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cap_ironman2010-04-24 02:05 am
(FIC) You Were Made For Me- Epilogue
Author: GlasgowSmiles
Rating: PG-13
Warning/Spoilers: Character deaths (in alternate universe). Alternate universes.
Pairing: Let's just call it Steves/Tonys
Word Count: 1,935
A/N: I enjoy alternate universes, and seeing them meet. Several more alternate universes will find themselves meeting in the sequel, but for now...
Summary: After bringing Steve and Tony together, Anthony Stark finds a new home universe.
Intro here: http://community.livejournal.com/cap_iro
And Chapter One: http://community.livejournal.com/cap_iro
And Chapter Two: http://community.livejournal.com/cap_iro
And Chapter Three: http://community.livejournal.com/cap_iro
And Chapter Four: http://community.livejournal.com/cap_iro
And Chapter Five: http://community.livejournal.com/cap_iro
And Chapter Six: http://community.livejournal.com/cap_iro
And Chapter Seven: http://community.livejournal.com/cap_iro
And Chapter Eight: http://community.livejournal.com/cap_ironman/508318.html
Anthony Edward Stark’s return from the dead was all over the news, as well as his swift takeover of his father’s company, and the story of how he survived his capture in the desert, his torture, and the partial amnesia that the trauma left him with.
Anthony Stark—formerly The Other Tony Stark, formerly Tony Stark-Rogers—almost had everything he’d wanted in a universe. He’d even made discreet inroads towards starting the Avengers. He’d found Hank Pym, at any rate, and that was a start.
The only problem was Captain America... he’d done his research, and he hadn’t come up empty-handed. In fact, his contract with SHIELD meant he was able to learn more than most. And what he learned was that the only volunteer to survive the the Super-Soldier-Serum program was named Isaiah Bradley, that he was Captain America, and that there was no record anywhere of a Steve Rogers.
And maybe it was better that way. What kind of life did he expect? A perfect replica of the one he lost, with some poor none-the-wiser Steve that had none of the memories Anthony did of their life together? Or different memories entirely?
Still, everything else was going well for him here. The SHIELD contract was a big part of that, was what he counted on to make forming the Avengers go more smoothly. And so he was always happy to take meetings with Nick Fury.
Well, always willing, at any rate. ‘Happy’ may have asked too much. ‘Happy’ he wasn’t sure if he’d ever be ready for. There had been moments that came close, living vicariously through another version of himself as that Tony Stark finally unstuck his head from his ass about being in love with Steve. Maybe he’d get to ‘happy’ again someday, but it wouldn’t be a meeting with Fury that first inspired the feeling.
Fury, as always, walked into Anthony’s office like he owned it, and this time he spotted the research laid out across the desk. He frowned, but it was thoughtful more than it was angry.
“I need a favor, Stark.”
“You know I’m always ready to do anything I can for you.”
“You have a temp position open. It is not a question. I don’t care what the position is, but until I can find something better, I’m coming to you.”
“I... have a temp position open.” Anthony agreed. “I’m sorry, I don’t really see where this is going.”
“There’s a young man that, apparently, the United States owes a lot to.” Fury didn’t look as though he agreed, particularly. “He’s been passed around, and at some point, he got passed to me. I’m passing him to you, because frankly, there’s nothing we can do with him. He’d never make it as an agent, and unlike you, I don’t have an opening.”
Anthony refrained from mentioning that he didn’t have an opening until Nick Fury told him he had one. “What do we owe him for, exactly? If he was a pilot, I’m sure I could put him under Rhodey and—“
Fury snorted. “Pilot. Yeah, don’t make me laugh, son. It’s complicated. Although...” Another glance at the desk. “It looks like you’ve got an interest in old, complicated stories.”
“Oh, that. I—“
“Save it. I don’t care about your explanation. We almost killed the kid. One of those experiments.” He gestured to one of the photos.
“Are you starting up the project again?”
Fury pointedly did not answer. “He was lucky to live, but he wasn’t going to for long. Could’ve been worse. Don’t know if you saw the pictures of some of those poor bastards, the ones the serum really messed with.”
Anthony shrugged and shook his head. He hadn’t found the one name he’d been looking for. That was all that really mattered. He hadn’t looked at the pictures, of the men who suffered from mutations. None of them were Steve.
“Anyway, modern medical science prevailed. Guess it does that often enough. Kid wants to do something to earn a living. Told him he’d get a pension, after what the army put him through—“
“Because if you are—“ Anthony tried again. From everything he had managed to gather, the serum’s inventor died and left no clear instructions. Same story, different universe.
“Anyway.” Fury glared at him. “Kid wants to be useful to somebody, I guess. These days a paycheck wouldn’t hurt. I don’t think he’d get far on the pension, be honest. Since we’ve got a contract, I’m passing him off to you. I think he could handle a simple desk job.”
“Right. I’ll... My secretary will find something. When does he come in?”
Fury strode back over to the door and swung it open, revealing a young man in conversation with Pepper. He shuffled a little, like someone who had just recently been released from a hospital, but he managed to project some friendly confidence in spite of it.
And those eyes... Anthony might not have recognized him otherwise. Everything else was so different. His height, his weight, the shape of his jaw. But those eyes could only belong to one man.
“Steve...”
“Uh... yessir. I guess I’ve been introduced.”
“Not really.” Fury narrowed his eyes at Anthony again. “Anthony Stark, Steve Rogers. Steve Rogers, meet Anthony Stark, your new boss.”
