fossilised | For Steve

For Steve

The war had been raging for a long time now, and James Buchanan Barnes had been drafted some months ago to ship out to Europe and fight with all the others in the trenches and on the front lines. Telegrams came back daily with the news of more brothers, sons, fathers, and husbands killed. More friends who will never return, and still there was no end in sight.

But then something even stranger began happening on both sides of the timeline.

All the newsreels were reporting strange anomalies centred in New York City and Washington D.C. that could only be explained by time itself unravelling in places. Buildings that changed to vast monoliths of glass and steel for a few minutes and then back again, a faded billboard for asthma cigarettes becoming a full colour motion picture of a man eating soup. Some people had even said they had met men and women claiming to be from the future, though this was all hushed up.

It only lasted a few days, and then it was sorted. Sealed, the government official offices said, just a trick by the Nazis to confuse us. Forget it and go about your day.

But there were pieces of the future lost in the past for good.

The Winter Soldier-- Bucky-- whoever he was now, confused fragmented memories all he had to go on, had been thrown through time unceremoniously into a street that looked altogether familiar and confusing. He hid from the authorities who were collecting all the anomalies with ease, even though his manner of dress was out of place now with jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. He didn't change it. He found his feet taking him somewhere only half remembered.

An apartment with a key hidden under an old brick. Why did he know it was there?

He didn't know. He just let himself in, quiet as a whisper, and made his way through to the bedroom where someone was asleep under the covers. Skinny, blond, somehow also familiar (the man on the bridge? The man in the Potomac? The man at the museum? No, that didn't make sense, that man had bulging muscles, but somehow he was sure they were the same). He didn't say anything, just stood there and watched impassively, waiting for the man to wake up.

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The sass of the feminine voice caused Tony to shift his arms from his face and he turned his head to look up at the woman in the strange clothing, glasses and curly hair just touching her shoulders. He didn't recognize her, the same way that he didn't recognize Loki, and he laid one arm over his stomach and the other he left trailing across the floor, knuckles down and fingers curled inwards.

He looked old. He looked like he had gained a mortal's twenty or twenty-five years on him overnight. That he didn't recognize her was obvious in the narrowing of his eyes as he sat up, turning to sit with his legs folded. He did not get up. "How do we go from having only one woman crawling around here at all hours to two?" That was sexist. Tony didn't hide the fact that he was a product of his generation. No amount of sensitivity training could help with any of that.

Pepper tried everything she could think of. And so had legal. If Tony didn't have the money, and the honestly good intentions he did, he'd be sunk.

"You're not supposed to be here. But you probably knew that already." Finally, he stood himself up, wincing. He wasn't spry anymore. His joints sometimes hurt him. "Can I help you? Please say no. I'm busy here."

Ruth was far from an idiot, she was one of the foremost minds of her generation. It didn't take her at all long to figure out that a second Thor meant that there could so easily be a second Anthony, and this must be him. He looked dreadful, old and tired, had he not been given the Gift? The thought of him without the Gift made her heart ache, for she would outlive him thanks to the Hulk even with it, without it his life would be as nothing.

It was also obvious that she wasn't recognised at all.

She pulled a polite smile to her lips and stepped forwards on feet clad in comfortable sneakers beneath jeans, a purple t-shirt, and a white lab coat. She held her hand out to him.

"Dr. Ruth Rebeccasdottr," she said, already separating him in her mind from her husband. "I understand that this isn't my home realm, Queen Loki pulled us here. I apologise if I interrupted, I saw the light and I thought you were someone else that I knew."

Tony didn't shake hands. He didn't take things from other people either. But... Maybe he was just sleep deprived. Maybe he was just over this whole thing. It wasn't that long ago that Pepper left him, his company had tanked and he was working really hard to get it back into shape thanks to Bucky's selflessness just that morning.

Too much was happening too quickly and so he forget himself and his morals and accepted the hand. He was still holding it when the flow of the name and the general all around appearance lightened up his own features. He looked, for lack of a better way to put it, happy enough that he could cry.

Ruth Rebeccasdottr. Bruce Banner.

"Holy shit. I-- Wow. You look good. Even your mouth--" Tony let her hand go, suddenly more energized as he set a hand on his hip. Her Anthony did the same thing when he was amused. "You're Bruce Banner. But a woman. I never thought I'd thank god until now but-- Thank god. I need your help getting my Bruce back. When Loki decided to crash the party, Banner was sucked up in whatever vortex brought her here. I'm pretty sure it was a fault on our side-- You are just--"

Tony had to laugh, shaking his head.

