Archive of Our Own ^beta

The call from Steve came as a surprise, as did his rushed tones. “Tony? Can you get down here? There is a situation.” He drew out the word “situation”. It was good to hear his familiar voice, young and unmistakably Steve again, but it was still strange to hear it. His return to the mantle of Captain America was a recent development - perhaps the one good thing that had come out of the mess SHIELD had made of that Pleasant Hill debacle.

And yet - there was something urgent in the tone, in the way Steve drew out that last word. Or maybe it seemed like it to him, because recently Tony hadn’t really been on Steve’s shortlist of people to call in a sticky situation…. Any situation really.

Things had been strained.

Tony didn’t even make up his mind before the words “Of course, tell me where to be” were already out of his mouth. FRIDAY was reacting to his unspoken command and brought up the armor instantly. In a second he was ready to go.

Steve went silent and the silence just hung there in the air between Tony and the invisible speakers. The silence put him on edge more than the words.

His thoughts were already jumping to all the possible conclusions - Steve is under attack, Steve thought better of this and doesn’t want you there, other heroes already jumped in… - “Tony?” Steve asked. “We found some leftover from the incursions. I think you should be here.”

His throat tightened. There were too many bad memories tied in with that and none of this boded well. He had hoped the incursion problems were behind them, had hoped he would never think of all the things that had happened, that he had done.

“Is it bad?” he asked, his thoughts already running equations. How likely was it that the incursions hadn’t stopped after all and they were all still running towards extinction? Had Steve called him to show him how badly he had miscalculated yet again? Or had Steve uncovered something that would just break open all the conflicts once more? Tony remembered how driven he’d been by desperation, how driven by the need to find a solution - and how it had pitted him against Steve, again and again.

“I… No. I just think you should be here. You’ll see why. You’ll want to see it.”

With how tense things were between them, he wasn’t sure what to do with that. But rift or not, he was going to be there. Then Steve said: “I think you should be here.” He added coordinates, mentioned the helicarrier. There was noise in the background and people were talking.

None of it sounded like fighting.

Whatever it was had SHIELD agents in turmoil though.

“What should I prepare myself for?” Tony asked, the armor already closing around him. “Why do you need me? Is this something Beast could...”

They were both Avengers - whatever their current team affiliations - and Tony was ready to follow Steve to the end of the earth if it meant keeping anyone safe, but he wasn’t exactly ready to see the same scowl on a newly rejuvenated Steve’s face that he’d seen too often on an old man’s face in recent memory.

“No,” Steve said, “no, this isn’t like that. It’s… less world ending. I really need someone here with me, who… Come over, Tony. I’ll explain everything when you’re here.”

“On my way,” he promised and was up in the air in seconds. He wasn’t going to complain when Steve was really sure he wanted to work with him. It was a nice change of pace.They had talked without the lingering uneasy tension after Pleasant Hill, but things had been in chaos around them. They had talked a few times before that too, and things had seemed…. Better.

“Board meeting at five,” FRIDAY reminded him the minute he left Manhattan behind.

“Do they really need me there?”

“Yes,” FRIDAY said. “It’s your name on the company. Take an interest.”

Lately, he’d had found he had reason to doubt it more than ever. Stark used to be his father’s name and he’d been good at stepping up and proving to the world that he could do what the son of Howard Stark needed to do. He’d made Stark Industries his own in the process, had lost and built up again, the name Stark part of everything he’d built. Everything but Iron Man maybe. But that had been before he’d found out that he hadn’t only struggled with a legacy, but that there was a true legacy he had never even known about - and the name Stark had nothing to do with it.

Identity had become something he’d struggled with more than in the days when Iron Man and Tony Stark had supposedly been different people. Nobody but Rhodey had been around lately to appreciate the irony.

He shook the insecurities away, while the armor gave him the current location of the SHIELD helicarrier. Iron Man was the one who was needed. And he was really looking forward to seeing Steve again. He hadn’t yet had time to see Steve in his younger body outside of a crisis situation, and he really looked forward to it even if this was another crisis.

As he plotted a course towards the Helicarrier, he wondered what it was doing miles out over the ocean, making his way back towards home shores. What had SHIELD been looking for out there? He considered checking in with Maria, before making contact, but then Steve was on the Helicarrier and had called him in and Maria’s hold over SHIELD was not the best these days. And for good reason. Tony hated to think how easily that little conscious shard of cosmic cube had made him believe he was nothing more than a mechanic in a little happy town full of supervillains who had been forced into the joys of a simple life.

It had given them the old Captain America back, though, and he wasn’t going to complain about that.

He hadn’t thought any less of Steve when his body had been aged. He had still been Steve to him, but it had been hard to watch Steve struggle with his frailer aged body, even when they had been fighting.

Before he closed in on the Helicarrier he sent a message to make sure they knew he was coming. By the time he got ready to land he could easily pick out Steve, stepping out to greet him. He came down heavily beside him, straightening up immediately. “Cap,” he said and nodded.

“Iron Man,” Steve greeted and looked at the armor as if he was already considering the pros and cons of having him here. “It’s good to see you.”

Tony took in the slight changes to the uniform, filed away the changed shape of the shield for later inspection and made a mental note to ask Steve how well he was doing handling an unbalanced thing like that. He must be missing the vibranium sphere.

He opened the visor to get a better look at Steve. “Alright, Steve, here I am. You said this was about… incursions.”

Steve nearly grimaced, then held himself straight. “More like a leftover present from another universe. I can only imagine it came through when one of the incursions were in progress.”

“Present? Presents from other universes that involve us are never a good thing.”

It did nothing to put his suddenly spiking fears to rest when Steve shrugged as if there was nothing to be done about it. Something about this made Steve nervous - and that had Tony’s nerves on edge immediately.

“You said it wasn’t bad.”

“Well, I don’t think…. Come with me. It’s easier to just show you.”

He put down the faceplate of the mask as soon as Steve’s back was turned to him. None of the SHIELD personnel they passed were giving them a second glance as they strode through the corridors. Steve led him to one of the labs and a few scientists were busy putting up new equipment. Tony only saw the big chunk of ice when they had completely stepped into the room. “What is…?” he started and that was when FRIDAY made sense of the readings.

“This is what I wanted to show you,” Steve said and his voice was suddenly tight.

6' 2", 220 lbs, male. FRIDAY provided.

Vibranium shield. Dimensions: …

He knew the dimensions by heart.

And so did Steve, even though he wasn’t wielding that particular model these days. Sam had that one.

God.

“Another you?” he asked and was glad that the slight breathlessness in his voice was masked by the armor. His own experiences with other dimensional versions of himself weren’t good. There was still at least one crazed Tony Stark slumbering in a pod in a secret lab that only he knew the exact location of. But he could imagine what it was doing to Steve to see another Captain America frozen, perhaps never uncovered by his Avengers….

Steve shook his head and he looked tense. “Look closer, Tony.”

He stared at Steve not sure what he wanted him to see, then moved towards the ice, touched a heavily armored hand to it and swished away some of the melting surface. Then he froze.

It…

It couldn’t be.

“That’s not you,” he said, taking in the dark mustache and the little details he could barely make out of the face’s bone structure. “It’s not… you.”

“No,” Steve said tightly. “We ran a check as soon as we figured that out.”

“Check?”

“We were trying to get vital signs,” Steve said. He made a long pause before saying: “It’s you.”

“Me?” Inside the armor he gasped. In what world would I be Captain America?

“It was confirmed minutes before I asked you to come.”

“Me?” he repeated, because there had to be some mistake. But just as he was thinking it his own AI said: “Identity confirmed. Anthony Edward Stark. DNA near match.” He nearly groaned.

“It’s you, Tony. Another you. Another Captain America.” Steve sounded calm, but he too looked nervous. “He’s… By our estimation he’s been frozen for nearly 70 years.”

“Good god,” Tony muttered. And here I was thinking I had it bad.

They were standing really close to the ice now and with the knowledge, it was easy to recognize himself, despite the mask, despite the ice. Despite everything.

“It’s just one of these days, huh?” He looked over at Steve, hoping to see some humour, because he was going to freak out if nobody lightened the mood a bit. What if this is an evil me situation all over again? Who else would be a crazed Captain America but me?

He shrugged. “We haven’t figured out where he came from yet.”

And Tony had the sinking suspicion that they couldn’t even be sure that the place existed any longer. The universes had collapsed in on each other and had been pushed apart again. That he couldn’t remembered clearly how they had made it happen, still gave him nightmares sometimes.

“So what now?” We can’t send him back right away… and we can’t…” He gestured to the ice.

Steve’s brow furrowed and he agreed without thinking. “No, we can’t. I can’t. Nobody should… be frozen forever.”

His hand landed on Steve’s shoulder, just hard enough to be felt, to ground him. “This can’t be easy for you,” he said. “Must bring up memories.”

Captain America didn’t shudder. He didn’t give away his own level of discomfort through body language. Not in a room full of SHIELD agents and with security cameras watching his every move. It hadn’t always been like that. Steve had been more open in the beginning. “Not the good ones,” Steve finally admitted. He did not shove away his hand.

“Thanks for… bringing me in. I would have died of shock if you had just introduced him to me one day. I’m sure he’s more handsome than me too.”

Steve huffed. “It’s not about that. I wanted you here, because you… You were there for me when I woke up. I’ll always remember that.”

“Remember what? That you threw a shield at me and called me a Hydra automaton?”

Steve chuckled suddenly. Right now Tony failed to see what was so amusing about remembering the first frantic breaths he had taken in a new age. “I called you that,” he agreed. “You were there. You took me in, Tony. Back then I may not have known it, but I’ll never forget. I would have gone crazy without Iron Man. It meant a lot that you were there for me in both of your identities. I’ll never forget.”

He blinked. Under the circumstances he had been prepared for a tense reunion. This sounded… This sounded like Steve was reaching out. And that came unexpectedly.

Trying to convey his gratitude he squeezed the man’s shoulder lightly and said: “I’ll never forget the day we found you either.” Then he looked back at the man in the ice.

Another him.

Another him who was also Captain America.

He could not wrap his head around that.

“Are we going to wake him up then? I can’t wait to hear how he ended up under that cowl.”

“You and me both,” Steve said and grinned tightly. “He must be from a very different world.”

“Indeed.”

A world so strange Tony could never have dreamed it up.

“It’s going to be a slow process,” Steve warned. “When you found me I was already half unfrozen. I hope you can stay?”

“I’ll stay.” In the face of Steve wanting him here and another Tony Stark in the ice, board meetings and business considerations didn’t seem all that important.

He woke slowly and muted sounds wrapped like a veil around him. He thought he heard water, rushing sounds like waves. His hands were cold and he felt like his mind was screaming at him to move, to get away and seek shelter, but he couldn’t move.

He drifted off, sure that only death was waiting in the blackness.

When he woke again, he realized that the rushing sound of ocean and waves were his ringing ears. There were other sounds beyond that and if he strained himself he could hear voices, but he remained unable to open his eyes.

His muscles hurt, like he’d strained himself too much. His muscles hadn’t been sore once since he’d been enhanced with the serum, but he remembered what it had been like. This was like before.

“I think he’s waking up,” a male voice said.

“Vital signs are stable, sir,” a female voice added.

It seemed important. Like something he should try and understand, but it took too much effort.

He drifted off again.

When he finally woke, able to blink his eyes open, he was looking up at a dark gray ceiling. Metal, he thought, and his first assumption was airplane, but then he remembered the explosion. Remembered their location at the time... His fingers were cold and numb. Ship, he thought. Must be a ship. They must have pulled you from the water, Tony. Pepper must have come for you.

Feeling the weight of eyes on him, he rolled his head to the side. He realized he was still wearing his slightly torn Captain America uniform, but the cowl had been pulled back from his face and that made him uneasy. A woman in a lab coat was standing no more than two feet away, reading on what looked like a strange metal chart.

“He’s awake,” someone else said and Tony’s eyes snapped up. Something about the tone had him on edge and when he looked over he saw a red and gold metal humanoid, looking down at him, standing too close for comfort to the slab he was lying on.

Hydra, was the first thought that shot through his mind - his body. All in one motion he sat up, his eyes jumping to the familiar, red, silver and blue surface of his beloved shield. He’d crafted it himself not a year ago, replacing the original one his father had provided him with.

He dove for it, feeling better the moment his fingers closed around it, the leather of the uniform and gauntlets creaking as if movement was a strain. The leather felt thick and hard. It usually wasn’t this stiff. “What kind of sick Hydra weapon are you?” he asked.

The woman in the labcoat shrieked, surprised, and jumped to the side, hiding behind the metal man. He had only a short glimpse of her surprised face and Asian features. It gave him pause.

“Ah,” the machine said and cocked its expressionless head to the side.

Tony froze. It was too good. It moved too well. Sounded too human.

And the colors....

“I’m still asleep,” he said and couldn’t draw his eyes away from the robot. “You look like the drawing I made… When I was 12. Just… So much more advanced. This is… impossible.”

The robot stood frozen, stared at him. Tony gripped his shield tighter. He was crouching in a defensive position and his nerves were still on edge. His whole body was poised to strike and he had not yet enough of a handle of the situation to let his guard down.

But how would Hydra be aware of a drawing he had made as a kid, of the fancy ideas of building… one day building a machine that would make his father proud?

For the first time he noticed the light, the lamps, the sleekness of the room, the oversized eagle design on the wall and rows and rows of monitors to the side, blinking and… His mouth fell open at the sight. It wasn’t… It wasn’t possible for any foreign power to have equipment this advanced.

“I told you we should have called in Jan,” the machine said. “She was much better at this part.”

“I called you in, because you were good with me,” the male voice, the one he’d heard when he had still been out of it, said.

Tony’s eyes were drawn to the man who had spoken from somewhere closer to the second entrance to the room. And the sight that greeted him there was the final straw. He froze up completely, gaping. “Who the hell do you think you are?” he asked, threatening, taking in every detail of the sleek blue uniform with the cowl with an A on the forehead that mirrored his own even with all the other minor differences visible in the design.

The man had his arms folded in front of his chest, presenting calm. A triangular badge-shaped shield was leaning against his leg, shaped just like the bulletproof one Howard Stark had given Tony before he’d made his own from a lump of Vibranium given to him by the king of Wakanda himself.

“Good morning, Cap,” the machine said. “You’ve been sleeping for a while.”

“Sleeping?” He was proud that none of the agitation he was feeling seeped into his voice. His mind was busy processing all the facts.

Future.

This is the future.

“I fell into the water. What happened to Rhodey?”

“Rhodey?” the machine asked and turned further towards him. “Rhodey was with you?”

“Iron Man,” the other man cautioned. He held himself in a way that Tony found calming in its familiarity. Tony held himself like that when he was with a bunch of soldiers, who needed a leader.

“Iron Man?” he whispered under his breath. “How the hell can you…? How can you possibly be Iron Man? You were just a story I made up as a kid.”

The robot turned its blank face back to him and he ate up every detail - the shiny finish of the surface, the immovable facelike features, the effortless way the joints moved. His eyes must have given away some of the longing that was suddenly welling up inside of him, from a time long before he’d taken up the shield, long before his veteran father had pushed him towards army and military duty and away from stacks of pulps and phantastic stories allowing him to dream of a better future.

“This is a sick Hydra trick, isn’t it? You can’t possibly be real. This isn’t really the future. I’m not awake.”

He hadn’t even thought about the fact that he was still crouching, until the metal man - not moving closer, not advancing on him at all - crouched down, too, to be on eyelevel with him. “It’s hard to believe right now. This is a lot to take in. This is not a Hydra trick. And it is the future. Just... “ he said and looked at the Captain America impostor by the door as if he was waiting for orders. The man nodded slowly. “See,” he continued. “This is the year 2017. We are on a SHIELD helicarrier on our way back to New York.”

“2017,” he mouthed. His brain had all the numbers ready for him in an instant. He sagged back, let his back fall against the wall. “How did I…? How can this…?” He scrunched his eyes shut. His fingers were keeping a hold of the shield. “Did Rhodey make it? Did he…? He lived. Tell me he lived.”

The automaton was looking at the man at the door again then back to him.

“Tony,” the man said carefully and he knew his own eyes snapped up at him again like that one word hanging in the air was all that mattered suddenly.

“My identity is top secret,” he said on edge again, voice going back to calm and cautious. This might still be a trick. A trap.

“As was mine, once upon a time,” the man said and came to stand by the Iron Man. “You’re Tony Stark. You’re Captain America. And all of this must be a lot to take in.”

“Steve,” the Iron Man cautioned.

“But you are Captain America and so am I. You have to believe us that we are not trying to trick you here.”

“Captain America,” he repeated and had no idea how to feel about the fact that someone else had taken on his mantle. “So you are my… successor.”

The machine made a choked sound. It sounded incredibly human.

“No,” the man shook his head. “My name is Steve Rogers. During World War II I joined project Rebirth. I was given the super-soldier serum in 1941.”

He stared cautiously. “This is a way to extract information from me? Then it won’t work. I’ll find a way to wake up. This is all in my head.”

The Iron Man - his Iron Man - came to his feet, put a cautioning hand on the shoulder of the other Captain America. “It’s a lot to take in. You’re doing well so far. When Steve woke up he thought I was a Hydra killer robot and tried to slug me with his shield.”

“Steve” stared at Iron Man, but did not interrupt.

“He went through what you are going through now and…”

“Don’t tell me there were two of us? Did they… did he not even trust me enough to not have a better Cap in the works before I even had a chance to fail?”

Both man and machine stared at him.

“It would be very like my father.” He nodded to himself. It still didn’t make sense to him how this could be anything but a dream, but this at least was something that he wouldn’t put past Howard.

“Ah,” the Iron Man said and again he sounded just a little too human. “Ah, yes, it would be, wouldn’t it?”

“Tony,” the man beside Iron Man said and Tony was of a mind to use his own Captain America voice and tell him to call him Captain America or Mr. Stark. But then, the man was looking at Iron Man and not him.

Perhaps it was time for a new strategy. He could make it past them and get off this ship… He could figure out what ploy had…

“See,” Iron Man said and he reached up a hand towards his head. “I get that. Overbearing fathers and waking Captains… Been there and done all that. And don’t get me started on doodling Iron Man schematics all over the tablecloths in the mansion. Jarvis will never let me hear the end of that one.”

“Jarvis?” he asked and swallowed thickly. “How can you know…?” God, the man must be dead by now. Howard… Pepper… Everyone must be dead by now.

