#at least the poster is nice and celebrates the one true hero in the marvel universe

[fictional-downey]

A huge thank you to a very sweet theater manager. She understood what a huge fan I was and gave me 4 of these posters early.

[iam93percentstardust]

I'm bombarding you with those prompts, so I fully understand if you just ignore all those you don't like, lol. Would WinterIronFalcon be an OT3 you're intrested in writing? Some established WinterFalcon with Tony pining helplessly after them, not believeing he could have a chance? With a dash of angst in it? Thank you ♡

There isn’t much angst in this but there is hopeless pining so yay?

Also on ao3 here

~

“Share Bear, it’s not fair,” Tony whines into the phone.

“What isn’t?” his cousin asks, sounding patient but also kind of amused. He takes the phone away from his ear and squints at it. Is she making fun of him? She probably is, Sharon always makes fun of him. She’s mean like that; he’s pretty sure she gets it from Natasha.

“They’re so fucking gorgeous, I can’t stand it.”

“Oh. Them again. Seriously Tony, didn’t you used to have better taste?”

“Excuse you,” he says, offended. “My taste is perfect.”

“They think arguing is foreplay.”

“It’s bickering! And it’s cute!”

“Gross,” Sharon says cheerfully.

“God hates me,” Tony says dramatically, flinging his hand over his eyes. “That’s why he cursed me to work with two such beautiful humans who are already dating each other.”

“Tony—”

“I know Bucky stays up to date with the fandom,” he continues, going a little quieter. “He’s gotta know that tons of people ship the three of us. But he doesn’t say anything about it. Share Bear, why doesn’t he say anything?”

“Probably because for every person who ships all three of you, there’s twice as many who ship just you and him,” she admits. “I know that if someone were shipping Maria and Nat and ignoring that I even exist, I’d be pretty upset.”

“Yeah,” he says glumly.

“What’re you filming today anyway?” she asks.

“True Crime. We were supposed to be doing an episode of Supernatural at the Odinson Mystery House, you know, over in Norway where the son found out he was adopted and then got super into Norse mythology and supposedly disappeared into a rainbow?”

“Oh yeah, that guy was crazy.”

“Wasn’t,” Tony insist stubbornly. “There are three different eyewitnesses and they all saw the same thing.”

“All three eyewitnesses tested positive for meth.”

“It was trace amounts and ruled irrelevant to the case. Anyway, there’s some sort of blizzard so our flight got canceled. We figured we’d get a jump on this season’s True Crime episodes instead.”

“What are you doing this week?”

He scowls into the phone. “Fandom episode. They voted for Captain America.”

He can practically hear Sharon wince. “I’m sorry. That fucking sucks.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, not least because both of them know exactly what happened to Captain America. He was recovered from the Arctic back in the 50s and went on to live a very happy and fulfilling life with Aunt Peggy. But that’s a very closely guarded state secret; the U.S. government can’t let it get out that Steve Rogers survived nearly a decade in the ice. Technically, Tony and Sharon aren’t even supposed to know but Aunt Peggy had insisted she be allowed to tell them after she took custody of Sharon and Tony moved out of Howard’s and into her home. It’s kind of cool actually, knowing that Uncle Steve is really Captain America. He’s a pretty great guy. It just kind of sucks that he can’t tell anyone about it and now he has to do a whole episode about it when everyone knows he’s a shitty liar.

He’d talked it over with Uncle Steve and Aunt Peggy when the results of the vote had first come in. Aunt Peggy’s advice had been to act more manic than usual, throw even more outlandish theories into the mix, and really make this episode about the banter between him and Bucky. “Direct their attention away from Steve,” she’d said. “They’re already going to be looking at you. Just make sure they’re doing it for the wrong reason.”

He kind of wants to kiss Bucky. That would definitely draw attention away from the episode. But that’s not fair to either Bucky or Sam, who are very happy with their relationship and don’t need a homewrecker like Tony throwing a spanner into the mix.

“Good luck,” Sharon tells him before they hang up. “You’re gonna need it.”

“Wow, thanks,” he mutters but she’s already gone.

