fossilised | Birthday fun

Birthday fun

It all started with a cake. Not enough stories these days did anymore, especially not in the lives of the Avengers. This wasn't just any cake either. It wasn't store-bought, picked up from the grocery with a hope that the teenager doing the lettering spelled a name correctly. It wasn't from a fancy bakery, though the person who had taken it upon himself to do the baking could have afforded something outlandish. No, this cake came from various boxes and cartons, the contents of which were painstakingly mixed together in more or less the way the recipe card was read off.

There may have been some corners cut, the eggs might not have been carefully folded (mostly because how do you fold eggs when they're goopy), the buttercream might be too runny, but the result was still fairly remarkable.

Even more remarkable was how intact it arrived, in a box in the back of an Audi, to all the usual fanfare Tony himself enjoyed when speeding through the security gates that those working at the Compound feverishly rushes to open for him. One scratch on that car would mean less of a Christmas bonus for everyone.

The cake was transported carefully from the back of the car towards one of the living quarters, a building shared by most of the non-retired Avengers. It did not need to be announced, so the man carrying it didn't bother to knock. Not at the front door and not at the recipient's bedroom. There was no need. No one would be awake anyway.

The time on his watch read 11:58 and so the cake was forced to wait a full two minutes until the day rolled over to be dramatically presented.

Tony Stark burst through the door and JARVIS started the Star-Spangled Banner on his cue, red and blue lights flashing. It was all beautifully patriotic, much like the cake itself, decorated to resemble Captain America's shield. "Happy Birthday, Grandpa!"

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"It's okay, I'm pretty sure that we're not gonna be talking again."

He smiled to cover up his disappointment, but it was there in his eyes. He had tried to make a connection, something he rarely did any more, and it had backfired. They just wanted him for the publicity he could bring, a piece of living history, they weren't interested in someone who had known a person they didn't even remember.

"It was probably a dumb idea anyway."

But it hadn't stopped him hoping.

Strange. Tony found the look on Steve’s face far too familiar for comfort. He ended up leaning back again, a frown on his face, openly staring. Tony wasn’t a robot but the way he analyzed people sometimes made it very hard for them not to assume.

“People always disappoint. They’re not what you want them to be. But you’re not what everyone wants you to be either, even if you’re good at giving them that. You don’t have to be more of a total package than you already are,” he said, almost lecturing Steve. “No one’s going to hate you if you aren’t perfect. Except for me, maybe. It’s the only reason I like you,” he teased.

No one should really look this depressed on their birthday. That ended up causing friends to have a fire fight in the living room. Tony had been there and done that already.

“But at least I won’t have to compete with the French anymore. So I can get behind that.”

"You don't have to compete with anyone, Tony."

Steve's voice had a slightly weary amusement to it. How many times had he explained that someone could have more than one friend, as if he were talking to a possessive child? Tony had multiple friends, but apparently all of them should feel like Tony was enough for them.

"I don't like you any less, even if I do make friends among the French. Or any other nation."

He chose to ignore the other part of that. He wasn't trying to be perfect, but he didn't agree that everyone let people down, he had always found the opposite, this was just... an anomaly. Bad luck.

Tony let people down consistently. He was sure of it. And he also really did think that he should be enough for everyone. Steve had pegged him perfectly, though he would absolutely never come right out and say it. Tony knew he had a whole lot of problems when it came to social skills. He could charm the pants off of almost anyone as long as he kept himself at a distance.

Getting to know him revealed all of his flaws. And that’s what drove people away, or so he would have everyone believe if he ever admitted to his own fears.

“With the way America is going, maybe we all should make friends with the French,” Tony teased in an effort to make Steve shy away from all of his horrible insightfulness. “But that’s talk for another, non-patriotic set of birthdays. What do you want to do for yours? Don’t say ‘go to Coney Island’.”

Steve just let his gaze linger on Tony in that steady way he had, that said he saw through what was trying to be avoided and he was going to let it go for now. But that Tony wasn't fooling anyone. He was a grown man, much older than Steve, he should really face these childish issues.

But for now, not wanting to cause an argument with someone who had taken the trouble to come here to wish him a happy birthday, he would let it go.

"We don't need to do anything, this was enough. I'm sure there are things that need to be done today, work doesn't stop because of what day it is."

