The New Kid in Town

a tag for Captain America by Setcheti

 

 

 

Disclaimer: Don’t own Steve or Tony (or Nick Fury) or the movies they’re in. Fun not money!

 

Author’s Note: Can you tell I loved this movie? I couldn’t help but think about what Nick Fury was going to do with Steve once they caught up with him in the middle of Times Square. Someone was going to have to show him around, get him caught up. And who better to do that than the superhero son of one of his old friends?

 

Tony Stark had always had a sense of humor. So when his cell phone rang in the middle of a meeting, it played the theme from the old Batman series and he immediately excused himself and went outside to take the call in private because that meant Nick Fury was calling. And if Nick Fury was calling, it was probably something that could not wait.

 

Five minutes later, Tony was running out of the building to his waiting car and barking into the phone at a much less important person to have his private plane ready and cleared for takeoff immediately, after which he was in his car and barking not quite as loudly at one of his personal secretaries to make sure his overnight bag was on the plane and that his appointments for the next two days were put on hold because he was needed in New York. An email from Fury popped up, he read it, and then he informed the secretary that he wasn’t sure when he’d be back.

 

Less than two hours later, Tony was striding into SHIELD headquarters in New York City and taking the hand that Nick Fury offered. “Tell me you punished them.”

 

Fury snorted. “The two men on guard duty were punished enough, trust me – he threw them back twenty feet through a fake wall onto a concrete floor. I tore the person who set that room up a new one, though. It was my idea, yes, but the execution apparently left something to be desired.”

 

“And the girl?”

 

“He didn’t touch her.”

 

Tony snorted. “Of course he didn’t – anyone who knows anything about him would know he wouldn’t. So why was she scared of him? Afraid he didn’t come back all the way right? In which case you should have had a doctor in there instead, and maybe some guards not dressed like the enemies he’d been fighting right before he died. You’re lucky he didn’t kill them.”

 

“Next time why don’t I call you and let you set  it up?”

 

Tony took the sarcasm in stride and backed off. “I have people for that, just like you do. You were probably just as nice to yours about the piss-poor execution as I’d have been to mine.” It was an apology, of sorts – an acknowledgment that he knew Fury couldn’t oversee every detail of every operation under his command. “So where is Captain Rogers now?”

 

Fury gestured for Tony to follow him and started walking. “I debriefed him, explained what had happened, and answered some of his questions. He asked to be alone after that, so we showed him to his quarters.” One of Tony’s eyebrows went up, and Fury shrugged. “Not like he has any other place to be, at this point. And until he’s fully acclimatized to the 21^st century, it’s better that he stays here where he’s safe.”

 

“Good point.” Tony wasn’t just agreeing to be agreeable – he rarely bothered with that kind of social nicety. Captain Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, had been frozen under the Arctic ice for 70 years. Not only did that make him vulnerable because he didn’t know how the world worked anymore…it made him a target, because a man who could come back to life unscathed after seven decades in the world’s largest deep freeze could rightly be assumed to be carrying the secret of immortality somewhere within his body. Tony understood the risks that sort of situation carried with it on a very personal level. He cocked an eyebrow at Fury. “Did you tell him I was coming?”

 

Fury shook his head. “No. He’s hyper-observant – as some of my staff figured out a little too late earlier today – and I’m pretty sure he’ll pick up on the family resemblance right away.” He flickered a little smile. “You do look an awful lot like your dad.”

 

Tony snorted but didn’t argue; it was true. They had reached a door that said Captain S. Rogers on it, and Fury knocked. “Captain, it’s me,” he called out. “I have someone here who’d like to see you.” He glanced at Tony. “You knew his father.”

 

There was a rustle, and then the door opened and Steve Rogers was framed in it. Tony’s mouth dropped open in shock. He’d known, Fury had even sent him a picture, but the reality was still shocking as hell. Because Captain Steve Rogers, his father’s lost friend and a bona fide superhero soldier from the world’s biggest war to date, wasn’t even thirty years old yet. He recovered himself and stuck out his hand. “Captain Rogers, I’m…”

 

The hazel eyes had widened. “Howard’s son?” he interrupted, and then caught himself and took the offered hand. His grip wasn’t tight, but Tony could feel the crushing strength in it anyway. “Sorry, I…you look just like him. I’m Steve Rogers. I worked with him during the war.”

