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Eighth in the Space Electric series, on from Lines Holding Fast. Steve POV for this one, since people wanted an Avenger POV on Tony/JARVIS/the AIs.
Title: Liminal Transmission
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Characters/Pairings: Steve, Tony, JARVIS, Meroe, mention of Natasha, Bruce and Clint. Steve & Tony, Tony & the AIs, Steve & Avengers
Summary: Captain Steve Rogers tries to get a handle on the changes Stark's revelations have made to his universe, and tries to get Tony to understand that he is not a prisoner anymore
Wordcount: 5000
Warnings/Notes: AU, war, PTSD, recovery, adapting to worlds made strange
Disclaimer: Not mine
Title: Liminal Transmission
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Characters/Pairings: Steve, Tony, JARVIS, Meroe, mention of Natasha, Bruce and Clint. Steve & Tony, Tony & the AIs, Steve & Avengers
Summary: Captain Steve Rogers tries to get a handle on the changes Stark's revelations have made to his universe, and tries to get Tony to understand that he is not a prisoner anymore
Wordcount: 5000
Warnings/Notes: AU, war, PTSD, recovery, adapting to worlds made strange
Disclaimer: Not mine
Liminal Transmission
One of the advantages of a flagship versus an Interceptor class, Steve thought idly, was that on the flagship you could get an actual, honest-to-god water shower. Admittedly of the wet down-soap up-rinse off, two-minutes-maximum type, but he'd take two minutes of hot water over a hygiene chamber any day.
Which was possibly old-fashioned of him, yes, but a chemical bath just wasn't the same. Bruce backed him on this one. Something about the psychological effects of using a terrestrial resource to counter the isolative atmosphere of space and shipboard life. Which might not be a rationale you could use without getting funny looks, but it was good enough for Steve. If he was on a ship with water showers, damn it, he was going to use them. So there.
Besides. He also had it on good authority that Fury favoured them too, and 'Commander Fury does it' was an excuse that worked pretty much anywhere that wasn't a diplomatic meeting.
Though in this particular case, he thought, nodding to a couple of passing crew as he stepped out of the locker room, Bruce was probably closer to the mark. After the past few weeks, he'd wanted to feel clean. The kind you got from hot water smelling faintly of metal and a manual scrub down, the kind that was human and personal, washing away the filth of the slave ship, not the kind you got from a tiny cubicle and a computerised rinse. He didn't want to be disinfected, didn't want to be chemically purified. He wanted to feel clean.
His crew understood that, he thought. Natasha, Bruce. Clint could take them or leave them, really, but the other two felt as he did. For perhaps much the same reasons.
He wondered whether Stark favoured water showers too. Whether he would now, even if he hadn't before. He wondered if Stark even knew they had water showers ...
Steve paused. Stopped in the middle of the hallway, muttering an absent apology when the bridge officer who'd been walking behind him muttered a startled curse at him. He paused, still scrubbing lightly at his hair, and wondered with a sudden lurch in his stomach if Stark knew he was allowed to use them.
The past couple of days, they'd been content enough to leave Stark to his own devices. Focusing on getting the Hydra fleet stabilised and ready for convoy to a more secure station, on getting information out to the rest of SHIELD and receiving intel in return. In the absence of immediate crises, they'd been content to let Stark wander around the Aegis on his own, save for the ever-watchful eye of the ship's AI. Focusing, if he was completely honest, on regaining their own equilibrium in the face of what had happened.
And now, two days later, he realised he didn't even know if Stark knew he wasn't a prisoner. He didn't know whether or not Stark knew where the showers were, and that he had the right to use them.
Right, he decided abruptly. Alright, no. That was ... not even remotely good enough.
"Meroe?" he asked. Still standing in the middle of the hallway, with a towel still in his hand. Looking up at the ceiling instinctively.
"Yes, Captain Rogers?" the AI answered, and Steve paused a little. It was still odd, dealing with the AI after what Stark had revealed. He kept finding himself doing things automatically, asking for things automatically, and then pausing to remember that the AI was ... It wasn't that Meroe was suddenly a person, he'd always sort of been that, but just ...
It was strange, to presume on the AI's assistance, and then suddenly remember that Meroe could choose not to answer. Strange to think that Meroe could always have chosen that. That the AI was not simply a machine to be presumed upon, the part of the ship that spoke, but essentially a crewmember who could make whatever choices he felt like. Even to leave, should it come to it. It was strange to realise that Meroe's assistance, every time, had been offered from choice, a desire to help or to do his duty, and not from programming. That every idle request had been made of a person, and that person had chosen to assist, even on the most trivial and foolish of things.
He kept finding himself wondering, the past few days, what they looked like to Meroe. What the AI thought of them, all the fragile, demanding people living within his confines, asking for his help a hundred times a day, sometimes for really stupid things.
Like directions to where his probably traumatised and apparently abandoned creator might be found, for example. Since Steve was considering consequences, over here.
"Sir?" Meroe prompted, cautiously, and Steve blinked, reaching up to rub ruefully at his neck. Yes. All this, this whole thing with Stark, it was going to take a while to adapt to, he could tell. And it was time to stop ignoring that, and take the first steps to doing something about it.
"Can you tell me where I might find Mr Stark?" he asked, and directed a rueful smile towards the ceiling. He wasn't sure if Meroe had visual sensors the same way humans did, or if he would have any on this particular stretch of corridor even if he did, but he figured it couldn't hurt any.
There was an incremental pause before the AI answered. Steve wasn't sure if it was because of the nature of the question, or if it was because Meroe was registering his change in behaviour and wondering at it. But after a bare pause: "At present, I believe he is in briefing room three, sir. Deck four."
Steve blinked rapidly. "Briefing?" he asked. "Is there something ... Why is he in briefing?" As far as he knew, since Stark had given the go-ahead with the ex-Hydra AI yesterday, and handed command of his 'babies' over to Meroe, Stark hadn't been needed for anything specific. Nothing that would require a briefing, anyway, and nothing that Steve wouldn't have noticed. Unless Fury had deliberately gone behind his back, and that would be ...
