![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
glasgowsmiles.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
cap_ironman2010-05-01 08:35 pm
(FIC) IM: AA Fic 1/2
Author: GlasgowSmiles
Rating: PG-13
Warning/Spoilers: AU (set in IM: AA universe, but post-high school)
Pairing: Steve/Tony
Word Count: 4,040
Beta: Ellyr_in_Ink
A/N: Okay, the sequel to my first fic is currently in the beta/re-write phase (depending on when I can get lj to post for me), but here's a freshly beta'ed fic set in the Armored Adventures 'verse. Why? Because skimming over an old kink meme, I saw an unfilled request for Steve in the IM:AA universe. What I wrote was too long for comment!fic, and not at all porny. So here 'tis.
Summary: As the World's Worst Title up there suggests, IM: AA-verse Tony and Steve meet.
“I—I don’t know how this works...” A hand went up over at the back of the computer lab, from a blond guy at one of the few occupied stations.
“I’ve got this one.” Tony motioned to his partner on lab duty to sit down, and jogged over to the Student In Distress, weaving past the long tables. The other lab monitor didn’t need to know that Tony found the guy kind of attractive.
Which was stupid, really, so stupid, because he was clearly a jock of the most textbook variety. When guys like that weren’t sucking up to Richie Rich, were usually more interested in hassling the geek. Either way it was the last thing Tony needed, a hot guy he’d have nothing in common with, who more likely than not would knock his teeth in for noticing, thank you very much. It wasn’t that Tony was particularly partial to blonds, or guys with perfect jaw lines, or broad-shouldered, broad-chested types. It just wasn’t fair that this particular guy had all those things, plus these deep blue eyes that were just perfect.
His machine was running fine.
“You should be good. Whatever it was, it was probably a momentary glitch. I mean, you could move down to the next—“
“No.” The guy reddened. “I don’t—I don’t know how this works. At all.”
Oh, lovely. A classic dumb jock. Of course he was hot as hell. Because that was exactly where Tony was, forced to explain computers from the ground up to All-American Football Boy with his azure eyes and slightly ruffled hair that was just a fraction away from being too short, plain white tee shirt stretched tight over what was definitely a very nice body... Tony was starting to wish he’d let someone else take this one. Running through basics was mind-numbing and it was going to be hard enough to keep his mind from wandering to thoughts of whether or not the jeans were as flattering as the tee shirt. The last thing he needed was to form any kind of crush on a guy who couldn’t work a computer.
“O-o-o-kay. Well... I’ll... look at it again. Sports scholarship?” he guessed. Maybe a little snarky, but guys like that usually didn’t notice. They heard the word ‘sports’ and turned it into conversation about how awesome they were.
“No. It’s a...” He was blushing again, maybe even more than earlier. It was adorable, damn him. “It’s a... it’s a government thing. I don’t play. Anything. They’ve been asking me to go out for a couple things. It sure would take a lot of time away from studying, though, and... well... One of my classes they want me to use this thing, and...”
“You’ve never used a computer before? You are telling me you’ve honestly never—Were your parents luddites? Amish?”
“Can you show me how it works or not?”
Tony snorted. “Can I? Please. Fifteen minutes with me and you’ll be a pro. Just try and follow along and I’ll show you the whole thing, inside and out.”
---/-/---
“Wow. You really weren’t kidding. About inside and out.”
Tony shrugged. It had taken more than fifteen minutes, but they were on the floor in the back room, surrounded by pieces of cannibalized old machines, studying one of the retired computers which Tony had just finished taking apart. “I like to be thorough.”
“I just needed to know how to type something and then make that thing, um, so other computers could read it.”
“Word and e-mail?”
“I guess. Steve, by the way.”
“Tony.”
“I know. Your nametag.” Steve reached out and tapped the robot sticker next to Tony’s name.
“Oh, right.” Tony felt warm and slightly dizzy. Also faintly stupid, because of course he was wearing his nametag, and that kind of barely-even-a-touch should not make his throat tighten up or his stomach flip over. At least he was sitting down, so he couldn’t add going weak in the knees to his list of embarrassing reactions. “So you don’t play any sports?”
“No. When I was a kid, I—Well, anyway, stuff was different.” He fidgeted, eyes sliding over to a busted copier in the corner. “And I was kind of sick a lot of the time, so I stayed inside.”