2017.

If this was indeed 2017...

His vision blurred with sudden grief.

“Yes, he always cared for us, didn’t he?” Iron Man said, while the other man sharply said: “Tony” again.

And then Tony understood why. The machine pulled on its head and instead of a robotic construct, away came a helmet to reveal a living breathing man underneath. A living breathing man with a familiar face.

“Hello, Tony Stark. Welcome to Earth 616. Which is a stupid name so forget about it again right this instant..”

The man looked like an exact copy of him. Instead of a mustache he wore a neatly trimmed Van Dyke, but apart from that they could be twins. Maybe his own jawline was stronger and the other man’s cheekbones higher...

“You are…”

“I know this is probably worse than meeting another Captain America, but, yes, I’m Tony Stark. If it helps, nobody gave me anything in 1941, because I hadn’t been born yet. Here that was all him.” He waved his hand in a flash of red and gold towards the other Captain America. “There is a very long story behind how you came to be here and I’m not sure you want to hear the whole thing right now. But you must have questions.”

His throat was very dry, as he thought of all the science fiction stories he had read as a boy and hidden beneath his bed so his father wouldn’t find them. “I want to hear everything about it,” he said and stared at the face that was so much like his own, at the armored suit that looked like the robot he’d thought about when he was younger, when building things had been the only future he could see for himself. “Every little detail.”

The other him smiled in his direction then lopsidedly smiled at the Captain America at his side, too. “He’s good.”

“We will give you everything,” Steve Rogers promised and crouched down with both of them holding out a hand to help Tony to his feet.

Tony held himself to the back of the conference room and watched Steve and Sharon take charge. There were many things he wanted to ask and explain, but right now he tried to remember that Steve had called him in and that was the reason he was here. Steve wanted him involved for now and he was not going to make him regret the decision.

Captain Stark – Tony had to really think about how he was going to refer to his counterpart from here on out, because Tony and Captain America where both names that would only make things more confusing in the long run.

He looked out over New York's harbor area as the Hellicarrier moved into its final position until the next crisis would call it away again.

Maria Hill must be in a lot of trouble if she needed Sharon to take charge for her on a multiverse breach related mission. Tony hadn’t followed up on the state of SHIELD after the Pleasant Hill disaster, but he couldn’t imagine anyone being too happy with how that had been handled. After all there was a little shard of cosmic cube, conscious and at large now. But it had given Steve back the serum.

Their newest Captain America seemed to be taking the news well. Better than could have been expected, as Steve went calmly through a recap of the data they'd been following when they'd found him.

“Incursions?” The other Tony looked over his shoulder at him. Every time his eyes found Tony in the room he took in the armor and then stared a bit. Tony understood the longing wasn't envy exactly, but perhaps something more powerful. After all he was looking at a man with Steve's broad shoulders and his own face, wearing the Captain America uniform like a second skin. It reminded Tony of games he had played when he'd been small, running around with Captain America and Bucky action figures, or building himself a shield out of whatever convenient material he'd been able to get his hands on. His father – Howard Stark - had watched from a distance and not said a word. But his mother had run and laughed with him sometimes, playing whatever friend or foe that was needed. “Does my little Captain America want a muffin?” Even now he had to smile remembering her voice.

Nobody could have imagined then that he would one day be standing among the greatest heroes earth had ever seen, and beside the actual Captain America too.

What would his mother have said if she could have seen the other Captain America sitting there, his cowl pulled back from his face, sitting in front of Steve and answering questions. It was so strange to look at himself and see a man with a neat little mustache that reminded Tony more of his father than anything else.

“There is a chance that during the incursions your universe was…” Sharon, bless her, faltered. Then she shot Tony Stark - the one she knew - a scathing look.

“Destroyed,” the other Tony said and he sounded calm, but his eyes were sad. Steve was watching him closely and Tony could only guess what he was seeing when he looked at Tony Stark in a Captain America suit mourning the loss of the world he knew.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said and he didn’t take his eyes away from the other Tony. “I’m sorry, Tony. We don’t know yet. We don’t know anything yet. We just want you to be aware of what’s going on.”

Finally the other Tony looked over at him and Steve turned his face at the same time, following his gaze. “What happens now? Where am I supposed to go?”

Tony had already been thinking about that while he’d watched the whole debrief.

Sharon cleared her throat and suggested: “We can make room for you here at SHIELD. You could...”

It was a terrible idea. Tony shook his head, but Sharon couldn’t see it. But both Captains were looking at him, unwavering and waiting. “There’s always a place for a Captain America at my house.”

“That a good idea?” Steve asked, voice deceptively soft. “He’s also you.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “This isn’t the kind of Doctor Who time travel where the world implodes when I touch his hand. We are not the same person, Steve.”

“Would that work? Us living in the same place? Wouldn’t it be confusing?” At least Captain America junior sounded like he wasn’t outright against the idea.

“Yes,” Sharon agreed, but Tony only realized she wasn’t agreeing with the new Captain America, but with the old one, when she added: “After all, nobody would think Tony Stark is Captain America material.”

Ouch. He couldn’t really argue with that, but it still stung.

Mr. 40s mustache looked at him and frowned. Then he asked: “I think I’d prefer to stay with him. No offence, ma’am. At least I have a connection with him. I have never heard of you or SHIELD or… him.” He nodded towards Steve.

Tony grinned. So far he didn’t even know he liked the idea himself. Despite what people thought of him at times he wasn’t exactly the biggest fan of himself at the best of times. But this him was also Cap and… he just didn’t like the lost look and the way Steve was watching his every move like he was waiting for the magnitude of being stuck here to hit and tear the man down. Only Steve could even know what it was like to wake up in a strange future with strange people and having to start over.

“You do realize that there is no need to keep your identity secret any longer?” Steve asked him. “You could go with Tony and just tell everyone that there is two of you. It’s not exactly our usual procedure, but people here have come to live with some outrageous stuff happening in the world.”

The Tony’s eyes widened and Tony shrugged: “Welcome to the 21st century, Captain America-Me.”

“We kept our secret identities for a long time,” Steve continued. “As Avengers, we even kept them from each other... You’ll meet the Avengers soon. But it’s not necessary for us to do so anymore. You could… think about it.”

Captain Stark was staring at his gloved hands. “There isn’t even a point in being Captain America anymore, is there? I mean this place has you already.” His eyes swept over the modified uniform and shield. There was some of the doubt there, and god damn it, Tony knew that look that wasn’t at all his own brand of insecurity, but Steve struggling with his own convictions. And Steve saw it too, his eyes suddenly snapping up to stare at Tony, because the two of them were the only two people in the room who remembered Steve’s early days after the ice.

“I don’t know,” Tony said slowly and he did not take his eyes away from his own Captain America. “You you could ask Steve to lend you his Nomad outfit if he still had it and you could team up. Captain America and Nomad has a nice ring to it. Or you could just keep the name.”

Steve made a strangled half noise of disagreement.

“Nomad?”

“Never mind,” Tony said and grinned at their guest, trying to think what a Clark Gable look alike Stark would look like in Steve’s terribly revealing Nomad costume. It would suit him, probably. It had suited Steve.. “Actually there are two Captains right now. The formidable original and Sam Wilson who is no less scary with a shield than Steve hre. He’s the Cap who is on the Avengers team with me. This version of the team anyway. You could join the club. In fact,” he gave Steve a pointed look, “why don’t you make Barnes come back as Cap, too. You could be a Captain America task force. Hydra wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“Tony,” Steve said somewhere between warning and amused exasperation. Or maybe something else. Tony had a feeling he was trying to not give too much of his own thoughts away today.

Their new Captain America laughed, the first real heartfelt laugh that Tony had heard from him since waking up. “A team of Captain Americas? And here I thought there would never be anyone who would be able to replicate the serum.”

Steve shrugged. “Not so far. Not the complete formula.” The Caps shared a look.

“Sam and James are different,” Sharon supplied and for the first time she and Tony were the ones staring at each other amusedly. They had two Captains on their hands now and few people got to deal with Steve in the way the two of them did. “Do you really want to go with Stark for now, Captain? We could help you...”

Sharon didn’t sound sure it was a good idea at all to let Tony babysit a Cap, even if it was a Cap-him.

The other Tony nodded immediately. “No offence, ma’am,” he repeated his words from earlier and Tony wanted to chuckle at the tone that was so much like Steve and nothing like Tony, even though it was his voice saying it. “I’ve… had enough of military bases to last me a lifetime. If I’m not… needed, then...”

“Not right now,” Steve said quickly. “You can think about all this and get used to the idea of… being here, first. I could...”

“We can share custody of Captain America junior,” Tony suggested with a lopsided grin, revelling in the fact that Steve frowned at the joke, but the other Captain laughed again.

“I’m not sure. He could stay here,” Steve pointed out, “if he wanted to.”

“At SHIELD HQ?” Sharon asked and chuckled. Her eyes were shining as brightly as ever even though she was still stuck a few years older than Steve. “I’m beginning to see why this wouldn’t work. He’s Captain America, too, so he’s going to do whatever he wants very soon anyway. And he’s also, you know,...” She nodded in Tony’s direction.

“Me,” Tony beamed. “He’s also me. Born before World War II me.” It sounded more hilarious the more he thought about it.

“He’ll be at the heart of trouble before you know it,” Sharon said - and she too was beaming at Steve now. “And then you can both be Captain America together and not listen to anything I have to say. Or anyone else for that matter. I’m sure Stark will regret having him around soon enough. But I can wash my hands of all of you. I win. Captain Anthony Stark? You have clearance to leave the Helicarrier.”

Steve blinked, looked from Sharon to Tony and then found Captain Stark grin at him like that finally was a part of the joke he was getting and nodded. Tony could see that there were still things he had to say and things he wanted to ask and talk about, but the same was true for all of them.

It seemed funny enough an idea to make him laugh. But somehow the look Steve was throwing him now didn’t seem at all familiar. Something about the… intensity of it seemed all wrong as he looked between them: older and younger Tony, Iron Man and younger Cap.

Huh.

He put the observation away for later investigation.

Captain America - Steve - offered to take him to the place where his alternate universe counterpart lived. “We need to find something for me to wear, though,” he said and then remembered that everyone knew who Captain America was here, that their war was over and even if this were his universe there was no good chance people would be able to make much of figuring out his secret.

“We should, actually,” the other Tony said and he wrinkled his nose in that way he did too. It reminded him of his mother and he had to look away immediately, feeling the heavy, concerned gaze of Captain Rogers on himself. “You are wearing a half ripped, ancient uniform.”

He nodded and tried to face the fact again that there was someone with his own face, a little older, talking a little faster, and trust that he’d arrived in reality, that he wasn’t dreaming.

“We have standard issues SHIELD uniforms,” Steve offered and Tony tried concentrate on him.

“Oh,” his counterpart said. “I’m not sure… Although yeah, why not, I always look good in black. Do you want to wear something else before going out?”

And that was where it got weird. He could mostly handle the other Captain America looking at him with intense interest, but himself looking at him with concern was still a little too much. He called up a grin to hide behind and said: “I don’t really care, but the uniform… It feels creaky and old. I’m not used to it feeling like it’s not made for me.”

“Wait till you discover the joys of Kevlar and ultralight armor,” his… Iron Man said. The man was still wearing the armor and walked around in it as if it didn’t weigh anything, as if it didn’t hinder or annoy him at all and Tony couldn’t stop being impressed by every little detail of it. The advanced technology that must have gone into building it was completely unfathomable to him, but he remembered his own stupid childhood sketches and his father telling him that the time of knights in shining armor was over, that what the world needed was Super-Soldiers, men who were at the peak of human condition, who were better, stronger, faster.

“You’ll like something that doesn’t restrict movement.” Steve nodded and threw a quietly amused smile in the direction of Iron Man, and then he was already walking. “Come along. We can find you something. SHIELD gear should do for now.”

He stood rooted in his tracks and finally decided to meet his own damn gaze head on. He wanted to know more about that Tony, about Iron Man. Perhaps the man and his armor were the one good reason for him to trust what was going on around him, because it was a memory nobody knew about. Unless Hydra had devised a perfidious plan that could draw from your memories. With a shudder he thought of the cosmic cube and its power and then it felt like the ground had fallen away beneath his feet and he was in free fall.

“It’s unreal,” the other man said in a carefully neutral tone as they both stared at Steve Rogers, reaching the corner in his ridiculously sleek and clean Captain America uniform with a triangle shield at his back. “Multiverse and time travel. All in one day. A lot to process. I know one at a time can be a bit too much for some.”

God, he thought, he really is me. What the hell am I going to do with that? He tried to smile, but it felt tired. Like the smile he used to share with Rhodey after a battle. “I stumble over your name, every time I look at you,” he admitted, because he wanted to make this less awkward if it was at all possible. “We are both Tony.”

“Yeah, that will get confusing. I’m sorry, Captain,” he said, “I fear the Captain America moniker here is already confusing enough without another me being under the mask. I may have already filed you as Captain Stark in my head.”

“Works for me, darling,” he drawled and it was meant as a good natured joke, but he then looked away when he realized how that had sounded. Rogers had come to a halt at the end of the hall and was watching both of them. Something about that patient blue gaze and the intensity of his scrutiny was making his heart beat faster. He had seen looks like that before, but maybe less closed off, more open about the interest it hid. And now he was standing between two men who had apparently known each other for decades and wasn’t sure how much of it was interest aimed at him or the other Tony, and how much was observation of the newly arrived multiverse problem.

“Hn,” the other Tony said. “Call me Iron Man, if that’s less confusing.”

“Not sure it is,” he admitted, but this time he actually felt the smile. At least when the other man talked to him he felt it was easier to focus on the reality of the situation. “Everything is confusing to me at the moment.”

“It…” “Iron Man” hesitated, “it will get better. And we might figure out how to get you back to wherever you came from.”

He wanted to believe it was possible. On the other hand, he’d always dreamed of the future: space travel and aliens, advanced technology making life easier. Hadn’t he been amazed at what might be possible soon, even when he’d been on the way to be the world’s first super soldier? He still remembered visiting the world exposition in New York, with Pepper on his arm and Happy at his side. The future had been a wonderful dream of peace and better life to him, even when at the time International exchange had seemed far out of reach.

“Stop dreaming about tomorrow,” his father had said, and his words were still ringing in his ears. “If you want the world to take you seriously, you have to make them respect you today. Believe me, you need the smarts and the vision, but nobody will do business with you, just because you hang with your head in the clouds. Be a man and other men will respect you.”

He followed Rogers and watched as the man took a black heap of fabric from a locker and held it towards him, It was a one piece uniform that looked like it would never fit him. “How are you holding up?” the man asked and watched him as he uncertainly studied the fabric that felt incredibly strange to the touch.

“I’m not sure I have an answer for that.”

“If you need someone to talk… I suppose SHIELD would like to make sure you get evaluated here. It’s standard procedure, especially with people who have seen combat, but what you… what we went through is something that is hard for other people to understand. So, if you need someone to listen to all the questions and all the frustration you’ll face, I’ll be there for you. I went through this. I know it’s not always easy.”

“Thank you,” he said and knew that his voice was close to breaking. “It’s strange. I still can’t believe this is real. I look at you and the costume and shield and I know you are there, but that there is a whole world out there, a whole world with a history I’ve missed....”

“It’s scary.”

He nodded.

Finally Rogers seemed to notice that he was standing there, unsure of how to proceed. He was reluctant to put his shield away. The weight of it kept him grounded. The uniform, creaky and aged and ruined as it was, was his; a last piece connecting him to where he belonged and he didn’t want to give it up...

“I’ll hold it,” Rogers offered holding his hands out for the shield. “I can stand right here and hold it.”

“I’d like… to keep the uniform.”

Understanding flashed across the face of the other Captain America and nodded. He stripped, feeling the other watching him, made sure in turn he picked up every piece of the uniform he had put down.

Tony had stripped in front of men all of his life. First his shot heart had made sure that he had to visit doctor after doctor and he’d exposed himself in front of men and nurses and whoever his father hoped could make him right again. And then he’d joined the army. Even when you had secrets, there wasn’t much room for modesty in the army. Not only among soldiers… As the only one who had gone through Project Rebirth and survived he had been poked and prodded again and again, after every mission, after every small injury. While the doctors before had still bothered with showing the sickly boy some compassion, the army doctors on the project had looked at him with impersonal focus, seeing the experiment they were meant to recreate. Then he had received more permanent marching orders and worked behind enemy lines. With all the horror he had seen there, it had still been a relief to be more than a successful experiment, more than the poster boy.

The man he had stripped in front of then had seen him as a man at least.

Rogers watched him with an expression that was so carefully neutral that Tony was sure he was hiding something.

“It’s strange,” the man said, when their eyes met. “You look like Tony and yet… I’ve seen him strip countless times, but when I look at you it’s like I look at my body with his face… and… it’s eerie.”

“He did not take an enhancing serum, I take it?”

Rogers shook his head, but the corners of his lips curved downwards as if Tony had hit a sore spot head on. “He did experiment on himself more than enough without any help from Super-Soldier programs, but no. He’s… not like us. He’s not a Super-Soldier.”

“On himself?” He had some difficulty slipping into the stretchy fabric and was surprised to find it fit itself to his legs snugly, like it had been made for him. “Do people wear this in combat?” he wondered out loud and moved his arms around as soon as he was fully clad.

“Yes,” Rogers said. “It’s flexible and sturdier than it looks.”

He looked down at his feet, felt like he could do with something that showed off his muscles less, but then shrugged. With all the secrets he’d kept he had just gotten used to hiding things about himself.

Captain Rogers seemed amused. “Agent Stark,” he said.

“Captain America.” He nodded equally amused, and he wasn’t sure himself if he was addressing the other man or if he was implying that he’d passed on his own title. He had no idea what his place here would be. Suddenly nervous, he reached for the shield. Rogers gave it back to him without hesitation.

They walked towards the hangar together and Tony felt quite shaky. People weren’t giving him a second glance, but stared when they noticed him carrying the shield. He tried to ignore it until they had come far enough to see Iron Man standing in the open space of the hangar. Only now did he realize that despite this man being a version of him, despite him being a superhero, he knew nothing about him or the life he lived.

The unknown didn’t scare him. He was used to tackling whatever life threw at him.

And there was a future outside.

He wanted to meet that future.

“It was easier to be thrown into this with my first bad guy to fight,” Steve said. “Gave me something to focus on.”