~

Marvels Unsolved was never supposed to be this popular. It started off as a novelty webseries about Tony trying to convince Bucky about the existence of the supernatural—he firmly believed that if science could turn Uncle Steve from an actual shrimp to the god of muscles, then magic had to be out there—and then they’d started talking about an unsolved crime from the early 20th century after filming an episode one day, forgetting that the camera was still rolling, and had ended up with enough footage to make a second episode about real crimes. They had stayed pretty unknown throughout that first season but then true crime podcasts had exploded in popularity and Unsolved along with them.

Now they have a fandom and merchandise and actual fanfiction written about them, which is the craziest thing. They both have several often-quoted gifs floating around the Internet and Bucky has somehow become the poster child for being unimpressed by literally everything (he actually makes some of the best faces when something genuinely scary happens but they always end up editing those parts out—he has an image to maintain after all).

They brought Sam on once they started gaining in popularity. Tony, by that point, already had a pretty well-established crush on Bucky. He’d even thought that he had a chance with his co-host, small as it may be, and at first, it hadn’t seemed like Sam was going to change anything. He and Bucky argued all the time so Tony had been absolutely stunned when he’d stumbled upon them making out like it was the end of the world.

They had just finished filming their second season. Sam had suggested going out to a local bar. He’d suggested it for all three of them but Tony had, inexplicably, felt like a third wheel all night as Sam and Bucky bickered. At one point, Sam had disappeared off to the restroom and a couple minutes later, Bucky had followed him. Tony doesn’t know how long he had sat there waiting for them but he’d eventually gone looking for them only to find Sam pressing Bucky up against a wall.

And that had been that.

Three years later, Sam and Bucky are still going strong, Tony is as smitten with Sam as he is with Bucky despite knowing how hopeless both crushes are, and the fandom seems convinced to either write Sam out of Tony and Bucky’s relationship or write Tony into Sam and Bucky’s. He wishes they would stop. He stays pretty up to date with the fandom as well and they have all these meta posts about the way Bucky looks at him or something. It just keeps giving him hope but, well, it’s been three years. If Bucky wanted him, or if Sam did for that matter, they would have done something long ago.

~

“Hey, you doing okay?” Sam asks him as they’re setting up.

“Sure, why wouldn’t I be?” He avoids meeting Sam’s eyes, focusing instead on adding creamer to the coffee. Marvels had presented them with these mugs last year to congratulate them on four years of Unsolved. They’ve got their most iconic quotes printed on them, Bucky’s with “Obviously I killed JFK” and Tony’s with “I’m the dramatic bitch your mom warned you about.” Sam has one too with his one and only line in the entire show printed on it (“Why did I agree to work with you?”) but since he’s always behind the camera, he doesn’t have to use the same mug for each episode.

“You just seem a little off.” The worst part is that Sam genuinely looks concerned. If they didn’t care about him, he thinks his crush might be easier to manage but they do because they’re just nice guys like that. “I know you weren’t too thrilled when we announced this week’s case.”

“Howard worked with him, practically hero-worshipped the damn guy. Of course, I’m not excited.”

Sam winces. They know all about Tony’s shitty relationship with Howard after his dad called Marvels furious that his son was hosting a webseries instead of coming home to grovel at his feet and take over the business. The whole team had been brought in to listen as Fury tried to placate him. By the end, Bucky had been furious on Tony’s behalf and Sam had berated Fury for twenty minutes for making Tony listen to the vitriol his dad had spewed. It had cemented his crush on Sam, then just a passing fancy, into something real and permanent.

“Seriously, Sam, I’m fine. Might be a little off today but I would have said if I didn’t think I could do it.”

Sam doesn’t look convinced but he agrees anyway. Tony sits down next to Bucky and passes him his mug. Bucky shoots him a grin and murmurs, “Thanks, doll.”

Tony doesn’t blush but that’s only because he has five years of practice. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots Sam counting them down and he turns to face the camera, settling his hands in front of him.

“This week on Marvels Unsolved True Crime and in celebration of our 100th episode,” he begins, “we asked you what you’d like us to investigate and you came back—”

“—overwhelmingly,” Bucky interjects.

“Many, many times,” Tony agrees, “with a topic near and dear to my own heart: Captain America.”