“What are you studying?”
“Art.” Steve smiled. No, smiling was what mere mortals did. Steve transcended ‘smiling’, Steve beamed. Tony was very glad he was sitting, that one was a definite knee-weakener. “But I like some of the other stuff I’m taking, too.”
“Yeah? Which courses?”
“English. And history. I’m... pretty good with history. What about you?”
Tony’s mood sank. Liberal arts, his old foe. Well, his old non-super villain foe. Though really, he should have suspected they wouldn’t have a lot in common academically, just going by how they met. “Science. Mechanical stuff, computers, all that jazz. And math, I’m really good with math. But, ah, not so much the liberal arts. Or the art-arts.”
“Well... if you ever need help with any of them... I mean, you showed me the ropes with the computer,”
“Well, it’s my job.” At least for now. There was still so much legal crap to go through before his money was his, and anyway it gave him something to do.
It was weird, being at college, but he fit in here. He looked like any other freshman, not like a guy who could have gone anywhere if he’d applied himself—or bought MIT a new building. Plus, it was where Pepper was going, so he could hang out with her between classes or tag along to the parties her roommate dragged them to. Nobody knew about his parents’ money, or their deaths, or his struggles with Stane. Nobody knew he was Iron Man. Most people didn’t even know he was a genius. It was really liberating, if eerie.
So Super Hot Steve wasn’t a jerk jock—wasn’t either half of that equation, in fact. He was just a nice guy with a mysterious utter lack of technological know-how.
“Still. It’s kind of embarrassing. I mean, I didn’t know anything. That’s a little more than you usually deal with.”
“No kidding about the 'little'.” Tony deadpanned. “Honest truth, the other day I had to go over to Administration. Someone had magnets all over the tower.”
Steve blinked. “And that’s bad?”
“If you put magnets on the computer tower,” Tony patted the one he’d just gutted. “then the computer doesn’t work anymore.”
“Well, that one certainly won’t.”Steve picked up one of the trailing wires, playing with it idly.
“She will if I tell her to.” Tony smiled down at the exposed cables. “This one needs a new motherboard, but she’s not completely fried. If I come in on my day off I could have her up and running by the weekend. The school bought new ones to replace these, though, so they just sit around getting more and more obsolete. I might take it with me and fix it up. Doubt anyone would notice.”
“Wow. Okay then. That’s... impressive.”
“... No, then Pepper would kill me. Jan’s throwing a party—Jan’s her roommate—and it’s a big freaking deal apparently, so I cannot skip it to ‘play with computers’. Well, eventually I’ll get around to it.” He sighed. “Why do I always wind up going to parties?”
“Is Pepper your girlfriend?”
“No.” Tony said quickly, making a cutting motion through the air. “Uh, I mean, no. Friend. From high school. We’re not—I’m not—She’s really more like a sister, except it’s socially acceptable for me to be her last-minute date to things and we can do the playful flirting thing without it being really weirdly disgusting.”
“Ah.” Steve smiled. Tony’s heart leapt just a little, in the hopes that Steve was glad he didn’t have a girlfriend.
“You could come. I mean, I think it’s one of those things where anyone could just walk in and it would be cool.”
“I don’t know... I haven’t been to a lot of parties. I, uh... It’s complicated. I don’t really...”
“Hey, I get complicated.” Tony laughed. If Steve only knew. “Believe me, I get complicated.”
---/-/---
After Tony’s shift, Steve was still around, and they walked out to the parking lot together.
Steve had a motorcycle.
It was a gearhead’s wet dream, A Harley Davidson XA with what might have been its original olive drab paint job, and when Steve gunned the engine, it purred like a giant mechanical kitten. Perfect.
“You want a lift?” Steve grinned impishly out from under his helmet.
“I have never even gotten to touch one of these. How did you get this baby? They only ever made a thousand of them! You just leave it parked in the student lot?”
“Well... I figure, everything else looks really new and shiny next to it, I don’t think anyone would take it.”
Tony glanced around. ‘New’ and ‘shiny’ were words he normally wouldn’t have applied to most of the student lot’s vehicles—mostly hand-me-down sedans and second-hand Volkswagons.