He shook his head, his eyes already settling on the armor. “You said, we are in New York.”

“Over New York now.”

He nodded and smiled. “Good. I always loved this city. I always felt it would be the city of the future. I just hadn’t imagined that it would come true this way.”

“Excited?” Iron Man asked and he looked friendly enough. Tony could read the little worry lines beneath his eyes though and it actually helped to know that he had Tony’s own tells. The man was nervous too. That made him feel less alone.

He grinned. “Show me the future,” he said.

The other Tony grinned back and he was sure they looked like scary mirror images, but Steve Rogers looked at them with amusement. “I hope you know what you’re asking for from our resident futurist.”

He liked the sound of that. Futurist. “Show me. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

Their eyes met. Then his counterpart pulled down the mask of his helmet and he was looking at the robot-like Iron Man again. Every armor movement was a revelation. The construct of heavy metal and hydraulics lifted into the air like it weighed nothing. His mouth fell open as the man inside the armor had the audacity to salute the both of them, saying: “Captains. I’m sure you’ll try to keep up.” He whizzed out of the hangar without a look back at speed that shouldn’t have been possible.

“He’s so full of himself,” Rogers complained, but he actually sounded fond. “I think he is trying to impress you.”

“Consider me impressed,” he said under his breath.

“Wait till you see our mode of transport.” They walked around what looked like a small war plane, that had Tony impressed already, and then Rogers walked briskly towards a car.

“I thought we’re… up in the air,” Tony wondered. “Will they land to let us off?”

“No chance.” Rogers slipped into the driver’s seat and motioned for him to follow his example. He took in the lines of the sleek red car and smiled a bit when he compared the color to the Iron Man armor in his mind. The seats were incredibly comfortable, but as he let himself fall back he wondered how low he was sitting in this.

“I’ll have to get used to new car designs.”

“You will find that this is classic,” Rogers said and started the motor. “You see, the former director of SHIELD really had a thing for these sports cars. But that is not the incredible thing about them.”

He wondered at the softly purring motor, wondered what driving was like these days and then he realized the were rising. “Flying car?” he gasped. It was the kind of thing that people had talked about the future.

“You look like that excites you more than it scares you.”

He grinned. “You have no idea!”

Rogers zipped them out of the Helicarrier and finally Tony got his first good look at it. It was a massive construction and the thought of how much knowledge and technology must have gone into building this flying colossus quite honestly took his breath away. Then he saw Iron Man, hovering, one leg pulled up next to the construction, and when he wasn’t moving it was easy to mistake him for a robot, very advanced mechanical device in human form. But the moment they came closer, the voice of the Tony Stark inside the armor sounded from what he surmised was the car’s radio and said: “There you are, old man. And I see you brought your new friend. Off to the senior club?” Then he whizzed past them and Rogers pulled the car along, following him easily.

“Very funny,” Rogers said and didn’t move even one face muscle.

Tony grinned, remembering the kind of banter he and Rhodey had often engaged in. Then he remembered his father’s stern face and the mocking voice of a general: “The negro kid is no good for the reels. Can’t he take on another one?”

For at least the hundredth time after waking up he wodnered what had become of Rhodey and Pepper and Happy. What had Jarvis done after he’d vanished? Had his father been proud or disappointed?

Then he realized that he hadn’t yet even spared a look for the marvel that spread out below them. He sat up in his seat, pulling himself up, by putting his hand on the edge of the windshield.

“You from New York?”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Grew up in Manhattan. My father was a Brooklyn man before he made a break for himself. She’s still a beauty.” He let his eyes sweep across all the new tall buildings, across the sparkling glass surfaces. “What’s that?” He pointed to the building Iron Man was heading towards.

Rogers reeled the car around and he was pushed back in his seat, his stomach falling down with the motion - an uncomfortable sensation he had experienced countless times before. The he saw it, the big red letters: STARK.

Iron Man vanished and as he still stared, trying to wrap his head around the name of his father on the side of building, the flying car followed Iron Man’s flight path perfectly and Tony found himself in another hangar.

“Welcome to Stark Tower. Mi casa e su casa. After all we are both Tony Stark.”

When he pushed open the car door, he felt vaguely light headed. “You have a hangar in your… tower?”

“Yes,” he said. “Sometimes it needs to house Quinjets. I usually leave through the workshop. It’s a few floors down.”

He pushed up his shield and in an unconscious attempt to put it on his back pulled it up, but then remembered he was wearing the strange black uniform and no straps to hold it.

Iron Man lifted his mask. His blue familiar eyes were knowing, as if he had seen the motion countless times. “Let’s get you settled.”

He relished the surprise in his guest’s eyes when he led them inside. It was rare enough to meet a multiverse version of yourself and not have it be an immediate disaster and it was even rarer to meet a multiverse version of Tony Stark and learn that he was Captain America. Tony was trying not to be too awed about it, to let himself think about it too hard. Right now he just allowed himself to step back and treat this other Tony like another Captain America - new to the future, confused and in need of something to hold on to.

The hangar door slid away and let them into the tower.

"You have your own landing area inside a skyscraper?" With wide eyes Tony

"Oh," Tony said and tried to keep smugness from his voice. This wasn't about dazzling another Stark, he admonished himself, this was about settling in another Cap. "I... Actually I don't use it that much. I usually leave via the workshop a few levels down."

He saw Captain Stark swallow and give Steve an uncertain look. Steve was trailing after them with the familiarity of someone who had been here a thousand times, and yet was watching the proceedings carefully. Tony wondered what he was waiting for: Captain Stark freaking out at meeting the modern world from inside a Stark building or Tony freaking out at having to deal with another Stark. Admittedly, Tony thought both were distinct possibilities.

He was about to say something more, when FRIDAY appeared to his left, hands on her hips in a motion that was reminiscent of Pepper. "You have 32 missed calls that are labeled important," she informed him. "Your board is not pleased. Your new assistant is even less pleased."

"Ah," he said and remembered that MJ had threatened him just yesterday about leaving him to clean up his own messes if he didn't start to take the company more seriously.

Nobody seemed to understand that he was taking it seriously, but that even for him there were too many fires to put out in a day recently. "I'll apologize," he said flippantly, and was aware of Steve following the whole exchange attentively. But right now it was Captain Stark, mouth hanging open in a the approximation of a perfect round "oh" of surprise, not able to pull his eyes away from FRIDAY.

"Captain Tony Stark," Tony said very slowly. "Meet FRIDAY. FRIDAY," he said and motioned to their guest, "you knew what I was up to for the last few hours. I hope you have prepared a room for our newest resident."

FRIDAY, going from stern caretaker to pleasant host in the instant her code needed to follow up on her protocols, beamed at the other Tony brightly: "It is a pleasure to meet you, Captain. Captain Rogers." The AI's perfectly rendered holographic image nodded at Steve.

Steve choked his own amused chortling just in time, but Tony caught him doing it. "FRIDAY," he said and grinned at him instead of her.

Captain Stark was too entranced by her to notice or care. "You are not really here," he said carefully.

She smiled her serenest smile and Tony admitted to himself that he was proud of giving her that. "It depends entirely on definitions, Captain Stark," she said.

"Is it okay," Tony finally asked, "if we call you that? We have two Caps here already and now two Tonys. It's going to be confusing pretty soon."

With a perfect, if unintentional, flutter of his eyelashes Captain Stark turned to him. "Where is she?"

"She's here," he said and wondered how best to explain the concept of an AI. Steve had already met some sophisticated computers, before Tony had started to give his AIs elaborate interfaces in the form of holographic bodies. "She's... She's an artificial intelligence. A thinking computer program."

"A machine?" the man asked and took a deep breath before he looked at FRIDAY again more closely.

She smiled with a hint of flirtation and Tony wasn't sure if it was in order to congratulate himself for his own genius or pat the poor World War II Stark on the shoulder in encouragement. The man didn't seem fazed though. He took a few steps around FRIDAY and then reached out a hand to watch it flit through her. When her image didn't do anything more than watch him do it, he smiled at her. "Hello," he said.

"Hello, Mr. Stark."

"Mr. Stark is my father," he said in a half-cheerful tone that was 100% Tony. "Call me..." He paused then looked from Cap to Tony and then back at FRIDAY with a charming, old-fashioned Hollywood star smile. “Anthony,” he concluded. “Call me Anthony.”

Tony grimaced a bit. He hated being called by his full name. But then, it was less clunky than to keep calling him “Captain Stark”. "Welcome to the 21st century, Anthony," Tony said, trying it out. It sounded foreign enough to his own ears to make it work. "Stark style."

"What he's saying is that not every household has a FRIDAY," Steve supplied.

"Ah." The man grinned. "It's amazing. She's amazing. A projection?" He walked further around FRIDAY who played along and turned along with him, drawing another dazzling smile.

"He is more charming than you," she informed Tony tartly. He'd specifically aimed for that tone that still reminded him of a couple of old girlfriends.

"What did you expect?" Tony asked. "He's Captain America. He dazzles the masses."

Steve raised an eyebrow at him and frowned. He didn't say anything though and Tony had actually expected him to look at him with flustered exasperation and protest. Must have been a long day for him too.

"I don't..." Anthony-Cap said instead with the appropriately flustered expression.

Huh.

That was kind of charming.

With the mustache he reminded Tony of a slightly uncomfortable Zorro.

"So," he cleared his throat. "Projection?"

"She's a very advanced program that runs the building - and most often the armor. Well, and my life most of the time. What you are seeing is a holographic image."

"And she processes what we are saying?"

"Yes," she answered before Tony could and it seemed to delight Anthony to an incredible degree. Tony could honestly say that was unexpected. He had no idea what he would have been like if he'd been propelled from the 40s to a world with flying cars and extraordinarily designed sassy AI ladies.

"Holographic," Anthony whispered to himself, fascinated, grinning at FRIDAY like she was the best thing in the world.

When Tony met Steve's eyes he shrugged his shoulders. "Don't look at me. He's you."

"He's also... well, you. And it took you a while to be this fascinated by everything."

"I didn't have time to be fascinated. I had Avengers to save. And then I was." Something about the way Steve said that unjokingly and calm caught Tony by surprise. “I was,” Steve repeated when he realized Tony was looking.

“You were moping,” Tony said and tried to keep himself from grinning. To Anthony he added: "It's a shame we're not at the mansion anymore. The library kept Steve occupied for a good long time."

"I had a guide," Steve said.

"You had guides," Tony corrected.

"I ended up reading through the fantastic literature section with the help of a red and gold Avenger. Who at the time claimed to be Tony Stark's bodyguard."

Dragging his eyes away from the AI's appearance, Anthony laughed surprised. "You were your own bodyguard?"

"No," Tony said and remembered all the times that story had come to bite him. "Of course not. That would be ridiculous."

"He pretended for years," Steve supplied.

"And people didn't notice?" He laughed and his eyes were shining. "That sounds like the pulpiest novel I've ever heard of. Is this really your life? Flying armor? Being your own bodyguard superhero?"

"Look at you," Tony said, surprised. "At me that is. I'm having fun meeting the future."

He had no idea what picture they were making for Steve. Two Tony's grinning at each other with a sudden deeper understanding and appreciation for each other. "You are a Captain America after my own heart. Come on, let's find you something less SHIELD to wear and I'll show you the rest of the building."

"Aren't you his favorite Captain America?" Anthony asked behind him. "It sounded like you were best friends."

"Hmm," Steve said and then, "Things can be a bit complicated."

"He's everybody's favorite America," Tony said. "Even the other Captain America's."

He entered a patch on the side of the workshop and this time didn't even look at the astonished face of the other him, when the machine’s arms came down to take the armor from him part by part until he stood before the two men in nothing but jeans and a loose fitting t-shirt. Steve seemed amused by that, that he was less of the poster boy rich guy, when meeting another Tony Stark, but he also seemed... somehow fond.

"So, I am your favorite then?"

He shrugged. "Don't tell Sam, he's not exactly having an easy time with either of us these days."

"True."

"Also," he pointed out. "You have even more competition now."

It was strange to see two people walk through his hallways with familiar shields that couldn’t be more different. He had not yet gotten used to the look of Steve’s new uniform. It looked good on him, but Tony knew with the guilt that always accompanied the thought that Steve would look good to him wearing anything - or nothing.

"Thank you for calling me in, Steve," he said quietly, after he'd shown Anthony to his own bedroom and had given him the run of the walk in closet. The men went through all the clothing meticulously. "I know we're not... that right now we're not the best of friends."

"We'll always be friends, Tony. That doesn't mean we'll agree on everything." Steve was frowning, a shadow crossing over his face. "I know things are never going to be as easy as they were in the beginning."

Perhaps that meant that Tony wasn't the only one who thought of those early days with nostalgic regret. "I'm not... I miss it. Things were so easy."

"We were young, Tony. And we didn't know the world like we do now. We didn't know ourselves as we do now."

"That's for sure," Tony said and thought about the length he'd been willing to go to stop the incursion, remembered how hard it had been to look Steve in the eye and see an old man, pulled under by the loss of his own strength. "It's good to... It's good to have you back in the field like this, Steve. Did you miss it?"

"I don't miss the aching bones," he admitted. "And I won't miss the old man jokes."

"Oh, those will keep coming." He watched with a slightly amused smile as Anthony held up one of his plainest white cotton shirts and measured it against his shoulders in front of the mirror. "Hmm," he called over. "I fear you are more Steve's body type for some unfathomable reason there, Cap."

Anthony turned around, looking sheepish and insecure. Tony wanted to take pity on him and just throw something to wear at him right now, because in the black shield uniform, with his old fashioned mustache, he looked like a lost James Bond who needed saving. Steve finally pushed away from the wall where he had been leaning beside Tony. "Let me pick something out for you," he said, friendly and amiable. "It's been a while since Tony had to lend me anything, but I know my way around figuring out what to wear after waking up in a new century."

"Don't make him dress like an old person," Tony warned. "He's much too attractive for that." Remembering that someone from 1940s might not be comfortable with that kind of flirty mention he threw a lopsided grin at Anthony, but the man was watching him with a small smile of his own.

"Thank you, I'm grateful for everything you're doing for me."

"Don't mention it. Our universe owes you one. If you were pulled here during an incursion, this is where the original problem started."

"I still can't imagine anything like that. But you're here. So it must be true. Another Tony Stark in another world. It must have been amazing growing up at a time that allowed for the technology you have here."

Even Tony could feel the longing, but his throat went dry and he had no idea how to voice the questions that were forming. He wanted to know how it was for someone like him to be Captain America. Anthony was showing all the signs of being like him, like Tony, but there was a muted confidence to him that Tony envied. And now, seeing him standing by Steve's side again, seeing them shoulder to shoulder - Tony had no idea what it would mean to be Captain America. How different their lives must have been.

"Try this," Steve said and he had found a pair of worn slightly baggy jeans and a t-Shirt for Anthony. "Not sure it's your style, but there's a chance it will fit you."

"Give him track pants and more t-shirts," Tony said and looked away. It was weird enough to have Cap go through his clothes. He had no idea what to do with two of them there.

"I'm sure he'll look great in a suit, but your jackets might be a bit too tight around the shoulders."

He tried to not stare at the two super soldiers who were looking at him expectantly, like he was the one whose input was needed here.

"You're Captain America," he said. "You'll be fine."

"I'm... kind of used to formal dress." He was eying the jeans with some interest though, then looked over at Tony, who was dressed as informally as he would when he was working in the sanctity of his own workshop. He was gauging; his eyes lingered on Tony's hips a little longer than strictly polite and then he snapped his eyes back up to his face. "This will do."

"It's probably going to be a little snug," Steve said and he said it so matter-of-factly that Tony felt like an even bigger idiot for all the images that went through his head. He had no idea how to feel about the thought of himself being just a little too muscle packed and tall for his own clothes.

"Guest room is this way." He nodded towards the hallway. Steve watched them go, remained in the hallways as Tony showed Anthony around the rooms.

"He's going to be fine," Tony assured him when he stepped back outside and found Steve there, his arms folded in front of his chest. "He has questions."

"Should you be the one answering them?"

That stung. "Probably not. He was more interested in armor specs than the multiverse. He has a hard time wrapping his head around that."

"Understandable."

"Yeah," Tony agreed. "Just as unbelievable as finding out that I have your job in another universe."

Steve didn't contradict him. It stung, too. At a time when the two of them had been closer, Steve would have contradicted him. "Shellhead," he would have said. "I can't think of a greater hero I call friend." Years down the line, he wasn't sure Steve really still called him friend.

"He's..." Steve started.

"Want to stay?"

"What?"

"Want to stay? I obviously have more than one guest room. And when you woke up there was a bunch of Avengers around. You could stay. Help him a bit. I know you want to."

"I have some questions of my own," Steve admitted. "Would it be okay, if I stayed?" He didn't even look at Tony, but Tony felt the tension creep into his shoulders step by step. He never wanted Steve to not be around. At the same time he wasn't sure he could deal with him on an everyday basis.

"You're always welcome here, Steve. You always were."

Steve clapped a hand to his shoulder and then nodded. "I'll stay. Until he's settled in. Until we know what to do."

"He might be stuck here indefinitely." Tony had found the thought disturbing in the beginning. The last thing the world needed was another Tony Stark. But on the other hand, there was always enough room for another Captain America on the playing field. If that was what Anthony wanted to be. He really wanted to hear his story, wanted to figure out how much of Steve's backstory had played out for him in his universe, how much of "Stark luck" had been in play.

"I thought you'd have a harder time getting along with yourself."

Tony shrugged. "So did I. He's charming."

Steve's head turned and he was studied with a searching look. "Charming?"

"I don't know," Tony said. "He's less me than he's you, but he's also..."

"More you than me."

It hadn't been what he'd wanted to say, but he shrugged. "He's different. I'd like to help him."

"We can agree on that. After all it might have been a world the Illuminati destroyed."

His heart missed a beat. He knew that wasn't the case. He had looked at all the worlds they'd come up against. He had not seen anything like this on any of them. "In any case," Tony said and he knew his eyes had narrowed, "the problem started here."

"Yes," Steve said and looked at him. "I'm staying, then."

Even less sure of how he felt about this, he shrugged again. "Want to see one of the new guest rooms?"

He really wanted to ignore that Steve had stayed here frequently before things had gone to hell between them.

"Yes, yes, I'd like that very much."