"Tony Stark. But you knew that."

It was good to see him smile, it made her think that perhaps their connection had persisted even through realms. Though to imagine him with a husband instead; well, she was certainly curious to see what she looked like as a man. Though perhaps it was a good thing that Bruce was not here, she did not know how the Hulk might react to the presence of another version of itself, it could get particularly ugly.

She smiled, the action making her glasses slip down a bit so that she had to push them back up, and moved to push herself up and perch on one of the counters.

"I should hope that I know that, though I've never heard 'Tony' before. It suits you. I will definitely be able to help you, the application of science and magic is one of my specialist areas."

Despite the accident, possibly because of it, she was a foremost expert now.

"What are you wearing? Honestly, Bruce goes away and you let yourself go, is that how it is? Some things never change."

Tony glanced down at himself. "What am I wearing? What's wrong with a Black Sabbath t-shirt?" He had relaxed immediately. Sure, she was gorgeous, but she was also Banner. That made her comfortable without any strings attached. It would have made him laugh to hear that she thought he and Bruce were married though. Tony might be progressive in many ways, but he didn't think marriage was in his cards.

Not to a woman...and definitely not to a man. Jeez.

"Why do you call your Stark? Oh, Anthony huh? Loki said that name and I almost puked. No one's called me Anthony and lived to tell about it," Tony joked before he gestured at the paperwork and the files projected up on the walls. Anthony's and Ruth's lab was far more technically advanced than this one. That he was still using projections-- Well that was fairly telling. "So this is what we're dealing with. Our machine went AWOL and this whole set up wa Bruce's specialty. I'm more of a hardware sort of guy. And he never writes anything down so it's pretty hard to follow along with just jotted down notes."

He should mention that the other Anthony was here...and he would. Eventually. He just wanted to enjoy a little but of Science here without a younger version of him stepping on his toes.

At least Ruth was more polite than Anth, even though she saw the terribly backwards state this whole place was in - projections, really? - she wasn't about to say as much. She knew that her husband could get very petulant about anyone thinking his innovations weren't the best thing ever, and she was sure that this 'Tony' would be just the same.

"Notes aren't necessary when you store it all in your head," she said with a smile, easily pulling one of the projections up and into the air to see what they were working with here. She had never really tried to puncture realities, but it might not be so different than the stable Bifrost bridges that she had helped create so that people from all realms could visit the Vanaheim Free Markets without needing to go via Asgard's observatory first.

She gestured to one small calculation and quickly altered it with some shorthand of her own, the equation changed to include magic in the mix.

"And I suppose your Bruce calls you Tony as well, does he? It's a shame Anth isn't here, he would be tickled to hear of Bruce. He takes men to his bed sometimes, but I think it would amuse him to imagine a husband."

"You don't have to show off," Tony quipped as if he didn't do the exact same thing. He watched as she cleaned her glasses the way Bruce did and push them up her nose the way Bruce did. He hadn't been keeping close tabs with his friend lately since Bucky had taken up so much of his time. He regretted it fully now.

Right up until she mentioned that Anthony took men to bed and was married to her... Or rather, he assumed that they were married since she suggested he was married to Bruce Banner.

A blank confusion spread across his face. "Uh-- One, where do I find a woman like you willing to let me sleep around and two, I'm not married. Not to Bruce. Not to anyone-- wait. Do you have a Code Green issue whenever you get uh..." He was trying to be polite. "Is that why he gets to cheat?"

This was exciting news! And disturbing news!

Tony wasn't sure what to say or think but he had so many questions! Oh. And also something else to say.

"I think he's here. Bucky told me he was trying to regrow his arm but don't go just yet? I really need you." That was a big deal for him to say!

Cheat? She had never quite heard it put like that before, as if sleeping with another person during marriage was anything other than the release of lust. Everyone got those feelings, but Anthony's heart belonged to her and so how could it be called a betrayal of any kind? It couldn't.

She was saddened and a little worried to hear that the Hulk did exist in this world too. That was not good, she did not know how her counterpart might cope with suddenly finding himself on Asgard, but at least they had experience in how to handle her if things went wrong.

"I practise tantric sex," she said, raising an eyebrow mischievously. "It keeps my heartrate down and lets me go all night. So we have no problems in the bedroom ourselves, but sometimes we have to be apart for our work, and we have both taken lovers before now. He takes more than me, I'm content to wait."

She made no move to go, she understood the need to get this sorted and she could catch up with her husband later.