“No, probably not, because people are morons and they don’t get how sweet this ride is. But she could get dented or scratched or—“
“She’s survived worse.” Steve patted the side of the bike like a cowboy with a favorite horse. “Hop on, you can borrow my helmet.”
On the one hand, Tony was pretty sure it would be a bad idea to reveal the fact that he had a helmet, a very good helmet, inside his bag. On the other hand, with his luck, the best possible outcome would be that they’d be pulled over for Steve’s non-compliance with state motorcycle helmet laws. And there was no way Tony was passing on his one chance, for who knew how many years to come, to ride an XA in that kind of condition. It looked perfect.
“I’ve got one.” Tony very carefully extracted his helmet from his bag, without letting Steve see the armor. “Um, sometimes I... skate. Helmet’s just as good, though.”
“It’s... modern?” Steve raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything else about it.
Tony blushed. Stupid, is what it was, because he was clearly not holding an ordinary helmet of any stripe.
Steve’s helmet was... not streamlined, really. It had a vintage shape to it that matched the bike itself. Unlike the bike, the helmet was blue, with wings painted on the side.
Tony hopped on the back of the bike, wrapped his arms around Steve, and held on. Because it was a safety issue, of course, and not because it might be the one chance he had to have his arms around someone sweet and funny and really, really hot, and probably very straight. And weird, but Tony didn’t mind weird. Like complicated, Tony got weird.
Neither one of them brought up the subject of location, and eventually they wound up outside a pizza place not too far from the campus.
“I forgot to ask you where you wanted to go,” Steve said, leaning the bike on its kickstand and blushing. He blushed a lot for a guy who looked like he had nothing to blush about.
“I can call for a ride from here later. We could grab a bite?”
“I try to, about three times a day.” Steve smirked. “Anyway, this place is close to where I’m living now and it reminds me of home.”
The restaurant promised all the taste of original New York-style pizza, and it wasn’t perfect, but it was pretty darn close at any rate. Tony thought about offering to pay for the whole deal but was afraid that would sound too weird, almost date-like. Or it would lead to the awkward ‘by the way, I’m rich’ conversation, and that would change things. He liked things the way they were. He liked that Steve—sweet, funny, weird, dorky, impossibly hot Steve—seemed to want to be friends with Tony—troubled, boring, very weird, very dorky, underachieving egghead Tony.
This never happened.
Not like this.
Tony really wanted it to stay that way.
After they ate, he gave Steve his number. ‘In case you need help with any other computers’, he’d said, feeling incredibly lame, but it was better than saying ‘in case you want to make out with me sometime’, which would be worse than the wealth thing in terms of radically altering the course of a new friendship.
And probably not in the good way, he figured.
Steve wrote his number out on Tony’s napkin in return. ‘In case you need help with any liberal arts’, he had said, with that grin that was just too earnest to be real, and should have come across as corny and dorky and horrible, but instead just looked right. Weirdly attractive, in a boyish charm sort of way. Wholesome, a quality that Tony hadn’t thought people still really possessed. Even Pepper, who was the closest anyone he knew came to being really good, still lived in the real world; Steve, however, stepped out of some kind of idealized past, where baseball was still America’s drug-free pastime and people had white picket fences. Where people like Obadiah Stane definitely didn’t exist.
It was a tempting world, and Tony wondered if there was room in it for him. If there was some magical portal to Steve-world, and he could step through it, he’d probably do it. Even if he had to give up the family fortune. People in Steve-world would welcome him. They’d have a pie cooling on the windowsill. That was just how things were done there.
The real world—the cooling-pie-free real world—kind of sucked in comparison.
Although apparently Steve-world didn’t have computers and that would have to be a dealbreaker.
---/-/---
Tony blew off the party to hang out with Steve. Steve’s apartment was in fact the Steve-world that Tony had expected it would be. Steve had a record player, not even one of those CD-MP3 rip-your-vinyl-into-digital-format ones you saw, a real honest-to-goodness it-only-plays-records record player.
Steve had books everywhere. Most of them looked brand-new, some paperbacks of classics, a Tolkien boxed set, a big hardbound collection of seven H.G. Wells novels, and a stack of books about art.