“That’s right,” Bucky says, sounding surprised though Bucky had been the first to point out that maybe they shouldn’t do this episode because of Tony’s connections to Project Rebirth. “Your dad helped turn Steve Rogers into Captain America, didn’t he?”

“And he never let me forget it!” Tony says cheerfully.

“One hundred episodes,” Bucky says slowly, enunciating each word. “Can you believe that, doll?”

Sometimes, he wonders why the fans ship them when Sam is right there. Other times, Bucky says things like this and he understands completely.

“Not even a little bit, Bucky Babe.” Okay, so maybe he doesn’t help.

“One hundred. The big one zero zero.”

“We tried to do something extra special and get Sam in front of the camera for you guys—”

“—so you could see what a hunk he is—”

“—but Sam said that he didn’t trust anyone else to film us properly—”

“—which makes sense because Tony? If you put him in the wrong light, he’s practically a gremlin—”

“Hey!”

“I’m just telling the facts.”

“Well, the facts are wrong.”

“They’re facts, sweet thing, they can’t be wrong.”

“Can too. Anyway, since Sam refuses to join us—”

“—and that just breaks my heart because Sam, he’s one of my favorite guys, you know?”

Tony pauses. It’s not like Bucky to say anything nice about Sam. Usually, it’s all good-natured insults and bickering. He must really be fed up with the Starkbucks shippers to say something like this when they’re still this early in the show.

“Only one of?” he asks curiously.

Bucky shoots him one of those filthy grins that their audience loves so much. “Well, it’s hard not to include you on that list,” he drawls.

He’s not going to blush.

He’s not going to blush.

He’s not going to—

Damn it.

Whatever. It’s no big deal, that’s what editing is for. So what if Sam has never edited out one of Tony’s blushes yet? Maybe Tony will get lucky and he will this time.

“You know, I was actually named for Captain America’s sidekick?” Bucky asks, getting them back on track.

“Wow, that is deeply unfortunate,” Tony deadpans.

“Yeah, Dad’s a fanboy. His whole troop was pinned down and rescued by the two of them. He tells the story all the time—kind of like your dad.”

“Except my dad goes straight past into fanboy and directly into obsession territory.”

“…Fair enough.”

“Really? That’s all you’re going to say?”

Bucky shrugs and takes a sip out of his mug. “I’ve been inside your house. I’ve seen the Steve Rogers shrine. I’m not going to argue with you.”

Tony thinks about that for a moment. “It is kind of a shrine, isn’t it? Anyway, we’ve got some great stuff for you today. We’re going to crack open this cold case, show you some never-before-seen footage courtesy of my mom sneaking my dad’s old war tapes out of the mansion, and then we’ll talk a little bit about the theories out there.”

“How many of them are going to be ridiculously outlandish and physically impossible?”

Tony glares at him. “None of them. I have never once presented a ridiculously outlandish and physically impossible theory.”

“Right because alien abduction is a valid—”

“Aliens are real!”

“You said that crabs might have eaten Amelia Earheart!” Bucky shouts over him.

“It’s a valid theory!”

“I take it back, you’re not one of my favorite people anymore.”

“That really hurts me, deep inside,” Tony says sarcastically, trying to cover up that maybe that does send a small pang shooting through his chest. He likes the thought of being one of Bucky’s favorite people. He doesn’t want to lose that.

“How deep?” Bucky asks and winks.

“Very deep. Way, way deep down. Practically in my—”

Bucky’s eyes widen and he nearly chokes on his coffee. “Okay, that’s enough of that. Let’s get into the facts.”

“Hey, that’s my line!”

~

“With a missing plane and pilot and so much redaction in the files, we’re lucky to even have a name, let’s get into the theories.”

“Actually, wait, before we do that,” Bucky says, “I want to ask if you’ve ever noticed that your voice changes when you’re doing the voiceovers.”

“Wait, what?” Tony asks. He glances at him, to one of the cameras, then back to Bucky. “What do you mean?”

“You know, it gets all deeper like you’re trying to voice movie trailers or something.”

“No it doesn’t.”

“Sure it does.”

Tony shakes his head. “There’s no way.”