Tony might have been staring-- No. He was absolutely staring. Everything that Ruth was telling him was giving him a sort of whip lash because he couldn't quite figure out how he felt about any of it. A younger version of him was smarter than him and happier than him and married and still had lovers and worked for Loki. As her slave, it seemed, but Ruth didn't seem to be a slave and was content to wait for him despite what had to be similar personality traits.

Tony was not an easy man to love. He had no doubts that his other self wasn't either.

To find a contentment in being another's servant seemed so unlike him, but if the reward was a life with the ruler of the planet and a woman like this, free from any rule but one person's-- Okay, now he was jealous. He was jealous enough to just nod at Ruth and start back up with the work that they were doing. He just had a lot of everything else on his mind right now.

But so did Anthony when he woke up and rubbed his forehead. Damn. Why hadn't anyone attempted to heal him? He gave the empty room a frown and then carefully opened up and climbed out of the window where he plopped himself on the grass. He could see Loki and so he went immediately to where his Queen was, pausing as he came around the building at Steven (thank Odin!) and Princess Thor with Loki and the Thor of this Realm.

"My Queen," he called, jogging over. "This place is crazy. We need to go home."

At least when Loki had persuaded Thor to cease her posturing and actually listen to Yggdrasil, even she had been able to feel how wrong and twisted it all was. Equally as disgusted by the news that Jotunheim and Asgard were not allies, that Jotunheim lay in ruins, and that Midgard was ruled by none.

"Do you see now, sister, why I have called you to arms and-- Anthony, who has harmed you and why has no healing been offered?"

What was this barbaric place? Who would attack his slave? And why, if one of their allies had found him, had he not immediately been offered aid. Some small salve and he would have been without bruise or bump, and yet he looked both. She scowled across at the male Thor, her irritation very close to blooming into full anger.

"You have failed at your charge, Thor Odinson, how can you call yourself fit for rule one day when you have allowed so much to fall asunder? These realms are your responsibility, all Nine under Asgard, and this-- this is disgraceful."

"Steve?"

The was a voice from the shadows as Bucky stepped in to see what the ruckus was about, Grant hanging back slightly. What the hell was Steve wearing? Why hadn't he come back to their building?

"I harmed myself, their doors are archaic," Anthony muttered, rubbing his forehead as he came close to his Queen and made a little bow. it was not as formal as Steven did but Anthony wasn't the formal type. "Does it look really bad? Oh, it sticks out here too, were you breaking up the ozone?" He never liked that smell. Not even in his armor when he was darting around on errands or attending meetings. With the flurry of sudden activity, he had to wait to tell Loki any of the important things, but it seemed like she had guessed with the way she levied insult on the larger Thor. Anthony ignored Loki's siblings.

And that was unfortunate because he would have gotten to see Thor's face twist to a painful shock. And Steven's too, whose mouth hung open as Thor took several slow steps at first before she ran towards Bucky to embrace him.

"How is this possible? How do you live, James?" At least she didn't completely embarrass herself by prolonging the contact, holding Buck at arm's length, since it did occur to her that this was not her James.

The other Thor wasn't sure where to look or what to answer. He opened his mouth to speak twice before forgoing it.

"We must gather everyone. We must speak all as one." He didn't want to call forth Odin. He wanted to solve this himself.

"You harmed yourself..." Steven muttered to Anthony out of the corner of his mouth, in a tone of voice that said he was so telling Ruth as soon as he saw her so that they could mock him for this for a long time. Though his attention was quickly arrested by James-- God, right there like a ghost. James had been his best friend, he had looked up to him so much. The man had taught him how to do his job, and then had died giving his life before any information when captured by the enemy.

Bucky froze when the strange woman embraced him, eyes wide when she finally pulled away. His gaze darted off to check Grant was still there, perhaps seeking out an anchor in this insanity.

"I'm not-- I don't know who you are. How do you know me?"

So he was dead in this other world? Or perhaps still trapped with HYDRA, still on ice somewhere. It was strange that the other him should know Thor, though, because he had only met the male version perhaps twice and not to speak to either time, he had just been ghosting around Tony's tower at the time.

"Everyone's breaking stuff," Tony lamented, glancing out of the window at the craziness going on just outside in the distance. He wanted to send the Legion to scoop everyone up and deposit them in Antarctica but that wasn't really all that realistic. So, instead, he caught Ruth's eye and thumbed over his shoulder. "I think we need to put a pin in this and stop them from....whatever they're doing."

