HELLFIRE ༄ Tony Stark

SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
WHO TF SAID I'M CRUSHING? NUH UH!

All Steve wanted was a day where nothing went wrong and everything was anything but confusing. Just one day.

Ok fine, he'll even settle for half a day.

Six hours?

Instead, the universe decided to laugh in his face, spit on him, do a funny little dance, and gave him four normal hours on a completely random day. Now, for a normal human being the four hours could've been spent chilling on the couch, watching the new Avatar live-action and yelling at Sokka's lack of sexism, drooling over Ozai being unfairly hot, and drinking hot leaf juice. For our local super soldier, these four hours were spent kicking Nazi ass and taking names with his favorite people. To add insult to injury, it was the most boring mission they've had that year.

So, on hour three and forty-three, sitting down in their quinjet flying back to the tower, Steve was just starting to feel good, like maybe, just maybe, it was going to be a perfectly normal day.

Ha. Fool.

Tony was flying ahead, something about getting an alarm about an intruder. So the team hadn't relaxed just yet, Thor was bandaging his hand — he got a splinter from tapping the wooden panel that they had passed by in the Secret Chamber of Nazis, he whined for the rest of the battle and sat this one out — Natasha was flying the jet with her eyes closed, and of course, she was hanging upside down. How else would she be piloting?! Bruce was sitting in a corner going 'Mmm' with his eyes closed and headphones in, clearly listening to Mitski. And Steve was unknowingly enjoying the last minutes of his four hours of chaos-free life.

"Um, Cap?" Tony's voice came in through their comms, "Lucifer got you a gift."

The Devil could be barely heard in the background, saying something about how she didn't do gifts and that the aforementioned gift had come to her willingly and as such, she is not responsible for whatever happens now.

Whatever that means.

At 6:33, exactly four hours after the start of the very-boring-mission-that-was-maybe-probably-sent-from-hell (need to come up with an abbreviation), Steve set foot in the tower with the rest of the Avengers minus Clint who had lost the game of rock-paper-scissors and thus was tasked with staying back and keeping an eye on the literal Devil and their cute little spiderling. Tony had told them to come down to the holding cells, a comment that caused some raised eyebrows, so they went down. Lucifer was leaning against a wall, arms crossed and rolling her eyes while Tony was pacing in front of her, ranting about the safety of his chil-INTERN. The safety of his very professional young intern. Who was sitting opposite the duo eating tacos like he was watching his parents discuss his most recent shenanigan, which was very apt.

Not that he saw Mr. Stark as anything even resembling a father or parental figure. Nah, you're crazy man. Get fucked.

No, Steve was looking at something far more interesting. In the cell behind Lucifer, Bucky Barnes was sitting with his head tilted like a little puppy that was confused with a pink plastic arrow next to him.

Yo, when did Bucky get so... bulky and scruffy? Also, hot damn.

(In 1940, Steve was staring at his best friend in the whole wide world who was also his broest bro. Bro was very muscle-y. Good. Nice. Mmm. He was also the most prettiest bro around if you asked Steve. Yeah.)

America's golden child swallowed and forced himself to put a foot in front of the other until he reached the glass separating the two. The Winter Soldier was now looking back at him, motionless except for the occasional blinks. Is this something that they learn in HYDRA? Cause it's really unsettling.