He left Anthony to take a shower, get himself settled in, left Steve to do the same in his new room, telling both of them that they could call for FRIDAY whenever they needed something. MJ was waiting for him with papers to go through and a report on the recent board meeting. His mind wasn't really on it, but because he had made her some promises about their continued work relationship, he tried his best.

"Is it true?" she asked. "We have a Captain America upstairs who is you?"

"Did FRIDAY keep you posted? Good. We have two Captain Americas upstairs, one of whom is a Tony Stark, yes."

"Will I meet him?"

She seemed amused by the prospect.

"I think so, yes. He has nowhere else to go right now."

"So... What's he like?" MJ smiled. "Leaning more on the charming or exasperating side?"

"Are you trying to tell me something?"

"You are paying my salary, because you want me to manage your life. I think I need to know what kind of additional Tony Stark we're dealing with here and how he will impact us, media wise."

"Point taken." He tried to smile at her, but at the moment the magnitude of the situation was slowly crashing down on him and some of Steve's words were still replaying in his head. He couldn't shake the feeling that he owed both Steve and Anthony his all in this, and when he'd taken the other man in he had only been filled with a sense of nostalgia and curiosity - and the need to keep any Stark out of the hands of SHIELD. "You'll meet him soon."

"This multiverse stuff," she said as she made a note on her planner, "all of this superhero stuff is not completely new to me, but this is weird. How is it to know that somewhere you lived the life of our greatest hero?"

"I'm Iron Man," he pointed out, but the words felt hollow. "Big difference."

"Hmm," she said and tapped her pen against her lips. Then she patted his back like he needed a bit of human comfort. Maybe he did. Maybe he also needed a meeting, but he had no time right now to even consider it. He'd see to fit one in at his earliest convenience.

He spent an hour working on the armor, mostly because he didn’t feel ready to leave the workshop yet.

FRIDAY appeared beside him. "Captain Rogers wants to know if you have eaten yet."

His hands didn't stop their work, but he pondered that statement for a whole minute before he put down his tools and wiped a hand over his sweaty brow. "Let me take a shower," he told FRIDAY, "and I'll be up." He knew he wouldn't be able to hide in his own home under the current circumstances. "Where is Anthony Stark?"

"He is currently with Captain Rogers. They are discussing food. Captain Stark has questions and is currently enjoying coffee."

"I can imagine." This morning the man had been a frozen block of ice after all. Steve had loved to wrap his hands around any hot drink in the early days, just to feel the warmth seep in. And Tony remembered Steve discovering full refrigerators and new food options quite clearly.

He took that shower, made sure he was dressed in clean clothes - red button down over black tee - and had no oily smudges on his face. Up until now it had all been easy - nostalgia, bemused memories brought up by a Captain America, young and just unfrozen - but Tony doubted that things would remain that easy.

The elevator brought him up the few levels directly from the inside of his workshop.

"That is strong and hot," he heard Anthony say.

"I had a feeling you'd like Tony's kind of coffee."

"It's heaven." There was a pause and then Anthony added: "So, you tried to save your friend from the Hydra bomb."

Steve took a moment to answer that one and Tony, when he stopped into the huge open space of the kitchen that went right over into the living room, he saw Steve's pinched, concentrated face. "How do you know? Is it what happened to you?"

"Not exactly." Anthony was engrossed with staring into his coffee and he had no eyes for Steve, who was still dressed in his sleek new and unsullied Captain America uniform. The man looked even more like an actor who had taken on the role of Zorro in a cheesy remake, now that he was dressed in clean clothes, his hair still damp and neatly brushed, his mustache neatly groomed. Tony wondered why that had gone out of style. "FRIDAY gave me access to some of the historical records."

"Yes," Steve said slowly, like he wasn't sure what to do with that. "Of course. Records. I have some questions about you and... your fight against Hydra."

"Ask away."

When he looked up Steve saw Tony standing in the door. "Tony," he said and the sudden frown vanished and he changed the subject as if the two of them hadn't been about to discuss some of their worst experiences. "We were just about to order food. I was thinking of pizza. Anthony says he always enjoyed Italian food."

"He'll be in for a shock then," Tony said and half-grinned at their guest. "American take-away is fun, but nothing like real Italian food. And we should go through the real ordering in experience to get you started. No fancy catering today. We can do that when you're settled in."

"Oh?" Anthony looked confused. "We really can order all kind of food? Just like that?"

"Let's order pizza to get you started." He smiled over at Steve and tried to ignore how their eyes met for far longer than he would have expected.

By the time it was late enough to sleep, Captain Rogers had become Steve, and it had become easier to think of someone else as "Tony". He still couldn't quite believe the other man existed and from the bits and pieces of his life that he had glimpsed so far his life was a futuristic dream.

Engineer, he thought. What would father have had to say to that?

Would he have believed his eyes? Tony Stark living in a futuristic home, building himself flying armors and having a technological Marvel as a sort of valet. He was sure old Howard would have found a reason to make him feel bad about it. "See, Tony, you could never have done that."

Maybe not. Not with the technology of his era. But he sure could have tried.

He ended up sitting on the foot of the bed, clad in the track pants and another snugly fitting t-shirt and stared at his hands. For about an hour he had tried to lie down and sleep, but his thoughts wouldn't stop. The bed was too soft. The clothes were too. The bed was too big. The room was too. He had grown up with the comfort of money, but his father would never have let him indulge like this. He had been an engineer too, had built a whole company from the ground after he'd returned from the first great war. And he'd never looked kindly at Tony sitting idle, when he could be doing something to fight his own frail body. He had always tried to push Tony into doing something else with his life and when former Colonel Howard Stark had been called in by his fiends in the army, to help out with a new project, he had jumped at the chance.

He moved his fingers.

From what he had seen in the records, Steve Rogers had joined project Rebirth because he had wanted to do his part.

And so had Tony.

But Tony had also wanted to make his father look at him for once.

He had wanted to show him that he was more than a disappointment.

"Don't think like that, Anthony," he heard Erskine say and pat his shoulder. "Your father loves you. He does all of this now, because he doesn’t know how else to show it."

"Now," he had said, "he's proud of creating Captain America. For having had a hand in it anyway."

"He's a deeply troubled man, Anthony. Most men who fought in wars are." Even now, so many years after, universes away, he still remembered Dr. Erskine's slightly shaky smile and the warmth of his hands as he gripped his shoulder harder. "You're a good boy, Anthony. Promise me you won't ever let anyone take that away from you. Not anyone."

The faith in him had made his throat constrict and it had the same effect now. He had never been that good or that strong or that worthy of anyone's faith. Erskine had seen all these things in him and… and then he’d been lost to Tony.

Like everyone was lost now.

Not just separated by time, but by distance, space and… He didn’t even know.

Tony had instructed him that he could call up FRIDAY whenever he wanted something. Awkwardly he made his steps back to the small table and sofa in the middle of the room.

"FRIDAY?" he whispered.

The shiny red figure of the hologram sprang up in the middle of the room and the outline of the woman cocked his head at him. He half expected her to admonish him about being awake at this hour. "Anthony," she said. "How may I be off assistance?"

He had a million questions all at once. He wanted to know about Tony, about Captain America, about the other Captain America he had heard about. Most of all he wanted to know how he'd gotten here - if there was anything to go back to.

"Can you explain it to me? The multiverse? In easy terms a man from the '40s gets. I'm not sure I understand half of the things that come out of Tony's mouth." He smiled, realizing that he had not minded at all. They shared so many traits that he wondered a bit how fond he was feeling of the other man, when there had been times when he struggled with looking at himself in the mirror.

He listened to FRIDAY, watched the diagrams she drew up to make understanding easier for him.

"How will we know where I came from?"

"Tony is trying to locate your universe. We are tracing the radiation distinct for your home universe."

"There are so many."

"There may be an infinite number," FRIDAY agreed easily.

It scared him.

Perhaps he would never even know if his friends had survived, if his world existed.

"Can you draw up some historic accounts?"

"What is it you want to know more about?"

He hesitated. "The war. Captain America. Can you give me more on... how we won?" Of course, he understood that it meant nothing, but he looked at the old photos of Steve Rogers in the uniform and read about the way the allies turned this thing around, how Hydra was driving into the shadows. It gave him hope. He felt a pang when he learned that this Captain America's sidekick had been thought not have survived the war. Perhaps that was Rhodey's fate too.

He followed some references to pictures of the Winter Soldier and hoped that wherever he was James Rhodes had met a better fate.

"How did Tony... How did he end up being Iron Man?" he asked.

He hoped for some more records on the Avengers, too. He had seen a picture of the newly returned Captain America with an arm around Iron Man's shoulder.

"Tony is in the workshop," FRIDAY informed him. "Do you want to ask him?"

His heart beat faster like he was a schoolboy who had been caught doing something forbidden. "He's awake?"

"He went to the workshop an hour ago," the AI informed him.

The quiet loneliness of the empty room - too big and not lived in - crashed down on him. "I don't want disturb him when he's working."

FRIDAY's image flickered and stabilized. "Tony will meet you in the kitchen."

His stomach flipped. He wanted to escape from the oppressive silence. His head needed distraction and he wanted company. And with some fondness he realized he really wanted a chance to get to know this multiverse him better. "Thank you," he finally said to the AI, and with a smile the holographic projection blinked out in front of his eyes.

His feet carried him to the right place through dark hallways. Like always he had a perfect memory for maps. But he wondered how anyone could live in a place like this without feeling lonely. Tony sat at the kitchen table when he arrived and he was reading something on a shiny screen.

"Is that another computer?"

Tony looked up. He looked like someone who hadn't caught a wink of sleep. "Yes," he said. "Even our phones are small computers these days." He held up the rectangular flat shape that he'd deposited on the desk. "Our R&D department is working on a new one. It's our best chance right now to get some money rolling in."

"Best chance?"

"Oh, Iron Man isn't very popular at the moment. Our stocks have taken some hits."

He blinked.

"Sit down," Tony said, "you look like you haven't slept at all."

"I don't really need sleep that much."

"Steve used to say that. He was a terrible insomniac." Tony said that as if he was the kind of person who got a good night's sleep every night - and it was clear that getting out of bed to do something down in his work space was not the exception from the rule.

"After the ice, he had trouble sleeping?"

Tony nodded and his smile grew wistful. He was probably remembering something. "Bed too soft?"

He swallowed. It was eerie how well the people he'd met so far could read him. He had been better at hiding his feelings at home.

"Don't worry. I've watched someone fall from the middle of the war to life in a new age before. And I've seen Steve go through the worst of it. You're not an open book, because you're being obvious."

"Oh," he said and felt stupid, wondered how much of his distress he had shown. "The two of you. You are friends, but there is tension."

Tony's smile was sad. "We have our moments. Things have become very complicated over the years. But he's still the best man I know and I'm glad we're friends."

There was something more and he knew it - the longing, the fondness, the unspoken emotion under the surface. That much was all him. It was also like a punch to the gut, because suddenly he understood too well what this Tony was feeling and he had no idea how to give comfort. He had no idea how to ask either. So he settled on the calm tone of the displaced soldier who was trying to find his bearings in a world he did not understand. "You've known each other for years. I've seen some of the pictures in the historical records. Captain America and Iron Man."

"Avengers," Tony explained. "We're... Avengers."

"I only skirted over what was there about the superhero team. I admit I wanted to know the recorded details of his early life."

"Have you found what you were looking for."

"He probably had the better reasons to become what he's now," he admitted. "I was a dying man, who would never have availed to anything when I... I suppose you father wasn't involved with Project Rebirth?"

Tony who had been somewhere between tiredly distracted and trying to be attentive did a double take at that. "Howard Stark was heavily involved with SHIELD, but no. The timelines don’t line up."

Anthony tried to keep his hands still. He had a feeling Tony liked talking about Howard as much as he did. He’d rather be discussing Hitler.

"I looked into Captain America, but... as you're awake anyway. Tell me about what it's like to be Iron Man."

Tony visibly hesitated. "It's complicated. It's always been complicated."

"But it's your way to make the world a better place?"

"That sounds like a thing Steve would say. The truth is I was a dying man who kept himself alive with the help of a good man and the technology at his disposal. And then when I had the Iron Man, I couldn't not use it."

It was his turn to stare. Slowly, because he knew the other wanted to know about him as much as he wanted to, he explained: "A collaborator detonated a missile at plant, while I was there. Father wanted me to learn the trade. I was never a strong man, but my heart... I never really recovered. It was a constant embarrassment to my father that I couldn't cross the street without being short on breath. He had always hoped for a son who'd join the army like he had as a young man."

Tony visibly straightened. "I... Howard and... They were dead. I had inherited a company that I knew I'd inherit all my life, but... I got taken during a visit to the troops. We were there for a presentation, more army contracts... I was wounded and kidnapped and only survived because a Dr. Yinsen fixed me up with a plate that kept the shrapnel from reaching my heart."

He took a surprised breath. "We both are... We were both saved by… God. Father pushed me to try for Rebirth. But it was really Dr. Erskine who chose me in the end. I don't think I would have survived another year without it. And the training. It nearly killed me."

"Resilient," Tony said.

"Stark men," Anthony added and winced when he recognized his father's words over his own. Stark men are resilient, Tony. Get it together.

"Hmm," Tony said. "You..." He bit his lip. Whatever he wanted to say, he had no idea how to say it.

"What?" He felt tense suddenly. He often did, when his family became part of any discussion. His father and he had never had the easiest relationship and yet he wouldn’t even be here if not for Howard and his insistence that his son would make the perfect super soldier. Somehow hearing that Tony had become Iron Man after his father had died - without Howard pushing him to prove himself - hurt.

Tony hesitated, but whatever he wanted to know, but didn’t know how to ask, was important to him. Finally he swallowed visibly and asked: "You're really Tony Stark, aren't you? I mean, you're their son. Really." Even in the darkness he looked pale now, and not from the tiredness.

"What do you mean?"

With a sigh, still biting his lips, Tony leaned back in his chair. He was tense now, too. And he looked away like he had no idea how to say this next bit. "I found out I'm adopted. Recently. I'm not really... Not really a Stark man, so to speak. He pushed me and demanded I behave like one for most of my misspent youth, and he never told me, but... Now I'm wondering if it was his way of showing he cared. I wish I could ask, but… No chance now."

The pain of the revelation resonated through him like the cracks in a broken mirror. He'd lost the world he had known today, but this revelation was like a rug had been pulled out from under his feet all over again. He had trouble breathing. "Are you sure? Are you really sure about this?"

"Yes. Doesn't mean anything for you, of course. I just... wondered. It's been on my mind a lot lately."

Mulling that over, took him a terrible, long moment of silence. "I don't think I'm... adopted. I was too much of a disappointment to him."

"How can Captain America be a disappointment to anyone?" Tony looked at him with genuine disbelief.

"Oh," he admitted. "Captain America wasn't. He was proud of Cap, always. But there wasn't much room for Tony Stark by then. The son was the disappointment."

Tony laughed. "God, Anthony. That is so fucked up. We can't have anything without a mess, can we? Is that what it means to be us?"

He took a moment to think about that. "Look at all this. You're a self made hero. You built an armor that can do all that. Aren't you proud? Whoever you are, whatever Howard was to you, you achieved all of this yourself."

"Wow. Just wow. You're giving me a Captain America pep talk on your first night here. I think that must be a record." He laughed, again, but this time it was a much happier sound. "I never liked being called Anthony, by the way. Is that really okay with you? It would drive me up the wall."

"It's what the doctor called me. Erskine. I used to be Tony to everyone else and then Cap. Erskine, he insisted on calling me by my full name. He was stubborn like that. I liked it about him."

"Oh, that's fine then? It really doesn’t bother you?"

“No,” he said. “It was like he was the father I never had and I liked that he could see Anthony when nobody else even wanted to look past the trappings.” They sat in the dark, examining each other in comfortable silence. In a way they knew each other better than some people had ever gotten to know him after years of acquaintance.

"I'm glad I got this chance to meet you," Anthony said to pick up the conversation again. There were too many things he still wanted to say and ask and figure out. "Even though the circumstances are less than..."

"Ideal? You really sound like Cap. It's okay to sulk. Who wouldn’t be cranky after being frozen for decades."

He laughed. "I'll keep that in mind. I still have so many questions, but you look like you should catch some sleep." He should take his own advice. Just right now sleep was scary. The cold, the ice, the past - it was all waiting for him behind closed eyes.

"Yeah," Tony said. He got up and, awkwardly, like he wasn't sure it was okay, he clasped a hand to Anthony's shoulder. "Try to sleep too. Don’t become the sleepless ghost that haunts the mansion. I'll answer all your questions tomorrow."

Knowing how many questions he had, how many things he still wanted to discover, he said: "You'll regret that. I promise."

Understanding each other perfectly, they smiled at each other in the half-dark of the room. He had never expected to like someone who was so much like him this easily.

Anthony threw himself into things in an unexpected way. He wasted no time sulking in his room or the library. He got up the next morning, found Steve and Tony watching each other uneasily over their mugs of coffee and announced: "I know I don't have money, but could we get some more clothes?"

He was wearing the ill fitting track pants and one of Steve’s blue t-shirts and looked disgruntled and uncomfortable. Tony, not exactly as rich or as generous as he'd once had been, looked from Steve to his counterpart and declared: "You get the gold card, Steve. Make sure he finds something he's comfortable with."

"Even if he dresses like an old man?"

"Even if he dresses like a dinosaur," Tony said and nodded, pouring a cup of coffee for Anthony who grabbed it and sipped it like he had never tasted anything better.

"Better than that Ersatz stuff?" Steve grimaced even as he asked.

"German fake coffee was the worst."

"How long did you go undercover? Behind enemy lines?"

This was personal. He immediately felt like he had no place in this conversation between men who knew a time he had never lived in. Tony tried to keep out of the way, poured himself the last of the coffee, waited for Steve to tell him off for indulging in too much caffeine, but realized that Anthony held Steve's undivided attention. It was understandable.

"They kept me on the home front for two long, but explosive months."

Knowing what that was like, Steve nodded, serious and listening closely. "Rough years. Did you ever get close to... Hydra?"

"Close? You could say that." Steve shrugged and waited for Anthony to say more. "Close enough to smash them in the face when I could help it. I wanted to make sure that vile organization never got up again. I owed it to Erskine."

Steve shot a look over at Tony who had picked up his tablet and had sat back down at the table. "You're not coming?"

"No," he said decisively.