"He wanted a holographic projector, sir," Meroe interrupted, and maybe it was just the recent realisations, but Steve thought there was a touch of humour in it. Like Meroe was vaguely amused, either by Steve or by his creator. "In fact, he wanted a lab, but Commander Fury thought that wouldn't be wise just yet. Mr Stark had said that a decent hologram terminal would do in a pinch, so I believe the Commander offered him the use of the briefing room projectors as a compromise."
Steve felt his eyebrows creep upwards slightly as he considered that. He wasn't sure if it was reassuring, or slightly alarming. On the one hand, it meant Stark was obviously fairly happy asking for what he wanted, so he probably wasn't still mentally stuck as a prisoner on the Avenger. That was good. On the other ... Commander Fury wasn't generally inclined to offering shipboard liberties as a compromise, or offering compromises at all for that matter, without very persuasive reasons. And what Steve had seen of Stark's persuasive tactics mostly involved energy armour and possessing ships.
Steve would probably have heard about it if that had happened, though. Probably.
"Okay," he said, dubiously. "Um. If I wanted to speak with him for a minute, would it interrupt anything important, do you think?" Like Stark communing with a ship to the extent that interrupting him would run them into the Tannhauser hub. Or Stark rebuilding a hologram projector into an ancillary suit of energy armour, and accidentally blowing himself up because he got distracted. Things like that.
"... I don't believe so, sir?" Meroe answered. Cautiously, and Steve had to wonder if Meroe was reacting specifically to questions about his creator, or if there had always been subtle shades of emotion and reaction in the AI's voice, and he'd just never noticed until he'd watched Stark interact with them.
Erring on the side of immediate worry, he offered a calming smile. "Just checking," he said, gently. "I think Mr Stark has had enough surprises lately." A small pause, while he thought about water in space, and how feeling clean wasn't necessarily the same as being hygienic. "I think most of us have," he finished, distantly, and almost didn't register that he was saying it to someone he hadn't been really aware of until three days ago.
"... Yes," Meroe said, very softly. Vehemently, with a rough edge that maybe the AI wouldn't have shown three days ago, and Steve began to think that Stark wasn't the only thing he needed to start paying attention to in the aftermath. That Stark wasn't the only thing Steve needed to step up and adapt to, when there were people he'd been depending on for years, apparently, who he'd never even stopped to notice before.
"Okay," he said. A little roughly himself. "Ah. Do you want to give Stark a heads up, then, and I'll head up to Deck 4? Just that I want a word, he doesn't need to stop what he's doing or anything?"
Meroe paused for a second. "I ... suspect the Maker is already aware that you are coming, sir," he said, and while there was still caution in it, there was also a degree of warmth. "But I will do that, Captain Rogers. Thank you, sir."
Thank you. For the acknowledgement that he might want to warn someone he cared about ahead of time? Or for the acknowledgement that he had wants at all?
Yes, Steve thought, as he turned towards the nearest elevator bank. There were a lot of things they needed to adapt to, in the aftermath of Stark's taking.
***
Stark hadn't blown himself up, by the time Steve reached Briefing Room 3. He wasn't possessing any ships, either, though Steve suspected that was always a slightly questionable statement, since he wasn't sure how you'd tell the difference between 'Stark has possessed the ship' and 'the ship just happens to like Stark'.
He also hadn't cannibalised the hologram projector, or even touched it, as far as Steve could tell. Apparently, he didn't have to.
"No, no, what the hell am I supposed to do with that, JARVIS? I still need to be able to breathe, remember? Also not to set fabric on fire because I'm carrying enough static to short out a decent sized relay."
"I would remind you, sir, that without access to a lab in which to test materials, this process will be somewhat painstaking?"
"Excuses, excuses. Can we get me an insulating material that's not going to set the room on fire, already?"
The holograms flooded the room, with Stark turning in the middle of them with one hand on his hip and the other tapping lightly at his lower lip, occasionally darting out to brush through one of the diagrams or strings of notation, causing light to scatter around it and reform, slightly different from before. It was a fascinating display, really. Almost beautiful.
Except for the small fact that Steve knew the holograms shouldn't do that.
"Hey, Cap." Stark waved absently back at him over his shoulder. Looking much better, all things considered. Though that wouldn't really be difficult. "Come on in, pull up a chair. I think I stacked most of them over there."
He pointed vaguely towards one side of the room, most of his attention still on his diagrams. At least, that was the impression he was giving. Trying to give. Steve noticed the stiff, wary line of the man's spine, presented so casually, and so carefully, towards him. Steve noticed the soft tension and the way the man subtly twitched at his every move.
He'd been right to come. Immediately, and with very little fanfare, Steve knew that.
"Meroe told me you wanted a hologram," he said, moving to stand beside Stark instead. Keeping it light and casual. "I'm not sure what I thought he meant, but I don't think this was it."
Stark shot him a sideways look, eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Fury wouldn't let me have a lab," he explained, shortly. A little grumpily, but also a little nervously. "I can't do everything in my head, you know. Sometimes I need to see what I'm doing."
He waved his hand out around them, the various diagrams flickering testily, the notes shimmering through the air. Steve blinked calmly at them, idly skimming a few for content. Material tests formed most of the written notation, he thought. Some others were code, too impenetrable to make head or tails of. The diagrams seemed to be circuits, mostly, and what looked like the nerve paths through a human body. Slightly alarming, put together, but then Stark was slightly alarming in general.
Slightly alarming, and defiantly not hiding it. Defiantly not tucking his projects or his capabilities away out of sight, for all he'd had at least ten minutes warning and the opportunity to do so. Steve wondered if that was a good or a bad sign. But Stark hadn't shown Stane a damn thing, until it was too late for Stane to stop him. Steve thought that might edge this over into tentatively hopeful.
"You mean you have to work at this stuff?" he asked, carefully deadpan. "I thought technomancers just sort of thought really hard at things, and boom, technology."
Stark actually turned towards him, at that, head snapping around. His expression flashing first to incredulity, how stupid do you have to ... Then the eyebrows came down, narrow-eyed suspicion as he evaluated Steve's expression. And then, when Steve let his small, faint smile slip free, Stark started shaking his head, mild affront and grudging humour.
