cap_ironman | Freeway, Chapter One

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Freeway, Chapter One

Title: Freeway (formerly Patiently) - Ao3
Beta: 3bird, who is perfect and marvelous in every way.
Word Count: about 8.3k this chapter.
Summary: In which Steve is trying to find a place for himself in the twenty-first century, Tony is appallingly unfaithful to Pepper, and Loki returns to earth, joins the Avengers, and does not quite seek redemption or absolution. Part three of the Stone series.
Notes: Okay, finally starting to rewrite Patiently. Here is chapter one! Please enjoy!

( If he'd known about Pepper, that night with Stark never would've happened. He's got more self-respect than that. He doesn't like hurting people. If he doesn't believe these two things about himself, he's lost. )

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One thing that I really liked about the Patiently story was that you brought up the idea that Steve can't ever really take off his mask when the others can. Are you going to actually address and solve the problem in Freeway?

You're the second person to mention that! Yeah, I will be addressing it--I don't know about solving it, though. I think it's just another difference he'll have to figure out how to make work. I don't think Steve knows how to be anything other than what he feels he has to be.

We'll see.

Well, I'm at least glad that you're addressing it. One of the most tragically under discussed concepts in steve/tony fanfic that I've come across is that when Steve isn't being awesome as an Avenger or with Tony, he pretty much does nothing all day except exercise. These things alone I doubt he would find fulfilling, I think.

It's true. I personally feel useless and depressed when I don't have any sort of project to work on outside of my actual job, so. This is how I imagine Steve feels, except all the time.

Then there's the fact that he has all this absurd feels for Tony, who is an asshole. D:

Steve deserves so much of a better life than that D:
I figured that he would get some sort of stipend from SHIELD or reclaim his old money somehow and use it to go back to school and learn how to use technology and find a trade. I never read the comic books, so I don't know how they dealt with it.

Well, first, I'm pretty sure SHIELD owns him--like, I think he's government property. They probably cut him a salary. I think they set him up with his apartment, and I think they would probably work to help acclimate him to society. I don't know that he could actually go to college or anything--people learn in a completely different context today than seventy years ago. It's hard to put someone in classes that assume you've lived in the 21st century your entire life. I mean, he'd have to test into the classes (stuff he's never been taught) and he'd have to have an identity (social security number, academic history, etc), all of these things that would have to be entirely fabricated, or they would have to out-and-out tell the school that he's Steve Rogers/Captain America. He's a celebrity; he's a super hero. I think it would dangerous and ineffectual to have him in any classes with regular people. I don't know if his identity is out, but Steve would not appreciate lying about who he is and trying to hide how little he understands in any of his classes. I'm not sure what trade he would go for in this day and age; he wanted to be a career soldier, and he already gets to be that. Except he's specialized like Hawkeye and Widow. So he gets periodic missions instead of going to the front line.

I can see SHIELD providing tutors or something, maybe. When Fury showed up at the gym and Steve said, "You here with a mission, sir? Trying to get me back in the world?" It made me think they've had that conversation before. Even the deleted scene where he's wandering around New York, completely apart from everyone else--I don't know how you could bridge that isolation, and Steve hasn't managed it yet. He dresses differently, he feels differently, he goes through life at a pace from an earlier time.

I didn't read the comics, either. I think he dealt with it by just being a superhero the whole time. I mean, unlike the other Avengers, Steve Rogers is Captain America. it's not a mask he gets to take on and off. He's every bit the hero that Captain America is perceived as. But I do think they mention that he never did art again, which I think is ridiculous. Art's the one thing he had before the serum.

I wish I knew more abut his relationship with SHIELD!

I'd have to disagree with you. Steve isn't an intellectual, but he is a smart guy and quickly able to adapt to the situation at hand, so I think that if he really wanted, he could learn the stuff that we know today. I think of it like how the elderly use things like internet and smart phones. Some really love it, but others can't get the hang of it- but if he were placed in a situation where it became an everyday thing, he could do it. Aside from that, basic big picture ideas of how to do physics, science, and math haven't changed terribly much. It might take him a while, but a few years is nothing compared to a lifetime of never knowing.

Also, Steve Rogers is a pretty common name. If he were to enter school in today's new millenium world, the people he would be interacting with, the typical college-age student, probably wouldn't have heard of him because his comics aren't pop culture anymore and the ideas of nationalism and hating the Nazis and Communism aren't really on the mainstream agenda. The people who would have heard of him would probably be the faculty, but I'm sure that they would be able to be persuaded to keep it a secret. In the DVD extra, he was able to walk around and I'm assuming that nobody really came up to him and asked him about his Cpt America status since it wasn't shown.

I do agree that Steve is the type of person to always want to be honest about himself, but I think that his line of reasoning is that he wants to "do the right thing" because he wants to help others, rather than as ends per se. However, I could see him being able to take on a secret identity in order to avoid being a celebrity.