Actually, a lot of things in Steve’s apartment looked brand-new, except that they also looked like they came from the past. Not just that he bought vintage-chic things, they looked brand-new, as if nothing save Steve and his motorcycle had existed for more than a year, tops.
There was a lot of art on the walls, and after a while, Tony began to realize that most of it was Steve’s work, some in progress.
There was no pie cooling on the windowsill, but it didn’t really matter. Tony felt comfortable there, anyway.
---/-/---
The ‘by the way, I’m rich’ conversation had to come eventually. When Steve visited Tony’s place, Tony had to explain away the casual ostentation. The techier stuff was his doing, but a lot of it was just... there. Things that had belonged to his parents, or had been bought for him because they were the things that young men of wealth were supposed to have.
He’d have them sent somewhere else, but he didn’t know how much of what he owned, or should have, was really his.
Steve took it in stride, which no one had done since Pepper and Rhodey. Steve took everything in stride—well, okay, he took a while to get the hang of video games, but that wasn’t even as weird as the computer thing. In fact, the only thing Steve didn’t take in stride was Tony’s comic book collection.
Which, granted, was nerdy even by Tony standards. Even Rhodey and Pepper didn’t really know that much about it. They didn’t have any personal interest in them, and anyway, Timely Comics wasn’t even a publisher anymore. If there was anything dorkier than running to the newsstand for the latest issue of whatever, it was meticulously scouring every corner of the Internet to secure every last back issue of an old, out-of-print comic book you never would have heard of if not for your father.
And okay, being rich really came in handy with that one. Some of those issues cost a lot of money.
Steve didn’t remove any of them from their Mylar bags. He just stared at them in total awe. Tony hoped it was good awe. Maybe even fellow enthusiast awe, because there wasn’t really anyone he could geek out with, and wasn’t he trying to look at least a little cool here anyway?
“How old are these?”
“Pretty old. My dad started collecting them when he was a kid. And I kind of inherited them. Just about the only thing I inherited that no one tried to get away from me. I tracked down all the ones he didn’t have. And I’ve got his old Astounding Science Fictions.”
Steve grinned, gently placing the comic he was holding back into its slot in the box. “I used to read that.”
“Used to?” Tony laughed. “What, you outgrew it?”
“No, that’s not—I just... used to.”
“You make it sound like you were there when they were published.”
Steve colored. “Uh... Could you keep a secret?”
“You’re some kind of vampire that doesn’t drink blood or avoid sunlight, and you’ve been studying art since the thirties?”
“I’m being serious. Could you keep a secret?”
“You have no idea.” Tony smirked.
“I was... there. When they were published, and then... for a while, I... Look, it’s complicated,”
“I get complicated, remember? What?”
“I’m attending school on the GI Bill.”
Tony wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say to that. Not just the abrupt topic change, either—his conversations with Pepper had rendered them both immune to abrupt topic changes. Everything he thought of, though, sounded too much like an ignorant privileged kid. He’d heard people talk about whether or not it was in effect when army recruiters swung through the quad; he’d just never paid attention. He only attended the school so he could work in the computer lab, use the shop for his non-top secret projects, and play savior to Pepper’s study group whenever one of her other friends didn’t understand calculus.
In the end, Tony just nodded and hoped it came across as ‘understanding’.
“Well... haven’t you ever wondered why all my cultural references are to Casablanca and The Wizard of Oz?”
“No. They’re pretty well-respected movie classics. Everyone references them.” Although Tony had hoped that-- after the second Oz reference-- that maybe Steve was gay, and was trying to drop hints.
“Or why I don’t even own any music recorded after nineteen forty-three?”
“I thought it was quirky, but...”
“Or why I—I don’t know, why I’m not like anybody else? Why I couldn’t use a computer?!”
“Okay, that one was weird,” Tony allowed. That had been really weird. “Are you seriously telling me you’re from the past?”
“I was missing, presumed dead, in the European Theater—“
“You went missing in a theater?”
“Wow, you really weren’t kidding, history is not your strong suit. In World War II. I lied about my age so I could sign up. Even then they almost didn’t take me... Without the project I don’t think they ever would have. And then...” He frowned, a far-away look coming over him. “I’m not really sure how it happened. It shouldn’t have happened. The last thing I remember was the plane, and then... I woke up in the future. That’s all I know. They did a bunch of tests to prove I was really me, and I was, and they wanted—they wanted to make a big deal out of me. But I never got to finish school, and... And it’s different now.”