“You want to work. On your birthday.” Tony just wanted to make sure he heard that right. Now he might like to work on his birthday, but he genuinely enjoyed creating. Steve didn’t really use his fists like that. It wasn’t his job and his hobby.

Truthfully though, Tony had no idea what Steve did on his time off. Draw? Bake? Sample artisan cheeses while antiquing?

“I cleared my schedule. So did most of America that doesn’t work retail.”

Steve didn't do anything outside of work, his way of surviving being thrown into the future was to work. Was to be what they needed him to be. Every time he had tried to do something else, it had ended in embarrassment or regret, his face was too well known now, he couldn't just anonymously join a class and make friends.

Some of that showed on his face, around the tightness of sad blue eyes, even as he maintained his smile for Tony's benefit.

"Well-- I guess I'm just the exception then, huh?"

Tony didn’t like the look on Steve’s face. Steve always looked two shades of sad at all times, even when there was nothing to be sad about. Victories often went uncelebrated by the Captain or he would disappear away from get togethers if people laughed too much.

None of this was right. Steve was alone in the Compound, surrounded by agents that technically worked to assist him and idolize him, but weren’t the people you go out for a drink with.

“You’re not. There is no exception to the rule. Even the bad guys take vacation. I’m sure most of them have hobbies. Even if they’re evil hobbies. Like coin and stamp collecting.” Tony had sort of that ‘come on, let’s play!’ look in his eyes, a little childish, a lot goading. “Don’t tell me you’re tired either. I know you need like three minutes of sleep a night.”

Tony really wasn't going to take no for an answer, was he? Steve sighed, half exasperated and half fond, before throwing up his hands in mock surrender. Never let it be said that he wouldn't back away from a fight (just never a physical one... or one where someone needed protecting... or where rights were on the line... or...).

"Fine, fine. You win. But I still don't know what you want me to say, I haven't really celebrated a birthday in decades, I don't know what the done thing is these days."

He remembers his last one before the serum. Bucky took him out to a dance hall and a little diner, nothing fancy, but it used up all his pay cheque. He missed that man so much; he'd always been an only child, but he always thought that Bucky would be what it would be like to have a sibling.

“People do the things they like to do,” Tony said, stubbornly. He was trying to gauge what that was with Steve. He knew the blond to be decent at video games, unable to get drunk, and a quick learner when it came to design software but none of those were really Steve’s hobbies. Drawing was a one person activity, too, and while Tony was impressed, he couldn’t spend the next three hours watching Steve put down lines on paper. “What’s something you’ve never done and want to do?”

If he heard about the dance hall fiascos and the charming little dinners, Tony would try to one up it. It was only midnight. The night was getting started. He had a fast car and a will to get them back to the city before any of the clubs could make their last call.

Tony was up for pretty much anything that didn’t involving hurting people or animals. He didn’t think that Steve had an affinity for big game hunting or East Asian sex tourism though, so he didn’t feel the need to specify that.

The question stumped him in a way that not many things did. What did he want to do? All the things that he had always wanted to do involved things like joining the army, being able to breathe, setting up a nice home next door to Bucky and having a family. He'd never do any of that now.

"Tony-- I don't know."

He looked a little lost, like he wanted Tony's direction if they really had to make something of this stupid day.

"I never really had many ambitions, just tried to get through each day. That's how life was back then."

This was just so sad. Tony had no other words for it. He watched Steve for a moment before he pushed back from the table and the cake and the coffee and stood up.

“We’re going to the city. You’re going to put on something nice. With a collar. Don’t comb your hair, leave it like that. You’ve got fifteen minutes.” If Tony had to take the lead on this, he would. He could be the master of ceremonies in a pinch, even if those ceremonies were more typical than Tony himself tended to like.

Then again... typical was probably one of those things that Steve never got to experience. He was either sick and poor, or a super soldier at war. There had been no downtime. Minus his little stint with the USO lifting chorus girls and punching Hitler.

Tony turned to look at himself in the chrome hood of the gas range and ran a hand through his hair. It was a good thing he always looked his best.

Although Tony could be wholly inappropriate at a lot of occasions, for some reason Steve never doubted that he'd try and make whatever they did actually fun for him. He wouldn't take him clubbing or drinking or to some kind of mad sex party, though he didn't actually know what they would be doing.