"You can tell me all about... Erskine and your war... What it was like for you to fight Hydra..." Steve said and he sounded understanding - but also probing. Tony was beginning to wonder if he was actually suspecting Anthony of some sort of lie, on the grounds of him being Tony Stark. He watched with narrowed eyes, as both men got ready to depart, noticed Steve's hand clapping Anthony's back and the glances Steve threw his way, even so he hadn't moved from the spot in the kitchen. So far, Tony couldn't tell what had Steve in command mode, but he could easily imagine that watching Anthony go through some of the stages of arriving might have him on edge more than he was letting on this morning.

While they were out, Tony went through a briefing with MJ who did what he paid her to and made him spent at least two hours on Stark Industries matters through the sheer power of her disapproval before he went down to tinker with the new armor. There were still some kinks to work out and some safety measures to enhance. Iron Man had no intention of losing to techno ninjas twice. Even if he hadn't completely lost there. But right now the whole world made him uneasy - and no, he wasn’t only saying that because Doctor Doom wasn’t in need of a mask anymore and had for the second time this week hindered a possible date with the smart and beautiful Amara.

Admit it Tony, he thought. She deserves better than you. She deserves a good, normal life. Someone who won’t forever be running into danger. Someone who won’t forever be hung up about someone else.

He was still lingering on that thought when Steve walked in again, finding Tony with his eyes before he’d fully stepped into the room. The tension between them still lingered, but every time he looked at Tony like this, his heart beat a little faster.

God, he thought. He had hoped that one day it would be easier to share the same space with Steve. I'll be forever hung up about him. But look at me? I can't even have a good relationship with him when I'm not trying to make it worse with my own damn feelings.

"Are you alright?" Steve asked and the concern was in his voice, but somehow it didn't reach his eyes.

He must be very preoccupied too.

"Where is Anthony?"

"Getting dressed."

"Did you pick out some old men clothes for him?"

"Haha," Steve said. "He wanted to dress more like you."

"Like me?"

"Apparently, you have some things in common."

"Like facial hair and a shit-eating grin?"

Finally, Steve chuckled and this time his eyes were a warm blue. "He had a lot of questions about my time with Iron Man. He... I think he wonders what it means to be a smart engineer."

He shrugged. "It's not something I have yet figured out. He's a lot like you."

Steve hesitated. "Yes, in some ways. To be expected. We went through a very different life though."

"Not a boy from Brooklyn?"

"Close enough." Steve let his eyes sweep over him and then took a seat in the armchair, across from where Tony was sitting cross legged on the floor leaning his back against the sofa while he worked. "The similarities are striking."

Tony wasn't sure about the two Captains or the two Tonys. He licked his lips before he voiced the question he'd been pondering since the day before: "Do you... Is it easier for you to talk to him. With the shared experiences."

The question seemed to not come as a surprise. "It was never hard to talk to you. It only ever gets hard when we disagree."

"Only, huh?"

"Only," Steve said and he sounded as regretful about it as Tony felt. "But when we do it's never just a small disagreement, is it?"

He opened his closed his fist and watched his fingers curl together. "Sometimes we do have to do what you think you have to do."

"Even if you are completely wrong."

Gritting his teeth, he met Steve's gaze. "Even then. Like the leopard and his spots."

"True," Steve admitted and this time there was something proud about his smile. Then his eyes widened imperceptibly. Tony knew it could only mean someone - Anthony - was here and Steve was checking him out. The expression was so obvious that he had a hard time not staring at this man he had loved as friend and more in secret for too many long years. And now that same man was looking at a younger version of himself with interest he'd never seen there before. Not able to stand it he turned, prepared to crack a joke at whatever attire Anthony had chosen.

"That is a very red shirt," he said and grinned. Even he had to admit that the man cut a nice figure in the black suit pants and the red shirt. He wasn't wearing a tie, but he was carrying a jacket that matched the pants. The suit was something Tony himself could have chosen. It was a bit too wide maybe, not tailored for him like most of Tony's own suits were, but it look well enough.

"Is it too flashy?"

He heard Steve's low chuckle, just before he blurted: "No, no, it looks good. Red is our color."

If not for the facial hair, and the different frown lines on their faces, Anthony could have been a younger version of him. But right now, more than when the other man had been wearing the uniform, it struck Tony how different they were: broader shoulders, slightly broader face, careful frown and charming smile. He was beginning to see what Steve meant when he talked about differences. "I hope you bought yourself something more casual too."

"Oh," Steve said, "he has a hoodie and jeans and a couple of shirts. For a while he'll be fine." This time he threw a slight mocking smile in Tony's direction. "I think he wanted to impress you."

"Me?" he asked and thought: Not you?

It set the general tone for the next few days. Steve slipped in and out as he was needed by SHIELD. Tony was surprised that he turned up back at Stark Tower like clockwork. He and Anthony sparred, and Tony only once made the mistake of walking into the gym at the "right" time. The testosterone fueled tension hadn't been as surprising as his own thoughts straying into inappropriate territory at the display of Steve trying to wrestle Anthony down on the mats and Anthony flipping them around at the last possible moments. He kept away from the Caps, when they were having their quiet conversations in the evening too. Just once he heard Steve say quietly: "Maybe you should come with me. You'd like working at SHIELD. You're Captain America, you like getting things done."

"I do. I also like figuring things out. And this is all new to me."

Anthony wasn't kidding either. FRIDAY kept Tony up to date on his progress as he started to work his way systematically through history texts and news, information on popular culture and superheroes, and then he started to read up on various things - educational texts, science, astrophysics, engineering. "Were you on track to become an engineer?" Tony asked when Anthony joined him one day and silently watched him work on the armor.

When he looked at Iron Man it was always with that longing from the very first day. "How do you fly it? Is it... Can anyone fly it?"

"Get off the ground, maybe. Flying and moving with it isn't as easy as it looks."

“I saw you change it. On television. It changed around you. They say that’s new?”

Carefully, Tony set down his tool, pulled the goggles from his eyes. "You've been watching closely?"

"All the news bits about the Avengers," Anthony said carefully. "This armor is just amazing, Tony. I've been trying to wrap my head around all the..."

"You could come out with us, you know? You're Captain America. "

Just like Steve's would Anthony's face went blank and determined. "I've been thinking about it. I don't want to make your life harder."

"Harder?" Tony immediately tried to think about anything he might have done to imply Anthony wasn’t welcome here.

"I mean, your company is in trouble at the moment. Talks of an impostor will not help."

The idea made him chuckle. "Nobody is going to think you're a Tony Stark impostor when you go out as Captain America."

Anthony fidgeted a little and that never failed to make Tony smile. It always looked funny when a man of Steve's stature and confidence fidgeted like a little kid. "I want to," Anthony finally said. "I think I want to go out there and meet your world now. Make me a promise though?"

"Whatever you want." He was surprised by how much he meant it.

"Take me flying first. I saw you do it with others. I saw the footage of what happened a week ago. You flew with one of the kids. Take me out to fly?"

Laughter broke free. He loved this. Loved how Anthony was so much like him and yet so much like the Captain America he had always known. "I'll tell you something," he said. "I’ll take you flying right now. Get your uniform and we'll go."

Anthony froze, then grinned and the next minute he was gone, sprinting off towards his room to get his gear.

"What has gotten into him?" Steve asked and Tony looked up, surprised to find him standing in the entrance of the workshop in the middle of the day.

"You're here early."

"You two have been growing close," he said and sounded accusatory. Tony hadn’t noticed it before, but perhaps he should have. Were they fighting for Anthony’s attention? Then Steve looked around the workshop and asked: "Have you made any progress at finding his home?"

"Has SHIELD any data to offer up at all that will help?" he deadpanned. They’d had the discussion a couple of times before.

Steve shrugged. Things with Maria Hill were still in the post-Pleasant Hill shakedown. SHIELD had other things to do right now, but at the same time they had extended a repeated invitation for Anthony to return. "Anthony can come in and request it at any time."

Tony nodded. "I'm sure he will be along. But first we're going flying."

Steve watched them on the landing pad, his arms folded in front of his chest. Anthony had put on the new uniform Tony had made for him. It looked much like a design Steve used to wear, closer to the uniform Sam was wearing now.

Tony showed Anthony the way his new armor could call up older designs and explained some of how it worked in simple words. "I was reading up on robotics and artificial intelligence," he admitted breathless. "Never got to finish college. Never got to learn all the things I wanted to."

Learning, working, building - even when he'd been younger he had taken some comfort from his own talent with machines.

He changed the armor into a previous model that he had seen Anthony admire on pictures before and was rewarded with a lighting up of his expression. He held out his arm and let Anthony latch on, made sure to have him securely at his side. Then he activated the repulsor boots and the two of them were off.

"This is amazing. Better than the flying car." He sounded out of breath.

Tony halted their ascent so Anthony could get a good look at Stark Tower and New York. Then he asked: "Why didn't you learn more?"

"I was supposed to learn business. Then my heart..." Anthony looked pained. "Father had always hoped I would enter the army, like he had... His son wasn't to be some second rate greasemonkey."

"Second rate?" Even through the armor Tony knew his voice caught a little.

"Howard let you learn?"

"Pushed me," he said. "I understand him better now than I did then. I guess he was surprised that I latched on to the family business so fast. Strange how different these things play out. Wasn't your father an engineer."

"Weapon's manufacturer. He built his company on military money. I dreamed of planes and... impractical technology."

"Flying armors and flying cars?"

Anthony chuckled. "I had given up on those.”

“You could go back to school,” Tony suggested. “Learn with Friday. Do all that.”

The idea was strange: A Tony Stark who wanted to learn all the things he had missed out on.

“I will think about it,” Anthony said and his voice was breathless and so, so quiet that the wind nearly took the words away, before Tony could catch them. “How fast can you go?"

The eagerness made him laugh and just because he could, he zipped them over to New Jersey to take the sad Captain's breath away in a completely new way.

"You will like them," Steve reassured him and Tony - Anthony, he had yet to become accustomed to thinking of himself that way - tried to get his new blue shirt to fit him right.

Tony had only seen him in passing before they'd gotten in the car together and comment: "You look like an old fashioned Hollywood star again, Cap."

"Thank you," Steve had said tightly and grinned when Tony stuck his tongue out at him.

"You look like Captain America," Tony had told him. "Get over it."

Anthony had been watching the byplay between both men or the last couple of days and he hadn't yet figured out what exactly was going on with them. They acted like friends, sometimes like more than that - and then again... Just this morning Steve had warned him that Tony might not always be the best person to ask for an opinion. The words "unstable" and "paranoid" had been mentioned and once again there had been an invitation to join him at SHIELD. "Don't get too close," Steve had finally said in a harsh tone. "He might disappoint you even if he doesn't want to."

He sounded like someone who spoke from experience.

Tony on the other hand had nothing but admiration for Captain America and Anthony was beginning to realize more and more that to Tony that included him to some extent now. Some of the loyalty he felt towards Steve Rogers had been transferred to him and he had no idea if he deserved it. From what he heard he and Steve had gone through many of the same fights, had fought the same battles - and yet Steve had years of experience in this world that was new to him and he'd had years of standing at Tony's side.

He couldn't quite tell how all of it fit together.

Steve seemed at home with Tony and at the same time, he seemed to be careful to be around often enough to keep Anthony away from him, to make sure Tony was aware that Steve was also there.

On the first look he was behaving like a jealous lover and he was sure Pepper would have laughed at the notion and asked: "You just see romance everywhere, Tony. You should lay off the trashy novels, sweetheart. What would people think if I wrote that about Captain America?"

"Nervous?" Tony asked and Anthony was pulled from his thoughts. "It's only going to be handful of Avengers. And you wanted to meet Rhodey."

His palms were sweaty. He nodded slowly. There was a James Rhodes waiting to meet him who hadn't gone through a war with him. That, to him seemed even stranger than meeting another version of himself. He wondered if Rogers counted as another version of himself, too. They got out of the car as a group and Anthony took in the outline of the SHIELD base.

"That is the Cap you took flying yesterday?" A blonde woman in a tight fitting suit asked first and stepped over to shake his hand. She was beautiful, but her hair and her clothing were strange to him.

"Hi, Carol," Tony said and hugged her. "This is Anthony. You can call him Cap."

A man cleared his throat behind Carol and Anthony felt like jumping out of his skin. James Rhodes, a grown man, healthy and smiling. He wanted to run forward and hug him, but held himself back. "Calling him Cap will make it only more confusing."

"This," Tony said, and Steve was holding himself very much to the background, "is Rhodey." Turning back to his friend he said: "You were his Bucky. I'm sure he has lots of questions for you."

It was an understatement.

James Rhodes stared at him and he couldn't do much more. Finally he found his nerve and held out his hand. "Captain Anthony Stark."

"Wow," Rhodey said and shook his hand. "He's really Cap."

"Yeah," Tony said and clapped Anthony on the shoulder. "He'll love War Machine. Tell him all about it. And how you used to be Iron Man."

"You used to be... Iron Man?"

"Long story," Rhodes said and led him over to a table. Steve had started mingling with the handful of people he'd asked here to meet him. All of them had been Avengers members at some point.

"I can't believe it," a blond man with a fitted violet shirt said loudly to Tony. "How the hell are you Captain America material in any world, Stark?" Anthony froze at the unfriendly tone.

"Hello, Hawkeye," Tony said calmly. "Jealous?"

The man snorted. "No, just... insulted on Caps behalf."

Tony shrugged. "Well, not all mes are mes. So there's hope for you, too, Clint." He patted Clint on the shoulder and moved over to the other side of the room where Steve was pouring himself coffee.

Anthony sat for a moment, staring after him - angry on his behalf. Then Rhodes cleared his throat. "It's nothing. Tensions have been running high for a while. What do you want to know?"

He asked everything he could think of, talked about Rhodey, how they had met in New York, had become friends - and how generals and media had objected to a black kid at his side, how none had mattered, because Rhodey had turned out to be a hell of a pilot and an even better saboteur.

"Wow," Rhodes said later, after he'd relayed some of Tony's misadventures and it was only him and Carol, Tony and Steve suddenly sitting at a table drinking coffee and water. "This is really weird."

"You nearly got yourself killed that often?" Anthony asked Tony.

"He does that," Steve answered for him and he looked stern.

"He does it too often," Carol agreed readily, but she was smiling with some fondness.

"I do that," Tony said and he sounded like he'd admitted that so often that admitting it one more time made no difference at all. Anthony found the idea charming. The man would probably just throw himself into the line of fire again the next time he got the chance.

Tony left them early to get to a business meeting - on time for once. And he was left with the rest of them, answered questions about his life and about living with Steve and Tony.

"Has he been to a meeting recently?" Carol asked quietly, linking her arm with Steve as they all walked out.

"I don't know, Carol."

"Don't tell me you live together and you still don't get along?"

"We're not living together."

"We are living together," Anthony disagreed and drew everyone's eyes. "We are."

"You seem to like it," she asked. "That is sweet. I always thought Tony wouldn't get along with another one like him. But you're more like Cap, huh?"

He tried to avoid Steve's gaze. "They don't always get along neither, do they?"

"No, they don't," Carol said and watched him with the same fond expression she'd reserved for Tony before. "We always fight the people hardest that mean most to us, huh?"

Steve did not contradict her. He was watching Anthony.

Something about it reminded Anthony of all the times he'd caught him watching lately. He let the rest of the conversation wash over him, tried to make sense of all the pieces of this big puzzle he'd been given.

"Let's go home," Steve announced a little later, when he had finished all his talks and Anthony smiled, realizing that Stark Tower was becoming his home. "Welcome back, Mr. Stark," FRIDAY greeted him even before she looked at Steve.

He smiled.

Talking to Rhodey had brought up so many sad thoughts, so many memories and so many regrets. But even if his world was lost to him. He was here now.

He could start over and reinvent himself.

He could be whatever he wanted to be.

Like Tony said - he could even go back to school.

Anthony discovered an old Porsche from the 1950s in Tony's garage and Tony couldn't even remember when he had bought it with the intention to bring it back to its old glory. "Wouldn't you want to work on a motorcycle?"

"Classic Captain America?" Anthony asked, but his hands were stroking along all the curves of the car like a lover who'd been waiting all day to meet the lady of his heart and get her alone.

"Steve still like it."

"I know. He showed me." Anthony grinned. His hands didn't stop their trip along the sides of the car. "Is it really okay for me to work on it?"

Tony shrugged. "If you want it it's all yours. FRIDAY will assist you when you need her."

"I just..." He broke off, not hesitant, but thinking better of it. "I thought it might be a good idea to work with my hands again. See how far I can get on my own."

"I saw you," Tony said and remembered finding Anthony all over the Tower with papers and books and FRIDAY giving him lectures. "You are catching up. You'll be building robots by the end of the year."

He liked Anthony's surprised laugh. It was always best when it reached the eyes and made them twinkle with real joy. "You think so?"

"I've made some progress on figuring out where you came from, but I haven't yet figured out if there's anything there to go back to. Maybe you want to help me?"

Anthony's eyes widened. "You'd want my help in the workshop?"

Tony shrugged. "You are thinking of going back to school. I can teach you some engineering while solving this problem."

"Thank you."

They set up the car in a workshop where Tony was also working on other things and where he had set up equipment he would need to reproduce a transdimensional portal.

"What's this?" Anthony was walking along the pods in the corner and Tony, who had sat down in his comfortable chair in front of the computers, was following with the eyes.

"Stasis chambers."

"Oh." Anthony looked at them uneasily. "What were they meant for?"

Me, Tony thought, but did not voice it. He had been working on himself since Extremis and he had finally had to admit that if he ever went rogue for good - because as he had seen it only took one spell gone wrong or a hacker getting inside his head - then someone needed to have the means to shut him down. Might as well be Tony Stark himself. "You never know," he said out loud and tried to distract Anthony with the multiverse mapping he'd done so far.

It worked. The minute FRIDAY projected the network like schematic of all the facts and readings, Anthony stepped away from the pod and walked closer, amazed. He even reached out to touch the strands of data. Then he huffed and smiled. "This is incredible. And you can find where I came from in this?"

"This is only what Reed Richards mapped. We have already found that," and Tony reached up to tap part of the chart and it turned grey, "is gone now."

He watched Anthony's face go from surprised elation to sudden horror. "Incursions? You talked about it, but what is it? I’m not sure I understand."

"There was a whole mess of realities crashing into each other. A ripple effect that started off here and caused the whole multiverse to self-destruct."

"How did it start?"