They both turn toward Sam, who thinks about it and then makes a ‘sort of’ motion with his hand.

“Told you!” Bucky says triumphantly.

“You’re such a child,” Tony sneers.

“Yeah, that’s why you like working with me so much.”

Behind the camera, Sam silently snickers and Tony glares at him before telling the camera, “If you’re watching, let us know in the comments. Is my apparent movie trailer voice okay or does it need to go like Bucky clearly thinks?”

Bucky goes paler. “Hey, wait, I didn’t say it had to go.”

“It was implied when you brought it up,” he argues.

“No!” Bucky insists. “I was just wondering if it was on purpose.”

They both turn toward Sam, who thinks about it and then makes a ‘sort of’ motion with his hand.

“Aha!” Tony says triumphantly.

“Traitor,” Bucky mutters into his coffee.

Sam signs, “I’ll make it up to you when we get home tonight.”

“And that was more than I ever wanted to learn about Sam and Bucky’s love life,” Tony lies through his teeth. “Let’s get into the theories. I only have two for you today, one of which I think Bucky will particularly like.”

“Oh no.”

“Our first theory is that Steve Rogers died in a plane crash on December 16, 1944. Winter months in the Arctic are known to be particularly stormy. There would have been low visibility due to the high latitude and time of year and with the waters and surrounding land being well below freezing, it’s possible that, even if Captain Rogers survived the impact, he would have frozen to death in the stormy seas.”

Bucky thinks about it for a second. “Yeah, that seems plausible.”

“In addition, Howard Stark, a known Captain America aficionado and the father of Marvels Unsolved’s best host—”

“You lie like a rug!” Bucky howls.

Tony snickers and then when Sam signs, “He’s really not,” bursts out into full-out laughter.

Once he’s recovered, he continues, “Howard Stark has spent the first fifty years after the crash of the Valkyrie and the last twenty funding searches in the Arctic in the hopes of recovering Captain Rogers’ body. He has found no evidence that Captain Rogers survived the crash although he did find part of the remains of the Valkyrie and has since stated that, ‘No human could have survived that crash.’”

The expeditions are a scam and have been since Howard first found the Valkyrie crash site and Uncle Steve along with it. He hadn’t been planning on continuing the expeditions—too costly, as he claims—but when Aunt Peggy had told him that Uncle Steve’s survival had to remain a secret, he’d kept them up for pretense’s sake.

Bucky is saying something about how it sucks that the first superhero is gone and when he finishes, Tony grins and says, “Then you’ll like our second theory.”

“Somehow, every time you say that, I end up completely hating it. Wonder why that is.”

“Our second theory is that Steve Rogers survived the crash and is still alive but cryogenically frozen in the ice. There—”

“Bullshit!”

Tony starts laughing but he tries to continue on over Bucky shouting that it’s complete nonsense. It’s hard and he knows that Sam will probably have to do some editing and maybe make Tony do some voiceover work in order to make the theory audible but he thinks he manages to do a pretty good job.

Bucky is pouting by the end of it, arms crossed over his chest. “What fucking bullshit,” he mutters.

“The supersoldier serum—” Tony starts to point out.

“Isn’t a miracle drug.”

“That’s exactly what it is.”

“No, it just made him big and strong. It doesn’t just magically keep people alive when they should have died.”

And then they’re off into familiar territory, arguing about the merits of either theory. Tony’s actually feeling pretty good about himself, convinced that he’s doing a decent job of steering the conversation away of anything classified, right up until Bucky says, about halfway through the episode, “I’m surprised at you, Tony.”

He wrinkles his nose. “Surprised?”

“Usually, you have some absolutely batshit, off-the-walls crazy theory but these have actually been pretty normal for you.” He pauses and then adds for effect, “And you’re usually much better at your research than this.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh come on, even I know that there’s one more theory.”

He starts tapping at his chest nervously, almost wishing that he had a pair of sunglasses. Aunt Peggy always said that his lies are in his eyes, that they’re too expressive to hide the truth. When he was living with Howard, in the spotlight, he always had a pair of sunglasses to hide his eyes but he hasn’t wanted to use those since he moved out. He wishes he had them now.