Still, he owed him enough to put himself in Tony's hands. At least for now.

"Okay, okay. But if we get a call that we're needed, then I'm coming back. I'm not gonna let people down just because I'm another year older."

And with that warning, he disappeared back into his room and looked out some nice clothes. When he reappeared again he was wearing smart black trousers and a white button down shirt, buttoned all the way to the top, with a blue silk tie. He looked respectable, although his muscles did occasionally try and burst out of the thin shirt material.

Having been dicking around with the toaster (not that it needed rewiring, he was just bored), Tony was forced to do a double take at Steve when he announced that he was ready. His eyes settled on that tie and while it did amazing things for his eyes, they weren’t going to take out a home mortgage or ask for a business loan at a bank. Tony found his eyebrow arching more than he initially wanted it to, betraying his half amused concern.

“We’re not going to sell people vacuum cleaners and encyclopedias door to door at midnight,” Tony said, putting the toaster down to immediately invade Steve’s personal space. He didn’t do that often, Tony was not a touchy-feely sort of guy.

But something had to be done at Steve’s appearance. The clubs Tony used to frequent were upscale with a good drink list and slightly over crowd, but he wasn’t going to take a Mormon out to them. Off came the tie, if Steve let him get that far, and Tony would even unbutton at least one or maybe two buttons by the collar. Sleeves were getting rolled up.

That would be much better.

“If Commissioner Gordon calls us on the Bat Phone it lights the Bat Signal, we’ll come right back. Promise.”

Steve didn't move as Tony stepped right into his personal space and started to untie his tie, but he did frown down at him. This was a nice tie and shirt, he even had a suit jacket to go with it, and he had thought that leaving that off would be informal enough for today.

"You told me to put on something nice with a collar, it defeats the object if you ruin it like this."

Nobody could change Steve Rogers, he was as immovable as a boulder on some subjects, and his Ma had raised him right. If he was wearing a formal shirt, not just an everyday thing, then he wore a tie with it. It was just polite.

"Hey-- stop rolling my sleeves. Tony! Did you want me to wear a shirt or not? Because I can go and get changed."

He had plenty of casual pants and shirts, ones that would meet this sort of inspection and be less constricting, but Tony had definitely said something with a collar.

“Could you attempt to trust me for two minutes,” Tony said, fighting off Steve’s hands. “This is the style. You can press the creases out tomorrow.” He even have Steve a good old thwak on his chest to keep him still while he went about his business.

Honestly, just a little mess somehow made Steve look even better than usual. Nothing would outdo those tight white t-shirts but the club Tony wanted to go to had a strict dress code. Collars. No cut offs. No sweats. No work boots.

For good measure, Tony tussled up the blond’s hair and nodded.

“Okay. No backseat driving. Come on.”

Steve still wasn't particularly happy about it, but he had a feeling that arguing with Tony in this would be as futile as trying to knock down the Statue of Liberty with a feather. It just wasn't going to work, and he'd be ignored. That didn't stop him from flattening down his hair again as he followed Tony out of the compound and to the car.

"Where are we even going?"

Tony knew he didn't like loud, boozy clubs, right? It wasn't his idea of a good time, and it's not like he could even get drunk when everyone else could. He'd rather be sat with friends, somewhere quiet, than yelling to be heard over music.

"Not arguing, just asking."

“To introduce you to late night jazz,” Tony said, which was both an answer and another question. Pepper hated jazz, almost as much as she hated all of Tony’s music. Death metal and 70s rock weren’t her things. The club was going to be loud, but not in the way Steve might be dreaded. There wasn’t dancing, just a lot of dark cloth covered tables and velvet Love seats, waitresses bringing you drinks and food from the bar, and a lot of smoke.

You could outlaw smoke from bars in New York but no one had managed to do it yet for jazz clubs. Especially ones that played on until three AM.

Steve could worry about what Tony meant on the hour it took them to drive into the city at breakneck speed. For flavor, Tony had JARVIS play some of his favorite mellow tunes. It was all about the mood for Tony. And right now he wanted something smooth.

And maybe Brooklyn pizza after. They tended to stay open late for the booze hounds dragging ass after last call.

Of course Steve knows jazz, it's one of the things he actually remembers from before. It had started to come into vogue when he was just a little kid, although it had been widely condemned then as music only for black people, but he had liked it. It had been free in a way a lot of other music wasn't, and he certainly wasn't adverse to hearing it again now.