"Too many paradoxes. Time travel making messes. Possibilities overlapping. It all started crashing in on itself. One reality after the other."

"And this brought me here?"

"We think you fell through one of the cracks."

Anthony huffed. "Trust me to find trouble when I'm not even awake."

"It's a Tony Stark trademark, I'm told." With one step Anthony was at his side and a hand, strong and long fingered like Steve's, settled on his shoulder.

"Thank you, Tony. For everything. If my world was one of those, I won't mind staying here with you."

"You will mind," Tony contradicted. Steve had minded in the beginning - when he’d felt lonely and disconnected.

"I won't. But I'm going to start pulling my own weight. I promise. I don't feel good about freeloading in your home."

"You're not freeloading." He chuckled. He hoped SHIELD hadn't already gotten his claws into him and had offered a job.

Anthony smiled. "Steve said I should keep an eye on you when he's out and that's going to be a full time job."

"He said that, huh?" He tried to decide if that was good or bad, if this was a sign of Steve thinking him a problem to be watched closely or a friend whose escapades he thought of fondly.

Steve had been called back to SHIELD this morning, after he and Anthony had come back from their morning run and he and Tony had barely said two words to each other. But Tony had discovered a new pattern: Whenever Tony and Anthony were alone too long, Steve would suddenly magically appear back from whatever secret op or mission he had been called to. Like clockwork, he seemed to appear when Tony and Anthony got to talk for too long. And so far Tony hadn’t figured out if he was trying to protect Anthony, help him - or if he wasn’t happy with Tony growing closer with someone who might have to leave soon.

There was no reason to ask him and draw attention to the fact that he had noticed. He wondered if he should put down a sketch pad or something for him in the corner, because it was just a matter of time until Steve would stand in the door of the workshop and watch the two of them work and talk. But that was possibly an even worse move.

"There is something I wanted to ask about." Anthony’s voice drifted into his pondering and he swiveled around in his comfy chair to look over at where Anthony had started to line up all his tools. FRIDAY was projecting her full body interface as sitting on the hood of the car watching him work and now she looked at Tony expectantly.

"Yes?"

"It's been... I asked Steve, but he said this was something I should talk to you about directly."

He frowned. "Okay?"

"Carol... she asked if you had been to any meetings lately. And I wasn't sure I understood, because you had just been at the Avengers meeting before she asked."

"Oh." He had not brought up the alcoholism at any point and he supposed Steve hadn't either. How did you explain to a Tony Stark who had been good enough to become Captain America that you had fallen so low - not because a supervillain crushed you, but because you had needed to numb the stress, the pain, the thoughts - everything?

He wanted to lie.

Anthony was staring, patiently and very Steve-like waiting for his answer.

He owed him a bit of the truth at least.

"I'm... Carol was speaking of an AA meeting." His throat was dry. "Alcoholics Anonymous. It's... I'm an alcoholic." In the end it was likely the best course of action to just come out and say it.

Truth usually worked like a charm on Steve when you wanted to buy yourself some good will. That was… When you hadn’t already lost any hope of good-will before you came out with it.

"Oh," Anthony said and sounded exactly like Tony had a minute before, but his face turned confused. "I haven't seen you drunk once. I think I..."

"I don't drink anymore. I want to. When I'm stressed and... meetings help. They help me stay sober. They help others stay sober..."

"I know the feeling."

He hadn't realized that he hadn't dared look at Anthony's face until his eyes snapped up to search his at the simple admission.

"I... I struggled," Anthony admitted, his voice smaller than Tony had ever heard it before. "Even before the accident. I drank sometimes. Trying to..."

"Escape," Tony finished for him.

Anthony shrugged. It was all he had to do to make Tony understand the rest.

They were staring at each other across the room and Tony only knew his mouth had gone dry and his brain had been short-circuited by amazement. Down so low, Anthony had still managed to become Captain America.

How had he done it?

Tony had barely managed to get himself back on his feet at all.

"The super soldier serum pretty much put an end to it for me," Anthony said. "I never had to quit. It just... stopped working. It's amazing that you... It's amazing Tony. That must take strength and an iron will."

He sounded like Steve and it was dizzying sometimes how he could go from sounding like him to sounding like the Captain America he had always know. "It's... hard sometimes," he admitted, because he felt he could say it without being judged and like he owed more truth because of it.

Anthony nodded. "I can only imagine."

Tony sat there, still a bit out of sorts, and watched Anthony pick up the tools again, watched him get started on taking the car apart, so he could get on putting it back together and felt like Anthony was equally shaken.

"As long as I'm here," Anthony said without looking up, " - and we all realize that might be a long time. I want you to know," and that was when he looked up, held Tony's gaze in the earnest, confident way that was characteristic of Steve and not Tony, "I'll always be there for you. I'll listen. I'll help. I won't judge. I understand."

Won't judge, Tony thought. The concept never lasted.

"Thank you," he said, trying to fight the tightness in his throat.

He allowed himself to sit there, watching, processing, thinking - and nearly jumped out of his skin when a blaring alarm sounded through the lab.

"FRIDAY!"

She turned the volume down. "Sorry, boss," the AI interface said with a happy chirp in the voice. "The Avengers alert setting was still set to be louder than AC/DC on a stress relief work Saturday."

Anthony was on his feet already.

"Is that an assembly call?"

He looked at the location information, put up live footage of Spider-Man, Vision and their new and glorious Thor fighting a giant... squid? In... New Hampshire?

He let the other man see it and gave a lopsided grin. "Want to meet the All-New Avengers? Now is as good a time as any. Then suit up."

It took him less than a minute to be in the suit and ready, but seeing Anthony run towards him in full gear and with his shield attached to his back, he felt for second like the early days again: Captain America and Iron Man leaving the mansion together when needed.

He loved his new Avengers team and he would do anything to see the kids they had there grow into the best heroes they could be, but he missed the old Avengers. Only Vision and himself had been long-standing Avengers members before this - and now there as a new Cap, a new Thor and kids who needed to learn the ropes.

It made him miss the times when he and Steve and Thor had been together everywhere. When Janet had made sure everyone had time to relax after the fights. When Steve had had his back whatever the world threw at them.

He wanted that back.

He took Anthony over to New Hampshire on the fastest route, all the while listening in on the Avengers channel.

"We're not landing, are we?" Anthony asked.

"You brought your own parachute?"

"Parachutes are for the unenhanced fellas."

"Why am I not surprised?"

From above Tony could finally see that the "squid" was no squid at all. It was a giant machine, and what had looked like tentacles were giant cables that were latching on to whatever energy source they could find. "Why would someone strand something like that in New Hampshire?"

"This is like War of the Worlds." Anthony craned his neck to get a better look and in that moment Tony realized that the giant shape was still moving forward like a giant insect. Vehicle. Robot. Maybe a drone.

Vision was nowhere in sight but he could see Spider-Man and Miss Marvel holding a defensive line to the left of it.

Thor hovered in the air above the giant shape and swung her hammer, drawing up the power she needed.

"You're in for a treat," Tony promised. Anthony had never seen a live Thor.

Their Goddess of Thunder called down lightning, and hit the body of the thing. It crackled and shuddered and stopped its progress towards the kids, then it crackled and turned in the approximate direction of Thor.

Cables flew out faster than Tony had readings for it, but what he could see was a spike of energy. "Thor!" he called out, but at that moment the electric crackling of lighting was filling the air and Thor was knocked out of the air by the energy directed back at her at an amplified strength.

"Let me down!"

"Here?"

"Yes, Tony! Let me down."

He saw the thing turn towards Miss Marvel and Spider-Man, saw a thick arm like cable go for before the girl enlarged her hand and caught it and the boy webbed the next cable springing up. With some relief he saw a familiar shield whizz through the air, so Sam was also down there.

"Let me go, Tony!"

He opened his arms and Captain America, using his shield to dampen his fall, crashed down at accelerating speed. He landed right on top of the pod that made the machine’s body.

Tony wasn't reading any life signs apart from their newest Cap.

Anthony fought a cable like appendage off with the shield, while Tony ran another analysis of the tech. It was clearly nothing that AIM could have built. Some of the intricate circuitry his scans were showing were nothing he had ever seen before.

Alien.

"Vision?" he shouted and saw the android as he let cables phase through him, holding his position so far without a problem. "We need to take out the central control unit!"

"Be wary of the drones," Sam called right as he flew by, but Tony had the tiny robots on his HUD already and took three of them out with just one repulsor. Then Sam spread his wings, threw his shield to take out the ones closest to him and then dropped. He landed close to Nova and Vision.

Then he saw Anthony, struggling to keep his footing on the metal surface. He was making his way towards what looked like the head of the mechanical monster.

Tony realized he was looking for the control unit too.

Smart.

Very smart.

Tony liked smart.

Thor appeared right beside him, her long blonde hair fanned out like a second cape over the red. "I'll follow you."

Tony nodded towards Sam. "Actually, listen to our Cap there. Hold the line. We'll try and shut it down."

He gave no more instructions. They were a relatively new Avengers team, but they were all smart - even the kids. They had a lot to learn, but they were smart. He trusted them to make the right decisions because they were giving their best.

A new batch of drones was breathed out by the alien machine and Tony swooped down, targeted as many of them at once as he could and landed close to Anthony on the back of the thing.

"Control unit. Over there," he pointed and suddenly they were fighting off drones and the thick arm like cables back to back, in a dance Tony had danced countless of times with another Captain America. They moved together with a surety and understanding forged by long years of fighting at each other's side. And yet... This was their first fight. And yet it was all so familiar.

Eerie.

"Duck," he shouted and shot a repulsor blast right over Anthony's head and he moved away just like Steve would have. Tony jumped up to catch one of the appendages that tried to go for Cap. "Go!" he told Anthony. "I'll keep it busy. Get to the control unit and smash it."

Thor was above them again, smashin at the attacking drones with her hammer and forgoing the lightning. Vision stood with the kids and he could hear both Sam and Nova close-by. He remembered the energy surge, found the attack pattern in the cables going after Vision, him and Thor more than the others.

Energy.

It was low on energy and wanted more.

He could give it some until Anthony got to disable it.

Whirling around, moving as fast as he could, he fired blasts in all directions, drawing the attention of the remaining drones.

“Build up an energy surge.”

“What are we doing, boss?” Friday asked.

“Unibeam,” he said and felt the armor change around himself with the thought. “Let’s show this thing who is the biggest snack here.”

“This is a terrible idea,” the AI said laconically.

Tony laughed and fired, giving off energy. The arms latched onto him, draining, draining, draining him until FRIDAY’S voice gave a distorted warning. He could see Anthony move, fight off the final drone and then smash his shield down, once, twice. Thor landed beside him, A shield was raised in synch with a hammer.

And then Tony fell, the weight of the drained armor dragging him backwards and the only thing he saw from there was the sky. But he heard Anthony cry out for him: “Iron Man!”

A second later two Caps were leaning over him.

“Are you alright?” Sam asked.

“I think so. Need a moment to power back up.”

Anthony hunched down and reached for his right arm. “Your armor is cracked.”

He hadn’t seen the readings. Hadn’t felt it when it happened, but he was aware now of a stinging pain in his arm. “Ouch?” he said out loud and couldn’t even move his head enough to see the damage.

“Come on. Get out of there, Stark,” Anthony directed. “I need to look at you.”

“Good god, another mother hen,” he said exasperatedly, trying not to laugh at Tony Stark calling him “Stark”, but used the reserve power that was nearly out to go along with his request, mostly because he was getting tired of staring at the sky framing two Captain America jaws in the strangest caption.

The armor opened. The pain in his arm became momentarily unbearable, but then lessened. He could feel blood wetting the pant leg, but only saw a dent in the armor where it had been breached by a metal spiked cable. A few second more, a bit more power - and the thing would have been powered up enough to just crush him.

Wow.

Good then, that they hadn’t given it more time.

Anthony had him propped up before he had even really tried to move, inspecting his arm.

“Really? You are a lot more Steve than I expected.”

“Flesh wound,” he said. “How can you with all the armor be the one who gets the flesh wound?”

Thor landed right beside them. “You powered it. You made it stronger. Although you knew it could crush you.”

Tony waved her off. “Know and know are different things. I had seen it take your power and throw it back at you. I took some readings and made an educated guess.”

“You knew it could do that and you did it to distract it? Are you nuts?”

He wanted to laugh, because…. It should be so obvious. “I’m being told off by Captain America again,” he said to Sam in what passed for his most conspiratorial tone.

With the falcon-like mask, Tony couldn’t see his eyes, but he saw the man’s jaw working.

“How many Caps that I don’t know about are running around these days? I thought it was Steve.”

Anthony smiled. He was still crouching at Tony’s side and had a hand on his shoulder. “I was hoping to meet you,” he told Sam. “Steve told me there was another Captain America.”

Sam seemed momentarily taken aback at the open smile. “So it’s true? You are Tony Stark?”

Decisively, as if sharing his identity with the rest of the world wasn’t new to him at all, Anthony pulled back the cowl. Then he held out his hand. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Anthony.”

“Anthony,” Sam said strangely and shook his hand. Then he looked at Tony. “I have a hard time believing this.”

Tony shrugged, jarred the wound and winced.

Anthony patted his back. “Why?”

“Tony isn’t exactly the moral center of anything.”

It stung less than it should have. Thor didn’t say anything. Vision was nowhere near and the kids were talking excitedly to the side, not paying attention. Anthony was the one who looked the most offended. “You are teammates. He's a founding Avenger.”

And that sounded very much like the judgmental tone Steve could pull off so well. Just this time it wasn't directed at him at all.

Captain America facing off against Captain America.

It was a sight to behold.

Tony finally tried to get up. "I can't blame anyone for being surprised. I'm not exactly Steve."

Anthony frowned and opened his mouth to say something. Which was when little, bubbly Ms. Marvel came running and reminded him why she was his favorite. “This was AWESOME! I’m sorry you got hurt. Are you okay? Is this really another Captain America?”

Tony chuckled. Her excitement was infectious. Spider-Man and Nova had tailed her, also curious.

The girl looked sheepish for a second, but then they grinned at each other and she lost the shyness again.

Kids. He really loved these kids.

One day, they’d be the perfect Avengers.

“Does he look real?” He pointed at Anthony.

And then it worked: Anthony looked like a slightly disheveled 40s Hollywood actor again: Mustache trimmed perfectly, honest smile, earnest expression, cheekbones that gave Tony’s a run for his money… “You are! Oh god! You’re Tony!” She looked between them and made a delighted high pitched squealing sound, jumping from one leg to the other like a little bouncy ballerina, with her loose hair flying in all directions. Just looking at her made something inside of Tony go soft and squishy. He couldn't remember ever being this innocent. And only now he realized that nobody - not even he himself - had reacted with true joy at finding a multiverse Tony Stark who had taken the role of Captain America where he came from. "This is so amazing. It's just like the fic I wrote! You know about..."

Her gaze turned to Tony and then she froze as soon as that last bit had slipped out, her face turning horrified and embarrassed.

"...you," she finished lamely and grimaced.

"Fic?" Anthony frowned in confusion.

His seriously curious expression tipped Tony over the edge and he started laughing. "You have so much you have yet to discover. The Internet has all kinds of surprises left in store for you, Cap." Then he ruffled Ms Marvel's hair, watching her go from terrified tension to sudden relief in a heartbeat. "RPF, huh? That's daring. Make sure to never show it to me."

Her eyes widened when she realized what his words implied.

"Your arm, Tony," Anthony reminded him. "You're bleeding. At least let me look at it."

Tony tired to brush him off, when all of them heard the sound of a flying car. When Tony looked up, he already knew what to expect.

Just what I needed. All Caps in one place, he thought. He hadn't cleared this excursion with SHIELD or Steve. But they had both talked about Anthony joining the Superhero community if he showed interest in doing so. At least he hoped that meant Steve wasn't here to give them a telling off.

He practically jumped out of the flying car and it was eerie to see three Caps, all different, all Cap - two perfectly round shields and one with a pointed edge.

Trying to mask his own nervous fidgeting he pressed a hand over the now throbbing arm wound and whispered toward Ms Marvel: "How is that for a fanfiction plot?"

She blushed and chuckled, embarrassed. The boys were only looking at each other, probably more aware of their friend's hobby than Tony had been until now.

Tony expected Steve to make a beeline for Anthony, but he walked towards the group, nodded at both Caps present, then clapped Tony's shoulder on his uninjured side. "Are you alright?"

"Just a scratch."

"We'll have it looked at now."

Warmth pooled in his belly. Nothing about this was new. Nothing about this was strange.

But he had missed it.

Ached for it.

"Okay."

"Must hurt worse than I thought if you so easily agree," Steve told him with a smirk. He was aware he was staring, half-aware that everyone was staring and that Anthony watched them with a curious expression he hadn't seen before.

Right now it didn't matter.

Nothing mattered but Steve's hand on his shoulder.

Over the next weeks Anthony watched both people he was thinking of as "counterparts" closely. He had heard stories about both of them, had put pieces of the puzzle together bit by bit of information. FRIDAY who had been programmed by Tony provided him with insights into Tony's background and self-appraisal. "He programmed me to talk back," the AI explained to him when he wondered about it. "He needs someone to keep him in line."

It said a lot about a man when he thought he needed to build himself an artificial person to keep him from falling into the traps his own character flaws provided. It spoke of a painful awareness of his own flaws.

Anthony could relate.

He would have built himself a RHODEY already if he'd had the skill to do it.

Perhaps one day he mused and looked through all the application papers both Steve and Tony had collected for him. Tony had been encouraging him to check out his options to go back to school, and Steve had taken an interest too. "If you're staying," he had said, "you should do what feels right."

He watched Tony with envy and a huge amount of admiration. The man went through equations at a speed that was astounding, he solved problems and built and created. Anthony wanted to be a little more like that. He remembered the joy of it, in the days before he had become an invalid and then a super soldier. Not once had he regretted becoming Captain America and he didn't now, not really. But he'd had his doubts about his future and he'd had his doubts about his own worth sometimes. And here was the option to become even more, even better. He was going to take it.

More importantly though he had realized something that he was still mulling over: Tony Stark of universe designation 616 was looking at him with a hint of the adoration that seemed usually reserved for one man and one man only.

Steve Rogers.

The man who had just laughingly challenged to a fist fight.

Anthony had his own questions about that. And if he was going to stay here, he needed to figure it out.