“And what’s that?” he asks, feigning a casualness he doesn’t feel.

“That Steve Rogers lived and came out of the ice at some point and has been living out his life in anonymity.”

He barks out a nervous laugh. “I didn’t mention it because even I know that that theory is completely impossible.”

“Hasn’t stopped you before.” Sam nods agreeably. Bucky nods back at him and adds, “Even Sam agrees with me.”

“He’s your boyfriend, he’s practically required to.”

Both Sam and Bucky laugh at that one and yeah, okay, it was a pretty ridiculous statement. Anyone who knows them knows that being boyfriends is less likely to make them agree with each other.

“Look, Steve Rogers didn’t come out of the ice alive. Howard would have known for one thing and if you think, he could keep something like that quiet, then you don’t know him very well.”

“Maybe the government insisted it be a secret,” Bucky suggests, shrugging. “There have been plenty of people who have claimed over the last couple decades to be Captain America.”

Tony scoffs. “Oh come on, by that logic, anyone could be Captain America.”

“Maybe they could be.”

“No,” Tony says flatly. “It’s like that crazy conspiracy theory guy over on Reddit who’s convinced that Bruce Wayne is Batman.”

“Maybe Bruce Wayne is Batman.”

“Ooh do the butts match?” Tony says mockingly. “I mean, really, Bucky Babe, if we’re going off of lookalikes, then my fucking Uncle Steve is secretly really Steve Rogers, which is ridiculous because the guy’s like practically ancient and faints at the sight of blood in PG-13 movies.”

That sets off another round of arguing that lasts the rest of the episode until finally Tony wraps it up with, “Whether Steve Rogers died in 1944 or is still alive today is a mystery that will remain unsolved.”

They both pause for a moment to provide time for Sam to edit in the theme music and closing title. Usually, there would be some lighthearted bantering afterwards, maybe a joke about something they said earlier in the show. This time though, Bucky says thoughtfully, “The thing is, though, I’ve met your Uncle Steve—”

Tony goes cold.

“—and he really does kind of look like—”

Tony panics. That’s the only explanation that he has for declaring, “I’m done waiting,” reaching across the tables and grabbing hold of Bucky’s shirt, and yanking him forward to kiss him.

For a moment, Bucky is too startled to do anything but then he melts into Tony, mouth opening under his, tongue pushing forward to meet his. Bucky’s arms come around him, pulling him up and out of his chair and settling him into his lap. Tony makes a small greedy sound, swallowed by Bucky’s kiss, and then they’re both pulling away. Bucky’s lips are very red; Tony can’t stop staring at them even as he’s filled with dismay.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I shouldn’t have—”

“Why not?” Bucky demands.

“You—Sam—” He glances toward the camera but Sam isn’t standing there anymore. His heart drops into his stomach—has he just ruined Bucky and Sam’s relationship? But then he hears someone drop to their knees behind him and when he turns slightly, Sam’s fingers are on his chin, gently turning his head.

“How long?” Sam asks.

“How long what?”

“How long have we been wasting our time when we could have been kissing you instead?”

Three years, two months, and fifteen days. “Too long.”

Sam kisses him then, mouth gentler than Bucky’s but no less consuming. Bucky is a hard, hot line against his front; Sam is warm against his back and Tony? Tony loses himself in the storm that is the two of them, sparks shooting through him as Bucky’s hands find their way to his hips, as Sam’s tongue slips into his mouth, as Bucky whispers into his ear, “We’re not wasting any more time.”

~

Marvels Unsolved’s 100th episode shoots to their most watched, most liked video in less than a day and when asked, maybe the smallest handful of viewers could have said what it was about.

The day after it posts, only a week after it was filmed, Tony’s phone rings.

“Kill it with fire,” Sam says sleepily.

Tony, however, recognizes Aunt Peggy’s ringtone and he rolls over to grab it before Bucky can throw it at the wall. “Hello?” he asks groggily.

“Congratulations on not blowing Steve’s cover,” she says.

“Oh yeah,” Tony mutters. “Can I go back to bed now?”

“One more thing, duck.”

“What’s that?”

“Congratulations on the new boyfriends.”