The door opened and two figures crossed the lawn as Thor forced every last bit of emotion from her face. She didn't apologise for her outburst, she just turned to include the full group before spotting Grant out of the corner of her eye. Well, there went her face again and she actually bent to place her hands on her knees as if calling over a kitten. "Steven! Steven, come here and see! You are still a boy in this Realm. And so small! I do not remember you being so!"

Steven did as he was commanded, but he didn't recognize Grant for who he was. Steven had been Gifted early in his life and had been health corrected even earlier. He had never been that age and scrawny. How could James, or anyone, allow him to remain so sickly looking? His eyes lifted to Bucky's and he smiled before bowing a little. "Sir. You have been greatly missed."

By the time that Tony and Ruth arrived, Anthony had his back towards the group and was trying to fill Loki in on what he had heard.It wasn't much but his voice was tight and he sounded disturbed. This place was horrible.

"Don't call me sir," snapped Bucky, the idea of any Steve calling him that was just weird and wrong. He had never outranked Steve, by the time they met again in the army, he had already been Captain Rogers. They had been equal before that, friends, and seeing Steve as a slave was a hundred times worse than seeing Tony. All of this was a hell of a lot to take in and pressed deeply on his internal buttons. He took a step towards Grant, protective. "And he's not a kid, he's a grown man. Back off."

Steven didn't like this at all, either. James seemed really ill, really off, and that wasn't who he should be. Whatever had happened to him, why hadn't they fixed it? Why hadn't they fixed his other self? Something was so wrong here.

Ruth snuck up behind Anthony as he spoke to their Queen, raising her eyebrows at Loki for permission to interrupt and gaining a tiny nod, so she wound her arms around him from behind.

"Must you always get into such trouble without me? I swear you're worse than Ola, it's like having two kids."

With Grant fine with taking some steps back with Bucky, the look on the other Steve's face sorrowful and the one on the woman Thor's face frightening, Tony decided not to get involved there. And he certainly wasn't going to get involved with Loki. So he paused beside his Thor, scratching st his head, and watched the reunion of his younger self and Bruce's feminine counterpart.

Anthony turned in Ruth's embrace, pleased to see her, and cupped her keeps to kiss her soundly. "I'm not worse than Ola," he pouted. "We're exactly the same."

Their daughter was their pride and joy, an impossible miracle, but one that both were protective of. Even if she was on Midgard with her nanny while her parents had been ripped through time and space. Or something else ghastly.

Tony let out a slow breath. Ola. They'd both said the name he'd dreamed of and that left a really bad taste in his mouth. Rather than stand here feeling awkward, he echoed Thor's initial thoughts about getting everyone inside and talking. But he did one better.

"There's plenty of space for everyone," he called, clapping his hands. "We just-- wow, okay other me, you can look elsewhere. Thank you. Anyway, I'm working on the issue at hand. Until then, can we stop causing trouble and just... Relax? Thor, little help here?"

"Your slave has grown so old here, Sister, even if mine has shrunk!"

"He is not old, he only seems so, he has never even been given the gift. They do not keep slaves here, my sister, he believes himself free."

Loki sounded disgusted with the whole situation, this whole realm utterly disgusted her as it should upset anyone who had seen how things should be. This was not a place of prosperity or health, this was a place of suffering where the fractured countries of mortal men fought one another while all suffered.

Ruth laughed quietly into the kiss, returning it happily, before she tugged her Anthony into the fray to listen to the others speak.

"Tony is right," she said, squeezing the hand of her Anthony. "We all have to work together to sort this out, so we need to stop bickering. Sorry for the presumptuous words, Princess, Prince, Queen, but there's another me which means another Hulk maybe rampaging around Asgard and I'd rather get that sorted out."

Bucky took that opportunity to retreat to right beside Grant, expression troubled as hell and voice low. "Where's Steve?" Their Steve, the right Steve.

Steve, and Sam, were already jogging across the grass thanks to JARVIS alerting them, and though Steve could have gotten here in seconds, he had stayed at Sam's pace. Falcon did not look entirely pleased by what he was seeing (so many pale, duplicate faces in a variety of sizes and ages and genders), and so he stood back and rubbed across his eyelids as Steve stepped into the poorly lit clearing. "Just what is going on here?" he demanded before he took a good look around.

Yes. He settled on himself in his leather pants and red tunic, standing tall and proud with longer hair thst touched his jaw and eyes just as pale blue. The blonde woman beside him did a double take, but so did he. "Steve --?"