 

“I know, he told me about you. I’m Tony. May I…” Steve stepped back and Tony stepped into the room and re-closed the door; Fury had already faded away back up the hall with a brief nod for Steve. The last remaining Stark looked his companion up and down. “Damn, I can’t believe it.” He took a seat in one of the room’s chairs, casting a displeased eye over the Spartan, hotel-like quarters and then dismissing it. “He looked for you, you know – he stayed in the Arctic two months trying to find your plane.”

 

The younger man nodded. “I knew they’d do their best. But if Howard couldn’t find it, I doubt anybody alive could have.” Tony visibly puffed up with pride at that comment, drawing a small smile from the other man. “So you work for SHIELD?”

 

“I work with SHIELD,” Tony corrected. “Small but important distinction there.” He grinned. “I don’t like anyone telling me what to do, as they found out the hard way several years ago. But I do help out wherever I can.” He shrugged. “I don’t know how much Fury told you, but in a nutshell there’s bad guys and there’s good guys and the good guys are us – the uniforms you saw earlier aside, I can’t believe they were that stupid.”

 

Steve made a face. “I really wish they hadn’t been. I saw the uniforms and the guns and thought I’d been captured by HYDRA. Agent Fury said the men will be all right, but I’m still sorry I hurt them.”

 

“I understand why you are, but honestly, I’m not,” Tony told him, kicking back in his chair. “These are SHIELD agents, they’re all that stand between the rest of the world and the end of the world, and they damned well know better than to be that sloppy. They’ll be lucky if Fury doesn’t reassign them to a field outpost in the Congo.”

 

Steve raised an eyebrow. “You do realize the room is bugged, right?”

 

“Oh yeah – I just don’t care.” Tony looked around the room, spotted one of the hidden cameras, and waved at it. “I’m not really surprised, this is SHIELD headquarters. Remind me to take a piss while I’m here, give the vid technicians a thrill.” That made Steve laugh in spite of himself, and Tony relaxed. This kid – and super soldier or not, he was still a kid by Tony’s standards – would probably be okay once the world was done crashing in on him. He led the conversation around to stories about his dad, told some stories of his own in return, and then once they were comfortable with each other he slapped his knee. “You know what? Let’s get out of here for a while. You want to go sightseeing?”

 

Steve blinked at him. “Is that safe?”

 

Tony smiled and shook his head. “No. But it’s as safe for you as it is for me.” He tugged apart the buttons on his shirt, revealing the glowing bezel in the center of his chest. “I know you probably heard it when I came in and wondered what it was. Not only does this little beauty keep me alive, it also powers the super-suit I wear when I’m going after bad guys.” He closed the shirt back up. “And if anybody is stupid enough to attack us? I can hold my own – not to the extent I know you can, but between the two of us I think we’ll be okay. Not to mention, I have personal security out the wazoo because I’m rich and I piss important people off for fun.” He got serious again. “Come on, getting out will do you good. And if you want to visit some final resting places while we’re out, get some closure, we can do that too. I’m sure one of Fury’s people can give us a list of all the locations.”

 

“I’d like that, yeah.” The younger man nodded slowly. “I’m pretty sure my bank account is long gone, though. No one has said anything to me…”

 

Of course they hadn’t. Tony stood up. “Considering what back pay adds up like for soldiers who’ve been MIA, you’re probably a long way from broke, Steve. We can find out what bank it’s in – I’m serious, in spite of recent exceptions, Fury’s people are usually as efficient as all get-out. I know they didn’t forget to get your accounts in order.”

 

That had been for the benefit of the people listening through the bugs, one of which was probably Fury himself, and Tony thought Steve knew that too because of the wry tilt to his small grin. “Yeah, I don’t think they’d forget that either,” he said. “All right, I’d like to see some things…and visit a few old friends, thanks. I appreciate you offering to take me around.” He stood up, made a face. “Times Square was…”

 

“Overwhelming? Gaudy? Loud?” Tony filled in. He slapped the taller man on the shoulder. “Yeah, it is. It’s a bit much for me, too, but you get used to it after a while. Let’s go.”

 

He opened the door, and found another black-clad SHIELD agent on guard on the other side of it. “Didn’t learn your lesson the last time?” he asked. “Move aside, Agent, we’re going to go see your boss.”

 

The guard shook his head. “You can leave, Mr. Stark, the other one can’t. He’s dangerous.”