"Yes, because everyone knows technology is made of magic," he griped, but he was grinning a bit, and some of the tension had eased from his spine, so Steve was counting that one a success.
"I wouldn't know," he shrugged, smiling easily. "And to be fair, Stark, so far since I've known you, you've managed to possess a ship and stop a battle with your brain." He raised an eyebrow at the man, turning into him a little to lessen it. "As much as I know there's a technical explanation behind that ... you have to admit it looks pretty much like magic from the outside."
Technology had never been Steve's strong point. Using it, yes, absolutely, but he'd never had too much grasp on how most of it operated. Generally, he didn't need to. But even if he had, even if he was as conversant in technology as the average SHIELD technician, he thought there was technology, and then there was Tony Stark. Judging by what he'd heard of the muttered conversations of the Aegis crew, 'magic' was as good an explanation as any as far as they were concerned too.
Stark actually looked smug, at that. Bouncing a little on his heels, and he'd loosened up altogether, just a faint hum of tension in his shoulders, just a slight nervous following of Steve's movements left.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology," he agreed, waving a magnanimous hand. "And I'm the most advanced you're going to get, barring we meet some really high tech aliens out there or something." He paused thoughtfully, his grin going a little sly and tired. "I still have to actually work things out longhand, though. And then I have to actually build them. Well. Or repurpose them. Point being, physical effort is usually involved too. At least at the initialising phase, anyway."
Steve let his expression go a little dubious, a little gently questioning. "Really," he said, letting it be doubtful. Holding the twitch of a smile at Stark's attempt at solemn agreement. "Not magic?"
"Not magic," Stark agreed, with a very patronising little arch to his voice, but with enough of a glitter of humour in his eyes to counteract it. Stark was ... a lot more personable, Steve thought, when he wasn't half terrified of you and trying to blow ships up with his brain.
Which made it painful, a little bit, when Stark's face closed up again at his next question. "Which is why the briefing room holograms are now suddenly interactive?" Steve shook his head, carefully. Still light. Still easy. Not that it was making much of a difference. "I'm almost positive you couldn't change image content with a fingertip the last time I was here."
Stark's grin had frozen a little bit, flickering away from real and into that hollow, distant thing that he put on to mask things. To hide his nerves and make things more casual than they were. Steve hadn't ever been able to hear Stark's conversations with his AI, but they'd all gotten very good, the four of them, at noting the physical danger signs.
A couple of days trapped in an enemy spaceship with the man would do that.
"Don't worry, Captain," Stark grinned, drifting away a couple of steps and waving a dismissive hand. "I haven't broken them. Or changed them. Though I was tempted, I will admit, seriously, when was the last time SHIELD upgraded its tech out here?" He shook his head, his smile showing a hint of teeth. "But it seemed too much effort. And I didn't need to. So."
Steve nodded equably, bland and casual. "Okay," he agreed, peaceably. "So ... Magic, then?"
Stark blinked at him. Angry and nervous, bristling with anxious energy, ready to snap defiantly. Stark met his eyes, that narrow, suspicious stare, and slowly rocked forward in consideration as he realised that Steve wasn't mocking him. Or accusing him. Just ... asking, in some vague curiosity.
Well. Curiosity, and some slight ulterior motives along the lines of showing the man he could relax, of letting Stark know that a question was not always an attack, and he could relax here. At least a little more than he was now, anyway.
"I'm uploading in realtime via JARVIS," the man said, abruptly. Taking a half step back towards Steve, still coiled tight and wary. But not retreating, and not clamming up defensively. "The projectors use archived images and files, which is why you can't change them usually without uploading the adapted file from the terminal." He twitched a shoulder, an odd half-dismissal. "When JARVIS is with me, though, I can upload straight from my brain as things occur to me. JARVIS translates that to a file, which he can then route through the databanks for the projectors. There's a slight delay for upload and file translation, but mostly it means we can adapt, or rather update, the image as soon as I think of it."
Steve blinked. Not because he didn't understand that, it was actually a surprisingly clear explanation from a man who usually, as far as he'd seen, just did things and expected people to catch up later. No. It was more ...
"You're uploading a diagram from your brain?" he asked, and it shouldn't be surprising, it really shouldn't, but up until five seconds ago the hologram projectors on Deck 4 hadn't been something he'd thought you could interface to with your brain. AI uplink had been a thing, yes, for some years now. Most of them had gotten used to that, linking into a ship, into ship's systems. Hell, even Stark taking over a ship was sort of understandable, they were his AI, they let him in, Steve could get that. For some reason, though, casually uploading things from your brain to the crappy briefing projectors that regularly broke down if you so much as sneezed wrong in their direction seemed ... different. More intrusive, more wrong, for reasons Steve wasn't completely sure of.
Maybe it was just the ... the completeness of it. The realisation that even completely normal things were fundamentally different when Stark looked at them. That Stark somehow managed to live in a completely alien world even when he was standing right beside you. And could then make that alien world something real, something that intruded into the one Steve had thought he lived in, and changed it around him.
Stark forced you to adapt, he thought distantly. Had done from the first moment he'd stepped onto the Avenger, and they'd realised there were things about him they weren't seeing, secrets he was hiding that could, as it turned out, turn a universe on its head and mean the difference between life and death. Not just the armour. Not just the AI, and the slow realisation that the past fourteen years had been changing their galaxy more than anyone knew.
Stark walked into Briefing Room 3 on Deck 4, and suddenly Steve couldn't even look at a projector the same way. And that was ... a realisation Steve thought they might need a little time to get to grips with, alright?
But at the same time ...
"... Yes?" Stark said, warily. Waving an airy hand, trying to brush it off. "It's just a basic repurposing, a work-around to get what you need from what you have. I mean, awesome, yes, and it only works when you've the most impressive AI ever built as your partner, but it's not exactly difficult ..."
He trailed off, watching Steve's expression, trying to gauge how much Steve was going to flip out about it, how badly he was going to react. Watching him the way he'd been watching all of them since he'd destroyed Stane in that torture chamber. Furious, desperate and powerful, up until the threat was gone, and then trying to hide it. To lighten it, to be casual and amusing and unthreatening. Eyes distant as he tried to dial things back and remember ...