Steve caught sight of the research spread out on the desk and blushed slightly. “Ah, yeah, that. It... um... didn’t work. Well, I guess that’s pretty obvious. They had to keep me in some kind of stasis, honestly I don’t know how it worked. Kept me alive ‘til they could fix what went wrong with the serum, though.”
“Y-yeah. That’s fine. Steve—you don’t mind if I call you ‘Steve’, do you? I’m kind of informal a lot of the time. Anyway, Pepper’s going to find someplace where you’ll fit in—“
Steve snorted, then caught Anthony’s eye and blushed. “Sorry, sir. It’s just—well, I don’t know how well I’ll fit in, exactly. I... I don’t know how much of an explanation you got, just—They took my name out of the records, see. It’s not a new program, I’ve been in stasis since nineteen forty-one.”
“Don’t call me ‘sir’.” Anthony sighed. This Steve was young. Probably worse off than the young Steve Rogers who successfully became Captain America, and to look at him he was almost nothing like the man Anthony remembered. Except that everything else about him, the way he held himself, the way he smiled, the way he spoke, those eyes... “Fury, could we have a moment alone?”
After a moment, Fury acquiesced, disappeared behind the heavy door, probably to have Pepper fix him a cup of coffee, or maybe when no one was looking, he hibernated, like some kind of robot in sleep mode.
Steve looked nervous. “I know it’s hard to believe—“
“Not at all. Nobody knows this, but... I come from a parallel universe. It’s a lot like this one, but... some things are different. My universe suffered a horrible tragedy, and I got thrown around for a while. I wound up here, where Tony Stark died overseas.” He took a deep breath and tried to swallow the lump in his throat. “In my universe, I knew Steve Rogers. Very well. I—The serum worked, for him. He was Captain America. He was part of a team for a while, called the Avengers. A team I’m trying to set up here.”
“A... team? What kind of team?”
“Heroes. There’s nothing like that here. I mean, there’s the X-Men, but it’s different, they don’t have a very good PR relationship. Nobody else is really organized. I want to make that happen. I want to make things work here. Make it better than the world I couldn’t save.”
“I’m sorry I can’t really help you. Mr. Stark, the serum didn’t work for me. I’m just... well, what you see here. I can’t do anything special.”
“Neither can I. Not on my own. I have a bum heart, too. I can explain the technology later, but even if you don’t go out and fight crime, you... I don’t know. Look, I’m sorry. You probably think I’m crazy.”
“Hey, anything’s possible. I mean, here I was thinking you’d call me crazy, right?”
“Anyway, the reason I needed to explain it to you was... damn, you’re just a kid...”
“I’m older than you are, if you want to get technical.”
Anthony smiled. “The Steve Rogers I used to know, the one I knew very well? I loved him. And, he loved me. It’s only fair you know, I guess. We were married. It doesn’t really happen here, it happened in my universe. Men marrying each other.”
“Wait... then, how did they expect the human race to... you know...?”
“Men married women, too. And women married women. It wasn’t the law, it was an option.”
“Oh. Right.” Steve looked somewhat embarrassed. “Of course. ‘Cause... Yeah. I only just got unfrozen, so I'm a little... Forget it.”
“I didn’t meet him when he was as young as you are. He was frozen later. In kind of an accident. And he was... well, perfect. But...” Anthony shoved his hands into his pockets. “I always told him, I’d have loved him anyway. And the physical, you know, perfection, wasn’t what sold me.”
“Was it a lie?”
“No.” Anthony whispered. “You... you are absolutely beautiful. Maybe I’m the only one who sees it. And it’s not fair to you, and I’m sorry, because I’m remembering someone else, and you never asked for any of this. I want you to know, though... my Captain America wasn’t a hero because of the serum. Like I said, I can explain the technology some time—a way you could do what I’ve done. You don’t need to be stronger than average, you don’t even need to be as strong as the average. But I’d stake everything I’ve got on you being a good man. Am I wrong?”
“No, sir. Um, Anthony.”
“I don’t mean to push anything. You can avoid me if you want. If you really want, I can have Pepper find you something outside, something I would never even be involved in. You could forget all about me, and I’d understand. You can meet whoever you would have met if I’d never come to this universe. I just wanted you to know.”
“What if... what if you were who I was supposed to meet? If the serum had worked, and I had been frozen in that accident, and brought back... Maybe that was supposed to happen in this world, too. Maybe this other Tony Stark wasn’t supposed to be killed, maybe I should have been Captain America. Maybe I should have come to the future some other way, or sooner. Maybe I should have saved him. No way of knowing.”
“I guess not.”
“I believe everything you’ve said. Maybe that’s crazy, but... I can’t help it. I trust you. I don’t know if I love you. I mean, I don’t have another you or a history or—But I don’t know that I don’t love you. I don’t know that I couldn’t. I... I think you’re... Maybe later, we can get together and you can explain your technological thing, explain this hero thing, explain the Avengers. Because if I could help people... I’d want that. And then we’ll see, I guess. Maybe you’ll figure out you can’t be happy with me, too. Because you do have all that history.”
“How about... we start as friends?” Anthony held his hand out.
Steve gripped it. “That sounds like a deal.”
---FIN---
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Sequel needs to include female Cap, since it was never covered in this one! :P
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You read my mind, for the sequel does indeed include female Cap.
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I haven't written a sequel strictly about this AU yet, but they do show up in the sequel I do have. But I like them so I might go back to them and write more just in their universe.
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Yay for Tony getting a happy world.
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*grin* Well, he deserves it, doesn't he, poor lamb.
Thanks much!
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Glad you liked it.
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