(FIC) Mouths of Madness ch.4

[glasgowsmiles.livejournal.com]

Title: Mouths of Madness ch.4
Author: GlasgowSmiles
Rating: R
Warning/Spoilers: AU (multiverse)
Pairing:  Steves/Tonys (and Steve/Natasha, and eventually a touch of Stephanie/Tony...)
Word Count: 1,236
Beta: The fantastic ellyr_in_ink and any mistakes are mine
A/N: The promised sequel to 'You Were Made For Me'
Summary: Hey, remember how Anthony shows up with a dire warning and then it's practically a romantic freakin' comedy and nobody fights any aliens? Yeah, I didn't forget about that. This time there's action.

The very shortest chapter in which I am evil, then nice, then evil again.

CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE

Steve still hadn’t found his universe’s designated waiting area, and since he’d seen a Jessica Jones—who by either codename would have come after ‘I’—roaming the hallways, that meant Tony had to be waiting for him. Unless he was also lost, and wouldn’t that just be dandy?

Then he heard a woman sobbing and he stopped. Tony would wait—he’d understand. Steve followed the sound until he found the female Captain America he’d been fighting alongside. Actually, she might have been the other one, there were two. Still, it was one of them. One of him.

“Miss? Er, Captain?”

She looked up, eyes red-rimmed, mouth falling open either in surprise or to bring forth an explanation that never came.

“... Stephanie?” He guessed, sitting down on the floor next to her. He picked at the dark red carpet awkwardly. Steve had never known exactly what to do with crying women, and the fact that the crying woman in question was essentially him might have made the whole thing worse, not better.

She slumped against the wall, her face half-hidden by a small credenza. “He didn’t come back to the room. I didn’t know how long it would take, but then... He didn’t make it back. Tony. He proposed to me... and then he didn’t make it back.”

Steve’s stomach rolled over. His own Tony was safe; they had made the walk back to the mansion together. He repeated it in his mind a few times until the rising sick feeling dissipated, but he still felt awful. He could see her hand wrapped around the leg of the credenza, her knuckles white, and he focused on that instead of her face. He didn’t want to see her face.

“I’m sorry.”

“The first time he asked me out, I turned him down...” She sniffled, wiped at her eyes. It was a hasty scrubbing motion, not at all feminine. “Can you believe that? I did sort of want to say yes to him. Of course I did. Some of the gals had warned me off him, and I mean, I don’t normally take that kind of talk too serious. Women get catty and awful sometimes; I never understood ‘em and I am one. I wasn’t used to fellas making me nervous, though, and he did. Besides, he talked like he knew me and I was so sure he didn’t.”

Steve didn’t know what to say. He put an arm around her shoulders.

She laughed, and it was a half-bitter sound. “He had to start over as Iron Man... I guess I’ll always wonder now if he forgot that he wasn’t supposed to know me as well as he did. Well, of course once I found out... Once I knew who he was, it was different, I guess. We dated for a while. We were serious about each other, but settling down never entered into it. We were too much a part of something bigger; we both knew it. Then this morning, he—he proposes to me. It was beautiful. It was everything I would’ve dreamed about if I was ever a normal girl, I guess. A lot of things I did dream about. Everything was going to be perfect. He... he must have been—he must have been right there, when that big hole in everything just—just exploded, and—“

Steve shuddered and held her tighter. The explosion that knocked Tony, his Tony, out of the sky. How close were they to being in the same boat?

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

“We would’ve been married...”

It would have been a lovely wedding, that he was sure of. Her Tony would have spared no expense in making it that way. Steve wasn’t sure what he would have wanted in that universe where he was a woman. Probably a simple, tasteful wedding dress, something like what a girl would have been married in back in the forties. He still liked the lines. A live band, all their friends...

Swap the dress out for a nice suit—a tux, it would have to be a tux, not like they couldn’t afford anything they wanted—and it wasn’t so different from what he wanted in his universe, except they couldn’t really get married, not legally. Still, it wouldn’t be a comfort, saying he’d never marry his Tony, either, because his Tony was still alive. He would still get to go home to him, make love to him, wake up next to him every morning, and she wouldn’t.

“So sorry...” He shook his head. “I’m so, so sorry...”

“You’re together, aren’t you? With yours? You have to be.”

He nodded. “We haven’t been for very long, barely more than a month now, but I know... I know enough to say I don’t know how I’d make it if I was in your shoes. I... I don’t know.”

“You’d make it.” The familiar distorted voice. “And you’ll make it.”

Steve watched as Tony—definitely his Tony—leaned forward to help the teary-eyed girl to her feet.

“I can’t imagine the kind of gumption you had to have had to do everything you did, and as a young girl. You’ll be strong enough. Never forget that. You’re the strong one.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think I am. Y—you’re so much like...”

“Sorry. I didn’t think—I was just... I came looking for Steve.”

“I couldn’t find our area.”

“Figured.” Tony reached out and touched his arm lightly. “I’ll show you where it is.”

“Will you be all right?” Steve asked his female counterpart.

She nodded. “Go on. I’ll be fine. You heard the man, we’re the strong one.” She forced a smile.

“Let your friends take care of you.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “You don’t have to be the strong one all alone.”

He let Tony drag him back to their waiting area after that. Everyone else was already assembled, and their entrance caused more than a few raised eyebrows.

“Having fun?”

“Not yet,” Tony said briskly. “Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?”

Steve went scarlet. “Got lost.”

Tony made sure they were in the first group to transport home.

The place was still standing. Maybe if they’d really searched, they would have found something broken or misplaced, but everything looked like it had when they’d transported out. It was funny how good it felt to be back, when Natasha’s mansion was almost the same as theirs.

Almost the same, but not quite.

Tony had missed his paintings, and the way their living room didn’t smell like fruity candles—was fig-blackberry even a thing?—and he’d even missed the ugly chair that didn’t go with anything in the living room. It was only there because no one was willing to piss off Logan by throwing it out, but now Tony knew he’d miss it if it were gone.

Steve looked more relaxed as well, his hand skimming across the back of the sofa, the linen wallpaper, the edge of a gilt picture frame.

“So... want to have fun?” Tony asked, leaning one hip on a console table and stopping Steve’s progress around the room.

Steve nodded dumbly. Boy did he ever, and Tony Stark’s low whisper wasn’t exactly hurting matters.

Tony chuckled—and that didn’t hurt matters, either—and slipped his hand into Steve’s, tugging him gently along. “Excellent. I’m giving us the weekend off.”

---tbc---