[imjustthemechanic]

The French Mistake

Part 1/? - A Visitor Part 2/? - The Kulturhistorisk Museum Heist Part 3/? - Cutscene Part 4/? - The Marvel Cinematic Universe Part 5/? - Breathless Part 6/? - Escape at Last Part 7/? - Fox in Socks Part 8/? - Things Go Wrong Part 9/? - Downey and Out Part 10/? - Road Trip Part 11/? - Temptation Part 12/? - An Awful Reunion Part 13/? - Unreality Intrudes Part 14/? - A Call for Help Part 15/? - Loki’s Guests Part 16/? - Stan Lee Cameo Part 17/? - Reassessment Part 18/? - Midnight Invasion Part 19/? - Elevator Fight Part 20/? - Courage Part 21/? - Unwelcome Back Part 22/? - Darkest Hour Part 23/? - They Are Here Part 24/? - The Jet Propulsion Laboratory Part 25/? - Word of God Part 26/? - Avengers Assembled Part 27/? - The Houston Underground Part 28/? - Houston has a Problem Part 29/? - Onward and Upward Part 30/? - The Chi’Tauri Queen Part 31/? - Through the Wormhole Part 32/? - Prisoners Part 33/? - Arm’s Length Part 34/? - A Moment’s Respite Part 35/? - Ravagers to the Rescue Part 36/? - What Happened to Hiddleston Part 37/? - Haven Part 38/? - Steve Has a Terrible Idea Part 39/? - Can’t Be Choosers Part 40/? - Stan Lee Cameo Redux Part 41/? - Shipjacking Part 42/? - The Gauntlet Thrown Part 43/? - The Queen’s Chamber Part 44/? - The Guardians Part 45/? - The Nest Part 46/? - Heroes Part 47/? - Homeward Bound Part 48/? - Loose Ends

Just a few things to tie up - like Johansson’s marriage, how they’re getting back, and what will happen to the tesseract.

A moment later Musa was called away again by a group of astrophysicists, who were hoping she could tell them about her home system.  Steve wasn’t alone for long, though – the next person to approach him was Natasha.  She was now dressed in a pair of jeggings and a shirt with a cartoon bone on it and the words I Found This Humerus.  Next to her was Scarlett Johansson, wearing a blouse and skirt.  Both had washed up and combed their hair, and they looked nearly identical, but Steve immediately recognized which was which.  The two walked differently, Johansson gliding along like a glamour goddess, while Natasha moved with a determined stride that spelled trouble for anybody in her way.

“How’d your checkup go?” Nat asked.

“Nothing but bruises,” Steve assured her.  “If I cracked any bones it was so minor they’ve already knit.”  The bruises would be gone by this time tomorrow.

She smiled.  “Good to be back?”

“Yeah,” he agreed.  “And possibly just a little more appreciative of how tough I am.”

“Oh, really?”  Nat smirked.  “Does that mean you’re going to start using a parachute?”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

Nat laughed.  “I’m going to Malibu with Scarlett,” she said.  “We need to patch things up with her husband and daughter, and it’ll be easier to explain if I’m with her.”

That felt like something that had happened weeks ago, and Steve had almost forgotten about it.  Now he groaned.  It was true, they should do something about that, but whatever it was they ended up doing would be very, very unpleasant.  “Do you want me to come with you?” he asked, praying that the answer would be no.

“Probably not a good idea,” said Johansson.  “Romain’s had a bug up his ass about Chris for a while now, and I don’t think he’d want to see your face.”

Steve tried not to show how relieved he was.  “Got it,” he said.  “Text when you arrive, okay?”

“Yes, Mom,” said Nat.  “Wouldn’t want you to worry about me.”  She leaned down and gave him a kiss on the cheek goodbye.

Once she was gone, Steve worried he’d be alone again – but it was only a minute or so after Natasha left when Evans came up to him.  He had a few bandages and stitches, but he, too, had washed and shaved and changed his clothes.  With no beard, wearing jeans and a dark blue t-shirt which, thanks to somebody’s sense of humour, had the image of the shield on the front, he looked so much like Steve as Captain America that it was downright eerie.  He came and stood awkwardly facing Steve, hands in his pockets, as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t figure out how to word it.