Remember how to live in the same world as everyone else. Remember how to come back, and not be the fearful thing.
Steve took a startled breath, held it for a second. Thinking, suddenly, about old-fashioned water showers and trying to feel clean again. Thinking about how Natasha would go blank and rigid for a few hours, returning from some missions, while she settled the mask inside herself and remembered who she really was. Thinking about Bruce, after planetary missions where his other self had emerged, searching their waiting faces for the fear he always expected to be there, slumping in faint relief when every time, at least this time, it didn't appear.
Thinking about waking from cryosleep to realise how much the galaxy had changed, thinking about standing up to show people how to fight a re-emerging enemy that only he recognised anymore. Thinking how hard it was, to be the one who lived in an alien world even standing right beside someone. How hard it was to remember the parts that didn't change, that you could be safe around.
Stark had changed the universe behind him, had made them all have to jump to keep up. But then ... they weren't the only ones having to adapt, were they?
"I came up here to thank you, you know," he said, a little distantly, and watched Stark's face change at the non-sequitur. Watched the man visibly scramble to follow that, to recalibrate on the fly, and suddenly felt a smile crease his face, an odd lightness in his chest.
"Thank me?" Stark asked him, with an air of verbally holding the concept at arms length until he figured out what he was meant to do with it. "What now? Uh. Why?"
Steve shrugged, still smiling faintly. Turning to face the man properly, to met Stark head on. "Lots of things," he said, waving a hand casually, the light from the holograms flickering over it. "Not killing us when we took you prisoner. Releasing us on the Iron Monger. Saving five SHIELD ships from Hydra." A small pause, and something softer, something deeper. "Listening to me. Even with everything they'd done to you. Letting us ... help."
Stark blinked rapidly, his face instinctively flinching sideways, angling away so he didn't have to hold Steve's gaze. He swayed back, out of the ready, defensive stanch and into something avoidant, angled away.
"I'm pretty sure someone deciding not to randomly kill you is not something you need to thank them for," he said, squinting cautiously sideways at Steve. "I mean, 'not killing people' really should be the default, you know?"
Steve felt his smile shift, felt it slip slowly wider, more gentle, and watched as Stark caught up with that, as Stark followed what had just come out of his own mouth, and retroactively applied it. He shook his head, and watched the wary, hopeful realisation filter over the man's face.
"Yes," he agreed, gently. "It should be."
It wasn't always, wasn't nearly often enough, no matter what world you lived in, no matter how alien. It wasn't always the default. But it should be, and Stark needed to know they agreed on that. The way they'd agreed back in hyperspace, while Stark shuddered through the possession of a ship, and failed to offer Clint one violence for another.
They'd agreed then, but it could have been because they were on the helpless end, the receiving end, Stark mightn't have been able to trust that. Steve wanted him to know they agreed now. That they agreed on that no matter which of them had the ability to swing. He wanted Stark to know he wasn't a prisoner, and he wasn't going to be, even if it turned out he could possess projectors as well as ships.
Watching the slow, careful smile that inched its way cautiously onto the man's face, he thought he might finally be making headway, with that.
And then, as he remembered it, as it occurred to him ... "Did you know the Aegis has water showers?" he asked. Taking, he did admit, some minor amusement from watching Stark try to follow the jump again. Petty, yes, but Stark regularly had telepathic conversations with AI and expected them to keep up. Turnaround is fair play, after all. "Real water, I mean. Two minutes only, but it's better than a hygiene chamber."
Stark squinted at him. Glanced down at himself, looking back up with a little frown of confusion. "Are you telling me I need a shower?" he asked, eyeing Steve cautiously. "How did we go from 'yay, nobody's killing anyone' to 'you stink, Stark, take a shower'?"
Steve laughed at that. A quick little snort, but he had to. "I didn't say you stink," he pointed out, carefully. Thought it, maybe, Stark apparently hadn't known there were showers, but he hadn't said it. "And at least it wasn't the other way around." He smiled, faintly. "As Clint said, conversations with you have an alarming tendency to become audible at the 'threats of mass slaughter' part."
Stark managed to look faintly sheepish, at that. Mildly affronted, too, but also vaguely embarrassed. "In my defense," he said wryly, "that's usually because the person at the other end of the conversation is thinking it, not because I'm asking for it."
Steve grinned. "I'll take your word for it," he agreed, sagely, and not at all doubtfully. "Do AI think about mass slaughter a lot, then?"
Stark's expression flickered. Partly his own emotion, his own shock, but there was that other look too, that distant thing in his eyes that looked almost like someone else looking out of them, like another intelligence behind Stark's eyes had briefly flickered forward. Steve let his smile slip, let it fade, and simply watched.
"They do when people take them, and enslave them, and reveal them in front of a galaxy," Stark said, quietly. In a voice that hummed with something deeper than it should, something Steve had gradually realised was a faint, barely audible echo across the ship, a change in the pitch of the electronics around them. JARVIS. Or Meroe. Or Barbara. Possibly all of the above.
"Yes," Steve answered, and it was serious, he let it be, he made it be. "And we'll deal with that too, Stark." He met the man's eyes, held them. "I promise you. We will make that right too."
Because Stark wasn't the only thing they had to adapt to anymore. Yes. Steve had heard Meroe, and he had listened, and he knew that, now. That was ... a step he was willing to take.
Stark tilted his head, watched him distantly with eyes that were feeding information to more than just himself. Stark looked at him for a moment. And then ... smiled. Faintly, and tiredly, but real enough to count.
"After the shower, I'm assuming," Stark said, and he was wavering faintly, had lost the faux-casual disguise and the hard, defiant edge, both of them. He was wavering faintly on his feet, in the flickering of the holograms, but he was smiling, and Steve had never seen a smile that real from him before.
"... Yes," he agreed, reaching out carefully to wrap a hand under the man's elbow and steady him. "After the shower. And, I think, possibly some more sleep?"
Stark grinned at him. Glassily, and with a smug, utter confidence. "Cap, you've got a lot to learn about working with me. Sleep? Pfft." He waved a hand, incidentally wiping out all the holograms at once in the process. "Trust me when I say, I can literally move space stations in my sleep. We don't have to wait just for that."
