Chapter Text
Steve stood and stared at the rubble of his apartment building. "I thought I saw the Hulk get knocked into it."
Clint clapped Steve on the shoulder that wasn't cut. "Cheer up, Cap. It could be lots worse. You could have a huge smelly whale sized alien laying dead on top of it."
With a sigh, Steve turned to head back towards Stark Tower. "Not helping."
Clint nodded. "Yeah, sorry."
They stopped frequently to extract someone from the rubble or check on survivors. Steve wasn't surprised that the team let him fall asleep in his food while they were eating afterwards.
He kept his mouth closed when Stark insulted everyone's homes as he was offering for them to sleep in the Tower. Steve could see more of Howard in his boy now. Enough to know what Stark was meaning under the awful things coming out of the man's mouth. Steve frowned at Clint grinning behind Stark's shoulder.
Bruce nudged Stark with his own shoulder. "Enough, Tony. Everyone is tired."
Stark nodded and nearly fell down in the elevator when his legs tried to give out. Steve and Clint almost collided trying to catch Stark. Steve eased Stark onto Banner's shoulder and blinked when Clint just draped himself along Steve's side.
****
Steve was asleep when someone started yelling. He pushed himself upright enough to watch Clint, red faced and crying, waving his arms at Agent Romanoff. Steve rubbed his eye and frowned as the other two suddenly wrapped themselves up in a hug.
Just as fast as it started, Romanoff came away from the hug in a move that left Clint stumbling into Steve's bedding. Steve caught Clint as he landed.
Clint sniffed and ducked his head. "Sorry, Cap."
"Its fine." Steve rubbed at the back of Clint's neck. "Are you alright?"
Clint shook his head. "No."
Steve nodded. He laid back down, pulling Clint along with him. Steve held Clint tight as he quietly cried. Steve pretended to be asleep as Stark appeared with a blanket and covered them both with it.
****
Steve wasn't sure why he was standing outside the helicarrier's morgue doors thinking about bloody trading cards. He slipped in and stopped at the sight of Clint speaking quietly to a closed drawer. Steve moved closer and listened as Clint apologized for Loki and what Loki had caused him to do. How Clint had gotten the person killed even though he hadn't wanted any of it.
Clint moved to the next drawer and started again. Steve cleared his throat and winced when it made Clint startle badly.
"Sorry." Steve shifted on his feet and started to turn towards the door. "I shouldn't have interrupted."
"Stay." Clint pulled Steve to a different drawer, labeled P. J. Coulson. "He would have kicked my ass for coming down here by myself. Least we can do is say goodbye."
Steve's nose twitched and he looked at Clint carefully. "He was your friend, right?"
Clint fingered the drawer handle. "He and Nat are my family. We've done everything together at some point. Bleed, ate, slept, you name it we've..." Clint sighed and pulled away from the wall of drawers. "He was worrying you were going to let the modern world just crush you."
Steve blinked. "Agent Coulson told me about his trading cards before he died."
Clint nodded. "He loved those cards. He'd always put them in his locker before an operation so they couldn't get damaged."
"What?"
Clint looked at him oddly. "What, what?"
"He wouldn't have had them on him?" Steve moved closer to the drawer. Nowadays the seals were much better and he couldn't smell death from the drawer like he had in the war when they'd had body bags.
"No, of course not." Clint moved to the side as Steve stopped in front of the drawer. "Why?"
Steve frowned and pulled on the drawer handle. "Fury showed us Coulson's bloody cards after he died. That's what got Stark and I to talking about Loki's plans."
They stared at the empty metal slab that extended from the drawer when Steve pulled the little door open.
"Son of a bitch." Clint turned and was headed for the door before Steve could even get the drawer closed back up.
****
Steve sat beside Coulson's sleeping form as out in the hallway people were yelling. Neither Clint or Natasha had taken well to not being told Coulson wasn't as dead as he should have been. Steve wasn't sure who told Stark, but the man could certainly care when he wanted to.
Across Coulson from Steve, Bruce sat quietly reading Coulson's chart.
"What do you think, Dr. Banner?"
Bruce glanced up. "I think you can call me Bruce."
Steve's head snapped towards the door as someone punched a wall in the hallway. "Sure, okay."
"Them yelling isn't going to cause me to lose control."
"No, I didn't think it would, Bruce." Steve looked down at Coulson. "Will he wake up?"
"I think so." Bruce sat the chart down on the bedside table. "You okay, Steve?"