“How are you doing?” Steve asked, deciding to take pity and give him an opening.

“Okay,” Evans replied carefully.  “That was a hell of a thing but I… I’ll get over it.”

Steve had heard that phrase before, from people who would very definitely not get over it.  Far too often, he’d been the one speaking it, himself.  “You sure?”

“Yeah,” said Evans.  He sat down on the bench next to Steve.  “My parents are coming to pick me up.  I told them guys, I’m thirty-five, I can buy my own plane ticket, but Mom wouldn’t hear about it.  She actually said, I won’t hear about it, like little old ladies do in cartoons.”  He chuckled.

Steve smiled back.  He was glad he hadn’t called Evans’ parents when he’d been tempted to, but lord, he missed having that kind of loving, unconditional support.   It would have been wonderful to steal just a drop of it, even knowing it was not rightfully his.  Loki really had meant what he’d said – this world was full of everything Steve had ever wanted.  It was just that to get it, Steve would have had to compromise everything he’d ever wanted to be.

“Sorry for freezing up when Musa grabbed me,” Chris added.  “I, um… I have some… I’m good with a script, but actually talking to real people is hard for me sometimes.  I almost turned down playing the role – playing you, I mean.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to be…”

“To be that kind of movie star,” Steve finished for him.  “Bob told me.”

“Yeah.”  Chris nodded.

“What changed your mind?” asked Steve.  Bob had offered an explanation, but he wanted to hear it from Chris Evans himself.

“Well… Captain America,” said Chris, with a shrug and a cockeyed smile.  “You’re everybody’s hero.  You’re… you’re everything I was raised to believe in.  It sounds corny, but all that freedom, equality, and justice stuff, you embody that and you make it look cool. When I post about politics on my twitter I get comments from people who say things like here we see Chris Evans actually being Steve Rogers and it always makes me smile.  I’m proud to stand for that, even if the fame part is kind of terrifying.”

“The fame part is terrifying,” Steve agreed.  “At least you got warned about it.  When I volunteered for the project nobody told me I was going to be a celebrity. Then they dragged me off on that tour with the chorus girls and the posters…” he shook his head.  “And I end up standing there…”

“Wondering how the hell this happened,” Chris grinned. “That’s what I figured you were thinking.  Reading the lines off the back of the shield was my favourite joke in the movie. Anyway.”  He sat up a little straighter.  “My point, which I’m getting to in a roundabout kind of way, is that it’s an honour to meet you in person, even if this is really, really weird.” He held out a hand.

“Thanks,” said Steve, giving him the handshake.  He had to agree – it was weird, but he also felt a sense of kinship with this man. Not just because of what they’d just been through together, but because he realized that Chris Evans must have spent more time thinking about Steve, and trying to understand him, than anybody else he’d ever met.  Which left one rather important question.  “Bob told me about something you said in an interview…” he began.

“Oh, no,” groaned Chris.  “This is about the teams thing, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Steve said.

Chris spread his hands.  “Well, for one thing, I never thought I’d be having this conversation.  I thought it was all hypothetical.  And I was talking about our world, if there were superheroes here. Our world isn’t run by people who thought nuking New York or approving Project Insight was a good idea.  I mean, sometimes they’re not much better, but they’re not that bad.  I just feel like real superheroes would have to accept limitations and be responsible when they hurt people.  Even if it wasn’t on purpose.”

Steve thought about the pirates… they weren’t nice people, but nor had they asked to get into a fight with the Chi’Tauri.  He wondered how many had died, and supposed he would never know.

“Well, thanks for not getting me killed this week,” Steve said.  “I’m a rotten actor.”

“Same,” Chris agreed.  “I’m the opposite – a good actor, a rotten hero.  Better for you to live your life and me mine, even if yours does sound way cooler.”

Now there was a thought… would Chris Evans find the details of Steve Rogers’ life as tempting as Steve had found his?  He decided not to ask, partly because that would involve admitting how tempted he’d been to call Evans’ parents, but mostly because the whole subject was better left alone.