He remembered what it had been like falling in love and being betrayed. He remembered Whitney and Indries and Tiberus who all had touched him in their brief wartime brushes and left scars he tried to hide. War had made some things so easy. Focus, forgetting, finding another soldier who would never talk about the frantic kisses and touches you exchanged away from prying eyes. Carl Danvers had been an amazing pilot and an even better and very discreet lover... And Bethany... He had really thought things might work out with Bethany.

"You are distracted," Steve told him before they had even finished taping their hands, "and I know sometimes it helps to share."

"I'm an open book to you."

"You are sometimes and other times I have no idea what you are thinking. A bit like Tony."

"You do know him well," Anthony conceded. He wondered why that made his heart ache, because he knew he was not meant to be here and if these two had been dancing around each other for years then it wasn't his place to come between them. And yet, he had not yet figured out what Steve wanted. He seemed to be intent on keeping Tony and Tony from getting too close, like someone who was afraid to be sidelined. And yet that didn't quite add up.

Anthony couldn't tell which Tony Stark he was interested in. Some days it seemed to clearly be Tony. Others like today the attention seemed all for Anthony.

And there was a another thing. This morning Steve had taken them to SHIELD to give Anthony the opportunity to learn what SHIELD had to offer him for his future and education and at the same time let Tony work his way through the data they had gathered on Anthony's origins.

With a dark frown Tony had declared: "Something in this data doesn't add up."

"What?"

"It's like you weren't washed ashore during an incursion at all. All the readings should indicate same residue radiation like we had during the portal. But there is nothing with you. All I'm getting from my own readings indicates that you just... appeared. Not too long ago either. Even the ice... It still has all the slightly deviating radiation levels that I associate with your universe. Like you came just before you were found."

Steve had frowned. "Why do you think that?"

"Because of all the readings I took and all the papers Reed left behind on the subject."

"Of course, you are convinced you can't be wrong." Steve's voice sounded hard.

Tony's eyes narrowed. Anthony knew the expression. Hurt warred with pride and insecurity with knowledge of his own abilities and finally Tony set his jaw and said: "I'm not wrong. But that leaves no explanation why SHIELD data indicated readings of an incursion event."

"Because it happened."

"I don't believe it. We would have seen other traces for it."

"Don't you think you want that to be true, because then you did not destroy his whole world."

Color had drained from Tony's face and he and Steve had stared at each other for a moment because Tony had turned away. "If I was I would have to face it, too."

Something about the whole exchange had prickled something in the back of Anthony's mind. Now he stared at Steve's hands as he tried to form a question: "He is doing his best to find out if there's a way to send me home, you know. Don't be too hard on him. I know there are some hard feelings between you, but maybe you should put them aside."

A hand pulled his face towards Steve's just as he looked away. "None of this has to do with you." Steve was so close, so very close, that they were nearly nose to nose. "I understand you, Anthony. We are so alike."

Of course, Tony chose this exact moment to walk in. Steve didn't move an inch, but Anthony pulled away like he had been burned, because it hurt to see Tony's eyes widen in unpleasant surprise, probably jumping to conclusions. He was looking from one to the other, cleared his throat. "I'm sorry to interrupt your... training," he said tightly and turned on his heel and stormed out.

He wanted to follow Tony and tell him things weren't as they may have seemed just a moment ago, wanted to ask Steve what it was he wanted from either of them. Then he noticed the way in which Steve was watching Tony's retreat - his mouth a thin line and his eyes focused on reading Tony, like a strategist reading the moves of the enemy.

"I'm not sure I want to be in the middle of this," Anthony said angrily. "Can we start?"

Steve got up and took his position. He was considering Anthony's stance and posture, planning moves, but his mind was far away. "I'm sorry, Anthony. But you already are," he announced and threw the first punch.

Part of him expected anger - Steve's or his own - to make the fight escalate into violence, but they were both so closely matched that there wasn't much room for emotions to cloud the mind. For nearly twenty minutes it was push and pull, give and take and nobody got the real advantage. In the end they fell to the mat side by side panting.

"That was intense," Steve admitted. "You can read me too well."

He was still breathing heavily. "Apologize to Tony or next time I'll kick your ass."

Steve nodded. "At least you would try."

It wasn't the end of it, because Anthony really didn't want Tony to be angry or sad. But he understood the need to be alone, so he let Tony shut himself into the workshop for a whole day and waited for him to appear again on his own. He wasn't prepared for him to walk out of the workshop, clad in jeans and a muscle shirt and whistling to himself like nothing had ever happened.

"Breakfast?" Anthony asked carefully. "I can provide coffee and maybe bacon and eggs."

"Breakfast of champions," Tony joked. "I'll take the coffee."

"Are you..."

"Don't worry about me." He snatched an apple from the always full fruit basket in the corner and walked to his room to get dressed. Anthony watched him go in his fancy business suit and wondered what he must be thinking.

He had never built himself an Iron Man, but he knew about armors, protective walls you built around yourself and about public personas. He had seen Tony's a couple of times.

Because he wanted to clear the air, he lounged in the living room area for the rest of the day, although neither Steve nor Tony came back to the tower. He didn't want to miss when Tony came home. He ended up spreading out all the brochures and papers about colleagues and educational institutions across the table and read through them one at a time. Take chances, Anthony. Don’t miss opportunities, a voice in his own mind told him and it sounded much like Dr. Erskine.

The man would have wanted him to try and be happy and find a mission for himself now that there was no war to fight.

He was so deep in his own thoughts that he missed FRIDAY appearing in the corner and Tony stepping into his home.

By the time he realized he wasn't alone there was no way to tell how long Tony had been leaning against the door frame. At least he was smiling. "Made a choice."

"No." He shook his head. "I still have a lot of catching up to do if I want to beat you at your own game one day."

"Ha," Tony said and walked over to sit down beside him on the sofa. He sounded amused, but Anthony belatedly realized how his words could be misunderstood.

"There was nothing between..."

"I know," Tony said. "I wouldn't be jealous, I promise."

It was a lie and yet not. Tony would probably try and bury his own feelings and step aside. It was what he would do.

"I like him," Anthony finally admitted, because Tony had been so good to him, he deserved the truth. "He's an amazing man. But so are you. I like you, too, Tony."

"Oh?" Tony asked. His eyes were shining with cautious interest, but finally he got up and leaned over to press a kiss on his brow, taking his breath away with the sudden emotions at the soft, tentative gesture. "You're the better me. Of course, I like you. Now let me get into something more comfortable and get back to work."

Shell-shocked, he watched Tony go and sat there for nearly ten minutes unsure of what he wanted to do. FRIDAY hadn't appeared again, but a noise in the hallway caught his attention. He sat there staring at his hands.

"How long have you been standing there?" he asked without looking up. He knew Steve was standing on terrace door. He must have come down from the heli landing patch.

"Long enough." He sounded rough.

"He's hung up about you. You should do something about it or let someone else take his mind off it."

"I could never figure out if he was interested."

"I think he has the same problem with you." He folded his arms in front of his chest. All he wanted was to tell both of them to get over themselves and talk it out.

"I don't think I ever gave any indication until you came along. Can you imagine."

He had a feeling that while Steve might actually believe it, that wasn't true. "He was wrong by the way," Anthony said. "He's the better me. He may not be perfect, but shield or not, neither are we."

Steve's eye narrowed a bit as he thought that over. "Nobody is. We are all just human, aren't we? But we can strive to be better."

Suddenly they were standing toe to toe and Anthony couldn't tell who had moved first. "Who do you think makes the better Cap?" Steve asked and his voice was laced with some emotion that Anthony couldn't pinpoint. But it pinged at a memory that just didn't really want to be dragged up.

He tried to keep his voice light and gentle: "We seem to be about even."

"In Tony's eyes too."

This time Anthony heard the footsteps in the hallway. This time he wasn't going to be taken by surprise. But Steve didn't budge, and he didn't give an inch either. Tony walked in, not immediately noticing the silent contest that was playing out. But then the footsteps ceased. "Am I interrupting another thing?" he asked, sounding extremely wary.

"As a matter of fact," Steve said and finally ended the uncomfortable staring contest.

Anthony ended the sentence for him: "We were waiting for you."

"What did I do? Am I going to get a Cap speech from two Caps at once, because I'm not sure I can take that."

He put down the tablet he had been carrying on the table as he moved closer. Even his movements were cautious, like he didn't want to set either of them off. "I may have found your home, Anthony. But maybe you have found the life you always wanted here now?"

He moved at the same time as Steve made a step towards Tony. "I haven't made up my mind," he said honestly. "Would I be able to return to when I was lost?"

"I don't know," Tony said but he was staring at Steve now who was holding his gaze with fiery intensity. Tony's mouth snapped shut in surprise.

"We were talking about you," Steve repeated.

"But I thought you two were..." Tony motioned between them. "I had never really thought I'd see the day when you'd show interest in anyone like me..."

Steve made another step forward, but Anthony held him back. The muscles in Steve's face tensed and he shook for a moment like he was fighting something. Perhaps for control. But Anthony wanted Tony to make up his mind first. "It seems the two of you have been idiots for a long, long time."

His own gaze was trained on Tony and he had a feeling that his own emotions weren't any less smouldering than those Tony could see in Steve's eyes.

And that was when Tony cracked. He moved forward. He kissed Anthony right on the lips and there was a sound close to a growl nearby as Anthony felt his knees weaken and his mind spin. Then Tony ended the kiss, but pressed their brows together. "Thanks," he said. "Thank you."

When he pulled away, Steve was staring, his hands balled into fists. His internal struggle continued.

"Don't tell me you weren't thinking about it, too, Steve," Tony nearly whispered. "Because you were. And you were the one..."

It was all it took to let Steve give up on the last shred of control as he pulled Tony close and kissed him, rough and fast - like a desperate man who had only now realized he needed this and couldn't allow this to slip away.

Anthony was ready to move away and let them work this out.

But just as he wanted to Steve's hand shot out to hold him there.

"I haven't properly thanked you," he said, drawing a surprised laugh from Tony, who was panting, cheeks red, eyes wide, lips wet and too red.

Oh, he thought and looked at both these people who had wormed their way under his skin.

Well. War had taught him to take chances and never miss opportunities. And this was so much more than that.

He squeezed Steve's fingers and stayed.

Steve and Tony worked things out slowly. Steve was out more often than not on missions, but sometimes he worked in Avengers tower without letting either of them know what it was he was working on. Tony didn't seem bothered by the secrecy. "I'm not a hypocrite," he said and waved it away.

He was calibrating the machine that would send Anthony home if he actually decided to go through with it. Right now he was too torn to even think about it. He had settled in, planned for a future, had people here who showed him affection and love.

But there were Rhodey and Pepper and the Howling Commandos back home. There was no guarantee he would ever see them again, but he missed them. He wanted a chance to have the life that had been meant for him.

He watched Tony type. "I'm not sure I'll ever be ready to give up the future."

"I know I wouldn't be," Tony agreed easily. "But it's up to you, Cap. I know you miss home. This isn't necessarily a good-bye forever." He threw him a smile that was a little more than just friendly.

At least he knew that Tony wouldn't be alone now. "Why did it take the two of you so long?"

"So long?"

"To figure this out."

Tony sighed heavily. "I never thought there was a chance. And then our friendship stood on rocky ground and then I tipped it over into even worse territory. Or maybe we both did. It's hard for us sometimes, to see things the same way. And then, god, can you imagine? I don't even know how, but the world was put back together and somewhere in the middle of it we lost Reed and Sue... Sorry, you have no idea who I'm talking about. But we're all here. And then Steve was suddenly young again."

"Wow," he chuckled. "You make it sound like a soap opera, Tony. Young again? I saw the pictures of him. The super soldier serum stopped working?"

"Yes," he said. "Made him even more cranky." It was good to hear Tony laugh and mean it.

"How was he turned back? How did that happen?"

"Cosmic cube," Tony said. "A shard of it anyway. A sentient little shard turned him back."

All color must have drained from his face suddenly.

"What? Had your own brushes with it?"

"How can you be so calm about the Cosmic Cube?"

"Reality warping always makes me uneasy. It trapped us in a village full of brainwashed reality warped supervillains. SHIELD had tried to be smart and, god, did it backfire. I ended up thinking I was the friendly neighborhood mechanic. But what did it do to you? Anthony? Sit down. You look like death warmed over."

He did sit on the workbench.

His stomach felt like turning.

"Erskine. He... Hydra got to him. The Red Skull... You have him here? He used it on him to turn him against me." The words got stuck in his throat and he had to take a few deep breaths to calm himself. "He was convinced that he had been a double agent all his life."

Suddenly he felt like crying.

"I pulled him out of it. He remembered me. He'd been about to shoot me, but something in him remembered me and..."

Tony got up to sit beside him, put a hand on his shoulder, his eyes wide and sympathetic.

"He died. He threw himself in front of a bullet meant for me. The cube’s hold on his mind had shattered, but I couldn't save him."

He remembered the man, gurgling up blood, trying to whisper, "I'm sorry," over and over again.

"I'm sorry," Tony whispered.

"He was like a father to me. And that thing made him forget it was real. They nearly tainted his memory. I... He behaved like he always had and suddenly he was trying to kill me…"

“Did he give it to them?”

“The serum?” Anthony nodded. “Yes. He did. It’s how the Red Skull was made. But it failed. They never figured out how or why. I am the only one it ever worked on.”

Tony nodded. “I am sorry.”

His thoughts kept racing. Cosmic Cube. Erskine. Tony’s feeling that someone had doctored the data he had received from SHIELD, his own being here in the wrong universe. He hated the feeling of being under attack, but he couldn’t help it.

Tony talked him through the next steps of what he was doing to make him focus on something else.

“I need to go home,” he finally said, realizing that this was one thing he had to do. “The doctor would have wanted it. It’s my home. I need to know everything worked out fine.”

“I can arrange that soon if you want it. I just need to find the exact point where to put you. Reed is much better at this than me.”

“I trust you, Tony.”

“I don’t want you to go,” Tony finally admitted.

“I’ll come back. I’ll come back somehow.” He didn’t easily make promises like this.

But he couldn’t shake the bad feeling that had taken hold of him.

Steve.

Tony watched Anthony struggle for the rest of the day. The memory of his mentor’s death had hit him harder than he wanted to let on. “I do need to leave for Seattle. MJ is going to have my hide if I don’t go.”

“Go,” Steve told him. “We’re still going to be here when you come back.”

Steve’s smile was warm and open. “I hope so. This is still so new.”

“I’m sorry I made you wait so long for this.” Steve put his arms around him and leaned his head on his shoulders. “Come back to me soon.”

They kissed.

Suddenly Steve shivered.

“What’s wrong?”

Steve gasped. For a moment he looked at Tony amazed and confused. Then he straightened himself again. “Nothing. Nothing at all. Just come back soon. I have plans for you.”

He cocked his head. It wasn’t the first time that Steve had shown a struggle like this in the last few days. It worried him.

Perhaps there was something he was missing.

He waved at Anthony before leaving and whispered: “Keep an eye on him, please.”

“Don’t worry,” the other man said. “I will.”

Something about his tone he had used made Tony frown for the duration of his flight. He better hurry home. Something was going on again.

He had seen so much footage of this universe's Captain America, heard so many stories and the man in the flesh was a force to be reckoned with, too. But sometimes… Just sometimes his gaze lacked emotion that Anthony just knew should be there.

The memory of Erskine’s cold eyes when he revealed that he thought of himself as a Hydra agent haunted Anthony then. He couldn’t shake it. He had always felt guilty that he had not figured out what was going on before it had been too late.

Horrified at his own suspicions Anthony watched for signs.

But Steve seemed calmer and more emotional in his interactions with Tony than he had before.

I’m seeing things, he told himself.

“FRIDAY?”

“Yes, Anthony?”

“Do me a favor. Run a check on all accesses to Tony’s files relating to my being here. Let me know if anything was tampered with.”

He had learned a bit from Tony. He’d had weeks here without anything to do. He knew some things that might be useful. With some trepidation he watched the simple records be highlighted as FRIDAY went through them.

“There have been at least three instances of changed data.”

“In Tony’s files?”

“In the SHIELD logs.”

“On whose authorization?”

“Steve Rogers.”

His face fell, his stomach nearly turned.

“What was changed?”

FRIDAY silently went through the records. It took him hours to piece the information together. There had been two changes in the SHIELD file authorized by Steve Rogers’ authorization code. Apparently his ice block had appeared suddenly and without any sign of an incursion a day before he had been found.

As they discovered that night these weren’t the only changes that had been made across SHIELD files with the authorisation of Steve Rogers. Nothing seemed like a grave misuse of power, but a pattern was building up. Steve had been trying to influence the organization for the past weeks, pushing harder against Maria Hill on the ground of her decisions that led to the Pleasant Hill debacle.

Tony was in Seattle at a conference. He wouldn’t be back before tomorrow.

He wanted to contact Tony immediately, but fearing any sort of interception he decided to use a trick Tony had told him about. He hid a message in one of FRIDAY’s code files. When he was finished he was proud that he had learned so much in the short amount of time. Tony and FRIDAY had helped him to come a long way.

Making a final decision he put on his uniform, he picked up all the pieces and reached for his shield. He was going to confront Steve and hopefully he would be able to shake him out of the hold of this Cosmic Cube before worse happened.

He decided to make his way down to the workshop to wait for any news of Steve or Tony. The first thing he noticed was that the stasis pods had been moved to the middle of the room, close to where Tony had built the machine that would open the portal when necessary.

The computers were all switched on and running.

He was immediately on edge.

“Hasn’t FRIDAY warned you that I am here.” Steve was holding a small flash drive in his hands. “Oh, I should have warned you. I have more friends than just Tony, who know how to get into people’s systems. Nothing that goes down in the workshop tonight will be observed.”

“You don’t want this, Steve. You are a good man. You were warped by the cube.”

A shiver went through Steve before he straightened himself. “Reality was warped. But not mine.”

Anthony swallowed and his mouth went dry. He had heard these same words before.

“Tony would want you to fight it. ”

“Tony isn’t here. It was hard enough to schedule all his meetings via MJ.”

“You wanted him gone!”

“Yes,” Steve admitted without even a second of hesitation. “I didn’t want him to see this. I have plans for him.”

He expected the attack and hopped to the side, but he did not see Steve hitting his fist against his shoulder coming. He couldn’t make sense of it until he noticed the sting.

“What did you...?”

“I need you to go home, Anthony. You’ve become a liability.”

“You made him believe I came here through the incursions.”