With a shrug, Steve leaned back in his chair. "Sure. I can't understand half of what anyone says. Everyone in news is more visible with their viciousness." He gestured to Coulson. "I'm watching over the person who seems to have cared most about getting me out of the ice." He rubbed his thumb across the edge of his shield, propped beside his chair. "Can you tell me what people mean when they say they have free wireless?"
"Such as a restaurant?"
Steve nodded.
"It is a way to connect to the Internet without using a wire called an ethernet cable." Bruce gestured to the room around them.
"Oh. Okay." Steve didn't ask him what the Internet was. He'd look it up with the phone Stark had thrown at him earlier. "Why isn't a phone just a phone anymore?"
Bruce smiled softly. "Did anyone tell you that most cell phones take pictures?"
****
Phil prided himself on knowing when the situation was screwed. So he worried when he woke up and the smells were wrong. He remembered the people surrounding his bed hating each other the last time he'd been in the same room with them both.
Phil looked around carefully at Tony snoring and Captain Rogers muttering in his sleep. He pushed himself up in his bed and tried not to make noise as everything protested.
Dr. Banner appeared at his shoulder and patted him on the bicep. "You're in Stark Tower. You were stabbed by Loki and you've been out for a few days."
Well, yes, stabbed, he remembered that part. "Did...we win?" Phil closed his eyes as trying to talk while breathing made him suddenly so damn tired.
Captain Rogers woke with a snort as Dr. Banner moved away a little.
"Yes, we won."
Phil listened to Dr. Banner fill in Captain Rogers before saying he was going to get coffee for everyone. Phil opened his eyes to find Captain Rogers watching him.
"You look better."
Phil let his expression soften towards amused. "Is that...good?"
"Yes." He took Phil's hand in his. "Fury saved the world by telling Stark and I that you'd been killed by Loki."
Phil watched Captain Rogers frown and it occurred to him. "My cards?"
Tony jerked awake and fell of his chair. Phil had to force himself not to laugh as the man cussed and Captain Rogers blushed. Tony smiled wide when he saw Phil awake.
"You're alive!"
"Stark!"
Tony frowned at Captain Rogers. "What? He is. Which is much better than yesterday before you and Barton found his morgue drawer empty." Tony looked down at him. "By the way, in case no one has said, we saved the world, got Barton back, sent Loki home in chains, and kept a nuke from being dropped on the city." He smiled. "All in all, a good day's work."
Phil blinked. "Nuke?"
Tony shrugged as he wrinkled his nose. "We were being invaded by aliens. They were coming through a portal over my Tower, so, you know, save the planet by nuking the portal."
"Oh." Phil frowned as he thought about that. "Would that...have worked?" He forced his eyes to stay open as Captain Rogers looked at Tony with his eyebrows raised.
Tony scratched at his beard. "Uhm. Probably not. The force field protecting the device powering the portal was surprising resilient."
Phil fell asleep content in the knowledge that Nat hadn't had to kill Clint and he hadn't managed to kill her. Saving the world by proxy was just the icing on the cake.
****
Clint watched Steve frown at the fridge's built in touch screen. "Having trouble, Cap?"
Steve started to poke at the screen and stopped with his finger hovering without touching. "No." He turned towards Clint. "Yes. What is this thing for?"
Clint looked over the icons on the screen. "Looks like it can tell you the weather forecast, let you surf the Internet, or, uh, watching TV."
"Surf? Never mind." Steve waved his fingers at the screen. "Which is the weather forecast?"
Clint pointed at the proper icon. "This one." He touched it and the forecast popped up. "It lets you search for anyone's weather. Even other countries."
"Swell." Steve watched as Clint pulled up the forecast for Malibu. "I feel like I need a manual."
"Did Stark give you a phone?" He held up a phone like the one Tony had given Steve.
"Yes." He sat down next to Clint and put his phone down on the table between them. "It isn't just a phone."
Clint smiled. "No, more like a person computer, camera, telegram office, and phone all in one."
"Computers ran with plugs, vacum tubes, and took up whole rooms last time I saw them." Steve rubbed his ear. "That was a few months ago to my memory." Steve frowned down at the phone. "Tony said something about it getting the Internet. I still don't know what that is."
"Uh." Clint took the phone and made it light up. "Here, I'll show you."
****
From the doorway of the kitchen, Tony smiled as Steve let Clint teach him about modern technology. Tony decided he'd get his coffee from Bruce's kitchen and headed off. He checked on Coulson's vitals as he waited for the elevator.
He tried not to frown as Natasha got on the elevator with him. "Going to stab me in the neck again?"