Steve shook his head, smirking faintly as he steered Stark out the door. "Yeah," he murmured. "And there's magic, Stark, and then there's bullshit."
And then, he thought, while Stark paused in the corridor to smile slow and dark, and someone, Meroe or JARVIS or someone, contrived to darken the hallway around them until the running lights limned Stark like an unholy aura, then there was Tony Stark.
A lot to adapt to. Oh yes. Fortunately, Steve had been adapting from the moment he climbed out of cryosleep and into a galaxy at war.
Adaptation, he thought, was something he was very good at.
Contd (Tony & JARVIS, SHIELD): FleetHome
One of the advantages of a flagship versus an Interceptor class, Steve thought idly, was that on the flagship you could get an actual, honest-to-god water shower. Admittedly of the wet down-soap up-rinse off, two-minutes-maximum type, but he'd take two minutes of hot water over a hygiene chamber any day.
Which was possibly old-fashioned of him, yes, but a chemical bath just wasn't the same. Bruce backed him on this one. Something about the psychological effects of using a terrestrial resource to counter the isolative atmosphere of space and shipboard life. Which might not be a rationale you could use without getting funny looks, but it was good enough for Steve. If he was on a ship with water showers, damn it, he was going to use them. So there.
Besides. He also had it on good authority that Fury favoured them too, and 'Commander Fury does it' was an excuse that worked pretty much anywhere that wasn't a diplomatic meeting.
Though in this particular case, he thought, nodding to a couple of passing crew as he stepped out of the locker room, Bruce was probably closer to the mark. After the past few weeks, he'd wanted to feel clean. The kind you got from hot water smelling faintly of metal and a manual scrub down, the kind that was human and personal, washing away the filth of the slave ship, not the kind you got from a tiny cubicle and a computerised rinse. He didn't want to be disinfected, didn't want to be chemically purified. He wanted to feel clean.
His crew understood that, he thought. Natasha, Bruce. Clint could take them or leave them, really, but the other two felt as he did. For perhaps much the same reasons.
He wondered whether Stark favoured water showers too. Whether he would now, even if he hadn't before. He wondered if Stark even knew they had water showers ...
Steve paused. Stopped in the middle of the hallway, muttering an absent apology when the bridge officer who'd been walking behind him muttered a startled curse at him. He paused, still scrubbing lightly at his hair, and wondered with a sudden lurch in his stomach if Stark knew he was allowed to use them.
The past couple of days, they'd been content enough to leave Stark to his own devices. Focusing on getting the Hydra fleet stabilised and ready for convoy to a more secure station, on getting information out to the rest of SHIELD and receiving intel in return. In the absence of immediate crises, they'd been content to let Stark wander around the Aegis on his own, save for the ever-watchful eye of the ship's AI. Focusing, if he was completely honest, on regaining their own equilibrium in the face of what had happened.
And now, two days later, he realised he didn't even know if Stark knew he wasn't a prisoner. He didn't know whether or not Stark knew where the showers were, and that he had the right to use them.
Right, he decided abruptly. Alright, no. That was ... not even remotely good enough.
"Meroe?" he asked. Still standing in the middle of the hallway, with a towel still in his hand. Looking up at the ceiling instinctively.
"Yes, Captain Rogers?" the AI answered, and Steve paused a little. It was still odd, dealing with the AI after what Stark had revealed. He kept finding himself doing things automatically, asking for things automatically, and then pausing to remember that the AI was ... It wasn't that Meroe was suddenly a person, he'd always sort of been that, but just ...
It was strange, to presume on the AI's assistance, and then suddenly remember that Meroe could choose not to answer. Strange to think that Meroe could always have chosen that. That the AI was not simply a machine to be presumed upon, the part of the ship that spoke, but essentially a crewmember who could make whatever choices he felt like. Even to leave, should it come to it. It was strange to realise that Meroe's assistance, every time, had been offered from choice, a desire to help or to do his duty, and not from programming. That every idle request had been made of a person, and that person had chosen to assist, even on the most trivial and foolish of things.
He kept finding himself wondering, the past few days, what they looked like to Meroe. What the AI thought of them, all the fragile, demanding people living within his confines, asking for his help a hundred times a day, sometimes for really stupid things.
Like directions to where his probably traumatised and apparently abandoned creator might be found, for example. Since Steve was considering consequences, over here.
"Sir?" Meroe prompted, cautiously, and Steve blinked, reaching up to rub ruefully at his neck. Yes. All this, this whole thing with Stark, it was going to take a while to adapt to, he could tell. And it was time to stop ignoring that, and take the first steps to doing something about it.
"Can you tell me where I might find Mr Stark?" he asked, and directed a rueful smile towards the ceiling. He wasn't sure if Meroe had visual sensors the same way humans did, or if he would have any on this particular stretch of corridor even if he did, but he figured it couldn't hurt any.
There was an incremental pause before the AI answered. Steve wasn't sure if it was because of the nature of the question, or if it was because Meroe was registering his change in behaviour and wondering at it. But after a bare pause: "At present, I believe he is in briefing room three, sir. Deck four."
Steve blinked rapidly. "Briefing?" he asked. "Is there something ... Why is he in briefing?" As far as he knew, since Stark had given the go-ahead with the ex-Hydra AI yesterday, and handed command of his 'babies' over to Meroe, Stark hadn't been needed for anything specific. Nothing that would require a briefing, anyway, and nothing that Steve wouldn't have noticed. Unless Fury had deliberately gone behind his back, and that would be ...
"He wanted a holographic projector, sir," Meroe interrupted, and maybe it was just the recent realisations, but Steve thought there was a touch of humour in it. Like Meroe was vaguely amused, either by Steve or by his creator. "In fact, he wanted a lab, but Commander Fury thought that wouldn't be wise just yet. Mr Stark had said that a decent hologram terminal would do in a pinch, so I believe the Commander offered him the use of the briefing room projectors as a compromise."
Steve felt his eyebrows creep upwards slightly as he considered that. He wasn't sure if it was reassuring, or slightly alarming. On the one hand, it meant Stark was obviously fairly happy asking for what he wanted, so he probably wasn't still mentally stuck as a prisoner on the Avenger. That was good. On the other ... Commander Fury wasn't generally inclined to offering shipboard liberties as a compromise, or offering compromises at all for that matter, without very persuasive reasons. And what Steve had seen of Stark's persuasive tactics mostly involved energy armour and possessing ships.