When Steve wanted to enlist in the military I thought the reason why he did so was a type of propaganda on the part of the writers to encourage nationalism and support for the army during WWII. So he was more of the image of what a patriotic, American boy ought to do during the time period. But I guess as a person, he was caught up in the excitement of being able to help the country and return a hero. I doubt he expected to never be able to take off the uniform, because it's difficult to always keep up an image of being the ideal version of something.

Yeah, we definitely disagree. Steve is a tactical genius, but I still don't think he'd be at all suited to a classroom. He'd have to be tutored, and things would have to be explained to him in a context he'd understand. I don't think he could have a conversation with anyone without raising some serious questions about where he's been for the last seventy years. It's not about filling in blank pages--it's about rewriting the whole book. Example: when Steve was growing up, women didn't even have the right to vote. It'd be hard for him to answer essay questions about gender issues when the general social attitude toward women is vastly different today than it was in the 30s and 40s. Gender roles are different; women work, women live by themselves, women wear pants. Not to mention racial issues, marriage equality, how political lines have shifted over the years. Words don't mean what they used to.

Then you have advances in science which build on previous advances. I'm not saying Steve can't learn--I'm just saying he'd require an intense amount of material that wouldn't be covered in college courses meant for people born in this generation.

And since Steve basically works for SHIELD, I don't think he would have any motivation to go to school to eventually get a job. He's Captain America. That's his job. The drive to go to college and to be educated wouldn't be present in a kid from Brooklyn during the Great Depression. Finish High School-->Go to College-->Get a Carreer is a more modern paradigm.

What I got from Steve trying repeatedly (and lying, and going to different recruitment offices) to join the army was that he was a small, unhealthy, ineffectual guy who hated bullies and wanted to do something valuable with his life. He was all heart and no muscle. Bucky even implies it's about Steve, rather than protecting America, and Steve insists that he doesn't have any right to do less than the other men laying down their lives. Even though he could've scavenged scrap or sewn clothing or whatever, all stuff that needed to get done but that wouldn't give him any firepower.

If he was actually tactical thinker at this point, he probably would've realized he'd have been more a hindrance than a help. Someone with moderate asthma, multiple ear infections, arrhythmic heartbeat, chronic cold, and who was also scrawny and weak, etc... Army's definitely not the place for him.

Again, I'm only going from the movies. I haven't read the comics, so apart from general interest, I take all of my character cues about the Avengers from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Yeah, I guess I am biased in that I think Steve ought to live a "modern" life, I guess some people simply weren't destined to have one. It's terribly sad that he can't have what could be considered a normal life outside of his superhero identity.

Thinking about Steve too much makes you feel like shit. You just want him to have everything, to be able to work through the bullshit about waking up in the future. That deleted scene was probably taken out of the movie because it's such a downer--I mean, think how much worse we would've felt about Tony saying all that shit to him (Capsicle, spry for an old man, etc) if we'd had Steve's isolation shoved in our face like that from the beginning?

I mean, as far as normal lives go--I don't know that there's a set standard for that, but I guess the equivalent would be celebrity/not a celebrity, maybe. I mean, Steve can at least go out and do things by himself (just struggle with the how and why for a bit, maybe) but Tony probably can't without being recognized. Thor's in the same boat as Steve, really, but at least he has a home and a family to go back to--Steve's stuck here. Widow and Hawkeye can do whatever they want, and Bruce is terrified forever of hurting someone. I feel like the major players here--Bruce, Steve, Tony--have the least normal lives of anyone: Steve for his displacement, Tony for his infamy (among other things XD), Bruce for his physiological issues.

Actually, one of the reasons I'm rewriting this fic is because of all the freaking Bruce feels I have. Also that I didn't do anything justice the first time around except possibly the sex scenes. Ahahaha.

Anyway, thank you very much for this discussion--you brought up some good points. Now I'm trying to figure out a way and a reason for Steve to go to school! I just have this image of people hitting on him all day not knowing who he is. Also him sitting in a history class and answering questions like, "Why did so and so lose this battle during this war?" and him coming out with this ridiculously detailed and in-depth anaylsis of their tactical errors and what they should've done, and everyone staring at him in silence XD

AHAHAHA. /losingmymind

Another reason why Steve's story is so tragic is because he initially started out with good intentions, like wanting to help his country win WWII. But he lost almost everything tangible in the process and might as well have been dumped into another world. It just seems like the unforseen consequences almost outweigh the rewards, to me at least. I want him to have everything too.

I'm looking forward to the rest of your fic. I'm sure that it will be much improved the second time around. :)

Tell me about it, I made so many mistakes the first time around -.- It hurts me to read through it as I'm rewriting the new version.

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Freeway, Chapter One

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