She smirked at him. "Maybe." She flicked her fingers at his tablet. "How's Coulson?"
He hugged the tablet to his chest. "Fine, but you know that already."
"Yes." She leaned against the wall of the elevator. "Thanks."
"Uhhhh, okay." Tony frowned. "What are you thanking me for?"
She lead the way out of the elevator and watched Bruce look up at them. "Just thanks, Stark. You too, Doctor."
Bruce looked between her and Tony. He shrugged because he had no idea what she was talking about.
"Thanks." Bruce went back to what he was doing.
Tony got himself a cup of coffee and gave Natasha a glare as she stole the cup from him as soon as he sat it down. "Hey."
She smiled as she took a sip. "Learn to protect your cup."
Tony rolled his eyes and got himself another cup. "Do you usually steal other people's coffee?"
Natasha pushed herself up on the table near Bruce, but out of his way. "Coulson's, yes. Never steal Barton's though." She grinned as both of them looked at her. "He gets serious about his coffee with honey and carmel in it."
"Ewww." Tony wrinkled his nose as he wondered over to Bruce's screen to see what the man was working on. "That's just gross."
She shrugged. "It was different. Coulson expects his to be replaced if you take it. Donuts are the worse."
Bruce looked over at her. "He eats donuts?"
"Those little sugar covered ones. Either chocolate or the powered sugar. He will not tolerate those going missing." She leaned back on her hands as she spoke. "Coulson convinced me Clint was serious about having me join SHEILD with those little donuts."
Tony wondered to himself for a few moments about how much of what she was saying was the truth. He mentally shrugged as she answered Bruce's questions about her early days with SHEILD.
****
Steve settled beside Phil's bed with the trading cards he had gotten through the Internet. It still astounded him that the Internet did so many things. He watched Phil sleep for a while before smiling to himself. After listening to Tony's secondhand stories for Natasha, Clint, and Phil learning to work together Steve found himself less bothered by Phil having watched over him after the ice.
The computer program that Tony had made like a butler had shown Steve all the times Phil had helped or been assigned to protect Tony. Steve had been struck by how much of a difference there was between Phil when he was starstruck and when he was sure of himself.
It had taken him most of an afternoon with Clint's help to work out the Internet enough to find new trading cards for Phil. Steve had been startled by the asking prices, but once the computer butler had tattled on them to Tony price hadn't mattered.
In the week it had taken to have the various cards found and delivered Phil had improved enough to get some color back and stop falling asleep after only a few minutes of being awake.
Steve reached forward and touched Phil's shoulder. He sat back as Phil snorted awake and blinked at him.
"Oh." He pushed himself up a little. "Hi."
Steve smiled. "Hello." He held out the box with the cards in it. "Clint and Tony helped me find these for you."
Phil blinked and took the box. "What?" He opened the box and his eyes widened. "Oh." He reached in and pulled out the first one. "Wait. What did..." He looked from the card he was holding into the box. "You got new ones."
"Tony says the jackets are the best protection we can get for them." He took the bloody one from the top and picked up the new pristine mate that was the next down. "I got all of them from the helicarrier and I signed those." He took out the next pair. "I'll sign the new ones too, if you want."
Phil started spreading out the cards across his lap. "This is incredible." He held up one of the new cards. "How'd you get this one?" He eyed Steve. "Clint didn't just show up with this one, did he?"
Steve blushed as he realized Phil was thinking Clint had stolen it. "No." He shook his head. "No, no. The phone Tony gave me gets the Internet. And that gets everything. The computer butler told Tony that Clint was helping me find the cards on the Internet. Tony just bought them all and had them shipped here."
"Computer butler?" Phil cocked his head. "Oh, JARVIS. Okay." He smiled. "Thank you, Captain." He looked up at the ceiling. "Thanks, JARVIS."
"You are most welcome, Agent Coulson."
Steve forced himself not to jump as the butler's voice came through the speakers in the room. "Everyone treats it like it's human, but then they all insist that it isn't human."
Phil looked up from his cards. "JARVIS is meant to emulate a human. Stark's technology is extremely advanced. You won't run into anything like him outside of Stark's property for years to come."
Steve nodded. He enjoyed watching Phil compare his ruined cards to the new cards. When Phil slipped into sleep in the middle of explaining how long he'd looked for one of the cards, Steve carefully gathered them all back into their box. Then he settled down into the comfy chair Tony had moved into Phil's room. Steve opened his sketchbook and started drawing.
****
Clint took Natasha along when he went out to find textbooks for Steve.