All Tony could think to say was ‘I’ll bet’. It didn’t sound too helpful, so he kept quiet.
Steve was lost in thought, one hand skimming over Tony’s comic collection, carefree and boyish replaced by reflective and moody. He picked one out at random, and smiled wistfully. Tony craned his neck to see—Captain America punching Hitler. Steve sighed.
“Everything was so clear-cut back then. When I went into the army it’s ‘cause I knew who I was fighting. I woke up in the future and I don’t get any of it. I guess there are still wars going on and I guess maybe I should go. I don’t really feel like... I don’t know, that it’s the right thing to do anymore. And all the weapons are different. And... I don’t know.”
“I think it’s cool you woke up in the future. Um, the now.”
“Thanks.”
“I mean, when I told you I get complicated... well, you’re not the only one with a secret he can’t tell a lot of people.”
“What’s yours?”
Tony smiled. “Well, as if the comic book collection wasn’t bad enough...”
“It’s a little embarrassing, maybe, but it’s not on par with being from the past.”
He got out the helmet. “This. Remember when I rode on the back of your motorcycle? Well... it isn’t actually for biking. Or rollerblading. Or whatever I made up. It’s part of this...”
He pulled out the rest of the armor, laying it out, giving an affectionate buff to a couple of spots, testing the flexibility of the joint at one hip and the small plates that formed most of the torso.
“You’re going to have to elaborate on what ‘this’ is, ‘cause I’ve never seen anything like... well, this.”
“It’s Iron Man. I mean, it isn’t Iron Man, I am. Well, we both are. When I wear it, I’m a superhero. I haven’t needed to suit up as often here, but for a while it was like I couldn’t go a week without being attacked by some kind of super villain.” He rolled his eyes. “A couple of times I’ve put it on just because I like being Iron Man. It can fly.”
“You can fly?” Steve’s eyes widened. “That’s a lot cooler than the motorcycle.”
“It is pretty cool.” Tony admitted. Even though Steve’s motorcycle was pretty sexy. “Do you... do you wanna see?”
“Yeah. Yeah!”
“Come on. We can go up to the roof.” He grinned. “And if you really want, I’ll take you for a quick spin.”
Once they were on the roof, armor on, Steve was game, wrapping an arm around Tony and displaying only the slightest case of nerves when they took off. Tony couldn’t swoop around quite as acrobatically as being passenger-free allowed, but he was still able to do some impressive flying. He still had Steve pressed up against one side. It was too bad he couldn’t feel anything through the armor—pressure, sure, but it wasn’t the same as really feeling him, the solid muscular weight and warmth. Not like when he was on the back of the motorcycle.
They were flying, however, and flying was way cooler than speeding along on even the nicest vintage bike. Steve let out a whoop of pure joy at one point. When Tony set them back down on the roof, he was laughing.
“Awesome, yeah?”
“Definitely. Wow. I’ve never been—I’ve never done anything like that! That was amazing... And you use it to help people?”
Tony nodded. “The most trouble I’ve gotten into since college was probably on New Years’, but I stopped a car accident pretty recently. I haven’t seen the Mandarin in a while, though. That’s probably a good thing...”
“Super villain?” Steve guessed.
“Yeah. He was kind of my arch nemesis in high school. I hope he’s not causing trouble someplace I’m not. Well, I could always look for super villains on my spring break.”
“I could come with.” Steve was smiling, and there was something behind it that suggested he was not just an eager twenty year old guy who thought it might be cool. “It’s not all technologically advanced, but next time you come over to my place, I could show you my suit.”
Tony’s heart skipped a beat. “You’re a hero? I mean, duh, but, wait, you’re a superhero?”
“I don’t know how super I am...” Steve blushed. “But it’s got a cowl. And... um... I think you’ll like it.”
--TBC--
no subject
Hee, yes, Palatino is the best font. I mean, I also like Courier a lot... Wow, okay, I feel like a super nerd now, ranking fonts. But I really love Palatino, and I really hate Calibri. I'm always having to switch over whenever I start a new Word doc... I'll restrain myself from forming a top ten fonts list or anything.
no subject
I'm a nerd, and darn proud of it.