"I went to a jazz club once, way back in the thirties, they nearly didn't let me in. Think I was the only white face in the crowd back then, but they were all good to me. Didn't kick me out, didn't say anything. Better men than most of the ones on my street, that's for sure."

If Steve hadn’t been the most progressive man of his time, Tony had no idea who that would be. He watched Steve out of the corner of his eye as they drove, mostly encouraging the other man to speak. These were rare tidbits, little pieces of a puzzle that no one had but himself.

By the time that they hit the city, traffic had opened up a little. Tony might have had something to do with that, of course, wiring sensors into his car and writing software to detect him coming to shift the flow of traffic so that he didn’t have a huge amount around him at any given point. The algorithm hadn’t been all that complicated either.

They arrived at a whole in the wall little place before too long and Tony parked like a jerk in a loading zone before he got out of the car like he owned the entire block.

“Mister Stark! Yo! It’s been awhile!” a big bouncer called to him and Tony tossed his keys at the man.

“Distance makes the heart grow fonder, gonna take the usual table?”

“You got it, Mister Stark!” How that large man fit behind the wheel of Tony’s car proved what an amazing engineer Tony was, if nothing else.

Steve has never thought of himself as particularly progressive, he just doesn't like bullies. No matter if they're one guy, a gang of them, or a whole government. Nobody deserved to live their lives in fear, just because of who or what they were, all because some jerks decided that it wasn't right.

He glanced at the club as he got out, ducking his head almost automatically to hide a little of his height and not look anyone in the eyes. It was a defence mechanism designed to stop people recognising him, though Tony seemed to have the opposite desire and want to be seen.

"You come here a lot?" He must do, to have a usual table. "Do you bring Pepper here?"

Pepper. Steve kept bringing her up and while Tony didn’t exactly mind, he also wasn’t too thrilled having to brush it off. “She’s not a jazz fan,” he said, which was a non-commital here nor there.

He could feel himself unwind, however, the moment the background noise rose the moment he stepped through the door and headed towards a higher tier table, two steps above the rest. Corner pocket, right side of the stage. He liked to watch the pianist and that vantage point gave him s good view.

“I used to come here a lot. To relax,” he had to shout at Steve as they sat and a waitress came over. She had Tony’s drink already and crouched next to Steve to get his. They were discrete there, it was why Tony liked it. Sometimes you just didn’t want to get mobbed.

Steve had no idea that Tony might resent the fact that he kept bringing up Pepper when they spoke, he did it because he had liked Ms. Potts the few times they had spoken and because he had always been taught that it was polite to ask about someone else's loved ones.

The waitress gave Steve a look that he was used to getting, considering and admiring, someone who recognised him. But she didn't call it out, she didn't even acknowledge it to him, she just said "Thank you, Captain Rogers." when he gave his drink order, and left to complete it.

He watched her go, small smile tugging at his lips. "I can see why."

It might be after midnight but they were only between sets here. Another would start in a few minutes, the musicians were all just laughing and drinking at the bar. Tony’s eyes didn’t leave Steve’s face, didn’t follow the woman back to the bar, and didn’t scan the thin, rectangular menu on the table between them, tucked into a space between the drink specials and a single candle.

Steve interested him in this light. He found himself deconstructing each movement of his face, each eyelid twitch or the way his mouth moved. The man wasn’t a machine, though the case might be made that every person was mechanical in some way.

“Hungry? You didn’t eat as much cake as I thought,” he said by means of covering up for the fact that Steve had obviously noticed he was staring. “They don’t have great pizza but their wings aren’t bad.”

It was impossible not to notice the staring, but Steve was used to it by now. He had no idea the real focus behind it, he just assumed that Tony was like that with everyone, slightly too intense and a bit too focused. It was how he pursued his work too, focus to the detriment of everything else.

He certainly didn't believe that Tony liked him more than was appropriate. Hell, he believed that Tony only just maintained courtesy because of the amount of times they'd worked together now, he had made it pretty clear to start with just how little he thought of Steve.

"Sure, I could eat, but I didn't get any cash out. Is there an ATM around here?"

He still wasn't too comfortable paying on card.

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i'm leaving in 10 mins for lali hangout night <3

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