“Tony is easily manipulated by guilt. It’s one of his more charming qualities.” Suddenly he wavered like it had been hard to say, like the true Steve Rogers was inside somewhere and wanted out. The he caught himself and spat: “The drug was made to slow me down. It will do its work on you, too.”

“How did I come here?” Anthony whispered. “Why all of this for..”

“It was an accident. An inhuman with the ability to summon objects from other dimensions was born and had no control of his power. Seems he managed more than just objects.”

Steve raised his shield and Tony fought him off. Like in their training sessions neither of them could get the advantage. But Steve also knew it was only a matter of time until the drug would work.

“Steve, look at me! I am Tony. Think about all the help you gave me. You didn’t do it because you are this.”

“I gave it because it was the right thing to do. But I’m sorry. I can’t let you jeopardize my mission. Hydra will rise again soon.”

Steve hit him with the fist in the jaw.

His reflexes had already slowed down. Whatever had been in the syringe was doing its work. “You like the future, Tony, don’t you?” Steve asked and his voice sounded colder than Tony had ever heard it before. But the coldest thing about him were the eyes, cold blue eyes, so different from the deep pools of emotion that had looked at him - them… He steeled himself, caught the fist that flew towards his temple with one hand, but could do nothing but brace himself for the boot connecting with his midsection hard. He fell back.

He had the better shield and he knew it, but he also knew the other Captain America had wielded one just like it for years. He would be able to read its flight path, would be able to catch it right out of the air if he wanted to.

Tony rolled away before the sharp edge of the triangled shield could come down on his chest. He came to his feet and caught the next assault with his sheet. “You need to do better, old man,” Tony taunted. “That’s what you are. That’s what you should be, Steve. The real Steve never came back from that SHIELD prison city. You were warped when this thing remade you in Pleasant Hill.”

“What do you know, old man?” Steve asked tauntingly. “You’re nothing but a joke, Tony. Not Iron Man and not good enough to be me. Not good enough for any world. Even Tony would choose me over you.”

He stumbled forward, tried to get his own hit in. “What gets you more? That he kissed me first or that I figured you out?” He tried to remain calm. He’d gone through this before. Erskine hadn’t known what he was saying either. Or he had, he had just not been the same man. Not exactly. He had been Erskine, but without the compassion, without the moral compass, his memories warped and broken.

Just like Steve. Just that he had never met the real Steve, he realized with a pang.

And yet Erskine had remembered Tony before it had been too late. He needed to get through to him.

“You love him,” Tony said. “You know it. Even like this, you love him, Steve. And the man he loves? The man who did all the good with the Avengers? He is better than this!”

His arms were heavy like lead. He avoided the edge of Steve’s shield barely and then got enough momentum to catch him in the stomach with one knee, raising the shield and crashing it down on the back of his head as hard as he could.

“I’m sorry,” he said, as Steve’s face connected with the floor. “I’m sorry, this happened to you. I know, it’s…”

A punch out of nowhere knocked all air out of him and then a hand latched on to his jaw with an iron grip and pulled his face towards Steve’s who was already back on his knees. Steve’s head connecting with his own knocked him down completely. He saw stars. His ears were ringing and he coughed, blood running down his throat, bubbling out of his nose. But that unforgiving grip was still holding his up. “You don’t know anything. I’ve never been more myself than I am now. He held back all the time. He watched Tony walk through the world like a blind man, never seeing the light. And I’m done with his weakness. I’m done letting the world go down because people can’t be better than they are.”

With the last bit of his strength, Tony grabbed his shield and threw it. Steve didn’t let go, followed the path the shield had taken, bouncing from one corner to the other and coming or his head and with a self-satisfied grin he held out his hand, just as Tony shot up, to dish out a headbutt of his own. “You are not better,” he spat. “And you’ll wake up, Steve. The real you will wake up and then you’ll be horrified. You’ll hate yourself for what you did while…”

Steve’s fist connected with his cheekbone hard, and his teeth clattered. It hurt. It stung his pride even more. But he wasn’t done talking. “And Tony will look at you and know you’re not at all infallible. You can be manipulated too.” It was his own worst fear that people looked at him and realized he wasn’t invincible that he was half-assing it more than half of the time, that he just rolled with the punches and made things up as he went. “You know you’re not better like this. The real you is still there.” The drug was starting to cloud his mind. He was a mess. Even breathing was beginning to be a challenge.

Hands settled around his throat and pressed down making it even harder. “Go down, damn it! Why do you have to be so stubborn? Does this have to be the same damn thing in all the worlds? Because I won’t pull my punches, Anthony. Not for you. Not even for him. He did. I won’t! Every time they fought, can you imagine…? Every single time, he held back instead of putting Tony in his place. And now I can have him, and he doesn’t realize. And I can’t let you interfere. I can’t, Tony. You knew that. This is on you.”

He made a strangled gurgling sound. He wanted to ask, wanted to pull on more of the threads, because Steve was looking down at him and there still was no rage, but a cool detached anger. He needed to get through somehow. “You… I had hoped you could be more like me. We could have done this together. Kobik could help you, make you who you are supposed to be. Imagine what we could do together.”

“I’m who I’m supposed to be.” The words were slurred and Steve’s face had started to swim in front of his eyes. “Too much like you…”

“No,” Steve said. “You are not, Tony. You’re him. With all the arrogance and all the insecurity and all the failings. And I thought that would be enough - to keep both of you off balance, to keep you from finding out before I’m ready to take you on. You’re forcing my hand here.”

“You don’t… want to…”

“I’m sorry, Tony,” he said. “But I can’t allow this. I can’t allow anyone to find out, before I have them. Hydra will reign supreme. The real Hydra. Not this aberration it became under the Red Skull.”

“No difference. And you know that. Deep down. Don’t really want that… you’ll… regret… Erskine, he regretted…”

“I’m not him,” Steve said and his voice was still cold. “But thank you. Thanks to you I have found a new way to distract Tony. I’ll take good care of him.” He grabbed Tony by the collar and dragged him up. “That’s what I called you down here for.”

Tony stumbled, when Steve pulled him towards the pod at the side of the room. All his strength had failed him. The shield clattered to the floor and the sound was loud, so loud in his ears, and still it sounded like it came from far away. “What did you…?”

Steve picked up the shield easily with one hand, leaning down only slightly to reach it and without relinquishing his hold on him. “You are wrong about me,” he said and his voice had returned to that calm, understanding tone, the one he had used when he’d offered to be there for him when he needed someone who had also woken up in a new future. “This pains me. I will have to explain to Tony why you left without even leaving a last message. And I know this will scare you. It would scare me.”

Tony tried to get free from his grip when he realized what Steve meant. But he could barely keep his feet from not stumbling over each other.

“No,” he croaked.

“It’s my worst nightmare,” Steve admitted and pulled him closer to the stasis pod. “Being frozen. Losing even more time. The cold. It’s still my worst nightmare, and you are probably the only person who understands that.”

He tried to struggle. “Steve,” he croaked. He knew that Tony wouldn’t know where he had gone off to, he knew Steve would return to him and smile and tell him about how SHIELD had done what Tony hadn’t been able to do yet: Send him home. Perhaps he would kiss him and hold him, while Tony wondered if all of this had meant so little that he hadn’t even been worth a good-bye. With the last of his fading strength he pushed against Steve, tried to loosen his grip.

Steve didn’t know about the warning he’d left.

Tony would find it, even if he would die here.

“He’s going to save you,” he whispered and knew that only half the words even made it out. “Steve, never knew you… But you are better. I know it. You wear the uniform, you carry the shield. You can… You must… remember… Are better.”

“Better than both of you,” he agreed and held his arms with fists like vises. “He loved him, you know? He loved him so much that he let him do whatever he needed to do, even when it hurt him, even when it hurt everybody. He loved him even when they fought. But I’m not like that. I need him to see what I’ll do, Anthony. You can’t ruin this. I want him to see and realize and finally stop fighting when he comes to the conclusion that there’s nothing he can do. Then he can be better, too.”

“Steve,” he said and it was a plea. The pod was open - had been open since they’d entered the room. It was waiting for him. Steve had prepared it for him. He could feel the cold already seeping into his bones and it scared him.

Steve’s smile from two days ago flashed across his mind, Tony’s happy laughter. The flashes of recognition and passion in Steve’s blue eyes.

“You know better,” he mumbled. “Know. That’s why you’re fighting so hard. Will hurt you more than me. When he comes for you. When he saves you.”

With a bruising violence, Steve maneuvered him in front of the pod. “The sedative is meant to make it easier. You don’t have to fight.”

Easier.

It made it worse.

He didn’t want to give in to unconsciousness knowing that he wouldn’t be allowed to wake up.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t just send you home, you see. I can’t store you here either. He would come looking. He would find out. Can’t have that now. You’ll have to actually go through and we’ll see the portal behind you tight. But I can’t have you be in a position to rebuild this, to come back and warn him. You are Tony. You wouldn’t be able to leave it alone...”

His heart beat faster. He knew exactly what Steve was saying.

He’s going to freeze me. He’s going to make sure that I’m out of the way and unable to come back.

“You would put me back in the ice…” None of the words ere more than a slurred whisper, but for the first time Seve looked apologetic.

“Too many variables. I can’t allow you to stop me, or warn Tony, I don’t want you here for Red Skull to find another Super-Soldier to take apart either. I know it seems cruel, but I’m doing you a favor.”

The mere idea chilled him to the bone. And Steve believed it, as he forced him into the pod, as he held him and touched his cheek, cleaning away some blood in a mockery of affection. His eyes were dropping, but the adrenaline in his veins kept him up, while his instincts were screaming for him to move, to get away, to help Steve free himself of this. Erskine had died in his arms, coming back to himself in time to save him.

Would Tony be able to take that?

You left him a warning.

You left a warning where only he can find it.

When you don’t come back, he will know something can’t be right.

He will know.

You have to believe he will know.

Steve will always be the best of us, he heard Tony say with so much adoration and he looked at the man staring down at him less coldly than before. He gasped as metal restraints sprang up at the push of a button and suddenly he couldn’t move away, felt himself pulled deeper into the pod.

The act… Tony was sure it hadn’t been all an act. Erskine’s pretending had been informed by his real personality. He had regretted his own actions as soon as the warped reality had fallen apart, but when he had thought himself a Hydra double agent he had acted like the real Erskine. He had fooled Tony until it had been nearly too late.

He reached up his hand, aware that this was going to happen. He was going to be frozen - dead to everyone who knew of the Captain America he had been - and be lost all over again. Tony had found a way to send him home, to a life of his own, where Tony Stark and Captain America were needed. Part of him hadn’t even wanted to go, but suddenly, realizing that there was no way out, but that he had done all he could for this Tony and the real Steve who was struggling to get back to the surface. The rest was up to them. To Tony.

Because Tony loved this man. And he had a feeling Steve had been feeling the same for far too long that now it was his best chance out of the brainwashed state.

Steve had been distracted, contemplating the perfect round shape of Tony’s Vibranium shield and now, after a long longing look, pushed it against Tony’s legs. He knew he couldn’t keep it. Captain Anthony Stark would never leave it behind willingly. This time, when he looked at Tony he grimaced. Perhaps he was seeing Tony, perhaps he was seeing himself. “Look at what you made me do,” he said and then stroked Tony’s cheek. Tony’s hands were still free, but a strong strap had wrapped around his forehead and was keeping his head in place. He was tired. He wanted to give in, wanted to forget about all this, but he was so afraid.

“The cold,” he whispered.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said. “I would have chosen another way if there had been time.”

They both knew killing him was the only other option and it meant a lot for Steve’s chances that he had chosen this option, although to Anthony, this was possibly worse than death. He was breathing hard, trying to hold on, starred at Seve through half-closed lids.

“I know,” he soothed and stroked his cheek, “I’ll take care of Tony.” And there was a flicker of realemotion, of real pain and Steve hunched over suddenly, his touch suddenly soft and shaky. The inner struggle had begun. The one he’s seen in Erskine, he one Tony had described. It took his breath away - fear, anger, surprise and hope warring - when Steve leaned forward to press his forehead against Tony’s. “We could have been great together.”

“Yes,” he croaked and thought of all the stories he’d heard about Captain America and Steve Rogers, of the love he’d seen in Tony’s eyes, of the connection he’d felt, of the passion all of them had shared. Realizing that nobody would come to save him, knowing that Steve’s fight with his warped self had only just begun, he felt peace, nothing but sudden calm and peace. He put his hand awkwardly and weakly up and against Steve’s cheek. The tears on his cheeks were his own, and yet… Steve’s cheek was also wet. “I forgive you.” Tony will save you. He has to - or all of you are lost.

Struck, Steve pulled away. The cold anger was back and his jaw was set.

“Rest now,” he said cruelly and pushed the button.

Finally he was able to let go. The comforting weight of the shield pressed up against his legs, breathing evening out like he was falling asleep, the last thing he saw before he drifted into the icy arms of darkness was Steve’s face on the other side of the glass.

Then nothing.

When Tony arrived back at the tower, Steve waited for him. He looked pale and shaken and before Tony had even said anything Steve walked up to wrap him in his arms. He returned the hug, held on and wondered at the shaking that went through Steve’s whole frame.

“Are you sure you are fine? You have been acting weird.”

“I’m fine,” he said and swallowed. “Anthony is gone.”

“What?”

It was a ridiculous thing to say. Why would he be gone.

“We sent him home. There was… We made contact at SHIELD today. He went home. He was needed.”

“He wouldn’t just leave!”

“I’m sorry, Tony.” Steve did not let him step out of the embrace. “He would have waited if he could.”

“We can get to him?” he asked muffled against Steve’s chest. “We have the data.”

“Yes,” Steve said softly. “But you know why we can’t do it at just any time. These are the kind of things that got us into the incursions in the first place.”

They sat together for a bit. Steve seemed more shaken than he wanted to let on. For an hour they held each other, talking about nothing at all.

Later, when sleep eluded him and his thought were reeling he went back to his workshop. He couldn’t believe that Anthony would have left without a message. The half restored car stood in the corner just as Anthony had left it behind. His chair was neatly at the desk like Tony never left it, but Anthony did all the time.

He looked over the workshop and the first thing he noticed was that the stasis pods looked different. He looked at them more closely, looked for the details he knew were familiar but found that one was in better condition than he remembered.

What would Anthony have wanted with those?

In the end he sat down and looked through recent files and change logs.

When he found one that he hadn’t saved, it sprang up in the monitor. “Cosmic Cube. Don’t trust Steve. Help him,” it said. He didn’t need to ask what it meant, although the magnitude of possibilities scared him.

“Steve Rogers is on his way down,” FRIDAY announced.

“Don’t let him in yet.” There was no point in playing games now. He felt empty and hurt. In what world ever could he be so lucky as to actually win Steve’s love when he wasn’t warped by something like the cosmic cube. Anthony’s warning was fresh in his mind, but also the memory of how Erskine had fought his way back. He remembered waking up from the enforced reality of Pleasant Hill suburbia.

His armor formed around him at will. “I love you,” he whispered. “I’ll help you.”

Whatever happened next he owed it two Captains to set this right.

“Open the door, FRIDAY.”

He would wake Steve, whatever the cost.

Consciousness returned slowly and the first thing he was aware of was the cold, Then, very slowly, he realized he could hear waves.

The last thing he remembered was darkness and cold. Fear.

Steve.

Tony.

"He's waking up," someone whispered. He tried to pry his eyes open.

The first thing he saw when he blinked ice and sand out of his eyes let his breath freeze in his chest. Captain America - Steve - was leaning over him, a round shield at his side.

Round shield.

Friendly smile.

Startling green eyes. He was fully awake in seconds.

"Easy," Steve said. "You were trapped in a stasis chamber."

He motioned to the two people at his side: A woman in a yellow dress with equally yellow wings and a man in a red suit.

"We're the Avengers. And if we're not mistaken, you're Captain America. The first Captain America. It's an honor to meet you, Mr. Stark."

The other Steve - the other Captain America - held out his hand and still lying in the sand Anthony reached out to take it.

"We weren't sure you'd wake up."

"So I'm home?" he asked.

An uncertain smile passed over Steve's face. "This might come as a shock..."

Anthony laughed. He doubted it.

Epilogue - Three years later

Anthony Stark, the Captain America who had inspired generations, sat in his workshop in the mansion, trying to work out the right repulsor alignment for the third time this week.

"The flying worked well," Steve offered.

"It could be better."

"You always say that."

They grinned at each other.

Over the last years Avengers mansion - paid for by the Pepper Potts Foundation - had become his home and the Avengers here his family. He understood some things better now, some things about Iron Man and Captain America, but the sad thought that Tony might never have gotten his message just wouldn't leave him alone.

For a whole year he had tried to locate Earth 616, but he had neither the means nor the knowledge at the time to do it. He had learned since then. He was still learning.

And Steve was at his side.

He appreciated Tony's love for his Steve even more now.

He had no idea how he would have gone through the first year without Steve living here with him helping him adjust to yet another new life. This time in the year 2089.

They were still grinning when with a sudden poof a gap in space and time appeared - Tony was beginning to get used to that since he'd met that terrible woman time traveler Kang - and a metal device clattered to the floor.

Both Steve and he moved backwards immediately, expecting an attack.

What sprang up was the projection of a familiar form.

"Hello," Tony said. "I'm not sure if this recording will go through or not. It's been a while since I made my last attempt at finding you. I hope you are alright and... awake."

"That is you!" Steve said amazed.

"Yes," he said.

Then a man appeared in the background.

"And that is you, Steve."

"Steve and I wanted to thank you. Without you who knows how long this terrible thing had gone on."

Steve winded a bit. "I'm sorry," he said. "I hope you can forgive me for..."

"He forgives you," Tony declared on his behalf and Steve chuckled.

"He really is like you."

"We just wanted to let you know that we are alright. Thanks for the warning and everything you did for us. Now be happy! And keep your promise. One day we want to see you again."

"You haven't really met me yet," Steve said laconically. "Not the real me."

Tony nodded. "We owe you one. Or two."

Then the message ended as abruptly as it had started.

"They made it," he whispered.

"They are us," Steve said and laughed. "Did you have any doubt about it?"

He caught Steve's chin with his right hand and kissed him, his heart welling up with joy.

He was home, here with Steve, where he belonged. And somewhere else Tony was happy.

All of this had been worth it.

One day, he'd see the two of them again.

For now, the knowledge that everything had worked out was more than he had expected.