Steve would probably have heard about it if that had happened, though. Probably.
"Okay," he said, dubiously. "Um. If I wanted to speak with him for a minute, would it interrupt anything important, do you think?" Like Stark communing with a ship to the extent that interrupting him would run them into the Tannhauser hub. Or Stark rebuilding a hologram projector into an ancillary suit of energy armour, and accidentally blowing himself up because he got distracted. Things like that.
"... I don't believe so, sir?" Meroe answered. Cautiously, and Steve had to wonder if Meroe was reacting specifically to questions about his creator, or if there had always been subtle shades of emotion and reaction in the AI's voice, and he'd just never noticed until he'd watched Stark interact with them.
Erring on the side of immediate worry, he offered a calming smile. "Just checking," he said, gently. "I think Mr Stark has had enough surprises lately." A small pause, while he thought about water in space, and how feeling clean wasn't necessarily the same as being hygienic. "I think most of us have," he finished, distantly, and almost didn't register that he was saying it to someone he hadn't been really aware of until three days ago.
"... Yes," Meroe said, very softly. Vehemently, with a rough edge that maybe the AI wouldn't have shown three days ago, and Steve began to think that Stark wasn't the only thing he needed to start paying attention to in the aftermath. That Stark wasn't the only thing Steve needed to step up and adapt to, when there were people he'd been depending on for years, apparently, who he'd never even stopped to notice before.
"Okay," he said. A little roughly himself. "Ah. Do you want to give Stark a heads up, then, and I'll head up to Deck 4? Just that I want a word, he doesn't need to stop what he's doing or anything?"
Meroe paused for a second. "I ... suspect the Maker is already aware that you are coming, sir," he said, and while there was still caution in it, there was also a degree of warmth. "But I will do that, Captain Rogers. Thank you, sir."
Thank you. For the acknowledgement that he might want to warn someone he cared about ahead of time? Or for the acknowledgement that he had wants at all?
Yes, Steve thought, as he turned towards the nearest elevator bank. There were a lot of things they needed to adapt to, in the aftermath of Stark's taking.
***
Stark hadn't blown himself up, by the time Steve reached Briefing Room 3. He wasn't possessing any ships, either, though Steve suspected that was always a slightly questionable statement, since he wasn't sure how you'd tell the difference between 'Stark has possessed the ship' and 'the ship just happens to like Stark'.
He also hadn't cannibalised the hologram projector, or even touched it, as far as Steve could tell. Apparently, he didn't have to.
"No, no, what the hell am I supposed to do with that, JARVIS? I still need to be able to breathe, remember? Also not to set fabric on fire because I'm carrying enough static to short out a decent sized relay."
"I would remind you, sir, that without access to a lab in which to test materials, this process will be somewhat painstaking?"
"Excuses, excuses. Can we get me an insulating material that's not going to set the room on fire, already?"
The holograms flooded the room, with Stark turning in the middle of them with one hand on his hip and the other tapping lightly at his lower lip, occasionally darting out to brush through one of the diagrams or strings of notation, causing light to scatter around it and reform, slightly different from before. It was a fascinating display, really. Almost beautiful.
Except for the small fact that Steve knew the holograms shouldn't do that.
"Hey, Cap." Stark waved absently back at him over his shoulder. Looking much better, all things considered. Though that wouldn't really be difficult. "Come on in, pull up a chair. I think I stacked most of them over there."
He pointed vaguely towards one side of the room, most of his attention still on his diagrams. At least, that was the impression he was giving. Trying to give. Steve noticed the stiff, wary line of the man's spine, presented so casually, and so carefully, towards him. Steve noticed the soft tension and the way the man subtly twitched at his every move.
He'd been right to come. Immediately, and with very little fanfare, Steve knew that.
"Meroe told me you wanted a hologram," he said, moving to stand beside Stark instead. Keeping it light and casual. "I'm not sure what I thought he meant, but I don't think this was it."
Stark shot him a sideways look, eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Fury wouldn't let me have a lab," he explained, shortly. A little grumpily, but also a little nervously. "I can't do everything in my head, you know. Sometimes I need to see what I'm doing."
He waved his hand out around them, the various diagrams flickering testily, the notes shimmering through the air. Steve blinked calmly at them, idly skimming a few for content. Material tests formed most of the written notation, he thought. Some others were code, too impenetrable to make head or tails of. The diagrams seemed to be circuits, mostly, and what looked like the nerve paths through a human body. Slightly alarming, put together, but then Stark was slightly alarming in general.
Slightly alarming, and defiantly not hiding it. Defiantly not tucking his projects or his capabilities away out of sight, for all he'd had at least ten minutes warning and the opportunity to do so. Steve wondered if that was a good or a bad sign. But Stark hadn't shown Stane a damn thing, until it was too late for Stane to stop him. Steve thought that might edge this over into tentatively hopeful.
"You mean you have to work at this stuff?" he asked, carefully deadpan. "I thought technomancers just sort of thought really hard at things, and boom, technology."
Stark actually turned towards him, at that, head snapping around. His expression flashing first to incredulity, how stupid do you have to ... Then the eyebrows came down, narrow-eyed suspicion as he evaluated Steve's expression. And then, when Steve let his small, faint smile slip free, Stark started shaking his head, mild affront and grudging humour.
"Yes, because everyone knows technology is made of magic," he griped, but he was grinning a bit, and some of the tension had eased from his spine, so Steve was counting that one a success.
"I wouldn't know," he shrugged, smiling easily. "And to be fair, Stark, so far since I've known you, you've managed to possess a ship and stop a battle with your brain." He raised an eyebrow at the man, turning into him a little to lessen it. "As much as I know there's a technical explanation behind that ... you have to admit it looks pretty much like magic from the outside."