"That's right ma'am," Steve said trying to be pleasant as he held up his hands to cull anything else being said before it could be. "I don't know what's going on here but I think--"

No. He had to stop. He was getting confused too, until Tony decided to come right out and summarize everything.

"Loki, Thor, me, you-- they're from the slaving universe with a female version of Bruce." He might have smiled and waived at her. No. He definitely smiled and waved at her. "Everyone but the two of us seem to be women. Oh, and Bucky, who was friends with Lady Thor but evidently died." So that was sorted. "Bruce probably is back where we accidentally got Loki from."

Anthony decided to take over here, because he was just as insufferable.

"Prince Thor doesn't have any slaves. His brother, Prince Loki, led a war on Midgard and was captured and tried as Traitor. These people are at war with one another, have no real healthcare and they're constantly at each other's throats but they think we're crazy for swearing fealty to Jotunheim. That version of Steve tried to feed me packaged, salted meat cut thin on bread. It was the most horrific thing I've ever seen. Minus that metal arm. They're about three hundred years behind us in technological and medical advances."

"Alright, no. Stop. This is too many people and too many conflicting opinions of what's going on and what needs to happen."

Steve was effortless in taking charge. It had always been inside him, even when he had been a skinny kid who hadn't known when to back down from a fight, and it was still there now. He was the head of the Avengers, and he was also responsible for protecting Bucky and Grant, all things that he took very seriously.

"People from another time and reality, Grant excluded, with all due respect you need to learn to accept that this isn't your reality and stop insulting everything here. We're not interested in a fight, all we want to do is get you home and get Bruce back, that's all, so can we please all work together to make that happen?"

He stared directly at the female versions of Loki and Thor.

"And that means no domination plans, no fights, and everyone here reports to me. Is that clear?"

"Okay yeah," Tony said, arms cross over his chest, "but you kind of--". Steve gave him a look and Tony rolled his eyes, glancing back at Thor. But even Thor wasn't saying anything. He protected this Realm but he did not rule it. When they marched to battle, he differed to Rogers just as his own men did to him. Of course, they also mostly did their own thing, but the strategy was Rogers to compile and orders to give.

Thor just had a feeling that he was being judged by the two royals. His other self had indeed joined her sister and both were standing with their slaves looking blank for a moment. "Needs we must discuss this," Lady Thor said, linking her arm with Loki's. They could not annex a Realm outside of Yggdrassil. They did not have any ties here. And honestly, seeing James again and not being known? It weighed heavily on her.

Once she managed to get Loki away, Anthony, Ruth and Steven close by but at a respectful distance, Thor lightly took her sister's face in her hands.

"Can you find us a path home? I wish not to be here. We have our own Realms to rule and this place distresses me and my slave. We wish to be free of it. If you can not, will your slave be capable of it?"

Loki too wished to be home, but she had the chaotic fire in her nature that could not be quelled by any different reality, and that made her unwilling to back down when she could fix this place. Bring it to kneel, make it understand what their correct place among the Nine Realms was.

"I cannot take us home myself, Yggdrasil is withered and I barely had the strength to draw from it to bring you here to me. To find a path back would be near impossible by myself, though with the help of my slave and his wife, there may be a possibility."

She reached out and tucked a piece of blonde hair behind Thor's ear gently.

"I know that your heart aches because he does not recognise you, but he is not your James. He sits proudly in Valhalla awaiting your company, hunting each day and feasting each night, so do not mourn the ghost of one who does not stand before you. Sister, I wish for home as well, but can we truly leave a place in such turmoil? Your other self is a disgrace to Asgard."

Had there be anyone within range of hearing, Thor would never have allowed herself this moment of weakness. But she told Loki everything. Of all of her siblings, natural born or fostered, Thor loved no other more than she did Loki. As such, Thor told her everything, about James, and now about Steven. It was not the best of ideas, she knew, but Loki had never once let her confidence slip.

Thor trusted her with everything. And their slaves...well. Their slaves knew better than to ever let what was said in the presence of their mistresses slip either. Yes, Thor did think herself better than the mortal's but at the same time, she trusted them too.

At the touch of Loki's cool hand, Thor sighed and reigned in her pain. James was not her James. Her James was dead. She had Steven now. That was just the way it had to be.

"You are, as always, correct, Sister." Loki had been Queen for many years now. It had tempered her and caused her to grow in more understanding than Thor herself had. One day, Thor would rule all Nine Realms as Queen of Asgard, but until then, she deferred to her sisters Loki and Helblindi to ruling matters. "We can allow these Realms to further break down Yggdrassil. It is our sacred duty to right them."