"Stark is just going to replace them with a tablet once he sees them, you know."
With a shrug, Clint put down the book he was looking at. "Doesn't mean Steve won't appreciate them."
"Hmm." Natasha handed him a textbook on the history of computers. "Here."
"Thanks." Clint added it to the pile he was gathering. "I think he's getting used to Coulson's fanboying."
"The trading cards were nice." She handed him another book. "Phil was worried about you."
Clint frowned at the book in his hands. "He interrupted your interrogation to let you know."
"I'm glad he did." She leaned into his side. "He wanted Loki's head on a platter for Loki taking you. Thor wouldn't have talked him out of it."
"Thor's a damn puppy." He took a breath and picked up the ones they'd decided to get. "The Hulk seemed smart."
Natasha nodded. "I think he was frightened when he fixated on me in the helicarrier." She watched the clerk ring up the books. "He didn't even huff at me after he'd punched Thor."
Clint grinned. "I would have liked that on tape. Thor said it was a valiant strike."
The clerk looked at them both before scanning the next book.
"He is a puppy."
****
Steve loved the textbooks. He didn't like all the annotations Tony put in any of the technology related ones, but then he knew now that Tony wasn't doing things solely to make him mad. Steve getting mad was just a bonus to Tony.
Reading, Steve tried not to pay attention to the argument Tony and Bruce were having over dinner as Clint and Natasha ganged up on Phil with thrown bits of food. Steve caught a couple of the bits of roll while he was trying to work out what the meaning of the paragraph he was on when it occurred to him everything had gone quiet.
He looked up. "What?"
Tony pointed at him with his fork. "How'd you catch that without looking?"
Steve looked down at the piece of roll in his hand. "Oh. My spatial awareness became prefect instead of just very good after...changing."
"Huh." Tony pursed his lips. "You know dyslexics are usually really good with spatial things."
Steve rolled his eyes as the rest of the team started arguing with Tony about dyslexia and went back to his textbook.
****
Steve watched Clint trying the draw on his newest bow with one eye as he read his latest textbook. It was about sexuality and Steve was finding it very enlightening. "This makes much better sense than what I was taught."
Clint fired an arrow and then turned towards Steve. "Yeah?"
"I mean, everyone knows about people that go with their own gender, but no one talks about it. This has a whole chapter just on that."
Clint smiled. "Took a while to find one that listed all the possible labels people use now."
Steve looked up from the book. "Thank you for all this. SHEILD was willing to give me information, but not always in a way that was useful or understandable."
With a nod, Clint turned back to his bow. "You're welcome. If you decide you like men I think you could do a lot worse than Phil."
Steve watched Clint loose more arrows as he thought.
****
It took several weeks for Phil to feel up to a full day of being awake and upright. He watched Steve working through another set of textbooks. These were printed from digital textbooks that Stark helped pick. They hadn't told Steve that, though.
Phil sat down across from Steve. "I, uh, got something for you."
Steve smiled as he looked up from his book. "For me?"
"Yes." Phil sat the tablet and stylist down between them. "This is a dedicated tablet for sketching."
It took them a few minutes to get Steve used to the buttons and the non-paper feel of the tablet. Phil smiled as he watched Steve play with what the sensitivity of the tip did to the width of the strokes.
****
Tony plopped down beside Steve and took the pen substitute right out of his hand. "When are you going to tell them you want to go out with them?"
"What?" Steve frowned at him.
Tony rolled his eyes. "Bruce keeps saying just give you time." He threw the sylist at Steve, who caught it and tucked it away. "I have. I totally have. You are driving me insane."
"Tony."
"Seriously, how hard is it to just rearrange your brain? You've already picked up modern tech faster than anyone expected."
"Tony."
"What?" Tony glared at him.
Steve raised his eyebrows. "Who exactly is 'them'?"
"You are clueless. Utterly clueless." Tony sighed as he flopped back on the couch. "Phil has a huge crush on you. Clint can't take his eyes off your ass. Who do you think I'm talking about?"
"Tony!" Steve leaned towards him. "I can't go with both of them! That's infidelity."
"Oh, seriously? That's why you haven't done anything?" Tony sprung up from his sprawl. "Come on."
"What?" Steve didn't move as Tony yanked on him to stand up. "Oh, no, no. We are not bothering either of them with this."
"Oh, fine." Tony sat back down. "JARVIS! Ask Clint and Agent to come here."
"Right away, sir."
Steve smacked Tony gently on the back of his head. "Tony, we have discussed calling Phil that title for a first name."
Tony grinned.
****