NASA offered them all dinner in the Space Center cafeteria, which was fortunately not one of the buildings that would have to be torn down from the damage.  Natasha and Scarlett had already gone to Malibu, and Scarlett had texted Chris Evans to let him know they would be staying overnight. Hemsworth also turned down the meal. He hugged everybody, and then left to catch a flight back to his home in Australia.  Most of the other actors who’d come in for the charade were already gone, but Hayley Atwell hung around, as did Bob Downey.  At dinner they all sat together and listened to Hayley tell stories about the props – and people – she’d accidentally broken while filming the Agent Carter TV series.

“I need to watch some of that before I go,” said Steve.  He would probably regret it… but he would regret it more if he didn’t.

“I’ll get you some DVDs,” Hayley promised.  “In fact, take them back with you and show them to Sharon.  I can get confirmation from Emily if you like, but for my own part I’m sure she would want to see them.”

Steve could bet she would.  “That would be great.”

“That gives me an idea…” Bob began, but before he could explain what it was, the conversation was interrupted as Thor and Steve moved aside to make room for Donny Glover and Kevin Farinas, who had come to join them.  Kevin was proudly holding a tablet and a stack of binders, which she dropped on the table in front of her.

“Good news!” she declared.

“Good news?  For us?” asked Steve.

“Careful there,” said Bob.  “He’s an old man.  Too much excitement might give him a heart attack.”  He winked at Steve, looking uncannily like Stark in that moment.

Kevin opened the top binder in the stack and passed around some photographs.  “I’ve been looking at the insides of your spaceship,” she said, “and it looks like their actual device for directing a wormhole runs on very similar principles to my hypothetical one.  Here’s the switches.”  She reached across the table to indicate a particular picture, which Hayley happened to be holding at the moment.  “They’re hidden under the console, probably so the people on board couldn’t mess with them.”

Hayley passed the picture to Steve, and he saw two rows of twelve symbols, one in pink and one in blue.  The symbols themselves were indecipherable to Steve, just messes of intersecting lines.  “What do these mean?” he asked.

“No idea,” said Kevin.  “They’ve called in some cryptography people, but figuring out will probably take longer than it would take to build a new one.”

“How is that good news?” asked Bob.

“I’m getting there,” Kevin informed him.  “Now, as you can see, there are two lines – two ends to the wormhole.  The pink one tells you where you’re starting from, the blue one tells you where you’re going.  If I understand this properly, the ones on the right refer to the specific destination universe, and the ones on the left are your exit point within that universe.  I have no idea how to program it.  The left ones must be a space-time coordinate system of some sort, but I don’t know what their reference point is, while the ones on the right must refer to properties of the target universe, whatever those are.”

“I’m still not seeing the good news,” said Steve.

“Well, isn’t it obvious?” asked Kevin.  “Look, they’ve got this thing set up to take them between a chosen point in this universe and their home port in yours.  But if you can change the spatial destination coordinates for your universe to match the ones you leave from in ours, then when you activate it you’ll transfer to the other universe exactly where you left from ours with no programming or linguistic knowledge required!”

That did make sense.  “So we appear over Houston in our universe… and we can fly right out over the Atlantic back to Wakanda,” said Steve.  That would have the bonus that the Leviathan would end up in hands Steve trusted.  He wouldn’t have wanted any other country on Earth trying to reverse-engineer any more Chi’Tauri technology, even the United States.  Wakanda, however, would either destroy it or do good with it, whichever T’Challa decided was best.  “Perfect. Can you have it ready by the time Natasha gets back?”

“Definitely,” said Kevin.  “It seems to remember where it left from, too, so if it doesn’t work the way I think, you can just come back here and we’ll give it some more study.” She picked up her binders again, beaming.  “You know, it sucks that we can’t keep that tesseract things.  With that kind of energy we could explore the whole solar system and then head for Alpha Centauri.”

Steve blinked.

“Yeah, sucks,” Donny agreed cheerfully.  “I’d ask to go with you guys, but my alternate in the Marvel Universe is a guy who finds Spider-Man hanging out in dumpsters, so nah.  But!” he held up a finger.  “Kevin, can you get me into the Star Wars universe?”

They were joking around, so Steve made himself smile as if he were enjoying the conversation. But he couldn’t stop thinking about what Kevin had just said.