Technology had never been Steve's strong point. Using it, yes, absolutely, but he'd never had too much grasp on how most of it operated. Generally, he didn't need to. But even if he had, even if he was as conversant in technology as the average SHIELD technician, he thought there was technology, and then there was Tony Stark. Judging by what he'd heard of the muttered conversations of the Aegis crew, 'magic' was as good an explanation as any as far as they were concerned too.
Stark actually looked smug, at that. Bouncing a little on his heels, and he'd loosened up altogether, just a faint hum of tension in his shoulders, just a slight nervous following of Steve's movements left.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology," he agreed, waving a magnanimous hand. "And I'm the most advanced you're going to get, barring we meet some really high tech aliens out there or something." He paused thoughtfully, his grin going a little sly and tired. "I still have to actually work things out longhand, though. And then I have to actually build them. Well. Or repurpose them. Point being, physical effort is usually involved too. At least at the initialising phase, anyway."
Steve let his expression go a little dubious, a little gently questioning. "Really," he said, letting it be doubtful. Holding the twitch of a smile at Stark's attempt at solemn agreement. "Not magic?"
"Not magic," Stark agreed, with a very patronising little arch to his voice, but with enough of a glitter of humour in his eyes to counteract it. Stark was ... a lot more personable, Steve thought, when he wasn't half terrified of you and trying to blow ships up with his brain.
Which made it painful, a little bit, when Stark's face closed up again at his next question. "Which is why the briefing room holograms are now suddenly interactive?" Steve shook his head, carefully. Still light. Still easy. Not that it was making much of a difference. "I'm almost positive you couldn't change image content with a fingertip the last time I was here."
Stark's grin had frozen a little bit, flickering away from real and into that hollow, distant thing that he put on to mask things. To hide his nerves and make things more casual than they were. Steve hadn't ever been able to hear Stark's conversations with his AI, but they'd all gotten very good, the four of them, at noting the physical danger signs.
A couple of days trapped in an enemy spaceship with the man would do that.
"Don't worry, Captain," Stark grinned, drifting away a couple of steps and waving a dismissive hand. "I haven't broken them. Or changed them. Though I was tempted, I will admit, seriously, when was the last time SHIELD upgraded its tech out here?" He shook his head, his smile showing a hint of teeth. "But it seemed too much effort. And I didn't need to. So."
Steve nodded equably, bland and casual. "Okay," he agreed, peaceably. "So ... Magic, then?"
Stark blinked at him. Angry and nervous, bristling with anxious energy, ready to snap defiantly. Stark met his eyes, that narrow, suspicious stare, and slowly rocked forward in consideration as he realised that Steve wasn't mocking him. Or accusing him. Just ... asking, in some vague curiosity.
Well. Curiosity, and some slight ulterior motives along the lines of showing the man he could relax, of letting Stark know that a question was not always an attack, and he could relax here. At least a little more than he was now, anyway.
"I'm uploading in realtime via JARVIS," the man said, abruptly. Taking a half step back towards Steve, still coiled tight and wary. But not retreating, and not clamming up defensively. "The projectors use archived images and files, which is why you can't change them usually without uploading the adapted file from the terminal." He twitched a shoulder, an odd half-dismissal. "When JARVIS is with me, though, I can upload straight from my brain as things occur to me. JARVIS translates that to a file, which he can then route through the databanks for the projectors. There's a slight delay for upload and file translation, but mostly it means we can adapt, or rather update, the image as soon as I think of it."
Steve blinked. Not because he didn't understand that, it was actually a surprisingly clear explanation from a man who usually, as far as he'd seen, just did things and expected people to catch up later. No. It was more ...
"You're uploading a diagram from your brain?" he asked, and it shouldn't be surprising, it really shouldn't, but up until five seconds ago the hologram projectors on Deck 4 hadn't been something he'd thought you could interface to with your brain. AI uplink had been a thing, yes, for some years now. Most of them had gotten used to that, linking into a ship, into ship's systems. Hell, even Stark taking over a ship was sort of understandable, they were his AI, they let him in, Steve could get that. For some reason, though, casually uploading things from your brain to the crappy briefing projectors that regularly broke down if you so much as sneezed wrong in their direction seemed ... different. More intrusive, more wrong, for reasons Steve wasn't completely sure of.
Maybe it was just the ... the completeness of it. The realisation that even completely normal things were fundamentally different when Stark looked at them. That Stark somehow managed to live in a completely alien world even when he was standing right beside you. And could then make that alien world something real, something that intruded into the one Steve had thought he lived in, and changed it around him.
Stark forced you to adapt, he thought distantly. Had done from the first moment he'd stepped onto the Avenger, and they'd realised there were things about him they weren't seeing, secrets he was hiding that could, as it turned out, turn a universe on its head and mean the difference between life and death. Not just the armour. Not just the AI, and the slow realisation that the past fourteen years had been changing their galaxy more than anyone knew.
Stark walked into Briefing Room 3 on Deck 4, and suddenly Steve couldn't even look at a projector the same way. And that was ... a realisation Steve thought they might need a little time to get to grips with, alright?
But at the same time ...
"... Yes?" Stark said, warily. Waving an airy hand, trying to brush it off. "It's just a basic repurposing, a work-around to get what you need from what you have. I mean, awesome, yes, and it only works when you've the most impressive AI ever built as your partner, but it's not exactly difficult ..."
He trailed off, watching Steve's expression, trying to gauge how much Steve was going to flip out about it, how badly he was going to react. Watching him the way he'd been watching all of them since he'd destroyed Stane in that torture chamber. Furious, desperate and powerful, up until the threat was gone, and then trying to hide it. To lighten it, to be casual and amusing and unthreatening. Eyes distant as he tried to dial things back and remember ...
Remember how to live in the same world as everyone else. Remember how to come back, and not be the fearful thing.
Steve took a startled breath, held it for a second. Thinking, suddenly, about old-fashioned water showers and trying to feel clean again. Thinking about how Natasha would go blank and rigid for a few hours, returning from some missions, while she settled the mask inside herself and remembered who she really was. Thinking about Bruce, after planetary missions where his other self had emerged, searching their waiting faces for the fear he always expected to be there, slumping in faint relief when every time, at least this time, it didn't appear.