 

“Only if you’re the enemy, which you look an awful lot like at the moment,” Tony told him. He wasn’t worried, although he could sense Steve tensing up at his back. He hoped Fury was seeing the problem and cursing a blue streak right now while he ran all the way back down to the living quarters level. “Carrying a grudge, Agent?”

 

The guard scowled. “He put two of us in the hospital.”

 

“Because they threatened me and I didn’t know where I was.” Steve was so close now that Tony could feel the heat from his body through his clothes. The younger man didn’t sound belligerent. “I am sorry about that misunderstanding. I’ll be happy to apologize to them in person as soon as I have the opportunity.”

 

“See, he is a boy scout,” Tony said approvingly, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “I, however, am an asshole. If it were me, I’d be telling you to go fuck yourself and to get the hell out of my way.” He wasn’t kidding now. He reached out one hand as if to push the guard out of his way, the man started to make a threatening move with the rifle he was carrying…

 

…And then a large, crushingly strong hand was wrapped around the rifle’s barrel, holding it in a position where it couldn’t do any damage to Tony. “Soldier, I don’t know who your commanding officer is,” Steve said, his voice taking on a slightly threatening rumble. “but I don’t think this is how you were trained to handle a situation with a civilian in it.”

 

“He’s not a civilian, he’s an out of control freak,” the guard snapped, jerking on the gun which didn’t move. The barrel did get a little crushed, however, which made him stop. “Hey, you can’t…”

 

The large black blur that appeared beside him snapped, “He most certainly can, Agent – he could have killed your two buddies, too, if he hadn’t been trying not to, which I personally made sure they both knew. Why exactly do you think the man is called Captain America? Because he was really patriotic?” Fury put his hand on the rifle, right below Steve’s. “It’s okay, Captain Rogers, you can let go now. I’ve got it.”

 

Steve let go, but Tony could still feel the tension; he reached back and patted the younger man’s arm. “Agent Fury, Steve and I are going out for a while. We’re going to look up some old friends of his, maybe do some sightseeing and get some dinner. That okay with you?”

 

Fury nodded without hesitation. “Of course it is – Captain Rogers is still on medical leave, he won’t be released to duty again for a week. He can go anywhere he wants. Just stay out of trouble.”

 

“That warning was for me, not you,” Tony told Steve in a loud aside. “This guy knows me too well.”

 

Fury smiled. “Stop at the office – Mr. Stark knows where it is – and pick up your bank card and your new ID before you leave. He can show you how an ATM machine works if you’d rather carry cash, but I think you’ll find the card more convenient to use. There should be a cell phone for you, too, in case you need to contact me – and don’t hesitate to do that if you need something.” He stuck his hand out. “You work for SHIELD now, Captain, and we may be in the business of saving the world…but we don’t ever leave a man behind if we can help it.”

 

Steve took the offered hand. “It’s good to hear that, Agent Fury. I don’t either.” The guard muttered something, and Tony suddenly found himself standing behind a highly offended super soldier. “I may be fast and strong, Agent” Steve snapped out, “but I can’t fly. And that would be the only way I could have recovered Sgt. Barnes’ body. He fell into a crevasse, from the side of a speeding train. We sent planes out looking, we alerted the locals…but they never found a trace of him.”

 

“We’ve looked since,” Fury admitted. “The Swiss Army went out there with their best guides and even took some of your old unit, Captain, once everything had settled down – they knew we wanted Sgt. Barnes’ body back. They couldn’t find him either.”

 

Steve nodded and stepped back, letting Tony take the lead again. Tony, for his part, was just relieved that Fury could run fast and think on his feet so well – and somewhat surprised, because it had looked to him like Fury was equally as fast and strong as the young super soldier his father had thought so highly of. Something to think about another time. “Okay, we’re out of here,” he said. “Come on, Steve, I’ll lead you through this maze they call a headquarters and then we’ll be on our way. I thought I might make us reservations for dinner at a little place my dad used to really like, I think you’d like it too…”

 

Fury waited until they were well out of earshot – Steve Rogers’ serum-enhanced earshot – before turning on the guard. He lifted the crushed rifle barrel so that it was directly in front of the man’s eyes. “Still think he wasn’t pulling his punches, Agent?” he asked. “You’re lucky he’s one of the good guys. In fact, we all are. Now you come with me, we’re going to have a talk about your next assignment. Someone suggested that you might be a good fit for our base in the Congo…”