She turned her eyes to gaze at Anthony and Steven.

"First, we need more information. Only then may I form a proper strategy. The Thor of this Asgard is too weak to be allowed to rule."

"As I brought you hear, I made certain that a message would make it through to my eldest sister's ears. She will rally the armies of Jotunheim and Asgard to our cause, all we need do is assist in the building of a bridge to allow them entry here."

If that meant pretending to go along with only going home, then she was willing to do that and quite capable of it too. She knew when lies would serve the greater cause, and she employed them as easily as the truth. It may be more tricky for Thor, for she wore her honesty in each expression, but she was not wholly incapable of deception.

"We must spend our time wisely, discovering all we can about this Midgard and the Asgard that has disgraced itself, so that when Helblindi arrives we can meet her with a strategy already formed. Anthony, you must go to those who counter my sister's slave and former slave and learn from them, Steven, go to the one who counters my Anthony and learn from him."

It would be better if they did not stick to their own opposite, that had already brought trouble.

"Thor, you and I must find out more of your counterpart's failings, and what state Asgard stands in. Without Jotunheim as an ally, I do not see how it can have achieved the greatness it enjoys today for us."

The strategy was more than sound and Thor nodded. "I need you to find a way to bind Mjolnir to me and me alone. Our brother, Thor, should not be allowed to possess it's might." Thor herself might not be able to hide her heart as well as her sister, but she was highly capable of strategy. If they could fool the dwarves time and again, they could fool a dim witted version of herself and the mortals. Loki's Anthony and his wife was beyond capable. They had not only managed to erect a permanant Bifrost between all Realms and Vanaheim, but they had been instrumental in subduing the Dark Elves during their uprising a century ago so that they could once more prosper as all other Realms did under Asgardian control.

The slaves were in agreement, Anthony looking excited with his hand in Ruth's, and Steven looking determined. Her slave, beautiful and strong, bowed low on blended knee with his fist to his chest. Anthony did not but Steven had been taught the ways of Asgardian slaves for centuries, thanks to her beloved James, and he had enjoyed his place, she was sure. Her hand lightly found his cheek and she stroked it back into his hair, golden strands pulling at the scrollwork on her vambraces.

As the trio moved away and the sisters linked arms again, Anthony sniffed down at Ruth. "So what do you think? A few thousand years and I'll look like that." The Gift was not something to make him immortal, it was something to extend his life. And, one day, he would indeed grow old.

It sounded as though even when they had been brothers, the Thor and Loki in this world had not worked as one, and Loki sorrowed for that. He loved his sisters, all of them, but Thor was the one he held the most fondness for. They had never needed to compete, for both knew they were destined to rule their own realms, they merely worked together and covered for one another's strengths and weaknesses. To be together in this campaign was right, and she would be all the more secure when Helblindi also came to lend her might to this war.

For it was war.

Ruth may not be a slave of Loki, but she was still the Queen of Midgard and Ruth knew her place. She didn't resent being ordered around at all, she loved her Queen as all mortals did, and was always proud of her Anthony for having such a high position. At least they could work on this together.

She snorted and lifted a hand to run through his hair, tugging on it lightly. "You're kidding, right? I'll have left you by then, got a younger model. Maybe I'll go redhead next time, you know Nathaniel has a thing for me?"

"Next time?" Anthony snorted. "And of course Nat has a thing for you. Everyone has a thing for you. Even me."

Nathaniel was not a threat, though he knew Ruth and the other man slept together frequently when Anthony was away with Loki. He actually was a good influence for Ola too, even if he was broody and quiet. It was too bad he wasn't here. He could get information out of an orange if he wanted to.

"But doctor, there's no next time after me. Let's not kid ourselves. I'm the love of your life." Arrogance was something that Anthony had in spades. "And Nathaniel is going to be long gone before I start going gray. But that beard... I actually kind of like it. When we get back, I might grow mine out." He rubbed his baby face. "What do you think, Steve? Little bit of hair on the old cheeks?"

Anthony shifted his arm to wrap around Ruth's slight shoulders as Steven lifted his hands in silent defeat, deciding that he wasn't getting involved in this. He had learned after all of these years!

As they neared the lighted house, though, Anthony slowed to a stop and looked at his wife. "Ola's all right, isn't she? Nat and Pepper are going to take care of her until we get back, right?" As long as Clint didn't come over. He didn't see what Nathaniel saw in that guy. Man. Anthony hated him. He probably lived in the air ducts.

For Steve

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