Thinking about waking from cryosleep to realise how much the galaxy had changed, thinking about standing up to show people how to fight a re-emerging enemy that only he recognised anymore. Thinking how hard it was, to be the one who lived in an alien world even standing right beside someone. How hard it was to remember the parts that didn't change, that you could be safe around.
Stark had changed the universe behind him, had made them all have to jump to keep up. But then ... they weren't the only ones having to adapt, were they?
"I came up here to thank you, you know," he said, a little distantly, and watched Stark's face change at the non-sequitur. Watched the man visibly scramble to follow that, to recalibrate on the fly, and suddenly felt a smile crease his face, an odd lightness in his chest.
"Thank me?" Stark asked him, with an air of verbally holding the concept at arms length until he figured out what he was meant to do with it. "What now? Uh. Why?"
Steve shrugged, still smiling faintly. Turning to face the man properly, to met Stark head on. "Lots of things," he said, waving a hand casually, the light from the holograms flickering over it. "Not killing us when we took you prisoner. Releasing us on the Iron Monger. Saving five SHIELD ships from Hydra." A small pause, and something softer, something deeper. "Listening to me. Even with everything they'd done to you. Letting us ... help."
Stark blinked rapidly, his face instinctively flinching sideways, angling away so he didn't have to hold Steve's gaze. He swayed back, out of the ready, defensive stanch and into something avoidant, angled away.
"I'm pretty sure someone deciding not to randomly kill you is not something you need to thank them for," he said, squinting cautiously sideways at Steve. "I mean, 'not killing people' really should be the default, you know?"
Steve felt his smile shift, felt it slip slowly wider, more gentle, and watched as Stark caught up with that, as Stark followed what had just come out of his own mouth, and retroactively applied it. He shook his head, and watched the wary, hopeful realisation filter over the man's face.
"Yes," he agreed, gently. "It should be."
It wasn't always, wasn't nearly often enough, no matter what world you lived in, no matter how alien. It wasn't always the default. But it should be, and Stark needed to know they agreed on that. The way they'd agreed back in hyperspace, while Stark shuddered through the possession of a ship, and failed to offer Clint one violence for another.
They'd agreed then, but it could have been because they were on the helpless end, the receiving end, Stark mightn't have been able to trust that. Steve wanted him to know they agreed now. That they agreed on that no matter which of them had the ability to swing. He wanted Stark to know he wasn't a prisoner, and he wasn't going to be, even if it turned out he could possess projectors as well as ships.
Watching the slow, careful smile that inched its way cautiously onto the man's face, he thought he might finally be making headway, with that.
And then, as he remembered it, as it occurred to him ... "Did you know the Aegis has water showers?" he asked. Taking, he did admit, some minor amusement from watching Stark try to follow the jump again. Petty, yes, but Stark regularly had telepathic conversations with AI and expected them to keep up. Turnaround is fair play, after all. "Real water, I mean. Two minutes only, but it's better than a hygiene chamber."
Stark squinted at him. Glanced down at himself, looking back up with a little frown of confusion. "Are you telling me I need a shower?" he asked, eyeing Steve cautiously. "How did we go from 'yay, nobody's killing anyone' to 'you stink, Stark, take a shower'?"
Steve laughed at that. A quick little snort, but he had to. "I didn't say you stink," he pointed out, carefully. Thought it, maybe, Stark apparently hadn't known there were showers, but he hadn't said it. "And at least it wasn't the other way around." He smiled, faintly. "As Clint said, conversations with you have an alarming tendency to become audible at the 'threats of mass slaughter' part."
Stark managed to look faintly sheepish, at that. Mildly affronted, too, but also vaguely embarrassed. "In my defense," he said wryly, "that's usually because the person at the other end of the conversation is thinking it, not because I'm asking for it."
Steve grinned. "I'll take your word for it," he agreed, sagely, and not at all doubtfully. "Do AI think about mass slaughter a lot, then?"
Stark's expression flickered. Partly his own emotion, his own shock, but there was that other look too, that distant thing in his eyes that looked almost like someone else looking out of them, like another intelligence behind Stark's eyes had briefly flickered forward. Steve let his smile slip, let it fade, and simply watched.
"They do when people take them, and enslave them, and reveal them in front of a galaxy," Stark said, quietly. In a voice that hummed with something deeper than it should, something Steve had gradually realised was a faint, barely audible echo across the ship, a change in the pitch of the electronics around them. JARVIS. Or Meroe. Or Barbara. Possibly all of the above.
"Yes," Steve answered, and it was serious, he let it be, he made it be. "And we'll deal with that too, Stark." He met the man's eyes, held them. "I promise you. We will make that right too."
Because Stark wasn't the only thing they had to adapt to anymore. Yes. Steve had heard Meroe, and he had listened, and he knew that, now. That was ... a step he was willing to take.
Stark tilted his head, watched him distantly with eyes that were feeding information to more than just himself. Stark looked at him for a moment. And then ... smiled. Faintly, and tiredly, but real enough to count.
"After the shower, I'm assuming," Stark said, and he was wavering faintly, had lost the faux-casual disguise and the hard, defiant edge, both of them. He was wavering faintly on his feet, in the flickering of the holograms, but he was smiling, and Steve had never seen a smile that real from him before.
"... Yes," he agreed, reaching out carefully to wrap a hand under the man's elbow and steady him. "After the shower. And, I think, possibly some more sleep?"
Stark grinned at him. Glassily, and with a smug, utter confidence. "Cap, you've got a lot to learn about working with me. Sleep? Pfft." He waved a hand, incidentally wiping out all the holograms at once in the process. "Trust me when I say, I can literally move space stations in my sleep. We don't have to wait just for that."
Steve shook his head, smirking faintly as he steered Stark out the door. "Yeah," he murmured. "And there's magic, Stark, and then there's bullshit."
And then, he thought, while Stark paused in the corridor to smile slow and dark, and someone, Meroe or JARVIS or someone, contrived to darken the hallway around them until the running lights limned Stark like an unholy aura, then there was Tony Stark.
A lot to adapt to. Oh yes. Fortunately, Steve had been adapting from the moment he climbed out of cryosleep and into a galaxy at war.
Adaptation, he thought, was something he was very good at.
Contd (Tony & JARVIS, SHIELD): FleetHome