at the doctor with disgust and the turned to them. "He had been using the Avengers since day one, ever since Loki took the Tesseract from SHIELD." Thor took two steps forward and looked at Fury with rage.

"It is my brother who has the Tesseract? Do you have the slightest comprehension of how dangerous he is with that sort weapon in his possession?" the thunderer's voice practically boomed all over the place.

Fury stood unfazed by any of the accusation. "I'm not stupid son. I know firsthand the power of the Tesseract."

"You should have told us about it. Neither my brother nor any mortal should have it in their hands."

"Your brother isn't the first of my worries. He can't use the cube. He wasn't able to when he stole it and he wasn't able to when you faced him."

"How do you know that?" Tony asked, looking as if he didn't believe Fury at all.

This time it was Natasha who took a step forward. "When we fought against Loki, I had the mission to retrieve the cube. I failed to bring it back but I noticed that he couldn't get the cube to do what he wanted. He has no power over it."

Tony looked from Clint to Natasha with a guarded expression on his face. "You only joined us to get back the cube." There was an almost imperceptible hint of sadness in his voice that made Steve realized just how hurt he was by the situation. Not that Steve was any better knowing that everything SHIELD had done was a web of lies.

"Sorry man, orders are orders." Clint said finally and the engineer looked down upset.

"I have heard enough." They all looked at Bruce, who was a little bit greener that he should be. The brunette walked across the room in silence and made his way outside, most likely toward the Helicarrier. Steve knew that there were still many things left to be said, but perhaps the doctor already knew the deep of it all. He had the same ability as Tony of knowing things before they came.

"So correct me if I'm wrong, which I know I'm not." Tony started while walking toward Steve's side. He looked calmer, but there was something about his calmness that was as unsettling as the rage before. "You sent two of yours assassins to play with the avengers in order to bring the cube back to you, all without us knowing about it. In the end you couldn't recover it but it didn't matter because Loki was beaten and you knew he couldn't use it. Besides you had a bigger problem. Steve running around as Captain America would get HYDRA's attention. You thought they would try to capture him, but they surprised you when they went for me instead. You thought they had left behind their obsession with the arc reactor and the Tesseract, but they hadn't. Furthermore HYDRA's plan had an unexpected result. It got me closer to the true. A true you had made sure to keep well hidden, so well that I had to hack into your database to get any real hint of it. " He stopped then to look at Natasha. "How did you realize it was me?"

Natasha looked away to the side but answered nonetheless. "Not many people can get through our security and get what they want without leaving any trace. Of those people only you knew my ribs were injured." Tony smiled at that, but it wasn't the kind of smile that meant he was happy.

"And I assume that after realizing that I knew about HYDRA you decided to use that to your advantage. You used me as a bait to get to them." Tony finished and the room remained in a heavy silence that only helped confirm the engineer's accusation.

"All this time you knew HYDRA was after us and you said nothing. You did nothing." He was mildly surprised when he spoke, even more surprised when he realized how upset he sounded. He could think of so many ways for Fury's plan to go wrong and he knew he wouldn't forgive the man if something had happened to any of them. For some reason he remembered how disgusted Peggy was every time they talked about Fury and a monstrous idea formed in his head. "It's that how Howard died? You used him as bait and couldn't save him before they got him?"

The lack of surprise on Tony's face told Steve that he had thought about it too. The ones who did look surprised were Clint and Natasha. The Colonel wasn't one of Steve's favorite people at the moment. Even so he couldn't overlook how much the idea of being responsible for Howard's death disturbed Fury. It was painted all over the man's face.

"With all due respect Captain. You know nothing of me and you know nothing of Howard Stark."

"And whose fault is that? Who's the one keeping us from the true?" Tony said with renewed anger. Fury looked at the engineer briefly and before he diverted his gaze from them, Steve was able to see Fury's walls crumbling from behind his eyes. The colonel turned around seemingly heading toward the exit. Before he could take more than two steps forward, Thor was right in front of him, grabbing his arm with a determinant look.

"We are not done yet mortal." Fury looked up at the godly blond without any sign of fear. He tugged his arm free and looked back at Steve.

"I did what was needed to be done. That won't change, even if you disagree with my decision." The colonel then turned toward the engineer. "I can't talk about Howard… but I can give you something that might answer your questions." He turned around again and walked past Thor, not even looking at the annoyed deity. "Debrief in two hours. We can go over the Loki situation then."

Steve looked over at Tony, who in turn looked at him. There was a mix of many emotions in the engineer's eyes, but thankfully none of them was the rage that had consumed those eyes before. He knew what Tony's eyes were trying to tell him. They had finally reached the end of their search. They were a step apart from knowing what really had happened to the man that had once been Steve's friend. They were a step apart from revealing what led that man to become the cold parent the engineer remembered.

For that they were willing to put aside their growing distaste for the one eyed colonel.


End file.

Avengers, Family, Romance